Oh - that's just silly calling it a Challenge - with a capital C no less. In fact, it's silly to give my reading life any sort of title at all and summer is 1/3 over anyway. And since when do I have to challenge myself to read anything? OK - changing the title of this post to 'What should I read next' - way more comfortable with that!
To make a short story long, I was speaking to a friend of mine who lives in Melbourne and she and her husband were going to start reading Ulysses by James Joyce again for the third time. They read it aloud to each other in the evenings because telly is 'so boring this time of year". My friend is an artist so she has a decent attention span and her husband just likes to sit still and be calm. She is no super intellectual (she is smart though), nor his he (he's smart too), but if they can read it - so can I.
This is the 2nd time I have picked up this novel and had a go. Last time I didn't hate it but I can remember saying to myself that Joyce just made things up, like words and phrases, and pops them into the conversation as if everyone knows what he means. He waves his hand, turns his head and ptoshes us if we challenge (there's that word again) him. Joyce is so uber-confident in his writting. I dug into the bookshelf and found my copy - it is huge. I thumbed thru it and found that of the 950-odd pages almost 250 of them are notes, appendices, introductions (there are two!) and various other explanatory thingys. I can manage a 700 page novel no worries. I'm now on page 11 and already more than a little confused but determined.
I picked up the Monthly Summer Reading Special the other day and there is a wee little story about Manoly Lascaris, the partner of Patrick White. It was a sad little piece and it led me to youtube to watch Patrick White sitting on his front porch doing an interview for his Nobel Prize win. He said that one of his two favourite of his own novels was The Aunt's Story. Hey, I have that book too. I've never read Patrick White which I consider a great downfall of mine. I bought The Aunt's Story when I was going to read it for a little book group I was in but we never did - can't remember what happened. So another dig into the bookshelf uncovered a pristine, never read copy. AND less than 300 pages.
Now, the number of pages in a book mean absolutely nothing to me usually. But I have a bit more than two weeks before I have to go back to work and a bit more than four weeks before the next university term starts so I don't want to put myself into the position of having to choose between university and literature! Literature usually wins to the downfall of my grades!
I am 31 pages into The Aunt's Story and it has got me, so Patrick White is my book of choice for "What should I read next?" after the dishes are done and the grass is mown. I'm excited.
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