The funny thing about reading classics is it's all been done before. I finished Lolita a few days ago, and I was quite pleased to find out that Humbert Humbert was supposed to be creepy. I was a bit worried that the whole thing was a defence of paedophilia, and it would turn out that the author thought H.H was totally normal. Luckily, no. Though I do wish they'd stop putting young girls in provocative poses on the covers, it's a total misrepresentation. And creepy. HH style creepy. Like, "reader, she came on to me, look at how she's posing!". To which I will recite Ellen Page's speeches from Hard Candy, you creep.
Ahem.
I started Catch-22 yesterday. That book has been in my unread pile for almost a decade. I was surprised to find that it's funny, really laugh-out-loud funny. I knew I planned to read it someday (eventually), so I tried to avoid spoiling it for myself. It's dark humour, but that's what my family goes in for. My aunt had her leg amputated a few weeks ago, and we've already discussed getting her a parrot and an eyepatch for Christmas. It's how we cope.
In other news, Stephen King did a recent ask-the-author session on Reddit. There's a summary of the questions and answers here, and the entire thread is here. It's finished now, but it's still an interesting read. I'm very gratified to see how many other people loved Rose Madder.
Lionel Shriver did a similar session yesterday, on Goodreads. She seemed to get bored halfway through, though.
Ahem.
I started Catch-22 yesterday. That book has been in my unread pile for almost a decade. I was surprised to find that it's funny, really laugh-out-loud funny. I knew I planned to read it someday (eventually), so I tried to avoid spoiling it for myself. It's dark humour, but that's what my family goes in for. My aunt had her leg amputated a few weeks ago, and we've already discussed getting her a parrot and an eyepatch for Christmas. It's how we cope.
In other news, Stephen King did a recent ask-the-author session on Reddit. There's a summary of the questions and answers here, and the entire thread is here. It's finished now, but it's still an interesting read. I'm very gratified to see how many other people loved Rose Madder.
Lionel Shriver did a similar session yesterday, on Goodreads. She seemed to get bored halfway through, though.
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