I Clearly Don't Know Myself

Well, I don't know what I was thinking, but I finished it.

Overall, I'm not too sorry. It was a bit of a slog there, but I don't think it was a real misdirection of the author's intention. In fact, I think that 100 pages shorter, the book would have been very good. I could have used a lot less of Nan's point of view--it was the weakest-written portion of the book (everything she thinks is spelled out and repeated and simplified), and adds the least to the story. Sara's viewpoint doesn't add very much, either, but she gives a dash of perspective on the family, since she's the most unlike the Setons. There's only a dash of Sara--there's WAY too much Nan.

Anyway, I did it. And then today we went to the Middletown library used book store. I got Inventing the Abbots, short stories by Sue Miller (I've never seen the movie), The Rapture of Canaan, which was the first Oprah book I ever read, and pretty good, and another Kazuo Ishiguro book (though I don't have The Remains of the Day yet).

But before I start those, I'm going to reread Never Let Me Go for book club. Next goal--go!

To Be or Not To Be

Yeah, this book (Before You Know Kindness) is just way too heavy-handed. Nan, the grandmother, likes having a therapist for a daughter-in-law because she's good with people, "even if sometimes it made them all more comfortable discussing their feelings than she'd like." Big flashing neon sign around how private and cool this character is? What about this one; she asks her son if he regrets leaving private practice to become a public defender. He says no, people need him in his new job and he likes that. "She found herself smiling because her son was happy...but also because he hadn't allowed their conversation to grow intimate with the sort of disclosure that just might have made both of them uncomfortable."

I don't need any more info about this woman, thanks. But in every passage about her--there are about seven characters the story follows--I get this poing HAMMERED home. Enough, already.

So I'm in a position that I find pretty rarely--I can't decide whether or not to finish the book. I'm on vacation, so my supply's a little limited--a couple of YA novels, a short Thurber book, C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity. Actually, I could and ought to get to rereading the book club book. But this isn't quite bad enough to give up without a qualm.

I think I'll switch over. If I find myself coming back to Kindness, I will, but otherwise, I'm going to leave it up to my gut. It's good for so little else.

Happy holidays, everyone!

Hello Kathy

Just to bug Kathy, this entry is all about her.

First, Jodi Picoult. Kathy recommended her, and for someone I've never read, a whole bunch of her books are suddenly on my "To Read" list. This is partly because, looking at the Amazon descriptions, half of them look interesting, and half of them sort of don't; I think that the family dramas sound less interesting than the more complex stories. They sound like they all center a bit around court battles and family issues. I've picked My Sister's Keeper, about a girl who was conceived as a bone marrow donor for her sister and sues her parents for medical emancipation, The Pact, about two teenagers who appear to have had a suicide pact, though only one of them is dead, and Plain Truth, as it is about Amish. I have a thing for Amish in the same way I have a thing for nuns.

Which, by the way, Kathy, I would like to specifically recommend The Nun's Story to you. I don't know if nuns are up your alley, but this book has the rich description and mediation coupled with a pretty engaging plot that I think would make it a recommendation. Also, just about my favorite book. It's by Kathryn Hulme--check it out.

Kathy is also the one who pointed out something that I was just beginning to notice about the book I’m reading, which she just finished. Before You Know Kindness, by Chris Bohjalian. I’ve decided he’s hit or miss. The Midwives was wonderful, and The Law of Similars was worth reading. But this book just drags and drags. I can only handle so many pages of closely observed family life and character studies, touched with some very heavy-handed characterization (he’s vegan, no one understands why. I get it.) before I start to wonder when the plot described on the flap is going to start. And it sounds like the answer is: it doesn’t exactly start--it happens, suddenly, about a third of the way through the book, and then the rest of the book is closely observed family life and character study in the aftermath of this information. I’m not convinced I’m going to finish this book; life’s too short.

That is all for now, I suppose. In conclusion, hi Kathy!

Let It Snow

Why is the weather always miserable when I have to go to work and not when I'm just planning to stay home? Tomorrow will be gross, Saturday will be lovely. I really should feel the opposite way--let it snow while I'm stuck in the office, let me go for a walk on Saturday. Somehow, no. I'd love to have an excuse to stay in, be lazy, wrap, and most important write Christmas cards. I've already pared the list down to those I don't see often. If I've wished you a happy holiday verbally, chances are you're not getting a card.

