Progress, at last!

Oh ho ho! Draft chapter 4 has been submitted - ahead of schedule, 'third time lucky'! ('Second time lucky' had me handing in last Monday; 'first time round' had a deadline in the last week of December...) It's not as bad as I had anticipated, although it's a little light on words. The glaringly obvious fault, however, is the fact that it doesn't yet hang together with the rest of the thesis, but that is something I intend to address after I have at the very least first drafts of all the proposed chapters. The next challenge, then, is to complete a draft of the final substantial chapter. This promises to be the most interesting chapter to write, and has the most potential to be creative. Having said that, I have very little idea at the moment of how to structure, or even what concept should be the guiding statement of the piece.

I've finished reading William Goldman's The Princess Bride. I really enjoyed it: the humour appealed to me and I really liked the 'abridger's inserts' - they reminded me of the meandering commentaries of Henry Fielding in Tom Jones and pretty much the whole of Tristram Shandy. I could quote whole chunks of the The Princess Bride that had me giggling, but here's one of the best:

"With no more words, she whirled into his arms then, saying, 'Oh, Westley, I didn't mean that, I didn't, I didn't, not a single syllabub of it.'
Now Westley knew that she meant to say, 'not a single syllable of it,' because a syllabub was something you ate, with cream and wine mixed in together to form the base. But he also knew an apology when he heard one. So he held her very close, and shut his loving eyes, and only whispered, 'I knew it was false, believe me, every single syllabub.'"

The story is a twist on the classic fairy tale (with the proviso that it may not end happily for all because, well, that's just life, isn't it?). The characters are appealing (or unappealing, if they are meant to be. Or, indeed, appealing in their unappealingness); the plot is sufficiently exciting to guide you through the jumps in time and narrative and the whole idea that this is a story that is meant to be read out loud is particularly interesting. We don't do that so much anymore, or, if we do, we limit it to reading to children. There is something performative about this novel which acknowledges that when you get down to it, stories are meant to be read aloud: whispered in quiet moments, told to friends in laughter, argued over, loved and remembered. All in all, it's a highly recommended book!

As I was driving to my parents this morning (what is it about Friday mornings and traffic on the North Circular? It's as though everyone has agreed to go out between the hours of 10am and 11am just for the purpose of making my journey has hellish as possible....) I followed one of those G4 security vans with a sign on the back that reads, 'Police follow this van'. I can never work out whether this is a command or a warning. Oh, well, pondering that great question kept me occupied for 40 minutes between Hammersmith and Chiswick...