So . . . . forget good book reviews, I have something better
So, I planned to write little book reviews into this blog, and unwisely said so when I started it. Unfortunately I read a few books a week, and more when under stress . . . and clearly I don't blog nearly so much as that. Curling up with my computer just isn't that comfortable - though now that I have a remarkably tiny laptop, I should reconsider it - but turning on my computer has some definite drawbacks.
Drawback the first: checking my email. I know, it should be fun, I should have lots of wise correspondences with my many varied and interesting friends. But really, most of my emails are spam or school-related, which reminds me of homework, studying, and deadlines. Drawback the second: I have programmed my Microsoft Office calendar to give me handy reminders for, well, everything important. This should also be good . . . but really it reminds me of all the things I should be doing, most of which I didn't want to do if I just sat down in front of the computer. Laaame.
Basically, lately I have wanted to escape life through a nice book-shaped portal into someone else's imagination, most preferably set in some other country, century, or even planet. I have read some rather embarassing novels on occasion, when I ran out of better fresh meat, umm, I mean reading material. Sure, I have read and re-read some great works as well, and I even read some really good nonfiction in the form of some excellent neurological case histories by Oliver Sacks, and I swear the book "An Anthropologist on Mars" was waaay better than I just made it sound. Thought that description hopefully makes me sound much brighter and more intellectual than I probably am. I assume that fascination with unutterably dry material makes one sound intellectual.
But just in case you mistakenly took me seriously as a reader, I have to add in a few comments on the terrible, awful, miserably written book that I am now reading with curious enjoyment. Really, I like to attribute my ability to read many of the 500-something pages of this book to morbid curiosity. I really enjoy seeing what horrible clunking words the author selected from her thesaurus and painstaking (but still patchy) research of the English Regency period. Also, I must admit that this book gives me real hope that someone might publish my writing one day . . . honestly, this THING is the true definition of 'turgid prose'.
Oh, so now you think you know what sort of book I am reading . . . a near-harlequin sort of regency romance, right? Well, not quite . . . I requested it from the library because it was a 'Pride and Prejudice' wannabe-sequel written in the last ten years by some author who isn't original enough to think up her own characters. Really, harlequin has higher standards. Also, they have better editors:
a) this THING of a book is a large, fat trade paperback with teeny tiny typeface
b) way too many REALLY BORING extraneous characters
c) paragraphs that are usually made up of repetitions of their first sentence
d) really uneven attempts to emulate Austen's spelling
e) imaginitive and highly unlikely slang insertions, supposedly from the era
f) copious ammounts of similarly unlikely sex scenes
g) and the most ridiculous euphemisms for human genitalia that I have ever imagined
As you can guess, the truly ridiculous euphemisms are what keep me slogging through, to a large extent. I should really keep a list (look forward to a blog on that topic, coming soon!). But what keeps me going the most is probably my interest in the real P&P, of which this is a travesty. So why can I keep reading it, when I knew it was going to be a sin upon literature (and especially Austen's works) before I finished reading the preface? Well . . . Austen's characters are so well entrenched in my mind, and the one saving grace of this author is that she didn't try to revamp the most important characters in any way, and I will suffer through a lot to continue imagining what they might have done after the real P&P ended. Of course, in the first 200 pages there is no sign of any character growth either, except that Georgiana has taken up writing excellent poetry. Whatever.
Here I will admit to requesting a few more Austen wannabe-sequels after stumbling over a decent one, a mystery called "Pride and Prescience". I read a lot of these Austen Wannabes in highschool, and around four of them were decent reads and sometimes even witty, and the rest should have been toilet paper or something more worthwhile.
I still can't quite figure it out myself, how this blend of miserable writing still captures enough of my attention to keep me reading on. To my credit, I do still skip passages from the point of view of any minor character, excepting John, Darcy's love-child (yes, you read that right) from a lustful dalliance with a chambermaid when he was 15. John is the only character of interest that has been added to the complement inherited from the original P&P. I still haven't figured out what his purpose is, but it had better be good. He is now a 13-year old groom at Pemberly, and has just figured out that Darcy probably fathered him. I'll keep you posted on that, honest. It will either be the one truly interesting ploy in the book, or a massive disappointment that will keep me whining for paragraphs.
Remember that preface? It is so bad that it has made three people laugh aloud so far . . . myself and the two friends I showed it to. Keltie found it so awfully bad that she insisted upon reading the whole thing aloud, in her best Speech Arts style, with small breaks for us to giggle and try to catch our breath. I fully intend to find the worst (and therefore best) quotes in this book and post them.
