I called in sick yesterday and lay completely wiped out in bed. A headache made it impossible to read, so I listened to two New Yorker fiction podcasts and picked the duds. Later I was able to read a little of the book I recently began, “The Orphan Master’s Son,” and even 100 pages into it I’m not sure what this book is trying to do. The effusive blurbs make me think I’ve missed the boat. Oh, and it won the Pulitzer Prize.
So being sick sucks, and let us hope February is a step up from January, which is always too damned long anyway.
Oh, here’s a good thing: Kathleen Kirk sent me her chapbook Interior Sculpture, a collection of poems about the sculptor Camille Claudel. Kathleen is a terrific poet and the poems work wonderfully. Thank you, Kathleen, for the bright spot.
3 comments:
Thank YOU, Sarah. I hope you feel all the way better soon. Other than Camille Claudel (and the dance and family events connected to that), I've had a rough January, too, so I am glad to see it go. However, February brought many inches of heavy snow with it here. Lovely, though!
Hope you're feeling better. I was unable to make a decision about The Orphan Master's Son after giving it the 50-page test. I plowed on and it got better for a while. (I most enjoyed the visit-to-Texas section.) I'm now about halfway through. I can see why it won the prize. It's ingenious, a stunning imaginative work (sounds like a blurb). Many levels to think about at once. I know I'll finish it, sit back and marvel at it (when I can stop holding my breath). But at the same time, I can't say I'm enjoying the read.
Ah, we're reading it at the same time! The writing is great and it's not not a page-turner, and yet I can't say I'm enamored. The Texas part was interesting (but arrogant?) but I didn't like it. The Senator's wife? What was I supposed to do with her? Anyway, plowing on here as well. We can compare notes later.
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