Montherlant, Hugo, Skloot

Since my last post, I've read a really big pile of magazines: 5 issues of Eclectic Reading, two issues of OK Magazine, two issues of The New Scientists, one issue of The Economist, one issue of The New Yorker, one issue of Psychology Today, one issue of the Pulitzer-nominated National Enquirer, and two issues of Hello Canada.

I've also ploughed through the complete works of Henry de Montherlant. I didn't find his work gripping, and none of his novels I found arresting, although his themes of indigenous people and colonialism were certainly ahead of his time. I have also read the first few volumes, of 16! of the complete works of Victor Hugo. I was not knowledgeable about his tragic life -- repeated exile, and the death of four of his five children -- but he certainly managed to write through it all. I'm on volume 7, the books of history he wrote, although I've already read Choses vues. I also read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebeccas Skloot, which I found not outside the process of exploitation and ethical murkiness of the original event, the removing of cells from a woman's body without her knowledge or consent several decades ago. The science reporter managed to insert herself into the story, which I can imagine was thin. I was uncomfortable with the whole thing.