Sunday, March 10, 2013

All we need is a few good words

Here are three photographs from Friday, when I stayed quite late at work, well after sunset. End of a very busy week. It has been cold since then, and will be, daytime temperature hovering around -5 °C, at night going down to -15 °C or below.

It may be that the tiredness and muscle ache is not due to exercise at all. I have flu symptoms coming up, sore throat, bocked nose, headache, and the big muscles in the feet aching. Nothing major, at least yet, but I guess I need to take it easy for a while.

PS. It is great what one can learn from the net. I have been reading the Donald E. Westlake novel Drowned Hopes, where a character claims that when Oklahoma remained dry following the repeal of Prohibition the officials arrested a bartender serving drinks on a through train, and in revenge, Amtrak didn't provide service in the state. Well, there is an article about whether this is true: "In short, while there may be some deserted old railroad towns in Oklahoma, the notion that they got that way because of a liquor dispute is a flight of writerly fancy." So now I know.

The novel Drowned Hopes is rather good. It is the seventh Dortmunder novel, and the humor is there, but this is a much more complex story than any of the other Dortmunder novels which I have read, quite ambitious in scope. And will Dortmunder be able to make the heist? Well, I have a third of the novel still to be read, and I suspect that there will be a lot of surprises lurking for the team of thieves.

PS2. I found a review of the novel, telling it quite like I found the book, and even this fits: "Drowned Hopes is a joy, start to finish, the perfect read to get you through the final weeks of this long, long winter."

(Posting title is from the poem Return on Word by Kit Robinson.)

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