Monday, June 14, 2004
Bowling & Reading
That's pretty much what my weekend consisted of.
On Saturday, I went to a birthday party for a friend from work, where I spent most of the afternoon hanging out with a bunch of married couples. I was literally the only single person in attendance for the first half of the party. That was kind of interesting. After the afternoon of snacking & playing games, we headed to Palo Alto for bowling...with the lights out and the disco ball and blacklights on. Very fun.
I must say that I am proud of myself for going bowling and enjoying it. Usually, I hate bowling because I really, really suck at it. My scores were 44 and 67...look at how I improved! I did not, however, win the prize for lowest score of the evening. If there had been a prize for most entertaining bowling style, it would have certainly gone to Anne. More fun to watch than words can describe. =)
And as to the reading...
I finished reading Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, and I really enjoyed it. I was worried that it would be cartoonish, more of a spoof. It isn't. It's much more serious and really pretty good. There was a focus on art that I didn't expect, and I liked the way Maguire used the artist and the paintings in the tale to mirror the obvious themes of beauty and appearance. The theme of art and the Dutch setting reminded me--oddly enough--of Vreeland's Girl in Hyacinth Blue and Chevalier's Girl with a Pearl Earring.
I also started reading Purple Hibiscus and I'm loving it. Powell's had a review of it a while back, and it caught my eye, so when I came across it at the library last week, I had to check it out. On Saturday, there were times when the conversation lagged, and I found myself thinking longingly of Purple Hibiscus and wishing I could be reading it at that moment.
It's narrated by a young girl whose father is an obsessively strict Catholic. He holds the family to impossibly high religious, academic, and personal standards. The father refuses to associate with "heathens"--a category which includes his father. The book reminds me a lot of Achebe's Things Fall Apart--it echoes a lot of the same themes, exploring the conflict between Christianity and the Igbo culture and traditions--but it's told from the opposite perspective. It's making me want to re-read Things Fall Apart. Though I don't agree with some of the undertones that suggest all religions are equally valid, this is an excellent book and offers a lot of material worth exploring.
On Saturday, I went to a birthday party for a friend from work, where I spent most of the afternoon hanging out with a bunch of married couples. I was literally the only single person in attendance for the first half of the party. That was kind of interesting. After the afternoon of snacking & playing games, we headed to Palo Alto for bowling...with the lights out and the disco ball and blacklights on. Very fun.
I must say that I am proud of myself for going bowling and enjoying it. Usually, I hate bowling because I really, really suck at it. My scores were 44 and 67...look at how I improved! I did not, however, win the prize for lowest score of the evening. If there had been a prize for most entertaining bowling style, it would have certainly gone to Anne. More fun to watch than words can describe. =)
And as to the reading...
I finished reading Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, and I really enjoyed it. I was worried that it would be cartoonish, more of a spoof. It isn't. It's much more serious and really pretty good. There was a focus on art that I didn't expect, and I liked the way Maguire used the artist and the paintings in the tale to mirror the obvious themes of beauty and appearance. The theme of art and the Dutch setting reminded me--oddly enough--of Vreeland's Girl in Hyacinth Blue and Chevalier's Girl with a Pearl Earring.
I also started reading Purple Hibiscus and I'm loving it. Powell's had a review of it a while back, and it caught my eye, so when I came across it at the library last week, I had to check it out. On Saturday, there were times when the conversation lagged, and I found myself thinking longingly of Purple Hibiscus and wishing I could be reading it at that moment.
It's narrated by a young girl whose father is an obsessively strict Catholic. He holds the family to impossibly high religious, academic, and personal standards. The father refuses to associate with "heathens"--a category which includes his father. The book reminds me a lot of Achebe's Things Fall Apart--it echoes a lot of the same themes, exploring the conflict between Christianity and the Igbo culture and traditions--but it's told from the opposite perspective. It's making me want to re-read Things Fall Apart. Though I don't agree with some of the undertones that suggest all religions are equally valid, this is an excellent book and offers a lot of material worth exploring.
| posted by Barbara | 11:40 PM