The Time Traveller’s Wife – eh?
I must admit that at first I was really drawn into this book – a compelling love story where the transience of time is brutally razed by Henry’s genetic ability to jump back and relive tumultuous and tragic moments.
I sat on the sofa devouring every page (one of the perks of the howling winds outside) however slowly but surely details started to jar. The couple simply didn’t do anything – I mean they were two of the most boring people ever despite having dazzling parentage. Couldn’t they have been a bit more creative, if that was the unfurling of their destiny then it was just a tad disappointing.
Justification of their every thought and action lay in the ‘purity’ of their love. No really. What was it with Charisse’s calm acceptance of Gomez’s love (read strange, obssessive, pervy lust) for Claire? Was the author trying to justify Claire’s desirability by giving her a second fiddle so to speak?
I finished it. The cold depths of bereavement was skimmed over with the promise of their final reunion, some quasi-religious meeting in a room filled with light.
My friend throughly enjoyed this book but being a grumpy singleton I have to convince myself that life can be fulfilling without true love, children or an ability to cook.
Don’t waste your youth growing up
Why do ‘grown ups’ insist that young people don’t know how to string a sentence together and yet when pushed for proof they simply gesticulate like this was an obvious truth.
“I have seen writing by teenagers.” Was the response I just had to contend with. Really? Where? You are a product designer, working in an office of 25, where, by your own admission, you play computer games for most of the day.
“I’m just saying that in my day…” he falters “I know I pay more attention to accuracy.” he continues.
So you are saying that at the age of 33 with a degree you can write better than the average 15 year old.
Well done.
A different gift this year?
The students from my form will be getting to know Lourdine from Haiti this year and next…
Fog is Festive
The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
My neighbour is an undertaker, he parks his van outside.
‘Fear death? to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face.’ Prospice by Robert Browning
My neighbour is a truely Dickensian fellow, rarely seen out of his tails with a face that peers through his perfectly round, metal-framed glasses in a friendly but never overly familiar fashion. His mouth a hotchpotch of Victorian dental work and coffee stains.
We chatted in the hall today – apparently this is a very busy time of year for them. He appears flustered when I suggest that it was maybe the cold weather?
We live opposite an Old Folk’s Home, I ask if it isn’t a bit like touting for business when he parks his van outside…
Sometimes late at night, through the wall can be heard strains of Queen’s “Find me somebody to love.”
Spelling
Last piece of work for the term, a letter. Time till bell – ten minutes.
Rebecca (12) : Miss?
Me (30 and maudlin) : Yes?
Rebecca: How do you spell sincerely?
Me : Um. (I say looking down and accidently catching sight of my rapidly expanding gut owing to too many chocolates and not enough will power.) I dunno. How do you spell spare tyre?
Rebecca: D – I – E – T
I got told.
Changing ways to see
1.
 |
The Famished Road by Ben Okri
2.
 |
The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
3.
 |
Transmission by Hari Kunzru
4.
 |
Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee
5.
 |
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
Honesty
“It seemed to Howard to be the first time she had spoken to him truthfully, or at least in a manner that he experienced as true.” On Beauty Zadie Smith
A friend of mine asked me yesterday if I lie.
I asked him what is a lie?
He rummaged around his gargantuan brain trying to find an example my plebeian mind could conceive of… “Well if X tried something on while shopping which was hideous – would you tell her or lie?”
I had to point out that with opinion there was no absolute truth to be avoided, simply a denial of my own view. Which was irrelevant as of course I would tell her.
Is avoiding the truth a lie?
cathedral tunes
THERE’S a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.
Heavenly hurt it gives us;
We can find no scar,
But internal difference
Where the meanings are.
None may teach it anything,
’T is the seal, despair,—
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the air.
When it comes, the landscape listens,
Shadows hold their breath;
When it goes, ’t is like the distance
On the look of death.
Emily Dickinson
