That was Ricky Gervais' joke to introduce his encore act. Hee, hee.
Julie and I went to see him at Carnegie Hall for a delayed anniversary date. And in a sense we got lucky that all the better seats were sold out by the time we decided to do it because the nosebleed section had a better view of the top of Kevin Clash's head.
Gah, I've just realised how long it's been since I last checked in here, and how slack I've been about both reading from my list and writing about what I've read. Crossing off my reads from the last couple of months just now, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I'd read a couple from my list by accident -- and then unpleasantly surprised to find that I couldn't remember anything about some of the books on my list or why, back in May, it seemed vital that I read them. I must have had my reasons, though; with luck it'll be more fun than not to rediscover them...
I've read a few books from my list since I last blogged here. The first was Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham. It was a struggle. It was long. Under pressure, I might admit to having skimmed during the third quarter... Oh, look, I think I just have a prejudice against this kind of lengthy, physicaly detailed realism. It lacks the wry humour and absurdity of English Bildungsromans that came before (anything by Dickens, say), and the (similar?) playful absurdity of modernist novels. It's like there was a dry patch around the turn of the century -- meticulously described, carefully written, often autobiographical realism... it just doesn't do much for me. I'll speculate crazily and completely unqualified-ly and say that in my (limited) mental library, Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man has a foot in both camps -- it does a bit of what Maugham does, carefully documenting material details of his childhood memory -- but it's more mindful of strucutre and plot, and more willing to break away and experiment with language and humour.
And that's all I have to say about that. Mostly, this book made me think about other writers whose work I much prefer, even when it's perhaps less carefully, comprehensively done. I suspect this just isn't a period I "get", aesthetically speaking. Sorry, Somerset...
I just finished Virginia Woolf's Night and Day (1919) when I went out for a walk and relaxing afternoon in the park yesterday. It was a good read. I always like Woolf, though I sometimes take a while to make myself get started on one of her novels. I don't know exactly why this is the case, because I always like her work, but it somehow just works on me that way.
Night and Day is not as widely read as a lot of Woolf's other works (Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando, etc.). I don't think that is likely to change, but I can say that Night and Day is a book I wouldn't hesitate to recommend. It is, in many ways, more accessible than some of Woolf's other work, but has a lot of the same poetic beauty one can always expect in one of her novels.
The characters in Night and Day are quite engaging. They will infuriate you sometimes, and make you laugh at others, but they will never bore you. Catherine is a lovely protagonist to follow, and watching her mature through the course of the book is fun. William is pompous and fun to laugh at. Ralph is a bit of a mess, always stumbling here and there, seeming to get lost even inside his own thoughts. Mary is a tough, competent woman. And Cassandra is a stereotypical airhead (who turns out to have a little more to her than that, of course).
I had a great time reading Night and Day, and am glad I put it on my Fill in the Gaps list. It motivated me to pick the book up and get started on it. But it didn't take much pushing to get me to finish it. It was too enjoyable a read to need any external pushing.
First off, i absolutely loved the Time Travellors wife and gobbled it up over a weekend.
The Time Travellers Wife is a story of the 'real' love between Claire and Henry through time and thier lives. Nicely written, this book leaps back and forth through time but still paints a coherent picture. I loved dipping in and out of this book,experiencing the justipositioning of Claire's youth and Henry's middle age.
This is just a beautifully story, written in an amazing way that grabs you and won't let you go till you've read that sweet ending with a tear soaked face.
So i flew threw this book and felt like i was on a roll, i then picked up Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea Quartet (as its both on this challenge and on my basics challenge list), which has won numerous awards and is seen as one of the key pieces of literature in the fantasy genre.
*sigh*
God, i really wanted to love these books as they've inspired so many of my favourite writers and i had really high hopes for enjoying them (maybe that was part of the problem). Although i can appreciate the plot and story arc of the Earthsea Cycle (i had four books in one), i just didn't connect with the characters or story at all.
I felt completely indifferent!
Strangely, i feel slightly disappointed in myself for not appreciating/connecting with these books, especially when i love reading/writing fantasy - I feel like i've now lost my membership card lol.
I guess i'll just have to put this series to one side and reread at a later date and see how i go.
I'd love to know what other people thought of this series? and if you liked/loved it, what was it about it that appealed?
or if there are other works by Ursula Le Guin which i might redeem myself with? lol.
A couple of weeks ago, Michael Chabon was at the Tattered Cover Bookstore in Denver for a reading from his most recent book Manhood for Amateurs. As he read selections from the book, I could see that his prose had grown since this first novel of his, but it still had the ring of truth and beauty found in all of Chabon's works. He is funny, witty and eloquent. He was a wonderful speaker and gave some great writing advice (to be blogged about later). I look forward to reading even more of his work.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I am ridiculously jealous that Chabon was able to create a novel so beautiful his first time out of the gate. Mysteries of Pittsburgh is Chabon's debut novel and abounds with his lyrical prose and intriguing characters.
Art Bechstein has graduated from college and is spending the summer following working at a book store and playing with his new found friends. Arthur LeCompte entices Art into a world of interesting people and even more interesting parties. Between Art's new girlfriend Phlox, his increasingly sexual feelings for his friend Art and new friend Clevland's interest in Art's father's mobster ways, Art is lost and confused. This novel is reminiscent of Fitzgerald and a bygone era of sophisticated parties and debauchery.
