Still plugging away at the anthology, though one of the stories I read yesterday (Double Exposure) I was less than fond of. In it, the adult narrator recalls the time when, as a ten year old child, he met Sylvia Plath. He and his mother were living in England in an apartment not far from Sylvia's, and they ran into her one day en route to meeting her elderly neighbor. Lonely and bored, S. invited the two of them for tea the next day, during which date the three of them exchanged polite conversation and ate pastries. That was the narrator's only meeting with S.: she committed suicide a few days later. Eventually, the narrator went on to write poetry (not very good), then give up writing because of his evident lack of skill. Said narrator also went on to abandon women - much, in fact, as his own mother and S. had been "abandoned."

Hypothetically, at least, I don't have a problem with an author using a major historical figure as a character in a story. It's an interesting challenge, to be sure, requiring one to incorporate enough fact to make the figure recognizable as him or herself, but also to add enough person spin on said figure so that he/she does not appear wooden: a mere congregation of the well-known tidbits. That was my problem with this story: the Sylvia character was wooden. Her dialogue was rendered awkward by the author's blunt insertion of historical facts in places where no such pronouncements would normally occur ("Oh, please, don't call me Mrs. Hughes - 'Hughes' is the name of my ex-husband, not me"). Maybe I'm being picky. Or maybe I'm not. After all, I didn't start the reading of this story with a chip on my shoulder; I'd never heard of the author, and I was pleased (initially) with the appearance of such a famous figure in such an otherwise unassuming place. Maybe this story just serves to testify to the difficulty of writing quality historical fiction...

In other news, I am freezing my ass off. My house is plenty warm, but the office, with its ceiling-high plate glass windows, feels like an igloo. Scratch that: igloos are supposed to be warm. Right? The temp this morning was -10 - nothing, compared to what's going on in the Midwest/Maine - and I think the high for today is supposed to be 9. I am whining, yes I know, but I am incapable of surviving these low temperatures! My fingers are icicles! I cannot physically move any closer to the space heater, lest my pants ignite!

This wknd: Boston, thesis work, baked goods, movies, & other assorted fun things. Bonus fun: three day weekend.