Not to be an Eleanor Catton groupie, but I said I thought there were some good bits of prose in The Rehearsal. Let me look at my highlights and pluck out three favorites. Continue reading
Jeremy’s highlights from The Rehearsal
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Bingo Lingo
We have been playing Bingo at this bar on Mondays. Two rounds a night. I won 3 times the first two nights we played (well, technically twice, since one was a tie and I refused to do a dance-off since I clearly said Bingo first).
The guy who calls the numbers says a phrase for each number, and it’s usually the same phrase each time. Our favorite: “22… two little ducks… 22”. The most unsettling is probably “58… masturbate… 58.” (Among other things, we do not know why it is always 58 and never 48 or 68.)
Notably, the guy uses various American references for his numbers. To wit:
21 gets a shout out to the legal drinking age in the US. (It’s 18 here.)
23 gets a shout out for Michael Jordan
51 gets a shout out for Area 51
54 gets a shout out for Studio 54
87 gets a shout out for how the police code for killing someone (everywhere in the US? just LA?) is 187.
There may be more. Meanwhile, there are zero Australian cultural references an American wouldn’t understand.
Apologia
We have let you down, hypothetical reader. Yesterday we posted a teaser saying that in only six hours we would decide where we were going to go on our big December trip, but then we never updated to tell you where. You have been waiting all this time. We have behaved as if, since you do not exist, you have nothing better to do. This was wrong: just because you are nobody doesn’t mean we should treat you like nobody. We will endeavor to do better.
Bright side: we did decide on our trip, and it will be to New Zealand.
Beckie and Jeremy will decide where to go on a trip
In the next six hours. Not that we will go on the trip in the next six hours, but we will commit to what the trip will be. Because we’re antsy and itching to go somewhere. Not tonight, I mean; tonight we’re good, we’re going to see the Hunger Games sequel. But tonight we decide where to go, and then we mobilizing on actually going there.
Sure, we know we do not have any readers yet and that we have not even told anyone about this blog. Nevertheless, Dear Reader, do not use your non-existence as an excuse not to stay tuned.
Jeremy reads The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton
Why did you read this book?: Because we liked The Luminaries so much.
Has Beckie read it?: She’s reading it. By the time this post appears she may be done.
42 word review: Debut published when Catton was 22. About artistic teens and sex scandal, with very nonlinear plot and various tricks with reality and characters’ roles. Incredibly ambitious, inventive, and flawed. Some gorgeous sentences. No idea what was happening by end; still mostly enchanted.
Rating: 3 1/2 gumnuts (out of 5). I would have given it 4 immediately after I finished it, but has lowered a notch in my mind afterward because I didn’t follow the ending. This is the opposite of the usual for me, as usually my immediate reaction to a book is preoccupied by my reaction to the ending, and only later do I think about it more as a whole.