The Bay and the Book

Lots of wild life action in the bay this morning. I love to watch the pelicans skimming over the water checking out their chances of snagging some breakfast. Sometimes they fish alone, sometimes in concert: a line in formation holding steady with barely a movement of their wings as they glide over the rolling surf. Close to the shore a school of dolphins flash their fins as they move about within the same perimeter. Frigates float far above in circles, seemingly unconcerned about the quest for food of the creatures below. What they live on remains a mystery to us. There are several pigeons that strut along the grill-work of our balcony, cooing, mating, repelling interlopers, preening themselves, and puffing out their chests importantly.

I’ve been reading a great deal this week: two books by Larry McMurtry and two by Michael Dibdin. The latter is the author of the Aurelio Zen books, some of which were made into a TV series starring Rufus Sewell. Zen is a Venetian-born cop living in Rome who somehow is able to cut through a lot of the BS, corruption, and cronyism of his police force to bring resolution to difficult cases. His abilities can get him in trouble, of course, with various powers that aren’t necessarily keen to have certain facts hit the light of day. Zen lives with his mama, is estranged from his wife, and falls in love with beautiful women. He’s smart and he’s human, and especially played by Rufus Sewell, he’s attractive. Dibdin writes well; the various levels of politics and vice are interesting to see played out in a quite sophisticated Roman setting.

Reading McMurtry is to travel into a vastly different space. It all Tex/Mex: the border and all that that entails. I read first The Last Picture Show, of happy movie memory. Small town Texas in the 1950s: not a space with many options. Next: The Streets of Laredo: the old west as it’s beginning to “civilize.” He weaves real-life characters like Roy Bean, the hanging judge into his narrative and writes in a consistently minor key, appropriately picking up the brutality underlying much of the relations among all groups vying for life on the border: Mexicans, Indians, cow herders, settler farmers, and town folks. His work reminds me of that of Cormac McCarthy though I think that McMurtry digs deeper into the sinews of human relationships than does McCarthy.

It’s a wonderful luxury to have plenty of time to read. I count myself as one of the more fortunate of life’s creatures.