To Read, Or Not To Read...
I've been reading several books at the same time for summer (see the lower left sidebar) and Umberto Eco's The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana intrigues me the most. The premise of the latest from the Italian professor semiotics can swing either way: laughably unpromising or spectacularly thrilling. A 60 year old Milanese bookseller regains consciousness after a stroke and remembers nothing of his life. Yambo suffers a peculiar form of amnesia--his "public" memory of languages, everyday routines, history and literature remains intact, but his autobiographical memory of personal experiences--of his family, lovers, childhood, even his name--is gone. The outlines of his life and the contours of his adolescence are merely a blur. Desperate to retrieve his past, he rummages through boxes of old newspapers, comics, records, photos, notebooks, photo albums and diaries. A continuous paradox exists through his effort to spur his memory: while he contrives to restore the original state of things, he has no clue what the original state had been, and this state was precisely what he needs to invoke his memory.
Okay I'm trying to pick up the dust-covered copy of Da Vinci Code and read it. I've made numerous attempts but they have been futile--I can never get past the first chapter. The writing, which is cribbed from a number of dubious sources and reads like a poorly written airport novel, chokes me. A friend of mine told me while the book is poorly written, the movie is not so bad that it deserves the critical mauling it has already experienced in some quarters, which may be explained by a Da Vinci Code backlash from a media that has been saturated with Dan Brown's novel for years. He kindly cajoles me to at least finish reading the book so I won't miss anything in the movie, which adheres to the novel's montage--style, convoluted plot a little too closely for fear of alienating the hardcore fans, but inevitably allows some of Dan Brown's poor writing to pervade. Anyway, I'll do my best to finish the race, I promise.
As I'm writing this post, my iPod shuffle plays:
347/785 All I Have To Do Is Dream - The Everly Brothers
348/785 The Way You Look At Me - Christian Bautista
349/785 You're Beautiful - James Blunt
350/785 Almost Over You - Sheena Easton
351/785 Bad Day - Daniel Powter
352/785 The One You Love - Glenn Frey
353/785 Wake Me Up When September Ends - Green Day
354/785 You And Me - Lifehouse
Okay I'm trying to pick up the dust-covered copy of Da Vinci Code and read it. I've made numerous attempts but they have been futile--I can never get past the first chapter. The writing, which is cribbed from a number of dubious sources and reads like a poorly written airport novel, chokes me. A friend of mine told me while the book is poorly written, the movie is not so bad that it deserves the critical mauling it has already experienced in some quarters, which may be explained by a Da Vinci Code backlash from a media that has been saturated with Dan Brown's novel for years. He kindly cajoles me to at least finish reading the book so I won't miss anything in the movie, which adheres to the novel's montage--style, convoluted plot a little too closely for fear of alienating the hardcore fans, but inevitably allows some of Dan Brown's poor writing to pervade. Anyway, I'll do my best to finish the race, I promise.
As I'm writing this post, my iPod shuffle plays:
347/785 All I Have To Do Is Dream - The Everly Brothers
348/785 The Way You Look At Me - Christian Bautista
349/785 You're Beautiful - James Blunt
350/785 Almost Over You - Sheena Easton
351/785 Bad Day - Daniel Powter
352/785 The One You Love - Glenn Frey
353/785 Wake Me Up When September Ends - Green Day
354/785 You And Me - Lifehouse
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