What Are We Reading? 5 July 2021

[AB76]

Anastasia wrote: "Same here, haven't seen the adaptation, so... will report back :) I think Milkman left quite an impression among the TLSers, and it wasn't a good one"

it was a strange reading experience for me, cos it started well, felt quite profound in stages and i love Ulster novels, the Northern Irish storytelling. But quickly i just became bored and then dumped it, usually i can smell a dud within a few pages, by something in the style or the manner of expressing certain things but Burns fooled me in the way, maybe as i;d read all the reviews about the unusual style

[scarletnoir]

I thought the TV adaptation of Normal People' was very good - difficult to film scenes handled with great sensitivity. It seemed a realistic enough portrayal of how two characters (plus a few more) might grow up in modern Ireland.

As I have not read the book, I can't say whether it, too, is worth your time, or not.

[SydneyH]

scarletnoir wrote: "the plot was so incredible (in terms of human behaviour) that I have not persevered"

That seems strange to me - I wouldn't find a story very interesting if it had no sense of novelty to it.

[CCCubbon]

Bill wrote
‘ continually trying to determine what it is that is casting these shadows, that is to say the meaning of the words to the poet. ‘

Maybe that is precisely what is dishing poetry for you. You could try to read a poem without thinking at first what it means, just to get the flow, the sound in your head. Must warn it doesn’t work for all but you could try first verse of Dylan Thomas ‘Fern Hill’ or Auden ‘ As I walked out one evening’
Just hear the sounds first, maybe read again before trying to make sense of it. Leave for a while, few days, go back, if it still doesn’t flow and make sense then it’s not for you that one but others will be.

As such a literary and musical person you might come to enjoy.

[AB76]

Having finished the excellent Rebel Richmond my non-fiction reading moves to France in Summer 1940.

Destinys Journey by Alfred Doblin is his account of fleeing the Nazi invasion of France, a familiar tale of so many other people whose life was in danger from a Nazi occupation.

While its a POD copy i have, it is well bound and set, plus the translation reads well. It is haunting to re-visit that world a year after my 80th anniversary reading of the events of May-June 1940, last year

Doblin sends his wife and son south by train as the city hovers in the last uneasy days before the Germans arrive. A friend at the ministry of information organises his escape south with the ministry staff, on a warm June night he walks accross a deserted Place Vendome, the statue sandbagged and forlorn in the blackout, outside the ministry soldiers are packing and bagging things for evacuation. In the morning to a station, where a train has been laid on, the hot sun and faint panic, then they are on the way south......

[Georg]

Bill wrote: Georg, are you deliberately picking books you're not going to like?

No! I though I would like Apeirogon, based on Justine's and Lisa's raving reviews only.
GWA was not on my TBR list, experience has taught me to avoid Booker winners at all costs. But my library had it, so I took the chance to reinforce my aversion ;-)

That twitter post was spot on, if a bit too lenient.

[Georg]

AB76 wrote: "Having finished the excellent Rebel Richmond my non-fiction reading moves to France in Summer 1940.

Destinys Journey by Alfred Doblin is his account of fleeing the Nazi invasion of France, a fam..."

I have just read Hans Fallada's "Jeder stirbt für sich allein". Made me think I should give "Berlin Alexanderplatz" another try (on the first I DNF)

[AB76]

Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Having finished the excellent Rebel Richmond my non-fiction reading moves to France in Summer 1940.

Destinys Journey by Alfred Doblin is his account of fleeing the Nazi invasion of F..."

I read a second hand copy of Alexanderplatz about 20 years ago and i enjoyed it, it wasnt quite as good as i expected but was full of Berlin life, argot and character. (The cover was from the West German tv series)

I have a Fallada novel set in Hamburg on my TBR list "Once a Jailbird". I have read "Alone in Berlin" and "Little Man, What Now?". I liked the Weimar novel better than the Nazi era one, though Alone in Berlin is a brilliant, bleak novel of the later war years in Berlin

There is so much great German lit from the 1918-1945 period in print, Heinz Rein's "Berlin Finale" is also on my list, written the same year as Alone in Berlin.

