G H I J K L
something by Dickens or Hemingway is the
kiss of death. Many a Student Stores purchase
lies, spine intact, on my shelves.
For those with a similar problem, I have
three entirely different books you can spend
many a sunny afternoon perusing while you put
off whatever itis you’re supposed to be reading:
Possession by A.S. Byatt
This is one of those books that must have
taken a herculean effort from the author. Byatt,
a former University College, London, litera
ture professor, won the Booker Prize for her
tale of love and academic life. The novel’s
protagonist, Roland Mitchell, is a luckless re
searcher of a fictional Victorian poet, Randolph
Henry Ash, who is stuck in the “Ash factory” in
the bowels of the British museum.
Roland discovers a letter in a copy of an old
book Ash owned that suggests the poet had a
much more passionate, sensuous side, and sends
Roland on amission to investigate whether the
poet had a love affair with the lesser-known
poet, Christabel Lamotte. Roland runs into
y things
for Morrison and Baldwin
beautifully in Beloved. I can’t really describe it
I— you’ve got to read it to understand. As usual
with her work, this one gets better with every
; read-through.
4. Go Tell ft On The Mountain by James
Baldwin
Ranks right up there with Ralph Ellison’s
, Invisible Man and Richard Wright’s Native
Son. It’s one of the finest coming-to-grips
i with-yourselfbookl’ve perused in alongwhile.
> Dark and rich language fills the pages with
work: eye-opener to apartheid
board bed to the chaos of a police raid. He
watches his father, naked and humiliated, be
ing tormented by white police officers who
were imprisoning him for an disorderly pass
book.
Mathabane says, “As I stood there watch
ing, I could feel that hate and anger being
branded into my five-year-old mind, branded
to remain until I die.”
From this point, he chronicles his experi
ences, step-by-step overcoming seemingly
unsurmountable obstacles. He recalls numer
ous events, such as when he was verbally abused
and almost arrested for accidentally boarding a
whites-only bus.
He channels his hate and anger, fighting
authority to educate himself. He rejects tribal
religions for Christianity, and despite occa
sional suicidal thoughts, stays focused on his
goals of overcoming the oppression.
His ticket out was tennis, a world in which
he found that not all whites were hateful. He
received a scholarship to attend college in
TUVW X Y Z
the formidable but attractive Maud Bailey, a
Lamotte expert, in the process, and begins a
timid love affair of his own.
Byatt writes beautiful, intricate prose, and
the novel is wrapped around the poetry ofboth
Ash and Lamotte, as well as extensive journal
entries from other characters. The reader fol
lows the lives of Roland and Maud, which
mimic what they and the reader uncover about
Ash and Lamotte. Byatt has a penchant for
detail and great description, and her depiction
of the office politics and bitterness lurking
behind the academic world hilarious. But most
of all, Possession is a verdant, magical tale of
mystery and two love affairs.
Generation X by Douglas Coupland
Any author who subtitles his novel Tales for
anAccelerated Culture must be a genius. Genera
tion Xis a series of scenes from the lives of three
people in their mid 20s who quit their yuppie
lives and drop out to the Palm Springs desert to
try to tune into themselves.
Coupland splatters the book with defini
imagery that kicks you square in the jaw.
5. The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
If all you know about the Civil War comes
from network mini-series, you should check
out this little chunk of historical fiction. Rely
ing on actual letters and biographical relation
ships, Shaara recreates the crucial battle of
Gettysburg. The novel brings the interesting
characters (especially the Confederate gener
als) vividly to life. Not just an outstanding
story, but good history, too.
America and play tennis, but even then was
subject to a two hour interrogation before ac
quiring a passport.
He finally did beat the system, but it is
obvious from this autobiographical account
that the horrors of apartheid are not completely
forgotten.
He now lives in High Point and wrote a
follow-up in 1989, Kaffir Boy in America: An
Encounter with Apartheid.
Only a few books have affected me in such
a powerful way, and the truths learned from
Kaffir Boy are not quickly forgotten.
Everyday was anew struggle for Mathabane
in this inhumane world, and reading about his
life made me realize that apartheid was a per
rona/injustice, affecting real people, not a face
less mass thousands of miles away.
As trite as it sounds, Kaffir Boy is a book
everyone can learn from, an enlightening ac
count about the triumph of human spirit that
promises to give insight about how lucky we
really are.
tions of newterms he invents, e.g. “EARTH
TONES: A youthful subgroup interested in
vegetarianism, tie-dyed outfits, mild recre
ational drugs, and good stereo equipment.
