Ah, my first day back to work after my mini-vacation. Am I allowed to be really glad tomorrow is Friday? In honor of Halloween I “dressed up” with cat ears. One of my coworkers told me I should get some brown ones (the ones I wore today were black) and I could wear them everyday. She said my curly hair hides the headband so the ears just stick up and look like they belong. So apparently I rock the cat ears. Who knew.
I read Hecuba yesterday by Euripides. What an awesome play! Don’t have the brain power to write about it tonight though but soon!
I had to give up on one of the books for my historical fiction MOOC. The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane was going just fine. I wasn’t enamored but it was enjoyable and then there was such a big mistake in it. The mistake? The main character, Connie, at the request of her mother out west, drives to a small town an hour away from Boston to clear out and try to sell the abandoned for twenty years house of her grandmother. Connie takes a friend with her and her friend asks if she knew her grandmother very well. Connie says she has no real memories of her, that her mother said the grandmother visited frequently when she was a child but she died before Connie was old enough to get to know her. Then not ten pages later Connie is recalling a Christmas when her grandmother came to visit and brought her a handmade sweater with one arm longer than the other. Say what? I thought she didn’t have any memories of her grandmother? I am so annoyed by this that I can’t continue with the book. So I am going to move on to Fever by Mary Beth Keane and hopefully have better luck.
In honor of the day, enjoy some photos of literary pumpkins. And if you, like me, prefer your pumpkins carved, here are a few more.
Wow, the Barad-dur one!
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Jeanne, I know, isn’t that one fantastic?
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You rock cat ears, who knew. Loved the pumpkins! I think it’s interesting you quit reading the book bc of “the mistake”.
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Helen, yup cat ears. Perhaps I should collect different varieties , try them all and see which ones get the most positive response. Bookman and I are creative pumpkin carvers but those pumpkins are beyond us! I have no idea why the mistake made me so angry but every time I think of it I find myself grinding my teeth so best just to not keep reading the book.
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Cat Ears sounds awesome! Hope you had a fun Halloween! So i did not want to talk about this before but The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane is not perhaps the best example of Historical Literature….I read it more than a year ago and it’s a good thing I was not blogging yet then! There are books and there are books and then there are never read them again. This is one of those…I am glad you saw light right at the start and gave up…while I persevered till the end..and it was not worth it. On the other hand, Geraldine Brooks Year of Wonders is starting to look promising!
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cirtnecce, I love Halloween and even just wearing cat ears to work is fun. I am glad I wasn’t being too harsh with Deliverance Dane. I was thinking it did get chosen as a class reading so maybe it’s me. But it doesn’t sound like it. Whew! I am a little over halfway through Year of Wonders, it’s not a wow kind of book but it is good.
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Those carved pumpkins are simply wonderful. I have difficulty even getting the middle out to make soup with! I’m just about to start the Katherine Howe novel and so now that I am forewarned I shall be looking out for other errors too. I wonder if any of the students will have noticed and if so whether they will have he courage to ask her about it? Although in general I’m very much enjoying this course, I and sceptical about the choice of authors. I suspect it was a question of who was available and willing to be involved rather than what would be a good book to discuss. Although given that whoever took part could pretty much guarantee a massive boost in sales you would have thought writers would have been happy to be involved.
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Alex, I have neither the tools nor the talent to produce such carved pumpkins so I am really impressed by those who do! Good luck with the Howe novel but if you have to stop, don’t feel bad! If I were a student in the class I would not have the courage to ask about the mistake! I am feeling rather blah about the choice of authors for the class too. There are so many really good historical fiction novels out there, why these? I suspect, like you, that it is a matter of who was available to come to the class to talk.
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First, where is the photo of you with the cat ears? 🙂
Second, I’ve been annoyed with books before, but I don’t know if it’s been anything that blatantly obvious.
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Bryan, sorry, no photographic evidence! 🙂
I was so surprised by the mistake that I thought I must have read the first mention wrong and went back and reread it and then reread the later part and there was no getting around the error.
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I read The Physick Book back when it first came out, and although there were parts of it I enjoyed, I thought others parts of it were just… dumb. I don’t remember noticing that particular gaffe, but there was a lot of other stuff about the story that niggled at me. From what I recall, I did like the historical bits pretty well. (To be honest, the presence of that book and Year of Wonders on the syllabus are one of the reasons that MOOC didn’t tempt me. I had a lot of problems with both of those books.)
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Teresa, I was really hoping the book would be good because I am fascinated by the history of witch burnings and witchcraft, but ugh, not worth continuing. From what you say I seem to have saved myself from further frustration. Year of Wonders isn’t bad, I am enjoying the story, though word choice/style is sometimes grating.
