Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

Current book: An American Tragedy
Pages read: 217-301

I feel like a bad chronicler of literature, but it's astonishing how little happens in how many pages of this book. Basically, in 84 pages, Clyde languished for a while in his menial job, went to dinner at his uncle's house, got promoted to floor manager of the collar-stamping division (the place where they stamp labels onto the collars that say what sizes they are), and, after hiring a poor farm girl as a collar-stamper, subsequently fell in love with her (which is, of course, against company policy).

I wish I had thrilling commentary to offer you about it, but I just don't. There's a huge amount of description of every small event that causes it to extend to dozens of pages, but you're left without a deep understanding of the characters or the situations they're in. It's not bad, exactly, just mediocre and uninspiring.

Clyde is still pretty uninteresting, though hardly a true transgressor, and his cousin Gilbert doesn't like him because he thinks he's counting on the family name to get him ahead (which he is, really). Clyde's new girl, though poor, actually seems nice (though her name is Roberta, which is only a small step up from Hortense).

Basically, my overwhelming feeling at this point is, "Eh."