Sunday, August 26, 2007

Atwood quote

Just read this morning:

..By this time he is almost an anecdote, and Julie is almost old

The Bog Man, from Wilderness tips (short stories)

Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino

This is another one of my all time favourite authors. Picked this book up at the second hand book shop that also has a cafe and occasionally music in the courtyard, was very happy to get a copy. Such a slim little book, chock full of intense readerly experience. It made me think somehow of 'concentration' of reading experiences - remining me that some books are kind of full of air, the interesting thoughts are few and far between, they are like eating fluffy white bread that doesn't reallly nourish or engage you in digestion, you can eat slices and slices before feeling satisfied. Other books, like this one, are intense dark rye, where just a sliver has such intense flavour that you linger over the sliver, and need time before the next slice. That was a laboured way of saying that I'm reading this book slowly, that I've stopped just 2 chapters from the end, because I worry that I've whizzed through annd haven't really given it the time for ruminating that I'd like to. Every few pages I smile, or snort in happy recognition, or want to write down quotes, or draw it, or read it out loud to someone. It seem wry and full of amazing images and like a kind of mirage, hinting at meanings, showing them, obscuring them.

The stories are all about cities, tiny little vignettes of mystical cities, but the characteristics of these cities are the characteristics of our cities, all cities, of us, of all people. It maps the spread of fears and desires and movements and change and lack of change, of ritual and interractions. It has a reallly lovely texture about it.

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Lighthousekeeping - Jeanette Winterson

"Words are the part of silence that can be spoken"

Well, I was excited a few months back to get this book from my local second book shop, one of the few of hers that I hadn't read. And I liked it. It is a fairytale of sorts, a few tales woven together - one of a young girl who is orphaned and goes to live in a lighthouse with Pew, an old blind man who can nonetheless 'see', and his ancestors, and a love and not love story of Dark, an unhappy and conflicted priest who inspires 'Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde', and also of fossils found on the cliffs of the oceanside town, which attract Darwin and his followers. It has lots of similar themes to her other works: dwells on the nature of love (Winterson is a big old softie and has great faith in romantic love as a force of transformation), identity, family ties (not the tv show), the joys of simple living, and the magical power of stories to create the world around us and the meaning the world has for us.

A passage about Dark:
"He grew to dread the hesitant tread on the stairs to his room that overlooked the sea. She carried the tray so slowly that by the time she reached his room the tea had gone cold, and every day she apologised, and every day he told her to think nothing of it, and swallowed a sip or two of the pale liquid. She was trying to economical with the tea leaves.
That morning, he lay in bed and heard the clinking of the tea cups on the tray, as she came slowly towards him. It would be porridge, he thought, heavy as a mistake, and muffins studded with raisins that accused him as he ate them. The new cook - her appointment - baked bread plain, and disapproved of 'fanciness' as she called it, though what was fancy about a raisin, he did not know."

Pew says:
"Don't regret your life, child. It will pass soon enough."

And later, the hero, grown up and in Italy:
"I unlatched the shutters. The light was as intense as a love affair. I was blinded, delighted, not just because it was warm and wonderful, but because nature measures nothing. Nobody needs this much sunlight. Nobody needs droughts, volcanoes, monsoons, tornadoes either, but we get them, because our world is as extravagant as a world can be. We are the ones obsessed with measurement. The world just pours it out."

Thursday, August 02, 2007

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Not...telling...you...anything...about...what...happens!!

ha ha ha!

But anyway, a quick, entertaining and easy read, with what I thought was quite a populist ending.

Before I read this Harry book, I was discussing JK Rowling with my Ma In Law, who is a School librarian. We'd read an article criticising JK's writing (ie that it's not very good compared with the writing of other child classics). I have to say, there were moments where the writing seemed a bit Ludlum-ish, spelling out things instead of painting the picture for you, e.g.: "It was chaos!!". I hadn't really paid much attention to JK's writing before, and the story is usually engaging enough that you don't notice. Not sure if that says something about the plot or not? But we agreed in the end that anything that keeps kids reading is good.

* It's a bit silly, as my child is too young to watch movies or read on his own, but in my mind I've started partitioning books and films into:
a) ones I can watch with him or he can read himself one day soon
and
b) ones he can't watch/read until he's 15 or so
(ie children's versus grown up books/films)
Never used to discriminate. I suppose my brain is working out what I might do if I ever have much time to myself versus things I'll do with my son.