newest entry 2003-04-22 11:12 a.m.


I finished Opal this morning on the train. Her diary transformed the way I looked at the world, for the entire 8.5 days that I read it. She had a direct relationship with every critter around her, and even at the age of 6 had her own set of literary pretentions and tricks.

Nothing much happens in the book: she feeds her pets (who she calls "the folks"), takes them on walks in the forest, plays "cathedral," drops a lot of French words and Catholic imagery into her prose (she was neither French nor Catholic), and attempts to help her mother around the house. Like Amelia Bedelia, she always does the exactly wrong thing to "help," and pisses her mother off. Then her mother spanks her or makes her lie under the bed. Occasionally, people and animals die, and you feel really, really sad. That's pretty much it. Like The Straight Story, you become mesmerized by the spaces and holes in the plot more than by the actual plot.

I could go on, but unfortunately I am pretty busy.

Also, I am going to be writing in here less and less, as I started a new blog under my real name as a link to my music site.

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