Comments on: Boys with Sheep

By: Lie Detectors and Teenage Girls « writing in the water

Lie Detectors and Teenage Girls « writing in the water — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 06:30:39 +0000

[...] had fallen in love with the boy with sheep back in Catholic school. In the third grade, I ruined a friendship with Susie H. because I kissed a [...]

By: JES

JES — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 09:43:23 +0000

Well shoot. Wish I’d thought of Strange/Norell, too. (And wasn’t that a great book otherwise?) Had a bunch of distractions at work yesterday (how dare they distract me from the Internet?) so all I could think of were movies to answer your question — no other books.

By: mapelba

mapelba — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 01:11:08 +0000

Oh, and JES, the love story between Jonathan Strange and his wife in Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is amazing too. Can’t believe I didn’t think of it first…

Okay, enough of that!

By: mapelba

mapelba — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 21:13:08 +0000

Possession took me a while to get into. At first it annoyed me. But I was in Bulgaria with precious little to read and so I kept reading. Somewhere it turned around for me. But I read another AS Byatt novel–Babel Tower. I really wish I hadn’t. It disturbed me enough that I can’t bring myself to pick up another of her books.

I wrote my Master’s thesis, in part, on Mama Day–and I still love it.

And yes, hanging out with bookish people is often expensive. Just be glad I haven’t published everything I’ve written!

By: JES

JES — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 20:43:25 +0000

I know I’m in the minority on this, but Possession was one of the very, very few books I was completely unable to get through, ever. (Tried 3 times because I kept thinking I must be crazy; everyone whose opinion I respected as readers were nuts about it.)

That said, the love story in it was remarkable, yeah.

Mama Day’s a new one on me. The reviews at Amazon and elsewhere are pretty darned good, though, so I guess it goes into the shopping cart with The Welsh Girl (per Shelly). Hanging out with you people is turning out to be an expensive hobby.

By: mapelba

mapelba — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 20:03:38 +0000

Shelly, it is a trick to get chemistry on the page without it looking like a formula.

JES, I liked Possession by AS Byatt and Mama Day by Gloria Naylor.

By: JES

JES — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 10:40:53 +0000

The Time Traveler’s Wife. Definitely not sickly-sweet. But wow, that book grabbed and shook me for the love story more than for the central conceit.

As soon as I hit the Submit Comment button I know I’ll think of others.

By: mapelba

mapelba — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 02:22:36 +0000

I’m interested. Send me a story.

By: Shelly Lowenkopf

Shelly Lowenkopf — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 02:06:57 +0000

I think your love story with Paul is real. Why is this so? Because of the way you wrote about it, which causes me to remember every girl I was evr in love with and then evry woman. I see guys in fiction saying they’re in love with someone and I believe it until I get the impression it’ only snorting lust. Sometimes it helps to see the impossibility of a fictional love to make it seem real. I could never figure why Gatsby went for daisy, although I accepted it. I sometimes think I could walk into a crowded room and immediately make meaningful eye contact, you know, Romeo/Juliet eye contact with the one woman who’d be the most disastrous (for me) in the room. But thre it is, and two minutes later I’d be doing along the liines of what Romeo did, which was speak the first half of a Shakesperean sonnet to her, then wait for her to deliver the last half.

It is called chemistry in some circles and I largly think that is right; it’s all about what causes the chemistry (organic, of course) to start within.

The answer to your question then is: Every one I loved, everyone I will love, and every one I wrote about where love was the glue. Some day, if you’re interested, I’d send you such a story.

By: The Querulous Squirrel

The Querulous Squirrel — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 00:45:15 +0000

O. Henry The Gift of the Magi.