Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Telegraph Avenue Readalong: The Saga Continues


It's been a really busy week for me; I worked six days starting Monday although usually I just work two, the thing about this one being that I'm subbing for a couple of people, and then I agreed to take an extra Wednesday shift, and then I wanted Friday evening off to have dinner with my husband (otherwise I would not have seen him for dinner between Tuesday and Sunday) but the best I could do was to work Thursday and half of Friday, so the time I've had for reading has been really limited but I tried nonetheless to do my 20 pages per day of Telegraph Avenue, starting with Part 3, which was pretty short, and moving on to Part 4, which was pretty long and pretty dense as usual, and it was more of the same, you know, the plot kept moving along at its characteristic glacial pace, and the prose was characterized by the same lack of brevity and conciseness which has come to characterize the entire book, but that's fine, I'm used to it by now; the most interesting parts for me are anything to do with Gwen and Aviva, since I find that Chabon has a great feel for the chemistry between these two women as shown by their dialogue and how things move along when they interact, and now we have one week left in the readalong and one smallish section of the book to complete by next Tuesday, and I'm looking forward to finding out how it all ends, though I will admit that with my schedule and running around and the beautiful weather we've had in New England this past week I didn't quite finish Part 4, but I think Part 5 is short enough that I should be able to wrap the remaining pages into my daily reading quota and have some things to say about it when I post my final post next week, and as always you must visit Emily at As The Crowe Flies (And Reads) for more readalong posts.

11 comments:

As the Crowe Flies and Reads said...

Whew--I got a little tired just reading about your work schedule this week!

I loved that this week we saw a little more of Aviva, who was a but of a mystery to me up until that point.

Laurie said...

Ha: You mimicked "A Bird of Wide Experience"! I would like to know more about your specific concerns next week, as I haven't felt that the plot required a faster pace, although I do maintain my own reservations about Chabon's style in this novel.

Anonymous said...

Oh, *snap* with the section 3 mimicry! Bravo! Better than the original. Wish I'd thought of that. :-)

Brooks said...

haha... I tried a single-sentence too, but it wasn't working so I deleted it. Good for you for pulling it off!

And yes, this week's reading was LONG.

Lindsey said...

Haha. It took me a minute to figure that out! This is brilliant.
I'm so interested to see how the Gwen and Aviva story line ties up, since I think it is one of the most interesting.

Zibilee said...

It does sound like you are very busy at work, and I am happy that you still got a chance to continue with the readalong. I admit that I have a lot of trouble with readalongs. I just can't seem to stay on schedule!

Audra said...

Boo on the work, brava on your hilarious recap. Sadly, I am so epically behind on this -- I am so over this one already -- and so it's a lot of work to motivate myself to get started. I'll probably do my weekly recap on Sat.

Jennifer said...

Bwahaha, clever! I really like the Gwen/Aviva dynamic too.

Kerry M said...

Boo for too much work -- but I love the one-sentence post here :-)

Anonymous said...

Okay - I'll bring up the tail. I just finished Section IV today. I've been busy with water parks and homework and work and just couldn't find a way to finish by Tuesday.

I'm trying very hard to attach to Julie and Titus and having a heck of a time with it. Gwen just needs to have that darn baby already. Part IV just seems so full of tension.

Nicole said...

I feel like all the tension is tied up in Gwen and that baby. I know there are a ton of other things coming to a close, but the baby is the true ticking time bomb. The moment Gwen goes into labor is (hopefully) going to be epic).