Sunday, August 5, 2012

Sunday Salon post: Watching Olympics


August.   I love watching the Olympic athletes.  Such discipline.  Such focus. Such single mindedness.  The Olympics make me feel scattered even as they inspire me.
I make new resolves. Increase my exercise. Increase my blogging.  Read more.
 So here’s a Sunday Salon update – something I haven’t done it a while.
I finally finished my reading response to Tea Obreht’s The Tiger’s Wife. I distinguish a response from a review in that I ignore whether or not I am giving spoilers.  The purpose of the piece is different. A review proposes suggestions for others as to why they might read it – or not.  A response is for me; it allows me to go deeper into my understanding of a book by composing thoughts about it; others may want to read it to compare theirs.
The Tiger’s Wife response was a difficult piece of writing for me, and I’m not sure why.  I think it’s mainly because my writing muscles are flabby right now from disuse.  (The Olympics make me feel soooo undisciplined in all parts of my life. Get that, “all parts” –there are too many of those parts.) I think it’s also because so much is left unknown – not tied up in the book – and while I’m comfortable with that, it’s as if I finish my reading and writing with an ellipsis  . . .
I move on.  I read a little history and then a mystery I’ve already forgotten. I open the first pages of John Sandford’s Bad Blood because that’s what’s available at the library. I like zigzagging back and forth from literary fiction to mysteries. It’s a good reading rhythm for me. Next up in literary fiction: David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas.

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