flemmings: (Default)
flemmings ([personal profile] flemmings) wrote2012-04-21 11:00 pm

Dedicated to the one-eyed love

Thus my mondegreening of the original song that The Mamas and the Papas covered. I steamed through twenty-five pages of 1Q84 vol.2 on one eye this evening. Go me. We're at page-turning intensity and I must fight the urge to go to the English version, where doubtless the intensity will read somewhat flatter, given (cough) the translators' choice of words.

Would prefer to be reading Feet of Clay, but that's definitely one I lent to [livejournal.com profile] nekonexus, because it's not on the shelf and no bookstore has it. And if they did it'd be the American version lacking the typeface. But Pratchett is an easy descent into no-brain reading, hence the Murakami. And for English, Un Lun Dun. Am still bemused by my fancied connections between Tiffany and Spirited Away, eg the way the Hiver maps onto Kaonashi.

Looked through Flying Sorcerors instead, which has some of the most infuriating introductions I've ever come across. Spoilers, tin ears, hammering the obvious into the ground... and the John Collier story was definitely missing a line or two that made gibberish of the action, and the CS Lewis selection was Lewis in his worst 'eww girl cooties' mode.

Stopped by a used bookstore yesterday, looking for Feet of Clay, and discovered one of the Penguin books of horror stories, specifically one I bought from the book mobile that came to our school when I was sixteen. Bought it for old sakes' sake and to see what I missed when I was sixteen. Quite a lot, actually. Also bought The King in Yellow from a misapprehension that there were two books by the name, and because I didn't recognize the random passage I looked at to see if the book was familiar. Should have looked at the beginning with its 'after our enlightened president got rid of all the Jews and established peace and prosperity' horrors. Turns out I remember almost nothing of The King in Yellow, but *that* bit sticks unforgettably in the mind, oh yes indeed.

[identity profile] i-am-zan.livejournal.com 2012-04-23 09:36 am (UTC)(link)
I might get Un Lun Dun again, (because I am most certain I got it for the girl, but she remembers not reading it, nor I giving it to her, so I mustn't have yet) What my brain does is sometimes imprint on itself that I must do something and then the moment passes but then later remembers it as having done it. I might be going crazy yes, yes.

Meanwhile the children have discovered RL Stevenson. ^_^ The boy is going through 'Treasure Island' and the girl is reading 'Kidnapped'.

And I found An anthology of (apparently) New Weird (http://www.amazon.com/New-Cthulhu-The-Recent-Weird/dp/1607012898), nice little bite size stories my interupted schedule seems to allow for.

Edited 2012-04-23 09:37 (UTC)

[identity profile] flemmings.livejournal.com 2012-04-23 11:27 pm (UTC)(link)
Stevenson is wonderful. I prefer Kidnapped to Treasure Island, partly because what I was really looking for at the time was Rider Haggard. Somehow I'd got Alan Breck and Allan Quatermain confused in my head. I consider myself lucky this was so.