Catching up with myself

Some things I meant to talk about and kept forgetting about:

  1. I finished Pope Joan a couple of days ago.  Really liked it.  It was one of those books Mom sent me.  She usually sends good ones (there have only been a couple bad ones), but for some reason, I resisted this one.  I’ve had it for several years, but never wanted to read it.  Never had a reason not to read it.  I wasn’t being rational.  It’s good historical fiction.
  2. I started reading Anathem, by Neal Stephenson.  This is another one I was putting off.  Partly because it’s huge and in hardcover.  Huge is never a turn-off for me, but huge and hardcover makes it hard to carry around (and I do tend to carry my books wherever I go).  Now that I have a short commute and absolutely no possibility of reading at work (not that I ever did that…), I won’t be as tempted to carry it around and I can just read it at home.  I’ve really liked everything else Neal Stephenson has written, and I’m enjoying this one, too.  Except for one small thing.  It really is a small thing, ’cause it’s not keeping me from enjoying the book.  It’s just a minor annoyance.  Science fiction and fantasy authors, fantasy in particular, have a tendency to make up words.  They think it’ll help the reader immerse herself in this alien/fantasy world.  Sometimes they’re right.  When it’s done well.  Often, they’re wrong.  Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg, in their introduction to the novel Nightfall (a book I LOVE), addressed this directly.  They pointed out that this story takes place on an alien world, and while they could make up terms in an alien language to use when referring to hands, shoes, dogs, etc, they’d rather just write hands, shoes, dogs, etc and save the reader the confusion.  That’s the way I prefer it be done.  Make up a word (or merge a couple of words to make a new one) when you need to refer to something that doesn’t have an equivalent in the real world, but otherwise, stick to English.  Makes sense.  And it makes for some really good writing.  (I wish I could have met Isaac Asimov.)  Neal Stephenson, in Anathem, seems to be going too far the other way.  He seems to have made up words where it’s not really necessary to make them up.  It makes me work harder to figure out what’s going on.  I shouldn’t be confused.  I’m sure (really, I am) that once I get past the learning curve here, I won’t notice it, and I’m equally sure that the payoff for all this work will be worth it ’cause I’ve read his other books and they’re always good.  But generally, don’t make me work so hard to decipher what should be English!  Last I checked, English is my first (and only, but I’m working on that) language, and I’m pretty good at it.  Carol Berg, in the two books I just read by her (Flesh and Spirit and Breath and Bone) is in the middle.  She made up a few words where necessary, and they worked in the story, but then she’d make something up completely when referring to units of measurement.  Why?  I don’t know.  But I’d be reading along, everything’s fine, and I’d stumble across “quellae” when she mean inch or mile or something.  (Yes, I’m aware there’s a big difference between an inch and a mile, and in context, there was no confusion.)  Why would she do that?  She said horse when she meant horse, wagon when she meant wagon, monk when she meant monk.  Why not mile when she meant mile?  Or league?  Why those words and not other basic words?  But again, I really liked those books.  The stories and characterization were well worth the occasional stumble.  But it could have been better!
  3. Apparently, I was just itching to talk about that.
  4. We watched Grace is Gone Saturday night.  What a depressing movie.  John Cusack is in it, which is why I DVR’ed it in the first place, without really looking to see what it was about.  John (my John) warned me that it was sad, but Saturday was kind of a sad day for me anyway (no particular reason – I was just blue), so I figured it was better to watch a sad movie when I’m already sad rather than make myself sad on a happy day.  Oh, I cried.  And then I cried some more.  And then I was like, “Why are you doing that, John Cusack?”  And then I cried some more.  And then I made John (my John) promise he wouldn’t die.  Did I just give something away?  Nah.  That’s in the description of the movie.  Stupid movie.

Salmon tonight, with horseradish cream sauce (courtesy of Wegman’s, naturally), broccoli, and mashed potatoes.  Apple noodle kugel for dessert.  Unless I have a banana nut muffin instead.  Tough choices.

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