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I started Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje over the weekend. I didn’t get much reading time in, though, because I was either playing with the family or sleeping.
Despite the limited time I gave to it, Divisadero pulled me in right away. The prose is so different and yet easy to read. The story begins on a farm in Northern California. There is an old farmer, who is a widower, the farm hand, Coop, and the farmer’s two daughters, Anna and Claire. The farmer’s wife died in child birth while having Anna. Another mother died in child birth the same day, orphaning a little girl, so the old farmer adopted Claire. About the same time, Coop’s family was brutally murdered by a hired hand. Coop, who was four, hid for days before coming out and identifying the murderer. The old farmer took Coop in and is teaching him how to run the farm.
With such a cast of characters, I’m excited to see where this goes. It feels almost steinbeckian so far.
Newspaper Update: Over the weekend, I did manage to keep up my commitment to absorb more news. I watched the primary returns on Saturday on CNN, I read most of the Saturday USA Today, and I read most of the Sunday New York Times. Today, I’m going to try to read at least the first section of the Deseret News.
We have turned a corner! I see resolution and falling action in the near future. Gemma has finally resolved to do SOMETHING. Sure, she’s leaning a little toward the evil side, but I think she’s already beginning to see the error in that path. Also, the love story is beginning to come together. At last! Only a mere 200 pages left to go! (I think I’ve used up my daily quota of exclamation marks!)
There are too many questions left to answer at this point, so I haven’t quite arrived at the “lets create thought questions” stage of the book. I believe that may happen on the morrow, though.
I didn’t follow through on the newspaper resolution yesterday, but I did spend some time reviewing the Super Tuesday results at http://cnnpolitics.com. Does that count?
My other reading activities of yesterday included the first chapter of Genesis. I think I’m going to give the Old Testament a looksie. We’ll see how that goes. At a chapter a night, I’ll finish some time around February 2011. That’s a long row to hoe. Indeed.
So, this very cool website, www.kevinandamanda.com, makes fonts out of people’s handwriting-for free, if you’re lucky. This font that you see here is made from my very own handwriting. It’s crazy.
Anyhow, on to the books. I’m STILL reading The Sweet Far Thing. I’m now about 500 pages in. I still like it a lot, but I think, at this point, I’m just reading it to see how it ends, not for the joy of reading. And that’s okay with me, I guess.
Some elements of the book are a little aggravating though, so hold on for some light venting. Gemma, the heroine, has a bit of a problem making decisions. Any decisions-big ones, little ones, ones that might save the whole universe. Also, it’s driving me crazy that there is absolutely no one in the book that you can trust. I think it takes a special skill for a writer, of say a mystery novel, to create suspense while still maintaining appropriate sanity levels. The fact that Gemma, in this book and in the other two in the series, has absolutely no one to confide in or bounce ideas off of drives me completely insane. I know that Gemma’s aloneness is one of the themes of the book, but I think Libba Bray has taken it too far in this case. Grrr . . . Also, some of the more lubricious elements make me uncomfortable. There. I said it.
In other reading news, I have left The Golden Notebook forlornly collecting dust by the side of my bed since Saturday. Maybe I’ll be able to plug through the last 300 pages of TSFT and return to TGN tomorrow. Here’s hoping.
With the recent swarm of interest in politics and the article on reading I talked about yesterday, I’ve made a resolution to read the newspaper everyday. We currently subscribe to The Deseret News, mostly for the crossword puzzles (me) and the movie/tv news (husband). This week I’m going to spend a little time after work perusing the news sections. We’ll see if my life is altered for the better.
Cheerio.
-Jessica
