Miss Garnet's Angel

I just finished reading Miss Garnet's Angel by Salley Vickers.

I read a lot of genre fiction, so it was fun to read something that seemed so mainstream. It also featured two of my favourite subjects: Venice and angels.

The plot is about a retired English schoolteacher named Julia Garnet, who decides to go to Venice because she has already wanted to go. Through her life she has been mostly solitary and fairly sheltered. Venice opens her eyes to beauty and to life in various ways, as she makes friends with some people for almost the first time in her life. This is all counterpointed with the story of Tobit from the Apocrypha.

I got quite into the story, and then was reasonably disappointed in the resolutions of the various themes. They fell a little flat. Nothing really surprised me, except for one lie that I had believed. I was disappointed, for example, that after Julia learns Sarah's secret, they never talk about it - never talk again

Still, any story set in Venice (and with Venetian art and angels in it) has to be worth reading.

The power of butter...

When I go to the grocery I end to have trouble remembering what I need, especially since I'm bad at making notes. So I tend to keep buying the things I know I use a lot - milk and butter, for example.

I just looked in the fridge and realized that I have five pounds of butter. I guess I don't use butter as much as I think I do.

Van Helsing

I saw Van Helsing today, with five friends. I liked it more than they did. I thought it was extremely funny - a real classic comedy-thriller. I laughed through most of the movie, while my friends weren't getting the humour. Hmm. ( A few more specific comments.... )