September Book Club
Recommended reading: All Over but the Shoutin' by Rick Bragg.
This book is a memoir. While you read it, you will feel bad for being a whiny little brat when so many other people (specifically, Bragg's mother and brother) have had much more difficult lives than you, that they have faced with much more dignity and stoicism than you are capable of mustering. This book will make you want to grow up and be a man (or a woman, in my case).
"Passion is something you really don't miss, after it has cooled. It is like looking at an empty bottle on the side of the road and thinking, 'Boy, I wish I had a Coke.' The loves you miss are the ones that go away when they are still warm, even hot, to the touch."
I totally get the author's point here, but for some reason it completely bugged me that he used a Coke as an example. You want a Coke when its cold. It should have been, "Boy, I wish I had a hot chocolate" or "Boy, I wish I had some soup." Because then the next sentence, about not wanting something after it has cooled, would make more sense. Don't you think?
This book is a memoir. While you read it, you will feel bad for being a whiny little brat when so many other people (specifically, Bragg's mother and brother) have had much more difficult lives than you, that they have faced with much more dignity and stoicism than you are capable of mustering. This book will make you want to grow up and be a man (or a woman, in my case).
* * *
Here is a line from the book. It does not capture the essence or the story or the point of the book. It just bothers me."Passion is something you really don't miss, after it has cooled. It is like looking at an empty bottle on the side of the road and thinking, 'Boy, I wish I had a Coke.' The loves you miss are the ones that go away when they are still warm, even hot, to the touch."
I totally get the author's point here, but for some reason it completely bugged me that he used a Coke as an example. You want a Coke when its cold. It should have been, "Boy, I wish I had a hot chocolate" or "Boy, I wish I had some soup." Because then the next sentence, about not wanting something after it has cooled, would make more sense. Don't you think?
posted by J. at 11:24 PM
2 Comments:
For his analogy the author needed something iconic, something for which people get cravings. I think using beer or cigarettes would have worked, too. I can’t remember the last passionate yearning I had for a comfort food like soup or hot chocolate. Passion isn’t a warm, hearty meal or something you cozy up with next to the fire; it’s a visceral craving that needs to be quenched -- an ice cold Coke on a 100 degree day.
I agree the analogy is somewhat weakened by the hot/cold stuff, but the they in the last sentence just refers to the loves, not the objects that are being loved. It’s natural to have a burning desire for something cold and I think the author did an ok job of using an object that a lot of readers can equate with passionate cravings.
I also wonder if -- in true Southerner style -- he’s using Coke as a blanket term for all soft drinks.
passion, attorneys, coke
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