Real and Imagined

After I read The Midnight Zoo by Sonya Hartnett (months ago), I wrote myself a note comparing it to Life of Pi by Yann Martel and, hurrah, I found the note earlier this week. So, here's my insightful thought:

Like Life of Pi, The Midnight Zoo asks readers to decide what is real and what is imagined. Are the protagonists imagining what is happening to cope with the horrific external circumstances? Or has all of reality turned upside down because of those events?

The Lying Carpet by David Lucas does that too, though in a much lighter way -- no man-eating tigers or Nazis.

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The Little Things

I’m not perfect. I’m certainly not a perfectionist. I don’t even have any OCD tendencies (I’ve taken quizzes!). But, as a former copy editor, I do tend to correct mistakes (especially when watching television). It’s a habit. I bring this up because I’ve been bothered by things I’ve read in two books I recently had the opportunity to review. They’re somewhat little things, but I think someone should have checked on them. Like I said, I’m a former copy editor. It was part of my job to check things. But my personality is also such that I’m not always very assertive (luckily, I worked with very, very talented writers and editors who made my job easier). A story that still bothers me: My boss had written the phrase “a tough road to hoe” in one of his columns. I knew it was “row to hoe,” but I figured, he’s the boss, maybe he wants to use “road” because he was talking about paths we take. I wasn’t really brave enough to ask the boss if he knew he had gotten it wrong. Silly on my par...

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