Saturday is Wednesday
Jul. 6th, 2019 10:11 amFor many reasons, (mainly slothfulness), I didn’t get the Wednesday Reading Meme done in a timely manner this week, so here it is on Saturday again.
What I’ve Just Finished Reading
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evelyn_b raved about Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther earlier this year, so I read it for my reading challenge “a book recommended by someone with great taste,” and it was An Experience.
My previous experience with Werther consisted of Thackeray’s poem, Sorrows of Werther, which while funny is not really accurate: it makes Charlotte sound insensitive, but actually she’s quite distressed by Werther’s agonizingly intense feeligns for her and his suicide at the end of the book, not least because he arranged it so that he shot himself with Charlotte’s husband’s pistols. Werther WHY. Not in a “trying to make this look like murder” way, more of a “the existence of your husband has destroyed my life” symbolism, but actually that might make it worse for Charlotte. At least if Werther was trying to frame her husband she could be mad at him for acting with such venom and malice, you know?
I also read Sam Eastland’s Red Icon, which involves art theft AND religious cults, which are two of my favorite things, especially in a murder mystery. (If art theft mystery without murder was its own genre, I would totally read that too. One of the most disappointing reads of my life was a nonfiction book about a rare book thief, which I would have thought couldn’t help being good, and YET.)
What I’m Reading Now
I’ve become unexpectedly enthralled by a subplot in E. M. Delafield’s Gay Life. Private secretary and general sadsack Denis has fallen in love with the young novelist Charlotte Challoner. I was briefly afraid that Charlotte might be studying him to create a shy, lonely, self-conscious nobody for some future novel, but in fact she seems to be just as keen on him as he is on her and I’m really hoping that having met with sympathy and companionship for the first time in his life, Denis will blossom - if not like a rose than at least like some country wildflower growing up by the roadside.
I’ve begun Susanna Kearsley’s The Shadowy Horses, which has a Mary Stewart-ish charm so far: a plucky heroine far from home (in Scotland, this time) becomes embroiled in a mystery. There begin to be suggestions of ghosts and I will be thrilled if this comes to fruition.
I’m keeping on with Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. This week she comments, “In my life I’ve seen one million pictures of a duck that has adopted a kitten, or a cat that has adopted a ducklings, or a sow and a puppy, a mare and a muskrat. And for the one millionth time I’m fascinated.”
I had thought this “unusual animal friends” trend began with the internet, but evidently some human fascinations are perennial.
What I Plan to Read Next
Sam Eastland’s Berlin Red, which I was bereft - BEREFT - to learn is the final Inspector Pekkala book. What mystery series will I read now???
Actually, I’ve had my eye on Sarah Caudwell’s Hilary Tamar quartet for some time, so probably I should take this opportunity to give it a try.
What I’ve Just Finished Reading
evelyn_b raved about Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther earlier this year, so I read it for my reading challenge “a book recommended by someone with great taste,” and it was An Experience. My previous experience with Werther consisted of Thackeray’s poem, Sorrows of Werther, which while funny is not really accurate: it makes Charlotte sound insensitive, but actually she’s quite distressed by Werther’s agonizingly intense feeligns for her and his suicide at the end of the book, not least because he arranged it so that he shot himself with Charlotte’s husband’s pistols. Werther WHY. Not in a “trying to make this look like murder” way, more of a “the existence of your husband has destroyed my life” symbolism, but actually that might make it worse for Charlotte. At least if Werther was trying to frame her husband she could be mad at him for acting with such venom and malice, you know?
I also read Sam Eastland’s Red Icon, which involves art theft AND religious cults, which are two of my favorite things, especially in a murder mystery. (If art theft mystery without murder was its own genre, I would totally read that too. One of the most disappointing reads of my life was a nonfiction book about a rare book thief, which I would have thought couldn’t help being good, and YET.)
What I’m Reading Now
I’ve become unexpectedly enthralled by a subplot in E. M. Delafield’s Gay Life. Private secretary and general sadsack Denis has fallen in love with the young novelist Charlotte Challoner. I was briefly afraid that Charlotte might be studying him to create a shy, lonely, self-conscious nobody for some future novel, but in fact she seems to be just as keen on him as he is on her and I’m really hoping that having met with sympathy and companionship for the first time in his life, Denis will blossom - if not like a rose than at least like some country wildflower growing up by the roadside.
I’ve begun Susanna Kearsley’s The Shadowy Horses, which has a Mary Stewart-ish charm so far: a plucky heroine far from home (in Scotland, this time) becomes embroiled in a mystery. There begin to be suggestions of ghosts and I will be thrilled if this comes to fruition.
I’m keeping on with Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. This week she comments, “In my life I’ve seen one million pictures of a duck that has adopted a kitten, or a cat that has adopted a ducklings, or a sow and a puppy, a mare and a muskrat. And for the one millionth time I’m fascinated.”
I had thought this “unusual animal friends” trend began with the internet, but evidently some human fascinations are perennial.
What I Plan to Read Next
Sam Eastland’s Berlin Red, which I was bereft - BEREFT - to learn is the final Inspector Pekkala book. What mystery series will I read now???
Actually, I’ve had my eye on Sarah Caudwell’s Hilary Tamar quartet for some time, so probably I should take this opportunity to give it a try.
