Kevin's Watch

Hint: If you click through to Murrin's blog, you'll see that he's a he.

Thanks for that Ali. I was obviously too lazy for serious detective work!

Murrin, I agree with you about Are You My Mother? It's a worry if it isn't grabbing me, as I actually read pretty widely in psychology/therapy. As much as Fun Home had its intellectual moments, it was personal and poignant in ways that AYMM? hasn't, as yet, been. It's ironic that she and her mother are close in terms of constant contact (phone calls, letters etc), and have been for years by the sounds of it, but seem strangely 'abstract' and unemotional in their relationship. That's where I think it's potentially very interesting, but I feel like she needed to personalize, as opposed to intellectualize this for the book to work better. (I'm still only halfway through, so she may yet achieve that.)

I think that's some of the point of the work. When the therapist tries to talk to her about whether she hates her mother she is unable to answer; and she continues to seek substitute mother figures in her therapists. I don't think she feels like she can articulate her relationship in emotional terms (though she gets closer near the end, with some anecdotes around her mother's acting).

Key To Rebecca WWII spy thing by ol' Ken Follet. Easy reading.

Don't know what I'll read next though...

--A

Ken Follett's always a good read.

It was ok. Ending was a bit meh though.

Re-reading Bernard Cornwell's Sword Song.

--A

And on to the the next one, The Burning Land.

--A

Shauny wrote:Murrin, I agree with you about Are You My Mother? It's a worry if it isn't grabbing me, as I actually read pretty widely in psychology/therapy. As much as Fun Home had its intellectual moments, it was personal and poignant in ways that AYMM? hasn't, as yet, been. It's ironic that she and her mother are close in terms of constant contact (phone calls, letters etc), and have been for years by the sounds of it, but seem strangely 'abstract' and unemotional in their relationship. That's where I think it's potentially very interesting, but I feel like she needed to personalize, as opposed to intellectualize this for the book to work better. (I'm still only halfway through, so she may yet achieve that.)

Murrin wrote:I think that's some of the point of the work. When the therapist tries to talk to her about whether she hates her mother she is unable to answer; and she continues to seek substitute mother figures in her therapists. I don't think she feels like she can articulate her relationship in emotional terms (though she gets closer near the end, with some anecdotes around her mother's acting).

I know we've moved on, but I just need to put in writing that I've changed my mind about this book. Having now finished it, I found it quite poignant and heart-wrenching at times, for its very lack of overt emotion. Also think it was a brave book to write (ditto Fun Home), given the disapproval/rejection from her mother. I think I would have waited til my Mum had died! But that was the point eh, there in the last few pages: "At last I have destroyed my mother, and she has survived my destruction."

I ended up enjoying the way she structured the book around Winnicott's ideas and her dreams/therapy.
Not easy to execute a meta-comic-book with those kinds of ideas and experiences. I think she did a great job.

Also, I found her mother's disapproval of her sexuality, (not wanting to talk about it, invalidating her original coming out, not wanting Alison to use her real name on any of her published works because she would expose and embarrass the family etc), very moving. I remember this theme being there in Fun Home but it seemed stronger here. (Or maybe it's just the cumulative effect). Anyway, makes me realize how brave it was for her to write/draw the Dykes To Watch Out For series.

All right, I am currently:
1) Finishing Parade's End Tetraology by Ford Maddox Ford. Just need to finish A Man Could Stand Up... and The Last Post.

2) I'm reading the 'new' translation of Jorge Luis Borges' fictional writings

3) Little by little, when the time and mood are right, I'm reading through Don Quixote in the original Castellano.

*Phew!* That's like, two days of reading for Avatar!

Let me know what you think of that Borges volume, Orlion. I was all hot to buy it, until I read some reviews that the translator is not all that.

Also -- Dios mio! Don Quijote in the original? You are braver than I!

aliantha wrote:Let me know what you think of that Borges volume, Orlion. I was all hot to buy it, until I read some reviews that the translator is not all that.

It's pretty good thus far. I didn't notice any discernible differences between earlier translated stories I have read and the current translations. He also has plenty of notes explaining several differences between his and previous translations and why he chose what he did. Also, he was commissioned and worked with Borges' widow, who apparently was not content with previous English translations.

Also -- Dios mio! Don Quijote in the original? You are braver than I!

It's not so bad... unless the titular character talks. His speech is soooo archaic, it'd be like us reading a character that spoke in imitation of Chaucerian English.

Ran out of new books again. Back to an old favourite - The Saxon Chronicle. I try to read it once a year.

I've been rereading I, Claudius and Claudius the God.

Picked up three new-to-me cookbooks at a garage sale, and am currently slowly perusing Graham Kerr's MiniMax Cookbook.

I'm currently reading "The Age of Wonder" by Richard Holmes - an examination of how the Romantic generation discovered the 'beauty and terror' of science. I'm about one third into it and it's a bit dry but still ok. I'm hoping it will pick up a bit as I progress but it still is interesting and informative.

My holiday reading, which I bought last weekend is Robert Harris's latest thriller about a Wall Street financial computing wizard who discovers someone is out to distroy him, entitled 'The Fear Index'. Also I purchased Eco's latest 'The Prague Cemetary' which is about.....God knows what but who cares - it's by Umberto Eco!

I've got The Prague Cemetery on my Kindle-for-iPhone. I keep skipping over it in favor of indie books. Will get to it soon, I swears it, I do.

Lemme know what it's like, I usually enjoy his books.

--A

Me too. But I think it's the idea of reading Umberto Eco on a phone that's making me hesitate. I associate his big, weighty ideas with big, weighty hardback books.

Big, fat, overblown ideas is more like it. Sorry, not an Eco fan. His books seem to promise so much but don't deliver in the end. And too much mumbo-jumbo.

Reading the Sarantine Mosaic, about 2/3 done with book 2, Lord of Emperors. A really good, multilayered story with characters you get attached to and care about. I actually cried last night; that doesn't happen for every book.

Fair comment DOTD. The Name of the Rose and Foucalts Pendulum were two great novels. The Island of the Day After Tomorrow was ok and Bardolino was tedious to the point where I tried to read it twice and failed to finish it on both attempts. But Eco's non fiction is great (in my view), if difficult. He did one about the original language before the Babylonion confusion and the sdearch for the perfect replacement that was just.....

(shame I've forgotten it's name! )