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The sun sings on plucked bow strings

  • May. 29th, 2009 at 2:55 PM
Fuchsia
Today has been weirdly lovely, weather wise, which has been very conducive to revision. I've been able to play cello outside, which is slightly surreal, but the sound is so much richer. Of course, my joy is slightly dampened by the knowledge that today is both the beginning and the end of the British Summer. Come June, and half the country will be underwater, just like last year. And the year before.

Finished Mieville's The City & The City. Disappointing, in a word. There was so much potential, the first half was wonderful, full of tantalising glimpses and promises of strange and cool mysteries and academic disputes to be solved.But then the second half swung around, and the plot devolved into a dull detective novel, with a very unsatisfying conclusion. It's not a bad book, per say, just not anywhere near as good as I'd expected from Mieville (though that said, out of the four novels I've read by Mieville, only The Scar has ever been completely wonderful, with a satisfactory ending).

Back to revising now, joy. I think the thing I resent most about exams is the large amount of time either spent revising, or feeling guilty for not revising, and how both detract from all the things you've suddenly thought of that you'd rather be doing instead.

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Comments

( 5 comments — Leave a comment )
[info]alankria wrote:
May. 29th, 2009 02:17 pm (UTC)
Have the forecasts changed? Last I heard we were in "danger" of heatwaves and a Barbeque summer.

On an intellectual level I quite appreciated what Mieville did with that book, but on a pleasure level I found the ending disappointingly dull.
[info]lysan wrote:
May. 29th, 2009 02:28 pm (UTC)
Yes, I got the impression that Mieville was playing around with a lot of preconceptions, of both genre fic, and himself, but...disappointingly dull is the result :(

I think we were predicted heatwaves last year, so I'm not overly optimistic. (That said, I haven't actually seen this year's forecasts)
[info]winterfox wrote:
May. 29th, 2009 03:38 pm (UTC)
I guess I'll stick with my decision to buy The City & The City in paperback, then. :/
[info]lysan wrote:
May. 29th, 2009 03:40 pm (UTC)
I'd only recommend it in hardback if you really like detective stories.
[info]winterfox wrote:
May. 29th, 2009 04:01 pm (UTC)
I hate detective stories.
( 5 comments — Leave a comment )