He Knew He Was Right ?

[whiffey]

Which literature has sent your mind humming ? I have read the Trollope novel of this question and just watched the BBC dramatisation. So, Louis overreacts - but is not Colonel Osborne a Dirty Old Man ? It's all hidden in flowery etiquette, but should not Colonel Osborne have shut his trap and retired decently ? Instead, he drives a man to drive himself to self-destruction. Trollope makes you think, with a twirl on the moustaches of decency of course.

[China Doll]

As in something that sets you off thinking or something that sets you off thinking about the characters and how much you like/dislike/want to grab and shake them?

Well for just setting me off thinking Sophies World, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Beloved and Memoires of an Agnostic Dwarf set me off recently... just interesting perspectives.

A book that I have to read again but that was a new experience to me was We Need to Talk About Kevin. I did not see the ending to that although I should have. But what was interesting to me was how much I disliked the two principal characters. The fact that it was also written in the first person made this very hard for me to stick with initially because of how much I disliked them and usually when written in the first person you automatically default to sympathising with that character (I find anyway). But I am really glad I stuck with it, must read that again actually.

[soozmac]

China Doll, I have just finished that book, and found it totally rivetting. You're right, the 2 main characters are thoroughly unlikeable, but being someone who is terrified of having kids after growing up with an extremely difficult brother ("problem child" doesn't even come close), I can relate to the mother's fears of having a child. I feel like sending my copy to my mother, by way of explanation as to why I'm never having kids!

[China Doll]

Just for you Soozmac.... (well the last verse anyway! Just doesn't make much sense without the rest... it's a quicker read than the book!)

They **** you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were ****** up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

I know what you're saying but for me it was not the fear of having a child that made me really dislike her but her complete distancing from him and her failure to acknowlege her own shortcomings. Her relationship with her daughter is completely different. I must read it again as I don't think I took it all in the first time. Perhaps because I've read it once I may view it more sympathetically the second time.

Very interesting read.