The English Major

Instead of grading papers, we read Jim Harrison's novel The English Major this weekend while bored to death at the swim meet. The main character is 60, but we really relate to him. His wife cheats on him at a high school reunion, then leaves him, sells all of their property, and gives him 10 percent. He, of course, just accepts this as the price of doing business and getting predictably screwed over. He decides to jump in the car and just drive around the country and contemplate being an old geezer. Along the way, he takes up with one of his ex-students, a young and beautiful and smart and crazy nymphomaniac, even though he really just wants to be alone and think about women and farming and dogs and birds and fish and the stupidity of cell phones. At first, the beautiful young nymphomaniac makes him feel young again. But, true to nature, she just makes him really feel his age after a while. Here is our favorite line from this novel: "A woman in a hammock is always faithful. It's a question of physics not morals." It's not really a great novel, but, like we said, we relate to it. And that is a pretty good line (actually two sentences, but whatever).

Big Donkeys' Unlikely Prediction of the Week: Royals sign Furcal for four years, 48 milion.