Place and Date – home, sometime in March
Who Else – no-one, am pretty sure that if I ask someone to help me by reading some chapters, that is cheating
Category – culture
Ok -I think this was the point when my 40 project might have gone off the rails slightly. It had all started so well from the initial idea on New Year’s Eve to lots of ideas and suggestions from those kind enough to indulge this whim of mine. And besides, I *like* reading – that idea of losing yourself in another world, or seeing how someone can use language so beautifully and expressively. Hell, half of my flat is filled with books. Admittedly cookbooks are 80% of them, but it wasn’t so long ago that I used to read for hours before bed and this was a habit I wanted to pick up again.
And there were so many classics and classic authors I’d never read – Hardy, Forster, very little Dickens, hardly any Wilde. So which “classic” to pick (and no, don’t ask me what defines a Classic. Look, the version I had is in a series called Oxford Classics – that will do me ;)) – Middlemarch was suggested by a few people.
It seems a good choice – partly since I already had a copy (for those who know me, and know me well, I have a lot of stuff. And a chronic amazon and thebookpeople habit – which means I tend to acquire random collections of books. Which I really do mean to read soon – and not just have them as dust traps!) and I had never read any George Eliot., and liked the idea of reading what someone regarded as the greatest English novel (see, I’m a sucker for lists). The fact that it was over 900+ pages was a little daunting at first, but hey, it was only March, and better to get a monster book started early, no? After all, someone had suggested Tolstoy (War and Peace) but I realised I only had year to do 40 things, and it might take me 40 years to read just one novel. I also wanted something that I thought I might enjoy.
And so I started. Took me a little while to get into it, and cope with the gazillion characters. And I will confess that I hardly read much during March and April but as of now (which is early May) – I am about a quarter way through it having had a bit of a blitz on holiday and am rather enjoying it.
So – this is a staging post (ah yes, you do realise I am not afraid of a terrible pun) – just to get it on the list. Hopefully I will finish soon, and might even had some lucid thoughts to offer. But don’t hold your breath 😉
scotcheggsandmarmalade 