Ex Libris Kirkland is my entirely self-centered way to keep track of what I read, what I enjoy, and what I want to remember.
📓 Recent Notes 📓
I felt sure I had read this before. But discussing this I realized I was conflating the story of Jane Eyre and maybe Agnes Gray? I am reading it now and honestly do not know what the plot holds for me.
a note about Wuthering Heights
Reading this after having watched the movie a few years back, I knew what kind of grim this would be. It was grim! Beautiful in its way but I think having already suffered through the movie, I really had to force my way through the book.
a note about Silence
Read the second half; I think the thing that's so dissonant is that as soon as Bastian triumphs (which never feels really earned imho) midway thru the book, he just becomes an entirely different person. Yes, that's the plot of the second half, in that he literally unlocks new infinite powers and literally forgets who he is: I think the author wants this to be a kind of built-up reveal. But he's actually an asshole as soon as it starts, it's not a reveal at all. Maybe this is what Ende is doing? Like, hey the poor fat kid who gets bullied for being creative, and runs away from his problems, was actually also a selfish jerk? IDK man.
a note about The Neverending Story
A fun, very English crime/spy thriller. Much like Rogue Male; our hero is a skilled-at-woodcraft spy, is hunted by an implacable opponent, and takes the fight to the English countryside both for its field advantages and as an honorable move to protect others. Picked this up with some other Households at an estate sale!
a note about Watcher in the Shadows
Also it keep the pattern: one book of prequel/sidequel that focuses on one Wayward Child and their portal world, then one sequential book where the Kids Do a Quest. The quest ones are the weak ones in my opinion!
a note about Through Gates of Garnet and Gold
📖 Recent Quotes 📖
A small margin for error is the due of the most exact human machinery.
an excerpt from The Honeywood File
[ I do love a reference to the universal story: everybody thinks they are a Hidden Prince ] And now that we've done washing, and combing, and sulking—tell me whether you don't think yourself rather handsome? I'll tell you, I do. You're fit for a prince in disguise. Who knows, but your father was Emperor of China, and your mother an Indian queen, each of them able to buy up, with one week's income, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange to-gether? And you were kidnapped by wicked sailors, and brought to England. Were I in your place, I would frame high notions of my birth, and the thoughts of what I was should give me courage and dignity to support the oppressions of a little farmer!
an excerpt from Wuthering Heights
...now we find skilled lawyers all at sea as to the meaning of their own carefully-weighed phrases. A great part of the business of lawyers is to determine the meaning of words used by other lawyers. The law is what is known as “a lucrative profession.”
an excerpt from The Honeywood File
General Sir Thomas Pamellor at once reminded me of a fine, freshly caught shrimp. Not that he was small, but he sprouted hair at odd angles from eyebrows and moustache, and also his coloring was exactly the right mixture of sand and grey. Lady Pamellor was a slightly smaller shrimp, but cooked. She was bright pink and had a good deal of pink in her dress.
... [and then a page later after not mentioning shrimp again] When Lady Pamellor had swum delicately off and hidden herself beneath the rocks of the drawing room, Sir Thomas pressed cigars upon me and one of the finest brandies I have ever tasted.an excerpt from Watcher in the Shadows
It was a natural partnership. We were both survivors from another age - a couple of dinosaurs, let us say - one of an older generation than the other, but both equally successful at persuading a society of little mammals that we were perfectly adjusted to it.
an excerpt from Watcher in the Shadows