So I finally signed up on Goodreads. I'm still figuring it out. From the looks of it, though, I'm apparently the last person in the world to be on there. Hopefully it will encourage me to actually finish books. I'm not used to having free reading air since I was in school for forever. I hear paper is better on the eyes, though, than an LCD screen. So I might try to renew my acquaintance with the ol' bound pulp.
We finished Harry Potter 7. It was a bit slower going, because we read it out loud.
We were positively choked up at the end. It ended up WAAAY better than I thought it would. I mean I always knew there would be good closure, but it is was better, tighter than I expected.
SPOILERS:
My Harry Potter book will get here!!!
We thought about going to Borders last night, and then were like--nah, don't want to stay up that late.
We always read HP out loud to each other. That way one doesn't know what's going to happen before the other. heh, heh.
The thing is, though, I'm going to be gone for most of the day and C is working for most of the day, so we might only barely get started!
I got onto my Google Reader this morning, and two people had already finished it! Gah!!
Anyway...getting excited!!!
Two years ago, around this same time of year, I read Baudolino. The novel follows the life of a man quick with languages and averse to war. He works for the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, with whom he shares a father-son relationship. Baudolino's life's goal is to make as many people look good (especially the one's he loves) with minimal loss of life. This takes him on journeys to far places of questionable reality and leads him on a life of questionable verity. At the time I read it, I was embarking on a semester's study of medieval Latin, music, culture, and history. I salivated over the hodge-podge of languages and worlds. The novel brought to life the far away places and times I slaved over in my medieval Latin textbook.
I'm now reading The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana. It is about a man who has had an accident and lost most of his memory, except for what he read in books. He is an old book dealer. His world is mediated through excerpts of things he has read, and he talks about the books as if they are characters in his life's story. A large component of my thesis is book history. I am familiar with jargon, the establishments, the markets. And I wouldn't have been a short time ago. But once again, Umberto Eco has found me where I am, casting flesh on the dry academics of it all.
And he writes so deliciously that it makes me once again love words:
If a cellar prefigures the underworld, an attic promises a rather threadbare paradise, where the dead bodies appear in a pulverulent glow, a vegetal elixir that, in the absence of green, makes you feel you are in a parched tropical forest, an artifical canebreak where you are immersed in a tepid sauna.I had thought cellars symbolized the welcome of the mother's womb, with their amniotic dampness, but this aerial womb made up for that with an almost medicinal heat. And in that luminous maze, where if you pushed aside a couple of roof tiles you would see that open sky, a complicit mustiness hung in the air, the odor of silence and calm.
Pulverulent?* I love this guy! (okay, I know it's a translation, but still.)
He forces me to be a better reader.
Also, in this book, he talks a lot about fog. The literal natural phenomenon and the fog of the mind. I find it strangely comforting.
*Pulverulent=consisting of fine particles; powdery or crumbly. E.g. My kitchen floor is pulverulent with the carcasses of deceased goldfish crackers.
Come un polittico che si apre
E dentro c'è la storia
Ma si apre ogni tanto
Solo nelle occasioni,
Fuori invece è monocromo
Grigio per tutti i giorni,
La sensazione di non essere più in grado,
Di non saper più ricordare
Contemporaneamente
Tutta la sua esistenza,
Come la storia che c'è dentro il polittico
E non si vede,
Gli dava l'affanno del non-essere-stato,
Quando invece sapeva era stato,
Del non avere letto o mai avuto.
La sensazione insomma di star per cominciare
A non ricordare più tutto come prima,
Mentre il vento capriccioso
Corteggiava come amante
I pioppi giovani
Fino a farli fremere.
by Franco Buffoni
Translation:
Like a Polyptych
Like a polyptych that's opened up
And the story's there inside
But it's opened every so often
Only on special occasions,
Outside on the contrary it's monochrome
Gray every day,
The feeling of not being able any more,
No longer capable of recalling
Simultaneously
The whole of his existence,
Like the story there inside the polyptych
That no one sees,
Gave him the anxiety of not-having-been
When on the contrary he knew he'd been,
Of not having read or never having had.
