Agnes by Tony Cochran for September 02, 2018

I tried to read Andre Norton’s CATSEYE but couldn’t get past the first few pages. I knew she wrote well so I skipped the first chapter and began with Chapter Two. After a few more chapters, I was able to go back and read Chapter One.

I can remember two books that I had zero desire to read, each being forced on me, er… I meant lent to me….

accompanied by the earnest advice that if I would just try to make it through one chapter, I’d be enthralled and have to read the rest.

 

First, in the 90’s, “The Clan of the Cave Bear” ….

a friend said she knew I might not like it at first…. but if I’d only stick with it for one chapter I would adore it.

I tried, I really did…. but there was no way I could read a whole chapter. Or two whole pages.

 

So I was very skeptical when I got the same pitch from my ex-mother-in-law, in 2001….

one of her granddaughters had bought her a book, and extracted a promise that she’d read the whole first chapter before giving up.

She lent it to me for the same promise.

Well… it was “Lord of The Rings.”

 

I’d refused to read it for years because I thought it was a cutesy fantasy and I’d cringed at meeting both dogs and babies named Frodo.

I hated the first half of Chapter One…. but by Chapter Three I had to go back and read it over….

by halfway through I was losing sleep because I couldn’t put it down… and when I had to give that borrowed copy back, I bought my own, even though I’d finished it.

And then I read the other books and saw all three movies…

and…. you know how it goes.

I almost wanted to name a dog Frodo. Almost.

 

So you never can tell.

Unless it’s Agnes’ novel.

Sorry, Agnes.

Call me Ishmael…bla, bla…tedium…interesting…tedium, bla, bla…and so on for hundreds of pages, the end. Yes I did read the thing through.

The time that I was interested reading novel,bio etc., I didn’t have the time. Now, that I have the time, I can’t get interested in devoting the time to do it!

Perhaps Trout was the wrong person to ask for an initial read. She doesn’t appear to be the literary type.

I used to write in my 7th grade English class. My teacher was so kind and encouraging and pointed the correct use of past tense and current tense. That really worked for me to use in today’s world when I’m writing up billing statements: the bigger the bill, the more adjectives are included :-)

I read Portrait of Dorian Gray in high school and enjoyed it. I tried to reread it a few years ago and didn’t like it AT ALL. Although, when people tell me I look good for my age, I say Thank You and tell them I have a picture I keep in the attic. Older folks get the joke, but it’s lost on anybody under 50.

It was garbage at first sight.

Neither of Ayn Rand’s novels. Ponderous and in heavy need of editing comes to mind.

Everybody’s a critic…