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evelyn_bWhat I've Been Reading All This Time, Part 1
I spent the past two weeks miserably trying to plough through The Lockwood Concern, which Anthony Burgess assures me "transcends both the author's declared intention [to write "an old-fashioned morality novel"] and the somewhat melodramatic plot." People kept coming up to me while I was trying to read it and I would say, "It's trash, but I don't know if it's very good trash." I tried to blame myself rather than the book: things had been even more stressful than usual this busy season, so it can't have been O'Hara's fault if I couldn't keep my mind on my leisure. But when I was about three-fourths of the way through The Lockwood Concern, someone handed me a copy of We The Animals by Justin Torres, and my inability to read instantly vanished all at once as if by magic. So maybe it was O'Hara's fault after all. Or maybe I just needed to read a different book.
We The Animals begins beautifully and ends a little weakly (in my admittedly careless experience) but it's short enough and quick enough that you won't necessarily notice.
On the way back home, I also read Like a Fading Shadow by Antonio Muñoz Molina, a perfect traveling book about a guy trying to write a novel and obsessing over James Earl Ray's fugitive days in Lisbon.
I tried to read The Stone Raft by José Saramago after I'd finished, but I'd been totally spoiled by Muñoz Molina's frankness and lucidity and was in no mood for all that Saramagory, so will try again later.
Tomorrow (or Thursday): more books! The busy season is over! I have a lot of catching up to do, in the 99 Novels and elsewhere.
I spent the past two weeks miserably trying to plough through The Lockwood Concern, which Anthony Burgess assures me "transcends both the author's declared intention [to write "an old-fashioned morality novel"] and the somewhat melodramatic plot." People kept coming up to me while I was trying to read it and I would say, "It's trash, but I don't know if it's very good trash." I tried to blame myself rather than the book: things had been even more stressful than usual this busy season, so it can't have been O'Hara's fault if I couldn't keep my mind on my leisure. But when I was about three-fourths of the way through The Lockwood Concern, someone handed me a copy of We The Animals by Justin Torres, and my inability to read instantly vanished all at once as if by magic. So maybe it was O'Hara's fault after all. Or maybe I just needed to read a different book.
We The Animals begins beautifully and ends a little weakly (in my admittedly careless experience) but it's short enough and quick enough that you won't necessarily notice.
On the way back home, I also read Like a Fading Shadow by Antonio Muñoz Molina, a perfect traveling book about a guy trying to write a novel and obsessing over James Earl Ray's fugitive days in Lisbon.
I tried to read The Stone Raft by José Saramago after I'd finished, but I'd been totally spoiled by Muñoz Molina's frankness and lucidity and was in no mood for all that Saramagory, so will try again later.
Tomorrow (or Thursday): more books! The busy season is over! I have a lot of catching up to do, in the 99 Novels and elsewhere.
no subject
Date: 2019-07-10 09:16 am (UTC)It's probably fairer to blame Burgess. I think blaming him for anything like that, after the whole sneaking into entire large series under the cover of being technically single works, this is totally a fair reaction to a fail on the 99 Books front.
I'm glad you found something that worked better, though!
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Date: 2019-07-17 11:56 pm (UTC)I can't be sure it's a true failure or just my own bad mood unless I try to re-read it in better circumstances - but, typically for this kind of thing, I don't have a strong drive to re-read it.
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Date: 2019-07-18 08:26 am (UTC)but, typically for this kind of thing, I don't have a strong drive to re-read it.
Indeed. And sometimes the mood attaches itself to the book permanently afterwards anyway. Besides, I think (being unreliable in so many ways when it comes to reading) that most of the time with cases like these, while I might possibly have been a little kinder or more patient with it at a better time, fundamentally, it was never going to be a shining five-star favourite anyway. Best to move on and find another that is, or is at least entertainingly bad crack or something. Life's too short for the books that don't move us to take up too much of our time.