Where did the summer go... Isn't the summer a time for reading all kinds of paper backs and trashy novels? Instead, I seemed to have read throught the full gambit:
At the cottage in July, I finally got around to reading Pillars of the Earth -- what a perfect cottage read... it was easy, interesting and you came to know and care for the characters. With that many pages you had lots of opportunities to come to know them. When I got home, I started to read World without end, but other books (with due dates) pre-empted this other tome Ken Follet.
In August I bought Breaking Dawn. What a disappointment. The list serves' mantra was "don't burn it, return it." I think Stephenie Meyers must have put all her energies into Host. Enough said about this dud.
Towards the end of August, Blindness by Jose Saramago came up on my hold list. OK, let's set the record straight, there is no fluff in this work. I'm not sure if I will ever be the same after reading this work. I'm still feeling somewhat raw. Saramago's novel certainly illustrates just how vulnerable we are, how blind we are and yet, we remain undeniably connected. My only criticism: the inside book jacket told too much.
What next? All I can handle right now is Baking boot camp : five days of basic training at the Culinary Institute of America. I think I need to bake to come to grips with Blindness. I'm sure the mudslide cookies can solve the problems of the world.
I do have a copy of The Penguin book of Canadian Short Stories, selected and introduced by Jane Urquhart. I think I may want to own this one. But I digress, here is the publisher's blurb for Blindness:
A city is hit by an epidemic of "white blindness" which spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there the criminal element holds everyone captive, stealing food rations and raping women. There is one eyewitness to this nightmare who guides seven strangers-among them a boy with no mother, a girl with dark glasses, a dog of tears-through the barren streets, and the procession becomes as uncanny as the surroundings are harrowing. A magnificent parable of loss and disorientation and a vivid evocation of the horrors of the twentieth century, Blindness has swept the reading public with its powerful portrayal of man's worst appetites and weaknesses-and man's ultimately exhilarating spirit. The stunningly powerful novel of man's will to survive against all odds, by the winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature
At the cottage in July, I finally got around to reading Pillars of the Earth -- what a perfect cottage read... it was easy, interesting and you came to know and care for the characters. With that many pages you had lots of opportunities to come to know them. When I got home, I started to read World without end, but other books (with due dates) pre-empted this other tome Ken Follet.
In August I bought Breaking Dawn. What a disappointment. The list serves' mantra was "don't burn it, return it." I think Stephenie Meyers must have put all her energies into Host. Enough said about this dud.
Towards the end of August, Blindness by Jose Saramago came up on my hold list. OK, let's set the record straight, there is no fluff in this work. I'm not sure if I will ever be the same after reading this work. I'm still feeling somewhat raw. Saramago's novel certainly illustrates just how vulnerable we are, how blind we are and yet, we remain undeniably connected. My only criticism: the inside book jacket told too much.
What next? All I can handle right now is Baking boot camp : five days of basic training at the Culinary Institute of America. I think I need to bake to come to grips with Blindness. I'm sure the mudslide cookies can solve the problems of the world.
I do have a copy of The Penguin book of Canadian Short Stories, selected and introduced by Jane Urquhart. I think I may want to own this one. But I digress, here is the publisher's blurb for Blindness:
A city is hit by an epidemic of "white blindness" which spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there the criminal element holds everyone captive, stealing food rations and raping women. There is one eyewitness to this nightmare who guides seven strangers-among them a boy with no mother, a girl with dark glasses, a dog of tears-through the barren streets, and the procession becomes as uncanny as the surroundings are harrowing. A magnificent parable of loss and disorientation and a vivid evocation of the horrors of the twentieth century, Blindness has swept the reading public with its powerful portrayal of man's worst appetites and weaknesses-and man's ultimately exhilarating spirit. The stunningly powerful novel of man's will to survive against all odds, by the winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature
No comments:
Post a Comment