Talk Back

[shaw]

Excitement! Adventure! Sex! Love! Danger! Murder! None of these things were present in A Buyer's Market, book 2 of the 12 book series A Dance to the Music of Time.

Here's the deal. This is the first year that I'm actually starting to doubt whether I'm going to finish my top 100 project. And I'm starting to resent it. The reason? This bulletin board. I keep reading all these wonderful reviews of books that sound wonderful and intriguing, and I'm starting to read book 3 of the 12 book series A Dance to the Music of Time. And even if I read a few books in between them, for pleasure... well that phrase "for pleasure" is the give-away, isn't it? Shouldn't all my non-work reading be pleasurable?

This series isn't all that bad, to tell you the truth. After reading The Ambassadors, every book seems not to be all that bad. And there were some moments that I found myself mildly interested in Jenkins and ol' Widmerpool. But still, I may not finish this series this year, and it is taking up time that could be spent reading books I like. Jenkins, the narrator, has very little in the way of an actual personality. But that's okay, because he is just the wide-eyed narrator, telling us about all of his fascinating acquaintences. But they aren't all that interesting, either. But "character" isn't everything when you have Plot, right? Well, the plot isn't all that interesting either. But we have Setting, right? England. Inside a bunch of rooms.

At one point there was the sentence, "I wouldn't see him again until the war." So having done the whole "public school novel" cliche, and the whole "up and coming graduates pissing around at society parties" cliche, I now have a war novel cliche to look forward to. I have a hunch there will be people shooting and calling each other by their last names, which will be like "Wardmersterchire" or "Smith-Boden".

I want to go through the malabar reviews again and pick up a couple. Having read half a sucky Ellery Queen novel, I want to read one of Ed's faves. I want to reread the Song of Fire and Ice books from the start so I will be ready to read the new one while knowing who the characters. Mommy is making me practice my viola while all the other kids are outside playing hockeyball. I want to ROMP AND PLAY GOD DAMN IT!

I think I'm going to go to the library tomorrow and see if they have the next Dark Tower book that I haven't read. I need a break from British bankers.

[jeffp]

I consulted the book phaery on these questions, Douglas, and she told me to tell you two things:

1) You don't have to finish the top 100 novels this year. Take another couple of years to do it. That will be just fine.

2) You may take some down time and read any book(s) you want before finishing up the Anthony Powell series. In fact, you may take as much down time as you want.

You'll read the remaining books on the list when you're ready, and some play time will energize you for that task.

So relax and have a good read. The book phaery says it's OK. I promise.

--jeffp

[shaw]

You misunderstand - I'm trying to finish "Dance to the Music of Time" this year. The top 100 is going to be a long project. Dance, Finnegan's Wake, and the Conrad and James books are the ones that are going to be tough, so I want to do one of them a year.

[jeffp]

On a second conversation with the book phaery then, in light of my earlier misunderstanding, she had only one additional word:

"skim"

--jeffp