Midnight in Europe by Alan Furst: To continue the thread from the last issue, this book is basically a romance novel for men. It’s set during WWII, which is to men what Regency England is for female romance readers. MiE follows the formula set out by Furst’s other books. There is a man-not young, not old; a civilian, but knows how to handle himself. He attracts mysterious and uninhibited women without giving it too much thought. He lives in a fog-draped European city, usually Paris, where he eats succulent brasserie dinners and smokes a lot of cigarettes. His decency and patriotism lead him into a shadowy corner of the war from which he will eventually emerge safely regardless of the success or failure of his cause.
In my opinion none of Furst’s recent books come close to the greatness of the darker, denser Night Soldiers that kicked off this series. There was some genuine moral ambiguity in the first few books that he seems less interested in now. But these books are atmospheric and well-paced, sometimes that’s enough.
Milkman by Anna Burns: “Original, funny, disarmingly oblique and unique,” said the Guardian. Great, sounds like a real page turner! The humor in this book, about an 18 year old girl in Northern Ireland who catches the eye of a high ranking paramilitary, comes from the grim absurdity of living in an community “immersed long-term on the physical and energetic planes in the dark mental energies.” But the fear and distrust that hung over the book like heavy malevolent clouds didn’t always feel entirely alien. When the unnamed narrator first meets the Milkman she is deeply unsettled by his menacing but detached manner towards her while also aware that by the standards of her community she has no ground for complaint; a feeling that I think a lot of women would recognize:
At the time, age eighteen, having been brought up in a hair-trigger society where the ground rules were – if no physically violent touch was being laid upon you, and no outright verbal insults were being levelled at you, and no taunting looks in the vicinity either, then nothing was happening, so how could you be under attack from something that wasn’t there? At eighteen I had no proper understanding of the ways that constituted encroachment. I had a feeling for them, an intuition, a sense of repugnance for some situations and some people, but I did not know intuition and repugnance counted, did not know I had a right not to like, not to have to put up with, anybody and everybody coming near.
Outputs
October was the month when, with a few notable exceptions as described below, I started to loathe not just cooking but the very idea of having to eat at all. Food now falls into three categories- those I am revolted by; those I am tired of, and those that I want but cannot have for one reason or another, pandemic-related or not. I know I am very lucky that we were able to get groceries delivered in the early days and now have access to safe and slightly less financially ruinous pickup, but it means I have been eating the same 40 foods for six months since Instacart does not lend itself to happenstance. I don’t think it’s even a question of looking up some new recipes or trying a new ingredient- thinking about meals is just a drag, even when we’re ordering in. We get takeout just as often as we ate in restaurants in the beforetimes so it’s not even like I’m cooking that much more. I might have burnt myself out a little in the spring months when I was tracking all our nonperishables in a notebook and took masochistic pride in systematically working through all of the things I was most dreading having to deal with so they wouldn’t go to waste. At least now that summer’s over I will be less likely to buy unfamiliar or fiddly vegetables in a fit of good intentions, only to watch them wilt into slick black sludge in the crisper.
Condiment Corner
This week I did something that I was trying to resist for as long as long as possible: I bought a condiment at least in part to write about it. To be clear, I still have quite a few chili pastes left to cover but the time when I will have run out of condiments to remark on is, if not imminent, at least in sight. I felt a little guilty buying yet another jar to squeeze onto the refrigerator door but it was not an entirely frivolous purchase because this stuff is so good it makes me wish I liked more things that go with mustard. I don’t pick up much horseradish but it’s got a great tangy kick. I put it on toast, top it with sharp cheddar cheese, and run it under the broiler and it is a golden bubbling slice of heaven.
😂Romance novel for men. Still, I might read it. Also, lockstep with you on pandemic food stages and dread. We got no takeout until 3 weeks ago. So I was making my own everything, and was feeling very prideful in the early days as well over planning and usage. Now I am eating nachos - and feeding my child who will eat nachos - as regular meals. AND getting no joy out of it.