Goal #85 is to work my way through at least 75% of the (184) print books I own but as yet haven't read. I finished my 4th book for the goal this week, and it ticked another 101/1001 box as it was also the first book down for goal #88 (read 10 classic novels) - Far From The Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy. I thought it was...ok. I had seen and think I remember enjoying a television adaptation of it in my teens which my mum made me watch, so I had always wanted to read the book. For such a long awaited read, I have to be honest and say I was a little disappointed. The storyline itself is fairly interesting, with some good twists. But I didn't quite believe the ruinous love interest of the main female character (her blindness and the risks she took for him didn't fit with the character she was built up to be beforehand), and towards the end I felt some of the plot points were a bit far fetched. That said, the writing is beautiful in parts. It made me wish I was the sort of person who kept a collection of quotes, or who at least wrote in the margins or highlighted sections. But this was dulled by getting a bit bored and lost in some of his longer descriptive parts, or the details of farming. At points it reminded me of exactly the sort of writing that put me off Anna Karenina - long pointless paragraphs that served more to let the author show off his knowledge rather than adding anything to the story. At times I had to force myself to read it, and that's never a good sign!Before that I read possibly the most depressing book I've ever come across - Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt. At one point about mid-way through I got to feeling that if I had to read about one more baby dying I was going to throw the book out of the window! And the father in the story made me so angry that I was always in a bad mood when I closed the book for the night. However, what saved the book for me was McCourt's ability to build a scene. Reading, I could feel the damp, hear the coughing, smell the communal toilet festering away beside their kitchen door. Admittedly none of those are nice things to evoke, but I am always captivated by someone who can bring a whole new world to me just with the power of their prose. I am not a fan of the tsunami of childhood abuse books that followed ones like this or the Dave Pelzer books, but I think this one is probably in a class above those in terms of style and ability. I have the follow up, but I think I'll wait before touching it.
I read a short story collection before that, something I always find a bit hit&miss. This one came free in the Guardian a while back, and I kept hold of it as it featured some good writers (including one of my favourites, Margaret Atwood). Writing this now, I can't remember any of the stories so it clearly didn't have much of an impact on me. But looking back at some of the titles mentioned on Goodreads they are coming back to me. I wasn't disappointed as I read, and I didn't skip any stories which always a good sign. I'll be keeping hold of it, as it did have some good pieces.
And finally, the first book I read was Ian McEwan's The Child In Time. It was the second of his books I read in a matter of months, as I also read Black Dogs. It's just coincidence that I read two books by the same author so close together, they just happened to be near one another on my book shelf. I read another of his books a few years ago (In Between the Sheets) and I have a few others of his on my shelves. Which makes me sound like a massive fan, but I don't really think I am. I enjoyed the book, but I find with his work that I read it with a kind of detachment...as if there's a barrier which stops me getting fully involved. I think it's maybe that his characters are all a bit more middle class than I am, so I can't relate to them fully. Perhaps. But he does tell a good story.
Speaking of media goodness, I actually watched a film recently. A whole film, from start to finish. And even better, it was a film from my LoveFilm list! It had been gathering dust on top of the Blu Ray for weeks, as my LoveFilm rentals always do - I don't like watching films by myself, but the Man often refuses to watch my choices or at least needs a lot of prompting to do so. This one required prompting, as it was a horror and he feels the same way about horror films as I do about excessively spicy food - how can something uncomfortable be fun? I'm not actually a huge fan of horrors either. I don't mind being made to jump, but I find a lot of big budget horrors are quite samey, with less focus on story than effects. But this one was The Woman In Black, which I thought might be a bit different. On the jump-meter, this one ranked pretty high. I loved the atmospherics and the scenes, though I did get a bit annoyed that they overdid the suspense music at parts where nothing actually happened! The storyline was a little safe and predictable though, and I was hoping for more than that. But I was pleasantly surprised by Daniel Radcliffe, as I've not really seen him in anything before (true story - I've never watched a Harry Potter film), and in general I thought the casting was really spot on. A good, easy watch...and I didn't have nightmares!
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