Friday, June 4, 2010

For a guy that maintains a low profile, you've built quite a litle snowball of resentment

Sorry for the delay in postings.  I'm out of town so it's a bit harder to get to a computer with enough time to make an update, so this will probably be a quick one.

I just started my next book, Coyote Blue by Christopher Moore.  So far for this blog this is the first book I'm reading for the first time while blogging about it.  All of the others have been re-reads and to be honest, the next few after this will be re-reads as well.

As with all of the other Moore books I've read, this one has pulled me in right away.  I find myself thinking "I'll just read to the end of this chapter and then I'll put it down" for 3 or 4 chapters before I finally listen to myself.  It has Moore's typical wit and humor and I found myself laughing aloud while reading, which was a bit awkward as I was in public.  Luckily my boyfriend was reading another Moore book at the time, Lamb, so he was laughing just as much.  If I'm going to look crazy, at least I have another lunatic with me.

Early in the book Sam, the salesmen without an identity of his own, going through his morning routine and "congratulating himself for single-handedly saving the planet just by getting up in the morning" (67).  His list of morning good deeds includes:

- Washing his hair with shampoo never put in a bunny's eyes & 10% of the profits go to saving the whales
-Lathered with shaving cream free of CFCs
-Ate fertile eggs laid by sexually satisfied chickens
-Ate muffins made with pesticide-free grain, so no eagle-egg shells were weakened
-Cooked in margarine free of tropical oils, thus preserving the rain forest
-Milk comes in a carton made of recycled paper and from a small family farm
-Coffee went to help educate the children of a poor peasant farmer named Juan Valdez

Even with all the earth saving and good deeds he's completed before 10am, he hasn't set foot on unpaved ground in the last 2 years.  (67)

Sam has been hiding his true identity as a Native American from the Crow tribe for the last 20 years and I like this exaggeration of how in touch he still is with the earth and keeping it safe and yet is so far removed from it he doesn't realize he's hardly seen anything natural in his trips from his office to his condo.  He's completely removed from who he was yet he doesn't, at this point, have any remorse for this. Until his spirit guide, Coyote Blue starts showing up.  As the trickster coyote he simultaneously helps Sam and causes trouble at every turn. Moore's humor leads you into a story that is much deeper than you may initially assume, and by the time you realize it, you're hooked. 

I'll probably look at the trickster more in a different entry when I've read a little more of the book and maybe when I have some more time to write. 

Title quote from page 68

Moore, Christopher,  Coyote Blue. Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, New York.  1994.

3 comments:

  1. It sounds great - I have never read any of his, I'll check them out.

    I see you have Kitchen Confidential on your 'currently reading' bookshelves - I've read it and thoroughly enjoyed it.

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  2. Good review. I just started reading my first Christopher Moore book, Bloodsucking Fiends, and I'm loving it so far. I'll look for this one next time I'm in a bookstore.

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  3. Helen - I certainly recommend any Christopher Moore. I've actually read Kitchen Confidential a few times and love it. Obviously I suppose, or I wouldn't be re-reading it again

    Peter - I've actually read the sequel to Bloodsucking Fiends, You Suck, without reading the first one. I didn't realize it was a sequel but it actually works as a stand alone piece. I need to read Bloodsucking Fiends

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