Jun. 7th, 2019 12:24 pm
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muckefuckI've been putting off my Summer Reading™ for the arrival of Summer Weather™ and it's still not here. Yesterday it was just warm enough to go in without a second layer but I felt more comfortable at lunch wearing one. When I left, it was too warm, but it cooled off so dramatically that there was horror-movie fog descending on the city again.
As a stopgap, I picked up Alentejo blue by Monica Ali and started reading it. So far it's not living up to the promise of the blurbage or her status as a Man-Booker shortlister. The character I've spent the most time with is also the one I dislike the most and many of the others seem rather unidimensional. But the writing is perfectly competent so I'll probably end up finishing it.
The new campaign has predictably got me wanting to read some Mexican literature and I think La muerte de Artemio Cruz is the only thing I have on hand set substantially in Mexico City. In fact, the second scene takes place on the Eje Central, just blocks away from the neighbourhood where I'm hoping to establish our characters (albeit before the great postwar hollowing out of the centre and, in particular, the exodus following the 1985 earthquake).
It's easier the second time now that I'm primed for some of the old dodger's literary tricks. Oh, so we're going to alternate between two simultaneous sequences involving entirely separate characters related in some yet-unstated way which aren't delimited in any way at all, not even paragraph breaks? Okay, got it. Hopefully it won't take me much beyond the mooted three-week run of the campaign to finish it.
To supplement the Fuentes, I dug out The Mexico City reader, which I'd picked up during my last burst of interest in Mexico and things Mexican. I don't remember reading much of it beyond the chapter on the Zona Rosa, which I reread, and the one on Avenida de los Insurgentes, which I'll get to soon. I'm thinking it might be useful to offer it to the others in the group, though I doubt any of them would actually read it.
As a stopgap, I picked up Alentejo blue by Monica Ali and started reading it. So far it's not living up to the promise of the blurbage or her status as a Man-Booker shortlister. The character I've spent the most time with is also the one I dislike the most and many of the others seem rather unidimensional. But the writing is perfectly competent so I'll probably end up finishing it.
The new campaign has predictably got me wanting to read some Mexican literature and I think La muerte de Artemio Cruz is the only thing I have on hand set substantially in Mexico City. In fact, the second scene takes place on the Eje Central, just blocks away from the neighbourhood where I'm hoping to establish our characters (albeit before the great postwar hollowing out of the centre and, in particular, the exodus following the 1985 earthquake).
It's easier the second time now that I'm primed for some of the old dodger's literary tricks. Oh, so we're going to alternate between two simultaneous sequences involving entirely separate characters related in some yet-unstated way which aren't delimited in any way at all, not even paragraph breaks? Okay, got it. Hopefully it won't take me much beyond the mooted three-week run of the campaign to finish it.
To supplement the Fuentes, I dug out The Mexico City reader, which I'd picked up during my last burst of interest in Mexico and things Mexican. I don't remember reading much of it beyond the chapter on the Zona Rosa, which I reread, and the one on Avenida de los Insurgentes, which I'll get to soon. I'm thinking it might be useful to offer it to the others in the group, though I doubt any of them would actually read it.
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