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The Junie B Jones pumpkin is great! Is Hello Kitty from a book? In any case it’s cute, too. I used to carve pumpkins (and I am talking about the recent past here… like just four or five years ago), but I’ve been too cheap the last few years to buy any. They are fun to carve, though…. Too bad about the hist fic book–sometimes those glaring mistakes are just too much and they distract a reader. Maybe your instructor will address those sorts of things (so important in historical fiction) in your class. Hopefully the next will be better!
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Danielle, Hmm, I don;t think Hello Kitty is from a book but I could be wrong. We used to carve pumpkins at our house too but we stopped handing out candy a few years ago because we only ever got about 5 kids at the door and all the trouble of decorating and everything wasn’t worth it. The author will actually be speaking in class so we’ll see if anything gets addressed or if everyone just pretends the novel is great.
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Wow. That’s a pretty bad gaffe. Where was her editor? And, I have to think one reads, re-reads and re-writes one’s own work before sending it off. It’s amazing that wasn’t caught. My library has the book, but it wasn’t on the shelf, so I probably won’t pursue it because the mistake would have made me not want to finish it either. I started reading Fever, but am only in the beginning – so far so good, we’ll see – and I have Year of Wonders on the nightstand (but there is a big stack of books I would rather read in my home library. I might just read the suggested sections. I don’t know.) I did, however, enjoy Forsaken Inn. A little archaic but fun nevertheless. I bought a big terra cotta pumpkin this year – your typical jagged toothed smiley face. I bet someone could make a decent business by making ceramic pumpkins based on literary figures that look carved though. Hmmm. That’s a thought.
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Grad, I was thinking the same thing, where was the editor? Fever so far has been going pretty well. Year of Wonders is going along ok. The story is good but I am annoyed now and then by style/word choices. I did not get a copy of Forsaken Inn but I am glad you enjoyed it. If you start a literary ceramic pumpkin business I would totally buy one!
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Love the Cat ears story but where’s the photo? As for the grandmother in the book. I can let a lot of things go in a book – stretching of truth sorts of things, getting a street in the wrong place from reality etc – but an author not even knowing his/her own character, well, that’s a bit of an insult to our intelligence isn’t it. I’d put it down too – if the author can be attentive to their own creation, why should we really. (And Grad’s right, where was the editor).
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whisperinggums, no photographic evidence of the cat ears so you will just have to take my word for it 🙂 I wanted to forgive the author the mistake and even kept reading for a few more pages but I couldn’t stop thinking about it and had to give up. Very disappointing.
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I totally understand that – about the author – not, though about the no-cat-ears-evidence though! 😉
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I’m with everyone, where is the photo of the cat ears! 🙂
Oh I hate it when I catch an error like that and yes it does put you off from continuing doesn’t it? Love the literary pumpkins! I can’t decide on a favorite but I really liked Snoopy.
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Iliana, no photo was taken, maybe next year 🙂 I try to be generous and can overlook some errors but this time I just couldn’t do it.
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I did persevere with Deliverance Dane but it really wasnt worth the effort. It’s close to being the worst book I have read all year. That error is one reason the narrative wasn’t plausible. Another was the fact that although the main character has studied history for many years and is meant to be Professor material, she didn’t know that receipt was an old term for recipe. So badly written
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BookerTalk, oh ouch, that is pretty bad. Connie didn’t know receipt meant recipe? I’ve known that since I was a kid. As a history PhD student she should have known it! How did you manage to keep reading? The author’s classroom appearance will be interesting.
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I decided it was ok to read with half my brain engaged just so I knew what the discussion would be about
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You have more fortitude than I do! 🙂
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You were smart to quit the Deliverance Dane book. I am slogging my way through it. It’s not just that it strains credulity, it’s poorly written. Overwrought. The main character, a PhD candidate, has the emotional maturity of an eighth grader.
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Barbara, why keep slogging? Stop, stop! 🙂
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I think you should absolutely wear cat ears everyday. My goodness, I would if I could get away with it! 🙂 It’s funny how a big mistake like that can ruin your reading pleasure – I’m sure I would feel exactly the same. I think the fictional world is precious, and to be shown that it’s just a construction by that sort of foolish error is very rage-inducing.
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I’m late reading this post, so I am thoroughly enjoying the idea of your having continued to wear the cat-ears. Really, one day/year is not enough.
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Buried, LOL, I would totally wear cat ear on a daily basis if my boss would let me get away with it. But since I work at a public desk all day dealing with law faculty and law students it is sadly a no go.
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