What's with today, today?

Skimming through the internet the other day I came across a reference to a line of startling familiarity, a line that made me realise some first lines stick in your head forever: "Sing Goddess, the rage of Peleus' son Achilles" (funnily enough,  I can never remember the first line proper until I see it, as my friend and I spent much of year 12 Ancient History misquoting it as "rage Achilles, rage on Agamemnon". We were also amused by the fact that 'Xerxes' backwards spelt 'Sexrex'. Yeah, mature I know.) From Homer, The Illiad Ironically, a first line that I find impossible to remember is one of the most recognisable for me. I'm not usually very good at first lines, but there are a few I'd know anywhere... "Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote" My English classes at university drummed this one into me- the first line of Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales'. I think Chaucer is a genius, but this first line is not quite ...

A while ago I wrote about looking for book review blogs- I love reading blogs, I love reading books, and a blog that helps me find new books has got to be a good thing. I've done a bit of wandering in the blogosphere, which has been good, and I has been reflected in my last trip to the library. Here's what I borrowed: The Summer Book by Tove Jansson . I found this here , and was immediately intrigued. Tove Jansson! Writer of Moomintroll! Writing something completely different! It took me a couple of library visits to find it, but I was not disappointed. What a beautiful book. Set on a Finnish island it tells the story of Grandmother and Sophia with a style that is in fact similar to the Moomintroll books, but without the outlandish adventures and therefore allowing the characters more room to shine.  Moominvalley in November by Tove Jansson. Having been reminded of Tove Jansson I couldn't resist borrowing a Moomin book, especially as I'm not sure I've read this o...

Teaser Tuesday As always- meme hosted by Should be Reading . "Sophia was climbing very slowly now, with long pauses between steps, and Grandmother could see she was scared. The old woman stood up too quickly." - p. 47, 'The Summer Book', Tove Jansson

A while ago I read 'Fire in the Blood' by Irene Nemirovsky, then more picked up 'Madame Bovary' by Gustave Flaubert, and thought "this sounds familiar". Not that I am accusing Flaubert of copying a work written about 90 years after his, or Nemirovsky of copying Flaubert. I just noticed that 'Madame Bovary' is subtitled 'Patterns of Provincial Life', and that's what these two books provide- patterns. It's hard to describe the patterns exactly- there's the obvious (watch out there may be spoilers) pattern of infidelity in young French provincial wives, but that sounds a bit broad. There are the large country weddings, the hope of happiness that turns to discontent- or merely marriage as a chance to get away from home. While these patterns repeat themselves between books, and within books in the case of 'Fire in the Blood', I reacted very differently to the two. 'Fire in the Blood' seems all about patterns. The title...

I'm afraid this is going to be a very short post, because while I have a couple of blog post ideas turning over in my head (French provincial women in 'Madame Bovary' and 'Fire in the Blood', 'memento mori' and celebrity) they are as yet only half-formed.  But I just read a blog post on reading books in translation that struck me as particularly true, and reading through this blog so far I am really liking her observations on many book-related things. So you might like to check out  Book Snob . And I will write a proper blog post of my own soon, honest.