[Bill]

Georg wrote: "No! I though I would like Apeirogon, based on Justine's and Lisa's raving reviews only.
GWA was not on my TBR list, experience has taught me to avoid Booker winners at all costs. But my library had it, so I took the chance to reinforce my aversion ;-)"

After I posted, I recalled that you also read Women Talking, another well-received book (on TL&S, at least) that I knew I should probably avoid.

Trying to think about what, if anything, Apeirogon, Girl, Woman, Other, and Women Talking had in common that warned me away from them, I think that it’s my suspicion that the attitude of both writer and reader seems to be predetermined before opening the book. War-bereaved fathers seeking to establish a peace movement, women of color in a majority white and male-dominated society, and victims of rape living in a severely patriarchal religious community: you know that the author, and you as a right-thinking reader, are going to be weighing in heavily on the side of these protagonists. Why let myself in for hundreds of pages of preaching to the choir, as the cliché has it?

I’d contrast that with another book that aroused my interest, The Girls by Emma Cline. I also decided not to read that one (though the reviews led me to read the excellent Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson), but at least its subject matter, based on the young girls that became followers of Charles Manson, doesn’t come with pre-packaged attitudes – the subjects are both victims and victimizers, creating a dissonance in the mind of the reader that one hopes the author will explore and deepen, if not resolve.

[[deleted user]]

Apropos The Faerie Queene, I happen to know two people who have read the whole thing, and they both urged me strongly to give it a go, so there has to be something in it. But I’ve never quite got to the point of opening the book. Maybe one day.

[Georg]

Bill wrote: Why let myself in for hundreds of pages of preaching to the choir, as the cliché has it?

I do not think I am looking for a reinforcement of my personal views. Why should I: they have been tempered but not essentially changed since I was a teenager. Am I biased? Of course I am. I will never read any book written by Ayn Rand and her ilk, for example.

In a novel I ideally get a good story with interesting and believable characters that is well written.

But the word novel nowadays seems to cover all sorts of ramblings. And, indeed, preachings adressed to the already converted.

If I were much younger I would probably doubt myself and go with the political-correctness flow. As it is the preaching rather has the opposite effect and I am happy to go against the flow if my reasoning tells me so.

[CCCubbon]

Here’s another excerpt from The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams and I cannot think of some of the answers, even today.
Esme has been reading reports of the force feeding of suffragettes, their names are given in terms of their husbands’ occupations.

‘I realised that the words most often used to define us were words that described our function in relation to others. Even the most benign words – maiden, wife, mother – told the world whether we were virgins or not. What was the male equivalent of maiden? I could not think of it. What was the male equivalent of Mrs, of whore, of common scold?’

[Sandya]

Georg wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "MK wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "Bill wrote: "Georg wrote: "You are a music buff. What about Schubert's Lieder?"

As I suggested, musical settings can often serve me a..."

While somewhat off topic, I can relate to your story of an appallingly bad maths teacher. In Junior School, I was good at Maths, because I was good at everything. I got very high test scores. Once, when I KNEW I had come top in the exam (comparing notes with friends), I asked my maths teacher why I placed second, since I had expected to come first. Her response: "A girl cannot be top in Maths". This was around 1965. I was disappointed at the time, but am appalled now. The person who placed above me, Steven Rogers, it transpired later, did not even go to Uni-I have a PhD in science. The last time I saw Steven Rogers, before I left for Uni, he was wall-propping in Southall.....

But worse was to come.

My Maths teacher in grammar school, Mr Jewell, was a racist. For 2 years I was the only Indian kid in the school, and I suffered daily in-your-face racism the entire 7 years I was there from all the kids and Mr. Jewell, and this was completely ignored by the school administration, despite my protests. Mr Jewell routinely humiliated me, sneered at me, ignored my questions, in and out of class because I was 1) a wog and 2) a smart girl. One of my classmates, Susan Holiday, a neighbor of his, told me "It is well known Mr. Jewell doesn't like colored people". "Colored people". That's all we are.

