Update on “Please Don’t Eat The Daisies”.

Ok, so I am reading through the parts that gave me trouble and wanted to report back on them.

Ok, so the first part of the book that gave me trouble was the section called “Don Brown’s Body”.  So in the book Kerr says that sitting through a dramatic reading of “John Brown’s Body” ,by Stephen Vincent Benét, one night made her come up with her own version she called “Don Brown’s Body”.  Now what follows is a crazy mishmash of a play that is to be read dramatically.  The play is based off of Mickey Spillane crime novels.  So Kerr took his style of writing and made a play based on his stories in the way that “John Brown’s Body” was written, which honestly is a jumbled collection of words that kind of told the story of the civil war in the form of an epic poem.  I tried reading it (John Brown’s Body), but it hopped around so much and it just did not read well or easily for me so I gave up a little over a 1/4th of the way in.  But I got the gist of it and see what Kerr meant now by her version…I think.  LOL!  Still didn’t make me laugh, but I understood it a little bit better now.  I find that as I age I understand things I read a little bit better with experience, so maybe in another couple of years I will fully understand this section of the book.  Maybe not.  Either way, at least I kind of feel a little clearer on the essay.

And the second section that gave me trouble called “Toujours tristesse” would have given me less trouble if I had paid attention to the first sentence of the chapter where she said basically that she had written the essay after reading “A Certain Smile” by Françoise Sagan.  “A Certain Smile” is about a young woman in a relationship with a male classmate.  The classmate takes her to meet his businessman uncle and his uncle’s wife.  The young woman and uncle see they have an attraction to each other and go off the Cannes to spend a romantic time together because they are afraid of being bored and it seems they may be bored in their relationships and want to try someone new.  However there is a rule of no falling in love so they don’t hurt her boyfriend and his wife.  But when they get back from Cannes the woman sees she loves the uncle, but he does not love her.  His wife finds out and the relationship ends.  In Kerr’s essay, the young woman is still in a relationship with a classmate, but the uncle is now the guy’s grandfather and the grandfather’s wife.  The young woman and grandfather fall for each other, but instead of being afraid of boredom they invite it and like being bored.  They still go off to be alone, at the sea, but instead of the wife finding out, the grandfather tells the young woman that while he was bored with her he was more bored with his wife and he was going back to her.  So their relationship ends and the woman is alone.  Now it makes more sense to me, and even without reading “A Certain Smile” I find this essay funny now.  LOL!  Delayed understanding, you’ve gotta love it. 

So there you have it, I am a little clearer, have learned about some interesting bits of literature and new authors I didn’t know about before, and am ready to move on to my next novel.  Man, you’ve gotta love reading and the places it will take you.  Oh and the internet too, gotta love it, because I doubt I would have found out this information or found it as easily without it.    Ok, off to read some more, have a great day.    Bye for now.

Writing away,
M.