The Ocean at the end of the lane

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I'm a bit late for the first and a bit early for the latter but I mean well. As of every year we leave the city to spend the holidays with family and life outside my little coccoon in Rio is very difficult.

No high speed internet connection, no AC in every room, sharing a garden table with my 4-year-old and his batman gear... that's no easy feat.

I've been reading 'The Jane Austen Book Club ' and somehow it made me think of the boy from the Ocean and his father. It was Grigg and his father on their road trip, the pool and the messiah that got me thinking about ties, bathtubs and nannies... 

Anyway, my synapsys are fine but my internet connection is shitty here and I can't babble and find nice pics because my mobile wifi is fifty shades of lame.

Here you have it:

The Ocean at the End of the Lane

Neil Gaiman

chapter VI

page 40

"My mother sighed. ‘It is not going to be Gertruda all over again, dear. Ursula’s a very nice girl, from a very good family. And she positively adores the two of you.’

My father came home, and dinner was served. A thick vegetable soup, then roast chicken and new potatoes with frozen peas. I loved all of the things on the table. I did not eat any of it.

‘I’m not hungry,’ I explained.

‘I’m not one for telling tales out of school,’ said Ursula Monkton, ‘but someone had chocolate on his hands and face when he came down from his bedroom.’

‘I wish you wouldn’t eat that rubbish,’ grumbled my father.
‘It’s just processed sugar. And it ruins your appetite and your teeth,’ said my mother.

I was scared they would force me to eat, but they didn’t. I sat there hungrily, while Ursula Monkton laughed at all my father’s jokes. It seemed to me that he was making special jokes, just for her.

After dinner we all watched Mission: Impossible. I usually liked Mission: Impossible, but this time it made me feel uneasy, as people kept pulling their faces off to reveal new faces beneath. They were wearing rubber masks, and it was always our heroes underneath, but I wondered what would happen if Ursula Monkton pulled off her face, what would be underneath that?

We went to bed. It was my sister’s night, and the bedroom door was closed. I missed the light in the hall. I lay in bed with the window open, wide awake, listening to the noises an old house makes at the end of a long day, and I wished as hard as I could, hoping my wishes could become real. I wished that my parents would send Ursula Monkton away, and then I would go down to the Hempstocks’ farm, and tell Lettie what I had done, and she would forgive me, and make everything all right.

I could not sleep. My sister was already asleep. She seemed able to go to sleep whenever she wanted to, a skill I envied and did not have.

I left my bedroom.

I loitered at the top of the stairs, listening to the noise of the television coming from downstairs. Then I crept barefoot-silent down the stairs and sat on the third step from the bottom. The door to the television room was half open, and if I went down another step, whoever was watching the television would be able to see me. So I waited there.

I could hear the television voices punctuated by staccato bursts of TV laughter.

And then, over the television voices, adults talking.

Ursula Monkton said, ‘So, is your wife away every evening?’"

---

THE bucket... ah... the bucket!

I really liked this book...

It was named 2013 Book of the year. Wow!

Congrats to the winner of the Christmas giveaway.

Happy warm tea, the mug warmer is yours!

The ocean before midnight

hi,
Yes, I've lost it completely. My head is spinning with the power dose of good culture I inflicted myself this weekend.

I've already talked about Before midnight, a movie I longed for and to which I related way too much. And then, I read The Ocean at the End of the Lane , the new Neil Gaiman book. How these two wonderful works mix? Dunno. But I can tell you where they meet. 

In my mind, 

they talk about the same thing 

from different angles.

Told you I lost it.

Here's the thing: In Before, it's the parents' perspective - in special the mother, woman, professional, friend, daughter - in other words, wonder woman's view. In Ocean, it's the son's perspective.

Worst, the son is no longer a child. He is a child only grown and then back to being a child. Do I make any sense? No? I absolutely don't want to give away any spoilers, go read Mr. Gaiman 's book. It's puuuuurfect!

Those two works got me thinking about me and my boy while thinking about me and my parents at the same time. Difficult place to be - in between - and actually I'm not as gloomy as I usually get when in this mood. I feel... inspired.

There's always something we can do better different. That's what I'll try from now on. 
Avoiding spoilers, there were two lines in the book that are forever imprinted in me: 

"...‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘That took a lot longer than I expected. It didn’t want to cooperate, neither, and in the end it took me and Gran to do it, and she did most of the heavy lifting. It wasn’t going to argue with her, but it didn’t help, and it’s not easy …’
‘What?’ I asked. ‘What are you talking about?’

She put the metal bucket down on the grass beside me without spilling a drop. ‘The Ocean ,’ she said. ‘It didn’t want to go.'..."

and

"...‘And did I pass?’

The face of the old woman on my right was unreadable in the gathering dusk. On my left the younger woman said, ‘You don’t pass or fail at being a person, dear.’

I put the empty cup and plate down on the ground.

Ginnie Hempstock said, ‘I think you’re doing better than you were the last time we saw you. You’re growing a new heart, for a start.’..."

Get it? Sheriff of Crazy Town now has a new badge. A heart shaped one.

And before saying goodbye, pray for me ? tks

"Saint Jane of Austen, help me finish the Portuguese version of '45 days in Europe with Mr. Darcy' that I have just started. Amen."

Disclaimer: Images from Google, superb text from Mr. Gaiman, babble is all mine.