There are worse ways to spend a Saturday

[white_hart]

I'm fairly sure that lying in bed listening to the first series of Cabin Pressure would be a perfectly valid way to spend a rainy Saturday in February even if I wasn't feeling grotty, but it's a perfect antidote to the feeling-grottiness.

I have also finished reading The Mask of Apollo, which I picked up secondhand years ago and was finally prompted to read by the fact that every time I go into Blackwells I notice that it's shelved in the SF section and think 'but surely it isn't SF?'. Which it isn't. Maybe next time I'll point that out to them. I enjoyed it; after the stark bleakness of The Bone Clocks, and even Lymond where if anything can go wrong it almost certainly will in the most complicated way possible, it came as something of a welcome relief to read something where the narrator has a generally happy and safe life, and all the unpleasantness - the sack of Syracuse is quite chilling - is offstage (which I've just realised reflects the way it's dealt with in Niko's plays as well). I liked Niko as a narrator, was as impressed as Nicola Marlow by 'the fab delirious bit where he dreams he's acting Hamlet' and found the glimpse of Alexander in the coda quite shivers-down-the-spine.

So yes, there are definitely worse ways to spend a Saturday. And hopefully I'll be a bit more lively tomorrow and get at least some proper weekend before going back to work on Monday.

Comments

[nineveh_uk]

I find Cabin Pressure a very good antidote to grottiness. I hope that you are feeling brighter today.

I love the Alexander bit of The Mask of Apollo. I should give the rest of a book another try, and stop resenting it for not all being about teenage Alexander.

[white_hart]

I think I am feeling brighter though I still have a very sore throat.

I found myself reading it as a kind of sequel to Rosemary Sutcliff's The Flowers of Adonis, which is about the Peloponessian War, and was really surprised to find the teenage Alexander appearing at all as I'd pigeonholed him into a slightly different (later) historical box.

[nineveh_uk]

At least the upside of horrid weather is that it puts no obligation on you to feel you ought to be going out and doing something while being rough.

Might I borrow The Flowers of Adonis, if you own a copy? I've been meaning to read it. I shall return the PLF shortly - just as soon as the copies I have ordered arrive, because I need my own!

[white_hart]

I do own a copy (in fact, like a lot of Sutcliff I own both a dead-tree copy and an e-copy) and you're welcome to borrow it - I'll bring it on Tuesday.

[lilliburlero]

It's odd what they'll shelve in SF. A friend of mine asked for Tom Paulin's book about William Hazlitt in Hodges Figgis back in the day and was confidently pointed to SF. It is called The Daystar of Liberty, which probably accounts for it.

I'm glad you liked The Mask of Apollo; I'm very fond of Niko and his old-luvvie narration, but on my most recent re-read I couldn't help feeling that for a book in which so much happens, nothing much seems to happen. (That's not a negative criticism, really.)

[white_hart]

He's a dreadful old luvvie, but even though he clearly adores gossip he doesn't have a malicious bone in his body and is the very soul of kindness, which is a balm I sorely needed. (One of my absolute favourite moments was the bit where he finds Axiothea in the inn in Syracuse and is so sweet to her - actually, I loved the whole relationship between the two of them.)

[lilliburlero]

Their friendship is my favourite thing in the novel, about which I have Feelings.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I am pleased you have found a good way to spend your Saturday, and I hope that you are indeed feeling better tomorrow.