WHAT

[terabient]

it is currently 32 degrees outside. the weather for the next two days includes a mix of snow and rain showers.

WHAT THE HELL, NEW ENGLAND, WE'RE ONLY HALF-WAY THROUGH OCTOBER. *OCTOBER!*

i cannot deal with this cold THIS EARLY. :( :( :(

anyway! today i opened an account at the local credit union. apparently they were doing some sort of promotion, and now i have a brand new...crock pot.

i have no idea what i am going to do with it.
***
reading The Dark Side of Love by Rafik Schami, a novel that is originally written in German, and set (mostly) in early 20th century Syria, so there are a great deal of references to Arabic poetry and legends, AND since France occupied Syria for um, a while, there's a lot of French literature and history alluded to as well.

i imagine it was a total bitch to translate.

about half-way through. it is QUITE EXCELLENT though often difficult. not language-wise, surprisingly, it's simple without being Hemingway on a bad day juvenile. but subject-wise, this is the sort of book where unbearably awful things happen routinely and instead of rising to the occasion and overcoming adversity in an inspiring but clicheed fashion, people are ruthlessly crushed by the cruelty of the world around them. CRUSHED!

i wish i could be more specific and intelligent in discussing it because it's one of those books that makes you go, 'man, i think i'm reading a serious contender for the Nobel prize here,' but i'm too cold tired to make sense at this hour. besides, every review i've found is about a billion times more literate that i could be. i mean - critics are comparing this novel to Tolstoy. i haven't even read Tolstoy.

also all of this talk in the novel about the great Arabic poets and the great French novels and the reviews comparing the novel itself to the great Russian novelists makes me realize how little famous world literature i've actually read. :(

so uh

i don't know how to wrap this up so imma slink off to bed and hope i don't freeze to death. :D!

Comments

[elbarto252.livejournal.com]

I'm near western NY and I was hoping to do some nice nature photography today. But not only was it FREEZING but the really nice leaves got blown off by the winds >_<

As for the people being 'ruthless crushed by the world around them', sad to say, but that happens. YAH. Seen it first hand, my dad never stops reminding me of that. I'm a bit disillusioned by that myself.

...I had to write an analysis on Sophocles and almost cried. Because I spent so much time arguing about how indirect I thought the role of the gods were and had to read all his plays to boot. Also because I had no computer to write it back then and I was camping out in the labs to finish. The professor ended up laughing at me for being the only class that wrote on this topic!

As for reading, I don't think I've read anything that counts as "serious" literature written after the 1800s. Only plays, fiction and research papers. I don't have much time for me to enjoy books anymore, now I have to make "excuses" to...o_o

Well, at least you read without being forced to xD

[terabient]

aw. i think it was last week when the leaves here hit their um, color peak, to use the phrase in tourist brochures. now they're starting to become brown and unspectacular.

lit-crit makes me unreasonably upset. it seems so...futile. i had to analyze the meaning of an English sonnet once and it just struck me as an exercise in complete uselessness. D: i like reading 'important' literature but analyzing in the way lit-crit demands makes me so ANGRY. Dx