Just to convince you that I have not only been watching movies, I will now mention some books I’ve read of late.

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray – Boy was this novel fun. Much like Dickens’ it was written for 60 pounds per chapter, and it shows. Where I was annoyed by Dickens’ constant prattling about misery, riches and what not, Thackeray’s odes to vanity are only slightly worn. I suppose the endless paragraphs about the silliness of the upper classes and wannabies were controversial and exciting at the time they were written, but to someone educated at the tail end of 20th century, by communists none the less, they are hackneyed. To the novel’s credit the main storyline is fun, exciting and well worth the read.

Povratak Filipa Latinovicza by Miroslav Krleza – Anyone who has had the pleasure of being entertained by my husband in our living room *cough*library*cough* knows how heavily our collection leans towards the British. In this tea stained environment I sometimes feel a bit homesick. I am ever so lucky that some of Krleza works have been trasfered to e-books. I really enjoyed “Povratak Filipa Latinovicza”. There is nothing like constant and tender references to mud to make a girl with inferiority complex feel better.

Here is a paragraph that really struck me:

“Ogenj!” Ta stara, zaboravljena rije? probudila je u Filipu jaki osje?aj panonske podloge. On ni sam nije znao zašto, ali u taj tren osjetio je neobi?no jako neku subjektivnu elementarnu pripadnost toj podlozi: osjetio se doma.

Or translated by my inexperienced hand:

“Fire!” That old, forgotten word awakened in Philip a strong sense of Panonian base. He himself did not know why, but in that moment he felt uncommonly strong subjective elementary belonging to that base: he felt at home.

The word for fire “ogenj” I did not translate exactly. It means fire but it is not commonly used in modern Croatian. Where used in the novel it is peasant slang. The word also connotates fireplace and, by extension, household and family. In the novel Philip returns to his hometown after spending most of his life in England and Western Europe. I sometimes get the exact feeling described in above paragraph when I hear words that have long been absent from my dialogue.