Monday, May 12, 2014

catalog of grievances

Delirious with allergies! Cannot take medicine because there is a person inside of me! Finished with smutty fantasy novel, to the detriment of my sore, scratchy eyeballs! Took an unpaid day off from work hoping to recover, but the pollen blizzard has no cure! Would like to protect myself from the swirling yellow breeze but don't want to turn on terribly inefficient air conditioner! Toilet is gurgling ominously!

But I enjoyed finishing the novel, and slept until 10. My nightgown is more comfortable than whatever I would have worn to work, a nice cup of coffee has made my head ache a bit less, I haven't had to strain my voice to speak to any children who don't listen to me anyway, and the lethal breeze is very pleasant. The toilet is another matter but whenever it stops working I realize how much I appreciate it.

I don't know if I'll keep going with the rest of the Outlander series. I enjoyed the first one, but I don't know if continuing the binge will be as pleasant. (See post on coffee below.) As I was making my way to its shelf in the library, I passed the E section, from which George Eliot reproached me sternly. One of the books had her horsey old face on the spine, right there at eye-level. You haven't read Adam Bede, or The Mill on the Floss, or my translations of Nietzsche. Are you sure you have time for such utterly feminine frivolity? Are you really going to read a book that includes a CD recording of the Broadway musical? I told her that not all of us held to our aesthetic principles as naturally and easily as she did, but I can't say I walked away without a pang of guilt. Oh well, she was ugly, I decided in a base and savage moment. But I do love her, so I will return. But I won't apologize to her for reading Outlander because she didn't even exist when it was written so she doesn't get it.

What's another big fat novel, whether smutty or respectable, to enjoy during the next few weeks, if my eyes ever stop watering? Don't say Ulysses, or Recherches du Temps Perdu, and Tom Clancy is right out. I've already read Kristin Lavransdatter. I could do War and Peace again, or another George Eliot. But it doesn't have to be a Great Book. I don't mind if there's a bit of time travel and sex involved.

11 comments:

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    1. No, I'm almost utterly ignorant of contemporary fantasy. I'll see if the lib has it!

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  2. How about the Aubrey Family trilogy by Rebecca West? I found it quite consuming. It starts with The Fountain Overflows. When I finished that first novel I started at the beginning again, because I wanted to stay with the family.... After that I got the next two books.
    The Moonflower Vine is another captivating tale both my husband and I have enjoyed lately, that isn't well-known.
    I read Outlander quite a few years ago and it was certainly a page-turner! I was hooked on that one, oh, yes. But at the end, I didn't feel that it had been exactly edifying, so I also didn't read any more of the series.

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    1. I recently read Harriet Hume by Rebecca West and was very impressed. I will check out The Fountain Overflows! Thank you!

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  3. If you liked Lavransdatter, there's alwasy The Master of Hestviken by the same author. Some of the characters are annoying, but the limitations that annoy you are realistic. There's a bit of sex, of course.

    Another option is Patrick O'Brian's "Master and Commander" series. The second book is better than the first and of somewhat different character and I feel like the first 3 or 4 books are worth reading as literature whatever may come. More (there are 20) can be read if you enjoy the style after that.

    I enjoyed Neal Stephenson's trilogy Quicksilver, The Confusion, and System of the World. I quibbled and debated with their philosophy of science and economic history - some things are precisely opposite of what they should be - but how few books engage that sort of criticism? It has some of the faults of typical Neal Stephenson works, but it's 2700 pages, it doesn't "end too soon".

    Have you considered Don Quixote? I never quite get all the way through. But I enjoy whenever I try.

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    1. I loved the Master of Hestviken, maybe more than KL. Who in particular did you think was annoying? I couldn't stand the wife or the stupid kid. I was just wondering today if Sigrid Undset had any more engrossing long reads; it looks like there are a few other novels.

      Master and Commander sounds really fun. I think my dad loves those books, but maybe I'm getting them mixed up with Horatio Hornblower.

      Just looked up the Baroque cycle and it sounds veeeerrrry intriguing... I've always been curious about the rivalry between Newton and Leibniz.

      I made it through DQ once by dint of compulsion (school.) I always have grand delusions that I will do it again but yeah, they usually end with a shrug after a few hundred pages and "That much was fun."

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  4. I loved Undset's The Faithful Wife, but a long read it is not.

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    1. That's okay! I can read short books too! Hurrah.

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  5. I'm a big fan of City of Bells by Elizabeth Goudge, Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein, and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Schaffer, none of which involve time travel or much sex but they're some of the loveliest things I've read. The latter two have superb audiobooks. Every Day by David Levithan might do, too.

    Also, do you ever get to Indy, and how do I contact you? I'm hoping to have you over for pie and board games before you skedaddle off to the Capital City.

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    1. I do come to Indy every Monday for iconography class at 7, so we could meet before that sometime. Not this Monday as Matt and I have plans, but perhaps the next. After that point I might have a baby so I don't know... but I'm sure I could make it over sometime after the baby is born too! You'd probably like that wouldn't you? :) Board games might be difficult but eating pie would probably work just fine...

      If you're ever interested in visiting our church of a Sunday we could certainly have you over afterwards for board games and snacks too! We've been meaning to do that soon with a couple of *cough* single young nerdy Orthodox males.

      I have the same phone number that I used to have (you'll probably get Matt) or you can email me at my first name + the word "darling" (no spaces or punktuation) at the most ubiquitous webmail server.

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    2. Well yes, I'd like that very much, but you're pretty appealing company even without the baby's enticement. I'm living carless these days, but if I can talk the flatmate into driving up I'll give you a call, because that sounds fun. Check yer email!

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