A pretty ordinary day, really. I finished reading The Last Kashmiri Rose by Barbara Cleverly, but despite a promising start and some nice detail, I can’t claim to have quite enjoyed the book. Characters act in ways that aren’t always believable — for the time period of the British Raj, but also just for human beings — and the ending solves the mystery in what’s maybe the least interesting of the most predictable ways. Though maybe we’re at a point in mystery novels at which not confounding your expectations itself counts as a twist? Either way, I found the book ultimately a disappointment.
Moving on the Haruki Murakami’s Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, just for a complete change of pace.
I also finished watching Fringe, finally. I’ve had the fifth season saved up since it first aired this fall, and I’ve been watching an episode (occasionally two) every evening this week. It’s not a perfect ending, for a show that was never perfect — started out as pretty lousy, actually, before figuring out how to frequently be terrific — but a satisfying one all the same.
I wish I could say the same for Insidious, which I watched last night. It was a lot less scary than I expected, and doesn’t have a whole lot going for it beyond scares.
Finally, this evening I had dinner out with my parents. I had frog legs for the first time — also unimpressive, but maybe more from the way they were prepared — and a decent if unremarkable duck confit. Then my parents went off to see Mary Chapin Carpenter and Marc Cohn in concert and I came home (to watch Fringe and walk the dog). My mom’s a long-time fan of Carpenter, and I bought her tickets this past Mother’s Day.
And that was Saturday, with a little bit of Friday tossed in.