UBC and other things
May. 2nd, 2007 12:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
truepenny700 words in the past two days. It's like pulling teeth from a stone.
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fidelioscabinet: Did you get my email?
Watson, Colin. Coffin, Scarcely Used. 1958. New York: Berkley Medallion-G. P. Putnam, 1969.
I love Colin Watson with a pure but definitely unholy love. A quote will begin to explain.
The waitress drifted near, eyed them with sad disapproval, and retired to lean against the far wall like a martyr turned down by fastidious lions.
Most satirical mysteries, like Joyce Porter's, rub me very much the wrong way, because they are contemptuous of their characters. Watson isn't. The governing perspective of the novels is Inspector Purbright's, and Purbright is patient, intelligent, and world-wise with only the occasional lapse into cynicism. (His mirror-image, both foil and doppelganger, is Lucilla Teatime, con-artiste extraordinaire, but she doesn't appear in this book.) The narrative voice is clear-eyed, but never cruel. I don't read Watson for the mysteries--although the mysteries are very good--but for the character interactions and the slyly poker-faced observations on middle-class hypocrisy and willful blindness.
Finding a Watson in a used bookstore makes me happy for days.
Personal to
fidelioscabinet: Did you get my email?Watson, Colin. Coffin, Scarcely Used. 1958. New York: Berkley Medallion-G. P. Putnam, 1969.
I love Colin Watson with a pure but definitely unholy love. A quote will begin to explain.
The waitress drifted near, eyed them with sad disapproval, and retired to lean against the far wall like a martyr turned down by fastidious lions.
Most satirical mysteries, like Joyce Porter's, rub me very much the wrong way, because they are contemptuous of their characters. Watson isn't. The governing perspective of the novels is Inspector Purbright's, and Purbright is patient, intelligent, and world-wise with only the occasional lapse into cynicism. (His mirror-image, both foil and doppelganger, is Lucilla Teatime, con-artiste extraordinaire, but she doesn't appear in this book.) The narrative voice is clear-eyed, but never cruel. I don't read Watson for the mysteries--although the mysteries are very good--but for the character interactions and the slyly poker-faced observations on middle-class hypocrisy and willful blindness.
Finding a Watson in a used bookstore makes me happy for days.
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no subject
Date: 2007-05-02 06:14 pm (UTC)Exactly. I just deleted a paragraph deconstructing this simile in all its glory, but all I really need to say is, "Exactly," plus some kind of giggly emoticon.
P.
Teeth indeed
Date: 2007-05-02 07:43 pm (UTC)M. Keaton
no subject
Date: 2007-05-02 08:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-02 09:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-02 09:28 pm (UTC)On the other hand, things haven't been "going well" for a goodly long while now. I'm trying to get 750 words a day, but this past month haven't even managed that consistently.
(Am I anxious about my August 1st deadline? Yes, you might say that I am.)
I do try to work to a quota, because it keeps me honest.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-03 04:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-02 11:57 pm (UTC)There are a couple of Watson books on BookMooch (http://bookmooch.com/).
Sharing the Colin Watson love
Date: 2007-05-03 10:01 am (UTC)