I read 34 books in 2024, some for the second time, like The Old Man and the Sea and The Lady in the Lake. I also read a lot of plays. I like to read plays because I can Imagine the actors’ actions when they play their parts upon the stage. Also, I am writing a couple of plays, and the best way to learn how to write a play is to read a lot of plays. Here is my list of my top 10 books in no special order. However, if I had to pick a favorite it would be Suttree, by Cormac McCarthy—happy reading to all who read in 2025.
Reading Philip Roth is like eating Indian food. You have to have a taste for it, and I confess I have a passion for both. I just finished reading Deception and found it to be by turns clever and brilliant. I think the reason I like Roth so much is that sometimes I think he is writing my story. He cleverly entangles his real life with his fictional life. He mixes Nathan Zuckerman and Philip Roth in a froth of delightful storytelling.
Deception is told in all dialogue, which is not an easy feat in itself. The reader must pay close attention to who is speaking. It details his adulterous affair with a British woman while he is temporarily living in England. He is concerned that his wife might find out and take pains to keep their liaison a secret. The British woman is also married. He intertwines this story with encounters with other women including his wife who discovers his notebook and accuses him of having an affair which he denies, and therein ensues a hilarious argument about how the affair is in his imagination and the notes are for a book that he is writing. One may ask, who is he deceiving, his wife or the rest of us? The scene reminded me of a similar incident that happened to me a while back. I also keep a notebook and one day my partner at the time happened to pick it up and read it while I was out. We had the biggest fight of our relationship over what she read in that notebook! It was over soon after that.
The novel Deception is Philip Roth at his best. Highly recommend!
I am reading Don Quixote by Cervantes. It is quite a hoot. But, it is not an easy read. It’s like reading a foreign language. As a matter of fact, it is a foreign language: Spanish. Old Spanish translated into English. If you squint your eyes and hold your nose just right, you can almost tease out the meaning. It turns out the Don is quite insane—crazy as 9 loons, as they say. He is always tilting at windmills and at every Inn he passes by on the road he thinks it is a Castle holding a damsel in distress who needs rescuing since he is a knight errant of the “ill-favored face” and that his quest is to follow that dream. Halfway through the book he meets another band of wanderers who spin quite a tale of their own about a cat named Anselmo and his friend Lothario whom he entreats to test his wife’s fidelity. What could go wrong? Sancho Panza rides along with the Don on his ass for companionship and to provide comic relief.
When I was a young man working as a factotum at the rubber factory in Rubbertown, one of my co-workers used to refer to me as, “That Don Quixote-looking motherfucker!”
“Why do you call me that, Ernie?” I asked.
“Because you wear a beard, and you sort of look like him, and you are always tilting at windmills.”
In his Critique of Dialectical Reason, (1960) Jean-Paul Sartre asks the following questions: 1) Why is violence so universal a feature of human experience, especially in politics? And 2) What becomes of man’s freedom in a world where human beings are constantly threatened by what he called the “practico-inert” (alienation)?
Example: A motorist is caught in a traffic jam created by the increased availability of cars whose original intention was to enable men to move about more freely. Human beings are increasingly and inevitably held prisoner by their own creations.
In economics, this would be an example of diminishing returns. A concept I learned in the 5th grade, which struck me like a thunderbolt and has stuck with me ever since.
Another concept I learned a couple of years later in the 7th grade, was the concept of manifest destiny. Again, this was like a thunderbolt out of the blue, but I think it might have set me on the wrong path for years to come. If you don’t think that schools were indoctrinating students in the 1950s you are sadly mistaken. But I digress….
In Sanskrit, the word Kamala means Lotus Flower. The Lotus is a symbol of purity and the simultaneity of cause and effect. Out of the mud rises the fragrant Lotus Flower. This is exactly the metaphor needed at this time in this place. Kamala, the Lotus Flower, rises from the slime and muck of Donald Trump and his ilk in triumph and exaltation. Go ahead, Kamala!
I have been reading Eugene Ionesco’s The Chairs – A Tragic Farce, in the service of a play that I am writing called, The Tragedy of the Bull. Ionesco because he is a master of the Theater of the Absurd. Absurd because my play is existential. Existential in the sense that life is meaningless and man’s relationship to life is absurd. I often read other plays when I am writing for inspiration. Now, here is where the tricky part comes in. This play was written in 1950. I have never read it before. Many eerie similarities are revealed in The Chairs that are relevant to my life and my play. For instance, here is a bit of dialogue from The Tragedy of the Bull:
OLD MAN
Do you believe in coincidence, Maria?
