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We now have a Nintendo wii (my wonderful fiance bought it for my birthday). It’s the first games console I’ve ever owned (although I did once ‘borrow’ a Playstation from my brother for a term to play Fifa 99 in university). I’ve never considered myself much of a games player – probably because I’ve never been any good at them (well apart from frogger, Chuckie Egg, Sensible Soccer, Tomb Raider and Fifa) – but the Wii is fantastic. I just love the (ostensible) simplicity of it. I also love the fact that before Friday I don’t think I could ever have envisaged spending an hour playing a computer game with my girlfriend. We only have Wii sports at the moment, and although I think they all look really good, we’ve mostly been playing tennis. It’s clearly not designed for the hardcore gamer, and I think that’s why I like it so much. Really looking forward to having a load of mates over for a few beers and a tennis tournament.
She also bought me a couple of Dawkins books I’d not read (Climbing Mount Improbable and Unweaving the Rainbow, about which, once finished, I’ll write a blogpost, also incorporating the fascinating The Ancestor’s Tale) and a leatherbound ‘Hunters Flask’.
12 Volumes, and well over 3000 pages later, I finally finished Dance a few weeks ago and I miss it a lot. It was funny, charming, and, in a strange way, quite moving. I’m not being melodramatic in saying that it has changed the way I look at the world a little. Admittedly I was ready for the end by the time it came round simply because most of the characters I’d come to know had died. It really is a wonderful novel (or novel series) and I’d recommend it to anyone. It sweeps through the 20th century carrying an enormous number of characters (over 300) with it. Their intertwined lives are the plot, and there isn’t really a wider narrative to speak of (as there is in, say, A Suitable Boy) ; this takes a little getting used to, but I now see it as part of the novel’s charm. If you have some time on your hands, give it a go.
Would like to be posting first impressions of the Alastair Campbell diaries…but despite pre-ordering weeks ago, Amazon haven’t even dispatched my copy. I don’t suppose they’ll have the same problem getting out copies of Harry Potter.
A new addiction: Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time. It is funny, clever and charming, and peopled with the most wonderful characters. It has some claim to be the longest novel in English, and is significantly longer than A Suitable Boy, but I think Clarissa must surely be longer. It’s also strictly speaking not a novel, but a novel sequence (I’m about to start volume four). Whatever it is, it’s brilliant. I finished Volume 3 while sampling German sausages and German beer in Bad Homburg where I was staying for a (very interesting) conference. Bad Homburg is a very pleasant town near Frankfurt, whose parks are particularly nice. Anyway, without anything to read, I bought William Boyd’s Restless on Ed’s recommendation. It is, as he suggested, a great read and I’m thoroughly enjoying it (if perhaps a little too eager to race through it so I can start Volume 4 of Dance).
[Oh, a couple of weeks ago I left my bag at a Friend's house, in it was The Golden Notebook; it seems I am never to finish this book!]
