Wednesday, February 17, 2010

In Which I Hope Edna Ferber Got It Wrong

So I am enthralled with the Kindle for PC app on my laptop. I covet a Kindle. I do. Perhaps not something one should admit the first day of Lent, but isn't Lent about facing your personal weaknesses and failures? Coveting a Kindle sure can't be up there with the top 10 no-nos.

I am enjoying reading out of print books available through Kindle that would be mighty hard to find even in a used bookstore. For instance, I am currently reading Cheerful by Request by Edna Ferber. Oh yes, you've heard of Edna Ferber, Gentle Reader, you just don't know it. It was Edna Ferber who wrote Giant, and Show Boat, and Cimarron, and Dinner at Eight, and many novels and short stories that were turned into plays and movies. I had read one book by Edna Ferber when about 13, courtesy of our local Public Library, and had never found another one. And then, ta da! Cheerful by Request, a collection of short stories from 1918, was available from the Kindle store. For free.

Anyway, in one story, The Gay Old Dog, Edna Ferber describes (tongue in cheek, of course; she's quite the sarcastic author, one reason I enjoy her so much) the "unwed, middle-aged woman: her fussiness, her primness, her angularity of mind and body."

Fussy? Prim? Me? I don't think so. And never, never, angular of mind and body (especially with middle age spreading through the nether regions of my body). At least, I hope never angular. I work at being round and encompassing. You are charged, Gentle Reader, with never letting me become angular of mind!

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