I think it was for a Weekly Geeks thing, way back, that someone said about me “she only writes when she has something to say.” At the time I took it as an enormous compliment. I mean, really! But now I’m wondering if the blogger was simply trying to say nicely that I’m one of those erratic people who won’t stick to a schedule and is sometimes absent from the blogosphere for months at a time with no explanation.

But the fact is, I really haven’t had anything to say. The election was one major distraction; there have also been some distractions on the home front — good distractions, but still distractions — and the upshot is, I just haven’t been feeling very bookish lately.

Until yesterday afternoon, that is, when I read the first four pages of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. And I was so amazed at — well, not at the first four pages in and of themselves, but at the way they unfolded for me as I read them, that I was filled with an overwhelming desire to tell someone about it. Particularly I wanted to tell my friend Les, who dammit is out of town again.  Then I thought… hey! I’ll liveblog it. Oh, don’t worry. I’m not going to liveblog the whole entire book (I don’t think). But the first four pages, I can’t resist.

Choosing the book

So first of all, I’m trying to decide what to read next. I just finished Prep, which was good but hard to read. It’s a painfully intimate portrait of a young girl at boarding school. Imagine a female Holden Caulfield who, rather than dismissing the “phonies,” buys into their crap and tries unsuccessfully to be like them and be liked by them. Prep is well done, but God, it makes your toes curl. Sooooo… I was looking for something that would take away the prep school taste from my mouth. I wanted something grand in scope, and with humor of the Robertson Davies “God is a rum old joker” variety. Thanks to BookMooch I have some interesting things on my TBR shelf right now (in fact, it’s thanks to BM that I have an actual TBR shelf at all, instead of just a mental list). I considered something by Robert Graves, oh and I’ve got a Christopher Morley which I’m really excited about too, but in the end the one I pulled off the shelf was Captain Corelli’s Mandolin.

I’ve read one other book by the same author, Birds Without Wings, which I wrote about here. The gist of it is: BWW is a book with a split personality. One personality is charming, hilarious, Dickensian. The other personality is a truly gruesome war story, so gruesome I almost couldn’t finish it. I don’t know anything about CCM; haven’t seen the movie, have no idea what it’s about. All I know is 1) I was in the mood for something with the first, but not the second, personality of BWW, and 2) we own a mandolin and I sort of know how to play it. So the big question is: how similar to BWW is CCM? Would it be the perfect remedy for what ailed me? Or would it be too tragic to read?

It occurs to me now that I should have read page 69, but at the time (i.e. yesterday) I simply opened up the book and read the first paragraph.

The first paragraph

Well, I think I’ll let you read it for yourself rather than try to describe it. Here ’tis:

Dr. Iannis had enjoyed a satisfactory day in which none of his patients had died or got any worse. He had attended a surprisingly easy calving, lanced one abscess, extracted a molar, dosed one lady of easy virtue with Salvarsan, performed an unpleasant but spectacularly fruitful enema, and had produced a miracle by a feat of medical prestidigitation.

Oh ha ha ha! I. Love. It. This is exactly what I was hoping for! Actually, I wanted to call Les right then and there. She is in nursing school and this week she had her first clinical experience. She had to catheterize an old woman who moaned “Oh God, take me now” the entire time, and I just knew this paragraph would totally cheer her up.

So, I am thrilled. We’ve got the charm! And the humor! And it’s about a doctor! And a calving! And medical procedures! Oh I am so in heaven already. Sure, it’s gross, but it’s not gruesome — not in a serious, tragic, war-story way. Gross is actually good. Rubbing my hands gleefully, I continue reading.

The next four pages

Um. Did I just say I was excited about reading about gross medical procedures? *swallowing nausea*

The next four pages go on to describe, in horrific detail, the aforementioned “feat of medical prestidigitation.” Dr. Iannis… well… again, I don’t think my description would do it justice. Read on if you dare:

He had gone to old man Stamatis’ house, having been summoned to deal with an earache, and had found himself gazing down into an aural orifice more dank, be-lichened, and stalagmitic even than the Drogarati cave.

Ewwwwwww!

He had set about cleaning the lichen away with the aid of a little cotton, soaked in alcohol, and wrapped about the end of a long matchstick.

Ewwwwwww! I should probably mention here that I am absolutely obsessive about ear hygiene. I feel about earwax the way some people feel about zits and scabs (fascinated and repulsed and can’t keep their hands off *cough* like my sister *cough*). I go through Q-tips like there’s no tomorrow. To continue…

He was aware that old man Stamatis had been deaf in that ear since childhood, and that it had been a constant source of pain, but was nonetheless surprised when, deep in that hairy recess, the tip of his matchstick seemed to encounter something hard and unyielding; something, that is to say, which had no physiological or anatomical excuse for its presence.

Oh. My. God. It turns out that the something unyielding is a pea which old man Stamatis presumably had stuck in there himself, as a toddler. A pea, tightly packed in there, with a “hard brown cankerous coating of wax.” He ponders how to remove it, and now we have a bit of comic relief:

“You have an exorbitant auditory impediment,” replied the doctor, conscious of the necessity for maintaining a certain iatric mystique, and fully aware that “a pea in the ear” was unlikely to earn him any kudos. “I can remove it with a fishhook and a small hammer; it’s the ideal way of overcoming un embarras de petit pois.” He spoke the French words in a mincingly Parisian accent, even though his irony was apparent only to himself.

Ok, now they go get the fishhook and hammer. Can you believe this? And here comes the part that I most wanted to share with Les:

The doctor carefully inserted the straightened hook into the hirsute orifice and raised the hammer, only to be deflected from his course by a hoarse shriek very reminiscent of that of a raven. Perplexed and horrified, the old wife was wringing her hands and keening, “O, o, o, you are going to drive a fishhook into his brain. Christ have mercy, all the saints and Mary protect us.”

Now I’m laughing hard. At this point the doctor has second thoughts about attempting to remove the pea this way, and instead instructs them to “fill his ear up with water and mollify the supererogatory occlusion.” So old man Stamatis spends the day lying on his side, with an earful of warm water. You know, just like you would soak your peas before you cook them. Softened, the pea comes out easily…

Encrusted with thick dark wax, rank and malodorous, it was recognisable to neither of them as anything leguminous. “It’s very papilionaceous, is it not?” enquired the doctor.

The old woman nodded with every semblance of having understood, which she had not, but with an expression of wonder alight in her eyes. Stamatis clapped his hand to the side of his head and exclaimed, “It’s cold in there. My God, it’s loud. I mean everything is loud. My own voice is loud.”

“Your deafness is cured,” announced Dr Iannis. “A very satisfactory operation, I think.”

And oh what a very satisfactory reading experience!