Maggie's Farm

Now I know why nobody likes me. I never read the first two books (nauseating, scanning the back and random pages) and I detested the third.

Really, Bird Dog, I don't care how frazzled you are with the party preparations (and have fun,by the way!)you've read better books. For example, reading all the Narnia books is a far more pleasurable and character-improving way to spend some evenings. Or the Confessions of Augustine ("Lord, make me chaste, but not yet...") or the Book of Job. But these pathetic Yanks, with their watered down drivel designed to help people keep their faith enough in a box so that it will never threaten their ability to be commercial pirates. Really, I would have expected better of you! Your dog might do better, in fact I know he would...

You need more than a junior year abroad to become civilized. More than the occasional reverential tourist trip. Those things are good, but not enough. America is wonderful, a city on a hill, the best place on earth, etc. but its literary and cultural traditions are second-rate at best. You need years of the Spanish Inquisition (NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition), bloody religious wars, peasant rebellions, the firebombing of Hamburg, the French resistance, etc. If you can live through that, perhaps you will have something useful to say about the conduct of life.