Surrender

I had to give up.  It's the end of the semester; I've been enduring bad writing for months.  And it's not that Bringing Down the Mountains was such bad writing, but I could not commit to reading someone's not-so-finely-crafted dissertation at this point in my life.  I will return to it and the others that beckon me from the stacks, but right now, I need a departure from career reading.  So, Salman Rushdie has rushed in to fill the void; he's handy that way.  The Moor's Last Sigh has been on my TBR shelf for awhile, and Rushdie has long been one of my favorites, so I expect great things.  Of course, trying to tease out this dense opening while watching the boy at the playground was close to impossible, but the narrative is starting to gel for me.  After the aforementioned failed attempt, this love affair with language is exactly what I needed.  An example:
                 Now, therefore, it is meet to sing of endings; of what was, and 
                 may be no longer; of what was right in it, and wrong.  A last sigh
                  for a lost world, a tear for its passing.  Also, however, a last
                 hurrah, a final, scandalous skein of shaggy-dog yarns (words must
                 suffice, video facility being unavailable) and a set of rowdy tunes
                  for the wake.  A Moor's tale, complete with sound and fury.  You
                 want?  Well, even if you don't.  And to begin with, pass the pepper. (4)
This beauty occurs on the second page.  The Moor, Moraes Zogoiby, is still a character in shadowy grays, but the reader already yearns to know him, to sit beside him while he speaks such curiosities.