12/1/20 “The Best Kept Secret of The Crown” is a delightful NYT article by Vanessa Friedman. An elegant almost senior aged woman of 54 runs an online vintage clothing store from her kitchen table. She is the one who supplied the gorgeous clothes that Emma Corrin (Princess Diana) wore in the television series. How did she start her business?
She says: “…about two years ago a friend’s daughter said, ‘Why not set up a website?’ …and I thought ‘Why not?’ I just blithely set it up. I had no idea what I was doing.” Does that sound familiar! Just like starting a blog on reading. Only for me, it was my own daughter, not a friend’s. It made me laugh.
12/4/20 In my “other” book group, the seven of us looked back over the year to remember the books we had read together. One of the most memorable, although not the best, was Nomadland: Surviving America in the 21st Century, by Jessica Bruder. It describes Americans who have given up on home ownership to travel the country in trailers, not for fun but necessity. These people, many in their 60’s and older, look for seasonal work. It was the section on the harsh conditions of the Amazon warehouse that grabbed our attention the most, especially since Covid has forced us into so much online shopping.
We next got onto a discussion of whether a person should reread books. One person thought that at our age we don’t have the time to repeat books; there are so many new ones to read. Others talked about getting so much more the second time; changing from disliking to liking; revisiting a favorite.
Two talked about rereading There There by Tommy Orange several times and getting a picture of wholeness, almost beauty, so different from the first reading. As for me, I couldn’t get beyond the subject matter of drug addiction among Native Americans and found it too depressing to read a second time.
But reread old favorites? Yes, I’m a fan of that. This is especially true since library services are limited. It is great to turn to a bookshelf full of favorites and know there is something wonderful there.
12/6/20 This is exactly what our threesome book group did this week. What we found on our shelves, what each of us had chosen to buy and keep, was Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire. This “resplendent rare bird of a novel” as described by the New Yorker critic Giles Harvey is great fun to tackle if you are in the mood for something literary and challenging.
The novel contains a serious poem at the beginning followed by a commentary, which isn’t the least bit serious, but is a whole other fantastic story – and maybe a joke. Who the narrator of the commentary is may be part of the puzzle, which only maybe can be solved. It is Nabokov at his best with gorgeous alliterative language, but keep your dictionary at hand. Nabokov, who is trilingual, is showing off here and putting us natives to shame. This is not a casual read, and we are taking three weeks to give it its due.
I am a fan of rereading books. Bill and I just finished reading Ken Follett’s new book-The Evening and the Morning. Now I am ready to reread Pillars of The Earth for a similar historical novel experience.
I just reread Howards End, by EM Forster, for the first time since college. I loved the richness of the description of English countryside and the struggles, often awkward, of the two very idealistic sisters finding their way in the messy world. Revisiting either a little-remembered book or a favorite, there are always new discoveries!
Just to add to the theme of re-reading books, I took especial pleasure in re-reading several this year for the Bigger book club Diane speaks of, and I must say, I got a lot out of second readings. One I re-read for the group discussion was Kingsolver’s Unsheltered, which I thought was a good follow-up to Nomadland–Kingsolver’s main character in the contemporary story (it’s a dual time novel) struggles with her husband and grown daughter to figure out how to keep the family in shelter, living in an old, decrepit home she inherited and which they keep repairing to make livable, but can’t really afford to keep in good shape.
I’m now waiting to slip back to There, There, with the promise of others in my club that it is better the second time. I was fascinated with the book, but a lot because I knew I wasn’t quite grasping all that was going on in it.
Rereading is both fun and scary–it is amazing how much one forgets!! I do like the idea of ‘re-discussing’ the books recently read. I wish our threesome had kept a list of all the books we have read and maybe a brief grade for each. It would be good brain-work to try to recall details of the books we all loved.