novemblah

Actually I'm a fairly happy creature these days, rain and mud notwithstanding.
Really I have nothing to say except hi there, just to break throught the blog-block I have going again.
Just read: Till We Have Faces, by you know very well who. Hadn't read it in a loooong time. Pretty gripping stuff: I am Ungit! Brrrrrr!

Reading now: Crime and Punishment. Have never read it, which is delicious. The last time I had a 'Russian' phase was in oh, 1992. High time for another one. If you want to know, the first couple of chapters constitute one of the most heart-wrenching depictions of what alcoholism does to families in --I'm sure -- all of literature. (Angela's ashes is another, of course.) It is a bracing reminder of one of the functions of literature: to bypass the cliche detectors in your brain and slap it with something as if for the first time. All the AA pamphlets in the world can't shake you the way Dostoyevski does when he drags you into a miserable apartment where children are starving (and then beaten for crying with hunger) and a young woman-- their stepsister -- is forced into prostitution to save them (and then is kicked out of the building for being an 'bad' person) all because their father drinks every bit of money that comes his way.

It sounds wretched, and of course it is, but reading it is somehow wonderful. It helps that the translators of my edition are the exquisite team of Richard Pevear and Larissa Volohonski. If memory serves, Heather (my iconography guru) went to St Vlad's with Ms Volohonski and I think Mr Pevear as well. Cool. Plus the book has a nifty cover design, which always helps.

Okay, off to bed now, mainly so I can read.