The feeling in short of being about to start
No longer recalling everything as before,
While the whimsical wind
Like a lover
Courted the young poplars
Till it made them quiver.
© Translation: 2002, Franco Buffoni
From: The Shadow of Mount Rosa
Publisher: Gradiva Publications, New York, 2002
ISBN: 1-892021-14-5
Translated by Michael Palma
After hearing everybody else rave about it, I finally read Lauren Winner's Girl meets God. It is one of the best books I've read in a really long time!! I'll write more later.
But for now, I would just like to say that Lauren Winner has a blog! And I'm so bookmarking it!
I've been perusing books on different medieval topics lately. I picked this one up today: The Black Death by Joseph Byrne (Greenwood Press, 2004). This is part of a series entitled Greenwood Guides to Historic Events of the Medieval World. The best way to describe it is a textbook on the Black Death. It seeks to give an overview of the causes and effects of the Black Death, how it affected medieval society in its various facets, psychologically, economically, artistically, etc. It has helpful sections including a chronology of the spread of the plague, a section of primary documents in translation, an annotated bibliography, a section of brief biographies of key individuals, etc. If I had to teach a course on the Black Death, this would be a wonderful resource, because it offers a brief, yet fairly comprehensive, introduction to the Black Death to the beginner. However, it's not really what I was looking for in a monograph--a book with a single thesis and supporting arguments. I'm glad it crossed my way anyway, though. (p.s. History teachers, this is a good book for high school, too, written at a comprehensible level and includes a glossary.)
One thing I've noticed about this book, and other more recent publications is the high percentage of it devoted to the Middle East. Western interest in Middle Eastern history has increased a lot in the past couple of decades, no doubt, also spiked by 9/11. I even took a course in the history of the Middle East as an undergraduate history major. What was once a peripheral subfield at Columbia and other institutions who can afford to staff subfields has filtered into the literature. I'm definitely glad, as it offers an important and very relevant facet to scholarship.
The Black Death incorporates increased scholarship in the medieval MidEast (middle ages middle east?) in some more blatent ways and other more subtle ones. The most obvious is chapter 7 entitled "Individual and Civic Responses in Cairo and Florence," wherein Byrne describes the entrance and effects each in these two cities, highlighting each city's particular culture and politics and how they were each affected, and finishing with a comparison of the response to the plague by each city. Knowing virtually nothing about medieval Cairo, I had everything to learn, and found it to be an interesting, informative chapter. (...though in keeping with the book's nature, as a whole, not too deep.)
Byrne also brings MidEast history in to his narrative in other, less straightforward ways. For instance, when mentioning the response by the world of medieval medicine, he also includes what the MidEastern doctors thought, as well as the Europeans. At the back of the book is a section of short biographies of key individuals of this era; many MidEasterners are included.
It's right that all this information should be included, as the Eastern world and the European world had significant exchange during this time. And I'm glad that as more Westerners learn this history, it is incorporated into more generalist, less specialist books as The Black Death.
Shortly before Christmas I saw the movie Wag the Dog, 1997 for the first time. I thought it was a fabulous movie and definitely thought-provoking. I remembered the fuss that ensued upon its release since similar circumstances that the movie portrayed fictiously all of a sudden began to be enacted in real life.
My initial emotions to the movie were ones of amazement and frustration (i.e. "this could be happening to us now with all the Iraq crap!"). It didn't take long before I could settle back into a deep chuckle, though. It was ingenious, after all. And it wasn't a new idea.
The IMDB summarizes the plot, "Before elections, a spin-doctor and a Hollywood producer join efforts to 'fabricate' a war in order to cover-up a presidential sex scandal." People believe there is a war going on in Albania, because it's on their TVs, though what they're seeing is a Hollywood studio and Kirsten Dunst, not a peasant girl in war-torn Albania. What is also being created is a picture of the president. A context is being created in which the president can project a certain, favorable image of himself as Leader of the Free People, just days before the election. The portrait ultimately gets the president his reelection.
