Bitter Ender

There are only two books I have begun and failed to finish in my reading career so far: Thomas Friedman's Hot Flat and Crowded, and Al Gore's The End of Reason. I think the titles pretty much speak to why I didn't finish them. Generally I stay with whatever work I have begun. Right to the bitter end. This week, it paid off.

The Cure for Death by Lightning won a bunch of awards when it came out in the late 90s. I don't know why I didn't get to it sooner, but I picked it up in one of the two used book stores in Collingwood two weeks ago, and slogged through the typical Canadian morass of dysfunctional depressing family life on the prairies, the kind of book that tends to win the awards.

Twice I nearly gave up on it as not one good thing happened to anyone. Crops destroyed, madness, feuds, molestation, the whole gamut of unhappiness. I thought it was irredeemable, and if you haven't read it, I'm not going to spoil it, but I am going to recommend it. It won't ruin the reading if I tell you the whole story turns on a fifteen year old girl shouting, "Stop It! You're my father, for Christ's sake!"

The lead character had been put upon, bullied, beaten up, touched inappropriately, disappointed and assaulted at every turn by pretty much everyone she ever met, and finally said the above to her abusive dad.

And here's where novels can be instructive for 'real' life: what would happen if more of the bullied among us said something similar?

What if that woman on the bus in New York bullied by those four hideous young buggers had said, "Cut that language out, you're kids, fer chrissakes!"

What if someone had told the banks in the US, "You can't sell those asset-backed derivatives, it's unethical, fer crisssakes!"

What if the Greeks had been told, "You can't retire at 45 with a full pension and also pay no taxes; the numbers just don't work out, fer chrissakes!"

I'm not bitter, I'm just wondering.