What I've Finished Reading
It is possible for a writer to make, or remake at least, for a reader, the primary pleasures of eating, or drinking, or looking on, or sex. . . They do not habitually elaborate on the equally intense pleasure of reading.
--A. S. Byatt, Possession
Grave-robbing! Long-lost heirs! The wrath of the heavens and the vengeance of the trees! Action-packed index-card searches! A labyrinth of title drops! Possession was the best time I've had in, I don't know, a couple weeks at least. Even better than Dick Talks With Oliver Mellors? As a book, yes; as a running joke I'm going to keep tediously alluding to for the rest of my life, probably not. But you can't have everything all the time.
Seriously, this book was a delight and a half. I could rake up a lot of tiny caveats (and one medium-sized one: I thought Sabine's journal was too conveniently explicit even for this celebration of all things epistolary and omniscient, and it throws the second half of the book off balance for a while) (and my dislike of certain revelations about Ellen Ash keeps growing quietly, now that I'm not reading anymore) but none of them made a significant dent in how much I enjoyed it.
osprey_archer has real discussion and spoilers. I may attempt some real discussion in the future. I will note that Beatrice Nest saves the day, and the stupid rich guy I was rooting for also saves the day, and shows Val a good time and throws in a couple of Albert Campion references for good measure.
What I'm Reading Now
The Anthony Powell I got from the library was the first three novels of A Dance to the Music of Time in a single volume. I finished A Question of Upbringing a couple days ago and may or may not get through A Buyer's Market before I have to leave town again. They're ok! I don't anticipate any trouble reading twelve of these. They're very fast-moving, especially given that Burgess and others put it into my head to compare them to Proust. People keep turning up briefly and melting into the crowd and reappearing six months later with the marks of their own unseen narratives on them, kind of like a large-scale version of
Austen movie dancing, though that metaphor wouldn't have occurred to me at all if Powell hadn't frontloaded the whole “dance” thing.
On the other hand, I haven't started Henry Williamson's The Dark Lantern yet because the library didn't have it. I'll have to order it when I get back, and probably the
99 Novels are going to be on hold until then.
I'm reading The Story of an African Farm, which I've meant to read for a long time because it was a favorite book of one of my favorite writers, L. M. Montgomery (and consequently of Emily of New Moon). The problem with that is it's impossible for me to respond to the book on “its own terms,” without reading it through the eyes of Maud-as-Emily and Maud-as-Maud. But maybe that's just a problem with books in general, and not so much a “problem” as a condition.
What I Plan to Read Next
Small books that fit in my luggage! The Painted Veil, the Foundation trilogy, maybe one or two of my more disposable murder mysteries.