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Let it snow!
Although he was busy, Scruffy contracted for brunch with us at Pauline's. He likes a good value, and we both remembered the portions there as being on the large size, so it seemed a good choice. A chunk of the conversation centred around his need to learn to let go. I did my best to counsel him on my techniques while noting that ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
monshu, who was mostly content to let me bang on, was the real expert. He opened up more to us about his family than he ever has before. Does everyone who isn't an only child have a ne'er-do-well sibling whose freeloading off the family teat is a source of tension and whose post-parental well being is a cause for concern?
Afterwards, I had some time to devote to the reading I'd meant to spend the day before on. It was easier to make the push to finish Wolf Hall once I realised what it didn't cover; neither the downfall of Anne nor Cromwell himself is covered in this volume, which makes me more eager to read the sequel (though at the same time I wonder if it might not be worth waiting for the third volume, out soon). I do wish I'd had the sense to finish it before watching a movie adaptation, since I did have some trouble with Anderson's characterisations encroaching on Mantel's. As her focus character, Cromwell is more sympathetic overall and Anne Boleyn less.
I also recently finished off that Japanese novel I'd started more than two months ago, figuring it for a quick read, and given up on for several weeks. It finally got good in the last third, but I don't know that I can recommend even a short novel on that basis. The volume contains a whole apparatus that I'm reading to see what it is I failed to see about the work's appeal. Right now, I'm just puzzled at the description "hard-boiled" which seems to apply less to the science fiction (which ultimately takes a turn for the metaphysical) than to the use of noir clichés involving detectives.
Something which genuinely should prove to be an easy read is Ann Patchett's Run. It started snowing yesterday afternoon, so we finally had the weather for it, and despite the distractions of doing laundry and moderating a debate on Charlie Hebdo (for my sins), I quickly read the first quarter of it. I'm a little put off by the somewhat cheesy tale of Auld Irelaund it opens with and the credulity-straining coincidence of the complicating incident, but her invocation of tragedy squeezes me where it counts and her characters seem well-rounded enough. There's still a lot that could go wrong with a White woman from Tennessee trying to write about racial issues in Boston, but for now she's got the benefit of my doubts.
monshu, who was mostly content to let me bang on, was the real expert. He opened up more to us about his family than he ever has before. Does everyone who isn't an only child have a ne'er-do-well sibling whose freeloading off the family teat is a source of tension and whose post-parental well being is a cause for concern?Afterwards, I had some time to devote to the reading I'd meant to spend the day before on. It was easier to make the push to finish Wolf Hall once I realised what it didn't cover; neither the downfall of Anne nor Cromwell himself is covered in this volume, which makes me more eager to read the sequel (though at the same time I wonder if it might not be worth waiting for the third volume, out soon). I do wish I'd had the sense to finish it before watching a movie adaptation, since I did have some trouble with Anderson's characterisations encroaching on Mantel's. As her focus character, Cromwell is more sympathetic overall and Anne Boleyn less.
I also recently finished off that Japanese novel I'd started more than two months ago, figuring it for a quick read, and given up on for several weeks. It finally got good in the last third, but I don't know that I can recommend even a short novel on that basis. The volume contains a whole apparatus that I'm reading to see what it is I failed to see about the work's appeal. Right now, I'm just puzzled at the description "hard-boiled" which seems to apply less to the science fiction (which ultimately takes a turn for the metaphysical) than to the use of noir clichés involving detectives.
Something which genuinely should prove to be an easy read is Ann Patchett's Run. It started snowing yesterday afternoon, so we finally had the weather for it, and despite the distractions of doing laundry and moderating a debate on Charlie Hebdo (for my sins), I quickly read the first quarter of it. I'm a little put off by the somewhat cheesy tale of Auld Irelaund it opens with and the credulity-straining coincidence of the complicating incident, but her invocation of tragedy squeezes me where it counts and her characters seem well-rounded enough. There's still a lot that could go wrong with a White woman from Tennessee trying to write about racial issues in Boston, but for now she's got the benefit of my doubts.