Well I've not done very well with this lately. It's been seven or so weeks since my last post and, what's perhaps worse, I've been reading the whole time but- as is fitting with the premise of this blog- I'm already starting to forget what I've read (cue major setback to entire exercise). I've just logged in to my library history to remind myself of exactly what I've read and the rest I'll just have to hope I can remember. I've got an absolute cracker of a book to blog about next but for now here are my one paragraph reviews of the books I've read since mid-September:
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen- Newsflash: it turns out that I love the Emma Thompson film version of the novel so much I'd kidded myself into thinking I'd actually read the book. I had not. I liked it- it goes slow in the middle and, actually, the Elinor/Edward story-line is just weird (they basically meet and then never see each other, and, hello, his previous choice of fiancee is not up to much. Marianne and Col Brandon on the other hand, I totally get). But basically this book is less fluffy and fun than you might imagine. Like novelty slippers the week after Christmas.
How To Be A Woman by Caitlin Moran- I loved this book so much that I was planning on basing an entire blog post about how loudly it was acceptable to gigglesnort (and I'm crediting Isha with that little beaut of a word) on public transport when reading. Alas so high was my regard for this book that I lent it to not one but two literary lasses which tragically meant that I couldn't refer back to it when writing. And that's my excuse. Read it and gigglesnort away is my advice. She is a very naughty girl.
I Remember Nothing by Nora Ephron- I really needed the advice from some clever wise and funny women a few weeks ago, hence the authors listed above. Nora is the epitome of all three glorious traits and I cried when she died earlier this year- I credit her with some of my finest lines and opinions about relationships. This book is a gorgeous chocolate box of lovely insights about life and the madness of human interactions, fluffy as a teacake and as full of heart as a card shop on February 13th which makes it sounds nauseating but there's a delicious biting wit that runs throughout (Christ I've actually turned into Nigella- pass me a whisk).
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys- so still on my feminine insight bent I decided to push into a modern classic. I read Rhys' Goodmorning Midnight at uni- a dark portrait of the cusp of a mental breakdown in a world that seems, for women at least, barbed and treacherous. Wide Sargasso Sea runs along similar lines but here Rhys' use of Bertha Mason (later Rochester) the 'mad woman in the attic' from Jane Eyre hammers home with ferocity the unfairness of the female place and, particularly, desire in a patriarchal society. It's beautifully, hauntingly written- a book that when I'm in the right mood- it's really very dark- I'll go back to.
The City and The City by China Miéville- back now onto very modern ground and Mieville's rendering of a trippy dystopian double-world where two cities, Beszel and Ul Qoma, occupy the same physical space in kind of holographic antithesis to each other. The book raises all kinds of real world parallels, particularly echoing a cold-war dynamic and the protagonist is a Besz detective on a murder hunt across the forbidden divide. I loved the concept of this book and it is well written but the detective story didn't quite hold my attention as I hoped it would. However, I've been told that Mieville is one of literature's great chameleons so I'd be interested in reading another of his books.
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee- another in my series of 'you've got two literature degrees and you have read that' embarrassments. Well thankfully, now I have and I don't know what I was thinking putting it off so long. Quite rightly lauded as one of the greatest books ever written it is unflinching in its portrayal of childhood idealism giving way to the departure of innocence. This book broke my heart in the best possible way by being so powerfully true. And, just to bring it back down to earth, I think it would be a real struggle to find a sexier lawyer than Atticus Finch in literature. Just saying.
The New York City Trilogy by Paul Auster- so from Austen to Auster and back to trippy cityscape. I've in fact only read two of the three of this trilogy but found Auster's more famous story 'City of Glass' to be more compelling than 'Ghosts'. Not for the faint hearted in the meta-fiction stakes these postmodern detective tales force the reader to deconstruct the nature of the author/narrator/protagonist relationships creating layers of 'what's going on? and whodunnit?' questions (I frequently asked both- I'm still not sure of either answer). As the detective aspect of the stories become less important there is a surprising honesty to Auster's portrayal of a never-quite-graspable New York city. In a way it reminded me of a less ephemeral Murakami tale. Such a pretentious closing statement might allow you to make up your own mind about whether you want to give the trilogy a go or not.
So there we have it- my recent life in books. Next time, one book only. But what a book it is...
