a Fate Worse Than Death

If you have been slogging around in the Comment Sewers of Vleeptron or p2lab, you may have discovered that Mamagiggle and I are engaged in Vleeptron's first Flame War, and I have instructed Vleeptron's attorneys, Seebark, Lambert & Ku (specifically Ms. Ku, Esq., whom I call by her first name, which, oddly enough, is Sue) to sue Mamagiggle for stealing Vleeptron's perversion troilism and writing a lovely poem about it on her blog.

In her defense, Mamagiggle claims she knew all about troilism before she ever took the Zeta Beam to Vleeptron, nyah nyah.

Well. These matters will eventually -- maybe nine years from now -- be settled by twelve of our fellow citizens who were not even smart enough to weasel out of jury duty.

Specifically, here is Mamagiggle's response to my threat to have Sue Ku sue you:

Um, I don't steal, I paid for that knowledge with my innocence.
Your attorneys can kiss my lily. :)

Lost Innocence. We are back to That Stuff again, specifically the Female Variety.

An innocent young female named Tifani or Kimberli or Amber or Heather naively asks, "What's troilism?" and the next thing anybody knows, two carnival workers passing through town named Jimmy and Red, and a woman named Cecilia who works for the Turnpike Authority, they rent a room at the Route 212 Motel ("Free HBO & Cinemax"), and they put on a Live Troilism Demonstration.

Kimberli learns a new word, and her life is Roont. A terrible price to pay for increasing your Word Power Skills.

A century ago, people had a phrase for such catastrophes. They would say: "She suffered a Fate Worse Than Death."

Look. I'm just a hairy smelly guy, drinking Budweiser and sitting on the sofa scratching my ass and watching Ajax beat the crap out of Utrecht on my new Hi-Def Flat Screen Plasma TV, and re a Fate Worse Than Death, it is highly likely that I Just Don't Get It.

But Edith Wharton was a woman, and She Got It. Bigtime.

I shouldn't have even been allowed to read her novel, "The House of Mirth." And when I started reading it, I should have got to Page 4 and then thrown it away, or donated it to the Salvation Army, or used it as a beverage coaster for my can of Budweiser, so I would not leave a ring on the coffee table.

WARNING: BOB IS COMPLETELY SERIOUS NOW.

Two or five Vleeptroidz may know Bob's Naughty Little Secret: Bob knows a little something about Literature. Just a little. Not much. About Literature, Bob knows the difference between Shit® and Shinola®.

I consider "The House of Mirth" to be the most powerful, and horrifying, of all American novels.

Okay. It's a tie, with Mark Twain's "Pudd'nhead Wilson." And "Benito Cereno" by Herman Melville. They're both about black African slavery.

"The House of Mirth" is about a perfectly free aristocratic high-society educated white woman. She's not even married, so she can do as she pleases. So everything about her should be peaches and cream, a bed of roses, a bowl of cherries, right? Ya think?

DON'T rent the DVD. It's been made into two movies. And they're pretty good, I got no complaints. (If you loved Scully in the X-Files, Gillian Anderson is quite wonderful as the heroine of "The House of Mirth." And so was Geraldine Chaplin.)

But watch the movies AFTER you read this book.

And PLEASE read this book.

It first appeared, one chapter at a time, in Scribner's Magazine, from January to November 1905.

When the last chapter appeared, Scribner's received about 9.3 gazillion letters from all over the English-speaking world.

They all said: NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's about a beautiful young woman who lives in New York City, named Lily Bart.

And that's all I'm going to say about "The House of Mirth."

Except that I stopped watching the football game. I stopped drinking the Budweiser. I got beyond Page 4. I couldn't sleep or eat or do anything until I got to the end of "The House of Mirth."

Also my hair stood on end and turned white, and my eyeballs popped out of their sockets. And when I got to the end, I screamed NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Did I say American novels? Screw that -- "The House of Mirth" is the equal of anything in all the world's literature.

And guess what? It's free and just a mouse-click away!!!! Cliquez ici! Ou ici!

Although I certainly recommend that you buy this horrifying treasure in Book Form, you know, one of those Physical Things, with Pages you can turn. Or borrow it from the Library. This is a real Sit In a Chair and Turn Off the Phone Ringer and Make Everybody Go Away for the Day read.

The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning;
but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.

-- Ecclesiastes 7:4