2002-01-31
Finished The Corrections, posted at 10:44 a.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com I don't think I mentioned it earlier, but I finished Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections on Monday night. I'm proud of myself for getting through a 551-page book, and mostly loved it. I ended up loving the first half, thinking it went a little downhill in the middle (hated the parts on the cruise, hated the parts that took place in the middle-east with Chip), but that it got really good again at the end.Franzen had a way of making Enid, a character I hated at first, become the character I enjoyed the most. She was so dynamic. I loved the last page of the book, where she says the she's 75, and her life is going to be lived a lot differently from there on out.
All the characters seemed so real to me, which is why I enjoyed the book. I could never get sick of Franzen's writing style - his use of metaphors, the subtle humor he puts in there, the finely-etched characters... I'm going to seek out other stuff he's written. He gets a little long-winded at time, but overall I really enjoyed the book.
One of the things I'm most excited about the new semester is my silent reading Wednesdays, during which I'm going to spend 30 minutes of classtime letting (making) the students read silently. I'm going to model it appropriately, and am going to spend it reading a non-school book. The next book I'm going to read is The Baseball Coaching Bible, since the season starts a month from tomorrow. Oy. I haven't played baseball since high school.
Today is going just as good as yesterday. The kids are so quiet and well-behaved, and I'm remaining consistently hard-ass.
Current CD wish list: The Strokes, Macy Gray's new one (I heard the song "Get Your Freak On" on MTV, and loved it. Critics be damned. Actually, it's gotten good reviews overall), and Mary Lou Lord's Live City Sounds (recorded in a Boston subway). I bought the soundtrack to I Am Sam and think it's good, especially the Eddie Vedder, Aimee Mann, and Heather Nova tracks.