LJ on a casual Tuesday

[annathepiper]

-0: Mr. Crowe's new album is supposed to be out today, but alas, word has it that it has not yet arrived on iTunes. There is much lamenting and gnashing of teeth going on on Gruntland. I have not yet commenced my own lamenting, as I wasn't expecting to download it till I got home today anyway, but! Any of the Crowe fans on my Friends list got it yet?

+/-1: I'm in the middle of reading a mystery called Death on a Casual Friday, by Sharon Duncan, and I'm finding it an odd read because I'm totally failing to relate to the protagonist. She's an older woman; she's got a daughter in college. But it's not really her age that's causing my failure to relate--it's her choice of lover, pure and simple. We are told that the guy met her while he was married, that he divorced his wife of twenty years, and moved up to the Pacific Northwest--presumably to be with the protagonist. And yet, I've seen no sign really that this guy is committed to making a life with her; in fact, his function in the plot seems mostly to be absent, doing his own work, while the protagonist angsts about whether his resumption of contact with his own daughter means her relationship with him is doomed. I am totally failing to sympathize with this. Part of me supposes that this kind of domestic situation might be considered "real" in today's society. But on the other hand, after watching my mother go through two marriages and my father go through FOUR as a child and a teen, I'm extra-special sensitive to wanting a lifemating to mean something. So I have no sympathy for a lover who'd have bailed on a twenty-year committment to another person... and by extension, little sympathy for a woman who'd have a relationship with someone who'd do that.

Also, the title seems to have exactly nothing to do with the actual plot. The only link I've been able to see so far is that the protagonist lives in Friday Harbor. And as a reader and a writer both, I'd like to see at least some connection between title and story. I'm trying to decide if I'm interested enough in the story to finish it; I'm about two-thirds of the way through at this point. Don't know yet.

And meanwhile...

Monday miles: 1.0
Miles out of Hobbiton: 103.66
Miles to Rivendell: 354.34

Comments

[apel.livejournal.com]

I know a person who did something rather similar to what the lover of the main character in the book is doing. She was married to a man for about ten years and had three children with him. Then she met another man while on holiday in another country and started an affair with him. When her husband found out, she decided she wanted a divorce and wanted to move to the other country to be with her holiday beau. Then it turned out that the holiday guy had a local girlfriend. Eventually this person broke it off with the guy she met on holiday and stayed in her country of origin but still wanted a divorce. By then her husband had had enough too so it wasn't like he was going to take her back.

From where I stood, it looked as if the responsibility of decade-long marriage, mortgage, garden, car loans and three kids just got too much for her. In fact she had never been as committed to her husband and children as he and they were to her. The holiday guy was so obviously inappropriate that even before I found out about his local girlfriend, I though that he was a red herring, a reason to get out of the marriage that was easier to explain and sounded less frivolous than "I can't stand this level of commitment and responsibility."

So, yeah, these things happen but I can totally understand that you wouldn't have much sympathy for people who act this way. In this case there were kindergarten and school age children who were obviously suffering too. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that it's probably easier to understand this behaviour in terms of running away from something rather than running toward something. For most people escape fantasies stay fantasies but some people realise them.

[annathepiper]

I get what you mean about thinking about it in terms of "running away from something", yeah. Issues like this, wondering whether marriages fall apart because of the involved persons being unprepared to deal with the responsibility and such, have gone through my brain more than once with all the brouhaha this days about the "sanctity of marriage".

In the case of this book, it's a bit hard to really get into the heads of either character when I ponder the relationship described, since it all happened before the story commences and all we get is a summation. And since the story is in first person, we don't get anything of what goes on in her lover's mind at all. In fact, this far into the book he's been on camera exactly once, in a brief scene at the beginning. Aside from that we get him talking with the protagonist by phone a couple of times, and it's a lot of "sorry, honey, I have to back out on my plans with you because this thing I'm doing at work is a lot more complicated than we expected". It all feels... specious, and I'm fairly certain that the author is setting her protagonist up to have her relationship with this guy fall apart.

Which doesn't strike me as fun reading, in general. As an incurable romantic, I want to be reading about relationships getting established! Or, if you want to show me a relationship that's already established and give it some challenges, let the involved parties actually work it out and talk to one another! What I've got in this book is a woman who's mostly angsting to herself about whether her lover is bailing on her, and so far she hasn't said word one to him about her worries.

Sure, she's kind of busy solving the mystery, and that's all well and good. But if she's got the wherewithal to work on solving a murder and to navigate through the challenges of having a headstrong young daughter, I want to see her step up to the plate and talk to her man about her worries, too.

[apel.livejournal.com]

I agree, it doesn't sound like fun reading. It's as if women can be competent in lots of areas but when it comes to Men™ we're back to being the same level of characterisation as those old sixties comedies where women were constatly jumping up on chairs and screaming when they saw a mouse. Lots of unexamined sexism and heterosexism in there.

[annathepiper]

Well, I did wind up finishing the book... and upon closer inspection, I saw strong indications that suggest the author is trying to set her protagonist up for a future relationship with the nice balding, bespectacled fellow who's actually spending time on camera interacting with the heroine and contributing to the plot. Still very little presence of her lover on camera; he got no further scenes aside from the one at the beginning of the book.

And the preview of the first chapter of the next book, wherein her lover is again off-camera and has apparently run off to help his ex-wife out of having gotten herself arrested, continues my suspicions that the guy is in fact a cad. Bah. I don't think I'll read the next book; the mystery in this one was not interesting enough to make me put up with annoying relationship angst that requires the heroine to be a doormat.

Happily, I have a shiny new Elizabeth Peters paperback to console me, and I shall journey off to Egypt with the Emersons forthwith. ^_^

[boxer-ferret.livejournal.com]

Sadly, no, I haven't seen anything on iTunes yet. I waited up for it last night, thinking it would show up early around 9:30pm same as before with Raewyn. I heard Russ on KGSR radio in Austin this morning via their live feed and they were mentioning that it hadn't shown up as it was supposed to and Russ was hoping that someone could find out why. But they did play a few of the songs, which sounded nice in full length. He mentioned also that He and Alan would like to do some live shows, but it depends on how well the music does. Same goes for an actual CD release.

[annathepiper]

Yeah, I was hovering over iTunes last night myself hoping to see the album show up! But alas, nothing!

Interesting that Russell might consider a CD release if the music does well enough; I'm sure that'd go over REAL well with the fans who have been lamenting that their computers don't have the right OS to run iTunes (I see more than a few folks with Windows 98 still posting to Gruntland).

Me, I'll be happy if Alan and Russell tour together. :D As long as they come near me!

[kissare.livejournal.com]

Ugh, I hate that kind of book (or tv show, or movie, etc.)! I never have any sympathy for the characters in those situations. I have no interest in reading or watching a story celebrating infidelity. It's bizarre and disturbing what a HUGE theme this seems to be these days. They make it sound like absolutely everybody is cheating on absolutely everybody else. What a discouraging prospect. Thanks for the heads up on the book, though - now I know to skip it if I come across it. ;P

Hope they get that album up on itunes SOON for you! :)

[annathepiper]

You're quite welcome. I did actually finish the book, but was just not impressed. Fortunately, I have a new Elizabeth Peters to which to turn my attention. :D

And they DID get the album up, and I squeed about it in depth last night! :D

[kissare.livejournal.com]

Bizarre, somehow I missed that post! Well, HOORAY!

[annathepiper]

Funny, I would have thought the volume of my squee would have been a bit more apparent. ;) Not only is it new Russell music, he's singing with ALAN DOYLE! *does happy dance*