I've Gotten Over My Fear of Woolf Quite Completely

I've been frantically googling Virginia Woolf for the past hour. I want 'The Waves' in my life. I will STORM through 'David Copperfield' so the spree can begin. Erk. One should never storm through Dickens.

Bad self.

I Forgot To Give It A Title Again - Oh Wait That's Not Very Interesting So I Suppose I'll have to Call It 'BA BA BAH PROGRESSSSS'

Whoopsies. Almost two months have passed by, and in that time something truly very exciting has happened.

I FINISHED LES MISERABLES.

And it was so incredibly good. Unfortunately I have a suspicion that this feeling of adoration is akin to Stockholm Syndrome: I had spent so long in custody of this book that it became a major part of my life; I read so much about the characters that I became almost forcefully involved with them. Maybe. That's one theory - the other is that it's just a truly spectacular book and everybody should read it.

A bit of both?

I have also read... 'Mrs. Dalloway' by Virginia Woolf (LOVE.), 'My Antonia' by Willa Cather (how 20th century American writing really should be), and 'The English Patient' by Michael Ondaatje (really very good and I could have enjoyed it a lot more if I had focused more).

Right now I'm reading 'David Copperfield' and I just want to swear my love for Charles Dickens. I mean, he does for literature what Taylor Swift does for country music: he makes it enjoyable, accessible and vivid. Nobody else describes a character or a scene quite like him, with his varied and distinctive similes, wonky personal traits etc. etc. This is my second Charles Dickens novel - I read 'Great Expectations' a few months ago. So far it's better than GE in one way and worse in one way.

BETTER: Pip is a horrible person. It's probably not very 'intellectual' of me to have qualms with a novel for hating the protagonist, but he just really winds me up. In contrast David Copperfield is recognisable and lovable. 1-0.

WORSE: Being semi-autobiographical, 'David Copperfield' tends to completely change everything once in about every thirty pages. First he's at home, then he's at Peggotty's (I LOVE YOU PEGGOTTY), then he's at school, then he's at work. BAM BAM BAM. The pace is too fast. We're not given enough time to acquaint with the characters and the period fully. It keeps the novel entertaining, for sure, but I'm quite sure it could be entertaining if a little more time was spent on each section.

That being said I'm only 200 pages through the 900. I'll have to read the rest to make up my mind properly.

After this I'm going on a Virginia Woolf spree. University interview and all that. Ta-rah!

I Like Your Mom's Books

I'm actually only writing this since it's been a week since my last update.

I was at my friend's house a few days ago. This particular friend happens to have a mother who studied English at university, and we all know what that means: BOOKS. For years now I have looked at the cornucopia of books and wanted so badly to take them home and read them. Unfortunately my friend always said I wasn't allowed to. This time, however, PATRICIA (his mother) came into the room while I was gazing longingly at the bookcase. We launched into an enormous, digressive conversation about this and that author while she enthusiastically thrust books into my hands to read this summer. I have to say I'm very excited. So, without further adieu, Matthew's Summer Reading List:

• 'My Antonia' my Willa Cather
• 'Mrs Dalloway' by Virginia Woolf
• 'To The Lighthouse' by Virginia Woolf'
• 'A Farewell to Arms' by Ernest Hemingway'
• A book of short stories by Chekov
• 'The English Patient' by Michael Ondaatje
• 'The Glass Menagerie', 'Sweet Bird of Youth', 'A Streetcar Named Desire' by Tennessee Williams
• 'A Raisin in the Sun' by Lorraine Hansbury
• The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake

That's the general rough order of when I'm going to read them, although it's highly dependent on how taxing each book is. I might add in some mind-numbing tweeny books along the way. For comfort, you see.

And, of course, there's Les Mis. The less said of my 'progress' the better.

I always forget to give posts a title

It's never a good idea to start writing a blog post when you have absolutely no idea what you're going to say. It inevitably leads to rambling. Oh well.

So, my one-year anniversary of reading Les Miserables is coming up in a little over a month. Yes, I have been reading it for over eleven months. On and off. While reading many other books. And generally having a life. There are two very clear reasons why this book is taking me so long to read:

• It's ENORMOUS. There are just so many pages to this book. It requires such immense willpower to just consider reading it.
• No writer that has ever lived will digress quite as prosaically as Victor Hugo. Les Mis is absolutely excellent when he's directing the plot, themes or character. However, every few hundred pages Hugo just launches into a rant about something not entirely irrelevant, but so insignificant that one could easily grasp the scene without a sixty-page rant about a convent. This just makes the former point even more difficult. Just keep to the actual point and we'll get along fine, Monsieur Hugo.

