Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Ah, crime fiction, I loves it, but haven't read anything much of the 'foundation' stuff - y'know Agatha Christie, Conan Doyle. I have however, finally got 'round to reading some Raymond Chandler, him being considered one of the icons on the genre.
It's very cool! Humourously dry, wonderfully descriptive, and written in 1st person, which I'm partial to - as evidenced by the 1 and 4/5 novels I've written in that style.

Here's a couple of examples.
"... It got quiet. There was loneliness and the smell of kelp and the smell of wild sage from the hills. A yellow window hung here and there, all by itself, like the last orange. Cars passed, spraying the pavement with cold white light, then growled off into the darkness again. Wisps of fog chased the stars down the sky."
(From Farewell, my lovely - Penguin, London - p.55)


And this bit, where Marlowe's just come to from being knocked unconscious.)

"... fall down and hit the ground with my face, The reason I hit it with my face, I got my chin scraped. That way I know it's scraped. No, I can't see it. I don't have to see it. It's my chin and I know whether it's scraped or not. Maybe you want to make something of it. Okey shut up and let me think..."

(as above, p. 59)

See? Funny. I giggled. :)

Ah, holidays, the perfect time to laze about watching DVDs. In this instance, seasons 1 & 2 of The Thin Blue Line.
The cubs and I really enjoyed this, lots of laughs, but oh, Mr Elton, you can't help the social commentary, can you? Not that that's a problem, dear me, no, it's great to see something funny that's got a bit of substance.

But these hols haven't just been spent watching DVDs, no indeed, I've been doing homework as well. I've 3 tests to look forward to in the first week back in term 2, so I've done some solid revising for those, and - finally - made a start on a couple of largish assignments.
I don't like assignments. Tests are fine - you revise, you do the paper, it's done - but assignments hang around and around for ages. Also, I'm finding it quite difficult to get my head in to the fact, rather than fiction space. Having to condense and paraphrase a huge wodge of information makes my brain hurt. As for keeping to the word limit? [throws hands up in disgust] 1000 words is not much space at all to describe the features of two libraries. Hmph.
Eh well, could be worse, I spose, I could be trying to fathom a less than fuzzy subject like Physics. Oh, that'd be a laugh, I'm sure. :)

Tch, the cubs asked me to stop dancing the other day. True, I was dancing in such a way as to produce maximum irritation but I'm still entitled to artistic expression, yes?
[smirk]
My poor boys...

And finally, I just have to say how much I detest the phrase 'light on fire'. You 'set fire to' something, or it's 'set alight'. Grrr.