I've been busy in the garden again today, hope to have some pictures tomorrow of my latest folly, a pea-straw bale raised bed for growing my pumpkins in. I don't really have room for big pumpkins, so I had a brainwave this morning prompted by a picture in a book. I've put four pea-straw bales together to form a square and filled the middle in with compost. It's also possible to grow into the bales themselves; there are several youTube vids about straw bale gardens. It doesn't look very attractive, but hopefully when the plants have grown over it will just look like a hill of pumpkins. In the autumn when the 'kins are harvested, the entire mound can be thrown onto the vegetable garden as a winter mulch. Sounds good, but the proof of the pudding....as they say.
Thought for the day. Are we becoming lazier readers? I've been trying to read Ivy Compton-Burnett's 'Parents and children' and have had to give it up as too hard. It requires such concentration; almost entirely conversation, without much context, and each sentence is quite opaque but full of subtle meaning. It is not bedtime reading, the tired mind just blanks everything out, and I find myself at the end of the page thinking, what just happened? I've tried Ivy before and also drawn a blank, as with Henry James and that perennial stumbling-block, Crime and punishment. Perhaps it's just our busy times, or the circumstances we find ourselves in at the time. Mum told me that she started to read 'War and peace' when expecting me, but became totally confused by the names - nicknames, patronymics, titles, etc., often three entirely different names for each person, that she had to give up. And Mum was no slouch of a reader either, but probably being afflicted by chronic pregnancy nausea didn't help with her concentration. It's hard to lose yourself in a book if you have to dash to the toilet every five minutes.
These days, our attention spans are being cut ever shorter by the Internet and the sound-bite, hence the rise of genres like the short short story and the short film.
Any thoughts? Have you been able to get to grips with Ivy?
It is part of the reason I generally have at least two (and often more) books on the go at a time.
ReplyDeleteSome books require full concentration and no interruptions. And I as with your mother on the two many names front - without pregnancy induced nausea to excuse me.
I am wrestling with an A S Byatt at the moment. And could only manage a chapter before turning to lighter things (A Rupert Bear annual - I said it was lighter).
Yes, I've also found it good to have at least two books to be alternated, one fiction and one non-fiction, as well as various coffee-table books to be dipped into, and instructional books like gardening, painting and cooking books.
ReplyDeleteI passed on Byatt's 'Possession', and watched the movie instead (Lovely Jeremy Northam). You have my envy for your Rupert Bear annual; I must go and look for one at a bookshop, I'd forgotten how much I loved Rupert as a child.
The casual browsing of the internet has def made me read fewer books this year.
ReplyDeleteI try to alternate light and heavier reads but I do mainly read popular good quality stuff. Reading some classics this year has been a real palate cleanser for me!
Gertrude Stein is the author who defeated me last year......
Palate cleanser! A short, sharp shock of quality literature. I've never even attempted Gertrude Stein - perhaps we should compile a booklist of nearly impossible authors/works. I'd add James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, both of whom have done for me in the past.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed Gertrude Stein - and Virginia Woolf (well a lot of her). James Joyce has been an epic fail. And Thomas Hardy did for me. I loathed Tess.
DeleteHardy is so gloomy. Jude should have stayed obscure.
DeleteHardy is struggle but I can read him. Henry James is like swimming in treacle!
ReplyDeleteJoyce? Too scared to try !
Yes, well put, James is like swimming in treacle - it's as if everything is slowed down.
Delete