I haven’t blogged much lately about what I’ve been reading. I finished The Painted Veil and it was interesting. Not what I expected (but that was mostly going by the previews of the movie). I’ve never read Maugham before; he had some interesting phrasing. The prepositional phrases always seemed to be in odd parts of the sentence, really not where you were expecting them. It actually forced me to slow down when reading, which is good. On a first read, I usually go pretty fast because I want to see what happens next! Slowing down allows you to get more out of the story.
I’ve also been reading lots of journal articles about Gothic fiction. I’m tempted to sign up for NaNoWriMo this year. If I do, I want to write something with a gothic feel to it. I was going to read Jane Eyre again, but decided the better bet was to learn more about the Gothic novel instead. That’s one of the (few) benefits of working on a public university campus. Lots of good resources electronically and access to millions of volumes via interlibrary loan. I’m currently working my way through Romance and the Erotics of Property. Looks like it’s a Marxist and Feminist criticism of modern romance novels; but there’s some history as well, so it may help a little.
I don’t know: 50,000 words in 30 days sounds pretty scary. Anyone else attempting it this year?
I’m thinking about it. I made a serious attempt last year, but didn’t quite pull it off–maybe practice makes perfect?
That was before I read your post about knitting a sweater that month too. Since I still can’t type and knit, I may have to pick just one!
[…] 15th, 2007 by Susan So I’m still considering ideas for NaNoWriMo. As I mentioned in a previous post, I definitely want to do something gothic. It’s set in modern day, probably either in a […]