Thursday 20 January 2011

What the more chi-chi menus describe as "a melange".

How swiftly time passes when you're failing to update a blog (here I would like you to imagine a montage of tiny scenes from my daily life, book pages blurring as I read, hair growing inch by inch as time speeds by, waistline also increasing exponentially as the twin evils of Christmas and We Have To Finish These Leftovers wreak their vile havoc, all to the haunting strains of "Sunrise, Sunset" from Fiddler On The Roof).
That's enough of that.
There is very little to say about Christmas 2010 apart from the fact that it was calm, relaxed, and I got everything I wanted. I have accordingly struck at least one ridiculously expensive perfume off my WANT list.
Oh yes, we went on holiday! I would elaborate, but it was Thailand again, and I've already bored you all with tales of the slow loris we saw in Khao Lak AND my near-addiction to chilis, so I won't go on, except to say that no, we do not have a sex-dungeon full of ladyboys (in reply to people who say with deep suspicion "Thailand again?"). I had a moment while eating a VERY HOT Panang curry where the endorphin rush brought on by the chilis caused the inside of my head to start to expand, and I may or may not have seen the face of Buddha in a thousand revolving lotuses, or perhaps that was the lemongrass martini I had had several of beforehand. Either way, sod you, Carlos Castaneda.
I read, and was bowled over by, Dark Matter by Michelle Paver. I think there's some kind of blind spot that makes authors of grownup fiction think that writing kids' books must be a piece of cake (McNab, Patterson, Ryan, Grisham, I'm looking at you and frowning), despite the fact that this is completely untrue. Talented authors of kids' books are rare and wonderful things, and having once written successfully for children they seem better able to turn their hands to very good adult fiction (Geraldine McCaughrean, Diana Wynne Jones, etc). Dark Matter is so creepy and implicit that I was very glad indeed I was reading it in the sweltering Thai sunshine - it's set in the Arctic, about a jolly 1930s group of exploring chaps who fall foul of some nameless malevolent presence in the long wastes of the sunless Arctic winter. Fabulously atmospheric and, like M R James, best read in a brightly-lit house full of people. HIGHLY recommended.
Updates to ensue more regularly...

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's been TOO long! I missed you.
Abs xx

libby said...

Hello you....thats all just hello.

Lucy Fishwife said...

Little Abs - are you still on Twitter or were you seriously leaving? Meh, I can still harass you on Facebook... xxx

Libby - Hello! Thank you for being here when I got back! xx

JRSM said...

'Dark Matter' is wonderful, isn't it? Really well judged writing.

Lucy Fishwife said...

JRSM - I loved it, loved it. Possibly my best book of 2010. Feel I must now read her kids' books!

Christina @ Fashion's Most Wanted said...

Dear Lucy, Thailand sounds wonderful. Just the thing. Happy new year to you and good to have you back xx

Lucy Fishwife said...

Happy New Year lovely Christina! Thailand was once again fantastic. Next time I will confound all expectation by going to Morocco or Las Vegas, but it was exactly what we needed at the time...

Sgt Pepper said...

And Dark Matter in hardback is highly affordable on Amazon at the moment. That's not a particularly tactful thing to say though, I suppose. Sorry. Pleased to hear you're a Stephen King fan, however. Doesn't do to read too many of them one after the other though (a mistake I made some years ago, and is a little like eating a whole two litre tub of Cornish vanilla ice cream in one sitting, which is a mistake I seem to make with quite impressive regularity, also).

Very pleased that you're blogging again too.

Lucy Fishwife said...

Sarge, you break my heart. Amazon indeed. Tsk. Yes, a great book. Stephen King one of my favourites, and you're right, sometimes too much in large quantities, although every now and then I read the entire Dark Tower series from start to finish. Then I read Olivia Manning's "Fortunes Of War" series and Robertson Davies's Deptford Trilogy, and I'm ready for short stories again.

Vanessa said...

I am so glad you are back - Anne Widdecombe's avatar appeared to have turned to stone on my blog roll! : - )

Regarding a "melange", in a smart hotel in Dewsbury I was once served a "macedoine" of vegetables - they were in fact none other than diced mixed veg out of a tin, and the waitress pronounced them "mass-er-doyne".