Monday, 12 November 2012
Monday, 17 September 2012
Boys Don't Cry Part 2: Haruki Murakami
'A Folklore for my Generation: A Pre-History of Late-Stage Capitalism' in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami (short story within the collection)
This post is about a short story from a collection by Haruki Murakami- esteemed Japanese author and surrealist aficionado. If you like books about talking cats, if you like stories entirely about spaghetti, or tales about interlacing, make-believe worlds then Haruki is your man. As a lover of all of the above, I'm a big fan.
I know I've been a little remiss in my previous blogs about actually summarising the plot of what I'm writing about and I've discovered the subsequent ramble gets a bit confusing without it. Well allow me to remedy this. This particular tale is about two men having dinner together, having met by chance in Italy years after they first knew each other at school, in Japan. Our narrator is listening, and also editing together, his dining companion's tale about the relationship he had with his first sweetheart. Now, before I launch into my little analysis, I better define my terms as this will get a bit confusing without some clarification of who I'm talking about in this story. From our point of view there are three layers: Murakami, the author (as previously with Kerouac, the author), the unnamed writer character within the narrative (henceforth called the narrator and closely comparable to Murakami himself) and the focal character of the story, again unnamed- just to be extra-confusing), henceforth known as the protagonist.
Instantly from this you can assume, correctly, that this story isn't going to be the self-flagellation of The Subterraneans. Rather than the narrator stumbling through his own self-assessment, as Kerouac's Leo does with the limited success I've already discussed, Murakami affords his protagonist the luxury of an epistolary voice through narrative layers- here not written but rather communicated as a tale that is then 're-worked'. Think Nick Carroway in The Great Gatsby but with more insight on the part of the narrator (in fact Murakami goes a bit meta-fictive by giving his narrator a chance to explain that he is tidying up the story as he goes along). To tie this point back to the issues I raised in the last part, this use of a third-person, and arguably more emotionally stable, narrator helps to stablise, even as it lessens the intensity of the emotional catharsis that the reader can take from the story. For me this evokes a more satisfying conclusion to the narrative as, although further removed, the results seem more honest, even if I'm not getting it from the horse's mouth.
Not unlike Kerouac, Murakami's interpretation of the breakdown of a relationship is still raw and true, while it also seems rather more evenly handed. The female character in the story, Yoshiko, has a stock phrase: 'these are two different things' which she repeats over the course of her conversations with the male protagonist. The concept of this phrase is given due consideration by Murakami and by his narrator throughout the story and the tension is created where these two different things, or people, become so disconcertingly similar (they are styled by the narrator as 'Mr and Miss Clean') that it makes their inevitable separation that much more poignant. Yoshiko tells the protagonist that she cannot marry him, and thus consummate their relationship, quite matter-of-factly and leaves him in a state of in-consequentiality- something previously unknown to him 'Ever since we were little, people had been pushing us...[and] we met their expectations'. When they meet again, several years later, it is the protagonist's inability to make the sexual contact that his teenage self so craved that finally destroys his hope of their being together. It is an unhappy and rather dark end to what starts as a sweet yarn about first love.
One way of summarising this tale is by using the title, as it is both oddly deliberate but deliberately odd. The word 'Folklore' is an interesting choice- in itself a genre based on the, often oral, re-telling and re-working of the tale to suit the needs of the teller and, by extension, the reader/listener. After the protagonist tells the narrator of the strange phrase he always has in mind when thinking of himself and Yoshiko (' "and when it was all over, the King and his retainers burst out laughing" ') the narrator gently tells his reader that 'there's no moral or lesson' to be drawn. The point of the tale, of love and loss, is simply to be read, and understood by the reader. Stories like these, for all their quirks and apparent ability to define an era, in this case 'Late-Stage Capitalism', will be told time after time through generations. The emotions they evoke and that they describe, will stay the same. And in realising that, and in reading this, Murakami provides us with the best emotional self-help there is.
Next time: the women take over the emotional development and I'll try to answer a very important question: is it socially reprehensible to honk with laughter when reading on public transport?
This post is about a short story from a collection by Haruki Murakami- esteemed Japanese author and surrealist aficionado. If you like books about talking cats, if you like stories entirely about spaghetti, or tales about interlacing, make-believe worlds then Haruki is your man. As a lover of all of the above, I'm a big fan.
