[ SECRET POST #3861 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3861 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #553.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: Book club - July discussion!

[(Anonymous)]

I read the trilogy version, which think is abridged? I didn't realise that, and one day I'll read the full version. But I enjoyed this one.
E's great on descriptions – a symptom of a more leisured age, I think – though I did boggle a bit at the description of the house wearing “that secretive expression that is in some way akin to a young girl's face during her first pregnancy.” Whut.

I really felt for poor Mij on his journey from Basra. A bit more preparation would have been an excellent idea. Also, the casual importing of wild animals – without so much as a vet's check! Times have changed, for sure.

I like his achievement of “an otter-proof situation” in Chapter 8! there doesn't seem to be any such thing.

I've got a note on Ch 8 that his thoughts on insecurity and its effects are chilling – Stockholm syndrome described several decades early – but I can't remember what made me write that down!

I've decided that Cuthbert was my kind of saint. He sounds like an early Attenborough.

The description of the haunted ravine in Ch 9 is very eerie. He's definitely got a way with words. I'd like to visit it myself, without knowing in advance exactly what it is, to see if I pick up the same vibe. Honestly, if it's as full of wildlife as he says, I'd probably like it.

The shop assistant in Ch 10 is awesome. But the rest of the chapter is very sad. :((( That seems to be the way with all animal-human interactions, though. I suppose it's how Tolkien's Elves felt: such short lives. :((

I've also been re-reading Gerald Durrell recently, and the contrast between the attitudes of the two men, at about the same time, is quite interesting – one went out and got experience and learned about the animals and how to care for them before bringing them back to the UK, and the other started off by killing them for a living, then gradually got to know individuals. In the end, they kind of met in the middle.

The book as a whole is lovely, both as a record of a man's friendship with the wild creatures around him, and as a record of a lost way of life, and as a way of escape into a less complicated, though rawer, way of life. It's like another world, seen from today's perspective, but it's not all that long ago. A really fascinating read, on many levels.

Re: Book club - July discussion!

[diet_poison]

I only read the first book, so I can't speak to the other two.

Yeah I was also boggled by that simile. ???

Mij's flight from Iraq was both pity-inducing but also funny (like when he got into the American lady's purse, and Maxwell managed to stuff everything back before she noticed). Airplane security is another thing that's changed a lot, too.

The ravine sounded really cool and is a place I'd really enjoy exploring, personally.

Definitely another world...I wonder if I could have adapted to it if I lived in that time period. I'm too extroverted for that level of isolation, but living off the grid and doing without a lot of entertainment and physical stuff would have been easier for me to adjust to then than now, perhaps.

I'd love to go camping there, though (in the summer).