Drawback the first: checking my email. I know, it should be fun, I should have lots of wise correspondences with my many varied and interesting friends. But really, most of my emails are spam or school-related, which reminds me of homework, studying, and deadlines. Drawback the second: I have programmed my Microsoft Office calendar to give me handy reminders for, well, everything important. This should also be good . . . but really it reminds me of all the things I should be doing, most of which I didn't want to do if I just sat down in front of the computer. Laaame.
Basically, lately I have wanted to escape life through a nice book-shaped portal into someone else's imagination, most preferably set in some other country, century, or even planet. I have read some rather embarassing novels on occasion, when I ran out of better fresh meat, umm, I mean reading material. Sure, I have read and re-read some great works as well, and I even read some really good nonfiction in the form of some excellent neurological case histories by Oliver Sacks, and I swear the book "An Anthropologist on Mars" was waaay better than I just made it sound. Thought that description hopefully makes me sound much brighter and more intellectual than I probably am. I assume that fascination with unutterably dry material makes one sound intellectual.
But just in case you mistakenly took me seriously as a reader, I have to add in a few comments on the terrible, awful, miserably written book that I am now reading with curious enjoyment. Really, I like to attribute my ability to read many of the 500-something pages of this book to morbid curiosity. I really enjoy seeing what horrible clunking words the author selected from her thesaurus and painstaking (but still patchy) research of the English Regency period. Also, I must admit that this book gives me real hope that someone might publish my writing one day . . . honestly, this THING is the true definition of 'turgid prose'.
Oh, so now you think you know what sort of book I am reading . . . a near-harlequin sort of regency romance, right? Well, not quite . . . I requested it from the library because it was a 'Pride and Prejudice' wannabe-sequel written in the last ten years by some author who isn't original enough to think up her own characters. Really, harlequin has higher standards. Also, they have better editors:
a) this THING of a book is a large, fat trade paperback with teeny tiny typeface
b) way too many REALLY BORING extraneous characters
c) paragraphs that are usually made up of repetitions of their first sentence
d) really uneven attempts to emulate Austen's spelling
e) imaginitive and highly unlikely slang insertions, supposedly from the era
f) copious ammounts of similarly unlikely sex scenes
g) and the most ridiculous euphemisms for human genitalia that I have ever imagined
As you can guess, the truly ridiculous euphemisms are what keep me slogging through, to a large extent. I should really keep a list (look forward to a blog on that topic, coming soon!). But what keeps me going the most is probably my interest in the real P&P, of which this is a travesty. So why can I keep reading it, when I knew it was going to be a sin upon literature (and especially Austen's works) before I finished reading the preface? Well . . . Austen's characters are so well entrenched in my mind, and the one saving grace of this author is that she didn't try to revamp the most important characters in any way, and I will suffer through a lot to continue imagining what they might have done after the real P&P ended. Of course, in the first 200 pages there is no sign of any character growth either, except that Georgiana has taken up writing excellent poetry. Whatever.
Here I will admit to requesting a few more Austen wannabe-sequels after stumbling over a decent one, a mystery called "Pride and Prescience". I read a lot of these Austen Wannabes in highschool, and around four of them were decent reads and sometimes even witty, and the rest should have been toilet paper or something more worthwhile.
I still can't quite figure it out myself, how this blend of miserable writing still captures enough of my attention to keep me reading on. To my credit, I do still skip passages from the point of view of any minor character, excepting John, Darcy's love-child (yes, you read that right) from a lustful dalliance with a chambermaid when he was 15. John is the only character of interest that has been added to the complement inherited from the original P&P. I still haven't figured out what his purpose is, but it had better be good. He is now a 13-year old groom at Pemberly, and has just figured out that Darcy probably fathered him. I'll keep you posted on that, honest. It will either be the one truly interesting ploy in the book, or a massive disappointment that will keep me whining for paragraphs.
Remember that preface? It is so bad that it has made three people laugh aloud so far . . . myself and the two friends I showed it to. Keltie found it so awfully bad that she insisted upon reading the whole thing aloud, in her best Speech Arts style, with small breaks for us to giggle and try to catch our breath. I fully intend to find the worst (and therefore best) quotes in this book and post them.
posted by Lu Hill at 10:08 p.m.
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