h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yes, Sandra Cisneros DID write the House on Mango street. It says so right on the cover of Woman Hollering Creek. I think I may have read excerpts from Mango... I don't remember. I will try not to 'overword' myself, but if I don't respond after a while, try me at Tucson Medical Center under gerneral exhaustion

flymba, did you read Madame Bovary? It's not about sex and incest like 100 years of solitude, but it is about sex and adultry and is probably equally unpleasant! Hmmm... come to think of it, that was the year we read Scarlet Letter, and that is also about sex and adultry. I think my teacher was obsessed!

but did he even find a way to talk about sex in the bible???? my freshman english teacher was definitely obsessed with sex and the likes...maybe its an english teacher thing...
-saffire
by the way, sorry about the typo - 'overwork' was what i meant

Hello yous

Saffire - no, I haven't read 100 years of solitude.
Yet.
But I have the book - it's right there on the second shelf from the top of my bookshelf and I've read the backpage. I'm not in the moof for such books now.
Now I just want to read books where the characters are laughing, eating and drinking a lot. I want the people I read about to have fun - I want them to fall in love with people they are not in family with, I want them to stay up all night and drink pitchers of Margueritas without getting hangovers and win a lot of money and never cut their hair and never run out of gas and never get caught in rainy wheater and have lot of lovely friends with interesting ideas and an urge to live life and on and on and on
But maybe in October - moods change quickly. Maybe I'll even find myself reading 100 y. o. S. tomorrow. Or rather the day after - sunday.

Irving Washington / former wisecorporal Wintergreen:
Yes - I have read Madame Bovary/Gustave Flaubert.
And I liked it - I liked it a lot. Thanks for reminding me - I think I'm gonna read it again pretty soon.
Tonight is Saturday - I'm a devoted Tom Waits - fan and fell like quoting him now (it'sfrom the song Heart of Saturday Night):

and you got paid on Friday
and your pockets are jinglin'
and you see the lights
you get all tinglin'
'cause you're cruising with a 6
and you're looking for the Heart of Saturday Night

Then you comb your hair
shave your face
tryin' to wipe out ev'ry other trace
of all the other days
in the week
you know that this could be the Saturday yur're reachin' your peak

OK - now I'm getting all sentimantal here
gonna make some fishes to cheer me up


See you all

flymba - dont bother - pick the happy books - theyre probably worlds better
irvingw - thats a *beauuuuuutiful* little blurb on your homepage!
-saffire

Thank you for the complement, Saffire. Flymba, I wish I could suggest some happy go lucky books for you, but since all my high school teachers seemed obsessed with Tragedy I'm having trouble coming up with anything that isn't The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy or something else by Douglas Adams. Maybe if you liked Catch 22 you would like M*A*S*H, it's funny and meaningfull but not quite as well written.

Happy books are so hard to come by...

Happy books - oh yes, they do exist.
They don't have to be happy all the time, but I like it when it's clear that the author is having fun writing at least some of the pages.
Here are some:
Garp / a prayer for Owen Meany - both John Irving
Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller / happy and terrifying
Sexing the Cherry - Jeanette Winterson

And my hottest recommandation:
Saffire and Irvwash - do yourself a favour and read "The Perfum"
by the German Patrick Süskind.
It's not exactly a happy book, but it's so well written and so mesmerizing you won't be able to put it away. I garantee!!

o really? well then...if only i had the time... whats it about?
-saffire

It's about a guy born in Paris some 200 years ago. He's very ugly, small and completely without smell! He doesn't smell anything -
I mean - he doesn't smell sweaty, dirty, clean, strange - he smells nothing. But - and here's the deal - he is able to smell everything.
He can - by smelling a glass of milk - determine how old the cow is and what kind of grass the cow has been eating in order to produce such milk. He can smell people through walls, and as he grows up, he becomes the ultimate perfumeconassieur in Paris.
Now his idea for the perfect perfum is formed - and what an idea!
The finest of smells is - regarding to this man - the smell of a maiden's skin combined with certain oils and herbs, and this he wants to produce and put in a bottle.
In the middle of the book he spends seven years sitting in a deep cage in a mountain in Southern France, thinking about smells.
He closes his eyes and dreams of the perfect perfum.
After seven years he walks out and the search begins.
It's a phantastic book - it's highly appreciated among litterature critics as well as paperback - readers.
Go ahead and get it

um...ok now how would i go about getting a copy???? i doubt they have it at borders...or maybe they do - ill check the next time im there
-saffire

As you probably are aware of, I'm not english/american - therefore I have to ask what "go and get it at the borders.." means. I'm spesifically thinking about the word "borders" in this term.
Is it like a library or something?
Anyway - it should be found in a library.
I also know it's translated to english.

Flymaba, since you were kind enough to instruct me in English Literature, here's a breif lesson in American Culture (Sort of Anthropology, I guess):
"Border's Books and Music" is a very large bookstore/ music store/espresso bar that (I think) came from California originally. They're all over the place now -- I think they're related to Barnes and Noble Booksellers but I can't prove it. Just a sort of feel I get from the stores. They've got a larger selection of books than most smaller chains (althogh diversity means that they don't have as many obscure works as a private, smaller bookstore may have), a decent selection of all sorts of CD's and Tapes (although the prices there are slightly higher than stores that specialize in music) and the espresso bar is pretty standard corporate American fare -- better than starbucks, at least but I'm pretty sure that most Europeans would still scoff at it.

borders is one of the more interesting places to chill at here ... isnt that a little depressing???????
ah well...
they did put in a new coffee bar called xando in the center of town...serve pretty decent food and drinks...however, like borders, probabaly nothing in comparison with those chic european hangouts
-saffire

I guess I'm jumping in in the middle of a conversation here, I just wanted to tell Washington Irving how much I like Catch 22, and that he should DEFINATELY finish it!
Also, I've always loved Borders. I love to sit in the coffee bar and read just about anything, for fun or for school. The coffee's not great, true, but I'm partial to an Orange and Vanilla italian soda myself.

Hey, it's someone new! I will finish Catch 22, probably not til next summer, though. Well, I guess it's only fair to give you some welcome fishes:
Nice to have you here!

Hey! That's fun!

mmmm...italian soda :_q
welcome the lizard!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i see youre new today--hope youve been enjoying your stay
-saffire

I definately have enjoyed my stay and reading your earlier posting on how to make things like and

no problemo
have ya met lots of happy hitchhikers yet?
-saffire

Well, you, Irving, Peta, Pegasus, and, well I've read Flymba's postings here. I guess I haven't really "met" him, so to speak.

Well, here I am.
Hello Lizzard - there's always room for another who have read Catch 22.
It's the kind of book you can read over and over again -I've read it 3 times so far. If I'm feeling blue, all I have to do ( all of a sudden the voice of Phil Collins pops into my head), is think about Yossarian sitting naked in a tree, or Major Major who never is present in his office.
IrvWash: You should finish the book!

I guess I'm the only European in this forum, and that's OK.
Now you have taught me about borders...
We have almost the same over here, but more things usually are connected..
we have cinemas, librarys, newspaper-rooms, cafès, webstations, bars, pubs and exhibitions of various kinds combined in one big building, and if you want you can hang out there all day.
Are you all american students, or am I wrong about this?