The January day was drawing to its close: the increasing chill of evening was nipping the still air and a blood-red sunset was rapidly dying away (Ivan Turgenev)

Wie geht's?

Books read:

• Fathers And Sons (Ivan Turgenev)
• Showdown At Yellow Butte (Louis L'Amour)
• Glory Days: from gumboots to platforms (Dr Glam) 

After dispatching the Louis L'Amour pretty quickly, my appetite for something meatier returned, so into the Turgenev I dived!

Having now finished it, I'm still wondering why it's called Fathers And Sons. 

Although it's clear that Turgenev is making a point about generational differences between youth and the old order - sons replacing fathers, the plot lines are anchored around the sons - Arkady (rather than his father - Nikolai) and Bazarov (rather than his father - Vasily) and their relationships, both with each other and women they come across as they criss cross between various residences.

So, rather than Fathers And Sons, a more honest title would have been Sons, their Woman, and their Fathers. 

Nothing much happens until Bazarov steals a kiss from Nikolai's partner (a servant girl who has a son with Nicolai), witnessed by Nikolai's brother, Pavel. That , of course, given the times, means a duel between Pavel and Bazarov - the only bit of real action in the story so far.

The end of the story is tragic for Bazarov (sorry for the spoiler, but chances are if you haven't read it, it's unlikely to be read now) and happy for Arkady who puts his nihilistic tendencies aside to marry and more-or-less take over his fathers' farm.

Next up: the New Zealand music scene in the seventies - Glory Days: from gumboots to platforms, with our guide Dr Glam (a.k.a. Ian Chapman). Should be a hoot!

Love and peace (from my bubble inside a bubble at Maple Grove) - WNP

Look at him sitting there with his hooter scraping away at that book (Paul's grandad to Ringo in A Hard Day's Night)

Wie geht's?

Books bought:

• Showdown At Yellow Butte (Louis L'Amour)
• David Copperfield (Charles Dickens)
• Fathers And Sons (Turgenev)
• Great Expectations (Charles Dickens)

Books read:

• The Polysyllabic Spree (Nick Hornby)
• David Copperfield (Charles Dickens)
• That Glimpse Of Truth (David Miller)

Deeply ashamed at my failure to buy a book for a while (as reported in the last post) I made it a priority to visit The Little Red Book Shop last week.

Actually, it meant two trips because the first time, when I went midweek, they were 'exceptionally closed' (according to the sign on the door).

I was on a mission to buy some Dickens in particular. That's also a source of shame.

As an English teacher and a lover of literature, I have to come clean and admit that, although I've enjoyed David Lean's films and BBC adaptations, I've never really read any Dickens; A Christmas Carol and that is it. I know! None of the biggies!

From time to time, I've flirted with the idea, but never followed through (when Fran stayed with us a few years ago she was reading a Dickens' novel and I felt a sense of shame then too).

Until the Nick Hornby collection that is, and his devotion to David Copperfield. If it's good enough for you Nick, it's good enough for me!!

Ivan Turgenev's classic was an impulse buy ($3) as I searched for the Dickens. I was sure Nick makes mention of it in The Polysyllabic Spree and regardless - I love stories about fathers and sons.

The Louis L'Amour is there because I couldn't find any Zane Grey and I had a hankering to read a western!

Especially after reading Steven Crane's short story in A Glimpse Of Truth to Jacky. 

The Bride Comes To Yellow Sky has some wonderfully descriptive passages:

The California Express on the Southern Railway was due at Yellow Sky in twenty-one minutes. There were six men at the bar of the Weary Gentleman saloon. One was a drummer who talked a great deal and rapidly; three were Texans who did not care to talk at that time; and two were Mexican sheep-herders who did not talk as a general practice in the Weary Gentleman saloon. The bar-keeper's dog lay on the board-walk that crossed in front of the door. His head was on his paws, and he glanced drowsily here and there with the constant vigilance of a dog that is kicked on occasion. Across the sandy street were some vivid green grass plots, so wonderful in appearance amid the sands that burned near them in a blazing sun that they caused a doubt in the mind. They exactly resembled the grass mats used to represent lawns on the stage. At the cooler end of the railway station a man without a coat sat in a tilted chair and smoked his pipe. The fresh cut bank of the Rio Grande circled near the town, and there could be seen beyond it a great plum-colored plain of mesquite.

Okay - it's back into the David Copperfield for me. Caio for naio.

Love and peace - Wozza