Patagoniacs

Chasing waves !

http://www.amywaeschle.com/ Seen on The Cleanest Line. 

I hate bad ends

Yes, I hate bad ends. Nothing new you will say, or think, and I am not very original by saying that, but the fact is that I've been reading 2 books and both of them had bad ends. 

When I say bad, it does not mean that it was not a happy end or something like that. It was bad because it looked like the authors stopped writing their book in a hurry to give him to their editors and just put a point to the story, with a lot of pending questions or just the laziness to go deeper in their thought. 

Some may call that "suspens", other will say that it lets the reader think about the options, and reinvent the story and the aftermaths of the climax and anticlimax. 

But I hate that. 

Hopefully, the first story of "Killer Koala" was fun and the end was good. Alcool and snakes don't go well together ! 

L'étreinte fraternelle du samouraï

Sorry for the non French speaking readers, but I couldn't resist this morning to mention this : "l'étreinte fraternelle du samouraï"

If you want to understand why I wanted to mention this, then read the last book of Amelie Nothomb : "Ni d'Eve, ni d'Adam".

Easy and quick to read, and nice.

For the crazy impatient people who do not want to read the book and want to directly read the part I am speaking about, go there. But honestly, you'd better read the beok.

Books and universal conscious !

Strange feeling this morning that life is made of several feelings which, despite the deep impression that each people experience their own feelings, are exactly the same for everybody. Books tend to be the link showing that behind each story, different and unique for everybody, the life experience, love, hate, smile, courage, ... notions are  universal and universally shared.
To be honest, till few years I used to read "useful" books, that is to say, books in which you learn about a subject (politics, economy, surf ...). Very few romans.
Now, I take time to read pure useless books :-) and what stroke me is how parts of our life can be so well described in stories which look, at first, very far away from our daily life.

That's it !

I finished to read "une gourmandise" yesterday evening. That's a very good book. To be honest, not as strong as "l'elegance du herisson", but very good book.
The 2 stories are linked altogether. The style is definitely good (from my point of view, but I am not a specialist). I would say accurate. Complicate but beautiful words when need be, and very simple words and sentences sometimes.
Also, a lot of discretion, a lot of suggested situations, ideas, stories, just to let the reader's spirit travel around, imagine what the cake looks like, smell the flowers, kiss a lady.
I am really happy I have discovered this author, Muriel Barbery.
To be fully honest, I did not discovered it alone. A friend of mine, Joe, spoke to me about this book. But, Joe hadn't read this book at this time. So I was the cobaye.
I would like to say many thanks to Joe, without his first words about this book I wouldn't have bought it and read it. Thank you very much.

Sun Day

After "Saturday", comes ... "une Gourmandise" !
Nice start, seems to be the same pleasure than "L'élégance du hérisson". I did not  wanted to finish "L'élégance du hérisson" I wanted to be able to read it again and again, as a no ending story, but the end came finally, and what end !!!
And now, with "une Gourmandise", it's as if I have taken a parallel road to L'elegance ... , continuing the story, ending the global view of it.
That's the first time that an author makes me smile, laugh, think like that. I never think I would ever had felt something like that with a book. It began with "Etoiles" 9 months ago, and it is going on with "une gourmandise".
And cannot resist to point this extract from the book, for French speaking readers ...

Saturday

It's saturday today. I just finished the book of Ian Mc Ewan. Thanks to M. for giving me this book. She was right saying it's a good one.

One day in the life of a man, on life in one day of this man. Intense and quiet. Life, death, kids, love, work, sex, music, poetry, politics, war, Europe, USA ...

Surprising how the author managed to concentrate all this in one book, in one day.

If today, saturday, you do not know what to read, then read "Saturday".

PS : And now, I'm going to start "une gourmandise". Will it be as wonderful as "l'elegance du herisson". For sure I'll tell you.

Sandgames

Looking at the stats of my blog, I saw that the Kidibi album is "popular". When I say popular, it means that there was more than 1 visit in the last 10 years. I was wondering why. And, thanks to the stats system, keywords, etc, I saw that the keyword "sandgames" is responsible for that. I gave this name to one picture of the album .

So, being curious, I looked at the "sandgames" results in google, and found that this is the title of a book : "Sandgames"

And I read here:

SANDGAMES                                         
Poems by MICHELE VASSAL
Winner of the Listowel Writers' Week Poetry Prize 2000. In her first collection, Sandgames, Michele Vassal explores the duality of exile through the fading negatives of memory, exposing them to a light of sexual and religious metaphor. With an artist's sense of contrast and perspective, she chronicles a sensual and cruel reality where displacement and belonging coalesce into an intricate but singular vision.

About the Author                   
In the late seventies, Michele Vassal left her hometown of  Barcelonnette, in the Alpes de Haute-Provence and moved to Dublin. She is now living and writing in Kenmare, County Kerry, with her family and their five cats. Though French is her first language, she prefers writing in English. Her poems have been published in numerous journals and anthologies in Ireland and in the U.S. She received first prize at the 1999 Listowel Writers' Week for this collection of poetry.

The author is from Barcelonnette, a very nice place where I spent several months, skiing, climbing, running, years ago. She is French but she prefers writing in English, and I dare say "like me for this blog" :-)

I just find some coincidences, it's amazing, funny. I think I know what will be my next book, after "samedi" and "une gourmandise" (see "currently reading" on the right column).

Private Joke

A funny picture from Leroy Grannis in his book (Leroy Grannis: Surf Photography of the 1960s and 1970s).
And also a private joke ...
(hum, j'me comprends)
:-)

Surprise !

You can wait a long time for others to offer you some surprises, but you can also create yourself your own surprises. That's exactly what I did, and not on purpose ... The right components to organize a surprise for yourself were in this case : Leaving home for more than one week. Order something you really wanted since months. Be sure you have a lot of work so you'll forget about the non-working things you've done in the past 48 hours.

How to proceed :
Just when you arrive in your temporary destination, jump on any of your prefered online shop.
Buy online your items.
Forget about it, and do not track the mails to confirm the order.
Work hard.
Go back home (or in one of your homes ...).

Then finally it gives a welcome back home with Leroy Grannis: Surf Photography of the 1960s and 1970s, and with "Une Gourmandise" - Muriel Barbery.

The Leroy Grannis book is great, beautiful, a true trip in the past, in the 60's and the 70's. I have not ended yet to look at all the pictures, I prefer looking a little bit everyday, reading some of the texts, feeling the water in the board and on the Katin trunks ... I have not ordered the Leroy Grannis $2,000 edition, I prefer buying 2 boards for this price ... But the $ 26 edition looks fine, believe me. 

For "Une Gourmandise" - Muriel Barbery, I need first to end the current book I am reading, but, given my past reading of  "L'elegance du herisson" - Muriel Barbery, I think this will be a good moment to spend with a very good author.