Continuity of thought and theme being central to a Blogger´s modus operandi, I pick up on two items from last week´s issue. The first was that of the beauty treatment to be undergone by Paul and Myriam. The details of what they were about to go through when this “Before “ picture was taken.
Was it to be the full face lift, or just a touch of the botox, or maybe some discreet liposuction at waist level? It turned out that what was actually involved was some eminently sensible skin treatment. How effective? Well, you can judge from this “After” shot.
The second item was the query about who that female writer, sorry, lady writer was who had just written a whole novel consisting of a single sentence. You may recall that Antje brought this up:-
“ A lady (am I allowed to use a gender) just published a whole novel consisting of one sentence. Being a WAG, might I be allowed to forget the name.
I do know that we walked 8.2 km today around Porto, fortified on route by port wine at regular intervals.
Love Antje”
and I asked if anybody could remedy Antje´s lapse of memory. Of course - par for the course – nobody did, so I was obliged to do some research myself. I knew that various novelists had written non-stop, stream of consciousness sort of stuff over the years, Joyce being a prime example, but a whole novel of just the one sentence? Surely that´s stretching it a bit. ( Joyce, incidentally, not a female but the Irishman James Joyce. We came across his name just the other week when we were in Trieste where apparently he lived for some time, and the Trieste-ese are for some reason very proud that he did.)
Among the fascinating stuff I dug up was the information that an Irishman called Mike McCormack has just won a prize of £10,000 or so for his novel called Solar Bones. This 51-year-old Irish writer’s book has a single sentence across 224 pages. The single sentence novel is set on All Souls Day in November 2008 and follows the recollections of a man who’s briefly brought back from the dead. They don´t say how many words he used. But he´s a he, so not Antje´s bird.
For a long time, what was regarded as the longest sentence in English Literature was one of 13,955 words in a book called The Rotter´s Club by one Jonathan Coe. But Coe was rather outdone by a Pole called Jerzy Andrzejewski wrote a book, in Polish, called The Gates of Paradise which was 40,000 words long and consisted of just two sentences, the second of which contains only 5 words “And they marched all night.” Why did he put a full stop after word 39,995 in the first sentence? But neither of these two fellows can be the person on Antje´s mind either.
However, finally, I stumbled across a news item about the 2019 Booker Prize long list, among which is a book by a lady writer called Lucy Ellman, who I guess could be the writer Antje was thinking of. Apparently this American-born writer now lives in Edinburgh, so with a bit of perseverance, Antje may even get to meet her there. Ellman´s book is called “Ducks Newburyport” and consists of one single sentence running over 1000 pages. It´s the interior monologue of an Ohio housewife ruminating on everything from dinner party menus to the dark side of Trump´s America, a never-ending stream of consciousness written without paragraphs or full stops. From the sound of that, I don´t think that I would not want to run the risk of being an Ohio husband. The 426,100 word sentence (that word-count rather hits Jerzy A for six) is broken only a handful of times, to quote The Daily Telegraph, by a parallel story written from the perspective of a mountain lion. So,well yes, naturally, like, I mean to say, like…...
The Booker Prize judges call the book “extraordinary” and “like nothing you´ve ever read before.” Perhaps that last bit should have been “ like nothing you will ever read.”
Even if Ellman does not win the prize, she must surely be the longest sentence record holder now.
But the prize is not won yet. To find out which book does, you will have to wait to early October. There are 12 other contestants on the long list, one of whom is the rather better-known Margaret Attwood, who has submitted a sequel to her novel, the original “The Handsmaid´s Tale” and that, rather nicely, leads us back to the proper subject of this blog which is APAPS Walk 19.6 – I bet you were wondering how I could segue that – because the TV series of the Handsmaid´s Tale based on her novel just happened to be one of the conversational items on the day´s walk.
So to The Walk
The hard core that assembled at Café Martins were just six. To those regulars already out of action was added Dina, whose car had had a contretemps with another vehicle at a roundabout. This Café is always open early so Paul managed to get his essential coffee starter.
Starters (from the left):- Myriam, JohnH, Ingrid, Jill, TerryA with Becky, and Paul; to the right, an uininterested non-participant.
Nothing unusual about our route, which we have done several times in the past. Myriam was staggered by the greenery of the view –until she realised she was looking at a golf course.
We noted that work continues by fits and starts on some ugly and possibly impractical villas at Caravela.
For once, the male-female balance was even, and the Tilley count was in the majority even before adding in the pseudo-Tilley.
As for us, steady progress along our track was made until at last Ingrid called for a banana stop.
Secret signals were exchanged - nobody knows why.
or what they mean.
