mmoa_writes

...Nigeria. 

I have to admit this was the first trip that I felt genuinely sad to be returning to England. It helped that for the first time in living memory, a lack of family feuding meant we got to meet with a lot more of the family - particularly those of our own age - and that I actually got to do the sort of things that count as a 'good time' for me (museums, theatres and the like). Admittedly, considering we were there for a month and a bit, I didn't do nearly enough to make up for missing this Summer's Art festival in Manchester, but it was a start. Now that the main problems have been smoothed over, the next time we go, I'll be seeing a lot more, hopefully. And learning a lot more as well.

( Impressions )

One for the lols: http://www.newsbiscuit.com/

We travelled so much over the course of the holiday. I loved it, but my siblings didn't appreciate the heat (one afternoon in Onitsha market was actually insane. Everyone - including my aunt - was just excreting gallons of the stuff. It looked like we'd been caught in the rain which for Onitsha, is actually just as likely).

Starting from the furthest (erm... to Lagos), ( Read more... )

I'm actually quite pleased with how my reading went over the summer. Alright, so I didn't actually finish any of the books that I was reading for the first time (apart from 'A Sentimental Journey', but that was short) and I left the Aristotle completely untouched, but I managed to read some of a theology book for the first time ever and lots of Conrad who - even with Achebe's disapproval - I think is one of the best writers of his age. The theology was titled 'Honest to God' by John AT Robinson and is the sort of book you begin hating the author for, if only because they seem to completely agree with you (and if you're me, you take that as a negative). Maybe that's why I haven't finished reading it.

What I did seem to get really into were all the books I'd read before, 'Gormenghast' by Mervyn Peake and the entire output of Tamora Pierce. I had plans, for some reason, to leave Gormenghast in Nigeria as the cornerstone of my library but between seeing the damage the alliance between the cockroach and moth can do, and just why I loved it so, I decided against it. The language is so beautiful, it makes me want to read dictionaries and study Latin so I can make up whole new words. Reading through my novel so far made me want to weep at how thin my own writing is and yet how even if I tried to fatten it up, I could never achieve Peake's balance between the grandiose and the gothic macabre. It's very frustrating.

As for Tamora Pierce, well, I found her frustrating in many other ways.

( Let me give thee the reasons why... )

So, in short, the only downside to Pierce is, being such an intelligent writer, she invites you to be an intelligent reader which can sometimes be a bit of a headache. As a fan, it's even worse because one starts reading her interviews and realising the intentions she has for her writing, some realised and others a little bit insulting - there's an uncomfortable number of male gay characters, both major and minor, who end up evil or dead or both and it would have been nice to have an extremely femme lesbian as a main character for once (I think we're rather used to the near stereotype of muscly girls who eat a lot, but I suppose it wouldn't have been so bad if I'd been a Daja fan before). I suppose I'm just one of those terminally unsatisfied readers *shrugs*.