Continuing to catch up
Mar. 31st, 2003 09:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tarigwaemirAd Mundo Exteriore,
Meant to be posted Sunday:
I finished Babel Tower, The Father Brown Omnibus and American Gods. How's that for procrastination? I felt that Babel Tower had a copout ending, at least from my point of view. I like an ending that is a resolution, both plotwise and thematically, but it felt as if Babel Tower ended without doing either. Of course, since it is essentially a retrospective book, perhaps the author really needed to give the sense of time moving on, of lives continuing (as fraught with tension and problems as ever) after the book ends, but I was dissatisfied. I also think the whole trial section would have been more understandable if Byatt had written more segments of Babbletower, or perhaps the trial was meant to be incomprehensible and/or meaningless, but whatever her intent, the result felt a little muddled. This was especially disappointing after the sheer clarity of the writing throughout most of the book (until the end, that is). Still, it was an interesting read. I think I preferred Posession and The Biographer's Tale though.
I thought American Gods was really excellent. I mean, Neil Gaiman is a genius with most of his other works too, but I think this was a cut above Stardust and Neverwhere. It's not more imaginative or anything, but there was a purpose, a cohesion to the writing that was not really necessary in his other novels. It's really more a matter of scope, I think. There is an epic quality to American Gods, while Stardust and Neverwhere are more like fairy tales. Actually, it has the same scope of the Sandman graphic novels, which are also epic (and also genius in their own way).
My iBook is going through a tacky hot pink and magenta phase. The iTunes visualizations on this computer is making my eyes go blind. Which reminds me, I came out of the shower yesterday night, and the whites of my eyes were completely red. Well, more pink than red. But it was so strange! Is it the chlorine in the tap water or do I have conjunctivitis? I don't feel feverish, so I doubt it's an infection, but then that means my bath water is chemically treated like a swimming pool. >_<
Oh, a lower termer from Science Club apparently has been reading my LJ. He told me last Friday that my blog was very "interesting". I don't know whether I should be disturbed or flattered. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised though...that's the price for listing all your web sites in your email signature. Still, I didn't expect anyone would actually bother clicking on the links. (I don't look at email sigs unless I want to find a fanfic writer's personal archive. I only put those links there so that the Society members remember where the Society web site is.) Does this mean that I should watch what I write in public in the future? Should I even care?
(By the way, people who know me in real life, if you're reading this LJ, could you please mention it to me, so that I don't get paranoid and start wondering who reads my blog other than those LJ users who friended me? I mean, you don't have to, but it would be nice.)
...Tari
Post-script: All right, so I've been trying to keep track of the books I read in order to make the citation process easier (i.e. I don't have to struggle to remember which recently read book inspired a particular idea). But I keep forgetting the books that I've finished at school or at the library. I was rereading parts of my LJ, wondering if there was anything particularly indiscreet about any of my entries, and the only thing that I actually noticed was that I forgot to note down The Club of Queer Trades in my reading log. (It's not really a reading log, I just write down the title, author and date finished, though I keep forgetting when I finished what.) This isn't working, is it?
Meant to be posted Sunday:
I finished Babel Tower, The Father Brown Omnibus and American Gods. How's that for procrastination? I felt that Babel Tower had a copout ending, at least from my point of view. I like an ending that is a resolution, both plotwise and thematically, but it felt as if Babel Tower ended without doing either. Of course, since it is essentially a retrospective book, perhaps the author really needed to give the sense of time moving on, of lives continuing (as fraught with tension and problems as ever) after the book ends, but I was dissatisfied. I also think the whole trial section would have been more understandable if Byatt had written more segments of Babbletower, or perhaps the trial was meant to be incomprehensible and/or meaningless, but whatever her intent, the result felt a little muddled. This was especially disappointing after the sheer clarity of the writing throughout most of the book (until the end, that is). Still, it was an interesting read. I think I preferred Posession and The Biographer's Tale though.
I thought American Gods was really excellent. I mean, Neil Gaiman is a genius with most of his other works too, but I think this was a cut above Stardust and Neverwhere. It's not more imaginative or anything, but there was a purpose, a cohesion to the writing that was not really necessary in his other novels. It's really more a matter of scope, I think. There is an epic quality to American Gods, while Stardust and Neverwhere are more like fairy tales. Actually, it has the same scope of the Sandman graphic novels, which are also epic (and also genius in their own way).
My iBook is going through a tacky hot pink and magenta phase. The iTunes visualizations on this computer is making my eyes go blind. Which reminds me, I came out of the shower yesterday night, and the whites of my eyes were completely red. Well, more pink than red. But it was so strange! Is it the chlorine in the tap water or do I have conjunctivitis? I don't feel feverish, so I doubt it's an infection, but then that means my bath water is chemically treated like a swimming pool. >_<
Oh, a lower termer from Science Club apparently has been reading my LJ. He told me last Friday that my blog was very "interesting". I don't know whether I should be disturbed or flattered. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised though...that's the price for listing all your web sites in your email signature. Still, I didn't expect anyone would actually bother clicking on the links. (I don't look at email sigs unless I want to find a fanfic writer's personal archive. I only put those links there so that the Society members remember where the Society web site is.) Does this mean that I should watch what I write in public in the future? Should I even care?
(By the way, people who know me in real life, if you're reading this LJ, could you please mention it to me, so that I don't get paranoid and start wondering who reads my blog other than those LJ users who friended me? I mean, you don't have to, but it would be nice.)
...Tari
Post-script: All right, so I've been trying to keep track of the books I read in order to make the citation process easier (i.e. I don't have to struggle to remember which recently read book inspired a particular idea). But I keep forgetting the books that I've finished at school or at the library. I was rereading parts of my LJ, wondering if there was anything particularly indiscreet about any of my entries, and the only thing that I actually noticed was that I forgot to note down The Club of Queer Trades in my reading log. (It's not really a reading log, I just write down the title, author and date finished, though I keep forgetting when I finished what.) This isn't working, is it?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2003-04-02 05:54 pm (UTC)O.o
Re:
Date: 2003-04-03 07:40 am (UTC)...Tari
(no subject)
Date: 2003-04-03 05:32 pm (UTC)O.o
Re:
Date: 2003-04-04 07:05 am (UTC)...Tari
(no subject)
Date: 2003-04-05 05:50 pm (UTC)O.o