Earnest, frequently lacking in humor.”
The book has a style all its own and a
frenetic pace to match the pace of our
generation’s lives. You and your friends are
the main characters of this utterly modem
novel.
After Dark, My Sweet by Jim Thompson
Actually, any Jim Thompson novel is just
as good. You could add Dashiel Hammett
and Ramond Chandler to your list if you
want a good tale of crime and intrigue. These
novels are the literary equivalents of film
noire (in fact, many of them are film noire
movies). Typically, you are never sure where
you are in After Dark, My Sweet because
none of the characters is particularly good
and all of them are into some scheme or
crime they don’t want to tell their associates
about.
Good is bad and up is down in
Thompson’s world.
Art by Alison Shepard
Yon cannot go
wrong with Tom
By Vicki Hyman
Write about your favorite book, she said, a
book that you’d recommend unhesitatingly.
One better, I said: I’ll give you Tom Robbins.
Oh, have I extolled the virtues of Robbins
since I discovered him four years ago his
nuclear imagination, his outrageous metaphors,
and his women. Take not e: Another Roadside
Attraction, Still Life With Woodpecker,
Even Cowgirls Get The Blues, Jitterbug
Perfume, and Skinny Legs And All. Read
them. In that order. Then read them again.
What you will read about: immortality,
perfume, pumpkin-sized thumbs, feminine
hygiene, lesbian cowgirls, the moon, love, the
Arab-Jew conflict, .
art, roadside zoos, sex, ■'■'**
magic, and the body nom Robbins
of Jesus Chnst. ____________
You cannot go sKjHny
wrongwith Robbins. 'GUS
There’s a surprise in f
every line, an image ®' ! H.
that will make you *// V.
dance on every page, y B T
and aphorisms wor- {m m
thy of underlining in f 1
every chapter: “There
is no such thing as
weird human being. It’s just that some people
require more understanding that others.” “Logic
only gives man what he needs. Magic gives him
what he wants.”
And then there’s the best opening ever : “If
this typewriter can’t do it, then fuck it, it can’t
be done.”
Robbins does it, every time.
qM
Some people only read three books a
year. Mr. Omni is appalled. We at Omni try
to read at least three books a month, to
broaden our intellectual horizons and main
tain a working knowledge of the classics.
Plus, we don’t have any friends. Books are
our friends. Hmmmmm ...
While Mr. Omni realizes he could use
this space to shamelessly plug 13th Gen,
written by his pal and Omni frequenter lan
Williams, he will avoid being so blatantly
gauche. Even the short guy’s got some man
ners.
Now, on to your questions.
Dear Mr. Omni, I haven’t read a book
in, well, I don’t know when the last time I
read anything besides the Omnibus was.
Now that summer’s coming up I guess I’ll
have some free time. Any suggestions?
Dear Reader, I suggest you get a job, you
loser. But I understand that as the summer
approaches, you must be getting pretty ner
vous about not having the Omnibus to read
every Thursday. Go around campus and
pick up old copies of the Critic and the
Catalystto read this summer —there should
be plenty, seeing as how the only people
who read them are the editors, and even
that’s iffy.
Dear Mr. Omni, books are so depress
ing. I like Hemingway, but the plots are
kind of downers, and the guy did kill him
self, and the thought of that kind of gets me
down too. What can I read that’s not too
fluffy but won’t depress me?
Dear Reader, TV Guide. Actually, my
favorite book is Franny and Zoey by J.D.
Salinger. It’s about a sister and brother
named you got it Franny and Zoey
and their highly dysfunctional family. Now
I know it’s sounding like a bummer, but
wait. The beautiful thing is how the siblings
help each other through the crises their
family encounters, namely the suicide of a
third brother. At the end of the book, you
either feel like calling your brother or sister
or even your mom and telling them how
much you love them. And it makes you
want to have a big family.
Dear Mr. Omni, at the beginning of last
semester I spent S3OO on books and sold
them back for $23. Is there anything I can
do to make more money this semester?
Dear Reader, sure, fool, just tell the
people at Student Stores you took really
good care of your books and I’m sure they’ll
fork over some extra dough .... The APO
book exchange is a good way to not get
scraped . You give them your books, they
sell them for you and give you part of the
profits. The part they keep goes to pay for
scholarships or service projects. Makes you
feel kind of warm-n-fuzzy, doesn’t it?