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Yesterday was supposed to be stormy. I'd been seeing anxiety-provoking updates all day from a FB Friend who's a weather reporter downstate about funnel clouds and high winds. But none of that touched us. Much of the day it was only "forest rain" from condensation rolling off the foliage. At about 3:30, a huge crack of thunder impelled me to the portico to see the show, but it was followed up by nothing, just more light rain.
I'd been hoping for a thunderstorm the day before while nearing the end of Good omens. I even put off finishing it in anticipation of the proper accompaniment. Yesterday evening, I figured there was no point in waiting any longer and sat myself down with it in the comfy chair while the climax of Glass' Akhtnaten shrieked from the office. By the time we did get a downpour, I'd put Gaiman and Pratchett's gnostic novel aside and started on something else.
Saturday night I'd upended three rooms looking for my copy of Crime and punishment, which I'd remembered having next to the bed. But the Russian novels had migrated to the top of the dresser a couple weeks before when I'd sorted everything thematically and it wasn't there, nor was it in the "to read" pile on the nightstand. It took two days of systematically going through every book visible to the eye before I triumphantly retrieved it from the very bottom of a pile next to the baseboard; I'm still not sure how it migrated there.
Also in my "to read" pile was Gombrowicz's Possession. Unfortunately it's another dodgy translation based on the French version rather than a new translation directly from the original Polish. Hopefully that won't make too much of a difference, since this is his take on the Gothic novel originally serialised and published under a pseudonym. I am finding myself inordinately bothered by the respelling of the Polish names (e.g. "Walchak" for "Walczak", "Okholowska" for "Ochołowska")--partly because it's inaesthetic (and inconsistent--why keep "w" when it's pronounced /v/?) and partly because it's a capitulation to Anglophone ignorance.
Since I couldn't decide which to start--I had a bee in my bonnet about the Dostoyevsky, but the Gombrowicz seems more seasonally appropriate--so naturally I began reading both. I think the latter might make better bedtime reading; I've been warned that the former is a "page-turner" and I really don't need to stay up past midnight one of these nights to find out what becomes of Raskolnovich.
I'd been hoping for a thunderstorm the day before while nearing the end of Good omens. I even put off finishing it in anticipation of the proper accompaniment. Yesterday evening, I figured there was no point in waiting any longer and sat myself down with it in the comfy chair while the climax of Glass' Akhtnaten shrieked from the office. By the time we did get a downpour, I'd put Gaiman and Pratchett's gnostic novel aside and started on something else.
Saturday night I'd upended three rooms looking for my copy of Crime and punishment, which I'd remembered having next to the bed. But the Russian novels had migrated to the top of the dresser a couple weeks before when I'd sorted everything thematically and it wasn't there, nor was it in the "to read" pile on the nightstand. It took two days of systematically going through every book visible to the eye before I triumphantly retrieved it from the very bottom of a pile next to the baseboard; I'm still not sure how it migrated there.
Also in my "to read" pile was Gombrowicz's Possession. Unfortunately it's another dodgy translation based on the French version rather than a new translation directly from the original Polish. Hopefully that won't make too much of a difference, since this is his take on the Gothic novel originally serialised and published under a pseudonym. I am finding myself inordinately bothered by the respelling of the Polish names (e.g. "Walchak" for "Walczak", "Okholowska" for "Ochołowska")--partly because it's inaesthetic (and inconsistent--why keep "w" when it's pronounced /v/?) and partly because it's a capitulation to Anglophone ignorance.
Since I couldn't decide which to start--I had a bee in my bonnet about the Dostoyevsky, but the Gombrowicz seems more seasonally appropriate--so naturally I began reading both. I think the latter might make better bedtime reading; I've been warned that the former is a "page-turner" and I really don't need to stay up past midnight one of these nights to find out what becomes of Raskolnovich.
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