That’s the name of the book I’m reading.\u00c2\u00a0 I can never remember the title, only the author, Tom Rachman.\u00c2\u00a0 His last name, not his first.\u00c2\u00a0 As in I can only remember his family name, although in my mind it’s spelled "Rackman".<\/p>\n
That’s a facet of growing older.\u00c2\u00a0 Everything runs together to the point where you can remember the details, but not the headlines, not the big picture.\u00c2\u00a0 You can remember what someone wore, but not their name.\u00c2\u00a0 You can remember what the movie was about, but not its title.\u00c2\u00a0 You can remember the music, but not the name of the album.<\/p>\n
It was the front page review in the "New York Times Book Review".\u00c2\u00a0 You know, the tabloid the erudite peruse every Sunday that I never paid much attention to until I got a Kindle and became a voracious reader, recalling my days in the back of the station wagon, consuming sports novels and biographies as we drove to Boston.<\/p>\n
But the previous front page review book was such a disappointment.\u00c2\u00a0 But I had nothing else to read.\u00c2\u00a0 So I purchased "The Imperfectionists".\u00c2\u00a0 And have been plowing through it ever since.<\/p>\n
It’s not an easy read.\u00c2\u00a0 I cannot tell you why.\u00c2\u00a0 Because each story cuts me to the bone.<\/p>\n
Yes, you see each chapter is a story, of a writer for an international newspaper in Rome.\u00c2\u00a0 And in between is the history of the paper, how it got started, how it evolved.\u00c2\u00a0 And the stories seem benign until the very end, when there’s a twist and a turn, not unbelievable, but true to life, just like my life, and I’m floored.\u00c2\u00a0 Because right there on the page is something I experienced.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe literally.\u00c2\u00a0 But oftentimes, it’s just an emotion.<\/p>\n
Ever hold someone on a pedestal?\u00c2\u00a0 For years?\u00c2\u00a0 And then finally realize that you were wrong all along?<\/p>\n
Or how about being involved with someone too good for you, too beautiful, too young, too rich…knowing at some point it’s going to end, and it does.<\/p>\n
And what is it you’re trying to achieve.\u00c2\u00a0 Do you desire to be average, does anybody truly desire that, or do you accede to it, or are you shooting for the stars?\u00c2\u00a0 That question is answered too.\u00c2\u00a0 Well, maybe not answered, that’s the weird thing about life, there are very few answers, but turned over, examined, to the point you get creeped out because you realize you’re living now, but you’re gonna die soon, forgotten by everyone except a few, who will ultimately die too.<\/p>\n
I read a great review of the second "Sex and the City" movie.\u00c2\u00a0 No, it wasn’t a positive review, everyone who wrote about the movie said it was trash, but something was said in this review that has stuck with me.\u00c2\u00a0 The writer said the new film was lacking because the TV series was sad, had moments of sadness, and this movie does not.<\/p>\n
Isn’t that life.\u00c2\u00a0 We don’t get it much in modern art.\u00c2\u00a0 People don’t do sadness anymore.\u00c2\u00a0 It connotes losing.\u00c2\u00a0 And if you even profess doubts, never mind actually lose, you’re kicked to the curb these days.\u00c2\u00a0 We’ve only got time for winners.<\/p>\n
And it’s not that we’re all losers, but each of our lives has moments of sadness.\u00c2\u00a0 For some, it plays out on the world stage.\u00c2\u00a0 For most it’s private.\u00c2\u00a0 We don’t want to let it leak out.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re mortified.\u00c2\u00a0 We get up our gumption and soldier on, but it’s difficult.<\/p>\n
Wrapped up in these stories in this book by Tom Rachman is sadness.\u00c2\u00a0 And it’s so right, that even though you may never have heard of it, the book is selling briskly.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s art.\u00c2\u00a0 Not Lee DeWyze and the nitwits competing on television, but work done without spotlight, that when revealed to the world is spread by word of mouth, because each and every reader, listener or watcher is touched.<\/p>\n
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