Quote, and Ramble.

Coming up with titles for blog entries makes my sympathize with painters who title their stuff, "Woman with Plastic Frog #1, Woman with Squeaky Duck #2," etc. Jeez, it's hard enough for me, and I like words better than pictures.

Doyce sent me a quote that made me laugh out loud:

"Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae."
-- Kurt Vonnegut

So I sat down and wrote a ramble back to him, remembered I hadn't written a blog post for a while, and decided to post it. Voila!

I've only done that with one book, St. Augustine's Confessions. I was supposed to read it for Western Civ. The prof asked me in class what I'd thought of it, and I stood up and told him. He made me promise him to try to read it in a couple of years or so, to see if my opinion had changed. It hadn't; I'll probably keep trying until I get it read.

I actually screamed at the book and threw it across the room--I must have been menstrual or something--I still can't stand to read that book.

But Vonnegut's right.

I'm reading Ulysses by James Joyce, another one of those lifelong I'll-read-it-if-it-kills-me books. Fun, actually. It's like reading a thousand pages of Zelazny's shadow shifting, if he were any good at writing that stuff, or Spider Robinson's telepathy rambles. Figuring it all out would keep you busy for a career, that's for sure.

--Another thing. I need to find some good, new science fiction that I like. I've read a good fantasy novel lately (Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Suzanna Clarke), but I can't find anything good in science fiction. I don't want "the latest in a series," so don't recommend Something Rotten--I'm saving that for a bad day.

--And yet another thing. How many books did Steven Brust take to reveal that his fantasy world was sort of science fiction, anyway?