I mention these people by name because they are burned into my memory. I will always call them out. If by some twist of internet karma, they read this and it upsets them, tough-they need to feel some of the pain they subjected me to.

As a result, I failed every Maths exam I took at that school. I did FINALLY pass Additional Maths on the third attempt, this time studying on my own. At A level-I walked out of the exam-I had learned nothing in classes. I had to do the Biology Special Level to make up-I got a Distinction. At University, since I was doing a science degree, I had to devise all sorts of workarounds to get round my bad maths, mostly by working harder than everyone else in my year. Afterwards, when I had my own research lab I either 1) worked out any Maths I needed from first principles or 2) delegated it to a pro. All this as the result of the stupid way maths was taught, low expectations of all girls, even smart ones, and racism.

As for Mr. Jewell, he was made Head of Dept and is now a respected Deacon at his church. In 2017, I mentioned my experience of his Maths "teaching" on the school FB page, on a thread praising his Maths teaching to the skies. I was permanently blocked. My schoolmates haven't changed. They have rosy memories of grammar school and nothing-certainly not my feelings about the racism they inflicted on me-can be permitted to interfere. Consequently, I am out of the loop on events and reunions. This would not have happened at a US High School, where I would have been seen as having a right to know what was going on, but it is apparently OK in the UK.

[Lljones]

Bill wrote: "War-bereaved fathers seeking to establish a peace movement...victims of rape living in a severely patriarchal religious community ..."

Apeirogon is much more complex than that summation; it is indeed as complex as the definition of its title: a generalized polygon with a countably infinite number of sides. And to some degree, the same can be said of Women Talking . (I haven't read Girl, Woman, Other.)

Anyway, I rarely choose to read a book for the subject matter. I read for the writing.

[Fuzzywuzz]

Sandya wrote: "Georg wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "MK wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "Bill wrote: "Georg wrote: "You are a music buff. What about Schubert's Lieder?"

As I suggested, musical settings can of..."

Sandya, what happened to you was absolutely awful. I'm so gobsmacked, I'm at a loss for words.

This is not a patch on your experiences. I'm originally English and moved to Ireland in 1988, aged 11. The 5th class teacher, who thought it would be a good idea to bring me in front of the other 30-odd pupils for a 'getting to know you' session.

The teacher didn't like the way I said 'film', pronounced 'fill-um' in Ireland and made me repeatedly say the word until I said it the correct way. Great entertainment for the teacher and the other kids, but not a nice experience for a shy and very easily embarrassed fuzzywuzz.

[Fuzzywuzz]

Georg wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "There have been some great comments about the crime genre. funnily enough, I've never read an Agatha Christie book and have no interest in doing so (but read about the poisons she..."

The niece was a horrible character, I agree.

[Sandya]

Fuzzywuzz wrote: "Sandya wrote: "Georg wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "MK wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "Bill wrote: "Georg wrote: "You are a music buff. What about Schubert's Lieder?"

As I suggested, musical ..."

I just don't understand why people think it is OK to humiliate children like this. We are powerless I suppose and cannot fight back. Just look at the spelling of "film"-why would anyone add a "U" in the first place?

Returning to literature and books, "Jane Eyre" got me through some of the worst times at my Grammar School, "Belsen". Both Jane's conflicts with and victory over her Reed cousins and the Lowood portion gave me strength. I could not get past Chapter 10 of Jane Eyre until I went to university and could finally start to distance myself from Grammar School. Then of course I was deeply affected by the rest of the novel, which has remained an important source of strength my entire life.

I am living proof that this book still has much to say. I am a pilot, and if I ever buy my own plane, she will be called "Plane Jane".

[Fuzzywuzz]

AB76 wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "There have been some great comments about the crime genre. funnily enough, I've never read an Agatha Christie book and have no interest in doing so (but read about the poisons she..."

Work continued for me as normal throughout the pandemic . I guess I'm just very tired atm. Work free time seems rather constrained - by the time I've done all the boring essential stuff, too tired to read.

