(no subject)

[dreamer_easy]

Our mate Kyla once wisely said that there were books you wanted to read and books you wanted to have read. I puzzled over this for a long time, but fighting to get through Aldous Huxley's Crome Yellow and then having trouble putting down George Orwell's A Clergyman's Daughter brought the meaning home to me.

I had some mad idea of reading Huxley's entire oeuvre; Crome Yellow constantly interrupts itself with long asides which drove me berko, so I think I'll be giving the rest of his output a miss at least for now, although I do mean to do my once-each-decade re-read of Brave New World this year. By contrast, I think I could cheerfully read Orwell's collected shopping lists. I powered through Clergyman's Daughter despite the excruciating injustice of the characters and situations. Also due is my once-each-decade re-read of 1984, which I first attempted at age 9, and put aside because there was mention of a naked lady.

Comments

[i-ate-my-crusts.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean about Orwell -- I could read Steinbeck's to-do lists, cheerfully.

Damn. Now I'm craving Jane Austen.

[dinosaurcostume.livejournal.com]

In my 'Creativity and Utopia' course I've been landed with a presentation on both/either 'Brave New World' and '1984', possibly the most 'trad' of all the weeks (more trad than Thomas More, if you get my meaning) which I think means a bit of a rad interpretation from me, or we'll all be asleep. So I decided lately to try and read as much Orwell as I can. Oddly, I think Huxley's written more about utopias (sci-fi wise) but something's really putting me off reading him. Don't know why but I'm just dreading it!

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

He can be a bloody bore when he wants to. Mind you, I wasn't born with the sort of mind that's delighted by privileged idiots in country houses. Well, not for long stretches, anyway. :-)

[wantsacracker.livejournal.com]

The Clergyman's Daughter is fantastic.
What a character. God, the pins!

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

You know that Rebecca West quote, "I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat." ? Dorothy's the doormat, and how.

[murasaki-1966.livejournal.com]

Good quote. May I use it?

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Yes, of course!

[gdwessel.livejournal.com]

Strangely, I know what you mean, because although Alan Moore is not unlike a deity to me, I am absolutely *struggling* to get through Lost Girls, and it's mostly sex scenes!

[pedanther]

I've only tried to read Nineteen Eighty-Four once; I got to the bit where Winston and Julia declare their feelings for one another, and decided it would be kinder on the poor lambs if I stopped there.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

You've read a much nicer novel than the rest of us.