29.01.2025 (1): Matchmaking & Reading
Jan. 29th, 2025 09:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sunshowerdandelionI got matched today to a partner-candidate my parents selected. They (my parents) are hoping for a wedding. They (partner-candidate) aren't someone I'm 100% sure on... and I don't think I'm a marrying sort of person, even beyond the sexuality thing. I'm willing to be good friends with them though, they seem interesting.
However after the above happened, I read A Little Life and found it rather compelling. The author designs really nice, neat, measured paragraphs, and the passages are so pretty! I'm at Willem's introduction and while I felt Willem himself to be a bit too angelic for my tastes, I really liked the cohesiveness of the whole package.
I also felt very impelled to write as I read the book. That's always a good sign for me, when I get so impressed and admiring that I jump at the opportunity to write. It's a feeling I haven't had in some time, because the books I've read have mostly been very impressive but technically difficult (The Sea, The Sea) or very slow character studies (A Closed Eye) which don't fit with what I'm writing currently. But A Little Life with the perfectly placed parentheticals and the strong rhythm feels doable for me, in my style, that I'm reminded of what I can do right now with my writing.
I think I'm learning again my long-ago lesson to add substance, depth, volume, patience to my works. Sometimes I write very glancingly.
Other than that I think I really like the experience of reading a long book. Of course, this is informed by my very substantial, long holiday, where I've gotten a nice patch of solitude, and plenty of rest. But beyond that, there's the security of knowing that there's a lot of reading left, that I'll get to know these people very well. I have heard about the bleakness of A Little Life but I think, after the astringency of Charles Arrowby, and Harriet's long progress through her slowly-boiling hell, I'm ready to read about these four guys being extremely miserable. Today was a good day.
However after the above happened, I read A Little Life and found it rather compelling. The author designs really nice, neat, measured paragraphs, and the passages are so pretty! I'm at Willem's introduction and while I felt Willem himself to be a bit too angelic for my tastes, I really liked the cohesiveness of the whole package.
I also felt very impelled to write as I read the book. That's always a good sign for me, when I get so impressed and admiring that I jump at the opportunity to write. It's a feeling I haven't had in some time, because the books I've read have mostly been very impressive but technically difficult (The Sea, The Sea) or very slow character studies (A Closed Eye) which don't fit with what I'm writing currently. But A Little Life with the perfectly placed parentheticals and the strong rhythm feels doable for me, in my style, that I'm reminded of what I can do right now with my writing.
I think I'm learning again my long-ago lesson to add substance, depth, volume, patience to my works. Sometimes I write very glancingly.
Other than that I think I really like the experience of reading a long book. Of course, this is informed by my very substantial, long holiday, where I've gotten a nice patch of solitude, and plenty of rest. But beyond that, there's the security of knowing that there's a lot of reading left, that I'll get to know these people very well. I have heard about the bleakness of A Little Life but I think, after the astringency of Charles Arrowby, and Harriet's long progress through her slowly-boiling hell, I'm ready to read about these four guys being extremely miserable. Today was a good day.
