(no subject)
A week into the new job and it's going well though the week has been unnecessarily dramatic for them- two people have handed in notice and another announced she got engaged over the weekend! Still doing lots of reading and listening and learning but we had a department meeting today and I think I said at least three useful things so I'm taking that as a HUGE win *g*
I very much planned on posting something at the end of last week but then just as I was about to I saw the news about Umberto Eco and it hit me really pretty hard. Every bit as hard as Terry Pratchett actually and this time it was unexpected :-(
I wanted to post something about his writing but it's so hard because he wrote so much in so many different styles & genres but from the moment I read The Name of the Rose (which was on my university reading list before my first term *g*) he's been fascinating and challenging me.
I love The Name of the Rose and would highly recommend it to basically everyone (if you like history or crime stories or mysteries or interesting characters or, you know, books!) and whilst some of his other fiction is more challenging I loved Baudolino and The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana says some wonderful things about memory. And I still haven't read his last two novels so at least I know I have those to come.
Foucault's Pendulum though... I've read it three times so far and I know I'm going to be reading it periodically throughout my life because it's so full of references and information and ideas that you have to read it twice and also the more I've lived the more I understand the next time I read it. Books like that are always precious.
And then there's his non-fiction- How to Travel with a Salmon other essays and Kant and the Platypus were two of the books that kindled a love of essays in me and there are so many more that I've read or want to read. He's so clearly fiercely intelligent and I don't think I understand all of what he says but I always understand enough that I want to stretch myself to get the rest and yet it doesn't ever feel like work?
I'm actually currently reading The Infinity of Lists and I have been reading it for months because it's so beautiful. His short introductions about lists and kinds of lists and what lists can be used for I have to read at least twice, then all the examples he chose, and then back to each chapter's introduction again. As a curator I feel a bit like this book was written just for me.
And then there's this interview which someone linked to after the news broke and which I'm halfway through reading but utterly fascinated all over again.
So yes, he is going to be sorely missed but he wrote and said so much I'll still be learning from him for years and years to come.
I very much planned on posting something at the end of last week but then just as I was about to I saw the news about Umberto Eco and it hit me really pretty hard. Every bit as hard as Terry Pratchett actually and this time it was unexpected :-(
I wanted to post something about his writing but it's so hard because he wrote so much in so many different styles & genres but from the moment I read The Name of the Rose (which was on my university reading list before my first term *g*) he's been fascinating and challenging me.
I love The Name of the Rose and would highly recommend it to basically everyone (if you like history or crime stories or mysteries or interesting characters or, you know, books!) and whilst some of his other fiction is more challenging I loved Baudolino and The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana says some wonderful things about memory. And I still haven't read his last two novels so at least I know I have those to come.
Foucault's Pendulum though... I've read it three times so far and I know I'm going to be reading it periodically throughout my life because it's so full of references and information and ideas that you have to read it twice and also the more I've lived the more I understand the next time I read it. Books like that are always precious.
And then there's his non-fiction- How to Travel with a Salmon other essays and Kant and the Platypus were two of the books that kindled a love of essays in me and there are so many more that I've read or want to read. He's so clearly fiercely intelligent and I don't think I understand all of what he says but I always understand enough that I want to stretch myself to get the rest and yet it doesn't ever feel like work?
I'm actually currently reading The Infinity of Lists and I have been reading it for months because it's so beautiful. His short introductions about lists and kinds of lists and what lists can be used for I have to read at least twice, then all the examples he chose, and then back to each chapter's introduction again. As a curator I feel a bit like this book was written just for me.
And then there's this interview which someone linked to after the news broke and which I'm halfway through reading but utterly fascinated all over again.
So yes, he is going to be sorely missed but he wrote and said so much I'll still be learning from him for years and years to come.