Thursday, October 3, 2013

The Caspian Corrections

I'm still reading The Chronicles of Narnia to the girls.  We're on Prince Caspian, which is 4th in the currently published series (but was second when I read them as a kid, the original order).  It's taking us a bit longer on this one but we're almost finished.  JoJo's favorite character is still Aslan, while MM like to play as Susan and Lucy.

It was a nice coincidence that Caspian appears in the latest novel I read, The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen.  I had really enjoyed his book Freedom and needed a read for the beach, so I downloaded it into the Kindle app on our iPad.  That was a first and I have to admit, I enjoyed reading that way.  Easier to transport and put away, and no need to store something after finishing it - although it does use a lot of the battery.  At any rate, I enjoyed the stories of the children in The Corrections, but the parents (Alfred & Enid) got a little annoying after a while.  The climax in the last ten pages was quite satisfying.  I appreciate that Franzen doesn't over-do it on the gay characters, and all the sex is 'traditionally' hetero.  The married characters' marriages were ... less than ideal, and instructive & enlightening to me.  And another reason the end was so great, explaining the title (basically Enid hounded Alfred their whole lives together).

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