Friday Update
Welcome to the first Friday Update of 2008! Here's a little precis of my book- and reading-related enjoyment this week.
Last week I received a lovely old Penguin paperback of Agatha Christie's The Moving Finger, which gave all the usual Christie frisson whilst still allowing me to sleep peacefully at night. A review is on its way, dealing with the problem of a mysteriously appearing currant loaf. Rather more seriously, I've also been ploughing on with Goncharov's Oblomov, one of the novels I picked for the Russian Reading Challenge hosted by ExLibris in 2008. Oblomov is a delight, but I say ploughing because I'm out of practice with reading anything that takes more than half a brain. A kind of claustrophobia sits over me whilst I'm reading it. I'm aware that the story is more than it seems; it's an allegory for the decline of the aristocracy in 19th century Russia, with existential dilemma thrown in for good measure (I'm thinking the book of Ecclesiastes). But I am also suffocated by the eponymous character. I've just reached page 177, and Oblomov has finally got out of bed. His laziness is grotesque - both comical and nightmarish - and yet it is simply a character trait I possess in abundance, played to an extreme.
Woman's Hour Drama on Radio 4 has been gripping me, with a dramatisation of Lionel Shriver's We Need To Talk About Kevin. I toyed with the idea of a re-read, but realized that the appeal of the book was perfectly encapsulated by the radio adaptation. I appreciated anew the control Shriver exercises over the voice of her narrator, and the wonderfully chilling plot twists. Next week is the Orange Prize shortlisted A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, which I reviewed last year, so I'll be listening eagerly online.
And finally, I was very pleased to hear that 217 Babel has received a new update recently. 217 Babel is a hypertext fiction that will be growing over the coming weeks and months. It tells the stories of the inhabitants of a block of flats near the sea, all intertwined and growing together. At the moment it is full of mystery and I love it.
Becca
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