wednesday feels all cozy in the middle
I'm nearing the end of my reread of Riddle-Master. It's certainly not the best of Patricia McKillip's stories, but it's interesting, particularly as her first. It's more in the style of a sweeping fantasy epic than her later stories, which tend to play a smaller, more intimate stage.
So many stories are told with sharp lines, with backgrounds and characters you can clearly see. Her stories sometimes feel like that day you dimly remember, and how you can say there were snowflakes settling on your arm that day, and a few words a friend said to you, but the rest is hazy and softly out of focus. Often she writes as if she's telling a fairy tale rather than writing a novel, but focusing on characters and their inner worlds more than the rooms and landscapes around them.
I'm pretty sure the first I read was The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, which is in some ways more straightforward. In other ways... it's not a story about those beasts, but about Sybel's anger moving the world. But my favorites are still Alphabet of Thorn (definitely) and The Book of Atrix Wolfe... and to a lesser extent, Song for the Basilisk and The Changeling Sea and even Od Magic.
I still need to read some of the books I've missed. Next I'll be starting on The Bell at Sealey Head, which sounds a bit different.
I was thinking about how easy it is to talk to Tingting, and how I really kind of need to feel like I'm accomplishing something to work hard at self-study. It's because I've been able to talk to her that I'm still studying Mandarin 16 months later. I really don't have enough confidence to try speaking the language with strangers. I'm usually too shy to try speaking English with strangers. I mean, there's a guy from Beijing in my office sometimes who's already said "Feel free to try speaking Chinese with me anytime" and I'm usually unable to think of anything to say.
So I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do when Tingting moves away. I'd like to think I'll keep trying to learn, but I know myself...
I watched a bit of Meteor Garden last night. I thought it was funny that the guy was all, "How can you not like me when I'm perfect?" I wanted her to say, "You know usually people keep that as subtext."
My mailbox is acting like it wants to fall over. Bad mailbox.
So many stories are told with sharp lines, with backgrounds and characters you can clearly see. Her stories sometimes feel like that day you dimly remember, and how you can say there were snowflakes settling on your arm that day, and a few words a friend said to you, but the rest is hazy and softly out of focus. Often she writes as if she's telling a fairy tale rather than writing a novel, but focusing on characters and their inner worlds more than the rooms and landscapes around them.
I'm pretty sure the first I read was The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, which is in some ways more straightforward. In other ways... it's not a story about those beasts, but about Sybel's anger moving the world. But my favorites are still Alphabet of Thorn (definitely) and The Book of Atrix Wolfe... and to a lesser extent, Song for the Basilisk and The Changeling Sea and even Od Magic.
I still need to read some of the books I've missed. Next I'll be starting on The Bell at Sealey Head, which sounds a bit different.
I was thinking about how easy it is to talk to Tingting, and how I really kind of need to feel like I'm accomplishing something to work hard at self-study. It's because I've been able to talk to her that I'm still studying Mandarin 16 months later. I really don't have enough confidence to try speaking the language with strangers. I'm usually too shy to try speaking English with strangers. I mean, there's a guy from Beijing in my office sometimes who's already said "Feel free to try speaking Chinese with me anytime" and I'm usually unable to think of anything to say.
So I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do when Tingting moves away. I'd like to think I'll keep trying to learn, but I know myself...
I watched a bit of Meteor Garden last night. I thought it was funny that the guy was all, "How can you not like me when I'm perfect?" I wanted her to say, "You know usually people keep that as subtext."
My mailbox is acting like it wants to fall over. Bad mailbox.