(no subject)

[flemmings]

 Apparently there was an amazing lightning storm last night but I had the curtains drawn and only heard far away thunder which never got loud. Am not a fan of lightning or thunder, so am glad I missed it.

The last book I finished was over a week ago, Carpe Jugulum. Since then it's been The Fellowship of the Ring downstairs, and-- I won't say Hizakurige/ Shanks' Mare upstairs, as endless games of solitaire to avoid reading Hizakurige. It's an Edo period picaresque novel about two ne'er-do-wells travelling the Tokaido road to Kyoto.  It's long, repetitive, obvious, and adolescent.  Edoites loved it, of course. 

(I don't think I've ever read a picaresque novel in my life, unless Tristram Shandy counts, but that one's simply batshit. I have the impression that picaresque novels are all long, repetitive, obvious, and adolescent, is why I've avoided them.)
 

Comments

[kore]

I think there's a woman picaresque novel -- called Arabella? -- but I've never managed to read it....no, The Female Quixote; or, The Adventures of Arabella by Charlotte Lennox. If Quixote counts as picaresque, I loved it in college, but could never get into Shandy or Tom Jones.

[flemmings]

Maybe I should have a look at the Lennox, though I think my tolerance for 18th century prose has been eroded by the quick-fix internet. My reading of Sterne was forty years ago and more, in calmer more leisurely days.

[kore]

Yeah, I don't think I have read any loooong books in a while. Amazon offered me a discount on the new version of Kristin Lavransdatter on Kindle, and I downloaded it and then was like "Do I really want to spend a lot of time in this place?"

[flemmings]

The fact is that I've got through some 500 page thumpers during this quarantine but The Moonstone is a much faster read than yer average doorstopper. Though IIRC The Female Quixote isn't that long- or maybe I'm thinking of Castle Rackrent. But yeah- 'do I want to spend a lot of time in this place' is actually how I feel about Frodo in Mordor.

[kore]

OMG I forgot about Collins! He's so great. I have a bunch of Oxford paperbacks of his stacked up, and of course I think most of him is on Gutenberg too. Now that's good lockdown reading.

[flemmings]

Bettrr than Dickens, I think, who is bettrr than any other Victorian I could name.

[kore]

He does women SO MUCH better than Dickens, it's not even funny (well, so many people did women better than Dickens....)

I guess I don't think of his books as being long because they just FLY by. Dickens is like that too, but Collins is more streamlined (and Lord, his plots are also better).