Tuesday 24 August 2010

August what's to like?

I described August to materfamilias as an aged tart who promises much but delivers nothing. It's true, what is there to like about this month? I HATE the fact that August is supposed to be the pinnacle of delight, all sand and ice cream, the end result of lots of hard work. Yet summer is invariably over by August, the best weather finished at the end of July.
In fact what do we really get? Shorter days, leaves begin to fall, the garden looks like a dried up husk, a holiday that promises much yet fails to really satisfy, feelings of guilt because should we not be achieving something? Kids moaning on and on, kids spending all my bloody money.
My ideal would be to beak up at the end of June and go back the second week of August, Do any of really still have a harvest to bring in? No, Someone please STOP this charade of a so called break.
On the plus side I finally read a whole book, amazing. I finished off a Sadies Coles book whilst in Scotland which was dreadful, returning home I finally received my summer book order and began with Eats Witters on and Finally gets a Shag. Well I think that what it was called. Some of it was tolerable but I was not really impressed by the way she uses the English language. I must take umbrage at her use of the word 'spazzy' seriously is there no other word that she could use? It is wholly offensive and I spend my life explaining the origins of the word to students and they too agree it is just plain unacceptable to use it even in jest. So that really irritated me. I guess her style of writing is best described as 'breezy' I skimmed the middle bit because I just don't 'do' God. Sorry but I have way more interesting things to think about.
The last bit was what I think we call a 'cop out ending' just a tad too saccharine even if it is true.
So looks like 6 million readers were wrong after all! Sorry Ms Roberts.
In stark contrast is a book called Istanbul Memories by Orhan Pamuk absolutely brilliantly written and full of such rich and vivid descriptions I am nodding my head in agreement all the time. I am particularly taken with his view on daydreaming a really underrated pastime and one I am awesome at. Truly, forget meditation and just get outside go for a walk and have a really good daydream, food for the soul, as is the book. I am going to read many more of his come Christmas, there's another crap holiday......but that's another post

1 comment:

materfamilias said...

I'll have to add this to the reading list -- love the appreciation of daydreaming, right up there with puttering in my priorities for stoking any creativity.
I can't buy your idea of getting rid of the August break, though, as for me part of July's charm is that it can be squandered without feeling that the end of freedom is right 'round the corner. If August did nothing less but provide that buffer, she'd have earned her keep!