Cages of Glass, Flowers of Time. A touching story of a girl who's been abandoned and abused. I read it a few times as a child, but we'll have to see how it goes as an adult. I think it may be a bit melodramatic. Still, your childhood loves can get away with a lot.

I've just finished How to Be Alone by Jonathan Franzen. People who think that acknowledging their flaws makes them into virtues kind of irritate me. People who think the things they love and care about are the only indicators of the state of humanity irritate me. I was irritated many times in this book. His articles that were researched and about specific topics--the Chicago Postal Service, the history of the tobacco industry--were very interesting and enjoyable; he's smart and he can write. At one point I got so angry at him, I was just about to give him up as a hopeless coot; he was wailing about how the demise of rotary phones signaled the end of worthwhile civilization and literature as we know it. But then he cuts away and explains how he'd written that essay in a very dark period, and goes on to explain how obsolecense really guarantees the future of Americal literature.

Mostly, I just think he's hopelessly pretentious. I'm pretty full of bitterness and judgement, but this guy is too darned much.

What a Wonderful World

It's miserable and snowy. I'm frantically scrabbling to get my work done, and I'll be here late even though they're closing the building at 3. I don't know how I'm going to get to this party tonight, or if driving is even safe. I have shopping, Christmas cards, and wedding stuff to worry about. Plus, I'm working offsite for part of next week, and things are piling up. Tearing out my hair, weeping bitterly.

BUT...the Boston Public Library has ten copies of a very rare Young Adult novel called Cages of Glass, Flowers of Time that I loved when I was in middle school. You can't buy it for less than $30 used these days, and most copies are over $100. But I have the BPL, so I'm all set.

What a lovely world we live in. Happy weekend, everyone.

Buklub

So we had book club last week--Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood, excellent choice. It was a lot of fun, but not as book-clubby as it might have been. We've drifted a little from talking about the book with the same depth we used to, but I'm not sure exactly how to fix that.

[SPOILERS AHEAD!]

Also, no one else appears to have agreed with me in taking the revealed "solution" to the problem of Grace's identity at face value. The book presents a picture of some kind of multiple personality disorder (Dissociative Identity Disorder, to those of use who still have a psych geek living in our souls). Thinking about my psychology education, her behavior and life story don't exactly jibe with how science records this, but as fiction, I bought it hook line and sinker. In reality, DID pretty much only ever arises from prolonged, severe sexual abuse at a very young age. And the "blackouts," periods where the main personality doesn't remember what happened because one of the others was busy using the body, (if I remember correctly) usually result in the person being missing time. But these technical details are not the kind of thing to cause a hiccup in my suspension of disbelief.

Thinking about it in the meeting, I could see that this explanation was much more pat than I would expect from her--much too tidy a solution that allowed you to feel much too certain of the moral conclusion of the story. But when I was reading, I was there with it. Jeremiah was the character through whose eyes I saw things, and I think he was surprised to find the demon in his friend.

Also and chiefly, Grace had nothing to gain by faking this. Most people thought it was an ambiguous question--was she faking, revealing the truth, was Mary Whitney lying? But why would anyone fake this? Why would she be one person outside of hypnosis and then, just at the moment when she might be freed, become another person?

Well, end of spoilers. I got the next book club pick (yay!) and I chose Never Let Me Go. I'm sure I've already mentioned this lovely book by Kazuo Ishiguro, and I generally lean away from picking something I've read, but I thought he would be better than Chris Bohjalian (so many to read: Trans-Sister Radio, Buffalo Soldiers, Before You Know Kindness) as a book club choice. I also liked that this was a book with a sci-fi premise, but not a sci fi plot or theme or feel. I've developed an interest in the intersection between traditional people and "genre" work--Liala and comics, for example, Katie and Young Adult fiction. And now, literati and a story that just might blow their minds.

Ahem.

Yeah, Some Unicorn

I'll tell you, if Sara hadn't made an "eh" face when I asked how The Lady and the Unicorn was, I would probably still be reading it. I would have said to myself, "but I like Tracy Chevalier!" And I'd have stuck it out, if not to the bitter end, then way past the guy who refers to sex as "plowing," the first person female narrator who is supposed to sound like a teenager who's gushing in her diary but really sounds like she's been hired as the narrator, and the very fact that all these French characters for some reason interject French into their conversation, making it look like they're speaking English as they go about their daily lives and resorting to French only when they can't remember, how you say? our language.

