Well Read
I used to read. Between the ages of fourteen and twenty-five, I sped through two, three and sometimes four novels a week. I recall recoiling from John Updike's insights into a world I had yet to enter. Inevitably, the increasing obligations of adult life caught up with me. The advent of the internet and cable television didn't help. I still make time for literature, but it took me all of December to plow through Great Expectations.
posted by Happy In Bag @ 8:22 AM
6 Comments:
At 1:08 PM,
Faith said…
Well, that was due to the choice of novel, IMO. I mean, don't get me wrong! I love me some classic Dickens. But I'll plow through something by Austen or F. Scott or Wharton faster, fo sho.
Try "Far from the Madding Crowd" by Hardy. That book is an all-time fave of mine. But when I went to read "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" because I'd heard it was so torrid and ka-raazy for its time, and all, I couldn't even get halfway through it. I felt almost bad for giving up on it, but I finally had to accept the fact that there WILL BE some books here and there that I come across and don't really like. And that's totally ok!
I'm reading a book a friend gave me right before Christmas right now...and I'm almost done with it. This is more interesting when one knows that I only read it for about an hour 4 or 5 nights a week, and its about 800 page long. It's a freaking awesome book...
At 1:17 PM,
Happy In Bag said…
Get this, Faith- I read "Tess" as a teenager weeks before the Roman Polanski film came out. I've had a thing for Nastassja Kinksi ever since.
Before I move on to Hardy, I should note that I adore Dickens. And he means so much more to me now that I'm, well, older.
At 4:06 PM,
bgo said…
HIB,
I recommend you check this one out:
THE WORLD THAT MADE NEW ORLEANS
From Spanish Silver to Congo Square.
By Ned Sublette.
Illustrated. 360 pp. Lawrence Hill Books. $24.95.
At 4:45 PM,
Anonymous said…
how WOULD you find time to read when you're attending over 300 live music performances a year?
At 4:49 PM,
Happy In Bag said…
That's also a factor, There Stands the Glass reader.
I rarely talk about it, BGO, but I still have a hard time thinking about NOLA. That's the reason I rarely post music from that great city at There Stands the Glass or at Blip.
At 6:12 PM,
bgo said…
HIB,
My heart broke over the whole Katrina thing. NOLA used to be my favorite home away from home but now I am not so sure. Words fail me to expess the anger I feel. On my visit in 1984 with a gal pal we went to a bar set up in a house in the 9th Ward and the music was provided by Oliver 'Who shot the La La' Morgan. There was no stage--just the band set up in the corner of a large room. I have a bottomless of stories of my visits to NOLA and one day I will document them for my own memory before they are lost to old age.
And count me as part of the cult of Cormac McCarthy. I am waiting for the film adaption of The Road to be released sometime in the not to distance future. That book seared my soul.
And for stories set in NOLA and surrounding areas, count me as a full-time reader of James Lee Burke.
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