There's no specific topic for today; instead, I'm just throwing a few (well, two) ideas
together into one blog post.
Part one: More on lexical gaps
I believe I have identified another lexical gap. Imagine that two people are
in a car on the way to the beach. One person, the driver, is driving,
while the other, the passenger is...? There doesn't seem to be a verb for that.
Travelling is not nearly as specific as driving is -- perhaps we can make
passengering a word.
Part two: Trainspotting (spoilers)
During a free period at school this morning, I finished reading
'Trainspotting'. I've spoken a lot about the narrative and structure of the
novel already, so I'll only talk about the characters. For one thing, there are
so many characters that it took me half of the novel to identify the four main
characters; other characters are only minor and some only appear for one
chapter. For example, Renton's cousin, Nina, has an entire chapter dedicated to
her and I think she was only mentioned once in passing after that. The
storyline is very inconsistent and doesn't succeed in actually making a
point.
As for the four main characters (or who I see as the main characters), they
are all -- with the exception of Begbie -- introduced as being not so bad. Sick
Boy is a ladies' man. Renton seems pretty normal, aside from being a druggie.
Spud is "harmless". However, this is slowly stripped away as we find
that Spud has a habit of stealing and both Renton and Sick Boy are violent and
distinctly unpleasant people.
I liked the novel more as I read it, though I'm not sure precisely why. I
suppose that I eventually became invested in the characters -- which
usually happens in the first chapter of the book but happened much later in
this case -- so I was more interested.
Anyway, only read it if you're not offended by expletives and if almost-profound
rants during drug-induced stupors are your thing.
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