Another long weekend winds quickly down to an end. And while I know it's not at all true, I feel like I have frittered away four free days and now it is time to get back to work. Maybe it's better to just say--where has the time gone? I thought I had all but decided for sure which book to read this month (see post below), but every time I sat down to start reading I found the book was too much for my concentration, so the timing is just not quite right. I was all excited to read Ali Smith again, but apparently not while the neighbors are shooting off fireworks!
So another quick browse through my shelves earlier today and I think I have settled on two books. I'll start with Anita Brookner's Leaving Home (I thought she might well have the perfect book, and it does seem a good fit).
"In her exquisite new novel, acclaimed author Anita Brookner deals with one of the dramas of our lives: growing up and leaving home. At twenty-six, Emma Roberts comes to the painful realization that if she is ever to become truly independent, she must leave her comfortable London flat and venture out into the wider world."
Well, there will be more to the story, but doesn't that sound promising for a theme of "freedom/independence"? And it has been far too long since I have read any of Anita Brookner's novels.
I read one of Attia Hosain's short stories a year or so back and liked it so much that I ordered a couple of her books. And now her novel, a Virago Modern Classic, might just be a perfect fit of a book. Sunlight on a Broken Column works on two different levels.
"Laila, orphaned daughter of a distinguished Muslim family, is brought up in her grandfather's house by orthodox aunts who keep purdah. At fifteen she moves to the home of a liberal but autocratic uncle in Lucknow. Here, during the 1930's, as the struggle for Indian independence intensifies, Laila is surrounded by relatives and university friends caught up in politics. But Laila is unable to commit herself to any cause: her own fight for independence is a struggle against the claustrophobia of traditional life, from which she can only break away when she falls in love with a man whom her family has not chosen for her."
Independence for a country and a woman.
I'll be starting with Anita Brookner. Though I feel like I didn't "accomplish" much over the long weekend, I did actually finish a number of books at the end of June (so now back to picking up a few of the same books so I can make steady progress), and now I need to write about them. So lots of catching up this week (I hope).