It's cold today and I am so sick of it. Sick of being cold and lethargic and flat.
I want to wear light tops and thongs and summer skirts.
I want to go swimming in the heat.
I want to eat out on our little balcon, and watch the summer sky-line with its streaks of pink as the sun goes down.
I'm also annoyed I missed Germaine on Q & A last night. My mother told me it was on. She rang again to remind me. I wrote a note to myself, and put it on the coffee table where it was forgotten.
Maybe it's online somewhere?
Happy weekend to all.
UPDATE: Saturday morning and isn't it lovely and sunny?
Well, I've started the new book and I fear that my good reading self and this book are not going to become lovers. Thus far, it's something about the scattered nature of his narrative that is preventing me from gelling. It is incredibly wordy, and while I like his 3rd person omni narrator with drop-ins to various character POVs, it's like he is trying to write everything about everything in this book. Also, thus far, I'm not really digging any of the characters, except perhaps the one I'm not meant to? The one who may be revealed to be a Machiavellian puppeteer. He is the most interesting of a fairly dull bunch.
The narrative style - the telling instead of showing, and oh, how he does tell - seems to numb my brain, so instead of feeling that I am being invited into a beautifully interesting world peopled with characters I want to get to know and like, or dislike, connect with, instead of this, I am sitting in the front row of a lecture theatre, and the person standing at the podium is droning on about an obscure part of DNA genetics or botany or sports medicine - all areas I have no real interest in.
My eyes are simply skimming across the tops of the words; they aren't sinking in. I like to be able to sink into a sea of words that are wonderful and compelling; even swamp-like. They can be heavy and dark and ugly. But they can't be dull and they need to have heart.
His turn of phrase is ok at times, even good. But other times it's like he hasn't worked the manuscript - it's like he's 's just gotten it all out on the page in a rush and didn't go back to check much. Maybe he found it as hard-going to re-read as I do to read.
Happy Saturday to you.
7 comments:
Oy. Had to read that book for bookclub. Couldn't stand it. It was like watching a really bad, long sequel to 'Love and Other Catastrophes'. By the end I wanted to Slap them all. Hur hur. Pun intended.
OH MY GOD THANK YOU FOR VALIDATING ME. I was just about to write a new post saying that I'm now up to page 61 but for the last 50 or more pages my eyes have just been skimming the words. I'm struggling with it so much. It's boring, the characters are flat and lifeless (and not likeable).
This is a big statement but I found The Slap much easier to read and at least finished it, even if it is now filled with the insane scrawlings and comments of a heretic (me) (I never write in books in pen. I didn't care with The Slap.)
I think I'm going to have to ditch it and read something better.
But here's the thing. Do I want to have her as my teacher in a course?
FUCK.
Sorry page 161!
What would you say to a person who is in your writing group, and you are all reading the same (awful) book and this person goes "yeah, I finished it and I felt like this when this happened, and then when so and so died I felt like this" and proceeds to give it all away.
What does one say to a fuckstick like this????
Not that it's spoilt it for me. But I am finding it a little less tedious to read, not sure why.
Well dear melba I'd say :
ITS DIARY TIME !
Is that you dear pater?
nldm arohm big boobs dcdgmv n id j lzi
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