MARIA
I have heard of coincidences, senor, but no, I don’t really believe in them.
OLD MAN
Neither do I. But I do believe in synchronicity. I connect the dots and look for patterns and when I see them, I pay attention. They are like signposts guiding my way. And that is what ultimately led me here. To you. Tonight.
MARIA
What are you talking about?
OLD MAN
I have a picture of Silvia Morales in my apartment that was painted by my friend Diane Kahlo.
MARIA
Oh, that is a coincidence, Old Man.
OLD MAN
You must let me march with you. I will carry the portrait of Silvia Morales in the parade while marching by your side.
MARIA
Si. I think it is a good idea senor. We will march together.
The main character in my play is named Old Man. The main character in The Chairs is named Old Man. The conversation between the Old Man and Maria is about coincidence and synchronicity. That is what I found to be strange about some of the references in The Chairs besides the fact the two main characters have the same name. There are other points of synchronicity.
Such as: The Old Man in the Chairs claims to be a general factotum. He makes a running joke of it as if he is an actual general. Part of the essence of the absurd is the contradictory construction of the language. Words used together that have the opposite meanings. Here’s where the coincidence comes in. For years I have claimed to be a “factotum” as a joke. I put it in my bios, and it is on my Facebook page. I originally got the idea from a book I read by Charles Bukowski entitled, Factotum. There is also a movie based on the book of the same title starring Matt Dillon. I, of course, identified with the main character and to a certain extent Charles Bukowski himself and I adopted the name “factotum” for myself. Years ago.
What else? There are other points of synchronicity that I will reference, although the whole play seems oddly familiar. First, the Old Man says, “It’s all a marvelous dream.” This is the main theme of The Tragedy of the Bull. Most of the play is a dream sequence The Old Man is having while he dies. One of my characters says, “Truth and illusion, Ron, you don’t seem to know the difference.” This indicates that what we are seeing might be a dream or an illusion.
The Old Man says, “I’m proud of it…proud and humble.”
Another one of my stock phrases is, “I’m right happy, humble, and proud to be here…” I say this whenever I am called upon to make a speech. I love the contradictory paradoxical nature of the construction of it. How can you be proud and humble at the same time? Brilliant! Now, I stole this saying directly from a past governor of Texas who always began his speeches, “I am right happy, humble, and proud to be here tonight.” Governor John Connely. When I first heard him say that I was tickled pink. I’m not sure he realized the irony of it, but I sure did and I have been using it ever since. For years.
The Old Man says, “In order to forget I went in for sports…for mountain climbing. I wanted to travel, I wanted to cross the river, they burned my bridges.” I was never one for sports but I did like the sport of Mountain climbing. I have done quite a lot of hiking and I have claimed some modest mountains. On my bucket list has always been MT. Kilimanjaro. Traveling has also been my passion and I have traveled extensively around the world. And lastly, I have crossed many rivers. I have lived for years along the Ohio and the Delaware Rivers.
Coincidence? I think not. Like Maria, I don’t believe in coincidence. But I do believe in Synchronicity. After three points of synchronicity are chalked up on the board, I see a pattern and from that pattern, I derive a meaning. It is perhaps the only meaning I find in a meaningless universe.
Do you see this image? This is a picture of a student shot dead by the National Guard at Kent State University in Ohio. I remember when this happened, and I can tell you it was a dark day in America. What were the students doing? They were protesting the war in Vietnam. It was largely because of these protests that the war was brought to an end.
Fast forward to today. We have protests all over America, indeed the world, of the war Israel is waging against the Palestinians. It is not antisemitic to protest the slaughter of thousands of innocent women and children and other noncombatants. This slaughter is inhumane and tantamount to genocide, regardless of what the U.S. Government is saying. It should be protested and attention must be paid!
We see police action and the National Guard being called up in some states to quell these protests. This must stop! We do not want another Kent State. I understand that we have to support our allies, and Israel is an ally, but this needless slaughter of the innocents must stop! It goes against American values, and it goes against my values. I stand with the protesting students.
Ghost Dog 