Wednesday Reading Meme
Oct. 18th, 2017 06:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I've Just Finished Reading
My Kindle has for some reason stopped reading books from Netgalley - it freezes up and refuses to work when I try to open them; I'm not sure if I should contact Kindle support or Netgalley about this - so I've finally gotten around to a couple of ancient books that I downloaded from Amazon ages ago, both of which I found because Annie Fellows Johnston (author of the Little Colonel books) thoughtfully listed members of her writers group in her autobiography. I looked them up on Amazon and snagged a passel of free books and have at last been gorging myself.
The title of Alice Hegan Rice's Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage led me to suspect something of the nursery rhyme or the fairy tale variety, although in fact it's about a family living in urban poverty and coping with it through a sort of proto-Pollyannaism: always look on the bright side of things! I found it a bit treacly, even by the standards of early twentieth century novels, which do tend to be tooth-rottingly sweet.
Sweet also is Evaleen Stein's Gabriel and the Hour Book, which is about a boy in medieval France who becomes the color-grinder for a monk who is illuminating a beautiful hour book for the soon-to-be queen of France. I quite enjoyed this one, though: I loved the details about how all the different colors were made, and the descriptions of the beautiful designs in the Hour Book, and all the beautiful parts about the flowers and the countryside.
Also, at the beginning the monk is chained to his desk for disciplinary purposes. Naturally I found that quite appealing.
What I'm Reading Now
Daphne du Maurier's My Cousin Rachel, which I have been meaning to read for OVER A DECADE, ever since I went on a college visit and we stayed at an inn that had its own in-house library (clearly an amenity more hotels should offer!) which had a copy, and I foolishly failed to stay up the whole night reading and got some sleep instead.
WELL. The day before yesterday I found a copy in a Little Free Library (there is nothing more glorious than finding a book you have long yearned to read in a Little Free Library) and I have been making up for lost time. It is EXQUISITELY GOTHIC, it is honestly amazing what a sense of suspense du Maurier has built up around what amounts to a few slips of papers - letters, admittedly, which suggest that all is not well... and prey on the hero's mind, even as he falls in thrall to his beautiful, charming cousin Rachel.
It occurs to me (for fellow Rebecca fans) that there is something of Rebecca in Rachel - if we had ever met Rebecca in the book, rather than hearing about her at secondhand: the beautiful dark-haired woman who charms everyone she meets, so that only those closest to her may become aware of her destructive force. If indeed destructive force she has, and her first husband's accusations against her were not merely the paranoid ramblings of a man tormented by a brain tumor.
It's the uncertainty - the delirious uncertainty that makes it all so deliciously gothic. And, of course, the marvelous house, not quite as broodingly insistent as Manderley, but real and present in the narrative all the same. God, I love books about houses.
What I Plan to Read Next
The Three Musketeers 2017 shall shortly commence!evelyn_b, when would you like to start?
My Kindle has for some reason stopped reading books from Netgalley - it freezes up and refuses to work when I try to open them; I'm not sure if I should contact Kindle support or Netgalley about this - so I've finally gotten around to a couple of ancient books that I downloaded from Amazon ages ago, both of which I found because Annie Fellows Johnston (author of the Little Colonel books) thoughtfully listed members of her writers group in her autobiography. I looked them up on Amazon and snagged a passel of free books and have at last been gorging myself.
The title of Alice Hegan Rice's Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage led me to suspect something of the nursery rhyme or the fairy tale variety, although in fact it's about a family living in urban poverty and coping with it through a sort of proto-Pollyannaism: always look on the bright side of things! I found it a bit treacly, even by the standards of early twentieth century novels, which do tend to be tooth-rottingly sweet.
Sweet also is Evaleen Stein's Gabriel and the Hour Book, which is about a boy in medieval France who becomes the color-grinder for a monk who is illuminating a beautiful hour book for the soon-to-be queen of France. I quite enjoyed this one, though: I loved the details about how all the different colors were made, and the descriptions of the beautiful designs in the Hour Book, and all the beautiful parts about the flowers and the countryside.
Also, at the beginning the monk is chained to his desk for disciplinary purposes. Naturally I found that quite appealing.
What I'm Reading Now
Daphne du Maurier's My Cousin Rachel, which I have been meaning to read for OVER A DECADE, ever since I went on a college visit and we stayed at an inn that had its own in-house library (clearly an amenity more hotels should offer!) which had a copy, and I foolishly failed to stay up the whole night reading and got some sleep instead.
WELL. The day before yesterday I found a copy in a Little Free Library (there is nothing more glorious than finding a book you have long yearned to read in a Little Free Library) and I have been making up for lost time. It is EXQUISITELY GOTHIC, it is honestly amazing what a sense of suspense du Maurier has built up around what amounts to a few slips of papers - letters, admittedly, which suggest that all is not well... and prey on the hero's mind, even as he falls in thrall to his beautiful, charming cousin Rachel.
It occurs to me (for fellow Rebecca fans) that there is something of Rebecca in Rachel - if we had ever met Rebecca in the book, rather than hearing about her at secondhand: the beautiful dark-haired woman who charms everyone she meets, so that only those closest to her may become aware of her destructive force. If indeed destructive force she has, and her first husband's accusations against her were not merely the paranoid ramblings of a man tormented by a brain tumor.
It's the uncertainty - the delirious uncertainty that makes it all so deliciously gothic. And, of course, the marvelous house, not quite as broodingly insistent as Manderley, but real and present in the narrative all the same. God, I love books about houses.
What I Plan to Read Next
The Three Musketeers 2017 shall shortly commence!
evelyn_b, when would you like to start?
no subject
Date: 2017-10-18 11:20 pm (UTC)Do you read "The Three Musketeers" annually?
no subject
Date: 2017-10-19 01:22 am (UTC)...I originally had no plans to continue this Dumas readathon beyond The Three Musketeers, although looking at his Wikipedia entry I see that I could probably continue it more or less indefinitely if I wanted.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-19 01:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-19 09:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-19 09:15 pm (UTC)Fortunately we are not living in a du Maurier novel, so you will probably escape unscathed. And perhaps you will find another My Cousin Rachel in the future!
no subject
Date: 2017-10-20 07:42 am (UTC)When I have a brain, of course.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-19 01:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-19 11:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-19 03:15 pm (UTC)I feel like I'd like to hop on the du Maurier train, too, but I've been ridiculously behind on everything.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-19 09:17 pm (UTC)I am always in favor of people on hopping on the du Maurier train, but it will still be in the station in the future when you're ready for it. That's the nice thing about book trains. They generally wait.