Ribh's D'Coopage

[Ribh]

Thank you ... he’s a fatty
Sad news... I am officially allergic to my cats .. I was testing things out just to be sure and today I was holding... and kissing Pippin.. and I got it bad ... my eyes start to itch.. REALLY BAD!! And from the kissing my lips itch ... one eye turns blood red and gets these weird bubbles of water on my eyeball ... I guess that could be the result of trying to scratch my eyes out

I guess I’ll just look at them from a distance ..... yea right!

I'm allergic to mine as well. I just have to remember not to touch my eyes after handling them ~ or to stick my face in their fur. More to the point, keep them from shoving their fur in my face.

 

[MaryJanet]

BTW, how are you finding Middlemarch?

The writing is astonishingly accomplished in that a reader has to surrender to its rhythm. It whispers "pay attention or you'll have to read me again because you know I've got secrets on every page," by which I mean the book's vibrancy is in what the characters express in posture, glance, and what they choose to not say. The characters interpret each other without words, so I have to too. This form of characterisation and story-telling invites me to be thoughtful as I proceed, to pause now and then and ponder. Best of all, it's executed with a delicacy that respects my authority over my own perceptions - a very rare treat these days when so many novels yell at us.

In terms of plot, it's of its time, as all gracefully-aged novels are, but its themes are present in the here and now.

So it's very satisfying and its teaching me to consider and expand my mind as I read - a perfect antidote in a time when so much of what we encounter clamours for our attention and presents nothing beyond the superficial.

Yikes, I just reread all that and realised I've come across like ... A w****r! Oh well, at least I'm aware of it...

 

[Ribh]

The writing is astonishingly accomplished in that a reader has to surrender to its rhythm. It whispers "pay attention or you'll have to read me again because you know I've got secrets on every page," by which I mean the book's vibrancy is in what the characters express in posture, glance, and what they choose to not say. The characters interpret each other without words, so I have to too. This form of characterisation and story-telling invites me to be thoughtful as I proceed, to pause now and then and ponder. Best of all, it's executed with a delicacy that respects my authority over my own perceptions - a very rare treat these days when so many novels yell at us.

In terms of plot, it's of its time, as all gracefully-aged novels are, but its themes are present in the here and now.

So it's very satisfying and its teaching me to consider and expand my mind as I read - a perfect antidote in a time when so much of what we encounter clamours for our attention and presents nothing beyond the superficial.

Yikes, I just reread all that and realised I've come across like ... A w****r! Oh well, at least I'm aware of it...

It's all good. I majored in Language & Literature @ uni so you sound astonishingly normal to me! It's a period I choose not to read in as I find most of this era's novelists frustrating & wordy but I may just have to try Middlemarch. Really good books are hard to find. I like beautiful writing, preferably very concise , & most modernists drive me crazy. They sound like a bad local rag. I was spoilt by Rumor Godden when I was very young & very few novelists are capable of saying so much with so few words!

 

[MaryJanet]

I wouldn't call it concise and the right argument might persuade me to call it wordy. But I'm nailing my colours to the mast: I like it because it neither spoon-feeds me nor does it clamour for my attention. I like it because I feel respected by its author.

Lots of today's books make me feel like a data point on a sales chart and that's something I rebel against.

 

[Ribh]

I wouldn't call it concise and the right argument might persuade me to call it wordy. But I'm nailing my colours to the mast: I like it because it neither spoon-feeds me nor does it clamour for my attention. I like it because I feel respected by its author.

Lots of today's books make me feel like a data point on a sales chart and that's something I rebel against.

Which is probably why I read so little *modern* stuff. I moved to really obscure archaeology from fantasy & my local librarian would quail each & every time I requested an interlibrary loan form ~ especially because I would even have the IBN number! They've changed our librarian [she's a mainlander now] & I don't borrow the way I used to. My eyes get tired fast these days & the LP books are rather too bulky for slipping in my handbag to read on the boat.

 

[BY Bob]

Thank you so much Bob! I really appreciate it

Btw... for all you Bob’s out there... this is Bobby View attachment 1835385

What a beautiful cat, or is that handsome? Either way, great name!

 

[BY Bob]

Thank you ... he’s a fatty
Sad news... I am officially allergic to my cats .. I was testing things out just to be sure and today I was holding... and kissing Pippin.. and I got it bad ... my eyes start to itch.. REALLY BAD!! And from the kissing my lips itch ... one eye turns blood red and gets these weird bubbles of water on my eyeball ... I guess that could be the result of trying to scratch my eyes out

I guess I’ll just look at them from a distance ..... yea right!

I'm sorry. That's awful. I have to have my cats. They are my besties, next to Maleficent of course!

 

[WhoDatChick]

I'm sorry. That's awful. I have to have my cats. They are my besties, next to Maleficent of course!

Thanks Bob!

I have to have mine too... and I will get another one sooner or later

 

[MaryJanet]

Which is probably why I read so little *modern* stuff. I moved to really obscure archaeology from fantasy & my local librarian would quail each & every time I requested an interlibrary loan form ~ especially because I would even have the IBN number! They've changed our librarian [she's a mainlander now] & I don't borrow the way I used to. My eyes get tired fast these days & the LP books are rather too bulky for slipping in my handbag to read on the boat.

Do you like audiobooks Ribh? The only ones I don't like are the ones read by people who over-interpret the text in forming their approach to expression. If a book is read aloud with a light interpretive touch, I rather enjoy it.

 

[Ribh]

Do you like audiobooks Ribh? The only ones I don't like are the ones read by people who over-interpret the text in forming their approach to expression. If a book is read aloud with a light interpretive touch, I rather enjoy it.

Do you like audiobooks Ribh? The only ones I don't like are the ones read by people who over-interpret the text in forming their approach to expression. If a book is read aloud with a light interpretive touch, I rather enjoy it.

I'm not a fan. I'm a really fast reader & audio is too slow for me ~ plus I did theatre as my minor ~ makes me really difficult to please. It's also really hard to reread [rehear?] a passage that pleases me or to mark things I may want to reference later. Yep. I'm one of those terrible people who scribbles things in the margins of her books! That too is from childhood. I read Antonia Forest, who like Sayers & Eliot & Shakespeare before her, quotes everybody who was ever anybody in Literature anywhere & I'd never heard of them so I looked them up & wrote the info in the margins as a helpful reminder. There's an American called Pamela Dean who does the same thing & I am still finding great quotes from people I've never heard of. No such thing as being too educated. I sometimes wonder why I got a degree. It merely reveals the depth of my ignorance.