Ugh. Thank you, Sara, for liberating me from this awful book.

Now, I'm reading A Long Fatal Love Chase by Louisa May Alcott of all people. I picked it up out of curiosity (too racy to be published in her lifetime), expecting it to read like an old, overwritten melodrama. Omigod, it's so good! I'm enjoying every minute of it, even though, as Mike points out, the title gives away the ending. Its raciness is based on the fact of a false marriage, and, I personally would guess, on the fact that the heroine continues to love the bad guy even after she finds out how evil he is. And he's evil! But charming! It's like watching an old Errol Flynn movie--actually, it's got the whole Gone with the Wind idea of people who might or might not be Good, and the fact that there's a difference between being not particularly virtuous and being bad.

I'm so excited that this book is so great. But I'm almost done, and I'm not sure where to go next.

Turkey-Based Ailments

I don't suppose you can blame Thanksgiving for my cough, but I'm casting an accusing eye at the dry air and cigarette smoke I ran into at the homestead.

For some reason, unlike a normal trip home, this one resulted in almost no reading at all. It might have been that Mike was there and retreating into a novel seemed like abandoning him. Or we could point to Marsha's being on her miserable way back to her new home 500 miles away. Mostly I think I was just lazy and the TV was on all the time and I'm not really in the middle of anything good.

Usually when I'm home for a holiday I read about fifty Babysitter's Club books from the collection still under my bed. Or reread some other old favorites. But I've just finished a Good Parts tour of the Clan of the Cave Bear series, and that seemed like more than enough for now. I might have to reread Butterfly sometime soon, though--now THAT'S trashy but good.

Anyway, I did just finish The Final Solution by Michael Chabon (slight and mostly about how much it sucks to be old, but not bad) and My Life and Hard Times by James Thurber (funny, funny). I'm going to pound away at A Long Fatal Love Chase, which is not bad but kind of archaic, if you know what I mean. Sometimes old books (Austen) are as fresh or better than fresh. Sometimes they're good in spite of being antique. This Louisa May Alcott book is very much a melodrama in the old-fashioned sense.

And The Lady and the Unicorn. I'd like to know what people think of Tracy Chevalier, because I loved The Girl with the Pearl Earring and I liked The Virgin Blue okay, but I still, somehow, don't think I like her. And this book....it doesn't help that I dislike the main character and mistrust the somewhat contrived seeming plot that's opening up. And I'm on page 30.

Humph. Okay, now you're up to date.

Original Neurosis

When I'm having an awful and frantic day at work, I often find the Boston Public Library website to be soothing and calming. Just going there, logging in, and looking at the list of books I'm planning to read gives me the tiny "Calgon, take me away!" moment that I need at 2:30 when the ftp server isn't cooperating and I realize that I haven't updated my revised budgets or schedules in any of our numerous databases and spreadsheets in, oh, six months or so.

But it just wasn't working today. I think I've figured out why; for the first time in a long time, I don't have anything on reserve. There's nothing that needs checking up on, no queue counter to watch tick down.

I'll admit, I'm actually considering putting a bestseller on reserve just so I have something soothing to watch. An Oprah book is always good, and Linden recommended A Million Little Pieces (though I listened to a sample of the audiobook, which was not very appealing). I'd probably be at least 150 on a waiting list for that book, and I could watch anxiously as it ticked down for the next three months.

And this, believe it or not, would be designed to make me feel better.

I Wish You Much Joy of the Worm

Kathy points out that I read a lot of books that I don't seem to like. I wouldn't have said that, but when I think about what I say about the books I read, I guess that's kind of true. I think it's a factor of a few things, though: one that I'm pretty critical. Even when I'm enjoying a book on one level, I'm often pretty aware of its flaws on other levels, and I hesitate to say something that might sound like a recommendation for a book that I would only recommend to someone with very specific tastes.

