books

grrrrrrrrrr. After I graduated I was so fed up with reading literature that I decided to ban novels and only read reference/non-fiction books for a while. I swore not to buy any books in England and of course I ended up buying eight, only two of which are non-fiction.

• Empire by Niall Ferguson. I mainly bought it because it's got an elephant on the cover ;). - Waterstones, buy 2 get the 3rd free, Milton Keynes
  
• The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama. - Waterstones, buy 2 get the 3rd free, Milton Keynes
  
  
• Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. - Waterstones, buy 2 get the 3rd free, Milton Keynes
  *Shudder* This is sooooo blah. I've read 3/4 of the first instalment and it makes me puke. I like the idea as such, but how many times can the silly girl hyperventilate about the vampire boy without suffocating? Besides, the ending is soooo predictable (I mean the ending of the whole series, not that of the first book). Bella is so annoying, I think the only reason she is so klutzy is so that Edward can be a little macho and protect her. Keeps him busy when he's not protecting her from himself.
  I heard Meyer's gone and rewritten the whole thing from Edward's point of view. Whatever for? (Grrr. where are the smilies in this stupid blog? How is a net-age leo supposed to express her emotions if she can't find the smilies???)
  
• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, second-hand book shop, Warwick.
  
• A Monk Swimming by Malachy McCourt (Frank McCourt's little brother). second-hand bookshop, Warwick. Doesn't really have a plot but it's lighthearted and entertaining.
  
• British short stories. I hate short stories, but I'll give them a try anyway. Oxfam, Shrewsbury.
• Brother Cadfael by Ellis Peters, forgot what volume it is. Oxfam, Shrewsbury

now watch out, here it comes!
Tales of the Night (Fortaellinger on natten) by Peter Hoeg. I stumbled on this at Oxfam in Shrewsbury. I didn't mean to buy any more books but it was snowing and there was nothing else to do because I'd already seen Cadfael's Abbey, gone to Chester, Manchester, Birmingham... Anyways, this just goes to show that good things will come your way when you're least looking for them.
Here's what it says on the back cover:

Love as violence, love as curse, love as redemption, as suffering, as wisdom, as innocence, as delsuion - each story takes place on the night of 19 March 1929 and a character tries to understand or express love from his or her perspective: as dancer, lawyer, astronomer, mathematician, artist, actor, doctor, mirror-maker.

Sounds soppy? In fact, the stories set out to talk about love, but in the end they are more about truth.. or love as truth.

In writing that is frankly free of the burden of realism, Tales of the Night offers its readers a poised, puzzling and beautifully written diversion

I wouldn't say it's "free of the burden of realism", but then my perception of the world is probably warped by the burden of romanticism, so....

In a controlled and almost chillingly distanced prose......

yep, that hits the nail on the head. I like controlled and almost chillingly distanced prose :-) bog off, Stephenie Meyer :-)

Anways, here's some quotes from the stories themselves:

I wouldn't say that, up until then, I'd had much knowledge of love, but if nothing else I was quite convinced that at some point a fusion of the two sexes would have to occur; that one way or another, sooner or later, they would have to sleep together. As the years went by I realized that I was mistaken and I am grateful for having been set straight on this point. As time went by Andreas and the girl explored, for themselves and for the rest of us, including myself, the love that flourishes in the space between two people who never conjoin.
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Naturally, Andreas and the girl performed La Sylphide, that quintessential ballet on the impossibility and the necessity of love, and God breathed on them , and when Andreas came off into the wings after the last curtain call, he stopped in front of me, clasped his hands and said, as slowly and fervently as if he were praying: 'May it always be thus', and at that moment neither he nor I was in any doubt that his prayer would be answered.
- from: Homage to Bournonville

Anyone wishing to understand the history of Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries should turn to its civil servants. To their enigmatic, monotonous, dogged industry, their talent for self-denial, its sequestered and yet overweening sensibility.
Planning entails generating a certain tension. Realizing one's plans entails sustaining this tension. In the history of Europe the art of planning was brought to perfection among the civil servants. And with it: the art of creating and withstanding stress.
Seismology is the study of surface tremors caused by tension built up below the earth's crust. The study of love represents the seismology of the individual and of togetherness. Which is why - when seeking some intimation of the future - the world and the family will always, in the first instance, look at the love life of their children.
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"You know that modern man bears the head of Janus. That he looks outwards at the world with features that are fixed and tense, and inwards at his private life with a calm, relaxed countenance;...
- from: The Verdict on the Right Honourable Ignatio Lanstad Rasker, Lord Chief Justice

"He told us that what he prized most in life was solitude and silence. I have a notion that he came over to join us and told us all of this in the hope that together the three of us might prove to be three times as solitary and three times as silent. So I made him no answer."
- from: Portrait of the Avant-Garde

grrr, I ought to be studying Spanish.
Just to spoil the controlled, almost chillingly distanced prose, here's a random pic of a potato beetle
(Leptinotarsa decemlineata - the light-footed ten-striped little guy. I know your sort!!!). Cute, isn't he? ... grrrr, where are the bloody smilies? If this stupid blog won't let me use smilies, I'll pull a controlled and almost chillingly distanced face at it. :-| There!