FREEDOM

There are days so bad that only their worsening, only a descent into an outright orgy of badness, can redeem them. 
- Freedom, Jonathan Franzen

So, just finished reading Freedom. Here's what I think: while it's pretty good, quite well-written, sometimes really interesting, it is by no means "a masterpiece", "the novel of the year" and I don't think it "swept everything before it in intricately observed, humane, unprejudiced armfuls." I do agree with Franzen's wry humour being "delightful" and the dialogue is at times brilliant, but I think the main reason people have so fallen over each other in praising this book to the skies is that it is so easy to read and, because it somehow got billed as great literature and you actually have to follow the thought processes of more than one person, the readers feel proud that they have picked up quite a long book by someone who isn't Lauren Weisberger, not realising that the book itself doesn't have to be great just because it is intensely readable.

Finished reading Jane Eyre yesterday,
probably one of the best books I have ever read.

CURRENTLY READING, CURRENTLY RAMBLING ON ABOUT:

GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES

In London they make a very, very great fuss over nothing at all. I mean London is really nothing at all. For instants, they make a great fuss over a tower that really is not even as tall as the Hickox building [...] So Sir Francis Beekman wanted us to get out and look at the tower because he said that quite a famous Queen had her head cut off there one morning and Dorothy said "What a fool she was to get up that morning" and that is really the only sensible thing Dorothy had said in London.


So this morning Coocoo called up and he wanted me to luncheon at the Ritz. I mean these foreigners really have quite a nerve. Just because Coocoo is an Englishman and a Lord he thinks a girl can waste hours on him just for a luncheon at the Ritz, when all he does is talk about some exposition he went on to a place called Tibet and after talking for hours I found out that all they were was a lot of Chinamen. So I will be quite glad to see Mr. Eisman when he gets in. Because he always has something quite interesting to talk about, as for instants the last time he was here he presented me with quite a beautiful emerald bracelet.


So when I got through telling Dorothy what I thought up, Dorothy looked at me and looked at me and she really said she thought my brains were a miracle. I mean she said my brains reminded her of a radio because you listen to it for days and days and you get discouradged and just when you are getting ready to smash it, something comes out that is a masterpiece. 
- Gentlemen prefer blondes, Anita Loos

A COMMON LACK OF MONEY, A COMMON DESIRE TO GET DRUNK

Books I've read lately:

Lionel Shriver - The post-birthday world
Margaret Drabble - The Garrick year
Elaine Dundy - The old man and me
Agatha Christie - Sad cypress
Reading The virgin in the garden by A.S. Byatt now.

Other news:
Went to London with my mother over the weekend, was great but got quite ill.
Got an A on my Creative Writing course.
Will go to Eastern Europe with my boyfriend in August.
Will study social anthropology in the fall.

Highgate Cemetery, London