Another factor is definitely that I dabble. I pick up things that I don't necessarily expect to like--things I'm curious about without very high expectations, or books about things that I want to know more about, without a lot of hope or expectation for them as enjoyable literature. I checked out a book called Mothers Talking, which was a collection of short first person stories from moms. I had read that it was a little more honest about the hard parts than other books, but I stopped reading after about four chapters, because it was very Chicken Soup for the Soul. I read The Art of War by Sun Tzu, which was very interesting, and actually a pretty good read, but which I don't think I'd run out and recommend as hobby reading to anyone.

I guess I'm following my curiosity more than anything. This is one reason it's important to me to read a lot; if I didn't devote so much time to it, I wouldn't want to waste the time trying things that might fail, and I'd go for the easy pleasures--maybe challenging as literature, but not different or educational in the way I want them to be. If you gave me a choice between another 1500 year old Chinese treatise on war or the new Jonathan Safron Foer book, I can't honestly tell you which I'd choose. Probably the war book, actually.

I'm just looking for a different kind of challenge than most people, I think. And maybe it's not a literary one. I think that's okay with me.

Oh, and I gave up on Sex and the City. It was too gruesome.

So Incredibly Not a Novelization

If you like the TV show Sex and the City, you'll HATE the book! I've seen two episodes of the show, and it looks sweet and funny and character-centered. And yeah, it's blunt and graphic (I assume; I've only seen it in syndication on basic cable), but not as heartless, unromatic, and hopeless as this stuff.

Carrie Bradshaw, who is one of many "friends" who supplies the author with info for this nonfiction compilation of anecdotes, for example. In her second appearance in the book, she is in a fancy restaurant having lunch with friends. "She lit up her twentieth cigarette of day, and when the maitre d'hotel ran over and told her to put it out, she said, 'Why, I wouldn't dream of offending anyone.' Then she put the cigarette out on the carpet."

Is this the Carrie Bradshaw you know and love? No.

This book reinforces for me the fact that I would never wish to be a New Yorker. Or at least, a Manhattanite.

What Jen Should Read

List compiled for Jen K D, but you can use it too, if you want. I'm going for a good fun-quality ratio in each book--so none of these books are just "good for you"--they're all enjoyable.

Shining Through, Susan Isaacs. This book is the most fun ever. The narrator, Linda, is funny and smart, but susceptible to bad choices--the kind you can understand. You get all the drama and gravity of World War II, along with a great office-gossip storyline.

Note, however, that this is Susan Isaacs' best book. So if you want to give her a try, I recommend starting with Lily White. It is, in my opinion, her second best, and that way you get to read both, but the second one is even better than the first, which is always a good way to do it.

His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman. The three books are actually called The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass. You have to be willing to read YA fantasy novels, but these are so much more than that. It's about religion and its role in society, and science and the meaning of life, and it's very sophisticated. I cried and cried and cried. I can't wait to read them again.

Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro. He wrote The Remains of the Day, which I haven't read yet, and When We Were Orphans, which I'm reading now. (And by the way, what's with everyone's delusion that he's going to actually FIND his parents after 15 years?) Never Let Me Go was the first of his books that I read, and it was just lovely. He's so clear and uncomplicated, yet so very complex and personal. This is a book with a science fiction plot, but it is in no way a science fiction book. It's not the near future or an alternate reality. It's England, here and now, and it's about what makes us human.

The Midwives, Chris Bohjalian. I've been meaning to reread this, so I base this recommendation on my memory of how good this book is. Again, it's the best of his work. There isn't a lot to say about it; it's a coming of age story about a girl whose mother is a midwife who might or might not be in legal trouble. This author deals often with people whose lifestyles fall just between fringe and mainstream--homeopaths, dowsers, midwives--and his stories are often about people trying to find a place for these things in an "ordinary" worldview.

Which Lie Did I Tell?, William Goldman. Bill Goldman has written some of my favorite books (The Color of Light, The Princess Bride), but you're more likely to have seen his movies. He's a screenwriter, with credits like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All The President's Men, The Stepford Wives, and The Princess Bride. This book is part how-to for aspiring screenwriters, part memoir, part gossip-fest. He's got some very good insights (my favorite: In Hollywood, nobody knows anything. They like to pretend they can tell what will be a hit and what won't, but nobody understands how craft becomes magic), but his ability to tell a good anecdote and very conversational writing style really carry this book.

