So I'm writing my reading progress for April one day early, because I don't think I will be finishing another novel tomorrow, with the travelling to China and the panicking about the travelling to China and all (more about travelling to China in a post to come!). So this is my score as of week 18:
11 The Spy Who Came in From the Cold - John le Carre
12 Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
13 De Ontdekking van de Hemel (The Discovery of Heaven) - Harry Mulisch
14 The Beautifull Cassandra - Jane Austen
Which means I'm still 4 books behind, but I haven't gotten more behind, which is good. Also, I fiiiiinally finished reading The Discovery of Heaven, which took me about 2 months. This is one of the real 'classics' of Dutch literature, and most people become very pretentious when talking about it, especially when they managed to get through it at an early age (it's on a lot of secondary school reading lists). I can't say I really cared for it; I liked the first part and the last part, but the middle two parts could have done with a LOT of editing. Hardly any character development, but lots of pointless side characters not really doing anything or going anywhere. Also, Mr Mulisch is very fond of killing off characters quite abruptly and for no apparent reason, which I couldn't really appreciate. The whole plot ties up nicely at the end, but I just wish we could have gotten there a bit faster.
But with that huge tome out of the way, I think I will be reading more and faster from now on. I'm halfway through Brideshead Revisited, but I also have some newer novels lined up, which I generally read faster. Also, there is the plane flight to and from China to give a lot of reading time (more about China later). So I have enough excuses to see myself getting to at least 20 novels in the next month. We'll see how that went at the end of May.
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