Heart of Meatballs

Now that I am no longer teaching English, and I seem to have lost my taste for reading fiction (it'll come back, right?  I'm not going to only read sociology and behavioral economics books for the rest of my days, right?), I sometimes wonder if I've lost my word nerd mojo.  What would I do without my ability to connect anything happening in real life to a character I read about once?  Develop social skills?  The horror!  The horror!

Just when I fear that I have lost touch with the world of English geekdom, I have a moment of pure English nerdery with my son.

For example, I was reading LO one of my old favorites, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.

(And no, I have not seen the movie, nor will I.  There are some things in life that are too perfect to make a movie of.)

Apropos of nothing, I found myself having the following conversation with LO:

Me:  "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs has a frame narrative, just like Heart of Darkness."

LO:  "Ba?"

Me:  "Yes, I do find it interesting that Grandpa, unlike Charlie Marlow, is presented as an unreliable narrator.  As much as I'd love to believe Grandpa had actually been to Chewandswallow."

LO:  "Ba?"

Me:  "You make a good point, LO.  Marlow did admit to his own unreliability in the fact that he lied to Kurtz's fiancee at the end.  But overall, we knew we could believe him."

LO: "Ba?"

Me:  "True, the coda in Cloudy with the hill of snow that smelled liked mashed potatoes does offer a hint of Grandpa's reliability.  Maybe it wasn't a tall tale after all."

LO:  [attempted to put book in his mouth.]


So, I guess I don't need to worry about my English mojo.  If I want to have more literary conversations, I just need to wait a few more years until LO is metaphorically eating books, rather than literally doing so.