Trainspotting is wonderful, but I'm convinced that listening to "Lust for Life" one too many times left me with an extremely painful ear infection — my first in 13 years, perhaps? I mean, of course I've had it in the ear before! I was (according to my parents) a baby with a perpetual ear infection. I had tubes put in when i was young. Before I went under, whoever was anesthetizing me asked me what I liked to do for fun, and I said I liked to play with Barbies in the driveway, which was a blatant lie. To this day, I am not entirely sure what the tubes were for. I'm also not sure why I said what I did.

buddenbrooks

as mentioned earlier. i wish i could read german, or at least appreciate exactly what certain german dialects (the usage of which mann seems so fond) imply about their speakers. i cannot and may never, but i recommend this book anyway, as it was recommended to me — for those who read jane austen and know something of german history and eat chocolate with an eighty-five percent cacao content.

lost in (the first, lowe-porter) translation: much of the book's charm, i think.* i could barely get past the endless descriptions of one (1) dinner at the beginning of the book. i had no idea how anyone, much less the highly intelligent person who recommended it to me, could call buddenbrooks their favorite book. the woods translation remedies this; it wasn't a chore to read, not at all. it was a joy! the purest of them! plein de gratuitous french to boot! the chapters are of such manageable sizes that buddenbrooks managed to break my heart every morning over a bowl of oatmeal.**