Hump Day meme
Wednesday, January 20th, 2016 09:26 pmThe nagging sense I have every week of having just done this meme a day or two ago suggests that my life needs more variety.
What have you just finished reading?
Hilary McKay, Binnie in Secret. There are many things to like about McKay's families- the off-hand kindnesses, the 'getting it' about other people's feelings- but one thing I especially treasure is a very English acceptance of eccentricity. Over at Goodreads people howl about the 'terrible parenting' on display and I haven't a clue what they mean. What's terrible about taking a 6 year old off to your job at a retirement home? James loves the people there, the people there love James, it (sort of) does him good to be the centre of admiring attention, it (certainly) does them good to have a child around.
What are you reading now?
Hurston, Their Eyes were Watching God. Possibly qualifies for a Most Misleading Title Ever award. Doesn't that sound like good-hearted Baptists in the deep South overcoming their trials and tribulations by a simple-hearted faith in God? Sute it does. Does it sound at all like luminous prose about sex and sensuality in Florida? It does not. But that's what's there, so much so that I conclude grumpily that I must continue to give it shelf space until I figure out how she does it.
Which said, it's also about No-Good Men and the women who fall for them. I don't think it even passes the Bechdel, because though Janie has a best friend- which is nice- all they ever talk about is men. And just as I refuse to watch TV and movies because 'I am not interested in the doings of white American males, especially not criminal white American males', so I'm inclined to issue the ukase 'I am not interested in the love lives of straight women, especially not when they fall for No-Good Men.'
Smith, White Teeth. Which, so far, is about the love life of a straight woman who falls for a useless white male. But she does it in a gritty suburb of London, not in small-town Florida, and of course I'm all about the Sensaplace. Besides, in an odd way, White Teeth reads like the mundane version of the Midnight Mayor, if you follow, and I'm interested in seeing if this keeps on.
( Cut for prolixity and city-slagging )
What have you just finished reading?
Hilary McKay, Binnie in Secret. There are many things to like about McKay's families- the off-hand kindnesses, the 'getting it' about other people's feelings- but one thing I especially treasure is a very English acceptance of eccentricity. Over at Goodreads people howl about the 'terrible parenting' on display and I haven't a clue what they mean. What's terrible about taking a 6 year old off to your job at a retirement home? James loves the people there, the people there love James, it (sort of) does him good to be the centre of admiring attention, it (certainly) does them good to have a child around.
What are you reading now?
Hurston, Their Eyes were Watching God. Possibly qualifies for a Most Misleading Title Ever award. Doesn't that sound like good-hearted Baptists in the deep South overcoming their trials and tribulations by a simple-hearted faith in God? Sute it does. Does it sound at all like luminous prose about sex and sensuality in Florida? It does not. But that's what's there, so much so that I conclude grumpily that I must continue to give it shelf space until I figure out how she does it.
Which said, it's also about No-Good Men and the women who fall for them. I don't think it even passes the Bechdel, because though Janie has a best friend- which is nice- all they ever talk about is men. And just as I refuse to watch TV and movies because 'I am not interested in the doings of white American males, especially not criminal white American males', so I'm inclined to issue the ukase 'I am not interested in the love lives of straight women, especially not when they fall for No-Good Men.'
Smith, White Teeth. Which, so far, is about the love life of a straight woman who falls for a useless white male. But she does it in a gritty suburb of London, not in small-town Florida, and of course I'm all about the Sensaplace. Besides, in an odd way, White Teeth reads like the mundane version of the Midnight Mayor, if you follow, and I'm interested in seeing if this keeps on.
( Cut for prolixity and city-slagging )
