On My Nightstand

I loved this book as soon as I opened it. John Steinbeck has always been one of my favorite American authors. 'Adventures with Charley' paints such a beautiful but real picture of America, and it makes me look forward to my next US road trip as much as any adventure in Asia.

'A Man Without a Country' was loaned to me. I'd never read anything by Kurt Vonnegut before, and this is a memoir of sorts. While I disagree with much of what he says, his prose is inarguably genius. Every last word was charming, funny, and engaging, and many of his ideas are thought-provoking. His writing somehow reminded me of Mark Twain's, actually, and his ideas about men, women, and marriage were especially interesting to me.

     .... I know what women want: a whole lot of people to talk to. What do they want to talk about? They want to talk about everything.
    What do men want? They want a lot of pals and they wish people wouldn't get so mad at them.
    Why are so many people getting divorced today? It's because most of us don't have extended families anymore. It used to be that when a man and a woman got married, the bride got a lot more people to talk to about everything. The groom got a lot more people to tell dumb jokes to.
    A few Americans, but very few, still have extended families. The Navahos. The Kennedys.
    But most of us, if we get married nowadays, are just one more person for the other person. The groom gets one more pal, but it's a woman. The woman gets one more person to talk to about everything, but it's a man.   
    When a couple has an argument nowadays, they may think it's about money or power or sex or how to raise kids or whatever. What they're really saying to each other, though without realizing it, is this: 'You are not enough people!'
    A husband, a wife, and some kids is not a family. It's a terribly vulnerable survival unit.
    I met a man in Nigeria one time, an Ibo who had six hundred relatives he knew quite well. His wife had just had a baby, the best possible news in any extended family.
    They were going to take it to meet all its relatives, Ibos of all ages and sizes and shapes. It would even meet other babies, cousins not much older than it was. Everybody who was big enough and steady enough was going to get to hold it, cuddle it, gurgle to it, and say how pretty or handsome it was.
    Wouldn't you have loved to be that baby?
    I sure wish I could wave a wand, and give every one of you and extended family, make you and Ibo or a Navaho -- or a Kennedy.

Right now I'm only wishing this were on my nightstand, and I'm contriving a way to make sure it gets there sooner rather than later. It's definitely the first [and most likely the only] time you'll see me in a hurry to read a book written by a celebrity. Or at least the only time you'll ever see me admit it. Tina Fey is fantastic.