Hello, welcome to my blog

Mostly you will find, here, transcribed entries from the secret diary that I used to keep as a teenager between 1970 and 1975. I try to be honest with my transcriptions, but, just occasionally I do edit, to protect myself or others from embarrassment or some other emotion.
Also, though, I like to do a brief review of the books I have been reading, so these are interspersed throughout. I reserve the right to write blog entries, also, about other random things.
Why do I keep this blog? I don't know. I am an academic and one of my research interests is around how people construct their own identities. The diary transcriptions, and what I write about my books, are very much about revealing something of my identity.

Friday, 23 December 2011

Mantel & Dickens - Just finished reading one and abandoned another

An Experiment in Love by Hilary Mantel

6.5/10


Given that she wrote 'Wolf Hall', a near perfect book, in my view, Hilary Mantel deserves to have serious attention and respect given to her other novels. I enjoyed 'Beyond Black' and it lingers in my mind.
I'm not sure about this book. I'm not sure that I understood the point of the narrative.
I enjoyed it that the main character seemed to have had a childhood very much like my own. I even think the early part of the book might have been set in my home-town. But I couldn't identify with her as she went off to university  - oooh - but as I write it I'm changing my mind - yes I can. Just like Carmel, I shared a room in first year in the halls of residence with a someone with a posher background than myself.
Mantel weaves a weirdness into her books that can makes it difficult to align with my own experienced 'normal' life. And as I write that, I realise that my 'normal' might be weird to others.

I've just abandoned reading (audio-book, in the car) 'Martin Chuzzlewit' by Charles Dickens. I was really enjoying it, and wanted to know how the story progresses, but I have been stressed with house moves and hard work and Christmas preparations, and so it was too difficult to concentrate on it. I needed something lighter and one that didn't fill 26 CDs. I am therefore listening to 'The Little Stranger' by Sarah Waters. I read this 2 years ago. It is nice to listen to a familiar tale, told by an actor.

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