The Inner Circle

The Inner Circle, by T.C. Boyles.  This was also an audio book.  I'm not even going to try to sugar coat this.  Oh, and the contents of this entry may offend some of you, I'm warning you up front.  Read on at your own risk.

Okay, I've already talked about my less-than-choosy method of choosing books at the library.  My method of choosing audio books is even less choosy.  And it bites me often.  What I do is grab the first audio CD I see, quick scan to make sure there's nothing I find horrible on the cover, then into the backpack it goes.  This means I get some great books, and I get some stinkers.  But I don't have a lot of room to be picky- I live in a small town with a small town library, so the selection= not so great.  Anyway, that's how it works.  

I believe I have neglected to mention my slightly sadistic refusal to give up on a book.  Once I start something I have the worst time not finishing it.  Sometimes a book gets way better and it was worth it.  Sometimes it just keeps on sucking.  It's both a blessing and a curse.  With an audio book... well, I just can't help it!  I keep on hoping it gets better!  I can think of three books my entire life that I've given up on.  One I plan on trying to read again in the next month or two, when I'm not as tired as I was the first time I picked it up.  (I think I was too tired to wade through the 16th-century language it was written in.)  Another was a book all about a boy who discovered his sexuality when his parents ran a boarding house at the beach and a "beautiful Italian fraternity boy" came to stay each year.  Uh, no, thanks.  It was, in a word, ridiculous.  The other was similar in ridiculous- a post-apocalyptic world where the only human emotion that survived was the desire for orgasm, orgasm, and more orgasm.  Toss in the obligatory lack-of-moral-character f-bomb every other word, and you can imagine how tedious that was.  So anyway, those are the only ones I ever quit reading.  Many a time I have gotten to the end of the book and wished I had quit reading... but you know, those last two that I quit on were fairly recent.  So I felt guilty quitting on this book that I was listening to.  And I kept going.  To the end.  To the bitter, unsatisfying, shoot-myself-in-the-eye-with-a-bb-gun end.

I picked the book (CD) up because the cover revealed that it was about "Kinsey blah blah blah research blah blah blah Indiana University blah blah."  That's what I saw, anyway.  Fun, says I.  A story set in the Midwest, says I.  

Those of you who have a leg up (no pun intended) are already enjoying yourselves.

I got home and read the rest of the cover, during which I see that Alfred Kinsey was Indiana University's premiere sex researcher in the middle part of the 20th Century.  He founded the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction.  Interesting, says I.  Based on a real person, says I.  Perhaps this is a true story, says I, and I may even learn something I didn't know about my home state and that giant University in Bloomington.  I will have to put my personal preference to avoid all adult materials and forge on in hopes of learning something.  

Well, here's what I learned:  RIDICULOUS.  WHAT did I say when I introduced this blog?  WHAT did I say was my biggest pet peeve?  LEARNING SOMETHING.  And guess what?  I was wrong.  My biggest pet peeve is now LEARNING NOTHING.  I guess I can't say I learnednothing- I did learn what some random fiction writer who is jealous of the bunch of pervs who went around researching sex imagined it would be like.  And then I learned what this guy fantasized it would be like, and then I learned all of the sexploits this guy wished he was a part of.  Oy, disGUSTing.  And yet... and yet... I refused to give up.  I gave up on the last two books simply because I was bored with gratuitous lusty scenes, what if I missed some profundity about IU??  What if I missed the whole point, that this guy realized how pathetic he was and eventually gave us some sort of moral lesson?  I was BEGGING for a moral lesson!!  Anything besides orgy after- yes, I said it- horrible, desperate, disgusting orgy!!

Wait.  I have to say something nice about the book.  Hmm.  Give me a minute.  Well, give me a few minutes.  Okay, I got it.  He never did that nasty romance-novel-in-detail description of the acts that were going on.  There were no pulsing... uh... no heaving... uh... well, no sweaty... at least, I don't think so... jeez, I wasn't listening that close, I just wanted it over.  But it wasn't graphic.  I'll give the author credit for being vague with his descriptions.  

But that's ALL I'll give him.  This book was a waste of time.  Please don't read it.  Please, please, don't read it.  I can't believe I lost 13 hours of my life to this.  (13 discs... I just kept hoping for redemption...) 

Wait, I did learn something.  I learned that it is okay to give up on a book.  Some of them I might not like.  And it's okay if they're not my cup of tea.

Some just suck.