Monday Mish Mash

It's been a couple of weeks since I picked up Clarissa. I left her hanging so I could make it through the 1,000+ pages of Cryptonomicon. Now that I'm done with that and my fellow geeky bookgroupies got together over a delicious breakfast to discuss it, I am able to return to the trials of the dithering heroine. (btw, our next book is Cloud Atlas). Clarissa is currently holed up in a farmhouse not far from one of Lord M's estates (Lord M is Lovelace's uncle). Clarissa insists that Lovelace leave her so that the world does not think that they ran away together and so she can make negotiations with her family. Lovelace refuses to leave her on the pretense that someone from her family might find her and try to take her away knowing full well that no one from her family is pursuing them. Now they are each playing cat and mouse with the prospect of her taking rooms in London. If Lovelace seems too excited about her being there Clarissa is determined not to go. Lovelace is determined to get her there while making it seem like it was all Clarissa's idea. And his plan is working as she just authorized him to let some rooms for her from a respectable widow. Clarissa's friend Anna keeps telling her that she needs to marry Lovelace as soon as possible but Clarissa still thinks she can get out of it. Silly girl! I also just started a new book called Branwell: A Novel of the Brontë Brother by Douglas A. Martin. I had a little trouble getting into it at first because it is not a straightforward narrative. The plot is chronological but the story is told in a very impressionistic sort of way. Now that I am used to it I am enjoying it very much. Here is a sample:

He needs some friends of his own sex. There were the village boys, but their father doesn't want his son fooling around with them. He doesn't want his son drinking. He has had his own problems with such. Inside the bar, his son would become very popular with the boys, as he talks a way none of them could, entertained them. He talked a purple streak. He's just watering himself in the bar, whetting his appetite. He's still going to be somebody someday. At ten, he was writing before his sisters. He was the boy, so he's learned everything first. In him, his sister Charlotte thinks she sees her mental equal. Home instruction given by their father has prepared him for nothing, except for perhaps one day tutoring boys as he himself had been tutored, or going into the Church. The larger world, the wider world, it so tempts and scares him, and their father still wants to keep him close. Branwell has good stories to tell at the bar.

Not bad, huh? And finally in this mish mash of a post, something bookish only because it takes place in a library. Here's a short little film made by college students dressed up as Pacman and one of the ghosts and running through the school library.