50/1001!!

It's cause for a little celebration! I have reached 50 books read from the list, boosting my confidence a smidgen to the possibility of actually completing all of the books at some point in my lifetime.

The fiftieth book was The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. The novel fit in with the usual style in the interest of the person whom I received it (one such previous book received is most notably, Saturday) -- minimal plot pervaded by a stillness short of despair. Loneliness blanketed every aspect of Kundera's characters and my reaction was a pitied distaste at their incapabilities of being happy. It isn't that I needed them to be in fanciful relationships, I appreciate that there was turmoil in even the truest of "love", but I think mainly I just couldn't agree with most of the ways that the characters reasoned. Tereza, especially, did not appeal to me as I was incredibly turned off by her weakness. In Sabina I found the most connection and her hold on Franz as an idealic ghost resounded in me of its purity and beauty.
It was striking to me that the most emotional part of the story was represented by Tereza's love for a dog. I'm not quite sure how I feel about this...at first I was displeased by it because it seemed to me ill-fitting and reaching out to some sort of niche category of melodramatic (though powerful) stories about man's love for animals, but now I find value in the dog's role. He is, after all, the only character without any ugliness whatsoever. That is true to life.

For my next read, I was dead-set on reading Carl Sagan's "Contact", but having gone to both a used and new book store today (which, as a sidenote, reaffirmed my infinite love for bookstores which have the magical power to inflate me with the warmest of happiness) and was unable to find it, I think I am going to have to order it online. I didn't want to waste valuable reading time while I wait, however, so I bought Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. I see at least a few nights of being scared alone in my apartment coming on.