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[brokenblossom]

I'm sleeping insane amounts at the moment. Went to bed at about 1 this morning, and woke with the alarm at 9am. Got myself out of bed and into the living room, and tried to ease myself into the day by reading1 on the settee, but was soon nodding so heavily that I went back to bed, hoping I'd wake up after another hour or so's sleep

Comments

[brokenblossom]

It's definitely worth a read, though I can't say I enjoyed it hugely; maybe just because the subject matter was so grim in the first place, the fact that it coincided w/ the bleakness of being burgled meant that everything was just too full on dour and dismal for me to appreciate properly TR as a literary work!

I did find peculiarly chilling, too, the utter lack of sympathy I could dredge up from my cold ol' soul for any of the characters save poor old paralysed Mme. Raquin :-( Well, there was some for Therese earlier on in the novel, I suppose, but it dissipated fairly quickly. That lack of sympathy may well have been the part of the point, but I find it hard to ever truly like a book where I can't really feel for any of the protagonists. That might have more to do w/ the fact that such reading matter results in me having crises about my own humanity than it has to do w/ the books themselves, though... Hmmmm :-)

I always worry, too, when reading translations about how much that affects the 'version' of the novel I'm ending up w/, but sadly my dimly remembered A level French is nowhere near enough to carry me through even a sentence of the original, so didn't have much choice about that (I read this edition, btw).

Anyway, it's certainly worth reading, especially if you're in a mood to be disturbed! Although it's pretty sensationalist at times, there are some genuinely guts-curdling moments and descriptions, in the often hallucinatory passages describing Therese and especially Laurent being haunted psychologically by the Dire Deed - made me feel like I was inside a Munch painting. And there are some fascinating details and descriptions re: Paris of that time, too.

So yes, go for it, but choose something else if you're in the middle of a downer, as it might not do much for your mood or faith in human nature! Apparently there was a new film version on the cards that seems to be stuck in some sort of shooting limbo now - not sure I could have coped w/ Glenn Close playing the indulgent old Maman, though, in any case!

Hope you're okay - I owe you e-mail. Was going to write once you'd come back from Glastonbury, then I wasn't sure whether you'd got stuck there owing to Weather or were away elsewhere or something, as all was a bit quiet on the interBec front, but it seems pretty clear that you're back at home and online now, so I shall get to it :-)

[mrs_leroy_brown]

I'm back & pretty much online, just very behind at work and when I get home I'm too pooped to look at a puter! But I shall be buying a laptop this month so will surely be staffing the interBec very soon :)