(no subject)
There are books you can gulp down at a sitting, or at most in a day or two: tasty, delicious even, but not difficult to get through. There are books that take more labor: books you have to nibble at for some time. And there's another category.
I've finally finished John Crowley's Little, Big; or, the Fairies' Parliament. It's in that third category, because it's a book I have loved for some time now without having finished it. It's so dense, so complex, like a truly fine and enormous meal: I devoured about the first quarter of it, up through Smoky's marriage to Daily Alice, and even as I was loving every word I stopped -- it was as if I could not digest another bite. I picked it up months later, got as far as Auberon's moving into the Folding Bedroom at Old Law Farm ... and stopped again. Really it was very much like thinking, "Every bite, every word, of this is delicious beyond comprehension but OH my GOD I'm FULL." I've finally finished it, but my brain is still buzzing a little.
Next: my fourth try at finishing another book I love every word of, Greer Gilman's Moonwise. I know I've made at least four separate attempts at it. This one is even slower, because it's so textually dense that I have to start over again at the beginning every time. And Gilman has written another book which I'm afraid even to try before I've finished Moonwise.
If Greer Gilman had never had a word published I would still love her for her four-word description of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford: look at the end of the paragraph beginning "Oxford, for all his privileges of birth".
I've finally finished John Crowley's Little, Big; or, the Fairies' Parliament. It's in that third category, because it's a book I have loved for some time now without having finished it. It's so dense, so complex, like a truly fine and enormous meal: I devoured about the first quarter of it, up through Smoky's marriage to Daily Alice, and even as I was loving every word I stopped -- it was as if I could not digest another bite. I picked it up months later, got as far as Auberon's moving into the Folding Bedroom at Old Law Farm ... and stopped again. Really it was very much like thinking, "Every bite, every word, of this is delicious beyond comprehension but OH my GOD I'm FULL." I've finally finished it, but my brain is still buzzing a little.
Next: my fourth try at finishing another book I love every word of, Greer Gilman's Moonwise. I know I've made at least four separate attempts at it. This one is even slower, because it's so textually dense that I have to start over again at the beginning every time. And Gilman has written another book which I'm afraid even to try before I've finished Moonwise.
If Greer Gilman had never had a word published I would still love her for her four-word description of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford: look at the end of the paragraph beginning "Oxford, for all his privileges of birth".