book 103

the only nice thing about getting one's car inspected: reading time. sadly, one book is often not enough and one is forced to watch dr. phil berate showbiz moms for putting their daughters in pageants.

charles brockden brown's weiland, or the tranformation
brown was apparently the first american novelist who actually made a living off of his writing, and with weiland, i can certainly see why. apparently it has all this symbolism about the role of authority in american life, but i'll leave those discussions to the high school english classes, and just note that this was a creepy, ghostly sort of story that really would lend itself well to a movie (david, did jennifer ever really make a movie of this?). it's the story of two siblings whose zealotrous father died under somewhat mysterious circumstances, and the brother grows up to also have a weird religious thing going on. meanwhile, everyone keeps hearing these voices everywhere, and misunderstandings and murders ensue. interestingly, the book is narrated by the sister--considering it was written in like 1789 or thereabouts, i thought that was pretty unusual, especially since she's a fairly intelligent and sympathetic character.