At first what the spin-doctor and the Hollywood producer did in the film seems shocking...that they would willingly lead the American people to believe a bold-faced lie. But this kind of thing has been happening for centuries. It's what makes politics in the Middle Ages so fun.
I recently finished Umberto Eco's Baudolino, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's set in the 12th/early 13th century, and follows Baudolino through his youth and adulthood. He is adept at languages and telling stories, traits that lead the savvy Italian peasant boy to the bosom of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, who share a close father-son relationship. Baudolino hates war, which is unfortunate, since it is common fare for the circles he hangs out in, so he's always trying to come up with ways for the emperor to look good without the emperor's having to destroy cities. These involve everything from fabricating relics to mindless ceremonies.
It's all about the emperor's image. It doesn't really matter what the real picture is. And since Frederick is the Holy Roman Emperor (whom we all know is neither holy nor Roman nor an emperor), a lot image fabrication has to do with his relationship with the pope, who has the ultimate weapon, excommunication. So the sticky political issue is how to be more powerful than the pope.
The book is partly about story-telling, and Baudolino's story is presented to us as he narrates it to a Greek as Constantinople burns. One of my favorite moments in the book comes at the beginning as Baudolino recounts his early days as a student of Bishop Otto, who was currently writing Chronica sive Historica de duabus civitatibus and Gesta Friderici (it's very important for the emperor's image to have his own Gesta). Bishop Otto remarks one day to his student, regarding Baudolin's remarkable prowess for telling stories, "If you want to become a man of letters and perhaps write some Histories one day, you must also lie and invent tales, otherwise your History would become monotonous. But you must act with restraint. The world condemns liars who do nothing but lie, even about the most trivial things, and it rewards poets, who lie only about the greatest things."
Baudolino takes this advice to heart and invents perhaps the greatest lie of his life, the existence of an entire kingdom. Upon the recommendation of his beloved Bishop Otto, he is convinced that there is a kingdom of Prester John, and if he could just find it for Frederick, it would solve all the emperor's sticky, political problems, especially releasing him from the sticky mire of Italy. Baudolino took this dream with him to university in Paris and shared it with some close friends, who nursed it until it grew and grew. Eventually, they took action and fabricated letters from Prester John to Frederick, and threw in the Holy Grail (also fabricated) to help out their story. They needed to find the kingdom. Each member of the band of Baudolino's friends had their own dreams and reasons, and they all revolved around finding the kingdom.
The book takes an interesting twist at this point. What at first was a nice story of European politics takes on fantastical elements as Baudolino and his friends set out to actually find the kingdom. Sharing conversation suited for the taverns of Latin Quarter in Paris (e.g. arguing over the existence of a vaccuum and the shape/map of the world) their path takes them through strange lands, encountering people and beasts more suited to the marginalia of medieval manuscripts.
When they reach what is reportedly the environs of their destination, they find a society of anatomically bizarre and varied creatures who are essentially ruled by a class of eunuchs. When they engage in conversation with locals, they find that these folks don't seem to notice that some of them only have one leg and a giant foot and that others have eyes on their chests, they distinguish each other through the particular brand of Trinitarian heresy each holds. It's hilarious! Baudolino's group stays for awhile; Baudolino falls in love. And because of the necessity of a quick get-away they never actually reach the kingdom. They're not even sure if it exists.
When they're all back safe and sound in Constantinople, the book turns back to Baudolino and Frederick and the dream of Prester John's kingdom, except it's no longer about saving Frederick's image, since he's dead now, but a life for Baudolino that is true, not some great story he made up. But the reader is still left wondering if he isn't still living in his made-up world? what of our lives anyway? It's like Bishop Otto said, "If you want to become a man of letters and perhaps write some Histories one day, you must also lie and invent tales."
It's an excellent book, full of wonderful allusions and cultural distinctions. And the medievalist in me was tantalized from start to finish.
Generally, I enjoy Jane Austen's novels. Though, I will admit, I prefer their cinematic incarnations to actually reading the book. Like Meg Ryan in You've Got Mail, I get lost in all the thither's. One story I've hated since my first encounter (trying to read it) in high school has been Emma. For 10 years I've wondered what the deal is. Emma is a selfish jerk; why does everyone dote on her so? The story always leaves me peeved and annoyed.
