While we were on vacation, I took the opportunity to teach myself Latin. Joey had brought along this book called Lingua Latina, Pars I: Familia Romana, which purports to teach the language (er, I mean the lingua) through total immersion. The entire book is written in Latin — no translations anywhere! — and you just start reading it. And you know what? It works! You really can just start reading, and understand it. It begins with “Roma in Italia est.” How hard is that?
So the first chapter, excuse me, I mean the capitulum primum, is all about the Imperium Romanum. There are large and small rivers, islands (Corsica insula est), cities, etc. The section ends with sly humor: Magnum est imperium Romanum!
The capitulum secundum is outright hilarious. It’s all about the familia Romana: Iulius, Aemilia, and their three children Marcus, Quintus, and Iulia. And, I kid you not, their hundred servants. It seems that Marcus is a puer improbus — a bad boy. I think I’m just gonna have to type a bit of this out:
Iulia cantat: “Lalla.” Iulia laeta est. [I guess when they sang in Rome they didn't go la la la, but lalla. Laeta means happy.]
Marcus: “St!” Marcus laetus non est. [They didn't say "sh!" either, apparently.]
Iulia cantat: “Lalla, lalla.” [Is she trying to be annoying?]
Marcus: “Ssst!” Marcus iratus est. [Oy, siblings, even in ancient Rome. Pretty obvious what iratus means.]
Iulia cantat: “Lalla, lalla, lalla.” [Uh oh... she better shut up if she knows what's good for her...]
Marcus Iuliam pulsat. [Any guesses as to what pulsat means?]
Iam Iulia non cantat, sed plorat: “Uhuhu!” [I guess they didn't go boo-hoo back then either.]
Marcus ridet: “Hahahae!” [Even his laughter ends with ae!]
Don’t worry, though. Marcus gets his just deserts, as you can see from the photo above. His father, Iulius, who had been sleeping, is awakened by all the commotion. He beats Marcus, while brother Quintus stands by laughing. That goody-goody Iulia, however, is still unhappy, because Marcus is crying. Notice the sound effects from the beating: tuxtax, tuxtax…
The third chapter begins with the father’s discovery that there is money missing from his sacculum. He is interrogating the servorum and ancillae. I’m only halfway through, but when I finish I’ll let you know whether Medus, Davus, or one of the other 98 (I mean XCVIII) servants stole it. Huh, maybe it was that puer improbus Marcus.
I understand The Book Stop in Petoskey MI is a great place to meet guys, bwahahaha.
This is the store that distracted us when we were on our way to buy a lottery ticket. I had a little revelation while I was there. I almost never buy books; I am a passionate library lover, first of all, and secondly I really don’t care that much about material possessions. The less stuff I own, the happier I am. Weird, but true. I can wash my entire wardrobe in one load of laundry. However, going to a used bookstore in a small town up north seemed like a fun vacationy thing to do, so we did.
The first thing I saw was the alphabetical end of the “literature” section, which was separate from the “fiction” section, though where they drew the line was hard to tell. Anyway, right at eye level was a whole row of Anthony Trollopes. Well, backstory here, I recently gave up on Phineas Finn because the library’s edition I had was so ugly and hard to read. OMG! Maybe they have a nicer edition here! In fact, hey, if I buy books I’m not limited to what the library has! You’d think I would have already figured that out by now…
So I came home with four beautiful volumes: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (gorgeous fat creamy paper!), The Haunted Bookshop (hardcover!), The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith (brand new, oversized paperback!), and The American Senator (Dover edition with wide margins and lots of footnotes!). I’m thrilled with all of these, but then again at seven or eight bucks per, they weren’t exactly cheap, and now that I own them I have to put them somewhere…
Another tidbit from Michigania. We are walking back to the cabin when we hear the beginning strains of “Sweet Caroline” wafting up from the beach:
Me: OH yeah!
Joey: What, you like that song???
Me: Of course! What’s not to love about Neil Diamond?
