Last night, I dreamt that I was searching fervently for copies of Nabokov books. I queued for hours at the front of what looked like a record shop until I got to ask the clerk, in French, not if he knew where I could find any Nabokov, but if he knew where I could find a copy of the Neutral Milk Hotel's first album (perhaps because it looked like a ( Read more... )

So, second year is now officially over, which means that I am half done Uni. I would probably have quite a bit to say about the significance of this if I weren't slightly tipsy from Pimm's pitchers, espresso martinis, and a church book sale. And yes, I do mean to imply that the discovery of 50p paperbacks made me a little bit drunk.

Last night, over bottles of wine at a favourite bar, I recounted to some British friends tales of my "glory days" as a pretentious, idealistic wannabe-rebel of an early teenager. While I tend to discuss that period quite a lot in this space (though I don't really need to -- all you'd have to do is hit the 2001 button in my archives and you'd be ( Read more... )

When I was here last, I spent much of my time reading James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Over a year later, I find myself in the very same condo, immersed again in Irish literature (though my current choice -- Roddy Doyle's Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha -- is much easier to stomach than what I remember of the former. I'm actually ( Read more... )

[Okay. So, one of my many shortcomings as a "blogger" (and I'm not entirely sure I can be rightly considered as such) is that I don't do things in a timely fashion. Case in point: I should have posted half of this over a week ago, and the rest of it on Thursday, but I am a god of procrastination, and I only started writing this on Friday, so ( Read more... )

I've just realized that what my last name needs is an accent on the "e". From now on, I will be the terribly pretentious yet ghetto-fab Melissa R. Négro. I like that much better.

In other news, I only have to read 234 pages a day to finish Rising Up and Rising Down before leaving for Canada ( Read more... )

Today, I finished Middlesex, which is the most exciting development in my increasingly reclusive life since I crashed the vespa-like entity (oh so many days ago). I would not typically bother to update about such trivial matter as finishing a novel (well, actually, I might...I have...whatever) but, I am currently in the process of putting of ( Read more... )

On Saturday, I learned the most delightful word:

HEBDOMADAL

It is a synonym for weekly, and as an adverb, it is HEBDOMADALLY. I like it very much -- it is so strange to say and to think about with all of the Ds and the Bs and the M. I cannot find its origins, though I wish I could. Someone probably just created it one day because "weekly" just ( Read more... )

Yesterday, I discovered the importance of plot. It felt so good. I know, the statement is in and of itself absurd. Is plot not always important? I did not think it was, in fact I placed no value in its existence and wrote it off as nothing at all -- a waste of space reserved for trashy novels and fillers. And yet, I was sitting about reading ( Read more... )

I have this odd desire for some classic literature but I don't think I have any. I'm about to go scour the depths of my house for something good; Oscar Wilde is just not enough for me today. If I can't find anything, book shopping tomorrow.