Reading update
Apr. 22nd, 2005 12:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sam_tIt's been a better week for finishing things this week, so naturally I haven't got any time today to write about them. I'll include some of the notes I made this week, even though they're rather rough.
I'm moving to yet another office on Monday, to work on a new project with a new team, so I'll probably be busier for a bit. I'm currently finishing off things for the project I'm on at the moment - hence the lack of time at lunchtime.
Read:
Claire Tomalin, Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self
Anthony Trollope, Framley Parsonage
Neil Gaiman, Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg, Malcolm Jones III, Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes
Diana Wynne Jones, Mixed Magics
Kenneth Grahame, Wind in the Willows
Alan Garner, Thursbitch
Guy Gavriel Kay, Sailing to Sarantium
Reading:
Virginia Woolf, The Common Reader: Volume 1
Thomas Merton, The Seven-Storey Mountain
Tomalin: Very interesting. It is a discussion of the entries in the diary as well as a more ordinary biography, as I'd hoped. I could wish for a bit more quotation of the diary in places, but that's probably sheer greed on my part, as there are plenty of short quotations and paraphrases, and even longer passages when the text requires it. It's an illuminating account of the people Pepys lived and worked with, the political problems he faced, and the events he recorded in his diary. Tomalin draws on a number of sources including the letters and diaries of both Pepys and a number of his relations and acquaintances to cover the whole of Pepys's life, not just the period covered by the diary, and also the history of the diary after Pepys's death. We are given a clear portrait of Pepys's honesty and dishonesty, his resolutions and his actions.
Trollope: Love the narrator, but I can't take too much of it in one go, like highly detailed wallpaper.
Gaiman et al.: Interesting, very dark, but I don't think I'll be looking out for the other volumes particularly. The cover art is interesting, but the comic-strip part is, while echoing the dark tone of the story, not entirely to my taste. It's simplistic, necessarily so, but doesn't feel distinctive enough.
Garner: Very spare, stripped-down, dialogue-heavy. I'm not sure I understand it really - I want things to be tighter, more explained, which usually means I'm missing something. There is a conclusion, from the point of view of the characters, but I'm not sure that the two threads are linked closely enough for a satisfactory narrative conclusion. This is a valley where something weird occurs, but why? Why now? Why these people? It's probably part of the point that we don't know these things and in fact can't know exactly, but from the point of view of a reader I'd like either a bit more explanation or more stress on the fact that sometimes stuff just happens and that (in this novel, at least) there are powers beyond human understanding.
Wynne Jones: Entertaining, but felt rather slight.
Kay: Wish I knew more about Byzantium. Like the wide scope but find it difficult to get close - detail of characters sometimes does not convince. Does the prologue add anything, or just delay the point at which the story takes off?
Grahame: Odd position of animals - simultaneously citizens and pets. Conservatism. Desire to wander - sea rat/effect on Rat/swallows/Toad and transport/Mole discovering river. Is Terry Jones etc. version any good?
I'm moving to yet another office on Monday, to work on a new project with a new team, so I'll probably be busier for a bit. I'm currently finishing off things for the project I'm on at the moment - hence the lack of time at lunchtime.
Read:
Claire Tomalin, Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self
Anthony Trollope, Framley Parsonage
Neil Gaiman, Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg, Malcolm Jones III, Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes
Diana Wynne Jones, Mixed Magics
Kenneth Grahame, Wind in the Willows
Alan Garner, Thursbitch
Guy Gavriel Kay, Sailing to Sarantium
Reading:
Virginia Woolf, The Common Reader: Volume 1
Thomas Merton, The Seven-Storey Mountain
Tomalin: Very interesting. It is a discussion of the entries in the diary as well as a more ordinary biography, as I'd hoped. I could wish for a bit more quotation of the diary in places, but that's probably sheer greed on my part, as there are plenty of short quotations and paraphrases, and even longer passages when the text requires it. It's an illuminating account of the people Pepys lived and worked with, the political problems he faced, and the events he recorded in his diary. Tomalin draws on a number of sources including the letters and diaries of both Pepys and a number of his relations and acquaintances to cover the whole of Pepys's life, not just the period covered by the diary, and also the history of the diary after Pepys's death. We are given a clear portrait of Pepys's honesty and dishonesty, his resolutions and his actions.
Trollope: Love the narrator, but I can't take too much of it in one go, like highly detailed wallpaper.
Gaiman et al.: Interesting, very dark, but I don't think I'll be looking out for the other volumes particularly. The cover art is interesting, but the comic-strip part is, while echoing the dark tone of the story, not entirely to my taste. It's simplistic, necessarily so, but doesn't feel distinctive enough.
Garner: Very spare, stripped-down, dialogue-heavy. I'm not sure I understand it really - I want things to be tighter, more explained, which usually means I'm missing something. There is a conclusion, from the point of view of the characters, but I'm not sure that the two threads are linked closely enough for a satisfactory narrative conclusion. This is a valley where something weird occurs, but why? Why now? Why these people? It's probably part of the point that we don't know these things and in fact can't know exactly, but from the point of view of a reader I'd like either a bit more explanation or more stress on the fact that sometimes stuff just happens and that (in this novel, at least) there are powers beyond human understanding.
Wynne Jones: Entertaining, but felt rather slight.
Kay: Wish I knew more about Byzantium. Like the wide scope but find it difficult to get close - detail of characters sometimes does not convince. Does the prologue add anything, or just delay the point at which the story takes off?
Grahame: Odd position of animals - simultaneously citizens and pets. Conservatism. Desire to wander - sea rat/effect on Rat/swallows/Toad and transport/Mole discovering river. Is Terry Jones etc. version any good?
