Lopper progress
We've bought the lopper. Now I have to wait for a calm day to use it. Not because I think it will be difficult but because of the length of it. When we walked back from buying it, the lopper came up to my shoulder and I'm 5'8" - felt like Neptune with the trident trundling along.
I don't know if you've ever used one of those extensions for decorating - you know like a brush handle that you can fix on the end of a roller. We used one when we decorated the high and wide landing in our house. Not that it was difficult to do, more that the weight of the whole thing provided one or two hairy moments as I extended it to its fullest length.
Looking at this lopper I have a funny feeling that the same thing might happen when I'm waving it about at a tree branch. Especially as this time I'm likely to be up a ladder too. What looks very doable from my bedroom window feels quite different when I'm looking up at a 30 ft tree.
Bookwise
Finished the Gift of Rain. Very tragic story full of revenge, hatred and at a deeper level love. Interesting mix of cultural and religious ideas and beliefs. Having it set in war provided the extraordinary circumstances of a boy taking the fate of his family on his shoulders. In setting, completely different from Irene Nemirovsky's Suite Francaise that I listened to as an audio book, but similar in the problems that face the human heart in conflict. It's easy to think we'd know how we'd behave but until I was faced with threats to those I loved, I don't have any idea what I'd do to survive.
Picked up some thrillers from the library on Saturday. None of them newly published but new reads for me. A Dalziel and Pascoe, a Slider mystery and I think the latest Alan Banks. With apologies to authors Hill, Harrod Eagles and Robinson that I placed their characters first. Not conscious choices in the subject matter but they all are about the fate of young girls.
Television
Watching very little television at the moment but I did sit down for two hours of wallpaper TV last night in Lewis. Not very stretching intellectually but still. Seeing Juliet Stevenson's character go up in flames like Brunnhilde on the funeral pyre had to be worth the time.
Speaking of placing characters first, I did notice in the credits for Lewis that the composer came before the writer. Just a thought.
Showing posts with label Tan Twan Eng. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tan Twan Eng. Show all posts
Monday, 4 April 2011
Wednesday, 23 March 2011
Reflections on my trip to Malaysia
It's taken me a couple of days to recover from the very long flight back.
It's that parallel universe you go into isn't it? Sitting in Dubai airport at what was 1am in the morning or maybe 5am or later depending on where my stomach felt it was.
It's a while since I did a long flight but nothing's substantially changed except the advent of the personal screens. The food certainly isn't changed. Though I have to say that three out of the four legs of the trip, the menu did offer me as a non meat eater at least something I could eat.
Since watching small screens isn't my ideal I managed to read quite a lot on the way back. The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima was one of the books I borrowed from my niece and I chose it for the plane journery only because it was the lighter of the two.
A story of obsession about an object, the Golden Pavilion, and an ideal, beauty, are woven together based on a factual incident in 1950 when the real temple in Kyoto was burned down. It's a disturbing read and was compared to Dostoevskian violence and passion according to Nancy Ross Wilson who wrote the introdiuction. It's certainly a very intense read.
The other book I borrowed is The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng. It's a story of a half Chinese, half English boy in Penang before and during the Second World War and his relationship with a Japanese who teaches him Aikido. Apart from the story, it interests me because I visited Penang 30 years ago so I have echoes of the scenery and the atmosphere in my head as I read.
It was good to be offered different perspectives on literary life while I was out there even if only briefly..
It's that parallel universe you go into isn't it? Sitting in Dubai airport at what was 1am in the morning or maybe 5am or later depending on where my stomach felt it was.
It's a while since I did a long flight but nothing's substantially changed except the advent of the personal screens. The food certainly isn't changed. Though I have to say that three out of the four legs of the trip, the menu did offer me as a non meat eater at least something I could eat.
Since watching small screens isn't my ideal I managed to read quite a lot on the way back. The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima was one of the books I borrowed from my niece and I chose it for the plane journery only because it was the lighter of the two.
A story of obsession about an object, the Golden Pavilion, and an ideal, beauty, are woven together based on a factual incident in 1950 when the real temple in Kyoto was burned down. It's a disturbing read and was compared to Dostoevskian violence and passion according to Nancy Ross Wilson who wrote the introdiuction. It's certainly a very intense read.
The other book I borrowed is The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng. It's a story of a half Chinese, half English boy in Penang before and during the Second World War and his relationship with a Japanese who teaches him Aikido. Apart from the story, it interests me because I visited Penang 30 years ago so I have echoes of the scenery and the atmosphere in my head as I read.
It was good to be offered different perspectives on literary life while I was out there even if only briefly..
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