I know I've been a little remiss in my previous blogs about actually summarising the plot of what I'm writing about and I've discovered the subsequent ramble gets a bit confusing without it. Well allow me to remedy this. This particular tale is about two men having dinner together, having met by chance in Italy years after they first knew each other at school, in Japan. Our narrator is listening, and also editing together, his dining companion's tale about the relationship he had with his first sweetheart. Now, before I launch into my little analysis, I better define my terms as this will get a bit confusing without some clarification of who I'm talking about in this story. From our point of view there are three layers: Murakami, the author (as previously with Kerouac, the author), the unnamed writer character within the narrative (henceforth called the narrator and closely comparable to Murakami himself) and the focal character of the story, again unnamed- just to be extra-confusing), henceforth known as the protagonist.
Instantly from this you can assume, correctly, that this story isn't going to be the self-flagellation of The Subterraneans. Rather than the narrator stumbling through his own self-assessment, as Kerouac's Leo does with the limited success I've already discussed, Murakami affords his protagonist the luxury of an epistolary voice through narrative layers- here not written but rather communicated as a tale that is then 're-worked'. Think Nick Carroway in The Great Gatsby but with more insight on the part of the narrator (in fact Murakami goes a bit meta-fictive by giving his narrator a chance to explain that he is tidying up the story as he goes along). To tie this point back to the issues I raised in the last part, this use of a third-person, and arguably more emotionally stable, narrator helps to stablise, even as it lessens the intensity of the emotional catharsis that the reader can take from the story. For me this evokes a more satisfying conclusion to the narrative as, although further removed, the results seem more honest, even if I'm not getting it from the horse's mouth.
Not unlike Kerouac, Murakami's interpretation of the breakdown of a relationship is still raw and true, while it also seems rather more evenly handed. The female character in the story, Yoshiko, has a stock phrase: 'these are two different things' which she repeats over the course of her conversations with the male protagonist. The concept of this phrase is given due consideration by Murakami and by his narrator throughout the story and the tension is created where these two different things, or people, become so disconcertingly similar (they are styled by the narrator as 'Mr and Miss Clean') that it makes their inevitable separation that much more poignant. Yoshiko tells the protagonist that she cannot marry him, and thus consummate their relationship, quite matter-of-factly and leaves him in a state of in-consequentiality- something previously unknown to him 'Ever since we were little, people had been pushing us...[and] we met their expectations'. When they meet again, several years later, it is the protagonist's inability to make the sexual contact that his teenage self so craved that finally destroys his hope of their being together. It is an unhappy and rather dark end to what starts as a sweet yarn about first love.
One way of summarising this tale is by using the title, as it is both oddly deliberate but deliberately odd. The word 'Folklore' is an interesting choice- in itself a genre based on the, often oral, re-telling and re-working of the tale to suit the needs of the teller and, by extension, the reader/listener. After the protagonist tells the narrator of the strange phrase he always has in mind when thinking of himself and Yoshiko (' "and when it was all over, the King and his retainers burst out laughing" ') the narrator gently tells his reader that 'there's no moral or lesson' to be drawn. The point of the tale, of love and loss, is simply to be read, and understood by the reader. Stories like these, for all their quirks and apparent ability to define an era, in this case 'Late-Stage Capitalism', will be told time after time through generations. The emotions they evoke and that they describe, will stay the same. And in realising that, and in reading this, Murakami provides us with the best emotional self-help there is.
Next time: the women take over the emotional development and I'll try to answer a very important question: is it socially reprehensible to honk with laughter when reading on public transport?
Wednesday, 12 September 2012
Boys Don't Cry Part 1: Jack Kerouac
The Subterraneans by Jack Kerouac (novella)
Originally this was going to be a blog of two halves and I suppose it still is, but it's also become a bit of a mind-splurge so I've divided it (hence Part 1). Recently I've read something brand new while also revisiting a story in a book that I bought on a whim a couple of years ago. Polarised by their styles and forms and geographically by the nationalities of their authors, both stories nonetheless share a similar concern- the catharsis of story-telling to mend a broken heart. In this post, we're starting with the new book, and heading back to 1950s America.
Jack Kerouac is often touted as the poster-boy for the hard-drinking, hard-living Beat Generation and his novella The Subterraneans is a portrait an ultimately doomed love affair so intimately connected with his own reality that Ann Douglas gives the reader a 'who's who' character list of the Beat generation in her introduction to the Penguin edition. In terms of love affairs 'romantic' is not often a word used to describe Beat texts and this book is a case in point. In the story the volatile treatment of Kerouac's stand-in Leo Percepied towards love interest Mardou Fox borders on the sociopathic as lust gives way to irrational jealousy. Not, then, an enduring love over the course of its 90-odd pages, the extremes of emotions between desire, love (though in hindsight, writes Kerouac, 'she never did use the word love') and the final demise in the relationship between the two characters are nonetheless as important as Leo battle to write about the relationship in hindsight as a means of self-therapy.
