Saturday, July 2, 2011

Finding Bliss


Another perfect day in the countryside! And more promised. Is this bliss or is this heaven? The only downside right now is that I am giving myself a break with the garden because it seems my hip is starting to get better so I better not fool around. After all “tomorrow is another day”.


Speaking of Scarlett, I ran across a humorous sketch which mirrors my all time favourite Carol Burnett spoof. Scarlett (Carol) coming down the stairs to meet Rhett (Harvey) wearing the curtain rods across her shoulders.


“I saw this in the window and couldn’t resist.”


You know Harvey Korman, he must not have been in on the joke because he couldn’t keep it together, you could see him cracking up. It was hilarious.


I’ve been reading the Nora Roberts “Bride Quartet” series of books and my observation is that it is rather like reading a Harlequin romance, there isn’t much in them. Girl meets boy, they resist, having hot sex, fall in love, quarrel, get married. She’s written 170 novels and if they are all like this series not surprised. I think she is a glorified Barbara Cartland. I hadn’t ever read a Nora Roberts before but I thought they were a bit more like Danielle Steel, I thought there was a little more to them than this syrup. However, now that I am in the series I may as well finish them up.


I gave up romance novels about 25 years ago when there was one too many heroines who got ravished by the guy who was clearly her soul mate but they had to be torn apart and she had numerous sexual encounters with wicked beasts before being rescued by said soul mate. Ready to throw up now. I told Mom if I read one more that was it. Along it came and that was that. Straight to murder and mayhem novels like “The Minds of Billy Milligan”, “The Name of the Rose” and classics like “The Woman in White” and “The Moonstone”. I read a lot of biographies, every Agatha Chrisie, Leslie Ford and Mary Roberts Rinehart I could lay my hands on. I’ve read everything by Steinbeck, Dickens, Eliot, Austen, Hardy and the Brontes.


My two favourite Steinbeck novels are “Travels with Charlie” and “Tortilla Flats”. Least favourite is “The Grapes of Wrath” which I must confess was the first book I ever did not finish. It bored me to death. Someday I will have to take it up again but it will be painful.


What I need right now is a hammock and some lemonade. And no mosquitoes!





1 comment:

  1. Nora Roberts eh? Brutalness.

    Grapes of Wrath is fine n' dandy - doesn't beat East of Eden but it is a good story. Have you read all of Dickens? He has quite a few lengthy monkeys - Pickwick Papers and Nicholas Nicklbey to name a couple.

    I'm readin' One Hundred Years of Solitude right now and it's quite the tale. Damn spanish names are all the same though, which adds to its confusing narrative.

    Lurve that Carol Burnette sketch :-)

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