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Dec. 28th, 2007 10:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
decemberthirtyOh, my poor neglected livejournal. First it was the end of the semester, then it was Christmas and all the attendant madness, and somehow I ended up not posting a thing... Oh well. The good thing about being busy is that it means I also haven't been reading much, so there's not much catching up to do.
In fact, the only thing I have read lately is Arthur and George by Julian Barnes. This was actually the last book that was assigned to me for first semester, but I didn't actually finish it until yesterday. It's something like the fourth book of Julian Barnes's that I've read, and I have to say that I think he's a wildly inconsistent writer. A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters had moments of real brilliance, Talking It Over felt like a piece of fluff, and The Porcupine seems to have passed through my brain without leaving any discernible impression (but check out that early lj post--how things have changed!) Anyway, Arthur and George struck me a very middle-of-the-road sort of book--the sort of thing that's interesting enough while I'm reading it, but won't be remembered a year or two from now. There was just something about the book that had a sandpaperish effect, smoothing the characters, the prose, the imagery down into absolute mildness.
The book is based on the true story of George Edalji, the half-Parsi son of an Anglican vicar who was wrongly convicted of a series of livestock killings in Staffordshire in the 1890s. After his release from prison, George contacted Arthur Conan Doyle asking for help in clearing his name. Arthur took up the case, and their joint efforts to overturn George's conviction led to the formation of a court of appeals in England. Aside from my surprise at learning that there had been no room for appeals in the British justice system until just 100 years ago, I found very little of interest in the historical basis for the book. Arthur Conan Doyle made an amusing character--well-meaning and truly generous, but also helplessly self-aggrandizing--but I wished that Barnes had made more judicious use of his source material about Conan Doyle's life. As it is, the entire biography is crammed into the book, and I'm not sure it's all necessary. I think I have have felt more warmly toward the book if it had been about 100 pages shorter. Oh well.
I'm excited to finally be finished with Arthur and George because it means that for the next week or two, my reading will be entirely my own! I probably should do a bit of getting ahead for next semester, but I'll have time to squeeze in a bit of other stuff too. Yay!
In fact, the only thing I have read lately is Arthur and George by Julian Barnes. This was actually the last book that was assigned to me for first semester, but I didn't actually finish it until yesterday. It's something like the fourth book of Julian Barnes's that I've read, and I have to say that I think he's a wildly inconsistent writer. A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters had moments of real brilliance, Talking It Over felt like a piece of fluff, and The Porcupine seems to have passed through my brain without leaving any discernible impression (but check out that early lj post--how things have changed!) Anyway, Arthur and George struck me a very middle-of-the-road sort of book--the sort of thing that's interesting enough while I'm reading it, but won't be remembered a year or two from now. There was just something about the book that had a sandpaperish effect, smoothing the characters, the prose, the imagery down into absolute mildness.
The book is based on the true story of George Edalji, the half-Parsi son of an Anglican vicar who was wrongly convicted of a series of livestock killings in Staffordshire in the 1890s. After his release from prison, George contacted Arthur Conan Doyle asking for help in clearing his name. Arthur took up the case, and their joint efforts to overturn George's conviction led to the formation of a court of appeals in England. Aside from my surprise at learning that there had been no room for appeals in the British justice system until just 100 years ago, I found very little of interest in the historical basis for the book. Arthur Conan Doyle made an amusing character--well-meaning and truly generous, but also helplessly self-aggrandizing--but I wished that Barnes had made more judicious use of his source material about Conan Doyle's life. As it is, the entire biography is crammed into the book, and I'm not sure it's all necessary. I think I have have felt more warmly toward the book if it had been about 100 pages shorter. Oh well.
I'm excited to finally be finished with Arthur and George because it means that for the next week or two, my reading will be entirely my own! I probably should do a bit of getting ahead for next semester, but I'll have time to squeeze in a bit of other stuff too. Yay!
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Date: 2007-12-29 04:14 pm (UTC)