'That series of named days'

[flemmings]

Easter has never been a favourite of mine. In my youth it was the time of exams, and then in uni it was essays due, and now it's income tax preparation time. Also my relatives tend to sicken and die in April, which doesn't help; and of course, this is when I was packing up and coming home from Japan. A profound sadness and unease attaches to the season.

The weather doesn't help, moving from the sanity of winter to the uncertainty of spring. Granted, the end of March/ beginning of April in Toronto can feel as domestic as porridge, especially in a cold grey year when it might as well be November, but this is still by nature an unchancy season. The March sun is too strong and gives the world a Daliesque cast; equally, the washy cloud of a warm spell hints at Ensor-like horrors lurking in the thickening tree branches and the dirty disreputable garden mess newly emerged from the snow. (Bird corpses, dog poo, garbage rousted out by raccoons-- stuff like that.)

Though it's really not Easter I dislike so much as the Good Friday holiday. Which is All Wrong. *Monday* is the holiday day, and the only exception is the rare Friday July 1. (Christmas / Boxing Day happens in the holiday season and doesn't count.)

So with all this antsiness attached, it's probably not a good idea, when looking for Good Friday reading, to start Bogarde's West of Sunset, set in Los Angeles: a city which fantods me at any time of the year. Luckily it's written by an outsider, very much aware of his outsiderness: because insiders take Los Angeles seriously, and that can be fatal.

Comments

[chomiji]

Awww! *hugs*

I like spring, actually. This one feels like it's been forever coming. It was warm enough today in our neck of the woods that we had lunch outside at one of the local restaurants, and the new gelato place was open too.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I have SAD; it's just the opposite of the more familiar kind.

We've been spoiled by climate change, where warmth comes in early March. Up here it snows in April, or should, but regularly does it less and less. This year has been pretty dead on normal, bar the occasional out-of-season (mid-January?!) 50F day.

Edited to change the icon to the one I'd *intended* thank you LJ.

[i-am-zan.livejournal.com]

*HUGS* - I hope the feeling passes.

I had to give up o the Seidensticker's translation of Genji after all. The print was far too small, (even for my lovely -and far too expensive- progressive lenses). I think that in part as well as the 'hmm something feels off' about the narrative, was effective in sending my brain into non co-operativeness. ^_^

Instead I found Oh Dear Silvia by Dawn French (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Oh-Dear-Silvia-Dawn-French/dp/0718156064) in gorgeously large print. ^_^ It was a good reading experience. I won't say anything more in case you ever decide to pick it up. Definitely quite different from 1Q84. Which was the last book I read.

Have a lovely Sunday.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I have Seidensticker in a trade paperback, which is big enough in the font department.

Reading glasses or contacts? I use both, and have since my late 40s, even with bifocal contacts. Will agree that large print is to be wished for, which is why pricey hardcovers are it. Though not Waley's Genji, which is small and and multi-serifed and induces claustrophobia.

1Q84 needs no imitators. A fantoddy book as well.