The Last Exile

I could blog about Canadian politics or the meltdown of the Obama-nation to our south. It just that it all blows for me right now as each side polarizes into absurdity and I find it just engages me less and less. North American politics has become so sporty – like a football game where everyone chooses sides and roots for their home team regardless of any other consideration. Ideas, integrity and principles are thrown aside for the sake of pragmatism in the quest to score the winning goal. Perhaps, it has always been like this and I have been wearing my rose-coloured glasses far too long.

So instead I want to mark a personal milestone. I’m a reader, my daughter is a reader, and my oldest son is a reader. We might even be called a family of readers except my youngest son rarely reads. It’s not that he can’t read, he just finds it boring beyond belief which quite frankly an attitude that completely baffles me is. I’ve tried just about every kind of book to engage him with to no avail…until two days ago when

I caught him reading for pleasure. And it was all purely by accident. I bought an English translation of a book by Israeli writer Etgar Keret called, ‘The Bus Driver who thought he was God & Other stories’. I am not a fan of short stories and avoid them much like one does to avoid swine flu. An acquaintance begged me to give him a chance and suggested I needed to read him to get a better grasp on Israeli pop culture.

I finally found one of his books at a used bookstore I regularly patronize. Let me say this, it wasn’t cheap even for a ‘used’ book. I bought it, brought it home, and read it in one sitting while I laughed and alternately squirmed under Keret’s prose. I knew my older son would appreciate how far Keret is willing to go to expose the thoughts of ordinary people doing often bizarre or irrations things for the most absurd reasons. Actually, reading Keret is kind of like sitting in G-d’s confessional booth. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to discover Keret has already written a story about G-d’s confessional booth.

Montana liked it and left it lying around the bathroom which is where Isaiah Sender found it. It was Isaiah Sender’s turn to clean the bathroom and he only gave it a quick read because he mistakenly thought it was a Captain Underpants novella he missed reading as child owing to the graphics on the cover. Or at least that’s his excuse when I found him reading it instead of cleaning. Apparently, the first story sucked him in and he’s stayed with it until it’s done. Now he wants more. Baruch HaShem, but did he have to pick an author whose books seem only to be published here at upscale prices? Anyhow, between Keret’s stories I thought I might try sneaking in a little Vonnegut.