Reading ...

Just started Sarah Waters' The Night Watch and of course, it was on TV on Tuesday, and I couldn't see it, after having waited ages for it!
Thanks to the BBC iPlayer, I finally could watch it yesterday evening and loved it. Anna Maxwell Martin is the best actress around, I need to try and catch some of her early stuff. I saw her for the first time in the wonderful adaptation of Bleak House in which she was this luminous, poignant presence. What an amazing talent and fascinating person.

I do hope I will like The Night Watch, the book - ok... my reason for still not having read it: my boyfriend had read it and told me the descriptions of the Blitz were quite harrowing, and I am a squeamish wuss. There. I said it.
He loved the book, by the way.
The last Sarah Waters I read was Fingersmith... and I couldn't finish it, which is very, very rare for me. I just couldn't carry on reading it, couldn't get interested in the story. For me, the book is too dense, too slow, too intent on detailing every single tiny little detail... It is also incredibly entangled and you often wonder whether you got the identity of the characters right... Sometimes, simple is best. I took this book as an example of what not to do while writing (sorry, Ms Waters), which is a shame, as of course, the prose is perfect and extremely well written; but somehow, once again, it feels like it's been too sweated over for its own good.                         
I found The Little Stranger, Sarah Waters' latest book, much easier to read and flowing, and I loved it - the slight supernatural element is wonderfully subtle, enough to be disturbing without falling into full-on, grotesque haunting). I cannot wait for an adaptation of it: in the right hands, it would make for a thrilling piece of drama.

A good article about The Night Watch TV adaptation here: The Night Watch, The Telegraph

Sarah Water's website