I'm hoping this will soon pass. :)

[Georg]

Lljones wrote: a generalized polygon with a countably infinite number of sides

What does that mean? As you can probably tell I am somebody who didn't get it? Could you explain the meaning, in the context of the book, to somebody like me in concrete terms/simple words as to make me understand?

[Bill]

Georg wrote: "I will never read any book written by Ayn Rand and her ilk, for example."

Well, I've read The Romantic Manifesto, and enjoyed the experience (my review), though its length of 160 pp is about as far as I care to go with this author. I was somewhat surprised to find in Rand something of a prophet in literary criticism: willing to look seriously at popular genre literature at a time (1971) when it was largely disdained by academia and serious critics.

As for "her ilk", one regularly runs across Libertarian advocates among SF writers - I read Moon of Ice as a result of reading a number of "Hitler wins" alternative histories. It's a bad book, though I'm not sure how much of that's due to the author's political stance beyond the ridiculous picture of a Libertarian-controlled US.

[AB76]

Fuzzywuzz wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "There have been some great comments about the crime genre. funnily enough, I've never read an Agatha Christie book and have no interest in doing so (but read about th..."

its always sad when a book lover finds reading hard and it does happen unfortunately

[Sandya]

Fuzzywuzz wrote: "Sandya wrote: "Georg wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "MK wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "Bill wrote: "Georg wrote: "You are a music buff. What about Schubert's Lieder?"

As I suggested, musical ..."

Here is an example of the kind of workaround I had to devise. At University I had a Biology lab where we were given 2 viruses, one a deletion mutation, and their position on Cesium Chloride density gradients and asked to work out the size of the deletion in the viral DNA from the CsCl density gradient data.

I struggled with this an entire weekend and nearly went round the bend but finally devised a solution. I made a graph where one end was 100% DNA and the other 100% protein and any mixture of the 2 could be read off the line and the size of the deletion calculated that way.

I submitted my solution.

My lecturer in molecular biology, Barry Holland, a lovely man, always very kind to me, scored my effort: "This is very clever, but it is wrong".

The solution was 2 pages of calculus, which I could not do because of the way I had been "taught" Maths by Mr. Jewell.

While I was disappointed, I was pleased to at least have my creative thinking acknowledged. I don't think Dr. Holland had seen my solution before. And besides, in science there is no shame in proposing an hypothesis that can be disproved. That is how science progresses.

[Fuzzywuzz]

CCCubbon wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "I still shudder at the memory of a Maths teacher calling me up to the board to complete homework questions and being shouted at. Then I usually froze and couldn't thi..."

Thanks for the clip CCCubbon. Spoken poetry beings the words alive and John Hannah did a great job of delivering them.

Thinking back to when I was younger, I suspect I 'drifted-off' mentally during English classes at school. Whenever I tried to understand poetry (in order to complete homework tasks), deconstructing it was very frustrating for me. It was much easier for me to understand concepts in the sciences.

[Fuzzywuzz]

Thanks to those of you who shared your horrid school experiences.

I'm going to try and make this a little more positive. Like most things in life, there is the good, the bad and the ugly and education is no exception. It's good to read about those of you who have sought out the means to further enhance your learning opportunities and enjoy subjects.

I was terrible at English, but had a teacher (for some of the years) who had a penchant for Shakespeare and the English classics and reasonable taste in modern literature.

A couple of years after leaving school, I returned there to work for 6 weeks during university summer holiday time as part of the Irish 'Student Scheme' programme. Most of the work was cleaning the school, but some of it involved helping the teachers who needed odd-jobs done.

My old English teacher needed me to help her clear out some old cupboards in the Staff Room, I had a really wonderful chat with her. After I finished, she gave me a wonderful hardbacked journal. I still have it to this day.

I still like Shakespeare and Jane Austin in particular due to this particular English teacher. Were teachers influential in shaping the reading habits of my fellow forest dwellers?

[AB76]

A nice day of gentle reading and unexpected calm in the shires is now descending into a poundland jingo-carnival as the Euro 2021 final looms

I want england to win but am leaving town for a quieter part of the shires this evening in a while, i want no part of a giant covid spreading celebration, i will celebrate quietly

Pro-Brexit and anti-italian chants already common, passers by mostly young males already inebriated.

