to cheer up in light of imminent return to school i have put in a gigantic order of books. margriet de moor, connie palmen, john fuller, harry mulisch, and various other dutch authors i had never heard of but now being enlightened, have. now i search for books by translators, not authors, and names like helga ruebsamen, willem elsschot, oscar van der boogaard, simon vestdijk populate my "to read" list. yes, my "odd shelf" will be books by dutch writers.

on a totally unrelated note i just finished martin amis's time's arrow on poach's recommendation. how clever! i also thought briefly of memento the movie (which i was very taken by) only this would be ruined, well not so much ruined, but totally pointless, if made one. memento was based on a book too, wasn't it? though i think part of the point was that even as the movie was running your memory is already starting to fade while you busily try to construct the plot, and you can't stop the movie, and but with a book you can always turn back the pages. why doesn't martin amis get good reviews though? he hasn't got a SINGLE good review from the new york times book review. i checked this up on his website. how disturbing! not that i've read much by him. just this one, and i've read the rachel papers and liked that very much, although it's a bit young.

[oh! it's raining very heavily! but today is ndp! it would be terrible for everyone if this rain doesn't stop soon! oh it must it must! not that i care so much for watching the parade lah but aiyoh, people have been practising for months for this, and there's so much backstage work going on that no one knows about, that even goes for the poor army boys being human mules for weeks on end! and the field would be all muddied too!]

i resolve to read a lot this semester. i have carefully studied our library catalogue and when i come back to school i will haunt the f section and read every penelope fitzgerald available. i have discovered her too late! she seems to write so effortlessly, fairy feet running lightly over hill and dale, turning from one subject to another. how does she manage to write each book about something entirely different? most authors can't do that, you know. we think they can, but they can't really you know. the cleverer they are the harder it is for them not to be smugly the same, if you know what i mean. i like the understated, deadpanning way she tells her stories, decidely british, and her ear for human conversation.