more Books on CD

I'm listening to the unabridged Wuthering Heights now. I read it about 20 years ago and I remember thinking that Catherine-dear-sweet-Catherine was a wench and that Heathcliff was done wrong by her. Now, I'm on the 4th CD of 10 and, while I still have little sympathy for Catherine even though she correctly states that were she to marry Heathcliff they would both live in poverty and degradation, I don't see why I had any sympathy for Heathcliff. He is a bit of a jerkface, aiding Hindley in his downward spiral of excess and marrying Isabella to spite Catherine and Edgar Linton. I can't remember how or whether he redeems himself. Has this book changed for me completely in 20 years?

It's like The Cather in the Rye -- when I read it as a teen, I thought of Holden Caufield as a tragic hero, seeing through all the phonies and whatnot. Now, I think he a dope -- get over yourself, Holden. Get a job, pay some taxes and then tell me how terribly the world wronged you.

Boneheadedness

Why do I insist upon listening to books on CD in the car that cause me to yell at the CD? Ah, I remember. Because the CD selection at the library is far more limited than the tape collection and my car doesn't have a tape deck.

I stopped borrowing Patricia Cornwell books because her self-absorbed writing style bugs the crap out of me. (Kay Scarpetta doesn't just cook up steaks on the grill, she takes a slow draught from her glass of chianti, waiting for her stainless steel Weber Grill to reach broiling temperature. Then, she removes the butcher's paper from the filets she purchased from Luigi's Butcher Shop on Main Street, on the way home. While rubbing the meat hunks with Dead Sea Salt and elephant garlic, she realizes that the last time she drank chianti and waiting for the grill to heat up while preparing steaks she purchased from Luigi's, she was pining over Benton. But Benton is gone now. . .) By the middle of the last book, my kids were yelling at the CD.

Last week, I listened to John Grisham's The Brethren last week and it was reasonably entertaining, so I borrowed The Street Lawyer this week. I found myself rolling my eyes and yelling today. Until the arrest warrant showed up, it never even occurred to The Street Lawyer that stealing a file from his former firm might be illegal. And it certainly didn't occur to him that he might lose his law license over it. (Oh, but he went to Yale Law School. That probably explains everything. They're so busy contemplating the nature of laws at a metaphysical level, that the practical aspects of the law are lost.)