Ooff. Well. I finally finished this gem a few weeks ago. It started out a lovely story, so well written and evocative of a time and place in history that makes reading historical fiction such a pleasure. But the tangents! Oh man. The first one came and went almost unnoticed as I was in such a haze of delight with the characters and story, but by the third and fourth one I was on to Charlotte's methods and started skipping large swaths of text just to get back to the actual timeline. It's too bad, really. I wanted to like this book so much that I broke with my rule of no guilt abandonment when tedium sets in (life is too short etc. ) Is there any truth to the old custom of paying authors by the word back in the day? or by the weight of the book? One can certainly see why tangents were popular for them.

Anywhoo. I'm on the fence with Villette. It's a lovely historic read if you can tolerate disorienting tangents.

So, as an antidote to classic literature, I chose this piece of modern fluff just for the sheer, easy reading fun of it. I like Gillian Flynn. I've read all three of her twisty psychological thrillers, especially Gone Girl the one that made her famous. Her writing is decent and well-paced and covers some pretty interesting aspects of human nature, although I find her use of gruesome imagery a bit much.

And then there's this one. I don't know if I qualify as an insomniac per se, but I do flirt with it on a regular basis. My nights are a series of intense but brief 'naps' interspersed with wakeful periods in which I usually read on my phone or ruminate in the dark over life's trivialities. So it was one night at 3am when I perused the website Brain Pickings on my phone and this book Sleep Demons by Bill Hayes came up as a feature of interest. It sounded like something I needed to read. I found a copy the next day at my library (actually, it was an interlibrary loan so although I 'found' it in the catalogue, it had to be brought in from another branch.) A few days later I had it in my hands and have been reading it ever since. It's wonderfully engaging and oh-so interesting! The author recounts his own experience with sleep, or the lack thereof, and weaves in some history, lore, and scientific studies. Just the kind of non-fiction I like to read.




After these? I don't know. I'd still like to keep going with the classic authors, I just need to hook up with one that clicks. I had my hand on Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad at the library the other day. Anybody read it? It looks like something I'd enjoy.

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13:39

When it comes to parts of a book that are inconsequential to the progress of the story, I am a firm believer in skimming. Right now I am in the middle of Charlotte Bronte's Villette which I am enjoying immensely, but by golly does this author like to go off on tangents. They're tricky to spot, too, because they are usually hidden within a scene where our school teacher protagonist, Lucy, is at a museum or watching a play or even IN a play. And since she is our narrator we get detailed descriptions of not only what is going on in her life (this is perfectly good. I like Bronte's writing) but also what is going on in a painting she is gazing upon or a play she is watching or otherwise involved with (like sand in one's bathing suit, this is not so good.) Do you see how this could be a tad confusing? The reader is just getting to know all the relevant characters in the story of THIS book when all of a sudden we are introduced to an entire cast and crew of a stage production with all its pertinent story arcs and plot lines as well. I can't even tell you how long it took me to realize what was going on. Pages and pages went by before I stopped and went back to wherever it was I had *apparently* taken a wrong turn. Nothing was making sense anymore. None of these new people or scenes had anything to do with the previous hundred pages. Huh. It was no wrong turn, it was a stealthy tangent made to appear as part of the story I thought I was reading. I am half way through the book now and have noticed several of these stop-action-describe-at-length-another-story episodes and am fully prepared to skim any more that come my way. Please, authors, be brief when telling us about these diversions in your characters' lives. Your readers will thank you.

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04:15

Just a few of my favourite spooky classics to wrap up the season. These are all well worth a read. You may find, in fact, that they are so good you'll be wanting to re-read them every October.

I'd also have to give Stephen King an honourable mention here, but he and I had a small falling out when he got too gory. I don't do gore well and think it is quite unnecessary when the story is good and has a solid creep factor.

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07:54

I'm almost done reading the ebook version of Tolstoy's Boyhood on my phone, and absolutely loving it. His writing, wisdom and insight into the human condition - even as seen through a boy's eyes - is astounding. So there I am reading under the covers at 2am highlighting great swaths of text to reread during daylight hours perchance to absorb them in a more conscious state.

to wit:

I loved Papa, but the intellect is independent of the heart, and often gives birth to thoughts which offend and are harsh and incomprehensible to the feelings. And it was thoughts of this kind that, for all I strove to put them away, arose at that moment in my mind.

Another time, suddenly bethinking me that death might find me at any hour or any minute, I came to the conclusion that man could only be happy by using the present to the full and taking no thought for the future. Indeed, I wondered how people had never found that out before. Acting under the influence of the new idea, I laid my lesson-books aside for two or three days, and, reposing on my bed, gave myself up to novel-reading and the eating of gingerbread and honey which I had bought with my last remaining coins. 

But one cannot always remain the same - one must change a little sometimes.

So delicious was the wondrous scent of birch trees, violets, mushrooms, and thyme, that I could no longer remain in the britchka. Jumping out, I ran to some bushes, and, regardless of the showers of drops discharged upon me, tore off a few sprigs of thyme, and buried my face in them to smell their glorious scent.  

Sometimes I would suppose that happiness depends, not upon external causes themselves, but only upon our relation to them, and that, provided a man can accustom himself to bearing suffering, he need never be unhappy.

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04:13