Ahh it's all over!!!
I've had a lovely Christmas, played lots of lego - highly addictive you should know! Barely been on the computer, not even facebook though I did finally join twitter but I've yet to get into tweeting.
First book on the list is The Etymologicon by Mark Forsyth. Reading this book has been pure joy and I thoroughly recommend it to everyone! Did you know that the term SPAM, in reference to unwanted emails, originates from a Monty Python sketch? Now you see why you must get this book!!!
I also bought a couple of Calderwood press titles - The Heavy Bag by Ross Wilson and Out of the Cave by Alistair Noon, both of which I know I'm really going to enjoy. I also finally ordered By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept by Elizabeth Smart and Jim was lovely enough to send me a copy of his third novel, Milligan and Murphy. I wrote a little about his first novel, Living with the Truth, way back here. I'm still waiting on African Folktales by Paul Radin to come in. I'm really looking forward to reading it, it's a book that very much influenced Plath's poetry for a period.
7 comments:
Please tell me I didn't send you Stranger than Fiction. You were supposed to get Milligan and Murphy.
I've just ordered the Ety... book after hearing snippets of it on the radio.
You could have had my E Smart... I bought it on the road somewhere and HATED it... but I am aware that, on the whole, poets like it. Hm.
x
sorry, you're right jim, it was Milligan and Murphy you sent me!
I heard it on the radio too and that's why I ordered it! I remember you posting about E Smart, I've started it but not quite sure what to make of it yet!
i am looking forward to hear your opinion about Elizabeth - i posted something from her a while back:
http://roxanaghita.blogspot.com/2010/10/for-one-in-love.html
but on the whole it was too much, i thought. it doesn't surprise me Rachel hated it, i could have bet on that :-)
but i think the story of the book is more interesting than the book itself.
I love all the sea imagery but bored of all the Songs of Solomon references. The "contrast between the intense and the banal" mentioned in the foreword as one of the triumphs of the book, I found laughable in places.
I think I'll be reading it a few times, I think it'll grow on me more after each read.
I agree, roxana, it's all the more interesting because we know what/who the book is about.
In saying that there are plenty lines, metaphors, that I loved and it all seems too much on the first read but I think the symbolisms and metaphors will come back to me and, as I said, I'll probably fall a little more in love with it each time I read it.
There's one bit where she writes about just enjoying watching the sun set without trying to extract a metaphor from it, I love this because I've a tendency to try to extract metaphors all the time from nature and feel guilty if I'm not!
The Etymologicon sounds excellent, I'll look out for that. Like I need more books...
I know but this one's too good not too!!
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