MA DA's a nutter. Radio rental. He'd dae anythin for a laugh so he wid; went doon the shops wi a perra knickers on his heid, tellt the wifie next door we'd won the lottery and were flittin tae Barbados, but that wis daft stuff compared tae whit he's went and done noo. He's turnt intae a Buddhist.
"Oh, no," I thought to myself. Surely the author was not going to go in this vein for much longer? I flipped the pages to the middle of the book. The dialect was still in full force. I glanced to my right, hoping to quickly grab another book from my backpack, but there was a well-built person already sitting down in the aisle seat. I didn't feel like asking him to move just so I could get a more amenable book.
So, with nothing else to read on the plane journey, I did end up reading Buddha Da. The dialect that was initially so off-putting turns out to be crucial. You never lose track of the fact that this was a working class father who upped and decided to become a Buddhist. It turned out to be a wonderfully observed, funny book.
Your persistence is inspiring as I have a low tolerance and little patience for books written in vernacular. Once upon a time I spoke in salt-of-the-earth Okie vernacular. Its starting to come back with my return. It is tied to a way of being here. I don't mind it -- still not sure I could read an entire book that way though.
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