Wednesday Reading Meme
Jun. 8th, 2016 09:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye, which might also be called “the book where Philip Marlowe never gets paid.” People keep offering him money, practically shoving it in his hands to make him take it, and he refuses and refuses and refuses, because… Well, it’s not quite clear why he does, which is part of what makes him so interesting to me. The books are in the first person, but nonetheless Marlowe is an incredibly opaque character. It’s not clear why he refuses the money or why he goes to such lengths to help out Terry Lennox.
It’s not even clear why he’s a detective. He doesn’t seem to get much joy out of it. Is it just inertia? This is the job he knows so he keeps doing it? There’s a nub of nobility left in his character, but given his absolute cynicism about the rest of the world, it’s hard to see how he hangs onto there. Maybe he knows he would collapse into existential despair if he couldn’t even believe in himself.
Or maybe it’s just sheer ornery cussedness. There’s a definite pattern where Marlowe makes his life harder because he’s decided he doesn’t like somebody’s face and refuses to cooperate.
I also finished Enid Bagnold’s A Diary without Dates, about her work in a hospital during World War I - well, sort of; there is at least as much nature description as there is description of hospital work. It all feels very dreamlike, and in the end that made it feel rather insubstantial to me, although very poetic.
What I’m Reading Now
I’ve started A. S. Byatt’s Possession! I’ve actually been getting through it at a fairly decent clip so far, probably because I read the first few chapters before, months ago. I think Roland and his girlfriend Val are both quite tired of each other, without either one wanting to be the one who initiates the break-up. They go on living together out of a painful combination of poverty and inertia and exhaustion. What’s the point of breaking up if there’s nothing better out there?
...I am placing my bets on Roland falling for Maud, his new clandestine research partner. But Roland won’t be the one to initiate the break-up; Val will leave him for one of the men she does typing for, a small apologetic angry smile on her lips as she tells him that she’s going and implies it’s all his fault.
What I Plan to Read Next
I am still waiting for the library to get the new American Girl book, No Ordinary Sound. It’s been out for like four months now! Why doesn’t the library have it?
Maybe the library is waiting for the second book to be released in order to buy them together. Never Stop Singing is coming out in late June, so hopefully that means the library will have both books soon?
Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye, which might also be called “the book where Philip Marlowe never gets paid.” People keep offering him money, practically shoving it in his hands to make him take it, and he refuses and refuses and refuses, because… Well, it’s not quite clear why he does, which is part of what makes him so interesting to me. The books are in the first person, but nonetheless Marlowe is an incredibly opaque character. It’s not clear why he refuses the money or why he goes to such lengths to help out Terry Lennox.
It’s not even clear why he’s a detective. He doesn’t seem to get much joy out of it. Is it just inertia? This is the job he knows so he keeps doing it? There’s a nub of nobility left in his character, but given his absolute cynicism about the rest of the world, it’s hard to see how he hangs onto there. Maybe he knows he would collapse into existential despair if he couldn’t even believe in himself.
Or maybe it’s just sheer ornery cussedness. There’s a definite pattern where Marlowe makes his life harder because he’s decided he doesn’t like somebody’s face and refuses to cooperate.
I also finished Enid Bagnold’s A Diary without Dates, about her work in a hospital during World War I - well, sort of; there is at least as much nature description as there is description of hospital work. It all feels very dreamlike, and in the end that made it feel rather insubstantial to me, although very poetic.
What I’m Reading Now
I’ve started A. S. Byatt’s Possession! I’ve actually been getting through it at a fairly decent clip so far, probably because I read the first few chapters before, months ago. I think Roland and his girlfriend Val are both quite tired of each other, without either one wanting to be the one who initiates the break-up. They go on living together out of a painful combination of poverty and inertia and exhaustion. What’s the point of breaking up if there’s nothing better out there?
...I am placing my bets on Roland falling for Maud, his new clandestine research partner. But Roland won’t be the one to initiate the break-up; Val will leave him for one of the men she does typing for, a small apologetic angry smile on her lips as she tells him that she’s going and implies it’s all his fault.
What I Plan to Read Next
I am still waiting for the library to get the new American Girl book, No Ordinary Sound. It’s been out for like four months now! Why doesn’t the library have it?
Maybe the library is waiting for the second book to be released in order to buy them together. Never Stop Singing is coming out in late June, so hopefully that means the library will have both books soon?
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no subject
Date: 2016-06-08 01:44 pm (UTC)I <3 Philip Marlowe. I mean, realistically, he slaps people around too much for my taste, but in this business, it's hard to be good, or kind, or effective. Sometimes you find yourself in a dark wood and just have to keep going. Sometimes you find yourself in a dark wood every day of your life.
(There's a great moment in The Long Goodbye where Marlowe describes how people from out of town react the first time the smog hits them. What the hell is this? Is something poisonous on fire? Should we call Environmental Protection?? SORRY, BUDDY, THAT'S JUST WHAT WE BREATHE).
Ugh, I'm only on Chapter 2 of Possession but I already feel way too bad for Val. Maybe I'll get over it? :( We'll see! I didn't get the chance to start until late last night, but hopefully I'll have some time at work today.
no subject
Date: 2016-06-08 02:52 pm (UTC)POOR VAL. I feel bad for Roland too, because I'm sure it's hard to live with the bitter personification of all gloom, but that's better than being the bitter personification of all gloom. At least Roland gets to go to the library and make discoveries sometimes. Val just walks around under her cloud all the time.