Irresolute

[mrissa]

I don't make New Year's Resolutions. Haven't for years. I made one in September once. I decided I was going to remember to cover things with waxed paper in the microwave, and that was my new year's resolution for the year following whatever day it was. This is the problem with me making resolutions for New Year's: when I decide I ought to do something, generally I charge right in and start trying to do it. This may be my only skill, in fact. It's not always a good thing, but it certainly makes New Year's Resolutions a bit silly.

My New Hour's Resolution is to finish this stupid article before 1:00 so I can send it and its stupid fellows in and be done with this stupid project. (You can call me your little ray of sunshine if you like.)

Our exciting New Year's outing is going to be to Sebastian Joe's and around the lakes to go, "Ooh, pretty lakes; yay, another year in Minnesota." And then to come home and have quiet. We may end up exchanging our presents with CJ, or we may not, but the three of us here are not in particularly sociable moods. I'll put on a pot of chili and maybe cook some asparagus. (Since I have asparagus enough for nine....)

On another note entirely, I have met people I liked whose stories I did not like at all, and that was always sad. But I feel faintly guilty when the people I know best have the best stories in a magazine or anthology, as though I'm not giving other people a fair shake. Still, I think it is just that the friendslist is cooler than average. Now I'm on to reading Anthony Price's Other Paths to Glory, which is the fifth in a series dd_b has been lending to me. (Because I am spoiled, is why. I have more books borrowed from him and pameladean and porphyrin sitting on the back corner of my desk. And my own piles of books. Spoiled, spoiled, spoiled.) This series isn't one I'd heard of before dd_b mentioned it, but it's what I wanted those wretched LeCarre books to be.

I still can't believe he managed to make Helsinki look like a sound stage in a London suburb in a book. In a movie, it's easy; in a book, it takes talent. Horribly warped and misapplied talent. Harumph. (That "he" would be Mr. LeCarre, not Mr. Price or dd_b. And now I'm getting parenthetically silly and should get back to the article.)

Comments

[fitzcamel.livejournal.com]

Were you including _Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy_ in that condemnation? I didn't care for some Le Carre, but I rather liked that one. (Oh, and isn't Anthony Price wonderful?)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

No, I didn't get to Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. I read and despised The Looking-Glass War, and then either wshaffer or her spousal unit (I forget which: they were both there and recommending books to me) swore to me that The Spy Who Came In From the Cold was better, and after that I had had enough LeCarre and was disinclined to believe in the superiority of any further volumes.

But, having fulfilled my New Hour's Resolution, I am now free to return to Other Paths to Glory. Rah.

[rilina.livejournal.com]

If you ever decide to give LeCarre another chance, I definitely remember Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy as being notably better than all the other ones. (The rest are sort of a blur; I read them all back-to-back over one winter vacation in college, but I don't remember caring very much for the ones that had less Smiley, like The Spy Who Came In From the Cold.)

[fitzcamel.livejournal.com]

Same here. I bailed out halfway through the Looking Glass War, for one.