Last night I watched the Gwyneth Paltrow version of Emma (though I must say Kate Beckinsale's Emma has been my favorite of all the Emma's I've seen trying to come to terms with this story). For the first time I enjoyed the story of Emma! And I think it's because I'm a little older.
I realized the story is about the pain of growing up, her realizing that she is a selfish jerk and trying to become a better person, her realizing that she is no longer a child doted upon but a woman that the people in her community look to as an example and the responsibility that comes with that. Of course, Austen has to throw in token male-as-moral-educator who then falls in love with his creation, Mr. Knightly. Emma is unlike other Austen heroines who start out "good"--Elizabeth Bennett, Fanny Price, etc.; you have to watch her transition to that point.
Seeing this story after I made the transition from childhood to adulthood has made a huge difference. Emma is 21 in the story. I see the ways she is acting like all of us acted when we were 21 and so sure of ourselves. I think the final transition from youth to adult is getting over the euphoria of whatever it is your society has determined makes you "legally" an adult (for us voting and drinking, for Austen "coming out"), getting over this and realizing that you haven't a clue what you're doing because this world is huge and you are little. Maybe that's a little stark, but I think there is a settling down-ness and a getting over self-ness involved, not to mention the whole "dying to self and living to righteousness" thing.
I guess I could enjoy Emma this time because I no longer share her pain, but remember what it was like and know that she'll come out alright in the end. Maybe one of these days I'll actually try to read the book again.
Peyton Manning (some NFL football player I have never heard of but now know as a real, nice guy) was Santa to the students at the school where Chris teaches. All the teachers and students had a limit of $20 to spend on books at Barnes and Noble. So, this morning, they loaded up the school buses and took the boys shopping. (It's an all-boys school.) I went along, too, to see Chris in his element (without actually having to go to school) and to help with crowd control (i.e. guarding the entrance to the CD section--off limits). I got to pick out a book, too. I got a little book on cookies full of great recipes that my mom has and that I'm always pining for this time of year. Since the cookie book is a bargain deal, it was super cheap, and I had enough left over to pick up Umberto Eco's newest novel now in paperback, Baudolino. I enjoyed The Name of the Rose, the novel for which he is probably most famous, at least in the English speaking world. Though I must say, TNotR's ending was a little disappointing to me, because the reason I liked it was how well it got into the mind and rhythm of monastic life. The scene where the youth-protagonist stands in front of the cathedral door for the first time and is overcome by the carvings of the Last Judgement is priceless! It's his historical imagination in that moment that is simply brilliant. So when the book turns into a murder mystery, it's a little disappointing, but then, that is what makes us continue to turn the pages. He's not Proust, after all. And if you think about Eco as a semiotician, the ending to TNotR is rather interesting. So anyway. After I make dozens of cookies, I'm looking forward to curling up with Baudolino and dipping into another corner of the postmodern, medieval historical imagination of Umberto Eco.
dim lights. a diamond necklace. a hotel room in Cannes. dancing. soft music playing in the background. these words sung:
Chanson d'AutomneLes sanglots longs
Des violons
De l'automne
Blessent mon coeur
D'une langueur
Monotone.Tout suffocant
Et blême, quand
Sonne l'heure,
Je me souviens
Des jours anciens
Et je pleure,Et je m'en vais
Au vent mauvais
Qui m'emporte
Deçà, delà,
Pareil à la
Feuille morte.--Paul Verlaine
Good stuff coming from MrsCrumley. She linked to a great article, which I heartily enjoyed: Ten Steps to Being Well-Read. It's true. Learning how to read is more than sounding out words and putting grammatical concepts together, it's thinking, gaining ideas, vocabulary, etc. I'm preaching to the choir here, I'm sure. I live in sort of pseudo-world where almost everyone around me is humanistically educated and well-read. There are exceptions, of course. But I would venture to say that at least 60% of the people I know is reasonablly well-read. We talk about the classics, use proper grammar in everyday speech, make cultural allusions in everyday speech, use extensive vocabulary in everday speech, and can be found analyzing a movie on the way home from a theater. We're nerds.
