Bleh

[bunn]

I have a bleh bug which made me very tired this weekend.  I BET it was given to me by the annoying woman in the Coop, blowing her nose on a damp tissue she was holding in her blue plastic gloves before cutting up the cheese, dratther.

We went to philmophlegm's work summer ball on Saturday evening. Gorgeous setting in a restaurant looking out over Fistral beach in Newquay, so the views were fabulous.  Sadly, we were both feeling too worn out to really enjoy it much.

Mollydog overdid it , chasing rabbits at top speed on our evening walk yesterday, and ended up with her bad leg very stiff and achey.  We had some left over cat Metacam,  so I gave her enough of it to do all 6 cats - according to the instructions, a cat=a 4kg dog, and Molls is 26kg.  I should probably get some proper dog painkillers, as it's bound to happen again: that leg is very slowly getting worse.

Diana Wynne Jones House of Many Ways has given me a new appreciation of hydrangeas.  We have a rather large one outside the front window which I'd always planned to remove one day. I've never been much of a fan of them.  But I think I'll keep it now, as she has helped me see them in a new way.  I may even plant another.   Apart from that I didn't enjoy it as much as some of her other books.  Though, that said, I don't think I am really the designated audience for it; it seemed specifically aimed at a younger audience to me, more so than most of her other work.

I deduce from the rather too detailed descriptions of washing up, laundry, cooking and similar household chores, that DWJ may have a young relative who has been brought up with a dishwasher, microwave and washing machine, and has no idea how it might be possible to live without such things.  I found that a little tedious, but then I know how to handwash, wash up and cook. I suppose it may have more period curiousity to a younger audience that genuinely don't know that sort of thing.

Comments

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I liked the Pinhoe Egg, but I think that had similar weaknesses, particularly that same lack of heart - it was hard to care deeply about any of the characters, even though it had Cat and Chrestomanci in it.

I fear DWJ is growing old and tired. :-(( (at least, I hope it's her not me!)

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I more or less enjoyed The Pinhoe Egg, but it certainly didn't engage me like many of her books have done, and I don't think I've ever reread it. However, I loved Conrad's Fate, which is another of her fairly recent ones, which is a good sign. I do wonder sometimes if my enjoyment is reduced by just having read too many of her books, too many times, so I'm getting wise to her favourite twists. I also notice that most of her more recent books have featured her recurring characters, and not been self-contained. I wonder if she's being pushed by her publisher to produce proper series that can be marketed as "if you liked Harry Potter, then try...", but her heart isn't in it.

*looks round nervously, suddenly remembering that authors like to pop up on your blog when you talk about them.*

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I would really hope that she is a marketable enough name in her own right not to be subject to that sort of pressure, but you may be right.

The earlier ones seem to me generally more precisely worked and perfect, whereas I think the later ones are somehow more watercoloury, creating a general effect with less detail. But that might just be perception.

(If DWJ herself popped up to quibble with this, I don't think I'd have the nerve to argue though!)

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Well, maybe it's the other way round, then. Maybe as she gets older, she gets more and more nostalgic for her bestest recurring characters of yesteryear, but tradition demands that she puts them in only as secondary characters in a story about a new person. However, her heart isn't really in the new character's story, so there's a certain lack of emotion there, and they don't step off the page in such a vivid fashion as her earlier characters did.

Or maybe I should stop speculating about things I know absolutely nothing about... ;-)

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

This does sound very plausible.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

What was *wrong* with the word 'likely', that it needed to be edited to 'plausible' ...?

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

On second thoughts, it seemed not so much, er, "likely" as "plausible" ...

"Likely" implies "greater than 50% chance"; and on reflection, I don't think there is. But it is believable ...

Anyway, how are you feeling now?