I went to a Christmas party this week and got a whole lot of Oscar Isaac swag, so it’s already the best Christmas ever.
It was a real chore to finish The Changeling. I really love magical realism/modern fairy tales when they’re done right. This one, not so much on the done right part. I really felt like he didn’t know where he was going with this story and it became such a slog. Hated the main character and I already barely remember how it ended. Disappointing.
The Heart’s Invisible Furies was just what I needed to get me out of this little slump. This has its flaws, namely relying too much on coincidence, and two super predictable turns, but overall it’s just what I want in a novel. I love a big fat book that you can really get lost in; this follows a character from birth to old age, and I loved every era it covered. He dedicates it to John Irving and I can see why, it’s definitely got that vibe. I’m sure I’ll read more from this author and I won’t forget this book.
I am loving the Hogarth Shakespeare series. (But why do we have to wait three years for Gillian Flynn’s Hamlet???) Dunbar is Edward St Aubyn’s take on King Lear, and I was coming to this one pretty blind. I’ve never read this author or this play, so all I know of King Lear is what’s in the tap water. I can’t speak at all for how this measures up as an adaptation, but on its own merits I loved it. Really quick and entertaining, and I guess King Lear is a pretty nutso play. Damn.
I’m now about a third of the way through The Dark Flood Rises. I read The Waterfall more than 20 years ago, and I loved it, so I don’t know why it’s taken me this long to read another Margaret Drabble book. This one got me from the very first line:
She has often suspected that her last words to herself and in this world will prove to be ‘You bloody old fool’ or, perhaps, depending on the mood of the day or the time of the night, ‘you fucking idiot’.
That line really hooked me because I am 100% sure that if cookie dough isn’t what kills me, my death will be caused by falling while carrying too many things up a flight of stairs. Bloody old fool.
