Recs: Perfume: the Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind, Tithe, Valiant and Ironside by Holly Black, City of Bones by Cassandra Clare, anything by Douglas Adams (if you haven't already), the Great Gatsby, any of the classic stuff (Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, 1984, to Kill a Mockingbird etc etc). Sabriel and its sequels, by Garth Nix. Um. That's all I can think of at the moment...but my brain hasn't quite woken up yet.
Jeanette Winterson's Written on the BodyprettyparadoxJanuary 31 2008, 06:28:51 UTC
Love demands expression. It will not stay still, stay silent, be good, be modest, be seen and not heard, no. It will break out in tongues of praise, the high note that smashes the glass and spills the liquid. It is no conservationist love. It is a big game hunter and you are the game. A curse on this game. How can you stick at a game when the rules keep changing? I shall call myself Alice and play croquet with the flamingoes. In Wonderland everyone cheats and love is Wonderland isn’t it? Love makes the world go round. Love is blind. All you need is love. Nobody ever died of a broken heart. You’ll get over it. It’ll be different when we’re married. Think of the children. Time’s a great healer. Still waiting for Mr Right? Miss Right? and maybe all the little Rights
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Jeanette Winterson's Written on the BodyprettyparadoxJanuary 31 2008, 06:31:47 UTC
Bigger questions, questions with more than one answer, questions without an answer are harder to cope with in silence. Once asked they do not evaporate and leave the mind to its serener musings. Once asked they gain dimension and texture, trip you on stairs, wake you at night-time. A black hole sucks up its surroundings and even light never escapes. Better then to ask no questions? Better then to be a contented pig than an unhappy Socrates? Since factory farmer is tougher on pigs than it is on philosophers I’ll take a chance.
[H]ow easy it is to destroy the past and how difficult to forget it.
Can this be true, this simple obvious message, or am I like those shipwrecked mariners who seize an empty bottle and eagerly read out what isn’t there? And yet you are there, here, sprung like a genie to ten times your natural size, towering over me, holding me in your arms like mountain sides. Your red hair is blazing and you are saying, ‘Make three wishes and they shall all come true. Make three hundred and I will honour every one.’
Jeanette Winterson's Written on the BodyprettyparadoxJanuary 31 2008, 06:33:15 UTC
The potatoes, the celery, the tomatoes, all had been under her hands. When I ate my own soup I strained to taste her skin. She had been here, there must be something of her left. I would find her in the oil and onions, detect her through the garlic. I knew that she spat in the frying pan to determine the readiness of the oil. It’s an old trick, every chef does it, or did. And so I knew when I asked her what was in the soup that she had deleted the essential ingredient. I will taste you if only through your cooking
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Perfume: the Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind, Tithe, Valiant and Ironside by Holly Black, City of Bones by Cassandra Clare, anything by Douglas Adams (if you haven't already), the Great Gatsby, any of the classic stuff (Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, 1984, to Kill a Mockingbird etc etc). Sabriel and its sequels, by Garth Nix. Um. That's all I can think of at the moment...but my brain hasn't quite woken up yet.
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Err, I still have to read the Draco Trilogy. :P
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[H]ow easy it is to destroy the past and how difficult to forget it.
Can this be true, this simple obvious message, or am I like those shipwrecked mariners who seize an empty bottle and eagerly read out what isn’t there? And yet you are there, here, sprung like a genie to ten times your natural size, towering over me, holding me in your arms like mountain sides. Your red hair is blazing and you are saying, ‘Make three wishes and they shall all come true. Make three hundred and I will honour every one.’
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