So where would a nerdy person like to hang out on a hot summer's evening, when his/her airconditioning unit just really isn't cutting it anymore? A bookstore. The promise of coffee, reasonably comfortable chairs, a ton of books, and icy-cold airconditioning is divinely tantalizing.
--Digression--
We have been going to Border's. If given a choice: Barns & Noble or Borders? I would always choose Border's. I'm from the Northeast. It's as simple a choice as Walmart or Target? (Target, duh.) I'm getting tired of our Border's though. The coffee is bad. And then when you go to order just a regular coffee you get two choices: "here" or "to go". "Here" is 30 cents more than "to go". Upon noting this fact to the girl behind the counter, she explained that with "here" you get free refills and was a little thrown off when I pointed out that 30 cents more wasn't free! She quickly recovered and stammered out something about "it must be a dishwashing fee". Well, give me the free refill in a paper cup! Anyway. Also, at our Border's, the staff is all hipster-wannabe-ish and make a habit of having conversations with eachother across the store. They're not very clever conversations either. So last night I buckeled and suggested that we patronize B&N instead. I got a good cup of coffee, looked at magazines, got thoroughly cooled off, and left a satisfied patron. *sigh* what have I come to? One thing that Border's has over B&N is these super comfy couches next to the coffee shop and magazine shelves (if you can snag one!).
--Digression over--
So now this post is moving away from initial article posting and praising and towards general reflections on bookstores, wh. I guess I already have been doing, whatever. I'm just rambling:
One activity Chris and I engaged in last night was perusing these two tables piled high with "classics"--what everyone should have read. He's been putting together lists of what every high schooler should have read as he begins a new school year of teaching 9th and 10th grade literature classes. So as we wander around these tables just to see if there is something we haven't thought of, we effortlessly choose some and throw at others as "how did THAT get here?". Somebody tell me, how in the world did we get to be such "experts"? (I'm being sarcastic, pointing out that it's really ridiculous of us to consider ourselves experts without even thinking about it. Yet, my very pointing out the ridiculousness of thinking myself an expert is a sign of acquiring more knowledge, i.e. the more you know, the more you know you don't know. This mindset can have staggering and debilitating consequences. It's also a malady found in many graduate students who are on the verge of breakdown.)
Another reflection. There is the novel equivalent to the "chick flick." Usually it's something like Pink Toenail Polish on 49th Street: A novel or Babed and Bewildered: A novel. (I just made those titles up. I will now make up plots.) The first is about the flashy, sexy, feminine career woman whom everyone loves and saves somebody's day and finally a hot guy saves her day. She probably has a sister who's frumpy but ends up being cool. The second novel is this woman with kids, usually struggling with identity and feeling inadequate as a stay-at-home mom. What's really handy about these books is that they tell you what they are: "a novel". It is not "a documentary", "a memoir", "a cookbook", "a fashion book", "a homedecorating book". It is "a novel." Just in case you were wondering. (Frankly, sometimes I am. I look at that book and think "what is it?")
A confession. (Just in case you thought that this was "a novel".) I haven't read most of the classics I should've read. I know enough to get by. My ongoing goal for the rest of my life is to read more, to be a better writer, and to increase my vocabulary.
p.s. I've realized that for two posts in a row, I've complained about stores. I usually don't get out much, so when I do, I am naively shocked at probably what the rest of the world has developed a shell to as "normal". I don't mean to take a complaining attitude towards things. Sorry, big corporations who probably don't care one iota that I'm complaining about you on my blog.
Another book we actually listened to on tape this weekend was The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, both former nannies. The novel is a real eye-opener to nannying in New York. The main character is an NYU senior who takes care of a 4 yr old boy during what are supposed to be parttime hours, but it practically ends up taking over her life. The parents barely notice they have a son and exploit the nanny deplorably. From what I've read concerning this book, it is a fairly realistic portrayal of a certain category of nannying. This is beyond just a regular babysitter. These nannies are very ill-treated by their employers and are the only ones really raising the children. The nannies are the ones potty-training, teaching the tykes to say please and thank-you, teaching them basic social and people skills, teaching them basic morals. Even then the nannies may be doing it with one arm tied behind their back. And these kids will eventually be running the country, business, and the economy. Scary. The book is a quick-read. But the style is engaging. Definitely an aspect of the world I had never thought of before.
