There’s a new addition to The Dye Pot today. An experiment with some yarn I didn’t like the color of turned out better than I thought - always a pleasant thing! It’s called Purple Haze.
I finished reading a couple of books over the last week. Neither is particularly new, but both were much made of so I thought I’d pass along my thoughts.
The first was Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow about a Jesuit priest who becomes part of an expedition to another planet where life has been discovered. It is worth reading simply because Russell’s characters are so well drawn; her affection for them is very clear. As an inquiry into the nature of the experience of God, I’m afraid it falls flat. It’s science fiction underpinnings are totally unnecessary, it’s climax late and hurried and its denouement unsatisfactory. However, there is a sequel available (which I have not yet read) called The Children of God. I fervently wish that authors who are writing sequenced novels would wrap up one story well, instead of leaving it hanging to tempt the reader to buy the second book. For all her very evident talent in creating characters, Russell’s story-telling leaves much to be desired.
The second was Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. There isn’t much to this story and it is a very fast read. It’s success, I’m guessing, comes from the novelty of the first-person narrator who is an autistic teenager. Some of his thoughts about what is happening and what he thinks is going on are interesting and, as Haddon once worked with disabled young people, I assume reasonably accurate. In the end, the story itself is fairly simple and straight-forward but it is curiously distant, as though Christopher (the narrator) has managed to partly wrap us into his protective layers as well.
I guess it’s fair to say that I didn’t get either of these novels - not as they were intended to be gotten, anyway :) I am a terrible reader of modern “good” fiction and for this reason, seldom indulge in it. I usually don’t get it and when I do, I generally don’t understand why it has been so popular (The DaVinci Code comes to mind). The only unequivocal recommendation I can make about either of the above novels is that the characterization is very good in both of them. I have Snow Falling on Cedars waiting in the wings. I’m almost afraid to start it :)
Of course there are more socks…
And finally, just because they have been so good this year, juicy and intensely flavored, and because this one looked so beautiful about 10 minutes after it was taken from the refrigerator…
Happy Wednesday :)
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you are going to LOVE reading “Snow faliing on cedars” - it is a book to savours as you read it. Also have you read Roald Dahl’s Short stories? They are a great read worth savouring in the same way - love the purple yarn!
You’re really getting into dyeing--love that purple! of course. Have you read The Kite Runner or The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles?
Nat - Well, I’ll be starting it probably, this weekend. My track record isn’t so hot though :)
I read Roald Dahl’s short stories (adult stories) years ago - long before I ever even heard of Willie Wonka. Startling and surreal, as I recall :)
Toni - Thanks - yes, I seem to be all about the dyeing these days - it’s fun. I haven’t seen either of the books you mentioned, but I’ll keep an eye out for them - not, probably, that I’ll get them either :)
You’re probably going to get a zillion book suggestions, but let this be the one: Ahab’s Wife.
I loved The Sparrow largely for her characters, as well. I’m reading her 3rd book, A Thread of Grace, which is set in WWII and is so far quite good.
Hi Margo - I have heard of Ahab’s Wife and it does sound interesting.
I was suffucuently impressed with Russell’s character building to hazard Children of God but later :)
I really enjoyed The Curious Incident… It’s pleasure for me lay in the author’s ability to narrate through that autistic distance—that is, I felt the boy’s distance and lack of understanding at the same time that I could see what was actually going on. But I have also gotten very picky about what I read these days. I am about to start Umberto Eco’s The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, which appears to be about a man who wakes with no memory of his life, and attempts to recreate it by going through the books he read. Very Eco-ish.
Rob - I really loved The Name of the Rose but haven’t been able to slog through anything else of Eco’s. Let me know what you think of this one - maybe it’s time to try him again :)
