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.

Tuesday 10 April 2012

Joseph O'Connor - Just finished reading....

The Salesman by Joseph O'Connor (audio-book in the car)

9/10

I forgot to mention this one which I listened to a week or so ago.
I have read 'Star of the Sea' by Joseph O'Connor and thought it was great, so when I saw this in the library I snatched it up to listen to on my way to and from work.
Not a car to listen to in busy traffic!! Be warned - there is a lot of violence in this. I don't read / listen to / watch violence if I can help it, so I nearly abandoned this book. Something about the narrator, and the actor reading the book kept me hooked, but I could only listen to it in 3 minute bursts, interspersed with a little light radio. Sometimes it was so awful I had to switch the player off in heavy traffic, where I had to concentrate.
It is a very, very moving story told as a diary that a man (The Salesman) writes for his daughter who is in a coma, having been raped and badly injured by a gang of thugs in a robbery. I'm not giving anything away - he searches out one of these guys in order to get some kind of justice for his daughter, but it becomes more complicated than you can imagine.
Glad I stuck with it through the violence. It merits a high mark for leaving me confused about relationships, thuggery and love.

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