waking slow: current - well most recent post is July - but it is 2006 - of int, agn, re a popular ~literary~ book
I read The Kite Runner in one sitting, really, as I waited for a delayed flight, took the flight, and rode the train up from NYC. After the first 100 pages, I spoke to someone on the phone and said, 'You should read this; it's good.' At the end, I wanted to find a rewind button on my own life to retract that statement.
It's not good. The attention it has received is staggering, and especially the approval it received from several sources I would have expected better from (I'm looking at you, New York Times). cool. the short: It's not good.
Its depiction of life in modern day Afghanistan is striking and well drawn. yeah thats what my mum liked, and several other enough to feel like lots of people. still hasnt appealled to me but I am sorta xenophobic in fiction. no maybe not, I just dont by pleasure-draw read for descrip. always always for voice.That is a strength of the novel. That said, much of the rest of it is mired in cliche and predictability. The second two thirds of the novel read not unlike The Da Vinci Code, which, yes, I've read, with lots of 'twists' and melodramatic descriptions and moral platitudes meant to amaze.
I wanted to like it, I did, but as I read it, all I could think of was the fact that this book is already being taught at high schools and colleges, and that student readers of this book would think that the sort of purple prose and 'powerful' language is literary and acceptable. yeah thats a bug to me.

so this blog is pleasant reading - and pleasant layout - on th Sept 03 archive page also noted post re tweaking the site but I've stuck with my staid grey and black. And some white. that's what I like. and nice title - It's from my favorite poem, The Waking by Theodore Roethke. The first line is, "I wake to sleep and take my waking slow." -- man so do I, so do I.

can I should I chill out a little and read without constant cut pasting? I dunno.