callmemadam (callmemadam) wrote,
callmemadam
callmemadam
  • Mood: nervous

The Nervous Reader

Yesterday I commented on someone’s blog that I hadn’t read Douglas Coupland’s Girlfriend in a Coma because I found the subject frightening. Then I realized that the list of things I don’t want to read about gets longer all the time. It includes comas, head injuries, mental health problems, hospitals, extreme violence, car crashes: goodness, it goes on and on. What makes this interesting (to me, anyway) is that when I was young I read anything. I’d read most of the great classics, including ‘difficult’ books like Ulysses before I was twenty; nothing was too avant-garde or harrowing for me in those days. Now I’m struggling with Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder, which is being praised to the skies all around the book blogs. It is a very good book indeed but I’m finding Dr Singh’s trials in the Amazon jungle almost too much for me. I suppose that life has got in the way; that unpleasant experiences make a person less likely to seek them in fiction but rather to look for comfort and positive thinking.

In other book news I’m also struggling with ‘E M Delafield’s famous novel’ Humbug. Not that there’s anything frightening about it; it’s simply far too long and very dull. Who’d 'a thought it? I feel like starting on Christmas reading.
Tags: ann patchett, douglas coupland, e m delafield
Subscribe

  • TV Watch: this year’s Chelsea Flower Show

    Interesting to have the show in September instead of May because rather than massed ranks of foxgloves (which I love), we get to see late-flowering…

  • Cheerful

    Fairly jolly; I like the contrasts and hope for more growth and flowers. With the awful weather we've had, the geraniums in the greenhouse and…

  • In the garden: oh, the merry, merry month of May

    Driving home a couple of days ago, I was struck by how quickly everything has turned green. And the cow parsley is out! Just what May should be. In…

  • Post a new comment

    Error

    switch
    default userpic

    Your reply will be screened

    Your IP address will be recorded 

    When you submit the form an invisible reCAPTCHA check will be performed.
    You must follow the Privacy Policy and Google Terms of use.
    Help
  • 9 comments