6 years to read a book

Today is the day I finally finished reading Ulysses by James Joyce. I started reading this detestable book back in 2006. I’ve obviously not been reading this continuously for that entire time, but the thought of reading it has been in the back of my mind for much of this time.

Well, today is the day I finally reached the end. I am so pleased not to have to read this book any more. It is the least enjoyable book I have read in my entire life.

Now I’m going to start reading Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. The few things I’ve read about it seem interesting, and I am looking forward to reading it. 🙂

George Amberson Minafer

George Amberson Minafer is one of the most annoying fictional characters I’ve ever had the displeasure of coming across.

I was going to write a big rant about him, but it seems that someone beat me to it (in 1919, pg 192):

We doubt whether Mr. BOOTH TARKINGTON’S many admirers on this side of the Atlantic will read _The Magnificent Ambersons_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) with any great sense of satisfaction. _George Minafer_ is a spoilt and egotistical cad, and as we pursue his unpleasant personality from infancy onward our impatience with the adoring relatives who allow the impossible little bounder to turn their lives to tragedy becomes more and more pronounced. In England his “come uppance” would have commenced at an early age and in the time-honoured place thereunto provided. But in the case of young American nabobs these corrective agencies are too often wanting, and though it is hard to believe that a sophisticated uncle, a soldier grandfather and various other relatives would have allowed a conceited and overbearing young boor to wreck his mother’s life by separating her from a former sweetheart, it cannot be said that such cases have not existed or that the picture is altogether overdrawn.

Pratchett vs. Doctor Who

I just read the following line on an article and had to laugh:

Terry Pratchett, the fantasy author whose bestselling Discworld books are set in a flat world balanced on the backs of four elephants and a giant turtle, has slammed the BBC’s Doctor Who for its “ludicrous” storylines and “pixel thin” science.

The whole way that’s written just screams “Pratchett you hypocrite!” Fancy a fiction writer knocking another fiction writer for coming up with ludicrous stories. Perhaps Pratchett thinks it would be more entertaining if we just replaced Doctor Who with fact, and just had a documentary on the police fighting crime or something.