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| Thursday, 24 May 2007 |
| Random thought about Possession |
| Something I'd forgotten, but was reminded of by this post from Sheila is the change in my feelings towards Val in Possession. When I was intending to live an academic life, I don't think I even noticed her, except maybe to dispise what I remember as "the bright-coloured blouses" she wears for work. And then later, when I'd finally faced the reality that I wasn't going back to Cambridge, I wasn't doing my PhD and I wasn't going to spend the rest of my life reading obscure texts in dead languages, and had a horrible job that I hated more than I can express, how my sympathy for Val grew. Not surprising, I suppose. |
| posted @ 19:05 |
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| Begun again |
| *sigh* I need to stop starting books and get on and finish them. I started The Execution Channel last night and read about a dozen pages. Then this morning, Dark Benediction, a collection of Walter M. Miller Jr's short stories, turned up from Amazon, and The Triumph of the Moon, Ronald Hutton's study of modern witchcraft, also arrived from a Marketplace seller. I'd like to take a day off from eBay and sit in the sun and read, but it's not going to happen. |
| posted @ 11:44 |
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| Monday, 21 May 2007 |
| QotD |
How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?
Sherlock Holmes, "The Sign of the Four"
Proof is often no more than a lack of imagination, in failing to see an alternative hypothesis that would equally fit the facts.
Edward de Bono, "Practical Thinking" |
| posted @ 16:38 |
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| Begun: The Secret Supper |
B. bought Javier Sierra's The Secret Supper a couple of weeks ago when he turned up at Charles de Gaulle (the airport, not the man) with nothing to read: it was the only book in English in their bookshop.
With regard to which, it strikes me that CdG's management are missing a big trick here. What percentage of their travellers don't read French? A significant one, I would have thought. Then there's the recognition factor: if you're in a strange country and you see a book *in your language*, you're more likely to buy it even if the subject matter makes your heart sink a bit.
Which let's face it: anything with "Leonardo da Vinci" in its blurb does right now. The first fifty pages of this slightly messy narrative just make me want to shake the author and tell him to get on with it: there's too much dotting about, and a lot of this scene-setting would have been better done as flashback. It's not a great beginning and makes me wonder if it would have got published if it'd been about Donatello - or any of the other Mutant Ninja Turtles really.
Anyway, it's about an inquisitor investigating anonymous letters accusing people of heresy. And B. says it does get better, so I shall persevere. |
| posted @ 16:05 |
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| The flag which braved the battle and the breeze |
There has been a fire on board the Cutty Sark. I visited the ship almost exactly four years ago, out of nothing-to-do on a Sunday afternoon, and fell in love. The ship itself was beautiful: small and graceful, even knowing nothing about ships, I could see speed in her lines. Below stairs, there was a long row of figureheads standing somewhat sadly in the half-light. An exhibition had photographs and film of tea clippers working, and I found it almost incredible that such modernity could have co-existed with sailing ships. Ironically, the Cutty Sark was launched in the same year that the Suez Canal opened, shortening the sea route to China, but inaccessible to sailing ships: the day of the tea clipper was over.
Will fire do for her what changing times couldn't? Though it's being treated as suspicious, this *could* have happened at a worse time. The ship was midway through a major restoration, so around half of its material had been removed from the site. Damage to the iron hull is not as bad as it could have been. Fingers crossed, wallets open. |
| posted @ 11:30 |
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| Sunday, 20 May 2007 |
| QotD |
"God has a long white beard and invented the Da Vinci code."
Homer Simpson, "Kiss Kiss Bang Bangalore" |
| posted @ 21:18 |
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| Link: Pope with a quote |
The Times has a review of the Pope's new book, which apparently contains the phrase "Everyone is free ... to contradict me." Though I'd love to know what's in the ellipsis, I feel as shocked by this as I did when a French eBayer first tutoyed me. I *do* feel shocked, but simultaneously think that it's rather inappropriate that I should even care.
I'm reminded of Rex Mottram (Julia Flyte's fiancé in Brideshead Revisted, converting to Catholicism):
'Supposing the Pope looked up and saw a cloud and said 'It's going to rain', would that be bound to happen?'
'Oh, yes, Father.'
'But supposing it didn't?'
He thought a moment and said, "I suppose it would be sort of raining spiritually, only we were too sinful to see it.' Presumably there is is a difference between the pronouncements of the man, and those of his office: Canon Law 212 appears to say that there is. But still, I find myself in the rather interesting position of wanting to read a book written by the Pope. Apparently, this argues that the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith are, and always have been, one and the same. I was always firmly steered away from the historical Jesus by my own religious teachers, presumably for fear that I'd find not the Messiah, just a very naughty boy. So the idea that B16 himself might have something to say on the matter intrigues me no end. |
| posted @ 12:58 |
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| Saturday, 19 May 2007 |
| Link: Ronald Hutton |
| The Indie interviews Hutton about his new book on the Druids. He's been on my "I must read that" list for years, I really should do something about it. I do like the thought of an historian of religion who can say "we can look upon the past and how it works for us, and call upon it in order to make the future". |
| posted @ 11:34 |
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| Friday, 18 May 2007 |
| Link: Lord of the Flies TV |
| 40 children are to be left to their own devices in an abandoned town in New Mexico, as the producer of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition creates a new reality TV show aping Lord of the Flies. 'Kid Nation' will feature children from 8 to 15 years old. They will not be voted off the show but will vote to reward one of their own number, having the choice between practical rewards - food, etc. - and treats like computer games. The producers presumably hope that the show won't end in murder like Golding's book did, though frankly it all sounds like it's about to go Stanford to me. |
| posted @ 18:37 |
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| Thursday, 17 May 2007 |
| Begun: Pandora's Star |
I've just started Peter F Hamilton's Pandora's Star. I'm not entirely sure why I own this huge doorstop of a science fiction book, except that Amazon's marketing told me to buy it with such monotonous regularity that it felt like fate: I haven't, after all, bought any SF since the book that I think is called Spin, bought maybe a year ago solely due to a post from Patrick Nielsen Hayden.
It's very large, but it's a very easy read. I'm not quite sure where it's going: there are two current storylines, one about an interplanetary terrorist and the agents who are trying to track him down, and the other - more interesting to my mind - about a pair of stars that have disappeared behind a force-field and the astronomer who's trying to figure out what happened. Neither of these seems quite adequate to fill out the whole of this tome and the part two that follows it. So I'm very much looking forward to finding out where he's taking the story. |
| posted @ 22:55 |
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| Once upon a time... |
there was a little girl who, in order to teach herself HTML, made a web shrine to her favourite authors. Back in 1995 before the word blog was even invented, this began its slow metamorphosis into a collection of reviews of the books she was reading. Then she got a blog, which disappeared and reappeared and moved, and eventually was abandoned. And then, because of the circular nature of things, came back as a reading log.
Now, read on...Labels: meta |
| posted @ 22:05 |
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