at last I have managed to blog on a Sunday. i wonder if anyone else listened to 'Die Entfuhrung' from the Met last Sat. it was so disappointing. This opera has some wonderful music but the soprano was what I can only call a shrieker. I listened for 45 minutes, hoping things might improve but alas.In fact for all its hype I don't feel that the Met can compare with Italy or London and Glyndbourne.When one can only hear as on the radio it's so important that the singing is excellent.
I've read 'Le Bal' two novellas by Irene Nemirovski. In ' le bal a mother has vengeance wreaked on her by her daughter. daughter is very badly treated psychologically and mother tells her to post the invitations to a grand ball, she is holding. You can guess what happened. Nemirovsky's writing is so fine tuned, not a word too many (or too few). One wonders how much better she might have become had she lived.Again there are undertones of anti-semiticism yet Nemirowsky was Jewish herself. The second story isn't quite as good and is about white Russians.The story is called 'Snow in Autumn'. the whole story is about transplantation and settling and how hard it is to leave one's country although it's more the sense of the German 'Heimat' than anything.this story reminded me very much of Chekhov.I don't know much about IN's life so don't know if she read Chekhov. I imagine she did.
The other book I've read this week is 'light' reading:a story very much plot driven,which goes at a fast pace. This was Lee Child's 'Bad Luck and Trouble'. His hero is jack Reacher, who we don't expect to evolve as a character because the plot is the thing.this book is an excellent read. It would make a good film too. i don't know if any Child's books have been adapted for the cinema.
Most of today I've spent catching up on jobs. I shortened a Kaftan and read The Sunday Times. All the while waiting for my fridge to defrost. What a task all my own fault for leaving it so long. Once again I resolve to defrost every week.There is a solid block of ice and if I can get it out the whole task will be done. Also have ironing but have convinced myself that one doesn't iron on a Sunday!!
I should be doing some translating but it's just too hot now. it must be near 80o. My young neighbour and I spent time moving tadpoles to water. There are more this year than for years and the ditch was really full of water but it's dried really quickly. One side we have filled through my garden fence with a hose but the other side we can't reach. Much to Lauren ( our next door's 3 year old) we saw a newt too. when i was growing up streams and ponds were full of different varieties of newts but no longer. It's such a shame. Modern children have all the technology but very little of nature. I know which I'd prefer them to have.
Now going to 'do' my email and send a reviewette to Ellie at Hesperus.
2 comments:
Happy Sunday. Nice to read your post this weekend. It sounds like you had an eventful book week. I did too and it was so thrilling! I have be so unmotivated to read, but I finally broke through.
Hi, Daphne. Having just joined the Sunday Salon, I am making the rounds to figure out what my first post should look like.
You mention the abusive mother and the daughter's revenge, and it resonates with a book I'm reading right now by Veronica Gonzales, twin time: or, how death befell me. She portrays the most pathological mothering I've seen in fiction, and yet she writes like an angel, so I have stuck with it, even though it's rough going. It's edgy, out there, experimental fiction and I'm happy to have found this young writer, although her book is so different from the things I usually read.
The Nemirovksy novellas you just read are in my TBR pile. I recently read her Fire in the Blood, another beautifully written novella.
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