Reading

I'm going to be stopping my French study today, after the class I'll have in about an hour. Not forever -- I'll be starting again after July, after the French kid leaves - but it seems silly to study right up to the moment of departure -- why not study on the plane? on final approach to DeGaulle? In the terminal? In its place, I'm starting to read normal things again. By which I mean, things unrelated to learning the French language. Not that I ever actually stopped reading other things -- I'm reading Idoru, for example, and enjoying it a great deal (I just wrote that as exjoying, and somehow I think that ought to be a word) -- but for a long time I felt guilty if I didn't spend time studying. Not studying studying, the way that a grammar teacher would teach the language, but doing something with French -- looking at Anki flashcards, puzzling my way through Le Monde, doing a bit of Rosetta Stone. As a result, I feel relatively confident that I'll be able to communicate in France -- though I am sure I'll be aghast at how much I cannot say; even now, I practice some phrases that I want to be able to use, like Je suis tres heureux etre ici, et voir vous enfin -- I'm very glad to be here, and to see you at last (I don't know if that's syntactically correct) -- and I'm dismayed at how hard it is to remember. Not to mention, to pronouce words like heureux. I love it when I get the sound right of those mouth-gargling words French has, but I can't always do it on command. Sometimes I sound less like a Frenchman and more like a cat, hocking up a hairball.

But I digress.

One of the books that I've started reading is one that I'd gotten from a Used Book sale at a local college. It's a collection of science-based science fiction -- what's called hard science science fiction. This doesn't always mean that the writing is good, but it does mean that the writer put some thought into the science behind the story. As has happened to me on occasion, once I got it home and started to read, I said There's a reason I liked the sound of this book... I donated it !!! But still, I read it, because I do like this kind of thing. Right now I'm reading Beggars in Spain, by Nancy Kress. It's speculation on what would happen if we found a way to do without sleep. From that Wikipedia link: The novel's title comes from its primary moral question, as presented by character Tony Indivino: what do productive and responsible members of society owe the "beggars in Spain," the unproductive masses who have nothing to offer except need?

How good is this story?

I'm reading it slowly, that's how good. I do not want it to end, even as This sounds awfully like Ayn Rand occurs to me. Not fond of her. But the science here? Love it.