Two divergent storylines that eventually come together: a) conjoined twins (now separated) experiencing freedom from institutions for the first time and b) a Russian peasant girl at sea in a world of poverty and war.
Slapstick and comedic. I continue to be impressed by Pierre’s ability to write for ANY voice: this is a complete departure from his previous (Booker-prize winning), and very dialectic, Vernon God Little. Not a departure, however, in its brusque, harsh humor. I enjoyed it.
Making: Mix CDs. I had ideas of quilting I would do this week, but so far I haven’t done any. So there you go.
Reading: I just finished a book today; I think tomorrow I’m going to start reading “Ludmila’s Broken English” by DBC Pierre (who won the Booker for Vernon God Little a few years back, which I did enjoy). Somehow three books in this month, everything I read had a red spine. So I decided to keep the trend going for the rest of the month. Oh the crazy ways the reading list evolves.
Watching: This week’s K-Ville I enjoyed. Also loved Juno on the big screen. Maybe Beowulf tomorrow? We’ll see.
Listening: I’ve listened to many many things today as I’ve been running around in iTunes listening to samples of lots and lots of stuff. Plus the new Lupe Fiasco that came out yesterday (“The Cool”). Yay! Love Lupe: : Love it. Also bought Kid SimpleSimple Kid (sounds like Beck’s little brother with some Elliott Smith thrown in) and Nick Light (another melancholy boy, singer, songwriter type), and old Siobhan Donaghy since I can’t find the new one yet (Reckless ordered it for me), which is very girly girly pop. Girly pop! Yay! I have to fill the iPod up for the long ride…
Very intense! A stream-of-consciousness letter to Osama (yes the Bin-Laden one) from a (lower?) middle class wife who lost her son & police officer (bomb defuser) husband to a terrorist bomb blowing up an Arsenal/Chelsea match…which she feels even the worse about as she was having sex on their couch with someone she met in a bar (on a “my husband is off defusing a bomb and I am insanely nervous and when I am insanely nervous I go have sex with strangers” evening) when the bomb went off. She winds up going a little crazy and getting involved in some messed up situations, some beyond her control, and throughout it she continues her commentary, directed to Osama.
She starts the novel thinking if she tells him about her sweet, sweet boy that he killed, maybe he’ll just stop bombing things…and ends it in a very different place.
The sentences are long and breathless and meandering (they felt like something Elizabeth Crane or Megan Stielstra would write), the emotions are hot and present and flustered, and it all feels very, very real.
Blew me away, in more ways than one. Wow.
I think some of the social class commentary was perhaps lost on a non-Brit reader; there are a few places where I thought “and I bet THAT adjective is explaining to someone EXACTLY what position she’s found herself in but it’s not something we say here so it’s not really doing that for me.” But that did not denigrate my enjoyment or the content at all.
I already told you last week about its exuberant use of adjectives and other writerly choices that lend to its fairy-tale adventure-story feel.
Very entertaining. Somewhat silly but a lot of fun.
“War creates opportunities too.”
“In the short term,” Joseph said, and spat again. “Good in the short term is always bad in the long term.”
As I mentioned when I read another collection of Lanagan’s in March, her stories are really unusual. They take you to other worlds and other times; to unexpected voices and unusual resolutions. They’re violent and sudden; sometimes a nightmare, sometimes a dream. I particluarly loved “Winkie”, “A Feather in the Breast of God” and “Hero Vale” but really there wasn’t a single story I felt I could have done without.
The Queen (of England) comes upon a lending library…and starts reading..and it changes her entire life.
This book was an absolute delight. Clever, funny and thoughtful. An excellent treatise on the many things reading brings one.
Slim book, huge margins, huge print. It’s a quickie. Really enjoyable.
She’d never taken much interest in reading. She read, of course, as one did, but liking books was something she left to other people. (emphasis = mine)
Making: About halfway done w/ Curious George #2 (basted / now just quilting & binding to go).
Reading: This hilarious new book by Michael Chabon “Gentlemen of the Road”. It’s an Arabian Nights-like, fairytale-esque story, and as such the incredible overuse of adjectives, similes and metaphors TOTALLY FITS the mood. But they’re so abundant that it sometimes becomes giggle-inducing. “With his skin that was lustrous as the tarnish on a copper kettle, and his eyes womanly as a camel’s, and his shining pate with its roof of wool whose silver hue implied a seniority attained only by the most hardened men, and above all with the air of stillness that trumpeted his murderous nature to all but the greenest travelers on this minor spur of the Silk Road…” Come on now, people, are you not totally cracking up now? It’s a very enjoyable read.
Watching: K-Ville was the only show with a fresh episode this week (and it was way too over the top) but I also watched the Bones rerun since it’s one of my favorites (the Christmas where they all get locked in the lab). Maybe a movie Thursday night? We’ll see.
Listening: Very obsessively to two albums: Bat for Lashes “Fur and Gold” and Sea Wolf “Leaves in the River”. Completely in love with both of them.
I kept not finishing writing things up so I had to keep putting off writing this post. Ah, the life of a slacker…
The best movie I saw in November was No Country for Old Men, with Gone Baby Gone a close second. Both violent, icky, and GOOOOD.
The best book I read in November was the collection of short stories Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work, by Jason Brown. Very subtle. Very good. Families, relationships, losers, loners, struggles.
The best gig I went to in November was a tie between Athlete, a band I have been longing to see and was so blown away by their show, and Griffin House, who I had no idea how good he was going to be.
My favorite tunes in November…. hmmmm… well, my favorite album purchased in November would have to be Great Northern “Trading Twilight for Daylight”. I don’t know if I had read about them somewhere (a blog? Paste? who knows?) but for some reason I was checking them out on iTunes and I’m really diggin it… Otherwise I spent a lot of time listening to stuff from earlier in the year (Band of Horses, Travis, Rogue Wave), thinking about year-end lists, and buying lots of random singles (old Jay-Z, new Anthony Hamilton (American Gangster), stuff from the I’m Not There soundtrack)…
Random personal highlights: Hangin’ out with the nephews, who get both more lovable and more irksome every time; Michelle visits! for almost a week! yay!; Pam & Steph come down for the night!.
Lowlights? Fresh TV is drying up but for a few shows; FNL is wandering far from its strengths; meant to see a bunch of movies I never got to; and seem to have gotten almost nothing done all month. Man, what a whiner! Suck it up, eh?
An somewhat philosophical memoir of hunger, being hungry, (at some points, actually anorexic), but also of being sated, in all of their various meanings: not just physically, but also emotionally, intellectually, etc. Also a book about “home”, going there, leaving, about living places that aren’t that. A book about feeling lost and alone even within the midst of your own family, let alone a strange city, school, country etc.
Very good. A very slim, quick read. But weighty in thought.
I thought I knew the meaning of the word ‘big’. You have to have driven across the United States before you can have any idea of what that means: whole days of straight road without seeing a single human being.
My parents were forty, the age at which you pull up your sleeves and put your responsibility to the test of work. [Really? Uh oh! Danger ahead!]
Is it not enough to have some very good chocolate in your mouth, not only to believe in God, but also to feel that one is in his presence? God isn’t chocolate, he’s the encounter between chocolate and a palate capable of appreciating it.