My About-Faces

Today appears to have been a day for coming around. (Aside: you'd think I never did anything but read. I won't claim I get a lot done, but I really only read about 10 pages total of anything today.)

I'm really enjoying Small Gods. I still don't think it's as funny as I'm supposed to think Terry Pratchett is, but it doesn't need to be funny because it's, well, good. There are a lot of cute British little puns (a foreign country named Djelibaybi, for example), which are not actually offensive, but are somewhat distracting from what is an interesting story about a slow person from an oppressive religious regime seeing a little more of the world and beginning to wonder. This is amusingly set off by his god, in the form of a talking tortoise whom only the main character can hear, barking sardonic commentary and impatient orders at him. In sum, I like this book a lot.

And Exodus is coming along, as well. I think I'm going to have to pick a day and just read on into it for a few hours to really get into it, but I can see the raw materials there. There are quite a few characters to follow--even just in the part I'm on; I understand it will flash back in time after a while--and until you start to get to know them, this is always distracting. Plus, I have to say that I'm not getting a great picture of what Cyprus looks like, so the place names that seem so important as they're driving from one town past a small city and to a mountain really mean absolutely nothing to me. I can barely even picture it, and any picture I have is based on what Greece looks like. That's a fair guess for Cyprus, I guess, but I have to keep reminding myself that I really should be picturing, say the less populated parts of Mykonos, rather than Santorini (most photographed volcanic island in the world, not typical even of rocky Mediterranean islands).

So, things are coming along. This will not be a high volume month, but if I manage to read all 550 pages of Exodus, plus a couple of these kids' books and Small Gods, I'll be doing my part.

Oh, and all those library books! Those too! God that's satisfying.