Happy Easter! I hope that yours was better than mine. Food poisoning or stomach flu thwarted my weekend plans (which involved going to church and buying plane tickets), so now I am freaking out about my summer plans (or, rather, lack thereof). If summer doesn't work out, I'll probably do something expensive in May (new mobile phone, train around the Baltic states), but I'd need to get to work on that post haste.
Conversation today:
another teacher: You seem high-strung today.
me: ...today? Have you met me before?
Now I'm going to write about books. If you haven't read Anna Karenina, you shouldn't read any further because I'm going to spoil the ending.
In my sick time, I read The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende, which I did not like at all, and Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, which I loved. It was all about semi-political female-written first-person-narrated unsuccessful-marriage-including books about members of formerly powerful families in Central and South America this week.
I read The House of the Spirits because I had read something else by Allende and didn't like it. When I read something I don't like by a famous author, I usually try to read another book, just to make sure. Sometimes, this has worked out really well. The best example of this is Haruki Murakami: I didn't like Norweigan Wood, but I've loved everything of his that I've read since that. Not so with Allende. It was the idea of the story in general and the foreshadowing in particular that I couldn't deal with. If Allende had written Anna Karenina, it would have gone something like this: "Anna looked at the train, unaware that one day she would throw herself in front of one." And she would have somehow deserved it because of something her grandfather did years ago, unaware that his granddaughter would one day throw herself in front of a train.
I don't know what I'll read next. For the first time since coming to Russia, I actually have a lot to choose from. So life, in that one respect, is good. Life is also good in the respect that I have a lot of shoes. And that about sums it up.
If I weren't who's to say
14 years ago
6 comments:
I've been having trouble posting. I hope you don't get 10 copies of the same post.
Anyway, very funny entry.
Haruki Murakami wrote my favorite short story, On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning. Did I ever make you read it?
Yes, actually. It was that very collection of short stories that made me like his writing and read more and more and more.
If you want to continue your "semi-political female-written first-person-narrated unsuccessful-marriage-including books about members of formerly powerful families in Central and South America" thing, you might try Didion's Book of Common Prayer, and discover the shocking truth about where your name comes from.
I also tend to read another one by the famous authors I don't like. Sometimes when it comes to movies I'll watch them again. It can be interesting to analyze exactly why I don't like it. Or to give myself a second chance with something I wasn't ready for -- that's happened to me a few times. But I can also feel liberated when I realize I don't have to bother with something.
My four-disc set of animated Soviet propaganda has arrived -- I can't wait! Well, obviously, I can, since I haven't dived right in, but I'm looking forward to it. . . .
Way ahead of you on that. And, actually, I was reminded of it when I was reading the notes to Wide Sargasso Sea, though I forget why now.
I guess I don't feel like I can just not bother with an author until I've read at least two books.
I never do that with movies, though. For some reason, I am much pickier about movies than about books.
And they have to be books considered the author's best -- I've read a few by DH Lawrence, but since one of them is reputedly his worst (Aaron's Rod, which was assigned by a professor because he wanted books that dealt with the aftermath of WWI) and I haven't read any of the ones considered his best (Women in Love, Sons & Lovers) so I feel obliged to do the Lawrence thing.
I'm actually much less picky about movies, which is why I saw Varsity Blues and then had to listen to a friend of mine bring it up for literally years. I don't know why -- he's watched some crap too.
And please tell me you have read Anna Karenina -- otherwise I won't be able to forgive myself. I really do assume everyone knows the end, and I really wish that were the only wrong assumption I've made in my life.
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