The hypnotic, jazz-infused language which characterizes and structures the narrative reflects the life-as-art duality of the text; it's written as a Modernist stream of consciousness for the Post-modern age. It's this tone and almost musical phrasing of language in the novella which, for me, is its strongest element. Kerouac sets himself the unenviable task of 'just... [starting] at the beginning and [letting] the truth seep out' and as the waves of happiness become riffs of insecurity and distrust through his reaction to Mardou's perceived indifference and/or infidelity, the text is punctuated like trumpets: '...in my heart, 'O why did you do it?'- sensing, in my desperation, the prophesy of what's to come'.
Leo, and by extension I suppose Kerouac, is constantly fighting his inner self-loathing voice with the recollection of his feelings for Mardou as they become inextricably linked to, and therefore consume, all of his other relationships. This raging is characterised by Kerouac through constant asides to his (Leo's) reader and temporal jumps between 'then' and 'now'. But despite its jumpy nature, as with much all-consuming romance, the downward trajectory is almost gravitational: the relationship begins in a heady dreamlike state 'she'd turned her face to me close, it was an ocean of melting things and drowning' and ends with a clunk: 'And I go home having lost her love. And write this book'
In writing the novella Kerouac's main objective may be an exercise in finding the emotional closure at the end of the relationship. However, this seems unlikely as, through the cyclical structure of the story, beginning, as it does, at the end, Leo is trapped in perpetual misery. Emotional catharsis is definitely not attained by either protagonist or reader (and reading it this way actually makes the story downright miserable: you may need to have some kind of biscuit-based treat available after you've finished). Alternatively it may be that this is Kerouac's attempt at artistic catharsis, and in the perhaps misguided, perhaps deliberately evasive optimism that comes from creation of the work, the novella, at any cost and regardless of emotional fall-out. Ultimately though, Mardou sums it up most neatly in an admittedly hackneyed metaphor: 'Men are so crazy, they want the essence, the woman is the essence...but [the men] rush off erecting big abstract constructions'.
In truth (and biscuits aside), The Subterraneans is not an easy read, not least because of the chauvinistic attitude which always seems to find its way into Kerouac's writing: there's definitely more than a whiff of his Madonna/Whore complex here- and this is before we factor in his views on ethnicity which make for uncomfortable reading. But whether you're on the side of love as essence, or on the side of the big abstract construction, one thing is certain: in this book love is hard and boys most certainly do cry.
Part 2 to follow and we're heading for Italy via Japan (now might be the time for that biscuit...)
Monday, 10 September 2012
Inspiration on the Tube
Sometimes I have little moments of creativity and this, I suppose, is one. From Bank at lunch time, where I saw the Olympic and Paralympic athletes' parade, gestated on my way from work to Warren Street and born somewhere between Oxford Circus and Green Park on my way home, this little poem was tucked in my copy of Sense and Sensibility written on the back of a map, serendipitously, of Soho. In amongst the everyday, London has just recently felt a bit special and, now at an end, I feel the weight of expectation on this city has been lifted. I didn't have my camera at the Parade so this, for me, is my Elephant-Brained moment to commemorate the special day.
London 10.09.12
Out in the mass
With confetti
Weeping onto anybody else's shoulder but
Yours
Here's closure, now it ends.
But we further descend and
Now
At half past five and Underground
Clunky, curmudgeonly- a little bereft
That whisper in the crowd takes a breath and sighs:
we did it; we were there.
And, even as the warm breath fades
And as the little strings snap
One
by
One
I'll try to hold mine all the more
Closely
fleeting as the rails
in our palms.
London 10.09.12
Out in the mass
With confetti
Weeping onto anybody else's shoulder but
Yours
Here's closure, now it ends.
But we further descend and
Now
At half past five and Underground
Clunky, curmudgeonly- a little bereft
That whisper in the crowd takes a breath and sighs:
we did it; we were there.
And, even as the warm breath fades
And as the little strings snap
One
by
One
I'll try to hold mine all the more
Closely
fleeting as the rails
in our palms.