Win it for Gareth Southgate, a quiet, sensible manager...is my approach....if we do win!

[Cabbie]

Just sticking my oar into the conversation about Girl, Woman, Other. It was a book club read for me and I enjoyed it, apart from the ending - I'm not a fan of happy endings. But it's a character driven story, and the plot... well, I can't actually remember there being a plot. What I thought was good, was the way Evaristo played with expectations of what these women would be like. Their problems were the same as women everywhere, some of them were a*holes. I think the trick to enjoying the book is to find a character that one can relate to.

I've just finished Evaristo's The Emperor's Babe, which is written in verse form and mixes Latin phrases, teenage girls' argot and made up cockney. It combines the awful power structures of Roman society with the youthful energy and friendship of modern teens. Sounds absolutely dreadful, but I loved it. I don't think it'd be to everyone's taste tho'.

[AB76]

Fuzzywuzz wrote: "Thanks to those of you who shared your horrid school experiences.

I'm going to try and make this a little more positive. Like most things in life, there is the good, the bad and the ugly and educa..."

i never experienced any mean-ness from teachers that i can remember, i wasnt head over heels about school but can record it as "ok" .

My sympathy now remains with the dyslexic kids whose travails in communal english reading classes were myriad. All exceptionally bright kids but they really suffered under the cosh of "lets read Beecher Stowe aloud three times a week"

If i did cause teachers to get cross with me, it was cos i was a cheeky, mouthy little git!

[CCCubbon]

Sandya

I am sorry that your school experience was unhappy but I wanted to say that we each fight our battles in different ways.
Being forced to leave grammar school at fifteen, my learning dwelled in the small hours when the children were in bed. Like you I found other ways and, gained in depth and width of knowledge. I was unable to fulfil my dream of going to university but I did buy myself a glass frog to celebrate the day that I started lecturing in one.

Forget Mr Jewell and the comments, you are a successful business woman, scientist and pilot, it could be that adversity made you stronger and you have achieved more than you would had praise always been heaped upon you.

[Georg]

Sandya wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "Sandya wrote: "Georg wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "MK wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "Bill wrote: "Georg wrote: "You are a music buff. What about Schubert's Lieder?"

As I s..."

I also went for a degree where I had to do physics and chemistry as an undergraduate. Chemistry was not too difficult. I had to put a lot of work in to pass physics. Because my maths background was virtually non-existent. I will never forget the weekend I spent trying to understand logarithms.
Passing the physics test was a small achievement. But for me it was akin to climbing Everest. It gave me confidence. With all the exams that followed that was my anchor: you have passed that bloody physics test you will pass this one as well...

[Sandya]

Georg wrote: "Sandya wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "Sandya wrote: "Georg wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "MK wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "Bill wrote: "Georg wrote: "You are a music buff. What about Schubert's L..."

I graduated University Summa Cum Laude (top of my year) with a First Class Honours degree in Biology. Afterwards, one of my lecturers commented "I looked at the admissions for your year. How did we ever admit you? Your A-Level results could've been better". Perhaps a good fairy was looking out for me. I was always treated well and taken seriously as a student at university (Leicester University), I never experienced the kind of racism I suffered at school there, and my results were the proof. I was also-during that period, the first Indian woman on University Challenge (1975) and Mastermind (1976).

[Sandya]

AB76 wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "Thanks to those of you who shared your horrid school experiences.

I'm going to try and make this a little more positive. Like most things in life, there is the good, the bad and ..."

Re: dyslexia. There was a boy in my class in Grammar School who got labelled "slow" for whatever reason-as in reading out loud poorly. At this time there was no awareness of dyslexia as a condition and I think looking back, he was dyslexic. He certainly was not deficient intellectually in any other way. His experience of trauma at that school must have been as bad as mine as he emigrated to Australia!

[Sandya]

Fuzzywuzz wrote: "Thanks to those of you who shared your horrid school experiences.

I'm going to try and make this a little more positive. Like most things in life, there is the good, the bad and the ugly and educa..."