I'm sitting at my desk doing an activity for probably the first time since Chris moved it when he rearranged the living room right before Thanksgiving. It's been messy. I haven't had a chance to get situated. Etc. I was thinking that perhaps if I had my working space in order I may get some inspiration to keep plugging away at my work. It really makes a difference being surrounded by my books, papers, and timelines.
So anyway. I actually read a book instead of listening to it on tape. Since most of the stuff I read now is academic when I sit down to read fiction, it goes by so fast. I read Nick Hornby's How to Be Good in three hours flat. I really enjoyed it. One thing I liked about it was that it showed how banal and tiresome "criticism" can get. That pop kind of criticism that shows up in columns. Writing columns is a genre unto itself. (One of the main characters spends part of his occupation for part of the book writing one of these columns.) I'm not speaking out against criticism as a whole, but there are limits.
Another thing it got into, though very small undercurrent, was the working roles of the husband and wife...who does what inside and outside the home...really trying to create a natural picture of the bread-winning wife scenario. I thought it came off pretty well. Though David's (the husband) occupation during the second half of the book would've made me mad if I was the bread-winning wife, because he wasn't doing anything, really. In fact, he seemed to completely deny that all his do-gooding was completely dependent on his wife's job, which is a weak point in the book. David seemed to be criticizing the big job/big lifestyle/'and why aren't we doing more to help the poor?' scenario. But if people aren't working at their big jobs, they might become poor themselves. I guess that wasn't really the point of the book, though.
I gather that this was Hornby's first time writing from a woman's perspective. I thought that at times he did a really excellent job and portraying the instincts and thought processes of a woman (maybe we aren't so different?), but I think the aforementioned scenario (bread-winning wife) also made that a little weak. He could imitate the movements and responsibilities of what has been traditionally the man's occupation and impose that on the woman's thought processes. There's even a passage about that sort of thing in the book. (I can't seem to find it at the moment.) Where the wife is thinking about how she's more like a man and even asks her son out of the blue "Do you think of me as a mum or dad?" And he looks at her like she's crazy and says "a mum".
What I liked about the conclusion of the book was that it didn't actually end up telling you "how to be good". The characters didn't come up with the solution after all (which is realistic). I think I was expecting they would. It was kind of an abrupt ending, but on reflection I think it was a very good ending, and a good way to tie it up.
When it comes down to it, the book is also about marriage and its difficulties. Though slightly pessimistic about matrimony, I'm glad it doesn't paint the married life with a rosied paint brush, because it is difficult. Too many "chick" stories are about the courting couple ending the culmination of marriage and the "happily ever after" syndrome. On the other hand, there's a lot of really great things about marriage. (and marriage seems to be better guided in that whole dying to self/living to Christ thing that ideally we should be striving for, and ultimately selflessness is what makes a marriage "work".) One of my favorite parts is this scene where the couple is at a really tense point, and he makes a sandwich and offers her one. " Something about the easy domesticity of the offer makes me want to cry. Divorce means never having a sandwich made for you." (p. 17, NY: Riverhead Books, 2001)
Anyway, so I liked the book a lot. Can somebody recommend another book? I'm totally at a loss for finding good fiction! one of you English majors or something. I can only recommend books like The Waning of the Middle Ages by Johan Huizinga (which is highly recommendable, btw). I want to read Hornby's other novels. I liked the movies that were based on them. Can somebody tell me what constitutes a "New York Times bestseller"? It says that on the top of the cover.
I finished Matilda. It did get better. In fact, it did remind me of Harry Potter is a strange way. I.e. child possessed of unusual talents gets misunderstood and downtrodden at home. child goes to school, finds new friends, initial home scene is promptly forgotten, the scene action now taking place primarily at school, and uses talents for fantastic results. all live happily ever after. Well, it's taking several books to get Harry living happily ever, but we all know he's going to defeat Voldemort in the end, as long as V doesn't pull a "Luke, I am your father" trick at the end, but I kind of doubt that. So is this a formula for a children's lit novel or something. I dunno.
