Do you emote?

'Do you know what 'brb' means?' my husband asks over a bowl of chilli. 

Never, since he suggested we have another baby, have I been so surprised.

Mr B is learning text speak.  This is the man who refuses to own a mobile phone and closes emails - when he writes them at all - with 'yours sincerely'.  He's found another use for this special code: chat during on-line bridge games. He can't afford to take his eye of the cards for long enough to form proper sentences and suddenly he's using lowercase 'i' and all kinds of unspeakable things.  Next thing we know, he'll be ending every message with 'lol'.

I have to capitalise and puncutate my text messages.  This is a slow process.  I'm still astonished by the speed with which 'young people' manage to text.  Can thumbs evolve that quickly?  I text at a rate of five words per minute whilst biting my tongue in intense concentration.

Emoticons, on the other hand, I like.  They say that up to 93% of communication is non-verbal.  It's the tone of voice, the twinkle of an eye or the turn of a head that can make a comment aggressive or just 'a bit of fun' between friends. That the figure should be quite so high still astonishes me.

Even if a 'little yellow blob' can't do all the work, if they oil the cogs of human interaction then I'm all for them.

A life well lived

"What will you do now 
with the gift 
of your left life?"

As a reader and a writer, I'm interested in personal histories, the decisions and non-decisions, the hard work and chance that brought us to where we are today.  The 'eeny, meeny, miney mo' with which one schoolgirl chose her Forces penfriend.  The stray letter that prompted one university choice over another.

Carol Ann Duffy's question interests me too.  Where do we go from here? How much choice do we have?  What does it mean to have a 'life well lived?' It's a problem Levin examines in one of my favourite books, Anna Karenina. It's many years now since I read it, and I can't even remember whether he ever found an answer.

It struck me then, as it still does now, as an important question.

Onwards and upwards

Who says no-one ever gives me flowers?

After fourteen years of marking time, I'm on the move again career-wise.  Today is my last day working with a fabulous group of people, whose sense of humour and generosity of spirit have kept me going through difficult times.

There's a moment of doubt. 'If it's all so good, then why change?'  But I've never been one to take the easy route, so when opportunity beckons I know it's the right thing to do.

Middlemarch take two

Middlemarch began as two separate books, the story of Dorothea Brooke in one and the young doctor Lydgate in the other.    However, it was only when Eliot combined the two, that the project that became Middlemarch really took off.

I began Middlemarch with some trepidation.  This was the book, arguably the greatest novel in the English language. This was the one I couldn't possibly not read and still say that I was a true student of English literature.  And yes, the combination of January blues, a new job and an overload of literary criticism did nearly finish me off.  But now the dust has settled, I can comfortably say 'hat's off' to George Eliot.

When I began the book, I fully expected Dorothea to hold my centre stage. 'Yes, yes', I thought, 'that's all well and good, but what about Dorothea?'  But as the characters developed and the 'web' of Middlemarch society became clear, it was Lydgate who captured my imagination.  For me, the story of Lydgate does everything a novel should.  He arrives in Middlemarch, young  and idealistic. Here's a man who's going places, someone who's going to make a difference not just in this country town, but also the world of medicine.  But, as the narrator reminds us, we all have our flaws and society acts upon us too. Lydgate has an eye for a pretty woman and the finer things in life.  After an ill advised marriage he becomes embroiled in a local scandal and never lives up to his great expectations.  Eliot draws the characters well and weaves a web around them.  She reminds us of the ways in which an individual's actions create ripples in our communities and ultimately touch us all.

Middlemarch

The unspeakable joy of having just submitted a Middlemarch assignment!

I know this is the point at which I should share my thoughts on, arguably, the greatest novel in the English language. After wrestling with the literary criticism for the last couple of weeks, however, my brain resembles a wrung out sponge.

Just the small matter of an Italian assignment due on Thursday, and then normal reading and blogging service will resume.

There will be a few days of freedom, at least, before I turn to Far From the Madding Crowd. 


Please can someone remind me why I'm doing this literature course, or at least slow the treadmill down?

Thoughts of the day

North Korea is the new Cuba, or so T tells me.  She's my political friend and we like nothing more than to talk politics over a Chinese meal and a bottle of white wine.  A visit to Cuba has been our pipe dream for the last couple of years, but since she's watched the coverage of Kim Jong-il's funeral, she's trying to persuade me to change our destination. I'm not at all convinced.

She's recovering from a major op and so is housebound at the moment. To save her from the horrors of daytime TV, I've left her with a copy of one of my favourite books, 1984.  That should make for a good discussion next time we meet.

You know how it is, your social life is quiet for weeks and then everything happens at once.  I spent Saturday evening with one of my book loving friends who was still raving over Julian Barnes' The Sense of an Ending.  She's a big Barnes fan, but I must confess that his last book is the only one of his I've managed to finish.  She tells me I must try Talking it Over. Another to add to my 2012 part 2 list perhaps?

