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Jul. 10th, 2004 09:46 pmWell, today has been another sucky day, but I don't even want to get into it, so instead I'll talk about books.
The Jane Austen Book Club, by Karen Joy Fowler, seemed like an obvious book for me to read. And it was just okay. She tries to do nifty things with narrative voice that just come across weirdly (the occasional shifts into first person plural narration were especially awkward and irritating. For one thing, there wasn't enough group cohesion for me to believe that anyone was speaking for all the assembled characters). The Austen stuff was mostly fun, though it remains superficial (i.e. if you really want to know what the deal is with Frank Churchill, don't read this book, read Emma - but maybe that goes without saying).
It does have a kickass prologue. ( In part: )
It's just a very clever way of introducing Austen as well as all her own characters. I like it a lot.
As far as the sucky day goes - I would like to amend a statement I wrote the other day. Our landlady used to tell us "never buy a house" - the new version would be "never buy an old house" - because when stuff breaks, as it inevitably does and will, you are doomed because you can't actually buy replacement parts because they are so old, and the new-fangled "standard" replacement parts don't FIT. Doom doom doom.
The Jane Austen Book Club, by Karen Joy Fowler, seemed like an obvious book for me to read. And it was just okay. She tries to do nifty things with narrative voice that just come across weirdly (the occasional shifts into first person plural narration were especially awkward and irritating. For one thing, there wasn't enough group cohesion for me to believe that anyone was speaking for all the assembled characters). The Austen stuff was mostly fun, though it remains superficial (i.e. if you really want to know what the deal is with Frank Churchill, don't read this book, read Emma - but maybe that goes without saying).
It does have a kickass prologue. ( In part: )
It's just a very clever way of introducing Austen as well as all her own characters. I like it a lot.
As far as the sucky day goes - I would like to amend a statement I wrote the other day. Our landlady used to tell us "never buy a house" - the new version would be "never buy an old house" - because when stuff breaks, as it inevitably does and will, you are doomed because you can't actually buy replacement parts because they are so old, and the new-fangled "standard" replacement parts don't FIT. Doom doom doom.