I was almost home when the book ended, so happily I went to the public library to get a new one. No such a luck. The library door was locked, lights darkened, and a sign on the door saying that the library closed at 5, and will be closing at 5 for the next week. Why, you might ask? well, Mardi Gras, of course. It's a week away, and it's obvious that public library really needs to be closing early a whole week before Mardi Gras. Hello!?! Librarians go to parades, too! (Thank goodness, for the Hitchhiker's Guide stash. At least I'm not totally book-on-tape-less)
Do books on tape count as books one has "read"? I don't have much time to sit around with bound pieces of paper, but I'm "reading" every word with my ears in the car. My little portable tape player is so handy that I've had to replace the batteries in hardly a month. The first book I read was Enchanted April, (also a movie) about a few women who get away from the drab English winter to sunny Italy for some peace and quiet. All are frustrated and unfulfilled in their lives and marriages, but the "magic" of Italy soothes their souls and everything is better again. Not very deep. Rather effusive. And definitely entertaining. I remember the movie as being a nice afternoon-ish movie.
Next up was Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. I was surprised at how close to the book the movie (Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant, etc) was. Sometimes the dialogue was verbatim. (Yea, okay, so I've seen the movie that many times...I did live in a girls' dorm, you know.)
Now I'm listening to Matilda by Roald Dahl. The Greens named their daughter Matilda after this book, so I had high hopes. Yes, parts of it are genuinely funny. And I am still hoping it will get better, but right now it feels like the beginning of Harry Potter books when he is at the Dursleys, and I get tired of those parts really fast...the slapstick quality, the genuine injustice.
I'm beginning to rethink this whole holiday job thing. At first we were all pumped: yea! we'll stay at home and rake in the holiday dough! Well Chris can't really get a job with his measly little Christmas break, and even though I'm so thankful I have a job, I'm so exhausted from my semester that it's taking every ounce of mental determination to move my aching and tired body down to Banana Republic. And now I'm getting sick on top of it. blah.
On the positive side, we got Harry Potter 5 and began reading it last night. I really like the beginning episodes with the Dursleys have more meat than like a slapstick pre-show show. What I don't like about Rowling's writing style is how she write in all caps when people's voices are raised. Is that really necessary? Can't she deliver the force of the words through prose instead of typeset? It also makes it rather difficult to read-aloud, because it's almost impossible to avoid the urge to shout when reading all-caps, and then you get hoarse.
Well, gotta go drink my tea to fortify my soul for another stint at Banana.
After German was over, I was exhausted. I took the rest of the week off to rest and relax. A little vacation at home, you might observe. It was lovely. I sat and read and read for pleasure, it is. Fiction. A rare treat. I finished the third Lymond book. It was so tense I kept having to shout "Auuggghh!!" just to relieve the tension, because the author didn't. It didn't even resolve at the end running directly into the fourth book, which I don't have. In order to extract myself from Lymond world and to relieve the tension, I picked up Remains of the Day, a short book that I had been wanting to read since I saw the movie several years ago. It's such an enjoyable book...about a butler of a great house in England reflecting on past days of glory at the house. It is rather poignant in parts. I hardly remembered anything from the movie, so when I finished the book, I went out and rented the movie, which, I suppose, one sure never do, because one will always be disappointed. And I was. The movie completely missed the whole point of the book, trying to bring out an implicit, repressed romance between the butler and housekeeper. There were some moments in the book where you thought the two might have some affection beyond their professional relationship, but the point of the book was the butler coming to terms with the remains of his day and of learning the pulse of human warmth behind the dignity he so prized in a truly great butler. The movie completely missed this point. (It's funny that I should be talking about the remains of the day first thing in the morning.)
I'm still very tired, but I really need to start work again. I'm sure I'll get inspiration and adrenalin once I get going. Perhaps I'll go for a run first....