Borr-ing!

Back when I was a student at the University of Idaho, I submitted a short story to a sort of contest open to university students, the winners of which were invited to a writing conference at the school with Raymond Federman, a French-American "experimental author."

I was selected.

I attended the conference.

The only thing I got out of it was excuses from Federman that he had not read my particular piece, and he felt bad about it, but as far as I know he never read it.

After a few excuses from him, I figured attending and of the non-conference events tied to his visit were going to be worthless, so I didn't. That decision seemed wise when I listened to attendees of one of the events talk, with some awe, about Federman's preoccupation with sex at one of those off-course meetings.

I bring this up because as I struggle to read Michael Chabon's "Manhood for Amateurs," I kinda get the feeling that he's got that same preoccupation and that continuing to read the book is going to be pretty useless.

There exists a certain kind of author that thinks whatever they happen to think is gold and deserves to be shared with the world at large, and I feel Chabon is in that vein. Maybe he's better in person. But yeah, not a lot of value here.

So no, I didn't finish the book. It just wasn't getting any better 3/4 of the way through it. I don't like to abandon books, but this one deserved it.