That escalated quickly ...

[vamp_reads]

This is how you lose the time war came and went. I had looked forward to cozying up on the couch with a hot beverage, at least one cat and my favourite blanket to start this novel. I called it quits at page fifty due to the German translation. If a publishing company isn't able to use proper German grammar (in this case the generisches Maskulinum) then I'm out and that means I won't read this month's bookclub_dw book after all. I first thought about pausing instead of DNFing this book and starting over with the original at some point, but if I'm honest with myself I must say the plot didn't excite me enough to come back to this. The language was interesting and the ideas and ruminations on time and different strands of time had merit (even though I'd argue that won't carry over the whole length of the novel). But the two protagonists Blue and Red read absolutely the same, so I can't say this made much sense to me narration-wise.

So, surprise - I suddenly find myself with the next book on this month's pile, which is Long Island by Colm Tóibín. I only noticed belatedly that this is a sequel, but those are the joys of being a library user. The prequel to this would be Brooklyn and my library doesn't shelf this book. Pity. Anyway, I'm only 30 pages in and I'm already loving it. If it goes on in this vein I think I've discovered a new author to follow. Which would be great, of course! I checked Tóibín's Wikipedia entry (because I tentatively think I need to educate myself more on the authors I read) and two things stood out to me:

Tóibín is gay.

And ...

Tóibín has written gay sex into several novels, and Brooklyn contains a heterosexual sex scene in which the heroine loses her virginity.

Okay, I guess? It's very a propos ... that he is gay is the first sentence in the section on his personal life, followed by info on his partner. Why not simply delete the gay part and leave it at mentioning the partner? It just reads weird this way. And the second one is simply hilarious to me. Congrats! Tóibin has written sex scenes in his books. Like literally thousands of other writers. LOL.

Also, started Danger from Deer - I've now found out that this was actually originally written in English and later translated into German. It's a bit convoluted plot-wise, which isn't helped by the fact that the narrator of the audiobook isn't doing much with (or for) the material, but I love the tone and the conniving main character. So let's see where this goes.

In other news ... my Bantam New Hampshire hens (born this April) are starting to lay eggs. Aren't they super-cute? And just in case you have difficulty putting those eggs in persepctive, I weighed them. They're around 25g each. Usually, when young hens start laying eggs, they start small. So it's all good!

Comments

[rocky41_7]

Honestly, I don't think you missed TOO much with "Time War." It's got some lush prose but personally I found it lacking in depth. Still, that's so disappointing to hear about the translation >.> Something like that can definitely ruin an otherwise fine read.

[vamp_reads]

From the fifty pages I read I'm inclined to agree with you. Pretty prose, but the prose didn't really point towards anything - at least at that point. I found the descriptions of the strands of time interesting and the concept of having a war going on to make sure different things happened in the way that was advantageous to you. But at the point where I stopped this wasn't realised beyond a mere concept, so it all read pretty vague.