(no subject)

[cblj_backup]

Athenos was giving out Greek yoghurt in downtown again this yesterday. I've decided I really like Athenos yoghurt; it's rich, it comes with jam you can stir into it, and they keep giving it to me for free.

Talking of free, a quick note that couldn't wait until Radio Free Monday -- jonaht tipped me off that this Earth Day, the 23rd, Lowes home improvement stores are giving away a million trees -- I couldn't find a whole lot of detail but apparently you just swing by a Lowes and grab a sapling. Those of you blessed with yards and concerned with shade and oxygenation may wish to partake, if you've got a Lowes in the area.

Now that I've given up on The Black Swan, I've been oscillating between The Vesuvius Club on the train and The Sea Wolf (unabridged audiobook) while walking/working at home. I first read The Sea Wolf when I was fourteen, I think, and loved the hell out of it. I understood probably only about half of it; over the years I re-read it probably a dozen times and figured out a bit more each time. But the last time I read it I was twenty-two, so almost ten years ago.

Man he does talk some shit, doesn't he? I think it'd be about half as long if he'd had a more active editor. It's almost farcical, the way he sidelines to spend a couple of pages describing Wolf Larssen's eyes. I always thought I liked it in spite of the purple prose, but I'm not sure I realised just how much of the book is purple prose to start with.

I still can't pull myself away from it. I love the story of Hump's transformation, and all the little dramas on the Ghost, and the weirdly chaste but totally sexual way Hump and Larsen continually interact. I keep trying to puzzle out if London meant to make the whole book as blatantly homoerotic as he did, given a) he spent quite a lot of time on a Pacific Rim sealer but b) he's weirdly insistent on chastity in all-male society and also heteronormative relationships (specifically the influence of woman on man) as "civilising". I just can't decide.

It's not a book I would ever recommend to someone who I thought might judge my taste in literature, because by modern standards it's not a very well-written book. But I do love it despite its many flaws.

Comments

[stasia]

This is the odd thing - she's lactose intolerant and has PA and I know for a fact that she's been told off honey (which she bemoans every time I see her in person (which isn't that often, given she's in Newcastle Upon Tyne and I'm in Alameda, CA, most of the time)), and I'm not sure either what the connection is.

I'll ask her, this Sunday, when my partner makes his weekly call home. It's confused me for a while.

Stasia

ETA: It's something to do with autoimmune responses. I'll find out more, promise!