Tuesday, December 21, 2010

To Adelaide!

Drove to Adelaide yesterday.

We started listening to The Map that Changed the World. It's an historical novel about some dude who makes a geological map of England in 1815. My partner likes maps, and I like the history of science so I expected high-fives for top story tape selection. Unfortunately, there were a few issues.

The narrator had a lisp. I was surprised. Then I realised - read by the author. Actually, it was pretty easy to ignore his slight speech eccentricity. What annoyed me more was the book's wordiness. The author writes very long sentences, described a pair of velvet curtains for five minutes (blue, crushed velvet, with gold tassels - I could go on), and used words like stippled. It grated on me.

We only got through one tape. We may try again on the return journey if we are feeling stronger.

Fortunately I also borrowed a back up story tape by an author famously economical with this words - PG Wodehouse. Well, maybe not, but when he does it it's funny.

My favorite PG quote - "I have only two things to say to you, Lord Tilbury. One is that you have ruined a man's life. The other is Pip-pip."

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