Wise Blood

I posted earlier about several top 100 novels lists. Well, I finally got around to picking out something from them to read and that happened to be Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor. I had read a short story by her in college, "A Good Man is Hard to Find", I believe it was called and I'd really liked it. It was really disturbing and messed up, but quite deep and interesting to discuss. So, hence the choice of a familiar author to try a book from. After having read the novel, I'm a bit disappointed. It's definitely not on my top 100 novels of all time. It's not bad, it was just....odd. The characters were all significantly flawed and unlikable and I didn't really get what the novel was about. I'm not really saying that it was poorly written or anything, just that I was unable to really get into it, to fully appreciate it. It seems to me the kind of book that might flourish under discussion but that read alone can be rather confusing and depressing. Or maybe I'm just not that interested in thinking about faith and religion right now.

Anyway, I'm on to Steppenwolf which I picked up at a booksale awhile back and hadn't gotten around to yet. So far I like it, lots of interesting passages, but I haven't been able to read more than a few pages at a time. I think this may be another long haul kind of book for me.

In other news, I've decided to look into what it means to be a librarian and what goes into earning a masters of library science. I am fairly certain that fundraising and development is not really where I want to stay. I'm not really comfortable asking people for money and its just depressing that when we do make money, we are thanked a little, but mostly just asked to produce more. If I did stay, I'd really need to learn more because I just don't know what else to do to bring more gifts through the door. Being a librarian has sounded attractive at different points in my life, so its time to see if it really might be for me. My mom and Anders at work both find the idea of me as a librarian as a natural fit, and something about it feels right to me, but I'm not really sure what librarians do other than stuff with books, so some research is required before hasty decisions are made.