I'm sure I've mentioned before that I am in a postal reading group. Each person in the group chooses a book that everyone else will read and then the books make their way round the group so each member has a chance to read it. Each book comes with a notebook of some sort so that comments can be left and when all is said and done and the books have completed the round the owner ends up with her (or his) book and a notebook with everyone else's thoughts compiled in one place. We're nearly at the end of the round and I've enjoyed participating very much.
There were a couple of books I didn't finish unfortunately. One of the last books I received was Patrick Leigh Fermor's A Time of Gifts, which was written in the 1970s but covers a period just before WWII when the author set off on his own to walk from the hook of Holland to Constantinople. I love this book and it's one that (for me anyway) is best read slowly to savor his gorgeous prose. As we're so close to the end I think it is safe to mention it here finally. This is the first of what is meant to be three books, but only two have been published. I believe the author is still working on the third and I sincerely hope it gets published as I want to see him make it to Constantinople (strange thought really as he set off in the 1930s and did indeed make it to his destination).
Leigh Fermor's travels took place when he was just a young man, and even though Hitler was already in power at the time of his travels, there is something magical about his journey. As a student he was welcomed into homes so graciously and without any sort of suspicion. He writes about a world that has (in many ways) very sadly vanished. I don't think such an adventure could be undertaken anymore in the way he did it--the world has changed far too much. The beauty of the story is that Leigh Fermor wrote the book much later and from the vantage point of adulthood and after a world war, and while there is a sophistication and understanding about his travels there is still a freshness to them as well. I can't recall now where I read this, but I believe these books are considered classic travel narratives and I can easily see why and agree wholeheartedly.
I started out reading a copy of the book that one of the postal group members sent, so I didn't mark any passages, but when I had to mail it on, I bought this and the next book, Between the Woods and the Water (will also mention these are lovely NYRB editions as well!) as they are books I want to keep. I'm just going to randomly choose a passage to share as my teaser today, since I have nothing special marked.
"Except for the snow-covered landscape and the clouds and the tree-bordered flow of the Merwede, the next two days have left little behind them but the names of the towns I slept in. I must have made a late start from Dordrecht: Sliedrecht, my next halting place, is only a few miles on, and Gorinchem, the next after that, is not much more. Some old walls stick in my memory, cobbled streets and a barbican and barges moored along the river, but clearest of all, the town lock-up. Somebody told me that humble travellers in Holland could doss down in the police stations, and it was true. A constable showed me to a cell without a word, and I slept, rugged up to the ears, on a wooden plank hinged to the wall and secured on two chains under a forest of raffish murals and graffiti. They even gave me a bowl of coffee and a quarter loaf before I set off. Thank God I had put 'student' in my passport: it was an amulet and an Open Sesame. In European tradition, the word suggested a youthful, needy, and earnest figure, spurred along the highways of the West by a thirst for learning--thus, notwithstanding high spirits and a proneness to dog-Latin drinking songs, a fit candidate for succour."
Another book I am pleased to return to this month. He started in Holland and works his way along the Rhine through Germany and is nearing Austria, which I can't wait to read about. I know I am still reading and I hope to write about it properly when I finish, but even in the middle of things, I think I can safely say this is a book to share with friends.