the last to know what it's all about
Jan. 16th, 2005 11:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iceinyourmusicThe following event takes place between 9:30 and 10 pm. on Saturday:
[The entire livejournal dot com is down - why does this seem like a sure sign of the apocalypse to me?
1) More books.
5. Joan Smith, Don't Leave Me This Way. Found in the 1€ removals bin at the R-street library; based on the review excerpts on the cover, the third venture into crime fiction by a "star of the younger generation" (of 1990).
One of the "most fully realized" "sleuths" in crime fiction today, with a "thoroughly convincing milieu", Loretta Lawson is a lecturer at London University. (One is tempted to make remarks about her name, only it is repeatedly pointed out to us that it is one she has chosen for herself.) She is also working on a literary biography of Edith Wharton, which is to be published by a small independent feminist publishing house (!) partly because it's *spoiler* certain to absolutely shock the academia with the connections Loretta is making between Wharton's sexuality (!) and her novels (!) (what these connections might actually be, is never disclosed, to my great personal disappointment); more specifically, she is *spoiler* working on the annotation. Look for wacky hijinks to ensue when she forgets the source of one of the quotes! (Her wonderful memory prevents her from doing anything so mundane as keeping notes about this stuff.) And we're still not past page 20 or so.
Outside work, Loretta enjoys wearing black (as she is blonde and slender, but mainly blonde), planning to make many Italian-type dinners though hardly ever getting round to it, worrying about her cat, and whipping up a good righteous fury when the article about George Sand's style in a feminist magazine turns out to be about Sand's clothes (!). Sometimes Loretta also likes to "call out ungrammatically" or "press a key to instruct the computer to store the day's work"; passing cars are in the habit of "depositing" specks of dirt on her stockings.
Then *spoiler* she breaks up with her fancy composer boyfriend over a disagreement over the literary merits of crime fiction. I'd be done here, only we're still just on page 100 or so.
And, well, yes, there is a mystery, but it's sidelined, slow-moving, wholly uninteresting, and, if you'll pardon the expression, thoroughly unconvincing. Loretta's contribution towards solving the case, as far as I can tell, consists entirely of steadfastly drinking nothing but Earl Grey tea and eventually *spoiler* getting hit on the head with a hammer (oh, satisfaction!). And *spoiler*, yes, it's exactly who you thought it was.
This was one of those books where the level of badness is such that I have to wonder whether it might not actually be an avant-garde work of such brilliance that I'm just not getting it. I'd look for help, but I seem to have forgotten the name of the book for the moment (I never keep notes on this stuff). (I'm also of two minds about including the useless mulch of this caliber in the reading list, but, for one thing, I read so much of it that I'll never ever make it to 50 within a year if I don't, and for another, I'm making special allowances for cases where the commentary runs longer than the actual novel.)
6. Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife. I recognized the title at the bookstore, one day, because someone recommended this to someone else on lj at some point (who, where, when). And it wasn't bad, it was a good enough read, entertaining, smoothly written, but (at least on the first read) very forgettable, to me. Trying, perhaps, just a bit too hard. Point of confusion: that almost every single one of the bits in German seemed to had mistakes in them, as if completely unedited, or then maybe Rilke wrote very peculiar German, did he? I don't know, though I probably should. (Also, you know, I always hate it in fanfic and pro-fic alike when people put in bits and pieces in another language and then a translation, and it has nothing to do with the natural flow of the thing. Because it's fucking useless, and annoying, and if you must must must put in the foreign language, then leave it as it is. Thank you, good night. Note: Academic texts exempt from this rule; in their case, handy translations of any quotes in 16th century French / ancient Greek / similar in the footnotes would be very much appreciated.)
- And I'm still on page 58 of Jonathan Strange etc. and rather bored by it at the moment. The next one up in the removals-bin finds pile is The Bay of Silence by Lisa St Aubin de Terán (I've never heard of her, should I have?), which I'm curious about, because while the review excerpts on the back cover say it's a work of art on par with Tender Is the Night, the front cover illustration seems to suggest it might be a work of art on par with a post-Fleming James Bond novel. Ah, the '80s. - And also other things.
On the other hand, you know, hm, maybe this writing down my immediate responses to extracurricular reading thing wasn't such a hot idea to begin with.
2) Midnight snacks are a creature of a special sort. Last night, I had a half a bag of mixed lettuce straight out of the bag, bought for a dinner that never came to be, and two pieces of chocolate, and somehow there are crumbs in the bed now.
3) I dreamt that I put an old black telephone in the microwave oven. Then I got worried and tried to turn the thing off, and it wouldn't go. But the phone didn't explode, and it didn't melt, it just turned snow white.
4) An exam on Monday, and I mean to revise my way through the articles here, before going home. And then do the lecture notes and the poems tomorrow.
