Hunted Snark > Recent Status Updates

Of course, I'd never have picked it up if I hadn't been old enough to remember Gielgud as Haverford Downs in the BBC adaptation in the 90s.

But I'm glad I did. Needed a palate cleanser. And it has just the right amount of astringency.

It's a long, slow read. But somehow, Gardiner manages to make it compelling. Continuing to make my way with interest.

Okay, we've got lots of people swanning about on the periphery of a Jacobite plot, one of whom is Alexander Pope.

Half the characters fancy the other half in a slightly heavy-handed Eighteenth-Century-rich-person sort of way.

So ... do we think something might happen soon?
Or, if not, can Pope at least be a bit more bitchy? That's what I bought my ticket for.

Sheesh.

Definitely one of the better ones.
We're getting some proper detecting.
And ... I need to check this ... but we're getting Wimsey's though processes in a way I don't recall seeing much of before.

(cue overthinking)

A contemporary writer would never get away with this sort of thing.
Even in their 11th book.
Thirty pages of hunting your trebles up and down the chases with a tin tan tom ding dang dong bim bam bo?
Blimey!
And yet, here we are ...

A ton of fun.
Apart from the horrendous murders.
Only two, though, and not described in detail, so I'm good.

I don't read series.
I'm terrible at it.
Do I need to buy the third one now? Before I've finished this one?

Eh ... this is starting to feel like an even more annoying version of Quiet.

And I honestly don't enjoy the exclusive focus on women. If we're going to go on an on about how sensitivity gets ignored and mistreated and brushed under the carpet ... it's really not logical to not discuss the experiences of sensitive lads & AMAB folk.

Kinda unimaginative, you know?

Am now hopping about reading random bits, because that's the kind of book this is and who i am as a person. It's a fascinating book, but I've slowed right down.

o noes! Cecily has disappeared.
Do I care?
I do not.

good grief, how did they prepare this for publication? The typos are legion (well all right, I've noticed half a dozen in 37 pages -- but one of them was several words that looked like they'd ended up in a sentence they didn't belong in). It was never like that in 1927, was it? They had proofreaders then.
The best so far is '... he had few household gods ...' (it should have been 'goods')

Can Molesworths adventurs be drawing to a digified cloze? why is he reading IMPROVING BOOK given by fotherington-thomas? will it rune him? chiz we are on a clif hanger

I knew about the Beaulieu trial vaguely, but had never gone into it. I even have a copy of Peter Wildeblood's (one of those arrested) book 'Against the Law', which I haven't read. The harassment of gay people after WWII in England was disgusting. And it's salutary just how fast sentiment swung around, as society had been quite permissive between the wars and in the 40s. Great chapter, this one.

Cheers cheers cheers!
Allthuogh this N. Molesworth is not quite the finished artickle (hem hem) we kno and love (chiz wet) from the books, and we do not hav many of the fassinating flora and fawna (bot.) of St. Custard's to enjoy, it is of grate interest to the ernest scholar to kno more of his grate and signifant life.

Not going to lie: the first couple of chapters were as confusing as ... I don't know ... the by-roads of Dorset during the War.
Very confusing, is what I'm saying.

But it's hit its stride now, and I'm really enjoying it.

enjoying this greatly.
such a relief.

This is a spoof isn't it?

This is rather charming so far.

Parking for a while. Going on with something else, but he's good to dip into.

Finished the first section and am still delighted.
They're immensely silly, but aren't intended to be anything but.

Will flip a coin to see whether to go on now, or save for the next time I'm gloomed out by a terrible book ;)

This is charming!
I am charmed.

Been on the 'to read' shelf for a while.
Seemed a logical place to go after finishing up with Dagobert yesterday.
One story in -- the writing/translation is sprightly, so that's a plus

So far so silly.
I'm not convinced, but it's sprightly, I suppose.

hmm
This doesn't seem sure what it wants to be yet.
I'll give it another chapter.

I picked this up free from a book-sharing thingy at a shopping centre.
I did not mean to start reading it almost immediately.
oh well

surprisingly good
can I be salvaged from the jaws of disillusion?
well, probably not, as this was written in the 50s

Not bad at all so far.
Mid-century sexism-for-laughs very much on display, but if we blink past that, we see a richly-textured picture of Oxford with its assorted flora, fauna and architecture, rendered in highly readable light prose.

Oh FFS