Quote, and Ramble.

Coming up with titles for blog entries makes my sympathize with painters who title their stuff, “Woman with Plastic Frog #1, Woman with Squeaky Duck #2,” etc. Jeez, it’s hard enough for me, and I like words better than pictures.

Doyce sent me a quote that made me laugh out loud:

“Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.”

— Kurt Vonnegut

So I sat down and wrote a ramble back to him, remembered I hadn’t written a blog post for a while, and decided to post it. Voila!

I’ve only done that with one book, St. Augustine’s Confessions. I was supposed to read it for Western Civ. The prof asked me in class what I’d thought of it, and I stood up and told him. He made me promise him to try to read it in a couple of years or so, to see if my opinion had changed. It hadn’t; I’ll probably keep trying until I get it read.

I actually screamed at the book and threw it across the room–I must have been menstrual or something–I still can’t stand to read that book.

But Vonnegut’s right.

I’m reading Ulysses by James Joyce, another one of those lifelong I’ll-read-it-if-it-kills-me books. Fun, actually. It’s like reading a thousand pages of Zelazny’s shadow shifting, if he were any good at writing that stuff, or Spider Robinson’s telepathy rambles. Figuring it all out would keep you busy for a career, that’s for sure.

–Another thing. I need to find some good, new science fiction that I like. I’ve read a good fantasy novel lately (Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Suzanna Clarke), but I can’t find anything good in science fiction. I don’t want “the latest in a series,” so don’t recommend Something Rotten–I’m saving that for a bad day.

–And yet another thing. How many books did Steven Brust take to reveal that his fantasy world was sort of science fiction, anyway?

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