Reading down my list…

…of ‘classics’ is already feeling like a smart thing to do. I’ve been pretty aware of a writerly immaturity in myself that needs educating before it’s going to change. Reading down my enormous list (see amusingly long post a few posts down) I’ve been able to start to identify things I admire and which move me, and that which disgusts and irritates me in the works of others.

There’s something in each one: after I’ve finished the last page, I’m wiser. Every notch into my literary bedpost – like it may not have been the best sex ever – but I learned something each time. So the books I managed to read in August went a little like this – apologies for long post, I’ll break it up a bit more in future now I’m back.

So, I finished (after reading most of it for uni and never quite getting to the end) Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. After lots of avoiding it, I did like the ending, and I felt that the pace in the last quarter really picked up. Perhaps a comment on slow life on wards and the disruption McMurphy caused, but if something in it had been that bit more engaging to begin with, I think I would’ve finished it way sooner.

I followed that up with something pretty different: Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice, which I’d been dying to read since seeing the movie in about April this year. Tore through it, so easy to read, and told in a format which accommodated the tale. And the final twist made me actually laugh aloud. Win.

I then read Waiting for Godot with my little sister on the beach in France. It had some good turns of phrase – tray bong tray tray bong made us giggle, especially being in France at the time – but it wasn’t interesting in terms of plot. I know it’s supposed to be absurdist, and it really achieved that, but for a reader it’s a little lacking.

Next up was Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, heavily recommended by my mother. The tone was agreeable and fun in a way that I wasn’t expecting, and this is the first book in a long time that made me smile freely in public places as I read it. Rochester and Jane are sizzling, she’s not dumb or helpless, a truly believable heroine: I adored it.

This pretty much put me in the mood for more well-spoken romance, so I moved on to Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen, a book I’ve tried once or twice before but never got past the first few pages. This time I made myself read the first 50 pages in one sitting and was rewarded for it. I wasn’t in love with it throughout, and I think it’s another example of where the final third picks up the slack. A good example of how character’s perceptions of another character matter and can change the reader’s judgements using said perceptions.

This was it for August, I’ve only read one book so far for September, but I’ll post about that now. Sorry for mass-uploading but I’ve got lost time to make up for.

Notchy notchy, bring on the books.

LOVE.

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