The Nun's Story, Kathryn Hulme. I will always recommend this, though it's not up everyone's alley. It's a very internal, quiet look at the life of a nun from the time she enters a convent, through her travels to various nursing posts, and to Africa, in the Belgian Congo. It was a movie with Audrey Hepburn, which I also love. Both book and movie are somewhat slow and very straightforward--there is no poetry here, except that the experience is poetry. Even the sparest writing style lets that shine through. I find this book lovely, and though I can't say I have reason to believe it'd be your exact cup of tea, Jen, I have to recommend it anyway.

That's all for now. More later, I'm sure.

Impassioned Blogging

I'm not someone who can write with passion, I guess. I was going to write about this article, which caused me to seethe when I read it. But then I read this other article that made a lot of my points for me, and my impetus was gone.

Though I'd still like to point out that I think she's on the wrong track when she considers the trends she sees to be anti-feminist. As a fairly well-educated woman of the modern age, I feel comfortable saying that it's not my desire to be owned by a man that made me decide to change my name when I get married. It's recognizing that the solutions to the problem of name change that we have (hyphenation, one parent not sharing a name with the kids) are all imperfect. And women deciding that they want to be in the home is not watching them flush their intelligence away--the fact is, there are also lots more stay-at-home dads than there used to be. I think that everyone is beginning to recognize that getting ahead in business is not always very satisfying, and that it's okay to feel like the people in your life, family and friends, are a bigger priorty.

Not everyone will agree with me, and that's just fine, but if I make that decision, I'm not a throwback. I'm gifted to live in a time when I get to choose my own priorities. And I'm grateful to everyone who came before me who made it so that when the time comes, I'll be choosing what to do about my career and my family. I think I'll enjoy being a mom, but I think I would have enjoyed it a lot less if no one had ever asked me whether it was what I wanted.

Coming soon: a suggested reading list for Jen K-D.

Spoke Too Soon

Okay, so Spider has begun to purposefully mess up Fat Charlie's life. Sorry, Neil, you've tread into territory that innately troubles me.

I checked out the book Sex and the City by Candace Bushnell. I'm not a fan of the show, but the two episodes I caught have seemed somewhat charming, in a slick, shallow, too-rich, too-promiscuous way that I would feel bad calling "New York" if that wasn't the whole point. Aside from the morbid outlook (on page 3, a "happily married" friend of the author says that it's easier to be single than be in a couple, because instead of "fun"--described as drinking, drugs, and parties--your only choice is to sit home in your tiny apartment and stare at each other. ), the thing that bothered me was a huge glaring factual error.

She mentions Breakfast at Tiffany's as an example of romance. Okay, fine, either way. Then she says that Truman Capote understood romance, because these two independent people end up giving love a try. This woman clearly saw the movie, and then tried to use that to make a literary reference. I love this movie, but you don't get to talk about Audrey Hepburn and Truman Capote as though they participated in the same project. In the book (sorry for the spoiler), she doesn't end up with him--she runs off to Africa.

On this subject, I am incensed.

Also, it was in nonfiction. Hmm....

Kudos to Gaiman

I have to say, Neil Gaiman's doing something in Anansi Boys that I didn't think could be done.

One of my pet peeves is the story about someone who's living a normal, happy, regular life, trying to be a good person and find a reasonable amount of happiness, whose life is then shaken up and turned upside down by someone wild and outrageous, with the moral lesson being that keeping your head down is an unacceptable way to live life.

Anansi Boys looked like one of those stories. Fat Charlie is clearly meek and not carpeing the diem. Spider shows up, and makes things "happen." Fat Charlie's a little miserable. And yet, Spider hasn't done anything to ruin Fat Charlie's life. Sure he's blackmailing his boss a little, but that's working out very well for him. Everything that's going wrong in Fat Charlie's life is his own fault or no one's--even indirectly, Spider is only making his life better, not worse.

So far, of course. But it's nice to be so pleasantly surprised.

With Apologies to George Takei

Well, color me chagrined. Just when I gave up on him, George Takei makes bold to come out of the closet. I congratulate him and his longtime partner, and I hope this step brings him happiness.

I don't think I'll read the book, though. I was so excited to read about the Nisei camps that making them boring was quite a feat. I blame the writing. Sorry, George--I love your acting career!