My English teacher in Grammar School suggested several good books to "grow on": the I Claudius series, Jane Eyre, My Family and Other Animals, and others that I do not now recall. However, my reading habits were primarily shaped by spending every Saturday in our local library, which I joined aged 8. For years I took out 3 books a week and finally graduated to 6 books a week. I used ILL extensively.

I became a feminist at 15 or so, read up on the history of the women's movement, and sought out biographies of interesting women. There were very few. The only ones there were, were of aristocratic or royal women. I read many and as a result prefer history or biography to fiction. Here in the US people are baffled when I quote Lady Granville (a heroine of mine) and invariably bring out the hoary old platitude they apply to anything from a past century "But that was only for the rich". What makes them think things are any different now?

[Bill]

CCCubbon wrote: "You could try to read a poem without thinking at first what it means, just to get the flow, the sound in your head."

It seems like an efficient way to do this might be to "read" a poem in a language one doesn't understand, but that sort of things goes against my whole nature and I'm too old to change. I don't even like listening to songs in unintelligible tongues (which, given many singers' enunciation, is, alas, often English) without having some idea of the meaning of the text.

[Bill]

Lljones wrote: "Anyway, I rarely choose to read a book for the subject matter. I read for the writing."

In contrast, as I've often stated, I won't consider reading a book that doesn't have some subject matter hook to snag my interest. Is this another version of the exchange I'm having with @CCCubbon in regard to seeking meaning in poetry?

[scarletnoir]

SydneyH wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "the plot was so incredible (in terms of human behaviour) that I have not persevered"

That seems strange to me - I wouldn't find a story very interesting if it had no sense of novelty to it."

You'll have to explain what you mean. I have nothing whatsoever against 'novelty', but I don't see the point of stories where the characters' behaviour is completely absurd and unbelievable. Unless it wasn't meant to be a story at all. In which case - what was it meant to be?

[Bill]

Sandya wrote: "I am living proof that this book still has much to say. I am a pilot, and if I ever buy my own plane, she will be called "Plane Jane"."

Probably not your religious tradition, but this caused me to imagine the name, "Plane Jain".

[MK]

I wonder if there are some English Majors here? Perhaps, they might look at books differently from someone like me whose background is in computers.

Like so many, I have my preferences. First the noes -- no gratuitous violence, I prefer my bodies to be discreet. And second - no downers. For example, I don't think I could read anything Russian as it is my thoughts that they are mostly depressing. I don't need any help there.

As you know I like mysteries. I also have a wall of histories and biographies - many of which need dusting.

By the way, in combining both above, I highly recommend C. J. Sansom's Shardlake historical mysteries. But it is a must to be methodical and start with the first . We are talking the infamous Henry, here.

[MK]

Bill wrote: "Sandya wrote: "I am living proof that this book still has much to say. I am a pilot, and if I ever buy my own plane, she will be called "Plane Jane"."

Probably not your religious tradition, but th..."

We do so need access to smiley faces! 😊

[Slawkenbergius]

Anastasia wrote: " I think Milkman left quite an impression among the TLSers, and it wasn't a good one"

I'll have to disagree with you there : I liked it a lot, and I was not alone.

[Anastasia]

@Slawkenbergius just an impression I got from my brief visits to the page. You know I'm not a regular. What did you like about it?

[SydneyH]

scarletnoir wrote: "SydneyH wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "the plot was so incredible (in terms of human behaviour) that I have not persevered"."

I feel that if narratives were restricted to what was 'probable' they would just be about rolling socks. Yet the news is full of improbable, unbelievable events. To me, a story isn't really a story at all without a sense of unlikeliness.

[Anastasia]

@AB76 just finished 'Normal People', no idea how they managed to turn it into a series

[Robert]

Fuzzywuzz wrote: "Sandya wrote: "Georg wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "MK wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "Bill wrote: "Georg wrote: "You are a music buff. What about Schubert's Lieder?"

As I suggested, musical ..."

A friend's daughter was called up on her first day in a new school and was asked to introduce herself. Answer in ferocious tones: "MY NAME IS BUFFY. IT'S NOT A NICKNAME. IT'S MY NAME."

