Did I Build This Ship to Wreck Wednesday
What I've Finished Reading
The Victim reached a point after which I physically couldn't put it down, or at least had so little inclination to that it made no difference. I read it while chopping onions and mushrooms, and I read the last two chapters standing up at the sink after brushing my teeth, having made a resolution to go to bed that I could not fulfill until I had finished the book in my hand. Is it as good as that makes it sound? I think so. If I'd read it when I was much younger, I think I would have been disappointed that [Not much of a spoiler for The Victim!]Leventhal and Allbee don't kill each other in a fiery blaze, or something equally hopeless and dramatic, but I am not young anymore and I was grateful for the slackening of tension at the end. I'm happy to see there's another book by Saul Bellow on the 99 Novels.
What I'm Reading Now
The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene. I think Graham Greene is going to be one of those authors I can admire but don't "feel," whatever exactly that means. There are some great things here. I love the Portuguese ship captain who offers joke cigars to the English officials who have to search his ship for contraband, and who addresses his daughter as "little money spider."
Scope's relationship with his wife is making me petulant. I don't completely understand what he finds so tiresome about her and I wish I knew why they can't just separate so she can go live without him in a country she hates a little less, or why he can't say "I don't know" when she prods him to pretend he still loves her. I mean, sure, she'll make a scene, but if he's going to make such a fuss in his own head about owing her something, why can't it be honesty? I know it's supposed to be all emotionally complex or whatever, and I am being a bad reader by letting his self-serving and self-sabotaging pity annoy me instead of nodding solemnly and feeling as if I've learned something about The Human Condition, but . . . I don't know. Clemence Dane gets a mention! It's moving a lot faster than The Power and the Glory, the last book I read by Greene.
Also contains: Catholicism. It's been sort of seeping in around the edges and may end up flooding the place.
For this Victorian Lit class I'm tutoring a guy in: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. A little while ago, I had the strange experience of re-reading a book I thought was hilarious when I was nine (The War With Mr. Wizzle by Gordon Korman). There were so many turns of phrase that I clearly remembered making me laugh my head off, but which I was reading now in total silence -- seeing the joke as if through glass in a joke museum. Alice is different: everything that was funny then is still funny now, maybe even more so because I'm a less sloppy reader than I used to be. Alice, how many times do the mice have to tell you they don't like your cat stories? The guy I'm tutoring doesn't like it as much as the previous readings, though; he's "not really into the dream logic thing." Well, we can't all be into the dream logic thing.
What I Plan to Read Next
Coming up in 99 Novels: Ape and Essence by A. Huxley and No Highway by Nevil Shute. Huxley's After Many A Summer Dies the Swan was one of the least thrilling of all my 99 Novels experiences, but about Nevil Shute I have no preconceptions.
I thought I brought The Man in the High Castle home from the library, but now I can't find it anywhere. :| The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for tutoring. And Selected Poems and Letters of John Keats is next on my shelf of neglected books! or should I save that one for murder monday?
The Victim reached a point after which I physically couldn't put it down, or at least had so little inclination to that it made no difference. I read it while chopping onions and mushrooms, and I read the last two chapters standing up at the sink after brushing my teeth, having made a resolution to go to bed that I could not fulfill until I had finished the book in my hand. Is it as good as that makes it sound? I think so. If I'd read it when I was much younger, I think I would have been disappointed that [Not much of a spoiler for The Victim!]Leventhal and Allbee don't kill each other in a fiery blaze, or something equally hopeless and dramatic, but I am not young anymore and I was grateful for the slackening of tension at the end. I'm happy to see there's another book by Saul Bellow on the 99 Novels.
What I'm Reading Now
The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene. I think Graham Greene is going to be one of those authors I can admire but don't "feel," whatever exactly that means. There are some great things here. I love the Portuguese ship captain who offers joke cigars to the English officials who have to search his ship for contraband, and who addresses his daughter as "little money spider."
Scope's relationship with his wife is making me petulant. I don't completely understand what he finds so tiresome about her and I wish I knew why they can't just separate so she can go live without him in a country she hates a little less, or why he can't say "I don't know" when she prods him to pretend he still loves her. I mean, sure, she'll make a scene, but if he's going to make such a fuss in his own head about owing her something, why can't it be honesty? I know it's supposed to be all emotionally complex or whatever, and I am being a bad reader by letting his self-serving and self-sabotaging pity annoy me instead of nodding solemnly and feeling as if I've learned something about The Human Condition, but . . . I don't know. Clemence Dane gets a mention! It's moving a lot faster than The Power and the Glory, the last book I read by Greene.
Also contains: Catholicism. It's been sort of seeping in around the edges and may end up flooding the place.
For this Victorian Lit class I'm tutoring a guy in: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. A little while ago, I had the strange experience of re-reading a book I thought was hilarious when I was nine (The War With Mr. Wizzle by Gordon Korman). There were so many turns of phrase that I clearly remembered making me laugh my head off, but which I was reading now in total silence -- seeing the joke as if through glass in a joke museum. Alice is different: everything that was funny then is still funny now, maybe even more so because I'm a less sloppy reader than I used to be. Alice, how many times do the mice have to tell you they don't like your cat stories? The guy I'm tutoring doesn't like it as much as the previous readings, though; he's "not really into the dream logic thing." Well, we can't all be into the dream logic thing.
What I Plan to Read Next
Coming up in 99 Novels: Ape and Essence by A. Huxley and No Highway by Nevil Shute. Huxley's After Many A Summer Dies the Swan was one of the least thrilling of all my 99 Novels experiences, but about Nevil Shute I have no preconceptions.
I thought I brought The Man in the High Castle home from the library, but now I can't find it anywhere. :| The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for tutoring. And Selected Poems and Letters of John Keats is next on my shelf of neglected books! or should I save that one for murder monday?