The Flying Troutmans

I just finished reading Miriam Toews's novel The Flying Troutmans, and quite enjoyed it. The plot is not especially fascinating (it's a typical "road trip" narrative), but the characters are fantastic. The 11-year-old girl Phebes is especially good. She is a precocious child similar to Oskar in Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (her talents are artistic rather than scientific, though). Her adult-like persona is almost unrealistic at times, but Toews does a good job of mixing in enough childishness to make her believable. Phebes's brother Logan's single-minded devotion to basketball is also well-done, and is somewhat humorous because he's Canadian (Steve Nash notwithstanding).


The pastiche of pop culture references that Toews mixes in is also entertaining because of its highly eclectic nature. It includes Fight Club (109), the Bible (83), Sylvia Plath (167), Scrabble (63), David Bowie (125), the Beatles (83), and James Bond (116) among others. The novel has a postmodern feel despite its realist chronological narrative, in part because of its pastichiness and in part because of its continued emphasis that hoping for centers in human existence is futile: nothing is universal or infallible. It manages to convey this somber message in an enjoyable, often humorous way, though.

Books Acquired Recently/update

Books Acquired Recently (in the order I got them)

Robert Herrick. The Works of Robert Herrick. amazon.com

National SCRABBLE Association Official Tournament and Club Word List. wordgear.com

Joe Edley and John Williams, Jr. Everything SCRABBLE. Borders

As the last two titles indicate, I've been spending lots of time playing Scrabulous on facebook. The semester ends next week, and then I will begin writing more frequently again.

Addendum to the facebook update

I forgot to mention two things about Scrabulous in my last post:

1. I started out getting TERRIBLE tiles; in my first game I kept getting vowels, and in my second game consonants. I felt like the computer hated me. But now things are evening out a bit.

2. Every time I check my games and I don't have any moves to make, I start another game with someone. I'm currently playing eight games even though I've only been playing for three days. Most of my partners need to check their games more often, only a few are as dedicated as me (and weirdly, two of the most dedicated have names beginning with "K").

I am happy that Scrabulous uses the Tournament Word List (TWL) rather than just the Official SCRABBLE Players' Dictionary (OSPD). The TWL is better because it contains all of the legal words, including words that are deemed "objectionable," i.e., nearly every word related to sex, whereas the OSPD is a censored list because it tries to be "family-friendly." I am glad that the Scrabulous creators realize that to go along with the OSPD's censorship would be antithetical to the spirit of the game, which is to explore and enjoy the English language in all its beauty.

facebook update

I have become a facebook addict. I check it even more than I check my e-mail now - three or more times a day. Yesterday my friend Kara convinced me to add the Scrabulous application, so now there is even more reason for me to check my account because I have to make my SCRABBLE moves.

It's also been interesting to see who I've become friends with. Here is the breakdown so far:

4 childhood friends
4 high school friends
4 college friends/profs
4 graduate school friends
8 New York friends (from the two years I spent in Manhattan between college and grad school)
2 spouses of friends

I have at least semi-regular (once or more every fortnight) facebook interactions with about half of them.