Teaser Tuesday: Third Girl

I'm just finishing this novel of Agatha Christie's from the 1960s. The novel features one of her most famous and beloved characters, Poirot. Christie herself was less than favorably inclined toward her detective. In fact, this novel offers many sly references toward his arrogance, absurdity, and the fact that he may be over the hill. Here is one of those references from the second chapter:

"Who told this girl about you, Monsieur Poirot?"
"No one as far as I know. Naturally, she had heard about me, no doubt."
Mrs. Oliver thought that "naturally" was not the word at all. What was natural was that Poirot himself was sure that everyone had always heard of him. Actually large numbers of people would only look at you blankly if the name Hercules Poirot was mentioned, especially the younger generation.

I'm working my way through quite a few mysteries this summer and gaining more insights into the genre and how my stories will fit into it.

Teaser Tuesday: The Children's Book

I'm elbow deep in A.S. Byatt's recent novel. The story begins in the 1890s and surrounds the Wellwoods, their family, and friends. Olive Wellwood is a children's book author whose son finds a runaway named Philip in a museum basement on a trip to the city. Thus, the story is set into motion. Byatt paints a landscape of artists, revolutionaries, and dreamers, their lives intertwining and changing at the turn of the century. Teaser:

The Palace of Electricity was set about with warnings. Grande Danger de Mort. It was death without tooth, claw or crushing. An invisible death, part of an invisible animating force, the new thing in the new century.
page 355

I'm enjoying this novel better than her Possession. Though it can be a bit slow at moments, it is an enjoyable pace. Instead of sprinting toward the next action of the plot, Byatt allows the reader to stroll-- drinking in detail and getting to know the characters' internal life along the way.

Teaser Tuesday: Sons and Lovers

It's slow going through Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence. Here's an interesting passage from the end of the first chapter (page 26 in my edition):

Mrs. Morel knew him too well to look at him. As she unfastened her brooch at the mirror, she smiled faintly to see her face all smeared with the yellow dust of lilies. She brushed it off, and lay down. For some time her mind continued snapping and jetting sparks, but she was asleep before her husband awoke from the first sleep of his drunkenness.

I'm comparing Gertrude Morel to Connie Chatterley of Lady Chatterley's Lover as I read- I've read excerpts of L.C.L. before. It's interesting that Lawrence seems so fascinated by marriage from a woman's point of view, especially about a woman's view on a bad marriage. A theme of going into marriage with one set of expectations and finding disappointment in marriage, in the person you thought you loved pervades his text. Lawrence is quite obsessed with these ideas as a matter of fact. He also plays a lot with class and the lifestyles of an emerging, industrial workforce and that of the somewhat antiquated nobility and the upper class in general.

Etsy is Eating Away at My Life

...and I haven't even had a sale in over a month.
I was inducted into a team and have to do my required blogging for them. I like being on a team though, hopefully sales will pick up soon now that I am further networking.
Several new projects are in the works, but I have had time to get a ways into Possession by A.S Byatt. I tried it in the spring, but couldn't get into it. Maybe it is the slightest breath of autumn in the air that makes me in a better mindset, but I'm getting into it now. A.S. Byatt's use of language is beautiful, but the book is a bit of a collage of many different elements: letters, poems, fairy tales all add to the overall narrative. Sometimes I do find myself wishing the story would return to the primary narrative that I am interested in hearing more about.
And yes, I missed Teaser Tuesday... that makes this Woeful Wednesday.

Teaser Tuesday

I am never around to do Teaser Tuesday, so I thought I'd do one today while I'm here.
It is from White Noise by Don DeLillo the end of the sixth chapter.

"All plots tend to move deathward. This is the nature of plots. Political plots, terrorist plots, lovers' plots, narrative plots, plots that are part of children's games. We edge nearer death every time we plot. It is like a contract that all must sign, the plotters as well as those who are the targets of the plot."
Is this true? Why did I say it? What does it mean?

I'm only 70 odd pages in, but it's very intriguing. It's the first book I'm tackling from my summer reading list. I'll post a review when I'm finished. This novel has been recommended to me by several people and according to his address at the media conference in March, Terry Moran was a fan of DeLillo's back in the 80s. I'm not sure if he still is, he didn't say.
My friend Lynn over at Books, Ink, and Yarn is admirer of the book as well.

Teaser Tuesday

I almost forgot, Tuesdays are a bit crazy; work, newspaper nonsense, rehearsals. Even though I am in the midst of two novels, I have been mostly reading poems by Keats and short stories by Hemingway the past few days.

"Everything tastes of liorice. Especially all the things you've waited so long for, like absinthe."
-The girl, "Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway

"...I have been half in love with easeful death,
Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath...."
-Stanza VI of "Ode to a Nightingale" by John Keats

There will be a review of Bright Star as well as another novel for my What's in a Name? Challenge next week.

Teaser Tuesday

I always forget to do this. Since I am currently reading two novels I will find a random teaser from both. I must seriously buckle down on my reading. Daydreaming, friends, and television have been distracting me. The latter makes me most ashamed.

"Of course I shall tell mamma: that is the very thing that pleases me so much. I shall now be able to convince her how mistaken she was in her fears about me."
-Miss Murray, Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte

"Through the gateways we passed into the avenue, where the wheels were again hushed amid the leaves, and the old trees shot their branches in a somber tunnel over our heads. Baskerville shuddered as he looked up the long, dark drive to where the house glimmered like a ghost at the farther end."
-The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Happy reading!