She's just not that into you.

Unrequited love can be painful depressing and sometimes dangerous. In This Sweet Sickness by Patricia Highsmith nothing good comes from David Kesley's unrequited love for his precious Annabelle. David is a scientist who lives a quiet lonely life Monday through Friday in a boarding house. But on the weekends he goes to the house that he bought for Annabelle and imagines what life could be like with her and if he were a man named William Neumeister. For whatever reason David doesn't want anyone to know about his house and his burning desire to be married to the already married Annabelle.

He writes to her and sometimes she responds with polite letters that are very read between the lines for him just to go away. David just doesn't get it and soon he starts to piss off Annabelle's husband Gerald. One weekend at David's secret home Gerald manages to find him, he wants to advise David to back off for good. Well a fight ensues and Gerald ends up dead, using his secret alias David turns Gerald's body into the police and explains it was all an accident. The one snag is that a girl named Effie is in love with David and knows about his house, she puts two and two together and tells him she knows that he is William Neumeister. From there it all goes downhill, determined to make Annabelle his wife he keeps bothering her and his life spins out of control. He starts drinking more and blacks out and can't remember what he's done. And that Effie chick and his friend Wes just won't leave him alone, and soon enough Effie turns up dead.

Rest in peace

I normally don't comment on celeb stuff here but when I found out that Brittany Murphy passed away from cardiac arrest at the age of 32, well that just filled me with sorrow. In recent years she starved herself and became a bottled blond. But I'll always remember her as the sweet giggly girls she portrayed in Clueless and Drop Dead Gorgeous. Also her amazing performance in one of my all time favorite films Freeway, where she played Reese Witherspoons junkie lesbian bunkmate. May she finally rest in peace and her soul find the comfort it was looking for in this lifetime. You will be missed, and may this be the last death of 2009.

Money can buy her love, but only for a limited time.

I think gold digging is the world's second oldest profession, My Cousin Rachel by Daphne Du Maurier just proves my point. Set back in the olden days, this is the story of Philip Ashley. He was orphaned as an infant and his cousin Ambrose raised him to be like him. A man's man, a confirmed bachelor. Neither Ambrose nor Philip feel the need for women in their house or running their estate. Ambrose feels this so much his house is run by men. Philip narrates this story of love jealously and revenge.

Ambrose in failing health leaves his beloved land and estate in the winter to travel to warmer climates. This year he chose Italy, and he meets a long lost relation of theirs, cousin Rachel. In a series of letters written to Philip, Ambrose describes how is taken with the witty intelligent Rachel. He says that she is not like other women and isn't bothersome at all, he quickly marries her much to Philip's chagrin. Philip has already decided to hate this woman, not because she will become the rightful heir in his will if anything should ever happen to him, but because she has taken away his beloved cousin Ambrose.

Later very troubling letters arrive to him from Ambrose saying that he has mysteriously fallen ill and that Rachel watches him constantly and urging Philip to arrive to Florence immediately. When Philip finally arrives to the villa where Rachel and Ambrose live, it is too late. Ambrose is dead, right then and there Philip vows revenge on the evil harpy that is his cousin Rachel. Shortly after returning home he gets word from his godfather that Rachel has arrived for a visit and would like to meet with him. He agrees only to destroy her, but when she arrives she is not the evil wench he expected. Instead she is a beautiful women of dignity and manners. The longer she stays the deeper in love he falls with her.

So worried that she will leave him to go back to Florence he devises a plan and three weeks before his twenty fifth birthday when he officially inherits it all he finds Ambrose's unsigned will and decides to give everything, the money the land and the family jewels to her. So grateful is she with receiving the jewelry she makes love to him. The next day when she learns she is now the owner of it all she becomes cold to Philip, in his anger over a misunderstanding about her agreeing to marry him Philip tries to strangle her. Shortly after this he becomes mysterious ill, just the way Ambrose did.

So is Rachel a cold blooded and calculating murderer? Or is it all just a coincidence that Philip becomes gravely ill and she nurses him back to health? And does her various knowledge of plants and all the harm and good they can do point to her guilt? While its left up the reader to decide, I say yes, she is a killer and that money is the only way to her heart.

Wurst, Wurster and Wurstist

When I first read about Anita Berber and her antics I thought that a book about her would be an interesting read. Well I thought wrong The Seven Addictions and Five Professions of Anita Berber by Mel Gordon just isn't that interesting. Anita Berber was the queen of the Weimar cabaret scene a scandal hound a naked dancer and all around drug fiend. I wanted to read more about her life instead this book reads more like a program of her many dance recitals. I found the descriptions of her many dances pieces to be a yawn and there was very little insight into her fascinating life. She is a larger than life character and her life should have been written about more thoroughly. This book is all sorts of boring, and its a big stinky mess like sauer kraut.

Now I aint saying she's a gold digger... um actually yes I am.

Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham mixes religion, art, philosophy and sexual obsession into a long winded story that at times feels like it will never end. We follow Philip Carey from the age of nine when he is orphaned and leaves to live at his uncle's vicarage to one disastrous turn after another. His uncle is cold and uncaring, his aunt Louisa is a submissive waif of a woman who loves Philip like a son but doesn't know how to. When it comes time for Philip to have a proper education he is sent away to a boarding school where he is tormented and teased daily for his club foot. During his school years we follow the unhappy youth who dreams of breaking away from the drudgery of school to become his own master. After a falling out with a friend he so idolized he begs his uncle to allow him abroad in Germany to live and study at his own leisure. After his time is up his uncle and aunt decide he must choose a profession so he decides to become a chartered accountant. But after a year of this he decides he loathes working in an office and decides to go to Paris to study art.

