I’ve just finished reading a great little volume by Gerald Durrell. It may be that it only appears to be good after reading so much drivel recently. Certainly Durrell writes good English (something that Dan Brown is unable to do).
This book is a set of short stories set in various times from the thirties to the fifties. Some tell of the farcical misadventures that have befallen the author. One longer one recounts the author’s reading of an occult manuscript.
Title: The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium, Gerald Durrell, Fontana Collins, 1981 (First published 1979)
Just for fun I put the search word ’search’ into Google. Google is listed third in the search results after Altavista and Lycos. Perhaps that proves beyond doubt the fairness with which the rankings are calculated and puts paid to the myth of ’search engine optimisation’.
Bern
Well, I’ve finally waded through all of Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. It took me about three weeks because I just couldn’t pick it up. My initial critique (”abysmal”) which I wrote after reading the first hundred pages or so, still stands. What I don’t understand is why is his work so popular?
I groaned a lot when reading this book. Just about every time I read the word ‘camerlengo’. Why couldn’t he vary it a bit. It means ‘chamberlain’. I groaned every time he made out that the sharpened tip of an obelisk had a pyramid shape (what else) and so had some mystical importance. I groaned whenever some minor or clever device was made out to be horrific, grotesque or absolutely amazing!
Let me chase that last item a little. There is much made about ‘ambigrammatic’ words - basically words that read the same upside down as right side up. (The English OXO beef cubes would be a trivial example). Now, to me, this is a clever device, no more. It does not signify anything more. Those who read the Omni magazine back in the 80s might remember the work of Scott Kim who devised clever logograms that could be read upside down etc. Scott Kim’s website. Scott Kim does it for the entertainment. He has his priorities right.
More about this soon.
Bern
Came across this little item in today’s paper. What I don’t understand is … why has it taken so long for us to find this out?
