Dogfella … Madame Bovary and Richard Yates … Ebola Suicide Bombers …

Amici:

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Hey, yous can pre-order Dogfella right now …

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James "Head" Guiliani is the fifth of six kids born to a religious, working-class Italian-American family. He turned to petty crime in high school and was the enforcer for mob boss John Gotti of the Gambino crime family by his mid-20s. After serving time both in prison and in odd jobs, he now spends his days caring for and rescuing animals with his wife, Lena.

thediamondcollar.com

Charlie Stella is a critically acclaimed author of numerous crime novels, short stories, a screenplay and three off-off Broadway plays. His third novel, Charlie Opera, was picked as a Publishers Weekly Mystery Book of the Year in 2003. He received an MFA in fiction from Southern New Hampshire University.

 

Madame Bovary … it took me a second try, but I was able to get through it and relatively easily … I’m not sure why I had such a problem last year, but I didn’t this go. I read this book because my favorite American author (there are a few), Richard Yates, claimed it was a novel that influenced him to a great deal. I didn’t understand why until I came across a few (two I distinctly recall) mentions of mediocrity in the Flaubert novel. Yates seemed consumed with mediocrity; the character trait by which so many of his protagonists were forced to deal with (whether their own, or in the case of Emma, having to deal with Charles’ professional mediocrity). He’s boring and she wants glitz … so it goes.

There’s a lot of overwriting (for me) in Bovary. I always wonder what kind of rejection letter some of the classics would receive from today’s big 5 (or is it 6) publishers. Madame Bovary was a better than average read, but not by much (for me). I did admire the heightened sense of Emma’s paranoia at times …

In a New York Times Book Review from April, 1981: Some Very Good Masters, by Richard Yates

 

That was when Madame Bovary took command. I had read it before but hadn't studied it the way I'd studied "Gatsby" and other books; now it seemed ideally suited to serve as a guide, if not a model, for the novel that was taking shape in my mind. I wanted that kind of balance and quiet resonance on every page, that kind of foreboding mixed with comedy, that kind of inexorable destiny in the heart of a lonely, romantic girl. And all of it, of course, would have to be done with an F. Scott Fitzgerald kind of freshness and grace.

Ebola Suicide Bombers? … if I have a fear of terrorists doing crazy shit here in the good old US&A, it’s from a concern for loved ones. After being bulldozed into believe attacking Iraq would somehow help secure our situation in America, it’s unlikely I’ll ever believe anything this government says again, and after seeing how duplicitous a few of its agencies have been the last few days regarding Ebola and White House security, how can we believe anything anymore? The bureaucrats lie to one another!

Still, if there is something for us to concern ourselves with, it’s the ability of lunatics to figure out a way around out so-called security. Similar to how Native Americans were once devastated by small pox bio warfare, we’re now susceptible to suicide killers deciding to load up on the Ebola virus and find their way into our (and other world) populations. It’s a scary thought, but one I’m sure has been thought of … let’s hope it doesn’t happen.

 

--Knucks

 

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