Mar 08 2005
everything is alright in the whole wide world
God, it smells like spring outside. Mild, scent of flowers, lawnmowers. It makes me nostalgic for I-don’t-know-what (it makes me want to go for walks in the park). I suppose Easter is right around the corner.
I finished Vile Bodies — so good, so heartbreaking, so cynical. I am currently reading 1984 (for no good reason other than it was lying around at a friend’s house); I still have unfinished from last year The Difference Engine (which I have tried twice now to finish and not managed; there is somehting about the conclusion that does me in); and Anna Karenina, which I just lost track of at some point in the middle but have full intentions of finishing — I have a pretty good piece of the novel left, I remember where I was, I just couldn’t do it last year. Also, somewhat cheesily but in an actually it’s very good, thank you, kind of way, I am halfway through Living History which is Hillary Rodham Clinton’s biography.
I have shelves — now that I have unpacked almost all of my books — that I want to read, since I tend to collect things that I either haven’t read or want to read again, which means the entire shelf is on my list, which is both encouraging and discouraging.
I want to get more into world literature, particularly Arabic literature, which I have barely touched in my career (except for one time a scholarly translation of the Arabian Nights which was interesting). I was thinking of starting with Midaq Alley, and perhaps Persepolis, especially after gave a presentation on it the other day. Also, not world literature in any way, but I have a copy of The Beautiful and the Damned lying around that is calling my name (although not very loudly, as I can’t find it on the shelf)… as well as some Agatha Christie that I’d like to get to.
My reading habits do not come one novel at a times; they come in heaps and chunks, and so the summation of this is I am reading everything at once.
5 responses so far
I can second the recommendation for Midaq Alley — I read it for an Intro to Middle Eastern History a few years ago. Most excellent writing.
i finished The Difference Engine a couple of weeks ago, and I have to be honest and say… i didn’t get it. What was the point of the danged book?
I don’t know. Seeing as I love both authors, and I’m a big fan of
steampunk, it by all rights should be right up my alley. But like I
said, I’ve tried to finish it twice now, and have gotten nowhere.
I think the collaboration of authors just didn’t work out very well,
despite their best intentions. I mean, the premise is exceptionally
cool — Babbage’s engines really did exist, in that he designed them,
but they were never manufactured due to a lack of will and due to the
fact that Victorian engineering technology wasn’t quite good enough
yet to manufacture his design. And the great stink really happened, as
well. But.. but.. somehow the novel, which has so much potential as a
reimagined Victoriana, just doesn’t go anywhere. I think “what’s the
point” is pretty much spot on.
yay! anything else from that class you would recommend?
*nodnod* I thought perhaps I did not know enough about iterative processes to appreciate what the book was trying to say. Or… something.
Failed paired author thing sounds more likely, and is nicer on my ego