Another Year End Easy Read Favorite Author

When James Lee Burke started writing about Montana, I gave him up for lost.  The last New Orleans book of his I read left me flat as well, but glad I took the chance reading Creole Belle, a long violent, family threatening, industry mogol polluters, both morally and ecologically.  Burke many times reminds me of Dick Francis in that his main characters are so likeable and yet the crime, anger, and onslaughts they undergo borders on sensational.  Unlike Francis, Burke sticks with Dave Robicheaux and Clete Purcell, two former NOPD officers who deal with nasty nasty criminals while Burke begins and ends each chapter, if not paragraph, with some of the most beautiful descriptive writing of peaceful Louisiana bayou geography, nature and atmosphere.  I'd have to go back to my year of reading states to see what I read for Louisiana, but reading Creole Belle, I was lost in thoughts of how this is the essence of the state and of a man who loves his surroundings and home.

So it's time to look back at how successful, or not, I have been in addressing my bucket list.  Obviously, not too successful.  I did not of course kick the bucket but certainly was knocked for a loop from my Labor Day downfall and still find myself reacquiring segments of my personality that seemed to have been deep sixed for months.  For example, I tucked my DVD player in the bottom drawer of the night stand and only brought it out a few days ago, so long disused that I forgot where to plug it in and turn it on.  I thoroughly enjoyed Kinky Boots, recommended by our office's affirmative action officer, and last night watched Bridges of Madison County.  BOMC is definitely a chick flick, probably from before that term entered the lexicon.  The viewer easily enters the story and the era and when it's over, only then realizes how willingly disbelief was suspended and how unlikely many events and emotions were.  Of course that did not prevent me from tears.

I admit I use movies as a safe venue for a good cry.  I hate crying and steel myself against it even during those periods of my life when illness or other hardships would trigger weeping in the average person.  I give myself a sham excuse of equating the activation of my tear ducts with a susceptibility to colds and sore throats, so I don't cry to stay "healthy."  But a movie gives me cover and allows my emotions to flood my brain and measure my life experiences against the women I relate to on screen.  I found myself not getting lost in the lust of Clint Eastwood but in the wifeliness of Meryl Streep.  Her understanding and appreciation of the rules of her choice to be a wife and mother seem the ur-theme of the story more than her liberating four days of sensuality.  I need some more good movies. 

So I end, almost, the year resolving to copy those titles I ignored in 2012 and redouble my vows and resolutions to try to read more classics.  I have my N author at bedside, reading through a couple of Pablo Neruda poetry anthologies for the upcoming book club ... which will probably be as poorly attended as December's.  Not sure I am relating that well to Neruda to choose on of his to read.  As a good fall back Plan B I took out Seamus Heaney's Beowulf to re-read and if the audience is select enough, might just read Shakespeare's Sonnet 155.