I've already thought of a title for my memoirs; if I hadn't, I think I'd've called them The Ocean Farts. I'll just use that for the title of my next book instead. Dibs! I wonder if publishing something in an anonymous blog could stand up as copyright anywhere. Probably not. I'll just have to write such a good book called The Ocean Farts that the efforts of rip-off artists will look like mere pond-farts.
I read The Remains of the Day last night. Well, I read most of it last night, I started after I finished North and South yesterday. This heatwave and my excessive-dosage pills make it really easy to read because I can do that flat on my back in front of a fan without hardly moving or hearing the retarded things people say. I'm sure I can't say anything about The Remains of the Day that clever people haven't said already, but I do recommend you read it. It's a fucking jaw-dropping study in emotional and intellectual self-denial - the protagonist, in this self-denial, comes out looking like a monster, even though it's a first person narrative.
And it's the most technically elegant first-person narrative I've read in a long time, by the way, maybe ever - the only thing I can think of to compare it to is What's Eating Gilbert Grape, which shifted decisively and appropriately from narrative tense to present tense halfway through. Or was it vice versa? Anyways, I read that when I was 17 and believed silly things, like that Milan Kundera was the bees knees and Arabs and Muslims were the same thing, so maybe you shouldn't believe a word I say about it. But I do recommend The Remains of the Day.
Mummy is going to Yorkshire on Saturday, getting here Friday - I'm glad. It has been hard to think of her and feel so helpless during this time. I'll take her to Peruvian restaurants and concerts and things, and wish I knew better ways to comfort and reinforce people than corporeal delights like pianos and grilled cow heart, but I don't.
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What would a title like Ocean Farts imply? Would it be an in depth study about the triviality of life? Or it could be a study of potty humour over the span of human history? Start with Aristophanes. I think that may be damn near the beginning. Well, whatever the book would be about - I'd buy it.
I haven't decided yet, Sugar, but in general terms it'll be an Epicurean/Stoic study touching on the massive and underappreciated range of those things which are both natural and profane.
I think I'll call the sequel "Playing with the Queen of Farts."
I love Ishiguro, elegant is exactly the word I'd use. He's so good at creating distinct voices and being spare without ever seeming cold (which I think Joan Diddion sometimes falls into). Have you ever read An Artist Of The Floating World? If you like Remains of the Day, then I think you'd like that one.
I think your mum, if she's anything like mine, will appreciate any gesture you make towards looking after her. Food and music are excellent ways of showing love.
That was my very first Ishiguro, but I'll trace that one for sure. I'm curious to see how he does everything now, because as you mentioned he stayed warm against all the odds. I cried when I read it, and usually that takes a teenager having to take the potentially rabid yellow dog he loves out back and shoot it for the good of his family.
Yeah, I cried and cried at Remains of the Day too. When he finally admits his heart is breaking! Oh!
Eeee. . . and when Miss Kenton tells him she left whenever getting too upset over thinking about how it would have been if the years had passed with him - too real! I don't dare to watch the movie, the book was too affecting and I want to keep that.
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