Housely-Renovations 3.1. All we've done is shop and move a bit of furniture. [Welcome to my perfumed garden]

So why are we both so shattered?

Made an early start - moved all the furniture and gubbins out of the kitchen. Made a little workstation in the still-stripped-out sitting room so we can continue to eat and make tea while the kitchen's wet/dusty/manky/filled with noxious chemical fumes.

Went to bloody BIG! B&Q in Bamber Bridge this time for all our housely needs. Still couldn't get a light for the stairs though; their lighting designers really don't account for tall people living under low ceilings. ::sigh:: Side trips to Matalan and Aldi took us into rush hour but hey ho the nonny, we're home at last, showered, with cups of espresso, camped in the bedroom. I have cooked sauce for pasta so dinner is only ever going to be 10 minutes away. I has Steve Coogan and Richard Ayoade DVDs. There is chocolate and wine.

The Caroline Dawnay Agency email to tell me they don't want my book yet the most awful rubbish continues to get published. Am I the only person in the English speaking world that hates The Time-Traveler's Wife? I admit, I've only read the first eighty pages but so far it seems the most awful load of arse. The two main characters are so bloody unbelievable, so utterly, utterly perfect - He with his musician parents and erudite bookshelves, she, so tall and slender with her red-gold hair and pale skin and childhood home full of stereotype servants - she just screams Mary Bloody Sue to me and the style - the writing style seems so stilted and turgid; it reads like the author read some of the best pre-war authors and decided she could write a book Just Like Theirs.

I'm prepared to believe it gets better as the book goes on. It has to (doesn't it?) Because otherwise the glowing reviews that led me to read this tripe are just puzzling. I shall persist (though at the moment I want to fling the thing through a window).

La di da. Life continues to amaze me with its mysteries. I have Californian Shiraz, I have little crunchy, oaty things. I have cheesy crisps and damn fine comedy on DVD and a whole evening free to enjoy them. ::comforts self with this knowledge::

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I actually enjoyed the Time Traveler's Wife (she writes in print that would be very, very small and sheepish if she could figure out how to make her computer do that in LJ). But it certainly wasn't the "Greatest Book Ever Written" or anything. And at least you have fine California wine. Do they sell wine in the supermarkets at all hours of the day and night where you are? IMHO, that is one of the things that makes California a GREAT PLACE TO LIVE.

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Oh, you're not alone - it was the consistently great reviews that made me buy the damn thing in the first place but I have to say I'm HATING it with a huge, tempestuous passion. ::shrug:: Hey ho. Think of the fun I'll have harshing squee on all the bookgroups with my unmitigated loathing. *g*

(Didn't you find the black (dear God, why did she make them all black?) servants horrifically stereotypical? They reminded me of the guy on the Dick Van Dyke show. ::shudders::

I'm glad you love where you live. Everyone should, I feel, therwise - why live there? Why not move? *g* I've never been there myself, but I can highly rec rural Lancashire too - and, indeed, my home-county of Yorkshire. We don't make wine (too wet) but we brew some mighty beers and make some pretty good cheese too. You'd best go ask fellow Lancastrian

fluterbev about the black puddings ::is vegetarian::

(o:

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(though at the moment I want to fling the thing through a window)

Wouldn't that warrant another trip to B&Q? *g*

Naw, it's very expensive double glazing, hence my reluctance.

*g*

A hell of a lot of simple tripe gets published, because a hell of a lot of people would rather read simple tripe (says she who is rereading up on language in popular fiction at the minute and therefore even more skeptical than normal).

I've said it before, if literary quality really mattered we'd all be writing Brideshead Revisited fanfic...

Ah, the slash just writes itself. heh heh heh. The thing about fanfic though, is it's supposed to improve on the original - isn't it? Or have I got that wrong?

TBH, magnificent tho BRv be, I've never been able to engage enough with the characters to have any kind of fantasy-life with them.

I wouldn't call TTTW simple tripe - quite complex tripe with a strong element of Mary Sue would be my diagnosis. *g* Hideously written, too, imo (but what do I know? I can't even get my stuff into print let alone get glowing reviews and a film made out of me scribblings so I'm hardly one to crit someone who can. *g*)

I didn't care for TTTW either, for pretty much the same reasons you give. That said, I had a hardback edition with the standard photo+biog on the back cover, and got no end of amusement that the heroine (or whatever you call her) was described as being a thinner, prettier version of the author.

*g* I can't say I'm in the least surprised; the character has 'Mary Sue' painted all over her in Fire Engine red. (o:

Is enjoying this snippet if info way more than should. Is very bad person::

She does rather, doesn't she?

I think once the author gets beyond the age of sixteen then Sue-mockery really is fair game. Plus, in published fiction, Sue-mockery is *always* fair game.

Welcome to my perfumed garden

Housely-Renovations 3.1. All we've done is shop and move a bit of furniture.

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I actually enjoyed the Time Traveler's Wife

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Brideshead Revisited fanfic...

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a thinner, prettier version of the author...

Re: a thinner, prettier version of the author...

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