Don't Believe Everything You Read

("She can't find anything good to say about anything," you're probably thinking. Not true. It's just that the things I like and the people I hold most dear do not get written about on this footpath leading to the dirt road leading to the service road leading to the Interstate going to that tawdry freak show called the Internet. Thus, I am forced to blather about the negative, and blather I do, to my heart's content. Read it and weep, or don't read it at all.)

The other day, before I cracked some of my ribs and lost all interest in living, I was reading an article in the current issue of National Geographic TRAVELER that attempts to describe the Berkshires--a ho-hum mountain range in Western Massachusetts-- as a destination worthy of note. Part of the sell job included a brief review of Ethan Frome, my favorite novel of all time written by Edith Wharton in 1911. It tells the somber story of a man trapped by circumstance in his rural New England town, first caring for his ailing parents and then for his ailing wife, who has a glimpse of happiness basking in the reflected glow of his wife's young cousin who comes to live with them, before tragedy strikes and everyone ends up crippled and more miserable than ever, forever. Before the horrid event, Ethan and the cousin might or might not have had sex, or what passed for sex between unmarried people in 1911--maybe they just hugged, or kissed, or thought they did-- the reader doesn't know. Anyway, the magazine describes the book as "a page-turner about adultery, set during a blizzard in a fictional town inspired by Lenox."

Ethan Frome a page-turner about adultery--hahahahahahahahahaha and give me a break. Sex sells. Yeah, we know. But sometimes it's just rude.