Impressions

Started reading Bleak House, The Bostonians, The Master by Colm Toibin (sorry about missing the accents!), Killing Orders by Sara Paretsky, Widow's Walk by Robert B. Parker, The Fruit of the Tree and The Age of Innocence, Highland Velvet by Jude Deveraux, Jill Has Two Ponies by Ruby Ferguson, Rumours in the Fourth Form by Dorothy Dennison, and Hard Times.

Finished Killing Orders - read it before anyway.

Finished Jill Has Two Ponies. Know it practically off by heart.

Finished the two Edith Whartons. I know The Age of Innocence pretty well too. Thoroughly enjoyed and was compelled by The Fruit of the Tree, despite my annoyance with Justine Brent's utter stupidity. I love the way Edith Wharton makes her characters pay, all down the years of their lives - I hope Selden is still paying for his treatment of Lily - I love the quiet sadness of her books. But I can see why The Fruit of the Tree is kind of forgotten. The characters just aren't that compelling, and the moral messages are perhaps too stringent, untempered by the savage wit of The Age of Innocence, The Custom of the Country and The House of Mirth. The characters become compelling only when it becomes obvious that Justine is going to kill Bessy, only in that moment - and then they lose their headlong rush.

Finished Highland Velvet too. I first read it ages ago, when I was at school, when I thought romance was good - pretty much unreadable now. Why were they so damned stupid??? How could anybody fancy a man led so completely by his prick?

Rumours in the Fourth Form was one of those by-numbers school stories of pious Christian girls, with everything coming right in the end. No wonder the Chalet School and those Enid Blyton's were so successful - they weren't laden with Sunday School sentiment.

I enjoyed the first two chapters of Bleak House but I'm going to put it aside for Hard Times - Hard Times is shorter. Then my awful bargain will be finished.

I gave up on the Spenser book. Early Spenser I really enjoy. Good stories with interesting moral discussions added and apple-sharp dialogue. This one was all dialogue. Pages and pages of it. It was like some weird experiment. And it was boring.

I like the tangible authenticity of The Bostonians but it's not compelling me yet - possibly because I read the last chapter first. This is a bad habit of mine.

Not convinced by The Master so far. Hate books where the protagonist wakes up. Bad dream, good dream, wtf, boring.