Verne

Jules Verne is, as every literate person surely knows, a Great Novelist Of Bygone Days. One of those authors everyone ought to read at some point, or so I've been told.

And to be fair, 'Around the World in 80 Days' had me enthralled. It was fascinating, it was fast-paced and readable, the characters were engaging... good stuff. I would recommend it to anyone.

'Journey to the Centre of The Earth'... not so much. (To be fair, this is the 1871 English translation which is known to be inaccurate in places, so it may be slightly better in its original form) Okay, the settings were convincing, the basic premise exciting, and at least one of the characters was interesting and likeable. Professor Hardwigg is so palpably excited by his discoveries and so willing to make any sacrifice for knowledge that he is absolutely convincing.

The novel's narrator, however, the Professor's nephew Harry? I have never wanted so fervently and so constantly to slap a fictional character. Oh, I've had my moments with others, but Harry was whiny, cowardly, stupid and self-absorbed without pause through the entire novel. He only went along at all because he wanted desperately to bone... I mean, marry his cousin, Hardwigg's daughter.

He whines from beginning to end of the novel. Poor Gretchen - I can only imagine what her married life would be like with that pitiful limp rag of a man.

Even so, it's better than '20,000 Leagues Under The Sea'.

Oh, the premise sounds exciting. Giant super-advanced submarine that no-one ever leaves, piloted by a mysterious captain with a dark past... it should be exciting, right?

But it's not. Oh, boy, is it not.

'20,000 Leagues Under The Sea' has to be one of the dullest books I've ever read in my entire life. Now, to be fair, I haven't read all of it... I gave up somewhere between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. I'm told it picks up a bit towards the end, but I just couldn't bring myself to keep reading any more. The narrator is a complete twerp (some of the other characters, like Ned Land the harpooner and Nemo himself are at least mildly interesting, but very one-note) and the story itself consists primarily of marine-biologist-joygasm for page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page... If I wanted a comprehensive list of *every fish ever to be identified anywhere in the entire world*, complete with paroxysms of rapture over their beauty and general awesomeness, I'd read a textbook.

'20,000 Leagues Under The Sea' actually does read like a textbook, for pages at a time. A condescending one, at that. I know that Verne considered it very important for his books to be accurate and informative, but he goes excruciatingly overboard in '20,000 Leagues', to the point where the rare occurrences of plot and/or action seem almost an intrusion on the boring effusions over fish.

I'm going to keep trying Verne, and have started 'Five Weeks in a Balloon', which so far is at least moderately interesting, although I'm not very far in yet. He has a way for presenting incredibly fanciful concepts with absolute realism that is absolutely fascinating, and he's certainly worth trying.

But if you want to make a start on reading Verne, make it 'Around the World in 80 Days', not '20,000 Leagues Under The Sea'.

Unless you really, really like fish.

Broccoli in the Bathtub

There is something arresting about the sight of a tiny broccoli floret in the bathtub.

It is something that so patently does not belong there. An entirely foreign object. Enough so that even I noticed it, and I generally have very little truck with the idea that any given object should be used only for its intended purpose.

I know why it was there, of course. My logic ran thusly.

1. The vegetable bin out of the fridge needs washing out.

2. The vegetable bin is twice as long as the kitchen sink.

3. Trying to balance the bin on the edge of the sink with one hand while scrubbing with the other is inconvenient, annoying, likely to splash water on me, and is quite noisy.

4. The baby is sleeping.

5. The bathtub is much bigger than the sink....

I was right. It was much easier, even given the need to bend right over, to wash the vegetable bin in the bathtub than it is in the kitchen sink. There was hot water on hand, I didn't have to constantly juggle the thing around - it was perfect.

Which got me thinking about how many things I use for purposes not intended by the manufacturor. There was another incident of this only this morning, during a conversation with the Hedgehog, which went something like this.

"I can't find the tea-tree oil." (Said while rooting through the medicine cabinet, which is in the kitchen because there's not enough shelf-space in the bathroom and I see no earthly reason why the medicines should be in the bathroom if it's inconvenient, just because everyone else puts them there) "Are you sure we have any?"

"Look in the bathroom."

"Where?"

"On top of the cabinet. The stuff we wash floors with."

Because I do, in fact, wash the floors with tea-tree oil. It works a treat on lino, as it happens, and I don't like using harsher disinfectants in the house, given that we have pets and any day now a crawling Baby K who will lick the floor on the slightest provocation. But it's not actually meant for the purpose, and the bottle I have is technically the water-soluble medicinal stuff.

I think my tendency to use whatever tool happens to be most convenient comes of spending my early childhood often travelling, often out in the bush far from such civilized amenities as running water, and always short of money. I blame my pack-rat tendencies on the same thing.

And for the record, if you have something too large for the kitchen sink, I highly recommend the bathtub. Fill the thing (not the tub, which is wasteful) with warm water and soap, and off you go.

Scintillating

It's really very difficult to scintillate on command. I don't know how the likes of John Scalzi, Dave Hingsberger, Lance Mannion et al do it every day. And they make it look terribly easy, which I imagine is why there are so many blog hopefuls who crash and burn within weeks. The good ones make it look easy, but it isn't.

I've found myself further hampered by the fact that I am currently spending most of my time at home alone with a three-month-old, who is adorable but not yet what I would call a stimulating conversationalist. She takes up nearly all my time and attention, and so I've found myself having real difficulty thinking up topics of conversation - for the blog or, sadly, in in-person chat - that don't involve her in some way. Since I have no intention of making a parenting blog out of this thing, that's a problem.

But I'm going to keep trying. Because I love to write and I have lots of opinions and frankly, the idea of being able to interact with other adults without leaving the house is very appealing right now.

So, as of now, I begin to scintillate on command on a series of non-baby topics like books, sci-fi/fantasy, and the state of modern fandom, which is not what it was in my day when everything was better and we walked uphill both ways to the comic shop in the snow to buy X-Men and YOU! BENDIS! GET OFF MY LAWN!

Ahem.

Okay, so scintillating starts tomorrow.

I wonder if it would seem terribly derivative if I taped ham to my cat?