Anna Karenina – A Little Further

So this morning I noticed that the spine has split on my copy of Anna Karenina. Leaf 251/252 is loose. Or should that be folio? Maybe it’s folio. Anyway, I am so into this novel that it’s amazing! I’m coming up for page 300 and for once, instead of plaintively hoping that the end will come soon, instead I’m just into it and enjoying it and not worrying about how much longer I’ll be reading this book. It’s such a rich and wonderful vastness that I’m enjoying, from politics to affairs of the heart, from the city to the country… really really wonderful, luscious stuff. A true panorama of life in 19th Century Russia. Everyone should read it.

The Yellow Wallpaper

Last night I read The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It was very eerie, and fascinating to watch the rapid decline of the mind of a intelligent woman after the birth of her child. What mischief idleness brings, how we can follow fanciful wonderings when we’re not otherwise occupied. I once read somewhere that it is sometimes good to be idle, but not to be lazy. After reading this story, I find myself wondering if it might be better to be lazy instead!

Latest Acquisitions

At the Village Street Fair, I bought:

• North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
• The Liar by Stephen Fry
• Cancer Ward by Alexander Solhenitzyn

Plus an Enid Blyton to sell on eBay, to fund further books! I spent a grand total of £1.90 on these 4. Looking forward to all three, meanwhile Anna Karenina continues apace, I’m completely in it’s thrall now!

Bookcrossing Adventures Day 7

I really need to start releasing books into the wild. I did think about releasing one in my Doctor’s waiting room tomorrow, but I doubt it would get found, seeing as I’m in such a backwater. I’d be better to wait until I get to somewhere bigger, heck even Town is probably a better bet than the village. I think the village church would quite likely be an excellent place to start, though. I could leave something not too blasphemeous on a pew near the back of the church or something. Perhaps the Garrison Keillor, that would probably be OK. I’m not aware that our village church sells secondhand books, but I know the church in the next village does.
I’m hoping to get there again sometime and have lunch in the pub opposite the church, it’s one of my favourite pubs in the local area.

Anna Karenina – First Off

I usually find books much longer than 200 pages a lot to take on. The gulp you could hear when I first alight upon a novel and then subsequently realise it’s thicker than a common-or-garden housebrick, well it could shatter worlds and fill an Astronaut’s suit quicker than an elephant’s fart.
(I don’t advise being in the company of elephants whilst wearing an Astronaut’s suit. They may not have thumbs but they can soon sit on your chest and fart at you with great gusto, the sneaky buggers. But I digress.)
I’m 112 pages into Leo Tolstoy’s 800 page Russian epic Anna Karenina and I must say I’m already gripped. There’s a rich tragic tapestry being stitched calmly and effectively before me as my eyes dance lightly across the page – people, places, cold winter nights in Moscow and St Petersburg… I found myself believing that it was nearly Christmas on this, July the 14th. And yes, you could mistake this dull, heavy day as being in December, it’s certainly cool enough at 16 degrees C to be a warm December day. But it’s really not, and this demonstrates clearly to me, how this novel has already drawn me in.
I’m aware of the tragic end to Anna’s story, but I’m intrigued enough to continue to read closely and to chart a careful path all the way to the end…

Site Restyle [Site News]

And this is the new look for the ‘World. Gone is the mad pink and purple, in it’s place we have beige. Looking classy

Poetry Notebook #1

London Airport

Last night in London Airport
I saw a wooden bin
labelled UNWANTED LITERATURE
IS TO BE PLACED HEREIN
So I wrote a poem
and popped it in.

Christopher Logue

Chocky: One Day’s Read

I read Chocky in a day. Under a day. Less than 24 hours, but not much more than 12. I had to work for part of that time and I stole half an hour to read more, which was wicked of me, I know.
(Work’s not exactly stimulating)
(But John Wyndham is)
There was a gentleness, an innocence to this novel (novella?) that you simply do not see in modern fiction. Society today, the ‘we’ve been there, we’ve seen it all and we came back with a film full of photos and a crummy t-shirt’ generation that sits back in our wicker chairs on the veranda and says “Meh. Done that.”‘ That generation. There was no malevolence, there was no real fear… well not for me anyway. Chocky was just an enquiring mind from far away, with a childlike need to learn more about this world. She never meant any harm and I never perceived her as meaning harm, either.
If only the world could return to such times. I think we’d all be happier to less bothered with the pursuit of objects and trends, and more concerned with contentment and simpler things.
Later on, last night, I went back to Anna Karenina. But I tucked a bookmark in Day of the Triffids, ready to take it travelling…

After Henry

Well to my surprise, The Europeans didn’t quite turn out as I thought it might. There was a mildly sour twist at the end. Someone didn’t quite live happily ever after. But unless Henry James’ longer works are, I don’t know what, “more” something I guess (for want of a decent verb), then I won’t rate him as highly as Edith Wharton, who still sits at God’s feet, scribbling frantically. Henry James can work with St Peter, if he really must be in Heaven.
Now attempting Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina as my “at home” read, and Chocky by John Wyndham as my “travelling” read. It’s an experiment in whether I can read two books at once! I don’t really see how I can lug an 800 page tome that is Anna Karenina to work and sit at the counter reading it. I might get sussed – I was lucky I didn’t get sussed this afternoon, as I’d left Chocky lying on the counter when the boss came to the Reception desk.
*goes off to read*

Bookcrossing Adventures Day 2

So I was awake at 4am this morning, fiendishly thinking up places to release my books for Bookcrossing. I came up with a few.

• The Charity Book Box on Mr Michette the Optician’s outside windowsill in aid of the church.
• The Surgery Waiting Room magazine pile
• Inside the church somewhere.
• Inside one of the pubs, perhaps The George or The Cock and Bell.
• In the magazine pile at either my old dentist or my new dentist – could’ve done that today but I was chicken!

Yeah, I admit I was chicken. I was a bit downhearted by the fact that someone on a Bookcrossing community commiserated with me that it would probably be hard to do Bookcrossing in a rural area. However I’d like to hope I might be able to leave one in the waiting room at Marks Tey railway station in a few weeks time when I go down to my fella’s place, and maybe even release one on the Underground somewhere. Books are such a shared interest of ours, I might even be able to get him involved. Some couples go Geocaching… we could go Bookcrossing!!!!
Fun!