A Hundred Summers

A woefully belated recap of our end-o'-the-season BC hosted by The Doctor at the Autumn Chateau.  Methinks El Jefe was a little saucy that night, as the entire meal, start to finish, is hazy to say the least.  Ah yes, due to the fact that some of us started off the evening with Salty Dogs, note the plural (whose idea could that possibly have been??). Pretty sure that the hors d'oeuvres involved burrata and were lishy.  Less sure that dinner was a hearty Tuscan soup involving sausage. And drawing a complete blank on dessert, clearly just plain hammered by that point.  Thank goodness that El Jefe knows the holiday menu by heart after ten years, so have no fear for next month.

What is crystal clear in El Jefe's memory (ahem, notes) is the abysmal review of Beatriz Williams' A Hundred Summers.  Three 2's, two apiece of 4 and 5, and one 6, for an overall average score of 4.5.  Yowsa, but not the lowest rating in BC history! True to da Game scored a 3.6 so this book is well in the clear. Nonetheless, when an author writes stuff like "Her lips formed a perfect 'O' around his…."  you know we are not talking about great literature. Those at the low end described the book as "atrocious," "wretched," and "it made me angry." Another complaint was that the Kiki reveal was obvious (recall, Kiki was the love child of Lily's mom and Nick Greenwald's father).  And Red said that she would rather read F. Scott Fitzgerald than someone copying the voice of that era and doing a shitty job (maybe we should read him, then!). Those at the high end, as it were, found the book to be more silly than repulsive-- for example, all the characters riding on the doors of houses through the hurricane to safety-- and at least credited it with having some fun drama and intrigue (but really poor sex scenes, unfortsch). We all agreed that there was simply not much to talk about here, so let's leave it at that and look forward to Thursday's holiday BC where there will be plenty of discussion! Can't wait to drink many glasses of champagne with all of you, not to mention the added treat that Blondie will be in town for the festivities!

Two days to read The Dinner by Herman Koch if you haven't already.  xoej

P.S. Just remembered that the dessert was a caramel pie!