well this turned into a long post about what i do to put off doing actual work and not feel guilty
It is a Friday, the house is quiet and unnaturally clean. This morning the rain that had been threatening to fall all of yesterday did so in one tremendous vertical swoosh, soaking the grass and leaving the clouds a washed-out white.
I am reading Chocolat, which, all the various and glorious merits of Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche aside, is so much better than the film. I'm glad I watched the film first, because a) it would have been a disappointment after the sensuous lovely descriptive prose, and b) I can now see Johnny Depp as Roux in a hundred more deleted scenes, being less fey and suavely charming and angrier and more stubborn and resentful, but none the less attractive (character-wise) for it. My Vianne is strangely different from Juliette Binoche, as much as I love her. She has darker hair and more ethnically ambiguous features, somehow, as if she could have come from anywhere - france, russia, spain, greece, italy... anyway, the point of that little segue was how much I have missed reading decent writing. I know it's all subjective, but some writing is hands-down good and some is just plain bad.
In fact, I have read or re-read four enjoyable books recently. First was Tamora Pierce's new one, Bloodhound - say what you like about her writing, it's not hugely stylistic or flowing and it sometimes reads more like an action sequence than a book, but she tells such good stories with very likeable and well fleshed-out characters who are getting increasingly complicated and less black-and-white as she continues. Secondly, I watched Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist on a plane months ago and loved it wholeheartedly, partly because I was coming back from the grand city of New York, where the whole thing is set. I read the book by Rachel Cohn (did she collaborate with David Levithan on that one, or was it just her?) and there is so much gritty detail left out of the movie. I liked Nick's passages better than Norah's (unusually I like movieNorah much more than bookNorah, who was sharp and acrid and lemony enough as to be almost unsympathetic as a character).
The Book Thief is one of those books I started reading ages ago and then never past the opening chapter, but I'm so glad I did. it's not that I couldn't put it down, it's that I kept finding myself strangely drawn back to it at any odd moment. The writing was spare and unsentimental and distanced but gave an oddly personal and touching account of the interwoven lives of people tossed together like so much flotsam dragged along with germany's 1940s wave of fear and upheaval and hatred, ordinary and yet individually marvellous in their own ways.
Lirael is fabulous and suspenseful and thrilling for a book with swords and magic - usually those are so predictable, but I love how Garth Nix's fantasy world is actually a hugely badass place, with desolate wilds and lawless swathes of countryside where you may very well be hunted down as chow by rotting zombies and evil demonic forces of all shapes and sizes, and no-one is coming to save you. Everything is not as it seems, you can't trust anyone you don't know like your own brother and even the Free Magic beings, who don't give a damn about the battle between humans and deathly spirits, will kill you just for fun. The few champions that there are are overwhelmed and outnumbered. And yet, for all that, there's a lot of humour in it (the Disreputable Dog is one of my favourite literary creations ever).
Maybe it is Joanne Harris's lovely writing, but I have been craving chocolate to a ridiculous degree over the past few days. I think I'll go make cupcakes.
ETA: OMG I ALMOST FORGOT. Last night I had the most awesome dream you guys, it had David Tennant in it, and he was the Doctor and I guess I was travelling with him or some shit, and he asked me to do something which I can't remember but I was like "wtf dude, you know what, no way" and then he got all Doctoresque on me and used his brown-eyed look of hypnotic pleading, and then I had to be all like, "hot damn, well, I guess, I mean, only 'cause it's you" and then he thanked me and it was ALL AMAZING.
I am reading Chocolat, which, all the various and glorious merits of Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche aside, is so much better than the film. I'm glad I watched the film first, because a) it would have been a disappointment after the sensuous lovely descriptive prose, and b) I can now see Johnny Depp as Roux in a hundred more deleted scenes, being less fey and suavely charming and angrier and more stubborn and resentful, but none the less attractive (character-wise) for it. My Vianne is strangely different from Juliette Binoche, as much as I love her. She has darker hair and more ethnically ambiguous features, somehow, as if she could have come from anywhere - france, russia, spain, greece, italy... anyway, the point of that little segue was how much I have missed reading decent writing. I know it's all subjective, but some writing is hands-down good and some is just plain bad.
In fact, I have read or re-read four enjoyable books recently. First was Tamora Pierce's new one, Bloodhound - say what you like about her writing, it's not hugely stylistic or flowing and it sometimes reads more like an action sequence than a book, but she tells such good stories with very likeable and well fleshed-out characters who are getting increasingly complicated and less black-and-white as she continues. Secondly, I watched Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist on a plane months ago and loved it wholeheartedly, partly because I was coming back from the grand city of New York, where the whole thing is set. I read the book by Rachel Cohn (did she collaborate with David Levithan on that one, or was it just her?) and there is so much gritty detail left out of the movie. I liked Nick's passages better than Norah's (unusually I like movieNorah much more than bookNorah, who was sharp and acrid and lemony enough as to be almost unsympathetic as a character).
The Book Thief is one of those books I started reading ages ago and then never past the opening chapter, but I'm so glad I did. it's not that I couldn't put it down, it's that I kept finding myself strangely drawn back to it at any odd moment. The writing was spare and unsentimental and distanced but gave an oddly personal and touching account of the interwoven lives of people tossed together like so much flotsam dragged along with germany's 1940s wave of fear and upheaval and hatred, ordinary and yet individually marvellous in their own ways.
Lirael is fabulous and suspenseful and thrilling for a book with swords and magic - usually those are so predictable, but I love how Garth Nix's fantasy world is actually a hugely badass place, with desolate wilds and lawless swathes of countryside where you may very well be hunted down as chow by rotting zombies and evil demonic forces of all shapes and sizes, and no-one is coming to save you. Everything is not as it seems, you can't trust anyone you don't know like your own brother and even the Free Magic beings, who don't give a damn about the battle between humans and deathly spirits, will kill you just for fun. The few champions that there are are overwhelmed and outnumbered. And yet, for all that, there's a lot of humour in it (the Disreputable Dog is one of my favourite literary creations ever).
Maybe it is Joanne Harris's lovely writing, but I have been craving chocolate to a ridiculous degree over the past few days. I think I'll go make cupcakes.
ETA: OMG I ALMOST FORGOT. Last night I had the most awesome dream you guys, it had David Tennant in it, and he was the Doctor and I guess I was travelling with him or some shit, and he asked me to do something which I can't remember but I was like "wtf dude, you know what, no way" and then he got all Doctoresque on me and used his brown-eyed look of hypnotic pleading, and then I had to be all like, "hot damn, well, I guess, I mean, only 'cause it's you" and then he thanked me and it was ALL AMAZING.