I didn't meet my 50,000-word goal for NaNoWriMo. I actually got off to a ripping start, but then there was this presidential election that kinda threw me off my stride and I never really recovered. Still, I got more done than last year, and after a little break I'm planning to go back to what I started. Count that time well spent.
So, life may be too short to read crap. Doesn't mean I haven't been, though. I didn't really set out to do so, you understand; it just sort of worked out that way. Not everything disappointed, but some of the books I thought would be better, weren't. Here are a couple of the highlights to tide you over during the holidays...
Wintering. The whole conceit of this novel makes me a little edgy, I have to admit. Sylvia Plath didn't die so long ago, Ted Hughes even more recently, and the Hughes children are still alive, so writing a novel about Sylvia's last year seems a little too close for comfort. Once that's out of the way, the novel itself is engaging. Its brilliance lies partially in the fact that the author knows that this story is bigger than her book -- with that knowledge, Wintering, paradoxically, can shine on its own.
The Jane Austen Book Club. Definitely one of the disappointments. It's not a bad book at all, but it isn't as good as I hoped it would be, or as good as all the attention it's gotten suggests it would be. I'm torn between thinking that either those characters need a better story or that story needs a better cast of characters ('better' in this case meaning 'better-suited,' I suppose).
Posted on December 19, 2004 to inconstant reader
Previously: As somebody wise once said...
Next Time: Two magicians shall appear in England...
Main: cleaning out ferryboats
The title says it all. It's my ongoing one-woman show, with new works being put into rotation as they come up.
cleaning out ferryboats
all writing, all the time, just because
the sign of angellica
an aphra behn web site
reflections and illuminations
art, technology, spirit