Night Pages ~ Weekend & A Few Books

I had to catch myself from writing August. I haven’t completely settled into September being here. We had a very laid back and relaxing weekend. Some family time with my significant other’s family and some time for just the two of us. We visited with his cousin, her husband, and Little A. We brought over a bottle of wine and some beer. I was planning on having both, but ended up sticking to two glasses of wine and skipped the beer. The men went into the other room and visited amongst themselves. Little A., his mom, and I combined our time between lounging on the couch as we watched toddler TV and playing: building castles and tunnels with foam blocks and legos; and then we played with the zoo animals too. Little A. wanted to race, but he was getting over a cough and had to take it easy. 

I found myself wanting to read Eugene O’Neill’s play, Ah, Wilderness! before we go see it. I really enjoyed the family dynamic that O’Neill portrayed. I admired the teenage protagonist, his love of poetry, his honest and how his parents trusted him, even while his heart was getting the best of him, leading him down a downward path over a misunderstanding. There is much more, of course. I laughed a lot and there was a happy ending.  This is supposed to be one of O’Neill’s rare comedies. Since the library book I checked out also has his other play, Days Without End, I started reading that one too and am intrigued by how O’Neill has presented two sides of one character. It would be interesting to see how it would play out on the stage.

I seem to be in the mood to read plays lately. I finished A Streetcar Named Desire two weeks ago and followed that with the movie version of the play.

Vincent had mentioned Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion when we were speaking about different British dialects. I had seen the movie, My Fair Lady, based on the play some time ago and so I have downloaded a copy of the play to Kindle and will plan on watching the movie again at some point once I’ve read the play.

It seems that it would be a great challenge to write a play. Since plays are so dialogue driven, I don’t feel that I would excel in this genre.

One play that has always stuck with me that I read in a class is Six Degrees of Separation by John Guare. In fact, now that I’m thinking of it, I’d like to read it again.

I’ve had an especially hard time staying focused on any one book. I got 100 pages into The Painted Drum by Louise Erdrich. I soaked in the prose and then something happened during part two with the POV switch. It brought me out of the story because I wasn’t entirely convinced of the person telling the story. I decided to continue reading. I’m now at page 149 and am undecided on whether I will continue or not. I’m disappointed because the story itself is interesting, about a Native American drum and its history, and the prose is lovely; however, there are times, I’m having trouble believing the story. I really want to!

The All Of It by Jeannette Haien is another novel I came across in a book about books for reading groups. I wanted to find a few gems that were older that I may have missed that would be interesting. I only have a little ways to go before I finish. It’s a lovely book about a secret that a brother and sister must keep until the brother dies and the sister tells the whole story to the town priest—that’s the bulk of the book. It’s a surprise and slightly disturbing. I will continue reading to find out how the story affects the priest. He’ll have a tough decision on his hands on what to do with the information he learns: A test of his faith.

Happy Reading!