There are some books that I love, but frequently skip bits of for whatever reason - the example that comes to hand right now is the bit with the Jewish moneylender in The Grand Sophy - but I can't imagine skipping bits of a beloved book by a beloved author and never reading them once.
I think it'd be quite an interesting parlour game to try - like putting on a performance of Hamlet, leaving out The Mousetrap altogether and letting the audience form their own views of what the play must have been in order to wind up the Royal party so.
these days, I always skip the slow-building train-wreck at the start of Memory because I know it's there, so I don't have to harrow my feelings by going through it again. But if you haven't gone down into the depths with Miles at least once, it's very difficult to appreciate the scale of his achievement in pulling himself out of them (with a bit of help from his friends).
Yes, it might. How about Autumn Term without the play, vote at the end for what it was? You could probably get a fairly long way thinking that Tim was making drastic cuts and alterations to The Comedy of Errors, or doing her own take on The Parent Trap.
Actually I read Peter's Room before I read End of Term so I formed an entirely different view about what the climactic row had been about, simply from the breakfast time comments of Mrs Marlow, Rowan and Mrs Orly. For example, I assumed one twin had substituted as the other in a team for the whole term.
The fantasy segments in PR are really interesting just for the light they throw on the characters playing the characters (so to speak). You get to see Nicola wishing she wasn't involved and being as colourless as possible, Ginty making up to Patrick via this rather homoerotic friendship between their characters (pre-empting the Rosina stuff), Peter dealing with his own fears of cowardice via the torture scene etc etc. You also get to see AF writing a very different kind of fiction, too, and I think it makes the 'real life' Christmas segments of the book more compelling by contrast, if you can see why, say, Ginty is unwilling even to spare an afternoon to go shopping for a non-awful dress.
Well. I must say I'm sorry I ever posted this. 'Twas meant to be a nice nostalgic post about the magic of Christmas seen through the Marlows' eyes in various books, but it turns out it's all about my pig-ignorance for not reading the wanky bits of Peter's Room. Do excuse me, all you Shakespeare and other literary experts. Sorry for breathing, I'm sure; sorry for taking up space on your precious board with me ignorant witterings.
And a bloody happy new year to you all, you pack of pretentious posers. I'll crawl back under me rock now. Been nice knowing you.
I've never been a fan of the Gondal bits either. Actually, I doubt I've read them all the way through as the first bits annoyed and bored me. I sort of see their point - the play acting and all that - but I coudl have done without them. But then, I am most certainly not a Bronte fan. Rather like Nicola and her dislike of all things Dickens.
The bit that strikes a cord with me in the Christmas dinner scene in Runaway Home, is that it's the magic type of day that accidentally falls together and can never be repeated. I've had a few of those and have also felt that I wish it could happen again... but know that it cannot. Reading that scene makes me so nostalgic for those few perfect days of my own.
Comments 35
Reply
these days, I always skip the slow-building train-wreck at the start of Memory because I know it's there, so I don't have to harrow my feelings by going through it again. But if you haven't gone down into the depths with Miles at least once, it's very difficult to appreciate the scale of his achievement in pulling himself out of them (with a bit of help from his friends).
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
And a bloody happy new year to you all, you pack of pretentious posers. I'll crawl back under me rock now. Been nice knowing you.
Reply
Reply
The bit that strikes a cord with me in the Christmas dinner scene in Runaway Home, is that it's the magic type of day that accidentally falls together and can never be repeated. I've had a few of those and have also felt that I wish it could happen again... but know that it cannot. Reading that scene makes me so nostalgic for those few perfect days of my own.
Reply
Leave a comment