Joey gazes into my face intently, looking for signs that I’m kidding. I’m not. I try to explain that not loving “Sweet Caroline” is like… not loving America. And it’s even more criminal not to love it when it’s played at top volume on a crowded sunny mid-afternoon beach. Yeah, whatever, he says. And then a few minutes later:
Joey: Is Neil Diamond the one with dark greasy hair?
Me: No, that’s Neil Young.
Joey: Oh yeah. I always confuse them.
Me: Their music is sooooooo different.
Joey: Yeah, I know, but both of their last names are words.
Me: Both of their first names are Neil.
Last Wednesday when we were driving back to Michigania after our traditional mid-week dinner in Petoskey, we accidentally took a wrong turn and found ourselves on a little dirt road that ended, quite abruptly, at a public access boat launch on Walloon Lake. It was an idyllic Northern Michigan-ish spot, complete with whispering pines, the gorgeous lake, birds, wildflowers in profusion, etc. etc. And if that’s not enough, right at the very end, next to the little beach, was this vacant tumble-down old house in a perfectly beautiful lot, neatly hidden away, with a for sale sign…
The very next morning Steve and I bundled the kids off to their various activities and zipped right back. We walked around the house several times, poked around the lot, tried to estimate its size, and daydreamed about fixing up? or razing? the house. We concluded that the public access was so small and inconspicuous that there would be no lack of privacy. We discovered a sweet little bird feeder; we basked in the sights, sounds and smells; and we called the realtor.
“It’s got 175 feet of lakefront,” the guy said helpfully. “They’re asking 1.2 million, but they might be able to drop as far as the low 9s.”
“Honey,” said Steve to me, after we hung up the phone and finished laughing at our misguided selves, “it’s time we get serious about this. We’ve been talking about having a cabin up north for so long, and it’s never gonna happen unless we MAKE it happen. Today we’re gonna buy a lottery ticket!”
We drove back in to Petoskey — what a sweet little town! — and stopped at a used bookstore. Which was an adventure in itself, and I will write a post about it shortly. Anyway we came out of there loaded down with books and very eager to get back to camp and start reading. We hustled back to camp, lugged our books back to the cabin, and dove right in.
“Oh, shoot!” said Steve, a few hours later, surfacing from The Peshawar Lancers. “We forgot to buy the ticket.”
I brought these with me on vacation last week…
Nation, by Terry Pratchett, was charming and kinda cute, if a little simplistic. I’ve never read anything by Pratchett and I didn’t realize that he writes for young adults. I’m not a huge fan of YA, and I don’t much care for parallel universes, but I will forgive almost anything in a book that includes 19th century scientists. Oh yeah!
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, by Dave Eggers, holy cow, talk about truth in advertising! This book is totally what the title says it is, and I deeply regret everything I said at my last book group about not liking to read memoirs. The author was fresh out of college when both of his parents died just five weeks apart, leaving him to raise his seven-year-old brother, and this book is about that. The reason this memoir works for me, and The Glass Castle did not, is because Dave Eggers doesn’t just write about what happened, but he also writes about the fact that he is writing the memoir; he is very self-conscious about what he is doing. Where Jeanette Walls simply described, Dave Eggers, Dave Eggers… well I don’t know what he does. But you should read it.
The third book, Asleep in the Sun by Adolfo Bioy Casares, whoa. I wish I was better at reading Latin American authors. This guy was a great friend of Jorge Luis Borges and of course it’s got all that magical realism stuff in it that I keep trying to like. In this book, a guy’s wife trades bodies with a dog, and a mental hospital is involved. Shades of Kafka for sure. The back cover, and also the scholarly introduction, assure me that the novel is hilarious… but… um, okay. It’s short and sweet, though, and it definitely held my attention all the way through. Plus the protagonist is a watchmaker, and you know how I feel about fictional watchmakers. Hoo boy. (Or should I say hoo Bioy?)