Seemingly Entitled

A couple of months ago, I had lunch with a friend who I hadn't seen in years because he moved to Upstate New York. We were discussing how our lives have changed since when we last saw each other, and I was telling him how I had an epiphany - that in my life right now, I have had a change in priorities. I told him how now I value experience more than material things. Over the years, I have realized that material things fade, but memories of life experiences can never leave you. No one can ever take those away from you. He told me that he saw a big difference in me, and in those years when he knew me, he thought I valued too much emphasis on material things. I laughed his comments off, since I know it was very true. So I was very surprised to get a package from him Christmas time. He sent me a book, "The Privileges," by Jonathan Dee. He told me he thought of me while he read it, and told me that he wanted me to read the book, so he gave me his copy, and then greeted me Merry Christmas. 


The first ting I will say about the book is that it is so impeccable written. Sentences flow like golden champagne - they sparkle, they have zing, they have elegance. Voices change in mid-paragraphs and they are done in such an organic way that you feel every single note of every single feeling conveyed. It is a modern morality tale of money, greed, and how the rich live. I will not pretend and say I am familiar with how these lives are lived, but at the same time, it held no big revelations wither. Mr. Dee fleshes out the four main characters in the book pretty well, yet we somehow don't really get too close to them. And he may not have the best fondness for them either, and yes they are morally bankrupt. I thought I didn't to read a story about a family of privileged, seemingly-entitled people, and right you are they are as unsympathetic - and pathetic - as I thought they were going to be. Yet, I was immediately drawn to them, caring enough to see what would happen to their lives. In the end, nothing major really happens to them, and we don't really know much more, yet I found myself very entertained by the novel, and...it made me think. I devoured the whole book in a little more than a day, and I even dreamt about them. When I turned the last page over, I even missed them...

BC/2