Call Me Spy

Since I was writing about my 'collection' of 'stuff,' there was an article in the paper a few days ago that struck me as timely. It was about men who collect vacuum cleaners. There are actually people who LOVE vacuum cleaners and vacuuming. These guys don't just own one, or two, or ten vacuum cleaners. They own HUNDREDS. Lord help their wives. Of course, they might put up with this strange habit since their husbands love cleaning....

To see how rare this type of thing is, I googled vacuum cleaner collectors. Wow. 195,000 entries. LOL. And there is a vacuum cleaner collector club. And Yahoogroup. And museum. Imagine that. Only in America.

It almost made me want to give one of my SEALs a secret vacuum cleaner collection. Yes, yes, sometimes these things tempt me. It will never work, of course, unless I really want to write a funny SEAL book. You know, write a bunch of cool SEALs and then, for the last one, what the heck, make him a metrosexual. Heh. He would sit through the whole Oscars show and critique the fashions. He would watch American Idol and vote desperately. He would nag. And oh, have his mom tape every episode of Friends. Heh.

Of course, when Linda Howard went a little bit outside the box and wrote about a bimbo ex-cheerleader heroine in FIRST person, thousands of readers went ballistic. I'm always amazed at how many readers do not like first person stories. The reasons vary, but for some reason, I don't have the problem, whether it's all the "I"s or the problem of "not being able to be in other characters' heads."

Maybe it's because when I started reading, it'd always been from one person's POV. Not just in romance...even the classics. My favorite literary books were in first POV--Wuthering Heights and Great Expectations. And in modern bestsellers, Anne Rice's Interview With A Vampire, Leon Urich's Trinity, Katherine Neville's The Eight and Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum come into mind. Wow, four of my top ten favorite books are first POV! Interesting. These books didn't lose an ounce of tension, nor did they seem limited, to me.

I must admit, romances lose something in first person. Linda Howard's To Die For wasn't quite as sexy as her usual sweaty towel scenes. I mean...it doesn't seem right to read: "He put his mouth on my nipple and sucked gently, and then his hand slid down between..."...you get what I mean ;-). It sounds like a letter to Penthouse magazine!

Perhaps that's why Evanovich's Stephanie Plum doesn't have any real sex scenes? It simply kills me that I don't get to read all the details about Ranger's expertise ;-). I bet he has a collection of vacuum cleaners in the Bat Cave.

Have you read a good first person book, romance or otherwise, lately?

Psst. Besides that wonderful first line, Melville's Moby Dick is the most BORING first person book that I had the misfortune to be forced to read and give a class lecture on. The chapter assigned to me (and this could only happen to me) was about a whale's dick. I'm serious. The whole chapter was about the size and use of the whale's phallus. Trust me--it wasn't a pretty chapter. It will make you want to take up vacuuming for a hobby.

Oh double psst. I made that class into a stand up comedy routine, to which the staid and serious professor didn't take too kindly and gave me a C. Ah well. Some profs are pricks. Heh.

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