Read Eleanor Catton's The Rehearsal (Victoria University Press, 2008) all in one go in 24 hours, hard to put down. I should re-read it to find out more about how she does what she does.
I enjoyed the saxophone teacher, her hard nasty thoughts and exchanges
with the mothers who come to talk to her for reasons often remote from
their daughters' musicality or welfare. I think I'll discover more
when I re-read it.
I usually don't have patience for abuse stories - for all kinds of reasons. But here it was well treated - the salacious interest of all parties, the shame the sister experiences, the unpleasant groupiness of the schoolgirls. I liked that the relationship between the man and the girl was real and important to the girl - enough for her to keep its details private and to continue seeing the man against all odds, even though readers are shown that he is unreliable and weak. Maybe it was all sex. I would like it otherwise, and the author allows the possibility to exist.
I have taken up Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction (1990) by Patricia Highsmith, on a friends' recommendation. A little every day, some of it might rub off.
Read very quickly George Orwell's War Broadcasts: the facts of the situation are there. Besides a solid description of the London Blitz, it shows the censorship that the so-called Ministry of Information exercised on the BBC - he called it 'the Ministry of Truth' in Nineteen Eighty-Four, one of the first documented cases of the 'Black is White' phenomenon predominant in advertising today - eg Buy XX and Save!!
Checked my library card : 8 books out, too many - an arrogance. (The title of this post is a Terry Pratchett quote, a family favourite).
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