Okay, in other news, I'm reading The Art of War by Sun Tzu. This is very interesting, and makes me realize that a) I'm not smart enough to wage a good war, and b) neither is anyone currently waging war today. On one hand, the bad guys have it righter than we, in that it's all psychological. But they've got it all wrong, because a good war has very few casualties. A good war is won or lost before the battle begins. I don't know if I can explain it very well, but it's about a strategy that involves as much psychology as warfare, and about understanding your assets and liabilities, and also those of the enemy.

Good book--recommended.

Surrender

Sheer madness. I've been out of the office and crazed with busyness so far this week. There's a storm, there was a Richard Thompson concert, and I'm exhausted. I've given up on George Takei, and the BPL says that the Bridal Bargains book I reserved is in. That's it. I give up. I'm going to the library.

And I'm going to go nuts. I'm so excited. A bunch of random stuff I just sort of want to look at--a book of candid anecdotes about motherhood (what "they" don't tell you), a book I heard about on This American Life, in which a pop psychologist offers you scripts for common relationship discussions that are difficult to have. Plus maybe The Lady and the Unicorn, which I kind of figure is going to be mediocre (Tracy Chevalier is either a bulls-eye or just sort of okay, and Sara tells me this one is the latter). Maybe Unveiled, the nun book I've been saving back for a rainy day.

Hurricanes and nor'easters--it's raining.

Not So Far From Home

Okay, there's no way I'm going to be able to read George Takei's autobiography. I thought I could, and it sounds so interesting--childhood in Nisei camps, becoming an Asian-American actor in 1950s Hollywood, Star Trek. But no, and I'm afraid I blame the fact that he wrote it himself. I do not detect a ghostwriter here. It's just boring, as boring as anyone talking about their life, trying to communicate how important to them the mundane moments are, but, sadly, failing.

Pledged is better, in that it's trashy and light. It's like college all over, but with the 90210 kids instead of your real friends. But the life these girls are looking for sounds like true hell to me. I would sleep on park benches rather than in this sorority house, or any of the ones in the book.

I'm getting closer to having permission to go to the library. Midwives and We Were Orphans. Also I've had an urge to reread the fourth Clan of the Cave Bear book, The Plains of Passage. It's as awful as the title sounds, but if you skip through to the high points, it's racy and exciting.

I have to work Sunday this week, so I'm pretty bummed. I hope it doesn't ruin my Saturday, though I'm worried it will. Ugh.

Psst! I Think Kevin's a Sociopath

So I finished We Need to Talk About Kevin, which was quite wrenching and challenging. I think it's particularly difficult to wrestle with because there are a lot of things about parenthood that kind of hush-hush, or inappropriate to say. I know people say that it's hard work, but I think they tend to shy away from seeing parents as people when they're in their parenting role. (Okay, I tried not to say it this way, but I will: people shy away from human frailty when discussing parents qua parents.)

Anyway, I'm a little torn about the ending. I don't want to give it away, because I'd recommend this book to anyone looking for a good, challenging read, but I'll ask just Ceci, who lent it to me: Did you buy the ending? Did it seem a little too tidy?

One thing I was very impressed with was the unreliable narrator. She was pretty darned reliable, actually, except...maybe not? The whole book is an exploration of guilt and blame taken on by someone whose life is subsumed in guilt but who sees a lot of the milestones in the book as inevitable.

I wish this had been a book club book. I'd really like to wrestle with it.

Falling All Over Myself

In looking for a new audiobook to listen to, I've unwittingly lengthened the list of books to read.

First of all, there are definitely some bad readers out there. The unabridged version of Before You Know Kindness (Chris Bohjalian) at Audible is read poorly. The abridged version is read well, by Blair Brown (of The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd! Remember that? Urban ladies' sex lives!). Blair Brown also read Drowning Ruth. I never felt the need to read it till I heard the sample on Audible. Now I'm eager to.

Ugh. I need a week's vacation full of rainy days. One rainy day just makes me realize how much reading I'm up against. Before I'm allowed to go to the library again:

Drowned Ammet
Pledged: The Secret Lives of Sororities
We Need to Talk About Kevin
To the Stars: The Autobiography of George Takei
We Were Orphans
Midwives

I've read Midwives, so that's just a reread, but I've wanted to for a while.

Oh, what a glut of pleasure!