Force of Habit

I've been reading Simone de Beauvoir's Force of Circumstance and, to tell the truth, I'm finding this volume of her autobiography slightly dull. Starting at the end of the war, it concentrates on the period of her literary heyday, her strange relationship with Sartre and her many political and social connections. And I think this last is the main problem: I've never heard of most of them, but she takes it as given that these faceless names mean something to the reader. There's also a lack of personal reflection (at least as far as I've read) that made the previous two volumes interesting. I don't care who she knew - I want to know what she thought. As it is, it reads a bit like a meeting schedule. It may improve, but it had better do so pretty damn soon!

I've also been trying to bone up on the basics of linguistics, and to that end purchased a Hodder 'Teach Yourself' linguistics book. It is utterly fascinating -no, it's better than that. If I was going to do another degree, this is the subject that I'd study. The book is by Jean Aitchison, although I didn't realise this until just now, when I looked for the author's name (not very prominent). This is the linguist recommended to me by my doctoral supervisor as being clear and accessible - and I have to agree. It's rivetting stuff.

Before long I'm going to have to sort out a 'holiday book' again. As I'm anticipating doing a lot of wine-soaked lazing about in the sun, I want something not too heavy, amusing but well written with enough pages to keep me going throughout the whole week. If I get the selection wrong, I stamp my tiny foot, pout and sulk, so I had better start looking soon! I must also get over the temptation to take anything scholarly with me: I'm pretty good at pretending to read the heavy stuff, i.e. moving my eyes over the page at a convincing rate, but actually thinking about something entirely different (and usually banale). Usually food.