I read The Marriage Club by Kate Legge, a kind of "Friends" (or friends with benefits as it transpires) for the charcoal bob set. It was disappointing. I had loved her Unexpected Moments of Love and was looking forward to this one. The main character Leith was a little unlikable, perhaps all the characters were drawn a little thinly. I guess this can be a trap of the ensemble novel.
Readings on Sunday had lots of tempting things. Perhaps its that time when the books for winter start to emerge. I had a surprising library lesson yesterday with my Year10 English class. They are readers! I found some treats for the holidays, including a Linda Olsson novel Let Me Sing You Gentle Songs which has lovely prose.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Back-announcing March (or late nights on blog spot)
I have just put down Vertigo by Amanda Lohrey. It was compelling and with my teacher hat on I thought what a wonderful text! Oh dear! How to turn that off… it was a great idea to revisit Henry Lawson and wonder … how would it be different now?
With my writer hat on I loved its economy. I loved its subject matter of a relationship that’s not in the heady states of beginning or collapse but in its shiftingly stable middle. The writing was lovely. I Lingered over ever sentence bur still chose to be late to work so I could finish it. The description of the bushfire was great and at its emotional core how children are the heart of it all.
It’s like back announcing on the radio…
and before that there was…
Linda Jaivin “A Most Immoral Woman”. Highly disappointing in the raciness factor. I imagine after “Eat me” everything would be disappointing in those stakes. Also a deeply involving read. A version of the vamp versus the bluestocking debate but fascinating that the work was based on fairly comprehensively archived love letters and autobiographies. I m tempted to go and see Linda speak tomorrow in Carlton. It had that wonderful satisfying oomph factor when I finished it.
An before that there was…
Worldwide Adventures in Love by Louise Wener.
Not at all romantic, a testament to the importance of honesty and fighting the double standard. A lost bub, a malicious brother-in-law, a thwarted sense of adventure and a deep nutty loneliness. That gritty British disconnectedness.
An before that there was…
Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay
It was so strange. When I put this book down I thought “what a great idea”. But then I thought I had had the one fm idea when I was in Shepparton. Dido is a woman unaware of her attractiveness to men but this attractiveness has a destructive quality. Wonderful writing about small town life. The landscape was fantastic especially in the decryption of a canoe trip through the frozen lakes.
And…
I think I read the new No 1 Ladies Detective Agency. Its very remiss of me to read so many books and not write about them. I loved the crocodile shoes. I also reread Catcher in the Rye and loved it. I tried to start Bleak House by Dickens but almost threw it out the window. All those tedious old men with weird attractions to winsome orphans…. Thank god for the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
With my writer hat on I loved its economy. I loved its subject matter of a relationship that’s not in the heady states of beginning or collapse but in its shiftingly stable middle. The writing was lovely. I Lingered over ever sentence bur still chose to be late to work so I could finish it. The description of the bushfire was great and at its emotional core how children are the heart of it all.
It’s like back announcing on the radio…
and before that there was…
Linda Jaivin “A Most Immoral Woman”. Highly disappointing in the raciness factor. I imagine after “Eat me” everything would be disappointing in those stakes. Also a deeply involving read. A version of the vamp versus the bluestocking debate but fascinating that the work was based on fairly comprehensively archived love letters and autobiographies. I m tempted to go and see Linda speak tomorrow in Carlton. It had that wonderful satisfying oomph factor when I finished it.
An before that there was…
Worldwide Adventures in Love by Louise Wener.
Not at all romantic, a testament to the importance of honesty and fighting the double standard. A lost bub, a malicious brother-in-law, a thwarted sense of adventure and a deep nutty loneliness. That gritty British disconnectedness.
An before that there was…
Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay
It was so strange. When I put this book down I thought “what a great idea”. But then I thought I had had the one fm idea when I was in Shepparton. Dido is a woman unaware of her attractiveness to men but this attractiveness has a destructive quality. Wonderful writing about small town life. The landscape was fantastic especially in the decryption of a canoe trip through the frozen lakes.
And…
I think I read the new No 1 Ladies Detective Agency. Its very remiss of me to read so many books and not write about them. I loved the crocodile shoes. I also reread Catcher in the Rye and loved it. I tried to start Bleak House by Dickens but almost threw it out the window. All those tedious old men with weird attractions to winsome orphans…. Thank god for the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
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