Thinking and writing and the Queen

I've been doing more thinking than writing recently. That and reading too. I finished Emily Maguire's Taming the Beast yesterday and found it on the whole good and disturbing. It evokes emotion so to me that means a book has worked at some level. Maguire is an Australian writer and Taming the Beast is billed as an erotic work of fiction.

It is erotic in a nihilistic way, which I don't mean as a criticism, since a story about a fourteen year old girl who has a destructive, sadomasochistic affair with her English teacher, then resumes the relationship some years later, is bound to be fairly bleak. In a way it's a standard story - sexually abused girl goes on to become promiscuous and destructive, always looking for her original lover. Maguire's writing is almost good, in that there are sections that are terrific, poignant, horrifying and funny. There are other sections where she over explains, sounding a bit to much like a therapist. But I was completely engaged. She has a second book just published call The Gospel According to Luke on my TBR pile.

I've also seen The Queen which was wonderful. The actor who played Tony Blair got him perfectly. And I'll go an see anything with Helen Mirren. Of course, the real Queen and I share the same birthday (21 April) so I have instant sympathy for a fellow Taurus, even if she is obscenely wealthy and I'm a republican.

But I would like to do more writing. The problem of commitment continues.