Strange Taste in My Cerebrum

I've just finished reading two novels. Worlds apart by comparison, yet containing the same quark that reminds you of one of those tired insomniac nights.


HOSPITAL by TOBY LITT

In summary: Hospital is the last place you want to be when the world ends.

I don't know what's up with English writers and their penchance to give roll calls of names. The book is 500-plus pages. There's a thousand of things happening all at once and the Tolkien name ramblings of questionable signifance pop in your reading vision.

Okay, let me just break this down by giving the important places of happenings so that you will have an idea.

A&E: Starts here and ends here. This is where the main characters were introduced, and this is where they bowed out.

Chapel Area: Where all the Satanists congregated to celebrate Black Mass. (Don't look at me, I'm just conveying what I read).

Operating Room/Surgery Area: Where a love story of soap operatic proportions unfold.

Lower Floors/Maintenance Area: A voodoo ritual was held here.

ICU: "Adoration Chapel" of the Comatose One.

Pharmacy: Disneyland for two loose drug addicts.

CCTV screening area: Where the Virgin watches over them.

Roof Top: Landing area of the chopper that never came.

All over the place: A Rubber Nurse and a boy who swallowed an appleseed.


Toby Litt wrote this book probably after making a book report on Dante's Inferno. As the pages fly by, so will your sanity as events unfolding right before your eyes get darker, funnier, gross-er, and most of the time, sillier. When I finished the novel, I can't even understand how I feel about it. I don't know if I liked it or hated it. I can't recommend it entirely, but I can't even tell you to disregard it altogether. It's like watching a supposedly funny British flick. You hear the laugh, but it's not funny. Something's funny, yet you are the only one clapping and laughing.

One best adjective to describe this book: STRANGE.

Low Note: No booze or caffeine allowed while reading. Nothing to alter your mental status.

High Note: Highly hyperactive imagery/imaginations of the author - hopefully not LCD-induced. Munch something crunchy while reading.

THE PHILOSOPHER'S APPRENTICE by James Morrow

PLACE: Isla de Sangre. Where plants sigh, trees bear mixed fruits, and iguanas have wings.

YOU: Mason Ambrose. Crashed your PHD dissertation. Neo-Darwinist Atheist "philosopher." (Correct adjective would be failed, but I would not rub it in.)

YOUR JOB: Teach philosophy to a girl who grew up so fast she forgot her manners.

SALARY: $100,000.00/year.

RISK: Harasssment from weirdoes of test tube/petri dish/vat-like proportions.

SITUATION: Lona Sabacthani, your student, graduates from the Mason Ambrose school of philosophy and moves out of the island. You go back to the real world and open a bookshop. You forget everything that ever happened in that isalnd. Meanwhile, the rich and beautiful Lona becomes a celebrity of comic book sorts. Lona builds a city of Utopia called Themisopolis. She funds avant-garde medical research and became Mother Theresa for the underprivileged. Afterwards, your brilliant student kidnaps all the major key players in Wall Street and plans to rehabilitate them ... in the biblical Revelations's sense (WAR, FAMINE, PESTILENCE, DEATH).

So what's your move, Socrates?


MY SAY: I've always considered my college philosphy professors raving lunatics. I recalled memories of them while I was reading this book. Hands flailing in the air, excited expressions, and gibberish talks of TV static in my brain. What made me go back further was the topic of bioengineering (I was once a Science major in Microbiology - nothing beats the smell of warm agar fresh from the autoclave), which was the cause of it all.

Put two different chemicals of the opposite sides of the periodic table, bang! You get - NOTHING NEW.

Now get genes from A, and mix it with genes of B in a tube, nourish it in a growth chamber, PCR it, teach it how to speed read, and throw the Bible in it while you're at it. What do you get in this stew? A truly monstrous idea.

That, in a nutshell, is how I feel about this book. It's either a mutated notebook of Plato/Kant/Nietze/What is Logic?/Banananess of the Banana, or my laboratory manual missing several pages. Either way it's the modern day Frankenstein with B-movie written all over it.

I love the hilarity of the story, but hated the lame psychoticness of both the philosopher and the apprentice -- My professors were more endearing in their bipolar ways. I was a diligent student in my paranoid ideations.

Best words to describe the book: STRANGELY ABSURD

Low Points: Mason Ambrose, Lona Sabacthani, Coral Idolatry, Themisopolis, the Valkyries, and Titanic Redux.

High Points: Mumquat juice, Quetzie, Donya Sabacthani, Pieces of Mind, John & Jane Snows storming Themisopolis - gahd, I wished they killed them all.