Rahina > Recent Status Updates

I envy those who have a stronger reaction to this work. Select passages are indeed powerful but the irony remains too heavy (the mute all the lonely people rely on is lonely too!) and that scene with the gun was groanworthy in its telegraphed bathos. That said, I would rather she be in the American Pantheon for this book than not at all.

Read by the day, this is pretty interesting. Read at night, it puts me to sleep faster than I would have thought possible.

Got through the section on brooches and burial goods, then the white noise of hundreds of warrior Kings killing each other. Now in a much more interesting section on Irish education, religion and language.

Her first novel has a tone both dreary (which I expected) and maudlin (less appreciated). No match for Reflections so far but it's early days yet...

Didn't last long in memory but certainly enjoyable enough to keep its place on the bookshelf.

Went in with low expectations. Suspect that it swept the awards on subject alone. Writing clean and pleasant but without any stylistic quirks. And yet I find it very enjoyable, certainly something that will stick in my memory longer than Gilead. Soothing, like a soak in a tub.

Touching finish as those who survived the craze of the sixties grew up in spite of themselves.

Enigmatic. Anatomy, apocalypse, media, fiction as the new reality, desensitivity, devaluation, chasing catharsis, chasing car wrecks, sex as anatomy. I am somewhat intrigued but remain unenlightened as I approach the end of this summation to a career.

Got through the section on grave goods, cruciform and saucer brooches. I feel good about myself.

Clinical writing works magnificently on war and apocalypse but less so when he's depicting his successful single parent raising of three children.

My first Ballard. I saw Empire of the Sun years back, giving this sequel to the novel some context and the image of Christian Bale. Apocalypse is right there from the beginning of the book, described in uncanny detail in the real world wartime equivalent.

So it went from charming slice of life to all of her male cousins hitting on her and proposing marriage within a couple of days of meeting her. One weird family. She did pick the one slightly more distantly related to her so I guess that's good? Anyway, I was considerably more impressed with The Shell Seekers but it was a nice sickbed distraction.

Got a stomach virus somehow, bedridden and seeking thoughtless comfort reading so I turn to Rosamunde Pilcher. She was a favorite of my grandmother. Cornwall, local colour, reconnecting with family, maybe romance, back when normal people could still afford to live in London...

Finished the stories and will wait a while before going on to the novels. Always entertaining. Best stories: Red Wind, The King in Yellow, Trouble is My Business, Guns at Cyrano's, I'll Be Waiting and the Peter Wimsey send up Pearls Are A Nuisance. Only two out of the thirteen actively sucked so that's good.

Native is definitely an ensemble novel, hitting a lull when half the characters disappeared. Six characters interweaving desires fuel the plot and it slows when too many are absent.

Midnight gambling scene was mystical and pagan. Can really see how he influenced Lawrence (though Lawrence would probably build up some homoeroticism for such a scene).

Delightfully close to a Gothic novel. Passion, atmosphere, clever switchbacks. It's Hardy so I picture something bad will happen but it's a wild ride to get there. They should make a film with David Tennant as the Reddleman, the role suits him to a tee.

Chandler's earliest stories are a plow. Hints of his ironies and elegance amid pallid tough guy talk and barely established characters.

He gets more mileage out of pearls than I would have believed possible. Can sketch a character's essence with sartorial details. Every empty room has a body in it (gets a little silly). Reading the stories in backwards chronological order is way more gratifying than trying to slog through the stilted action of Blackmailers don't Shoot.

Pretty much destined for a place among my favorite poets.

Pretty much destined for a place among my favorite poets.

Slice-of-life is often generic unless the author is a fabulous stylist or incredibly perceptive. Nors disappoints. A couple of the stories cultivate an opaque and ominous atmosphere of gloom and decay. The rest offer very little to me.