Some Annotated Reading July 18

Finished Reading a Book!

Mrs. March by Virginia Feito was one of those books I read about, put on my library list, and by the time I got it, no longer recalled why I was interested in it. Usually that is a neat reading experience. This time I am very sorry I didn't read up on Mrs. March again before reading it. I read this as literary fiction about an unpleasant woman who is falling apart. The unnamed setting appears to be 1960s, upper class New York City, a time and group that always depresses me. I ended up skimming some sections and jumping to the end. 

I am sorry now.

After finishing the book, I did some reading about it and...it's a novel of psychological suspense!  I wasn't prepared for that when I started reading. So I missed what, in hindsight, I now believe were several references to Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier, a novel of psychological suspense that Mrs. March is reading. And Rebecca is related to Jane Eyre, and I am so mmmm about Jane Eyre. I really regret not being better prepared for this book.

I am not a fan of reading books over again, but at some point in the future, I would like to reread this one. There's also going to be a movie.

An interesting point about Mrs. March, no matter how you read it: I don't see how anybody could find Mrs. March a likable character. And that blows the whole "your protagonist must be likeable" thing right out of the water.

Short Story

Though I have a digital subscription to The New Yorker, I haven't been reading many of the short stories, which is, I'm sure, my loss. I only read So Late in the Day by Claire Keegan, which originally appeared in The New Yorker in 2022, because Peter Hoppock did what the Off Campus Writers' Workshop calls a craft element program about it for them. Oh, my gosh. An incredible story by an author I had never heard of but whose work I'll be looking for now. I signed up for Hoppock's program, couldn't attend, but read the material he collected in which Keegan talked about her writing. A great reading/study experience.

An interesting point: as with Mrs. March, the main character in So Late in the Day is not a likable character. 

Other Things

A family member posted a poem on Facebook by Aliza Grace, a writer I'd never heard of, that packed a bit of a punch. So I looked Grace up, by which, of course, I mean I googled her. Holy Smokes! TikTok's Hottest Gen Z Poet Accused of Blatant Plagiarism by Darshita Goyal at The Daily Beast. A number of years ago, I read of something similar happening with books. While this is not the worst thing in the world that can happen, it is disturbing that it appears these people can't be stopped. There is plagiarism and then, yes, there is blatant plagiarism.

The Lion and Me by John Lahr in the New Yorker is one of those older articles (1998) I enjoy reading when I stumble upon them.

Humor

I Quit Murdering People for 7 Days. Here's What Happened by Philip S. Naudus at Jane Austen's Wastebasket. I love the title of this thing. It is soooo close to titles we've all seen. Over and over again.