I spared so little thought

[suprunp]

I spared so little thought to all the lives we’d left behind us. All her thoughts were focused on the future.
(All the Love in the World; Cat Sparks)

I'm not sure but the context somehow tells me that the narrator almost always thought about the past, as opposed to the other woman, but the actual word 'spare' seems to be slightly tricky to me.

Thanks.

[5jj]

The speaker almost never thought about the past. The other person thought only about the future.

This reads strangely - it appears that there is meant to be a contrast between the two sentences, but there is not.

[suprunp]

Thank you, 5jj!

When I read the first sentence I thought that the narrator almost never thought about the past, but when I read the second one, which, in my book, doesn't tally with the first one, I wasn't that sure.

[BobK]

The speaker almost never thought about the past. The other person thought only about the future.

This reads strangely - it appears that there is meant to be a contrast between the two sentences, but there is not.

Perhaps the writer doesn't know what 'spare a thought' means. Ms Sparks obviously doesn't know that it takes the preposition 'for':

Example:

Spare a thought for the boys who didn't come home.


b

[suprunp]

Perhaps the writer doesn't know what 'spare a thought' means. Ms Sparks obviously doesn't know that it takes the preposition 'for':

Example:

Spare a thought for the boys who didn't come home.


b

Then it is not a very good choice to represent science fiction in "Year's Best SF 16"...

[5jj]

Then it is not a very good choice to represent science fiction in "Year's Best SF 16"...

I used to be a great fan of sci-fi, but I never thought it was meant to be a good model for English grammar or style. Some wonderful sci-fi writers were not 'great writers' in the literary or grammatical sense, and some garbage was produced by people who dotted every i and crossed every t.