I took Girlchild to the Germaine Greer lecture on Jane Austen on Wednesday night. It was part of the Jane Austen and Comedy conference organised by Laura. I’d expected to have to drag this Millenial along under gentle duress, eyes rolling, in the hope that she might be intrigued in spite of expectations, and […]

Emma Larkin is an American journalist and writer who has visited Burma several times since the 1990s. Finding George Orwell in Burma (first published in 2004) is a travelogue of Larkin’s visit there to follow in the footsteps of Orwell, visit the places where he lived and worked, and even find traces of his extended […]

AS much as I didn’t like Blindness, the book we did as a sort of book-club thing over the past few weeks, I enjoyed writing about it and hearing other people’s views on it, and generally taking a bit more time over the whole thing.  So I’m perfectly happy to do it all again with […]

I’ve been thinking about the book ever since I finished it and always find myself trying to give it the benefit of the doubt, but at the end of the day, I can’t. I didn’t enjoy it or think it had much to recommend it. I make allowances for the fact that I […]

 Let me start with a spoiler alert.  Now….
I wouldn’t say that I was getting bored with the book, but it wasn’t doing much for me. As I’ve said previously, I was unconvinced by its allegorical approach and thought it was hiding behind that as an excuse for poor character development and crappy representation of […]

The next section of the book I’ll talk about, still fairly early in the piece, has been one of my favourite parts. I must admit to getting a bit lost as to what was going on in the ward, mainly in regard to how many blind internees were present, but the author thoughtfully clears […]

I managed to lose my copy of Blindness for most of the week - left it in a park near our house. Went back when I realised, four days later, and it was still there. Could be the ultimate review, I guess. Anyway, no post on that today, but will next week […]

It’s been a good week for schadenfreude. Let’s just skip over the numerous opportunities for it in the political or economic news this week; it’s the corporate comeuppances that have me chortling evilly into my glass of quaffing red.
Example 1: A mighty toy company which produces vast quantities of crappy, plastic toys, which are rarely […]

As I said last week, I’m taking it slow, not jumping too far ahead at any given moment. If I’m going too slow, let me know.
So we left it last week with the beginnings of the blindness epidemic and the government of the unnamed country forcing those afflicted into isolation in an abandoned mental […]

I’m not nearly as far advanced with the book as I hoped to be, so apologies if you’re way ahead of me. For those who haven’t started at all but would still like to participate, just be aware that some of the discussion will inevitably involve “spoilers”, though none of what I’m about to […]