Almost Delightful Randomness
A Fictional History of the United States with Huge Chunks Missing – ed. By T Cooper & Adam Mansbach
Well. That was quite different from what I expected, which was taking actual events and throwing in fiction to make them complete. And that was not what happened in this book at all. In fact, I’m not really sure what happened in this book. One minute I’m reading a letter from Huck Finn to Tom Sawyer about how he is working as a female prostitute (I’m still not sure how this worked) and the next I’m reading an interview with the grown up Lindbergh baby (apparently he wasn’t murdered after all). Uh? I will admit: I enjoyed the randomness, even if the stories themselves weren’t all too interesting. My old favorite for randomness in one book remains The Best American NonRequired Reading series. It’s just the best at what it does. Sorry, A Fictional History. Still, your cover is quite wicked.
Regardless of it not being the best of its kind, I still liked it. Sort of. In most cases I can see the connection to US history. I still think my concept of this book sounds much more interesting, though. I really must read A People’s History now, because I am slightly lost due to my lack of history knowledge and gullible-ness.
I must say that my favorite piece was the interview with the Lindbergh baby. Mysteries like the Lindbergh baby thing this fascinate me (I must find my book on Amelia Earhart) long after I’ve read all I can about a subject. For instance: the Bermuda triangle, the staged moon landing, UFOs, September 11th conspiracy theories (which I really need to start reading up on). This fictionalized interview was just so hilariously ridiculous though.
I also found the story about how the Chinese really discovered the Americas interesting. How could we ever know who discovered what first? It’s quite possible that the Chinese discovered America before Columbus. In fact, I’m quite sure that Columbus wasn’t the first here because, although we were taught in school that everyone thought Columbus was a nutter (like how I bring in current events with my choice of wording?) for thinking the world was round, this actually was not the case. No one thought the world was flat when Columbus decided to sail. I’m not sure why the story was spun this way, but someone at some point must have had the idea to do so (probably the same person who changed his name from Cristobol Colon).
So which stories were a waste of my time? How about the one where a woman decapitates one of her fellow travelers, cook and eat him for dinner, and then her husband masturbates underneath the wagon (because this story was obviously set in the 1840’s when people were going west in covered wagons). Other than that, I don’t think that any story was wasting my time. All the rest were vaguely entertaining in some way.
I really don’t have much more to say about it. This book was overall blah.
Up Next: The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Well. That was quite different from what I expected, which was taking actual events and throwing in fiction to make them complete. And that was not what happened in this book at all. In fact, I’m not really sure what happened in this book. One minute I’m reading a letter from Huck Finn to Tom Sawyer about how he is working as a female prostitute (I’m still not sure how this worked) and the next I’m reading an interview with the grown up Lindbergh baby (apparently he wasn’t murdered after all). Uh? I will admit: I enjoyed the randomness, even if the stories themselves weren’t all too interesting. My old favorite for randomness in one book remains The Best American NonRequired Reading series. It’s just the best at what it does. Sorry, A Fictional History. Still, your cover is quite wicked.
Regardless of it not being the best of its kind, I still liked it. Sort of. In most cases I can see the connection to US history. I still think my concept of this book sounds much more interesting, though. I really must read A People’s History now, because I am slightly lost due to my lack of history knowledge and gullible-ness.
I must say that my favorite piece was the interview with the Lindbergh baby. Mysteries like the Lindbergh baby thing this fascinate me (I must find my book on Amelia Earhart) long after I’ve read all I can about a subject. For instance: the Bermuda triangle, the staged moon landing, UFOs, September 11th conspiracy theories (which I really need to start reading up on). This fictionalized interview was just so hilariously ridiculous though.
I also found the story about how the Chinese really discovered the Americas interesting. How could we ever know who discovered what first? It’s quite possible that the Chinese discovered America before Columbus. In fact, I’m quite sure that Columbus wasn’t the first here because, although we were taught in school that everyone thought Columbus was a nutter (like how I bring in current events with my choice of wording?) for thinking the world was round, this actually was not the case. No one thought the world was flat when Columbus decided to sail. I’m not sure why the story was spun this way, but someone at some point must have had the idea to do so (probably the same person who changed his name from Cristobol Colon).
So which stories were a waste of my time? How about the one where a woman decapitates one of her fellow travelers, cook and eat him for dinner, and then her husband masturbates underneath the wagon (because this story was obviously set in the 1840’s when people were going west in covered wagons). Other than that, I don’t think that any story was wasting my time. All the rest were vaguely entertaining in some way.
I really don’t have much more to say about it. This book was overall blah.
Up Next: The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
I had been asking for this book for years before my parents finally got it for me this past Christmas. And now I am finally getting around to reading it. How exciting!
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