K-Pax Like most people (I imagine), I was first introduced to K-Pax via the 2001 film of the same name starring Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges. I hadn’t even realized until some time later that it was based upon a 1995 novel by Gene Brewer. Though I generally hate comparing books and movies, I will do so to a limited extent here because I think that the movie highlights some of the book’s failings.
Shades of Grey Jasper Fforde has accomplish a lot in a relatively short period of time. His first novel, The Eyre Affair, was published in 2001, and in the 9 years since, he has published an additional seven novels, with announced plans for 4 more. I liked The Eyre Affair when I read it three years ago, and at the time I criticized it for being a bit short on plot and long on context. With the benefit of hindsight, I realize that Fforde writes series more than he writes books, and that the world-building in Book #1 always pays dividends later on.
I should have been smarter, then, in my initial disappointment with Shades of Grey—not with the plot, which was fascinating, but with the ending, which was frustrating in the extreme; it was only after I finished and fumed a bit did I do some research and find out that Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron is only the first in a planned trilogy. This makes me feel better, though I am now emotionally-invested enough in the characters to be required to (wait for and) read the forthcoming sequels.
I am wont to using this word a lot, in part because it’s a neat word and in part because it’s so useful: three forms, all the same. The only downfall is that people who don’t know any better tend to think I’m saying “want” (even when you open the throat and do the short ‘o’ like ‘pot’), which is often close enough to get the meaning across, but a far cry from correct.
Wont comes from the Old English wunian—”to dwell, be accustomed”—which itself from the Proto-Germanic *wun- (“to be content, to rejoice”); in other words, the rallying call of homebodies and armchair tourists everywhere. You can still see it in the Germanic languages: the Germans have wohnen and the Dutch have wonen. For a while (the late 19th century is the last period from which I can find examples—e.g. Sir Richard Burton), the word was also in American English as “won” and “wone.”
Want, by contrast comes to us from the Nordic vant (“wanting, deficient”) in a fairly straightforward transformation. Interestingly, this word is related to our verb “to wane” via the Old English wanian (“to diminish”) and Middle English wanen. The prefix wan- in Germanic language tends to act as a pejorative. The Dutch waan, for instance, which is similar to the Middle Dutch and Old English wan-, and all of which were ultimately from the Proto-German *wan[o]- and Proto-Indo-European *we-no-, both of which indicating a lacking, absence, or deficit.
These two words, therefore, mean very different (and in some cases opposite) things. The first indicates habit or contentment, and the second indicates a dearth or desire. I suppose one could technically be wont to want—that is, accustomed to being without—but that’s not a phrase I hear very often.
The Unnamed I was suitably impressed with Joshua Ferris’ debut novel, And Then We Came to the End, which was something of a black comedy. Its sometimes-serious contents were often overshadowed by the possibilities for humor or darksome whimsy when writing about an office environment, a subject which probably gained its cultural penchant for public mockery with the rise of the Dilbert comic strip.
I was surprised—though I clearly should not have been—how much Ferris’ sophomore effort, The Unnamed differed. Stripped of the inherently satirical context, Ferris’ writing is actually quite bleak—in fact, I don’t believe it is an exaggeration to say that this new book is one of the saddest and most depressing pieces of literature I have read in recent memory.