A Certain Slant of Light

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

I zoomed through Ann Patchett’s The Dutch House, in part because there were a hundred odd people on the hold list for it at the library, but also because it all just flowed so wonderfully that I just kept reading it. I’m not quite sure why, because it’s not exactly what you’d call plotty; in the first half of the book there’s sort of a mystery about what exactly put Maeve and Danny at such odds with their stepmother, but the book doesn’t lean on it for suspense.

It’s also less about the house than you might expect from the title (I must admit that I had some hopes for gothic elements, but that’s not really present); what it is about is about family and family history, and the way that the past shapes the present - and the things that we believe about the past just as much as the past itself.

I also read Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette’s The Cobbler’s Boy, a novella about young Kit Marlowe, which I enjoyed, but not as much as I expected to. Perhaps I let it languish on my TBR list for a little too long: I should have struck while the iron was hot.

What I’m Reading Now

I have begun Vivien Alcock’s Singer to the Sea God, which kicks off with Perseus walking into the king’s court with Medusa’s head and turning everyone there into stone… including our hero’s sister Cleo. Now our hero has escaped the island, statue of Cleo in tow, and I can only presume he’s going to get kidnapped by Poseidon??? Or so the title suggests.

This is utterly unlike the other two Vivien Alcock books that I’ve read (which were utterly unlike each other) and I’m kind of digging her determination to follow her bliss and write whatever the hell she wants.

I’ve also continued on with William Dean Howells’ A Modern Instance. Bartley and Marcia have eloped and moved to Boston! (asakiyume, every time they mention a landmark that we saw - and this happens more often than you might think from a novel published in the 1870s - I get so excited. “I’ve been there!”) Marcia is wracked by jealousy every time that Bartley talks to another woman for too long, right now without reason, but he gave her reason before their marriage and I strongly suspect that Bartley’s going to give her a reason again sooner or later.

What I Plan to Read Next

I got Jennifer A. Jordan’s Edible Memory: The Lure of Heirloom Tomatoes & Other Forgotten Foods from the library, so I’ll probably read that soon, although it must be admitted that I currently have MANY books out from the library because the library is switching over computer systems this month and what if I ran out of books while the system was unavailable???

...I have an entire shelf of unread books that I actually own, so I would have been fine, but nonetheless I checked out a lot. So we’ll see what I read first.

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Vera Brittain’s Testament of Friendship, which is an account of Brittain’s friendship with her fellow writer Winifred Holtby (author, most famously, of South Riding) and excellent if you like memoirs of literary female friendship (although my favorite exemplar of the genre remains Ann Patchett’s sublime Truth & Beauty) and interwar Britain.

What I’m Reading Now

Zilpha Keatley Snyder’s A Fabulous Creature. Our hero is torn between two girls, although he doesn’t quite know it yet: he thinks he’s in love with beautiful, athletic Diana, and sees strange, imaginative Griffin as just a kid because she’s a couple of years younger than him.

I think he’s going to realize that he has more in common with Griffin than Diane by the end of the book, which is reasonable, but on the other hand I also think there’s something to be said for being sexually attracted to the person that you’re dating. Well, we’ll see where it goes!

What I Plan to Read Next

Testament of Friendship made me want to read South Riding, but the library doesn’t have a copy (although there is one on order! So there is hope!) so I’ve settled for putting a volume of Winifred Holtby’s short stories on hold instead.

I’m also contemplating reading some more Vera Brittain - perhaps Testament of Youth? - but I feel less urgency about that so it probably won’t happen for a while.

What I've Just Finished Reading

Michael Ende's Momo, which I think I would have appreciated more if I had read it when I was a child. As it was, the villains fell rather flat - they're evil gray time-stealing creatures who exist for no other reason than to steal time from human beings - which drained the book of much of its forward motion for me, I think.

I also read Courtney Milan's The Countess Conspiracy, which I enjoyed, although it didn't leave as strong an impression as The Duchess War or The Heiress Effect. But it did have this one exquisite quote, which I will share with you: Victory wasn't sweet; it was devastating and incomprehensible. It reduced her to rubble when she could have withstood harsh words.

I feel like I've read something else (it's been three weeks since I posted this meme! Surely I read something else in that time?) but it's not coming to mind now, so clearly it didn't make much of an impression on me.

What I'm Reading Now

Ann Patchett's essay collection This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, which I hoped to find as compelling as Truth and Beauty, her memoir about her friendship with Lucy Greeley. (I highly recommend Truth and Beauty to everyone and should probably write a review of it someday so I can extoll its many virtues.)

This is the Story of a Happy Marriage is a perfectly reasonable essay collection, but so far it does not live up to Truth and Beauty, although who knows, perhaps one of the later essays in the collection will offer that shining moment of transcendence.

What I Plan to Read Next

I have the latest Newbery Medal winner, Kwame Alexander's The Crossover. If the cover is any guide, it features basketball heavily, which has rather put me off, but I really should crack it open and give it a try.

But I borrowed the first Hercule Poirot novel from Caitlin, and I ought to read it so I can return it to her when I visit next week, so I may end up reading that first.