March 2008 - Posts
Rejoice. The new arcade is open in Cambridge after many years of chaos. Not only do the people of Cambridge get a new shopping centre, they get a new public library as well. Well, not exactly. A quick look round revealed a building site in the area where the library will be. I do not know if this is a programming glitch, a separate contract, or if the likes of Top Shop, River Island, Costa and all the usual suspects had priority over a boring old public library. Whatever the reasons for the delay it is regrettable that the library did not open along with the arcade, considering the difficulties involved in keeping any sort of library presence in central Cambridge over the years. Plans are displayed where I would have expected an opening date. They show that there will be an adult section separating a children's section from a teenage section. I do hope this is only a suggestion. I remember in a library not so many miles from Cambridge seeing children rollerblading past adult fiction under the eyes of a benevolent staff. Maybe I am not so anxious for the library to open after all.
I have just ordered Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, the next on my reading list. This, of course, is a prequel to Jane Eyre. Oxfam let me down this time, so I had to buy it from Amazon, where the postage costs more than the book, although it is still cheaper than a new copy. The idea of prequels intrigues me. There is a goldmine of ideas out there just for the taking, I am at present considering the possibilities of The Boyhood of Hamlet, Ebenezer Scrooge the Early Years and, for those who enjoy tales of the sea BabyDick.
I see that the judges have been chosen for the 2009 Man Booker International Prize. The 'eminent panel' is chaired by Jane Smiley, supported by Amit Chaudhuri and Andrey Kurkov. "Who they?" You ask. So did I. Having done a Google search I find that Jane Smiley's top book has a 5,294 ranking on Amazon and the others range from number 66,387 to 328,176. Good Amazon rankings are not easy to achieve, but it does rather look as if the eminent panel is just a heartbeat away from consisting of total nonentities. We watch their progress very carefully.
I am becoming quite attached to Moses Herzog. Having said Herzog was not a page turner I am now desperate to know what happens next and fearful for his future.
Beyond the Harbour Wall has been copyedited and fired off to an American publisher. I await results. Being American he could easily fire it straight back, in a friendly sort of way.
This week's thoughts could have been lost to humanity, as I carelessly logged on without a password. Common sense would say that I could have just clicked back and started again. But no, the computer had a major wobbly and I was locked out. The difficulty of getting another password which worked and the reulting stress is too painful to relate. How could a website be designed without allowing for human error? I know the answer. It would have been designed by an idiot boy trainee website designer who wasn't properly supervised. I hope he fails his driving test.
Amazingly I have just written another story. It is for an audio book, so I am reading it out loud to myself to make sure it doesn't sound too stupid. I rather want it to do well so I may have it copy edited, something I don't always do for short stories. It would have helped my last rush job rather a lot.
I am still reading Herzog and still quite enjoying it. Hardly a page turner, as nothing much happens, hence the long time it is taking to read a fairly short book.
We have all at one time or another mourned the loss of the great Geographical Descriptions by Artemidorus of Ephesus which, of course, failed to come down to us from antiquity. But HOORAY, a copy was found as part of a mummy case in the early 20C and eventually passed to a European collector after World War 2. It has recently surfaced again and goes on exhibition in Berlin on 12 March, having been bought by an Italian foundation for a measly $3,369,850. 'Jolly good show, Europe keeps its cultural heritage out of the hands of nasty North American Universities, well done chaps,' we might say, indeed would say, except for one thing. Several well respected academics have declared the Geographical Descriptions to be a forgery.
So far the objections are based on anomalies in the text, although there are some marginal drawings which I reckon look a bit dodgy myself. Scientific evidence is incomplete and eagerly awaited. I can't help feeling, however, that one or two curators and their advisers, in Turin and Berlin, may soon be spending more time with their families.