With all the new artists I have been listening to over the last week, Peter Murphy’s post with this Poe quote is very well timed…
“When music affects us to tears, seemingly causeless, we weep not from ‘excess of pleasure’; but through excess of an impatient, perpetual sorrow that, as mere mortals, we are as yet in no condition to banquet upon those supernal ecstasies of which the music affords us merely a suggestive and indefinite glimpse.”
Edgar Allan Poe
I came across BibliOdyssey through Strangemaps and it is just a stupendous blog that has “books, illustrations, science, history, visual materia obscura, and eclectic bookart” . It certainly taps into the historic/artistic nature in me which many people don’t see with me being Mr I.T. guy most of the time. There is some fabulous material there so its worth adding him to your read (along with Strangemaps) for the wonderful things that he may find!
[EDIT] Also came across Recogedor from BibliOdyssey…problem with following links in blogs is that it is never ending! Maybe not a full day wasted Becs but probably just an afternoon….
Just my thoughts- check out Nadine O’Regans excellent interview with Alice Seebold here.
Very approachable style of writing so a quick enough read. The beginning of the book does take a bit more time since she is hopping back and forth between the present and the past and sometimes it takes that bit of effort to keep track of which period she is in. Further in the book she does calm down with longer stretches in the past and present.
I do like how she will give quick glimpses into events and will then come back to them later in greater detail though. Adds some suspense since you do not have the full story and what you think happened turns out to be slightly different than the first impression.
This is a book with many themes but the overriding them is of death and mental illness. Not only does it deal with the death of her mother and father but later in the book there are a few other deaths on their road- one of which is a defining moment for her family. Up to the end though there are new deaths being mentioned- both past and present. Of course the mother’s mental illness is well defined but you only find out about the father later on in the book. While most moments are of misery there are some standout times that have some happiness- when she goes to the neighbors house for the first time and sees his collection and then her description of the fathers house with the plywood family.
Was easy to put myself into the location of the story since where I am from in Maryland is virtually next door to Pennsylvania and extremely similar in the landscape…there are even disappearing roads into a reservoir not far from me as in the fathers hometown.
The majority of the book feels honest and direct which can be difficult given the subject matter. The reasoning behind the killing, the sex afterwards with the friends son, the dealings with the ex-husband all give a very good insight into the character. I do think that the end of the book was a bit contrived. The fact that she is thinking about killing herself with a sort of pre-destined feeling and the details of the letter to the daughter did not need to be spelled out.
One thing I do have to remark on is in chapter 6:
‘It took me a moment to remember her current boy friend’s name, but as I reached up to touch the branch of the dogwood tree, I remembered its fill-in-the-blank quality. Joe or Bob or Tim. A one-syllable, easily replaceable name.’
Tim…replaceable?! I suppose I should be happy that Seebold thinks Tim is common enough to be mentioned since it would usually be Tom. With knowing so few Tim’s myself though I would think the name is memorable…in fact I knew of only one other Tim when I was growing up- he happened to be in my class and had the same birthday (a bit freaky that). I admit that Timothy has more of a ring but I don’t use that one unless I have to…and it is a brave person who calls me Timmy!
Had some enforced time off the laptop last Saturday and finally picked up one of the books on my rather large to-read pile. I have been very, very negligent over the last year in reading. In fact I have been joking that it is easier to measure the pile of books than it is to count them and unfortunately it is true.
I even have a second pile of books now that I bought from the library when they were clearing out their catalogue…some books I already have though and just couldn’t leave at the price- Louis De Bernieres is worth having an extra copy to give away! The librarian must have recognized the word-junkie in me since she said to just take anything else I wanted on the way out…thankfully the library is not on the ground floor or I would have just backed up the car…seriously!
So two piles of books to get through now…and it will probably get worse since I am now working very close to Waterstones, Hodges Figgis and Reads so temptation is only a few steps away! The commute to Portlaoise, when it comes, will be easier on the already warped bookshelf at least!
[EDIT]- Saw this over at Unbearably Light and it would be a very cool thing to have for the books…would imagine I would get a pain in the back though from stopping to flick and move off after a couple of hours!
Was curious if there were any attempts being made to make a film out of Rushdie’s books and since I can’t get to into IMDB with work becoming even tighter with internet acces I googled Rushdie and found this little gem of an interview- a bit old with it being done in 1995 but still interesting with Cronenberg being the interviewer!
It doesn’t look like there are any films in the pipeline though. No surprise since most of his books would be unfilmable with the exception of some of his recent outings which aren’t quite as involved.