That's all that I'm going to say on Les Mis. It's SUMMER VAYCAY, as I've heard said in various American TV programmes. Unfortunately everybody is leaving me this summer. Enormous holidays in New Zealand and Japan do not make me happy. What are you supposed to do without people around you?

(You could write...)

HUSH. That is most definitely on the agenda for this summer. Just leave it to me. I'm doing nothing tomorrow. I'll brainstorm. I'll hunt for plot bunnies. I will ride the wave of creative...wonder.

I hate the way advertisements make you want things.

Deeper Understanding

I read 'The Great Gatsby' by F. Scott Fitzgerald for the second time yesterday, and I have to say that I enjoyed it much more the second time around.

Quick digression: THE KEYBOARD/MOUSE IS BEING SO UNHELPFUL TODAY.

Anyway, I think the only reason I disliked it upon first reading was because I was young, and speed reading. Never a good combination. For example, I didn't realise that Jay Gatsby was in a criminal syndicate. Obviously I cannot speed read.

This time however, it was very enjoyable, although I still wanted to slap Daisy. But it's a lovely little book all the same. I would have to disagree that it's one of the 'three perfect examples of American Literature.

Here in Northern Ireland we study 'The Great Gatsby' in English Literature during Year 14, but not everybody in this country does. I've heard that every single student in America is forced to read it, though. That sounds fun.

The enthusiasm/grammar isn't flowing today.

Boring Update

Since my last post I have finished ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’ by Thomas Hardy, and ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ by J.D. Salinger. Unfortunately, I really don’t feel like writing a review D:

I suppose this is just a quick little post to make sure everything’s up to date. I went shopping in the capital of Northern Ireland today! I made that sound rather grandiose; Belfast is a nice place, though. I bought a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. Cool.

I’m dong the GCSEs (uh…General Certificate of Standard Education) at the moment. They’re the first serious exams I’ve ever done in my life. It means that I don’t have to go to school unless I’m sitting an exam! It’s wonderful – lots of reading, sleeping and laptop-ing.

Those damned novelists are being clever for the sake of it

Hello Blog. I'm sorry I was away for so long. I'm only using you now as a procrastinating tool. I hope you don't mind.

I have heard bad things about 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles' by Thomas Hardy. One such quote is "That's an awful book", coming from my absurdly knowledgeable librarian as I took it out. I just finished the first 'phase' this morning and so far I don't really see what they're complaining about. So far my only qualm is that the narrative is a bit jumpy and hard to follow: lots of really important things seem to happen in the time between chapters. Another irksome thing is that damned 19th century prudishness. It is really very difficult to discern when anything of a sexual nature is happening in the book, despite it dealing centrally with the theme of sexuality! Humbug.

Since my last post I also finished 'The Sea, The Sea' by Iris Murdoch. It took me so very long to read.

'The Sea, The Sea' is very much a novel of the brain. First and foremost, it is written in the first person - diary entries; you can never trust diaries - you learn about the protagonist by reading between the lines, and learn nothing about other characters because they're coloured by the protagonist! Standard first-person isn't quite so bad, even when it's heavy on the interior monologue - you can understand other characters by dialogue, movement. In a diary, however, the only things you can pick up on are the central character, and themes.

We'll start with character. That's a bit easier. 'The Sea, The Sea' begins with ninety pages of uninterrupted musings. That might sound awful, but it really was fascinating. Charles Arrowby, the protagonist, is a playwright who retires to the sea for peace and solitude. For a while he revels, playing the part of the hermit with obvious grandeur. His writing is lavish and descriptive, incredibly romantic. However, in complete contrast with his writing, his actions show discontent - hallucinations, injuries etc. It seemed to me that he was searching for a kind of solitude he was never going to find. Furthermore, he was trying to deceive himself with romantic imagery and endless philosophy.

As the novel progresses so too does Arrowby's view of the sea. Things become chaotic, people come to visit him, and the sea once again becomes an effigy of peace. I thought it was a rather cyclical novel, but that would give away a lot of the plot.

Oh! It's important to not that Arrowby is a horrible, horrible person and if you can't get past that you won't enjoy the book.

This review is horrible. It has no structure.

THEMES. Actually, I should go do some proper work. Themes will come later.