Here I am!
A note amidst an insanely busy day (by summer standards)... I am, in fact, here, alive and kicking! (Metaphorically for the latter part.) There's not a great deal to report: Vermont was lovely; it was terrific to see Mom, as well as a million aunts and uncles and cousins I hadn't seen in far too long... I'm dashing off to New York for a bit next week, before the term starts. My TA assignment is all nice and confirmed; now I just need to deal with registering for Greek, which one would expect to be easy enough. Of course, it isn't.
On the fun front, I've continued my Rushdie kick with Haroun and the Sea of Stories, which I hadn't read since I was a little girl. I really loved it this time around as well; it's awfully hard to feel otherwise, I think. There was also the vastly underrated The Moor's Last Sigh and the undisputedly brilliant, and incredibly disturbing, Shalimar the Clown. I won't gush for fear of spoilers - just go forth and read them! And let's have a drumroll for something that you may only witness once in a lifetime: I'm without any opinion on something. Shocking, isn't it? I have no views on the current affaire Güther Grass. Being the appalling savage that I am, I've not yet gotten around to reading any of his actual novels, and I don't know anything of his biography. So I'm reserving comment until I have some legitimate basis for it, such as reading his books or being threatened for the title of most opinionated person in the province. Whichever comes first. (The virtue of becoming non-opinionated is currently forecast to occur sometime around the mid-afternoon of the Second Coming.)
Other literary endeavours: I'm currently working on In Evil Hour, which is not turning out to be my favourite of Gabriel García Marquez's books but which is interesting nonetheless. I really wish I knew Spanish; I know that I'm missing millions of little puns and gems and allusions by relying on the translation. I just have to remind myself that I am not, realistically, going to be able to learn Farsi, Spanish, Gaelige, Italian, Arabic, Sanskrit, Japanese, Hindi, Portugese, German, Bengali, Urdu, and everything else I'd like to have in terms of primary-source competence, in a lifetime, and I might as well deal with that fact and get over it.
I also really loved The House of Spirits, which I can't believe I didn't get around to reading much earlier. Such is life, though. I quite liked it - the last fifteen pages or so are admittedly sappy beyond endurance, but I can understand why, writing in the early 1980s, Allende was simultaneously desperate for any form of hope she could conjure and simultaneously unable to come up with anything very realistic. That does not, however, excuse some of her subsequent novels (e.g., Daughter of Fortune), which read like the Adventures of Mary Sue, but by someone with a Serious Literary Reputation. There's a good case for quitting (with the del Valle family, not with writing) while one is ahead.
Cultural plans lacking in such gravitas include killing some brain cells with Talladega Nights with one of my housemates tonight. Any vehicle for Will Ferrell just to be his unrestrained, wacky self is bound to be entertaining, and if nothing else, my long sojourns in the rural South (U.S., not Canadian, what with 90-95% of Canada's population living in the southern 5-10% of Canada) ought to provide the context for a bit of entertainment, yes? We also have a pact with another housemate to see Bon Cop, Bad Cop later on. It's an independent Canadian buddy-cop movie, with a laissez-faire Montréal detective paired up, under unlikely circumstances, with a prim, uptight Ontario one. It's big in eastern and central Canada right now; I'm not sure if it's playing elsewhere.
World affairs: Too horrible. Nothing more to be said.
Happy thoughts, though! Think happy!
On the fun front, I've continued my Rushdie kick with Haroun and the Sea of Stories, which I hadn't read since I was a little girl. I really loved it this time around as well; it's awfully hard to feel otherwise, I think. There was also the vastly underrated The Moor's Last Sigh and the undisputedly brilliant, and incredibly disturbing, Shalimar the Clown. I won't gush for fear of spoilers - just go forth and read them! And let's have a drumroll for something that you may only witness once in a lifetime: I'm without any opinion on something. Shocking, isn't it? I have no views on the current affaire Güther Grass. Being the appalling savage that I am, I've not yet gotten around to reading any of his actual novels, and I don't know anything of his biography. So I'm reserving comment until I have some legitimate basis for it, such as reading his books or being threatened for the title of most opinionated person in the province. Whichever comes first. (The virtue of becoming non-opinionated is currently forecast to occur sometime around the mid-afternoon of the Second Coming.)
Other literary endeavours: I'm currently working on In Evil Hour, which is not turning out to be my favourite of Gabriel García Marquez's books but which is interesting nonetheless. I really wish I knew Spanish; I know that I'm missing millions of little puns and gems and allusions by relying on the translation. I just have to remind myself that I am not, realistically, going to be able to learn Farsi, Spanish, Gaelige, Italian, Arabic, Sanskrit, Japanese, Hindi, Portugese, German, Bengali, Urdu, and everything else I'd like to have in terms of primary-source competence, in a lifetime, and I might as well deal with that fact and get over it.
I also really loved The House of Spirits, which I can't believe I didn't get around to reading much earlier. Such is life, though. I quite liked it - the last fifteen pages or so are admittedly sappy beyond endurance, but I can understand why, writing in the early 1980s, Allende was simultaneously desperate for any form of hope she could conjure and simultaneously unable to come up with anything very realistic. That does not, however, excuse some of her subsequent novels (e.g., Daughter of Fortune), which read like the Adventures of Mary Sue, but by someone with a Serious Literary Reputation. There's a good case for quitting (with the del Valle family, not with writing) while one is ahead.
Cultural plans lacking in such gravitas include killing some brain cells with Talladega Nights with one of my housemates tonight. Any vehicle for Will Ferrell just to be his unrestrained, wacky self is bound to be entertaining, and if nothing else, my long sojourns in the rural South (U.S., not Canadian, what with 90-95% of Canada's population living in the southern 5-10% of Canada) ought to provide the context for a bit of entertainment, yes? We also have a pact with another housemate to see Bon Cop, Bad Cop later on. It's an independent Canadian buddy-cop movie, with a laissez-faire Montréal detective paired up, under unlikely circumstances, with a prim, uptight Ontario one. It's big in eastern and central Canada right now; I'm not sure if it's playing elsewhere.
World affairs: Too horrible. Nothing more to be said.
Happy thoughts, though! Think happy!