Shadow Of the Wind
I was lying on a couch looking out at the Melbourne city skyline. The line from a song from that gorgeous album Tea & Sympathy kept popping into my head (the very title takes me straight back to the Rosa Brook house, with the slow combustion ticking in the background, grey skies outside, a pot of tea on the warming plate while Peta and I figured it ALL out over a cuppa.) ...wait for it...the line of the song "welcome swallows dip and sway" because there was this flock of maybe 20 black birds that looked so suprisingly big against the sky scrapers. They should have looked smaller but somehow all proportion was lost. And they were dipping and swaying and plummetting madly - just for fun it seemed. Big Melbourne grey clouds like fog moved in from the sea.....
I'm rugged up in one of those Hotel soft fuzzy rugs because the airconditioning was so noisy and I've had 20 million showers because the water pressure is so much better than at home and the bathroom doesn't have ANY mould or chipped tiles and it's a sure way of warming up. The sun was slowly setting as I opened the first page.
It took a big effort to turn to the second ....
What flowery drivel, a thriller, mystery romance with too many adjectives. Where the characters don't seem to have definition and several of them seem to have the same "voice". Ok I admit it's getting (much) better and made for excellent plane reading on the way home. I am looking forward to reading more of it so it's definately got me more interested than the opening chapter did. I'm about a third or half through now and I'm getting a little frustrated I can see the similarities in the character and his life and the book he is "studying" or pursuing might be a better way of saying it. This cross over or seepage from the main narrative to the story within the fictional story is a bit much for my little brain.
Goodness knows I needed a good book on the plane home. Was cramped in next to the window because the woman next to me overflowed onto my side of the arm rest and my seat space. AND the guy in front was a giant so I just coulnd't keep up with "King Kong". Disappointing flight all round really - no good conversation, pretty crappy wine and even the food didn't give me that little adoelscent rush I normally get that comes from associating boarding school food with plane food. Highlights though were flying on top of the clouds that go to the horizon, look so soft and good to walk on!
I'm rugged up in one of those Hotel soft fuzzy rugs because the airconditioning was so noisy and I've had 20 million showers because the water pressure is so much better than at home and the bathroom doesn't have ANY mould or chipped tiles and it's a sure way of warming up. The sun was slowly setting as I opened the first page.
It took a big effort to turn to the second ....
What flowery drivel, a thriller, mystery romance with too many adjectives. Where the characters don't seem to have definition and several of them seem to have the same "voice". Ok I admit it's getting (much) better and made for excellent plane reading on the way home. I am looking forward to reading more of it so it's definately got me more interested than the opening chapter did. I'm about a third or half through now and I'm getting a little frustrated I can see the similarities in the character and his life and the book he is "studying" or pursuing might be a better way of saying it. This cross over or seepage from the main narrative to the story within the fictional story is a bit much for my little brain.
Goodness knows I needed a good book on the plane home. Was cramped in next to the window because the woman next to me overflowed onto my side of the arm rest and my seat space. AND the guy in front was a giant so I just coulnd't keep up with "King Kong". Disappointing flight all round really - no good conversation, pretty crappy wine and even the food didn't give me that little adoelscent rush I normally get that comes from associating boarding school food with plane food. Highlights though were flying on top of the clouds that go to the horizon, look so soft and good to walk on!
posted by Ali @ 9:55 PM
1 Comments:
At 2:07 PM,
Anonymous said…
What a snobby, dumb speech you made, mate. I've read this book and I've found it to be one the best novels I ever read, and there've been many. I find it remarkable that somebody would react in such a nasty, stupid way to such a wonderful book. I guess it is like a line in the novel that goes, a book is a mirror and we only see in it what is already inside of us. Suits you like a glove.
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