Friday, 17 August 2012
A Step Away From Them- Frank O'Hara
I first met Frank in my second year at University when I was young and impressionable. I had managed to squeak in to university without having had a proper grown-up relationship with a book but being able, for reasons still a bit unclear to me, to understand a lot of the books put in front of me. I like to think of it in those most intellectual of terms- a bloody fluke. Still, this is not a therapy session.
I still can't remember the first poem of Frank O'Hara's that I read (hence this little experiment) but I can remember first reading the one I'm going to write a bit about now 'A Step Away From Them' which can be found in a little book called Lunch Poems (part of the City Lights Books Pocket Poets Series, San Francisco 1964). I've found the poem here so you know what I'm talking about http://www.frankohara.org/writing.html#step
In his poem Frank is walking, as he so often likes to do, in the streets of Manhattan on his lunch break, observing his surroundings with benevolence and whimsy, walking with the air of a Baudelairian flaneur (an aimless poetic narrative wanderer through urban settings, traditionally Paris). I could spend the length of a dissertation (and believe me, I tried) enthusing about this poem but instead, I'll draw out some of my favourite points.
To me, this poem feels inclusive and if poetry scares you, this is a fine example of a poem giving you a great big hug. For one thing, it's a fantastic example of 'looking around' in a city. One of the things I love about this poem so much is the continual stop /start of the observations in style as well as content: after a stanza of walking, following a series of observations down the sidewalks, O'Hara 'stops to look at wristwatches' in a split line all to itself as the cats play in sawdust at the end of the stanza, a moment for himself as his reader catches up to him, and is drawn into unity again with Frank the narrator.
The elegant synergy of language with image in the first stanza, where the skirts 'flipping/above heels and blow up over/grates', lift and swirl over three lines, like breezes stirred up by the cabs he mentions after. His choice of language is masterful- everything is 'ing', lilting and alive- you can feel it on your skin. At the end of the second stanza his use of time when 'everything suddenly honks: it is 12:40 of/a Thursday', mixes the transience of time with a particular moment- the ever-disappearing lunch break in the never-ending succession of weekdays where, for a few minutes at least, we are all free to roam around.
There is beautiful inclusiveness, mirroring the New York myth (and misnomer) even in observation: the negro, the blond girl and momentarily linked by the narrator- the unifying force, almost at one with New York itself. And yet Frank's own sense of self is not secure: when he mentions Bunny (Lang) and painters John Latouche and Jackson Pollack and asks 'But is the/earth as full as life was full, of them?', the wanderer is momentarily lost, even within the confines of his own art and the space in the city he is forging for himself. The ability to observe, concretely (subjectively) and also to question one's own existence in a changed world is something we can do, almost simultaneously. Walking around in the city certainly lends itself to this.
It is this that I also love most about Frank, and about this poem. This is not a hoity-toity ode to obscurity. This is the spontaneous act of walking out into the city. This is looking around, and feeling- as is so gorgeous to do in the summer heat- the world move and bend before us, with benevolent interest. His language is simply accessible but rewards can be obscure to his reader (I had never heard of Pierre Reverdy until this poem), or universal (with just a touch of the exotic): 'a glass of papaya juice'. It's worth mentioning that O'Hara belonged to a movement challenging the perceptions of academic poetry, of what was 'good' (high?) art or not. And yes it can be saccharine. And no this is not abject realism. But there is humanity here which struck a chord in me, and has never really left.
P.S. posts won't always be this long. I just really love this poem (see also O'Hara's 'The Day Lady Died', 'Steps')
I still can't remember the first poem of Frank O'Hara's that I read (hence this little experiment) but I can remember first reading the one I'm going to write a bit about now 'A Step Away From Them' which can be found in a little book called Lunch Poems (part of the City Lights Books Pocket Poets Series, San Francisco 1964). I've found the poem here so you know what I'm talking about http://www.frankohara.org/writing.html#step
**********************************
In his poem Frank is walking, as he so often likes to do, in the streets of Manhattan on his lunch break, observing his surroundings with benevolence and whimsy, walking with the air of a Baudelairian flaneur (an aimless poetic narrative wanderer through urban settings, traditionally Paris). I could spend the length of a dissertation (and believe me, I tried) enthusing about this poem but instead, I'll draw out some of my favourite points.
To me, this poem feels inclusive and if poetry scares you, this is a fine example of a poem giving you a great big hug. For one thing, it's a fantastic example of 'looking around' in a city. One of the things I love about this poem so much is the continual stop /start of the observations in style as well as content: after a stanza of walking, following a series of observations down the sidewalks, O'Hara 'stops to look at wristwatches' in a split line all to itself as the cats play in sawdust at the end of the stanza, a moment for himself as his reader catches up to him, and is drawn into unity again with Frank the narrator.