[scarletnoir]

SydneyH wrote: "I feel that if narratives were restricted to what was 'probable' they would just be about rolling socks. Yet the news is full of improbable, unbelievable events. To me, a story isn't really a story at all without a sense of unlikeliness."

Let me further explain, then: I have no problem at all with improbable plots. I have just completed - and very much enjoyed - Andrea Camilleri's The Sicilian Method, in which Inspector Montalbano investigates a murder (or two). The plot is far-fetched, to put it mildly - but the characters feel like real, living, breathing human beings. Because the characters are believable, then the reader (or this one, anyway) is perfectly happy to go along with the plot's more unlikely turns. (I have written previously that I am more influenced by character development than by plotting.)

On the other hand - if a plot seems highly unlikely and if the author has failed to develop the characters sufficiently to explain their behaviours, then I can't enjoy the story. I'm afraid that (for me) Harrison's characters appeared as one-dimensional ciphers, and so the events in which they participated failed to resonate or convince. Far more would have been needed to explain why they behaved as they did, for me to enjoy the story.

[scarletnoir]

Anastasia wrote: "@AB76 just finished 'Normal People', no idea how they managed to turn it into a series"

Try to catch it on BBC iPlayer, if it's still there - it's very good. (Not read the book, so can't compare.)

[Anastasia]

Thanks @scarletnoir, I've really enjoyed the book, so will definitely look up the series as soon as I get the chance. I'm quite curious as the book gives more than a few insights to the thoughts and feelings of the characters. Would love to see how it got transmitted

[scarletnoir]

Bill wrote: "Trying to think about what, if anything, Apeirogon, Girl, Woman, Other, and Women Talking had in common that warned me away from them, I think that it’s my suspicion that the attitude of both writer and reader seems to be predetermined before opening the book... you know that the author, and you as a right-thinking reader, are going to be weighing in heavily on the side of these protagonists. Why let myself in for hundreds of pages of preaching to the choir, as the cliché has it?."

That's a very good way of putting it... I read a little more than half of 'Girl, Woman, Other', but abandoned it as I felt it wasn't telling me anything I didn't already know, or could not easily guess... It's disappointing when authors one likes become all preachy, like some sort of literary Simon Dee figures. This happened to John le Carré and Sara Paretsky, whose early books I much enjoyed. Pity.

[scarletnoir]

Sandya wrote: "All this as the result of the stupid way maths was taught, low expectations of all girls, even smart ones, and racism.."

A sad tale... ability in maths cuts across cultures. When teaching in a very disorganised international school in Paris, I was landed with the impossible task of teaching 40 pupils in a room where even 30 would have been too many. I improvised by giving all the pupils a basic test in arithmetic and algebra, and promoting the top 12 into a fast-track group to take their 'O' levels in November rather than the next summer. That dozen included a very young Indian lad, Rajit. My head called me in, and said: "You can not be serious... Rajit can't speak any French, and his English is poor!" (He did have a strong accent.) I argued that the test results didn't lie, and got my way.

So - Rajit easily passed his O level, and got an A in his A-level a couple of years later. (The best pupils I ever had - much better mathematicians than myself - were two Iranian refugees, escaping from the Ayatollah...)

[scarletnoir]

Bill wrote: "I don't even like listening to songs in unintelligible tongues...without having some idea of the meaning of the text."

That's interesting, and yet another example of how different we all are. As I have mentioned before, my primary reaction to music is always to the melody... the lyrics come a long way second. I'm sure there are even songs I've known for 50 years or more that I like, without any clear notion of what the words are. The music creates its own mood...

[Slawkenbergius]

Anastasia wrote: "@Slawkenbergius just an impression I got from my brief visits to the page. You know I'm not a regular. What did you like about it?"

The mixture of demotic formulae and the odd erudite phrases; the repetitions (which many readers disliked). I think the novel has a cadence that makes it very attractive to read, even if there's not much of a plot to write home about. With hindsight I'd say characterisation was a big plus.