Poor Anne!!!!!!
quite an account but it doesn't figure in my reckoning but I am sure there is an O.B.E. in it somewhere! I've been reading 'The Sea,' The Sea by John Banville which won the Booker in 2005. Much praised and the writing is to be admired and the insight is deep but all deeply depressing, full of Irish misery. It's unremitting and I'm struggling to make the end despite the ravings of the critics. It is good on memory and just how unfaithful to any kind of veracity it is but the existential themes running through everything are quite exhausting.
For a bit of relief I watched Ken Russell's film of 'Women in Love,' last evening. It's a fine effort to represent the subleties of the novel through film. With the nude scenes (Bates and Reed) with bits in full view and the torrid (for the time) love scenes no wonder it was controversial, typical Russell. But I loved his films on Elgar and Mahler which are classics. It did seem a bit dated and mannered but who would have a stab at it today? Definitely worth watching. I'm going to watch La Boheme with two of my favourite singers Anna Netrebko & Rolando Villazon in title roles. Magical wonderful stuff their La Traviata is a sizzler too. Glorious; why doesn't Plymouth have an opera house????????