Drieser took me to Hell last night!

And he left me there.

I hate that man (he's dead, so that's not such a crime, I guess. All the same, I can't make a voodoo doll of someone whose dead, or impact the world by burning an effigy of someone who isn't alive to see himself burned). Just because an author is from one's home state does not make him worth reading. I suppose in Indiana, the ability to read and write still guarantee's success in any field. But you know, I'm not too sure Theodore Drieser qualifies even under those standards.

If you don't know who this cursed soul is, count yourself lucky. If you do, you know that he wrote the books American Tragedy and Sister Carrie, both of which I am being forced to read, and at the same time. I quote my professor, "Drieser is well known for his inability to write with any talent. He is 'Mr. Clunky Sentance Writer'." I think that almost says it all. Except that Sister Carrie almost wasn't published in the 1900's due to immorality and (since today is not the Victorian era) is now devoid of interest.

This book consists of a woman, poor, coming to the city and finding herself the pround non-owner of many pretty things. She then finds what we today would refer to as a Sugar Daddy, who buys her what she wants, and she spends half of the novel wondering whether this is the right situation in which to live. She then leaves this man for another man, who "marries" her (he's got a wife already) and loses his job. After this point he sits in the house and wonders if he has chosen the right situation, and thinks about maybe looking for work, sometime (hopefully this book will end with the deaths of one or both of these characters, I'll let you know).

Now that you have some background, allow me to elaborate.

I love books. To me, they are more beautiful than the finest gems. I treat them with loving care, rarely does one see a book of mine with a fold in the page, a crease in the binding. My books seem almost untouched. If I leave one off of my immaculate bookshelf, my parents often assume I've purchased a new one. If I lend one of these tomes, it is an extra copy which I bought for that purpose, because rarely if ever do I allow another soul to even breathe upon the creamy white pages. If I could call anything in my life a replacement for a boyfriend or child, it would be my books. One day I will have the library from Disney's Beauty and the Beast, and I will sing inside it, and read for days without food. I feared the destruction of my collection, and had made a list of the ones which would be rescued first, in case of fire. They are arranged in that order on my pure white bookshelf, starting with The Book of Atrix Wolfe by Patricia A McKillip (first edition), and ending with my cheaper mass market paperbacks, which are easier to replace.

Last night, I grew so weary of Mr. Clunky Sentance Writer and his indecisive Pseudo-Tess of the D'Urbervilles characters and semi stolen plot line, that I began to wound my copy of the book. I folded the cover backward, so that the back and front met. I Jennifered the pages (she knows what I mean) so that every edge curled. I beat it against the wall to loosen up the binding. I kicked it across the house instead of carrying it. I stood on it and slid into the kitchen for a glass of raspberry lemondade, then used it as a coaster. As a grand finale, I used it to murder a Die-Roach spider which lurked on the wall in the living room, then wiped its corpse off into a napkin. When I had finished, my hands were coated in its inky blood.

It came off nicely with a little soap and water.