March 3: Steve Martin, The Pleasure of My Company

Never judge a book by its cover. Nor by its author, apparently. I admit to being pleasantly surprised. Well-written, funny, full of pathos, a quick but deep read. There's lots to this book. I found myself relating so much to the main character--a quirky, super-intelligent, 30-something male with socially-crippling OCD--that I lost any hope of objectivity about a third of the way through.

I spent about thirty minutes mentally adding up the horizontal, vertical, and diagonal sums of the eight-by-eight magic square, noting that it is constructed in the Franklin-fashion, so that the diagonals don't add to the right number. Is this a sign that I was in-to the character? Or that I am the character?

Thank God I don't have a fear of curbs. The closest Rite-Aid would be a marathon away.

Comments

  1. LindaMarch 8, 2010 at 7:18 AM

    just reviewed this book myself and did a blog search to see what others are saying. loved this. have you read any of his other stuff? am looking forward to reading his bio (one day)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Tandem Mis-AdventuresMarch 10, 2010 at 10:06 PM

    No, this was my first foray (into any book by an actor, actually). I've heard that Shopgirl is equally good.

    Thanks for the comment!

    ReplyDelete

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