The elegant synergy of language with image in the first stanza, where the skirts 'flipping/above heels and blow up over/grates', lift and swirl over three lines, like breezes stirred up by the cabs he mentions after. His choice of language is masterful- everything is 'ing', lilting and alive- you can feel it on your skin. At the end of the second stanza his use of time when 'everything suddenly honks: it is 12:40 of/a Thursday', mixes the transience of time with a particular moment- the ever-disappearing lunch break in the never-ending succession of weekdays where, for a few minutes at least, we are all free to roam around.
There is beautiful inclusiveness, mirroring the New York myth (and misnomer) even in observation: the negro, the blond girl and momentarily linked by the narrator- the unifying force, almost at one with New York itself. And yet Frank's own sense of self is not secure: when he mentions Bunny (Lang) and painters John Latouche and Jackson Pollack and asks 'But is the/earth as full as life was full, of them?', the wanderer is momentarily lost, even within the confines of his own art and the space in the city he is forging for himself. The ability to observe, concretely (subjectively) and also to question one's own existence in a changed world is something we can do, almost simultaneously. Walking around in the city certainly lends itself to this.
It is this that I also love most about Frank, and about this poem. This is not a hoity-toity ode to obscurity. This is the spontaneous act of walking out into the city. This is looking around, and feeling- as is so gorgeous to do in the summer heat- the world move and bend before us, with benevolent interest. His language is simply accessible but rewards can be obscure to his reader (I had never heard of Pierre Reverdy until this poem), or universal (with just a touch of the exotic): 'a glass of papaya juice'. It's worth mentioning that O'Hara belonged to a movement challenging the perceptions of academic poetry, of what was 'good' (high?) art or not. And yes it can be saccharine. And no this is not abject realism. But there is humanity here which struck a chord in me, and has never really left.
P.S. posts won't always be this long. I just really love this poem (see also O'Hara's 'The Day Lady Died', 'Steps')
A Beginning
Hello there. Well this is new. Best start at the beginning.
I've toyed with the idea of writing a blog about the books I read for a while now but perennial shyness has up until this point stopped me from doing so. But I've just watched When Harry Met Sally for about the 50th time (sadly not an exaggeration) and have realised I can now quote it to almost word-perfect standard. It's time for a new challenge.
I love books. Not perhaps, with the undying fervour that you might expect of a reader who decides they're going to blog about them, but well enough. I know that's a bit weird. What I mean is, I don't get antsy if I haven't got a book on the go and I can go for a respectable enough length of time between books without feeling like I've got a hole in my head. But once I get involved, I'm there- and trying to read it as fully and completely as I can. But my memory is useless and I can never remember what I've read for long after I've read it. I don't think it's a medical problem, I think- in that respect- I'm just a bit dim.
In any case, this blog is an exercise in remembering, or at least, archiving what I think as I read- hence the title. I'm going to be reading books I love (but can't remember), books I should have read (and more about the 'should' word as I go on) and any suggestions anyone wants to offer. So here it is. I am beginning. And in typical English-Project-After-The-School-Holidays fashion I am starting with: My favourite book. Except today it's not a book. It's a poem.
I've toyed with the idea of writing a blog about the books I read for a while now but perennial shyness has up until this point stopped me from doing so. But I've just watched When Harry Met Sally for about the 50th time (sadly not an exaggeration) and have realised I can now quote it to almost word-perfect standard. It's time for a new challenge.
I love books. Not perhaps, with the undying fervour that you might expect of a reader who decides they're going to blog about them, but well enough. I know that's a bit weird. What I mean is, I don't get antsy if I haven't got a book on the go and I can go for a respectable enough length of time between books without feeling like I've got a hole in my head. But once I get involved, I'm there- and trying to read it as fully and completely as I can. But my memory is useless and I can never remember what I've read for long after I've read it. I don't think it's a medical problem, I think- in that respect- I'm just a bit dim.
In any case, this blog is an exercise in remembering, or at least, archiving what I think as I read- hence the title. I'm going to be reading books I love (but can't remember), books I should have read (and more about the 'should' word as I go on) and any suggestions anyone wants to offer. So here it is. I am beginning. And in typical English-Project-After-The-School-Holidays fashion I am starting with: My favourite book. Except today it's not a book. It's a poem.
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