deprecor hoc unum

Ett sistaminutentips till den som ännu inte köpt mig något, romanen Among Other Things, I've Taken Up Smoking. NYT skriver sålunda:

"And, left to raise his daughter alone, Peter Donnal is aloof and distracted. A Greek and Latin scholar who wears raveled sweaters, wipes “the sweat from his glasses” and who might tip a rowboat because of his “big brain,” he once founded the Institute for Classical Studies in New York with Arthur Mitchell, who later bequeathed to him his house on Crab Island.

We never learn if a publisher is waiting for the Ovid text, or if Peter’s writing is just an obsession. But as a child Miranda finds succor typing up her father’s daily revisions. Reading Ovid’s myths of “change” forces her to examine her own feelings. “My purpose is to tell of bodies changed into different bodies,” Ovid says. Miranda thinks “the process of transformation ... was sometimes a punishment,” but when describing to a girlfriend Phaëthon’s desire to borrow his father’s chariot, she explains it’s because “boys like to drive things.” "