I had a really nice afternoon off yesterday. The thing about deciding to read after you've just eaten lunch and have gotten all comfy in a chair--it's all rather soporific. So to be honest I found myself starting to nod off at times (honestly--no reflection on my reading choice!). That's what I get for going to bed too late several days in a row! Still, I did manage to get in a couple hours more reading than usual.
I'm sorry--I'm going to Ann-Radcliffe-you-out before I get to the end of the novel...and I am just a third of the way through. So I'll get it over with first. I mostly read The Mysteries of Udolpho. I won't say much as I have been talking about it a lot lately, but I was sort of wondering when exactly we were going to get to Udolpho. Udolpho is a place. A castle in the Apennines to be exact. The novel starts in Provence and slowly wends its way to Toulouse and then on to Venice. I am still not quite there, but I flipped to the next chapter, and guess where we're finally headed? Although I am looking forward to it, I have a feeling it does not bode well for Emily. I picture it to be a crumbling castle set amidst the beauty of the mountains. And she has other problems to contend with first...in the form of an Italian Count.
The Shuttle. I've finished it! Although this isn't my favorite read of the year, it turned out to be relatively enjoyable. Things accelerated to a point where I had to find out how everything would be resolved. This book contains one of the vilest, most despicable villains I have come across in a long time. He alternately put me off reading and made me want to finish in a hurry to find out if he won in the end. It's a long book, and my copy has teeny tiny print, which sort of put me off. I guess it felt as though (to me anyway) certain sections would drag. When I had heard that the new Persephone edition had been edited down by 100 or so pages I was kind of aghast. And, this is my curmudgeonly side talking, now I wonder if maybe that's not such a bad thing? I'm sorry--that must sound terrible.
Andrei Makine's The Woman Who Waited. I didn't touch it yesterday, but I have been reading it today. I'm only about a third of the way in on this one as well. I like Makine's writing style--his prose is very spare. You get just what you need to know. I'm finding myself having a variety of opinions about the narrator as I read. At the moment he's sort of irritating me. Without going into great detail, the novel is about a woman, Vera, who has waited 30 years for her lover to return from the War. The narrator is a much younger man doing research in her village. He makes many assumptions about Vera, and it's as if he wants to possess her. She's this still-beautiful woman just made for love and yet she hides herself away waiting for this man who will never return. However I believe the narrator will come to the realization that he actually knows nothing about Vera. I'm looking forward to hearing everyone's thoughts about this novel. The Slaves of Golconda will be discussing it this weekend. Of course anyone interested is welcome to join in.
Per Petterson's Out Stealing Horses is wonderful! I am nearly finished with it, but I will have to set it aside for a couple of days while I finish the Makine. I'm not surprised that it won an award. The writing is simple yet elegant. But what is most admirable about the novel is the story. It's essentially a coming of age story. It's told in retrospect--Trond, now 67, looks back on his youth, at one summer in particular when he was 15. I'm sure I'll have more to say about it when I finish.
I've been mostly juggling these books, but there is one more I do slip in when I can. I've been hoping to read more by Elizabeth Taylor, so I started Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont recently. I really like Taylor's work. More people should read her (so go out and order something now, or look for her in your local library!). I don't think any of her work is published by an American publisher, some of her novels are available via Amazon however (and there are used copies out there as well--I'm working at collecting them all). She manages to get into her character's minds so well. She's been one of my great finds in recent years. I found a wonderful article about Taylor in the San Franciso Chronicle about recent film adaptations being made from her novels. I am going to quote something Sarah Waters said in the article:
"Waters believes that Taylor's reputation suffered 'when the literary novel got a bit more macho. Her work began to seem old-fashioned. I think people began to see her interest in middle-class domesticity as 'trivial.' I'd like to think that readers could see beyond that label now, into the subtlety and hardness of her writing'."
Thank you Sarah Waters. I thought it was interesting to read this in light of Dorothy's recent post. What are you reading right now? And what's you recent great find?