At about the half-way point in the Leader´s estimation, there was some debate about distances because Paul´s Garmin tracking device was showing that we had already done over 10 kms at about 16 kph. The Leader was not convinced, so little so that he threw in a small extra loop just to add distance.
This figure looked familiar to some.
This week´s question: does it remind you of anyone?
As I noted , there was some discussion about the TV series The Handsmaid´s Tale but Myriam and Ingrid were clear in their judgement that the follow-on sequels are rubbish. What will they think of Ms Attwood´s new novel? Janet may have read it already.
We returned to base in good time for breakfast and found the table neatly prepared for us, with an extra of crackers, cheese and jam.
Substantial bifanas for those who took that option and, for the traditionalists, ample servings of bacon and scrambled egg, plus fresh tomatoes and onions, and adequate buttered toast, gave us, at Euros 5 per head inclusive of drinks, a reasonable deal.
We were joined for coffees by Rod and Charlie Frew, and there was some rather gloomy talk about the situation in Hong Kong.
Now, since we didn´t write very much about the walk itself, here are some passing thoughts on The Importance of Walking.
Walking can add minutes to your life. This enables you at 85 years old to spend an additional 5 months in a nursing home at €15,000 per month.
My grandfather started walking five miles a day when he reached 60 years old. He´s now 85 and we don´t know the hell where he´s got to.
I like long walks..... especially when they´re taken by people who annoy me.
I have to walk early in the morning, before my brain figures out exactly what it is that I am doing.
To lose weight, I joined a gym last year and spent about €9000. Haven´´t lost even half a kilo. Apparently, you have to go there.
"Exercise" a dirty word. Every time I find myself using it, I wash my mouth out, with chocolate.
The only good reason for exercising every day is so that, when you die, they´ll say "Well, he does look good, doesn´t he."
If you are going to try cross-country skiing, start with a small country.
You could run these thoughts over to your friends. But careful, take it easy now; just email it to them.
The Track
and The Statistics
Total distance: 7.60 kms. Total time: 2 hrs 17 mins.
Moving time: 1 hr 48 mins. Moving average: 4.2 kph.
Ascent: 141 metres.
Eggs consumed: 12.
Post-Walk Extra
After the walk, Myriam and Ingrid followed the Leader back to his house, ostensibly to pick long beans as instructed by Hazel, but in reality to check that he was not getting up to anything untoward in her absence.
Secret signals were exchanged - nobody knows why.
At about the half-way point in the Leader´s estimation, there was some debate about distances because Paul´s Garmin tracking device was showing that we had already done over 10 kms at about 16 kph. The Leader was not convinced, so little so that he threw in a small extra loop just to add distance.
This figure looked familiar to some.
This week´s question: does it remind you of anyone?
As I noted , there was some discussion about the TV series The Handsmaid´s Tale but Myriam and Ingrid were clear in their judgement that the follow-on sequels are rubbish. What will they think of Ms Attwood´s new novel? Janet may have read it already.
We returned to base in good time for breakfast and found the table neatly prepared for us, with an extra of crackers, cheese and jam.
Substantial bifanas for those who took that option and, for the traditionalists, ample servings of bacon and scrambled egg, plus fresh tomatoes and onions, and adequate buttered toast, gave us, at Euros 5 per head inclusive of drinks, a reasonable deal.
We were joined for coffees by Rod and Charlie Frew, and there was some rather gloomy talk about the situation in Hong Kong.
Now, since we didn´t write very much about the walk itself, here are some passing thoughts on The Importance of Walking.
Walking can add minutes to your life. This enables you at 85 years old to spend an additional 5 months in a nursing home at €15,000 per month.
My grandfather started walking five miles a day when he reached 60 years old. He´s now 85 and we don´t know the hell where he´s got to.
I like long walks..... especially when they´re taken by people who annoy me.
I have to walk early in the morning, before my brain figures out exactly what it is that I am doing.
To lose weight, I joined a gym last year and spent about €9000. Haven´´t lost even half a kilo. Apparently, you have to go there.
"Exercise" a dirty word. Every time I find myself using it, I wash my mouth out, with chocolate.
The only good reason for exercising every day is so that, when you die, they´ll say "Well, he does look good, doesn´t he."
If you are going to try cross-country skiing, start with a small country.
You could run these thoughts over to your friends. But careful, take it easy now; just email it to them.
The Track
and The Statistics
Total distance: 7.60 kms. Total time: 2 hrs 17 mins.
Moving time: 1 hr 48 mins. Moving average: 4.2 kph.
Ascent: 141 metres.
Eggs consumed: 12.
Post-Walk Extra
After the walk, Myriam and Ingrid followed the Leader back to his house, ostensibly to pick long beans as instructed by Hazel, but in reality to check that he was not getting up to anything untoward in her absence.
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