Laurel’s Comments (group member since Aug 06, 2013)

Laurel’s comments from the I Read Therefore I Am group.

I quite liked the one with the little girl in (the fifth one), not sure if it was the same teacher or someone different. But not so keen on the third and fourth stories. The next bit is quite a bit longer so am saving it for next week when I'm off so I can read it all at once.

I thought the third story was a bit disturbing, (view spoiler)[ I know she was lonely and her letters went unanswered but she seemed a bit needy and not quite stable to start with to be honest even before she decided to seduce one of her pupils (hide spoiler)]
All these stories seems to be about the social conflict between the people who belong to the village and outsiders in some way

12. Lloyd Jones - Mister Pip
13. Graham Joyce - Some Kind of Fairy-Tale

49. Papua New Guinea, Oceania: Lloyd Jones - Mister Pip

Awww I didn't know he had a pet monkey! Bless her, I know they didn't really have animal rights in those days but there's no need for him to be so cruel :(

Lee I didn't notice that about the names - do you think he has a secret Superman obsession??? Lol ;)

What did you think about the second story about the lost boy? It was really sad but I liked the folkloric elements (view spoiler)[ of him maybe having turned into a boar or pig or whatever it was (hide spoiler)] Also did you think (view spoiler)[ that the priest bloke writing the letter really was his father?? For me it came a bit out of the left field - I didn't even consider that until the narrator chucked it in at the end (hide spoiler)]

I've never heard of Mahfouz before Jenny but it certainly looks interesting and I might check him out when I'm in Saudi Arabia on my armchair around the world trip!
Burial Rites also looks very good too so will have to keep an eye out for that as well.

I'd be interested in joining in with the divine comedy as well - I've been meaning to read it since forever!

At the moment though, I've put Obabakoak to one side so I can read Some Kind Of Fairy Tale by Graham Joyce and also a bit of Daniel Deronda by George Eliot.

Glad you're enjoying it Angela, I found it faster paced than the others as well and thought it was just as polished as her others.

I downloaded one for free (Final Meeting) and bought another one (Evening) - am excited to read them now!

That's brilliant Jenny - I'm gonna pop over and read his comments now ;)

I do really love this poem - I think I might get some of the kindle collections of her poems as they are pretty reasonable

Very interesting, thanks! I did like the revised version of that chapter better though. The Wikipedia page mentioned that Austen died before she could subject this one to a full revision - do you guys think it's a bit less polished? Or do you think her maturity as a writer means she didn't need to revise it as much as might have had to with some of her earlier novels???

11. Jane Austen - Persuasion

There's a couple of collections of Akhmatova's poetry for £2.49 each for kindle which I'm eyeballing as they look very interesting - they are dual language editions as well, so you can see the Russian (not that I can make head nor tail of it) as well as the English translation. I'm tempted....

I think I like that one better than the love poetry but then I always like the scary stuff! Some of the images are great and very apocalyptic - am quite liking the Book of Revelations feel to this poem ;)

Yes they are absolutely awful - I'm glad I'm not related to them!

I've finished it now, I couldn't put it down in the end, very much enjoyed it.

I had an idea that the father's ideas or his work were out of favour in Germany and he couldn't really go back? But I might be wrong and it doesn't really answer why they were living in such an out of the way place that he clearly hated - they could have lived somewhere else even if he couldn't go home.

I think it was kind of sad and I'm not convinced he had the right to decide that for his son, especially through the means he used which was pretty deceitful and cruel really. I wonder why the son had this obsession with writing it all down, he was quite fixated on his journals wasn't he?

Hope so!

Yeah and then having to watch him flirting with that stupid girl who ends up knocking herself out! I want to shake him but I suppose she did break his heart all those years ago so he has to have a little revenge

oh dear - I hadn't a clue about that when I made the above comment, I hope it's over soon in that case!

Ok now I'm about halfway through and I'm hooked - Anne and Lady Russell have just arrived in Bath so hopefully things are looking up as the first half was painful!