My find of the month is The Coward's Tale.  More on this later as it definitely deserves a post of its own.

Reading and writing of the leisurely kind will have to take a back seat this week, with an Italian assignment and a Middlemarch essay due on consecutive days. Plus an under 10 football match this afternoon. Ah, the joys of trying to do it all!

Books I'd like to read

Until recently I had a section on my blog entitled 'books I'd like to read (but haven't got round to yet)'. But then, in a rare moment of honesty, I had to admit that the chances of my ever reading Claire Tomalin's biography of Charles Dickens were slim indeed.  I suspected that the list was going the same way as my calligraphy set, photography guides and cocktail dresses.  This was a list for the kind of person I'd like to be, rather than the 'real' me.  2012 was to be the year of focus.  The year to master one trade, but not them all.

But then the book blogs were sent to tempt me.  Four days into the new year and already two of my favourite blogs - cathyreadsbooks and dovegreyreader - are teasing me with a new clutch of books. So back comes the 'books I'd like to read', but this time with a little touch of realism.

For me it will be a year of two halves (as the football pundits like to say). Six months to complete my degree and settle in my new job, and then the rest of year to read and write whatever I please.

A new broom?

If my house is a metaphor for my life, then I'm in big trouble.

The in-laws are coming for dinner.  This is always a call to action.  My mother-in-law, bless her, is an extremely capable woman.   My house is a comfortable, 'good enough' kind of place.  Not too clean and not too dirty.  Inevitably though, the flotsam and jetsam of family life gathers in the corners and, without due attention, spreads across the rooms.  Piles of books, Pokemon cards and sundry sporting equipment accumulate and multiply. Usually this is not a problem; providing I can clear a space to read or study then I can block out the chaos around me.  Until the in-laws arrive.  Suddenly I see our happy disorder through different eyes.

Four charity bags later I've discovered a random assortment of missing objects and half-read books.

Perhaps, this year, less will be more?

Telling tales

Christmas is a good time for telling stories. As our families get together, old tales are unwrapped and embellished.  New ones are added to the family folklore.  It's the same with friends too.  In our own version of One Day, we meet with old uni friends every Christmas and revisit our student days as if the last twenty years had never happened.

I take notes.  The prodigal son who uses the wrong knife.  The lock of hair kept in a school hymn book. So many tales to be told.

Damage

There's only so much self-improvement a girl can take.  It was time for a break from Middlemarch and Colloquial Italian.  I really needed a damned good read.

The road to hell (and heaven) is paved with book recommendations.  I suspected The Guardian's Books of the Year to be a little too highbrow for my current purpose, so I turned to my Open University friend Cathy and her blog Cathyreadsbooks for inspiration.  I've never met Cathy, but from what I know of her writing and her blog I feel that we're on the same wavelength.  What's more, I think she knows a good read when she sees one.  So when she said that Damage by Josephine Hart was one of her favourites, I knew it was worth a try.

I wasn't disappointed.  A successful middle-aged man has an affair. But this is no ordinary affair; it's obsessive, all-consuming and the woman in question is his son's girlfriend. It's shocking and horribly compelling.  I'd forgotten that guilty pleasure of devouring a book in one sitting, so thank you Cathy for reminding me.

From Dombey and Son to the Wandsworth riots

The first instalment of Dombey and Son appeared in1846 and sold thirty thousand copies.  It tells the story of a man so cold, proud and obsessed with money and status that he cannot love the people around him.  As I read it I'm struck by the contemporaneity of the novel's themes: the pain caused by a dysfunctional family, the impact of societal change and economic insecurity.  I like the way Dickens presents a view of society as a whole, rather than limiting himself to the drawing room.  I like his minor characters too, from their unusual names - Major Bagstock, Miss Tox, Captain Cuttle - to their distinguishing features such as Carker's malevolent smile and 'Cleopatra' reclining on her couch.

Dombey and Son wouldn't be the first choice on my bookshelf.  The size itself, a hefty 900 pages, would deter many modern readers.  It originally appeared in a more manageable format: nineteen monthly instalments with illustrations by Boz.  I like to imagine the excitement the latest instalment would have caused, rather like a modern-day audience might discuss a storyline in Eastenders or the latest Big Brother eviction.  Each instalment cost a shilling and would be passed around many people.  I imagine too, in a household with perhaps only one reader, the latest episode being read aloud to the rest of the family.  Dickens knew how to engage his readers, creating memorable characters and ending each part on a cliffhanger.

My Open University friend Claire Jones has just published episode four of her novel Davy and Me on her blog.Set at the time of the Wandsworth riots, she delivers perfect bite-size pieces and leaves you wanting more.  It's good to see that serialized novels are still alive and kicking.  And you don't have to pay a shilling.