(diaryland) May 24, 2008 - 11:52 p.m.

This is the second time I've read an Elizabeth Gaskell novel, and it's the second time the whole novel has been going in a really cool direction, and then the ending has been a bit shit.

The first one I read, she died before she finished it properly. Damn, it really keeps you hanging. I still get a fuzzy feeling at the back of my head I'm so in suspense. It could be that, or a loose spinal cord. I'm not sure.

That one was called Wives and Daughters, by the way. What I'm saying is not really a spoiler, but a warning sign.

And then I just finished reading North and South, which was in a serial you'd get in a mag every week, maybe. There's fifty-two chapters. The magazine was edited by Charles Dickens, and you know how that guy waffles on. His books are phone book length detailed things, but it seems that he likes everyone else to keep it short and snappy because at around chapter fifty of North and South he clearly told Elizabeth Gaskell to wrap things the fuck up. And wrap the fuck up things did. People were spread out in all directions, doing cool stuff, then, BAM! A huge sudden body count of people who had been healthy two seconds before, and everyone gets hitched, real fast, like a shotgun wedding. By 'everyone', I actually mean two people.

I 'found' the TV show of it and watched it today. The TV show dudes had the luxury of a hundred and fifty years to get the pace right, and the last episode was kind of spaced out better than the book. I mostly liked what they did.

I think the chick didn't pash Mr. Thornton at the end correctly, though. I think she needed a stunt double. Like, I probably could have stepped in and done a really thorough job.

Hey, I'm busting a gut to write a novel myself. I will do the traditional once-every-two-years November novel. I know what it's going to be about. It will be called Damnation - a Love Story, and will be a period piece, with Muʻumuʻus (Wikipedia says it's the right spelling).