Trading a Vacuous Caper for a Delightful Destination

I threw a book in the trash bin yesterday. This is not something I do lightly. I know first-hand the effort required to put together 300 pages of polished syntax, and the attachment a writer develops to the product of their endeavors. But alas, there are plenty of books in circulation that beg to be composted along with the rotting potato peels and moldy bread scraps.

That particular book cost me nothing, though the cover price was listed as $24.95. I had picked it up at a monthly used book giveaway hosted by my local YMCA. The title was interesting, and the cover blurbs sounded promising: "A bubbly novel with amusing banter and surprising moments of poignancy." "A comic caper…a fun ride." But apparently the definition of amusing has changed since I last checked.

Call me old-fashioned, but when an author can't make it past page two without damning their Creator and flinging out an exceptionally offensive obscenity, I make certain assumptions about their competence as a communicator. Are they too lazy to expand their vocabulary past sophomoric locker room trash talk? Do they presume that their own low standards apply to real world adult conversations? Have they utterly failed to expose themselves to skilled word-crafting, to the classics? And do they now simply settle complacently for the unsophisticated cliché, the crass exhortation, the offensive jolt to the cultured reader's sensibilities? Are they desperate to distract from a lack of substance?

After I'd experienced the exhilaration of hearing this tome hit the waste basket with a solid thud, I picked up one of the other books I'd plucked from the Y's offerings, Charles Kuralt's America—also a hardcover, also priced at $24.95. Ah, the blessed relief of being washed over with intelligent, meaningful prose.

Charles Kuralt, as you may recall, once toured America as a correspondent for CBS, and became "…one of our premier chroniclers, a man who…helped us to see and celebrate our country in a way we never had before." His On the Road series and Sunday Morning installments took him, and us, to all corners of the United States to interview locals in an exploration of the good and decent, the unique, the undiscovered gems.

Charles Kuralt's America did not disappoint, nor did it slap me in the face with needless vulgarities. It didn't need to, not with chapter openings like this one:

"It is a speck of rock in a pastel sea. Palms whisper. Songbirds sing. The place has never known a frost. People spend their days at rest in wicker chairs on gingerbread verandas. Flowers bloom all year long and love is free. Without a hint of irony, everybody calls it Paradise…Key West seduced me and changed me." Kind of makes you want to buy a plane ticket, doesn't it?

I'm so glad I cancelled my previous reservation for that "comic caper." Whispering palms beckon, their voices a siren's call. Ah, yes. Here's to exploring those unearthed gems.