Everything’s falling apart at the moment. Apart from bits of me below the equator, upon which I will not elaborate, I paid my second visit to Orthoptics on Friday. I was fifteen minutes early and as I settled down in the waiting area, surrounded by children’s books and toys (because normally squints are problems which occur when you are a child), I had nothing to allay boredom. I went to the receptionist and asked if she had some scrap paper, and before I could explain my purpose, she gave me an oblong piece about 4” x 6”. I couldn’t write a novel, but I might just squeeze on a blog.
When I eventually saw the orthoptician (at least, I suppose that’s what she’s called), having filled one side of my paper, we talked again about the possibility of an operation to shorten a muscle in one eye. This hopefully would reduce the effect of double vision, which I increasingly get, even when I have not been imbibing. It would not be a major operation, unlike the other one on the horizon, and it seems like a sensible thing to do. I need to programme it in, somewhere, where it will not affect the other events in the diary.
The previous night, at the book circle, we discussed The Yiddish Policemen’s Union – my suggestion, following my son’s recommendation to me. I originally bought it for him for his birthday, having seen a review which sang its praises in Writers’ News. Because of the snow in January, we had two book discussions rolled into one. The result of this was to demonstrate how different people want different things from books. In both cases, some people loved the book, whilst others couldn’t get into it, or in one case, didn’t finish it (in the case of Note from an Exhibition.)
I normally want a plot in a book, and I missed it in Notes. I normally want to empathise with the characters, and yet despite being in all the viewpoints in Notes, I eventually found myself with an empathy overload. I couldn’t care about all these characters. The opposite was true of Yiddish Policeman. We were more or less exclusively in one viewpoint, that of Meyer Landsman, and I cared what happened to him, to his wife, to his partner, Berko, and his wife – I cared because I loved his wise-cracking voice and the knowledge of his pain. As for the plot, it was so complicated, I read the book twice, in order to make a presentation to the book circle, but before I had finished, first time around, I had already realised I was enjoying the book because of the language, (including some of Yiddish which I understood,) not necessarily the frequent use of 4-letter words, but the English – the use of metaphor and the descriptions, as well as the humour. It is very rare for me to enjoy a book because of the style, but this time, I did. It made me aware of my own plain writing style and, whereas I’ve sometimes read a book and thought, mine’s as good as this, on this occasion, I thought – I could never write like this – with much regret.
I might do a more detailed review later on. Shortly I am expecting the ProdigalD and family. It is some time since we last saw them, and I am looking forward to seeing my newest granddaughter, who is now five months old, as well as big sister.
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