{"id":1689,"date":"2010-06-25T11:31:17","date_gmt":"2010-06-25T15:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=1689"},"modified":"2010-07-16T12:40:48","modified_gmt":"2010-07-16T16:40:48","slug":"ask-tpr-dirty-books-greek-travels-oily-birds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/25\/ask-tpr-dirty-books-greek-travels-oily-birds\/","title":{"rendered":"Dirty Books, Greek Travels, Oily Birds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><div id=\"attachment_478\" style=\"width: 243px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.brooklynmuseum.org\/opencollection\/objects\/1352\/Boy_Reading:_Ned_Anshutz\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-478\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/boyreadingnedanshutz.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"233\" height=\"331\" class=\"size-full wp-image-478\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/boyreadingnedanshutz.jpg 271w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/boyreadingnedanshutz-211x300.jpg 211w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-478\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Boy Reading, by Thomas Pollack Anshutz.<\/p><\/div><em>I am eternally that girl who guys want to be friends with, and I am fed up with it. Where can I turn to help me with my predicament? And don&#8217;t say Jane Austen.<\/em><\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: right;\">\u2014Jessica, New York City<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>I wasn\u2019t going to say Jane Austen! I find her deeply, deeply depressing. Maybe you feel the same. If you want to read a genteel English novel where the perpetual \u201cfriend\u201d gets the upper hand, try <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1844084949\/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?ie=UTF8&#038;cloe_id=cdde2dd1-5dbf-4a41-b65a-37d8a007240e&#038;attrMsgId=LPWidget-A2&#038;pf_rd_p=486539851&#038;pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&#038;pf_rd_t=201&#038;pf_rd_i=0385279620&#038;pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&#038;pf_rd_r=0SBZ5RBKAJAJ2W9FENH7\">The Tortoise and the Hare<\/a><\/em>, by Elizabeth Jenkins. (Jenkins also wrote a biography of Austen, but you can skip that.) You might get a vicarious kick out of Dawn Powell\u2019s 1942 satire of New York media people, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Time-Be-Born-Dawn-Powell\/dp\/1883642418\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&#038;s=books&#038;qid=1277478787&#038;sr=1-1\">A Time to Be Born<\/a><\/em>. Another tale of a friend triumphant. It sounds, though, as if you may be in the market for a seduction manual. I\u2019ve never read one that rang true, sorry to say. Instead it seems to me one should probably read dirty books\u2014starting with something outrageous and perverse, like Bataille\u2019s <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Story-Eye-Georges-Bataille\/dp\/0872862097\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&#038;s=books&#038;qid=1277478830&#038;sr=1-1\">Story of the Eye<\/a><\/em>\u2014if only because these books, the really dirty ones, give a person courage when she (or he) feels unsexed. They may help you acknowledge your awkward or forbidden feelings toward those guys, even at the risk of rejection. If you\u2019re fed up, as you say, it\u2019s time to act!<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\n<br \/>\n<em>I&#8217;m traveling alone in Greece for several months this summer, and will likely be eating many meals by myself\u2014what are some books I could take with me to be my dinner companions?<\/em><\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: right;\">\u2014K. Ridge<\/div>\n<p>\nEveryone will tell you to read Patrick Leigh Fermor\u2019s memoirs of his travels in Greece, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Mani-Travels-Southern-Peloponnese-Classics\/dp\/1590171888\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&#038;s=books&#038;qid=1277478880&#038;sr=1-1\">Mani and Roumeli<\/a><\/em>. Everyone is right. You should also pack two books you want to remember all your life\u2014because that is what happens when you travel alone, you remember what you read (and where you read it). One of them should be hard: <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Brothers-Karamazov-Bantam-Classics\/dp\/0553212168\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&#038;s=books&#038;qid=1277478929&#038;sr=1-1\">The Brothers Karamazov<\/a><\/em>, say, or <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/War-Peace-Vintage-Classics-Tolstoy\/dp\/1400079985\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&#038;s=books&#038;qid=1277479001&#038;sr=1-1\">War and Peace<\/a><\/em>, or <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Moby-Dick-Oxford-Worlds-Classics\/dp\/0199535728\/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&#038;s=books&#038;qid=1277479093&#038;sr=1-2\">Moby-Dick<\/a><\/em>. The other should be relaxing but long and good to remember. Foreign bookstores generally stock Trollope, so you could start either the Palliser or the Barchester series and know you won\u2019t run out. Dickens works, too, for the same reason. A word of caution about e-readers, in case you are thinking of buying one for the trip. I find they are deadly for difficult books. That momentary blip when you turn the page is a spell-breaker. And the fact that you can\u2019t tell, effortessly, with your hands, how far you have to go and how far you\u2019ve come makes it impossible (for me) to really sink into what I\u2019m reading.<\/p>\n<p>\n<em>I\u2019m so sad for those oily BP birds, but given the choice I probably would\u2019ve eaten any one of them. Am I a hypocrite?<\/em><\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: right;\">\u2014Vicky Bard<\/div>\n<p>\nA pelican? I doubt it! (Those blue fin, on the other hand . . . ) In more general terms, I think it is perfectly natural to feel sorry for things you want to eat. Especially if they\u2019re cute and\/or feathery.<\/p>\n<p><em>Need advice from the editors of <\/em>The Paris Review<em>? <a href=\"mailto:advice@theparisreview.org\">E-mail<\/a> us.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am eternally that girl who guys want to be friends with, and I am fed up with it. Where can I turn to help me with my predicament? And don&#8217;t say Jane Austen. \u2014Jessica, New York City I wasn\u2019t going to say Jane Austen! I find her deeply, deeply depressing. Maybe you feel the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[60,168,301,300,112,179],"class_list":["post-1689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ask-the-paris-review","tag-advice-column","tag-bp-oil-spill","tag-e-reader","tag-jane-austen","tag-novel","tag-sex"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Dirty Books, Greek Travels, Oily Birds by Lorin Stein<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"June 25, 2010 \u2013 I am eternally that girl who guys want to be friends with, and I am fed up with it. Where can I turn to help me with my predicament? 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