But the coffee machine is out of order.]
tic toc beep
[The entire livejournal dot com is down - why does this seem like a sure sign of the apocalypse to me?
1) More books.
5. Joan Smith, Don't Leave Me This Way. Found in the 1€ removals bin at the R-street library; based on the review excerpts on the cover, the third venture into crime fiction by a "star of the younger generation" (of 1990).
One of the "most fully realized" "sleuths" in crime fiction today, with a "thoroughly convincing milieu", Loretta Lawson is a lecturer at London University. (One is tempted to make remarks about her name, only it is repeatedly pointed out to us that it is one she has chosen for herself.) She is also working on a literary biography of Edith Wharton, which is to be published by a small independent feminist publishing house (!) partly because it's *spoiler* certain to absolutely shock the academia with the connections Loretta is making between Wharton's sexuality (!) and her novels (!) (what these connections might actually be, is never disclosed, to my great personal disappointment); more specifically, she is *spoiler* working on the annotation. Look for wacky hijinks to ensue when she forgets the source of one of the quotes! (Her wonderful memory prevents her from doing anything so mundane as keeping notes about this stuff.) And we're still not past page 20 or so.
Outside work, Loretta enjoys wearing black (as she is blonde and slender, but mainly blonde), planning to make many Italian-type dinners though hardly ever getting round to it, worrying about her cat, and whipping up a good righteous fury when the article about George Sand's style in a feminist magazine turns out to be about Sand's clothes (!). Sometimes Loretta also likes to "call out ungrammatically" or "press a key to instruct the computer to store the day's work"; passing cars are in the habit of "depositing" specks of dirt on her stockings.
Then *spoiler* she breaks up with her fancy composer boyfriend over a disagreement over the literary merits of crime fiction. I'd be done here, only we're still just on page 100 or so.
And, well, yes, there is a mystery, but it's sidelined, slow-moving, wholly uninteresting, and, if you'll pardon the expression, thoroughly unconvincing. Loretta's contribution towards solving the case, as far as I can tell, consists entirely of steadfastly drinking nothing but Earl Grey tea and eventually *spoiler* getting hit on the head with a hammer (oh, satisfaction!). And *spoiler*, yes, it's exactly who you thought it was.
This was one of those books where the level of badness is such that I have to wonder whether it might not actually be an avant-garde work of such brilliance that I'm just not getting it. I'd look for help, but I seem to have forgotten the name of the book for the moment (I never keep notes on this stuff). (I'm also of two minds about including the useless mulch of this caliber in the reading list, but, for one thing, I read so much of it that I'll never ever make it to 50 within a year if I don't, and for another, I'm making special allowances for cases where the commentary runs longer than the actual novel.)
6. Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife. I recognized the title at the bookstore, one day, because someone recommended this to someone else on lj at some point (who, where, when). And it wasn't bad, it was a good enough read, entertaining, smoothly written, but (at least on the first read) very forgettable, to me. Trying, perhaps, just a bit too hard. Point of confusion: that almost every single one of the bits in German seemed to had mistakes in them, as if completely unedited, or then maybe Rilke wrote very peculiar German, did he? I don't know, though I probably should. (Also, you know, I always hate it in fanfic and pro-fic alike when people put in bits and pieces in another language and then a translation, and it has nothing to do with the natural flow of the thing. Because it's fucking useless, and annoying, and if you must must must put in the foreign language, then leave it as it is. Thank you, good night. Note: Academic texts exempt from this rule; in their case, handy translations of any quotes in 16th century French / ancient Greek / similar in the footnotes would be very much appreciated.)
- And I'm still on page 58 of Jonathan Strange etc. and rather bored by it at the moment. The next one up in the removals-bin finds pile is The Bay of Silence by Lisa St Aubin de Terán (I've never heard of her, should I have?), which I'm curious about, because while the review excerpts on the back cover say it's a work of art on par with Tender Is the Night, the front cover illustration seems to suggest it might be a work of art on par with a post-Fleming James Bond novel. Ah, the '80s. - And also other things.
On the other hand, you know, hm, maybe this writing down my immediate responses to extracurricular reading thing wasn't such a hot idea to begin with.
2) Midnight snacks are a creature of a special sort. Last night, I had a half a bag of mixed lettuce straight out of the bag, bought for a dinner that never came to be, and two pieces of chocolate, and somehow there are crumbs in the bed now.
3) I dreamt that I put an old black telephone in the microwave oven. Then I got worried and tried to turn the thing off, and it wouldn't go. But the phone didn't explode, and it didn't melt, it just turned snow white.
4) An exam on Monday, and I mean to revise my way through the articles here, before going home. And then do the lecture notes and the poems tomorrow.
But the coffee machine is out of order.]
tic toc beep
