some people are better off dead.

i recently came to the realization that i probably have some sort of attention disorder or overactive brain or something. i listen to music while i do just about everything, and it was pointed out to me that listening to music while reading is just CRAZY. that had never really occurred to me. i also watch tv while i troll the intarwebz, and read or watch old episodes of friends while sweating all over my exercise bike. and i'm currently screening some new artists i think i like while i write this. YOU'RE weird. but seriously, pairing appropriate music with what i'm reading is neat. it enhances the experience. like fun drugs or something probably. and while this is not the main point of my post, it's a sub..point... i guess. 


i actually made, not a mix, but a mp3 cd of a number of albums (in their proper track-ic..-al.. order) to listen to whilst reading the book about which i shall soon tell you. the albums on the cd are:

• kate bush - the dreaming
• halou - wholeness & separation
• thom yorke - the eraser

now, based on that information, assuming you're familiar with any/all of them, do you have any idea what kind of novel i'm going to talk about? well. i'll help! it's noir fiction. 'member the talented mr ripley? patricia highsmith wrote the book offa which that was based (and a whole slew of others about matt damon or whatever; i havent read 'em). she also wrote Strangers on a Train (her debut novel, also made into a movie by alfred hitchcock, and though i love him, that movie makes no sense: read the book.), which i will sneakily force upon you now.


to enhance your experience, listen to the following song while you read the rest of my blathers. i give you Strangers on a Train by Lovage. oh yeah, that's good stuff. 

on to the story. highsmith's thing is proving that anyone is capable of despicable acts, that the very quotidianness of any old life can hide within it a plethora of situations in which we might make one little choice, followed by another, leading to a transformation of character just great enough that we might do something HORRENDOUS. read: awesome. 


you know when you get really mad and want to punch something? what about when you're not that kind of mad, but you're steeped in that sort of simmering-distaste where your brain tells you revenge stories and you smile? well, everyone has those moments. and sometimes, people go so far as to act on them. but not normal people right? not you or i. certainly not. never ever ever. ever.


this haunting novel's main character, Guy (i know, right? just some guy named Guy. might as well be Dude, or Hey.), is an ordinary fellow. he meets another ordinary fellow on a train (Bruno) and they have a chat. Guy is in the middle of an icky divorce - his wife is a real bummer; plus she gets in the way of (aka: makes him feel guilty about) his mistress. Bruno pretty much hates his dad. lets bond over anger! that's a good way to start a lasting and fruitful friendship! their bond begins with Bruno's personal questions, which Guy answers, and is a little surprised that he answers. 

they come from a string of short, to-the-point get-to-know-you questions. note the short questions and short answers. feeling each other out... and note Guy's reactions to Bruno and to his own reactions to Bruno's questioning. also also also check out how much information Bruno is getting out of Guy. enough to make anyone guarded and a liar, i tell ya. cheggidout:

'You married?'

'No. Well, I am, yes. Separated.'

'Oh. Why?'

'Incompatible,' Guy replied.

'How long you been separated?'

'Three years.'

'You don't want a divorce?'

Guy hesitated, frowning.

'Is she in Texas, too?'

'Yes.'

'Going to see her?'

'I'll see her. We're going to arrange the divorce now.' His teeth set. Why had he said it?

Bruno sneered. 'What kind of girls you find to marry down there?'

'Very pretty,' Guy replied. 'Some of them.'

'Mostly dumb though, huh?'

'They can be.' He smiled to himself. Miriam was the kind of Southern girl Bruno probably meant.

'What kind of girl's your wife?'

'Rather pretty,' Guy said cautiously. 'Red hair. A little plump.'

'What's her name?'

'Miriam. Miriam Joyce.'

'Hm-m. Smart or dumb?'

'She's not an intellectual. I didn't want to marry an intellectual.'

'And you loved her like hell, huh?'

Why? Did he show it? Bruno's eyes were fixed on him, missing nothing, unblinking, as if their exhaustion had passed the point where sleep is imperative. Guy had a feeling those gray eyes had been searching him for hours and hours. 'Why do you say that?'

'You're a nice guy. You take everything serious. You take women the hard way, too, don't you?'

'What's the hard way?' he retorted. But he felt a rush of affection for Bruno because Bruno had said what he thought about him. Most people, Guy knew, didn't say what they thought about him. 

too much more to get the point where 'hard way' is explained as pretty much 'high hopes and let downs.' but ok, enough teasing. and that's in the first chapter. intrigued? Guy's just an average Joe, yes? Bruno's pretty average, unless you look really deep into that conversation and then, yanno, keep reading.... well let me intrigue just a tad further. you ever befriend someone who gets a little too attached a little too fast? like.. you get along and everything, but like in that one episode of Seinfeld with the pool guy, this person just keeps calling and showing up and wanting to hang out... now imagine that person is a very bored, very smart, psychopath. who knows an awful lot about you. 

keeping in mind that highsmith likes proving that absolutely anyone is capable of murder, i'll let you make your own assumptions and preconceptions about this novel, but please don't think you have any idea how it "ends." i am not in the habit of reading this type of novel. the psychological thriller type. but man, i dug this one because i got to me. it's familiar, and because of that it just gets more and more eerie and disturbing. kind of like requiem for a dream or basketball diaries, but with no drugs - just manipulation and circumstance. it makes you sit and stare and look like this for a while. and then you stop answering personal questions.