evelyn_b

Crossposted from Livejournal

What I've Finished Reading

I didn't love the last hundred pages of The Golden Notebook as much as the first five hundred. ( Why is that? )

There's a lot more to say about this book but I'm going to put it off until later, at least until the comments. In the category "well-off left-wing women have a bad time in the twentieth century," I think liked The Group a little better, but I'm glad I read this one.

I'm still feeling a little book-hangoverish from The Count of Monte Cristo. I've even begun to think that maybe the slightly disappointing ending was a deliberate protective measure, like the way deep-sea divers have to pause on their ascent to avoid whatever horrible thing happens to their lungs if they come up too quickly.

What I'm Reading Now

From October 1976 until 1979, when I returned to Naples to live, I avoided resuming a steady relationship with Lila. But it wasn't easy. She almost immediately tried to reenter my life by force, and I ignored her, tolerated her, endured her. Even if she acted as if there were nothing she wanted more than to be close to me at a difficult moment, I couldn't forgive the contempt with which she had treated me.

And just like that, here we are again. It's like I never left. I've been putting off starting The Story of the Lost Child partly because I want to "read down" some of my other books first (to make room on the shelf, because Elena Ferrante books are books I keep) and partly because I know I'm going to feel a loss when it's really over. But here we are.

So why do you think it is that Anna Wulf's awful relationships were a source of irritation to me in an otherwise enjoyable book, while I greet Lenu and Lila's even more awful relationships with open arms and a kind of joy in bitterness? Differently-focused narration? Anyway, here we are, back in Naples for the last time.

What to do, then? Admit yet again that she's right? Accept that to be adult is to disappear, is to learn to hide to the point of vanishing? Admit that, as the years pass, the less I know of Lila?

This morning I keep weariness at bay and sit down again at the desk. Now that I'm close to the most painful part of our story, I want to seek on the page a balance between her and me that in life I couldn't even find between myself and me.

Also reading: The Hidden Land by Paula Dean. The cousins have been stuck in their Secret Country for some time now, making do. Ted, whom everyone thinks is his formerly fictional self-insert Prince Edward, is trying to prevent the assassination of the king, but the back cover tells me it isn't going to work. So far it promises to be just as sticky and strangely-paced as The Secret Country, though maybe with a little more plot?

What I Plan to Read Next

I have this anthology called Fiction in the Heart of Dixie: An Anthology of Alabama Writers, maybe that? We'll see how long it takes to finish my current books, now that all my reading time is being eaten up by employment.

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What I've Finished Reading

I got The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante for Christmas, and was almost physically unable to put it down until I'd finished it. Because my sister was in town with her kids, I read a large portion of it with a baby in my lap. It was even better than My Brilliant Friend, except for my irrational dislike of overnight literary successes in fiction. The translation feels more confident, too, though that might just be me getting used to it.

What I'm Reading Now

Titus Groan is still The Book That Would Not Die, but I don't need for it to die, because it's also still great. Steerpike has just successfully convinced the twins to set fire to the library with the rest of the family locked inside, as part of his creepy plan to grab a postition of power in this rotten tooth of a court. It's wince-inducing and delicious. And Fuchsia is still the best.

My hometown is a used book paradise, so I ended up buying a lot of books on the trip. I read Plutarch's biography of Alcibiades, a beautiful and arrogant human trainwreck whose life was one unbroken stampede of drama llamas on fire. It was completely delightful -- Plutarch at his best. Alcibiades' Roman parallel, Coriolanus, is less immediately compelling because Coriolanus is all about the boring Roman virtues and making his mother proud, rather than drenching himself in perfume and destroying diplomatic relations through injudicious seductions, but Plutarch's entertaining writing style makes it ok.

On the $1 table of John K. King Books, I found a book of critical essays on television (Watching Television, Todd Giltin, editor) assembled in 1987. The first essay, on network television news and its discontents, is extremely interesting -- I don't know how it is as pop culture criticism, but I learned about a million things about TV news programs in the 80s, and also some things that happened in the 1980s and were handled poorly by the news. Did you know that in 1985, the Philadelphia police literally bombed a city block, using a bomb, from their police helicopter? I didn't, but now I do.

The 1980s are fascinating to me because I was technically alive for the entire decade, but spent most of it paying no attention whatsoever to anything that wasn't Sesame Street, miscellaneous books, or my bike. There are some things being referenced in this book that I was vaguely aware existed but know nothing about, like TV Guide (apparently a magazine as well as TV listings) and other things I didn't know about at all, like the Philadelphia bombing or the distinctive styles of morning and evening news programs. I'm especially looking forward to reading what looks like a super grumpy essay about children's television.

I'm also making good on a twenty-year-old promise to myself to read In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust. It's really good so far! It's been almost as hard to put down as The Story of a New Name, but since this is a Major Reading Project, I'm going to see if I can manage a weekly (or maybe twice monthly) post about it specifically.

What I Plan to Read Next

C. P. Snow! I'm sorry I've neglected you for so long! The Light and the Dark has been waiting patiently on my floor for many days. I also made a resolution to work through my bookshelves from left to right, which means. . .*checks* it looks like I'll be re-reading Persepolis! Could be worse!