Chabon's prose is lyrical and striking. His descriptions are always unique and the characters are beautifully written. I am always impressed by his way of viewing the world. The details that he sees are vivid and intriguing. I always turn to Chabon's work when I'm feeling like I need inspiration for my own writing. He has not disappointed me yet.
Isis is a book I received for review. In the instant I saw the cover and Douglas Clegg's website I was overcome by book lust, but I didn't realise that the book was a novella until it arrived in the mail. I mistakenly wrote the work off straight away as a poorly marketed children's picture book, but I was wrong. So very wrong.
Isis is the story of Iris Catherine Villiers, a girl growing up in a large, dark house atop rocky cliffs, with a governess who seems cold beneath her beauty, a set of older brother twins (one good, one bad) and a mother who has given up her dreams of the stage to play house while the children's father is at war. In a moment of furious will, Iris causes an event which alters her heart, her spirit, her very existence. But it is how Iris chooses to deal with this grief that carries the momentum of this book, along with the dark consequences that result from Iris' poisonous choice.
Strangely didactic in execution, Isis is a storytelling with the same black undertones as those existing in nursery rhymes and traditional Brothers Grimm fairytales. As the title Isis directs, the book draws its central nature from the Ancient Egyptian myth of the Queen Isis, who loses her husband, Osiris, to murder by a jealous enemy. Osiris as husband (who also happens to be Isis' brother!) is cut into parts by the enemy's wish and strewn all over the land. Rather than leave Osiris to rest in pieces, Isis' grief spurs her on to hunt for each piece and reassemble Osiris in the hope that he will be transformed to her living, breathing lover once more. As it turns out, the new Osiris cannot exist in the land of the living, but in Egyptian tradition where once you're royalty, you're always royalty, Osiris finds his new place as King, this time as the Lord of the Dead.
The writing in Clegg's Isis is Gothic in style, and sparse, with a preference for a strong and clear story without clogged detail. The author (wisely, I believe) draws all the characters sketchily, differentiating between them with a few carefully chosen sensory descriptions. For example, Iris' twin brothers can be told apart as "Spence smelled, in the summer, distinctly of dirt and pond water, while Harvey had a fragrance as if he'd rolled in lavender." There is nothing original about the story's characters unfortunately - you have the groundskeeper who enjoys regaling Iris with local ghost stories, the debaucherous nanny and the good and evil twin in a sprawling Victorian ancestral mansion with pulsing family tombs situated nearby. But it is the twist on the legend of Isis and Osiris that makes this black fable so refreshing. While Isis in the Egyptian myth is treated as a heroine, Clegg has treated his protagonist differently- Iris makes her choices out of the selfishness of longing and loss, and she is held at arm's length for the reader to see her actions as dark folly rather than heroic in nature.
Strangely, the novella is marketed as a horror, as evidenced by the book trailer:
To my mind, however, those in search of a mysterious horror will be disappointed. There are some slightly horrible moments, but when it boils down to it Isis is a sad, wispy tale of love and the selfishness of loss and longing. In all truthfulness, this is not a book that promises to excite and delight and set the heart to hammering - its beauty is the more shy, retiring type.
Despite enjoying the generally creepy atmosphere, the slightly-cliched characters, the symbolism and the pretty writing, what truly makes this precious novella covetable is the gorgeous illustrations. Done in a style reminiscent of the original Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the spindly artworks are melancholy sweetness and ghostly sorrow in equal measure. The illustrations are clever as well as beautiful - the pictures twist and turn - you may glimpse an eerie face on the normalcy of a tree trunk, and then blink and the face is gone. You'll be wondering whether you're seeing things, but really - that's half the fun, innit?!
I could attempt to criticise Mr Clegg's sophisticated offering by wishing it to have been a novel rather than novella, but on second thoughts any extra length would completely ruin its prettily poetic nature.
All in all, this book was such a pleasant surprise, and I'll be reading more of Douglas Clegg's works having so enjoyed this latest one.
But if you're still wondering whether YOU will enjoy it, I can only give the following guidance: if you're the type of person that holds their breath going past graveyards for fear of inciting bad luck (or worse, raising the dead), this book might make your fears a little worse. But if you're not too afraid of such things, and you can appreciate for a few moments the delicate beauty of, say a spiderweb's intricate threadings, before brushing it out of your path, then read Isis - it's enchantingly dark, sorrowful and only slightly dangerous.
sorry for the interruption but thought people might be interested that over on the writer's chronicle forum/blog we're going Halloween mad, and are offering three halloween themed sur/prizes! All you have to do is click here and leave a comment to be entered!
There will be a grand first prize, second prize and third prize!!
Winners will be announced on the 31st of October!
Now the theme of the prize is obviously going to be all things spooky, but will also include abit of an irish spin to it!!
Just email me at emilycross09@gmail.com for an invitation.
Guidelines
Hi all,
I'm going to be making the labels tag clear so
Please when your posting start with your name, and subject of post, *author, *book. Please put beside the author and book title an asterix so they'll be easily found.
e.g. Emily Cross, Book Review, *Harper Lee, *To kill a mockingBird.
or
e.g. Emily Cross, Progress report, *silence of the lambs
After this feel free to add emotion tags like 'bad, sad, excellent' or whatever you want
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