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Jan. 13th, 2008 12:34 pmI read two books over the last week and started on a couple of others. And there are the books that I started on during the fall and summer and never finished…
This week was a Chanukah gift: The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God by Etgar Keret. In reading it, I realized that many of the stories would not be considered ‘stories’ by my workshop. They are slices of life or slices of personality. Many are short, perfectly formed but the central character does not change, grow, or for that matter devolve by the end. The SF workshop might even call these stories “experimental”. They don’t read that way at all to me. Experimental is what I call stories that I don’t understand at all. These I understand and love.
I read Terry Pratchett’s Making Money in two days! I am not alone, I think. I am looking at the Date Due sticker on the back of the book. It reads
• Oct 16, 2007
• Oct 26, 2007 (someone took 10 days)
• Nov 03, 2007 (even less time)
• Nov 07, 2007 (4 days)
• Dec 19, 2007
• Feb 01 2008 (this is my due date. And I could take it back today)
The last time that this happened, I tried to go back and analyze what Pratchett had done. That book had no chapters even though scenes had the ebb and flow of chapters. There was no place where I could say “I’ll just read the next chapter.” However, this book has chapters and I still found myself reading on and on. I love his language. I love the way he uses humor to comment on society. I love his crazy characters. A great many regulars show up this time. The only missing characters are the witches. We get glimpses of Death, the Unseen University, lots of the Patrician, glimpses of Commander Vimes and the Watch and of course, lots of the central character, Lipwig. To think that we will slowly lose Terry Pratchett!
Workshop is next week and I have chapters to read for that. I haven't written anything. Shame! Shame! Except for a poem that I started. I should play with that some more today.
This week was a Chanukah gift: The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God by Etgar Keret. In reading it, I realized that many of the stories would not be considered ‘stories’ by my workshop. They are slices of life or slices of personality. Many are short, perfectly formed but the central character does not change, grow, or for that matter devolve by the end. The SF workshop might even call these stories “experimental”. They don’t read that way at all to me. Experimental is what I call stories that I don’t understand at all. These I understand and love.
I read Terry Pratchett’s Making Money in two days! I am not alone, I think. I am looking at the Date Due sticker on the back of the book. It reads
• Oct 16, 2007
• Oct 26, 2007 (someone took 10 days)
• Nov 03, 2007 (even less time)
• Nov 07, 2007 (4 days)
• Dec 19, 2007
• Feb 01 2008 (this is my due date. And I could take it back today)
The last time that this happened, I tried to go back and analyze what Pratchett had done. That book had no chapters even though scenes had the ebb and flow of chapters. There was no place where I could say “I’ll just read the next chapter.” However, this book has chapters and I still found myself reading on and on. I love his language. I love the way he uses humor to comment on society. I love his crazy characters. A great many regulars show up this time. The only missing characters are the witches. We get glimpses of Death, the Unseen University, lots of the Patrician, glimpses of Commander Vimes and the Watch and of course, lots of the central character, Lipwig. To think that we will slowly lose Terry Pratchett!
Workshop is next week and I have chapters to read for that. I haven't written anything. Shame! Shame! Except for a poem that I started. I should play with that some more today.
