Tuesday, January 24, 2012

reading notes

Not long ago I finally finished Moby Dick. I admit there would have been an acute danger of failing to finish it if I hadn't been in an internet group dedicated to it, if I hadn't been one of the leaders of aforesaid group. Yup, "reading in public!" The pressure. I am very glad to have read it now; it was worth the while. When you're somehow involved with Melville, he seems to turn up everywhere - this, today, for example.

Afterwards, quite exhausted, I had a quick romp with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, which had a good plot but which I found so-so. It was a fast read, though, which is often a plus point. To me it seemed like YA literature, though I understand that wasn't its original category. My take: skippable, unless you have an interest in Asperger's Syndrome.

Now I'm reading The Tin Drum and feeling underwhelmed after my high expectations. What I think of wistfully nearly every day is re-reading The French Lieutenant's Woman, which I loved last year. I even pulled it out this morning and re-read the first couple pages. Later in the day I talked to my mom who spent four hours in a doctor's waiting room today reading something I'd recommended, which turned out to be this! I could have cried. My only problem with my copy, I remembered this morning when I pulled it out, is the goofy cover with cutesy girlwoman playing peekaboo.

5 comments:

ron hardy said...

What an amazing cover. It does not lend itself in any way to the story. James Bond. I love the F lurking at the top of the cover like a vulture. Is this a Penguin?

Kathleen said...

Mine was a paperback with an all-red cover that I read in the oral surgeon's waiting room, then completing the book with yet another ending (rui)* while my wisdom teeth were being taken out.

*"reading" under the influence of dentist's gas....

SarahJane said...

The edition is from Back Bay books, a unit of Little Brown. They have since re-issued it with a much more interesting cover.

kenc said...

Never read it. Always thought it was "dense," but where reputations of books come from -- esp. books you've never even sampled -- I cannot say. Anyway, I loathe thick Victorian-type books and always pronounced this guilty of that before proven innocent. I know, I know. Not the American way, at least on paper. Very much the American way otherwise....

SarahJane said...

You probably wouldn't like it then, Ken. It is steeped in the Victorian, though knowingly. I don't know... maybe you would like it.

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