In Paris Philip studies art and then realizes he's not as talented as he thought so then he goes back home to the vicarage and decides to follow his father's profession and become a surgeon. Now at this point I'm wondering when in the hell does this Mildred lady come into play, because that's the Of Human Bondage I'm familiar with. Well finally after striking up an acquaintance with a fellow student who wants Philip to take tea with him so he can put the moves on a waitress he fancies we meet her. Mildred is cold and indifferent to both men and leaves a bad taste in Philip's mouth. Philip decides that she is sickly looking with a green pallor to her skin and just plain vulgar and insolent. When I read about the green pallor I was secretly hoping for some zombie carnage, but alas it was not to be. Instead Philip tells his friend never to waste his time on her, but he has a burning desire to get even so he goes back to the tea shop repeatedly. Mildred is always the same with him until one night he sketches her and leaves it behind on her table. She then takes a slight interest in him, this just adds fuel to his fire and he asks her out. He then decides that he loves her madly, only problem is Mildred doesn't like him that much. After a painful courtship Mildred tells him that she's engaged and he decides to stop seeing her.

So time passes and gets back on track at school, he finds a female companion that gives him the companionship and sexual release he desires. Then one night when he returns home he finds Mildred waiting for him, she's in trouble and wants Philip's help. When he sees her he decides that he still loves her so and does all he can do to help her. As it turns out she never married at all and was being kept as a mistress until she got knocked up. So Philip pays for her expenses and helps her prepare for the coming of the baby. Its evident from day one that she's just using him for money, that gutter snipe! But Philip really is stupid for spending his money on the slut. She has the baby lies a lot about her situation and then after meeting a friend of Philip's decides she loves his friend. She leaves him again and Philip is devastated.

So time passes again, Philip is still studying medicine and guess what? He sees Mildred one night hooking. He decides she's a vile strumpet but still wants to help, so he takes her home and tells her that she can keep the house for room and board until she can get on her feet. Well Mildred doesn't want a job or Philip really, she likes his money but decides to trap him into marriage. But Philip no longer loves her or desires her, and this causes a row unlike any other when he tells her that she disgusts him. So Mildred ruins his belongings and runs out on him. Now Philip is alone and due to a bad investment is broke. So now we suffer right along with him when he's homeless and starving. At this point I was annoyed and really wanted the dynamic of Mildred in the story again, not a Dickensian tale of woe. But of course everything things slowly go Philip's way until one night he is summoned again by Mildred. She's back to the ho stroll and is sick with the consumption. Philip helps her and tells her to get a J O B but she'd rather be a trollop and alas Mildred is out of his life again this time for good.

At this point the story goes on and on til the eventual out come which you see coming a mile away. This story would work so much better if it were a just a straight story about Philip and Mildred, but Maugham throws in so much homo eroticism and hot air that it makes this story feel unbearable at times. Maugham really needed to be told about the K.I.S.S theory. Keep It Simple Stupid. But the writing is beautiful and Philip is a fully realized character and that alone makes this story worth reading.

Love this cat!

Sometimes I need to de-stress by reading children's books. I don't care if I'm too old, if its a story about a cute animal, especially one about a Siamese cat then I'll read it. I loved Skippyjon Jones and Skippyjon Jones in the Doghouse by Judy Schachner. I had a Siamese that looked a lot like Skippyjon so I had to read them. Skippyjon Jones is a Siamese cat who thinks like a Chihuahua, when his mom sends him to his room to think like a Siamese cat his imagination springs into life and he becomes Skippito, and helps his Chihuahua friends out in madcapped adventures. The drawings are beautiful and the stories are fun. Recommended for children of all ages.

She was an American girl...

Ah an expatriates life, smoky jazz clubs lost passports and a prostitution ring. Say what? A prostitution ring? Well its all in The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy. Sally Jay Gorce is an all American girl, blond petite and just all around annoying and a bit dumb. At thirteen she runs away from home to become a bullfighter, after being sent back home her rich uncle Rodger strikes up an agreement that once she finishes college he will help finance her life for a short time so she can live, meet people she's not been introduced to and to get into some airheaded trouble. We first meet up with Sally in the streets of Paris going somewhere wearing an evening dress in broad daylight with shockingly pink hair. Oddly enough she runs into some former acquaintance named Larry Keevil and decides she's in love. Only problem is that because she's decided she's in love with a man she hardly knows she forgets all about her appointment with her lover Teddy.

Teddy is Italian middle aged and is married with a mistress and Sally on the side. He's also some kind of worker at the Italian embassy. She meets Teddy when he almost hits her with his car and I guess she decides to use him for sexual experience. So she decides she's gaga over Larry and its time to throw Teddy aside. He tries to rape her when she breaks off and swears she'll never talk to him again, but oh wait later in the story she does. Sally also slums around with a group of fellow artistic expats called the Hardcore. All they do is drink and talk bs in the local cafes of Paris. She gets some acting gigs, drinks a lot loses her passport and sleeps around. She gets herself entangled with Larry who's really nothing more than a poorman's pimp and chaos ensues.

This could have been a better story, maybe if Sally wasn't written in such a obnoxious stereotypical nineteen fifties voice I would have like it a little bit better. Or maybe not. I guess for a book written in late fifties about a twenty one year old girl making her mark on the world it had a lot of foreshadowing of what was to come. Maybe even Betty Friedan was a fan. I think if I lived in a more repressed time this story would have made a better impression on me but instead it left me bored and a little disturbed over how many times Sally Jay was assaulted, the assaults are treated like every day occurrences. All in all I found this story pointless much like Sally Jay's life.