Saturday, March 17, 2012

The Girl on the Landing by Paul Torday


Ever once in a while you stumbled upon a book which isn't recommended by anyone.  You just feel like picking up the book and give it a go.  Well, that's what happened to me for this particular book.  I'm not a fan of 'clever ' book but this one is and I'm so glad I chose it. 

This was read in July, 2011.  Yup, I know I have issues with updating my reads for the blog.

p83 It was like living with a someone for 10 years, you thought worked in a tobacconist's shop and then finding out that he was a nuclear physicist.

The novel begins as Michael, a middle-aged man of means, is dressing for dinner at a friend's country house in Ireland. As he descends the grand staircase, he spots a small painting of a landing with an old linen press and the white marble statue of an angel. In the background is a woman clad in a dark green dress. During dinner, Michael comments on the painting to his hosts but they say there is no woman in the picture. When Michael goes up to bed later, he sees that they are correct. This is only the first in a series of incidents that lead Michael to question his grip on reality. His wife Elizabeth is unsettled by the changes she sees in a man she originally married because he was dependable and steady, not because she loved him. Suddenly she is aware that she has never really known Michael and as he changes, she sees glimpses of someone she could fall in love with. Michael, in the meantime, is disturbed by events up at his family's ancestral home in the wilds of Scotland and by a past that he is threatening to destroy everything, and everyone, he has ever loved.

Oh and did I mention that apart from being clever this book is also creepy ... ? (Twilight zone theme, is most appropriate now)

p293 Elizabeth ran back to the house, slammed and locked the door.  Her  3 bars mobile signals suddenly disappeared 
I had to stop reading to catch my breath.  Too terrified to read.  Fearing for Elizabeth.  That's how good or scary the writing is.

p304 Lamia is a Greek word means greedy, female demon.  part woman part serpent and drank the blood of men.  
So now you know.

This was a fast read for me.  It's a psychological thriller which if I knew from the start I would not have chosen it but choose it I did and it didn't disappoint at all. In fact, I enjoyed it very much.  Like the cover said, its clever (think Sixth Sense movie) and gripping.

ps/Sharin if you are reading this, this book is not for you



Sunday, March 11, 2012

Having a Coke with You by Frank O'Hara

I never knew this poem before nor do I know who the author is. It was mentioned in the movie Beastly which I just recently watched and I looked it up. And when I saw the the author read it, I immediately fell in like with it.  Like at first sight.  If you may call it as such  ^_^

So enjoy.



HAVING A COKE WITH YOU
is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, IrĂșn, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I'm with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o'clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles

and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them

I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it's in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven't gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn't pick the rider as carefully
as the horse

it seems they were all cheated of some marvelous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I am telling you about it

—Frank O'Hara