Too much sleep, the wrong illustrations, and nippy fingers

You must excuse me for I am somewhat stunned by sleep. I stayed up till the wee small hours reading, before realising that I did actually have to get up the next morning, so had, perhaps, better get some shut-eye. I was awoken violently by a staggering combination of my mobile phone alarm bleeping malevolently at me and John Humphries having some sort of verbal altercation with Patricia Hewitt (I had apparently fallen asleep with the radio on). This aural assault was quickly followed by Alice - one of my two staggeringly beautiful black cats - leaping upon my stomach and purring at me.

I am still not quite awake, despite the bountious quantities of uber-strong coffee I have imbibed. I feel vaguely like I've been slapped about the face with a large, wet fish, a la Monty Python. Anyway, this is all a disclaimer in case I don't seem quite on the ball this morning. The more uncharitable amongst you will be questioning whether I'm _ever_ on the ball, to which I say PAH! This is my blog and I shall ramble if I want to. Oh god, what am I talking about?

Books! I finally finished the majestic Jane Eyre last night. You don't need me to explain how wonderful it is, I'm sure. It suffices to say that it is one of those rare novels that I can read an infinite number of times without tiring of it. In fact, in my slightly ecstatic state on finishing it I briefly considered going back and immediately starting it again until I remembered just how many books I've had sitting waiting patiently for my attentions while I have been wallowing in the world of Jane, Rochester, Bertha, the family Rivers and Thornfield Hall. I will return to you Jane, I promise, but I have other things to read first.

My opinion on the illustrated edition that I've been reading remains unchanged. The illustrator, an American comic book artist by the name of Dame Darcy, calls herself - randomly - a "neo-Victorian", and obviously loves the novel. But... she seems to miss the point SO MANY TIMES with her illustrations that I found myself questioning both her ability to remember what she's drawn before (Pilot the dog changes colour from one drawing to the next), and to actually restrain her imagination and draw what it says in the book. For example, as I said before, why put Jane on the front cover in front of a burning mansion when Jane doesn't see the Thornfield fire at all but only finds out about it months later? Why do that? It's such an elementary error that I don't know who to blame more... DD for drawing it, or the publishers for not picking her up on it.

I like the idea of illustrated editions of books, and Jane Eyre is ripe with possibility for such a product. Even doing a gothic-y one is not a bad idea in itself because there is so much in the novel that does fall under the literary definition of The Gothic, but please, GET IT RIGHT. This edition could have been amazing, but instead, it was just irritating. And what is with the photo of the illustrator on the back cover? Such pretentiousness. Why did I buy it in the first place? Because I hoped that the cover wasn't an indicator of what lay inside (and I had book tokens to use up). Do I wish I hadn't bought it? Pretty much.

But finish it I did. And then I moved on to another book, wildly different to Charlotte Bronte's. Wanting to read something completely removed from the Victorian, I picked up Negative Space by Zoe Strachan, which I picked up ages ago after adoring her last novel, Spin Cycle. It is her first novel, and is so far largely set between the West End of Glasgow and Kilmarnock. I'm not terribly far into it, but so far it's shaping up to be at least comparable to Spin Cycle, which was one of my favourite novels of 2004. Strachan has a lovely way with imagery - in the very first paragraph she describes someone who has just woken up as looking like a "half-shut knife". I thought that worked beautifully. It's also looking like a very quick read, so no doubt I'll have a fuller report up here soon.

But for now I'm stopping here. I have been somewhat obsessively playing my recently-bought electric guitar, and I have been learning to play leady things. This, I confess, suits me far better because I'm a cellist, and playing one note at a time comes more naturally than contorting my hand into weird shapes. :) Thing is, it doesn't half make the old fingers nip when the callouses fall off...

***AN UPDATE***

Boyfriend tells me that "half-shut knife" is a recognised Ayrshire-ism. This I did not know. Probably because I'm not from Ayrshire, and he is. Ho hum. Still love the image though, and will be shamelessly nicking it for my own use.

Comments

[Katy]

I'm afraid Boyfriend is indeed correct - although I'm not sure that it's necessarily an Ayreshire-ism - my Mum uses it a lot and she's from Dundee! Good phrase though!

[Kirsty]

I stand corrected.

So in fact, what we're saying here is that everyone on the face of the known universe knows this phrase, apart from me.

Ah well. :)