Books Borrowed from My Ex-Husband #1
NORSE NIECE PARTY
Reviewing Penguin’s Mini Modern Classics Anniversary Box Set:
an introduction to the next 50 reviews
Penguin Mini Modern Classics
Penguin Modern Classics
£150
Since 1961, when Penguin actively began designating cannon under the flag of Modern Classics and the brilliant Tony Godwin, literary writers have clamored for their nod the same way Olympians want a Wheaties box. To celebrate fifty years of taste making, they put out a beautifully spare box set of Mini Modern Classics. Given that, it only makes sense to review the series, and I could end this introduction here.
However, this is an introductory blog post, so it needs a hearty dose of storytelling topped with a narcissistic cherry. So because life is random at best and chaotic for the remainder, and because what makes sense doesn’t always make sense, resolve to start a running conversation with yourself.
You’re lucky enough to be reviewing the box set, but you’re borrowing the books from your Ex-Husband. This is absurd. To introduce this series of fifty reviews, ask: “What circumstances brought me here?”
Circumstance #1. You fall deeply, madly in love when you find right thing. This time, it’s a series of miniature books celebrating 100 years of exemplary short fiction, the perfect micro library. That they are only available in the UK bumps up their street cred. But they’re expensive, which brings you to —
Circumstance #2. You are broke. And while you don’t know the conversion rate of pounds to dollars, you do know you can’t afford the books. This forces you to face the fact that you will never work the phrase “across the pond” into a series of book reviews, and —
Circumstance #3. Prone to magical thinking you conclude reading these books is just what you’ve needed in your life, like the time you were sure if you dyed your hair blonde it would solve all your problems (and it did, except for the new problem of roots dammit.) From magical thinking to —
Circumstance #4. You can’t think of a single way to acquire the books on your own. A devious plot emerges. Mention the existence of the Mini Moderns and their spectacular design to your art directing, book loving, financially solvent Ex-Husband. Cross your fingers. While you are still on the phone with him, he’s got them on their merry way from London. Hooray! But life is never easy —
Circumstance #5. He doesn’t want to lend you them, because in his words, they are going to end up in the backseat of your car, rumpled, coated in coffee. Protest, but do it faintly and then post a passive aggressive comment on the Facebook picture he posts of himself unwrapping the books. Then, keep at it because—
Circumstance #6. You are stubborn. The best books ever aren’t unreachable, across the pond (there, you did it!) but languishing on your Ex-Husband’s shelf. Don’t give up! Think of cinematic advice, and then wax on, wax off, eye of the tiger it on home. Craft an introduction to your theoretical book reviews using the word poioumena, have your Ex-Husband read it, confuse him with the word poiouema and finally convince him to lend you the books. Swear you’ll take care of them, then first thing accidentally set the Coover in a coffee spill.
And that’s how this gig came to pass, question answered. Persistence and a flair for the bizarre, like most living.
Pause for a second, though, because whatever circumstance brought you here, remember that the greatest education for a writer is observing those that do it best. Fifty voices carefully observed in fifty tiny books is an education without pedantry or cost. Well, no cost if you borrow them from your Ex-Husband. That’s pretty cool. But not cool enough. You should have started this off with a boisterous anagram commensurate to the task at hand, maybe of the notion ‘entropy increases.’
Next up, a review of Robert Coover’s Mini Modern, “Romance of the Thin Man and the Fat Lady.”
Read more about the Penguin series here.
