I saw a TV ad for the Westin Hotels chain that paid an indirect compliment to my favorite book. We see a guy in bed, flopping around but apparently comfortable. The titles read something to the effect of "We'll give you a reason... not to get to page two." And then we see the book he's cast aside, Ulysses by James Joyce.

(In, I might add, one of those overtooled leather bindings, instead of one of the original editions.)

Now I think the message the sponsor was going for was, "you won't want to read a stuffy old book when you're in our hotel, you'll want to sleep." But I take it to be, "even with the greatest work of 20th-century literature in English in your hand, you'll drift off to dreamland." Not much of a compliment, but I'll take what I can get.

posted: 7:39:50 AM