I usually only actually read, in full, a couple of my book club’s choices each year. There’s so much that I want to read for myself, and so few hours in which to read those books, that I have a hard time working in book choices that aren’t my own. I’ve wanted to read Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro since Jane Espenson gave it a rave review on her website a couple of months ago. (I discovered Jane's very helpful writing blog via Jane's guest blog on Jennifer Crusie's Argh Ink.) Given what I know of Jane's writing through Buffy and Battlestar I can very much see how the book would resonate with her.
As someone who loves romance, I struggled with the relationships in the book, which have typical literary fiction style endings (read: bad). But more fundamentally, I had a hard time accepting the idea that the donors and the carers would so fundamentally accept their roles within society—particularly the donors and carers who were as well educated as the protagonist. Part of me also wants to believe that other people would not allow a world with carers and donors to exist. But when you read the news and you get your head around the evil that can exist in the world, I have to wonder whether it is possible.
I’ve just wrapped up the Voice II class with Barbara Samuel (soon to be Barbara O’Neal apparently—name changes are so fascinating). The past couple of weeks were hard for me in terms of being able to dedicate focused time on the class. I did come away with a notion of voice as a sacred space though, which I like.
Dear Hubby and I were in Vegas this past weekend—amazing people watching, which almost goes without being said. I borrowed Aviva’s AlphaSmart Neo and wrote both on Saturday and on Sunday. Woohoo for me! I’m going to try typing on this thing when I workout in the morning. We’ll see how it goes.
