Reading: Renault and Marryat
Very little free reading time, but what I have is divided between Mary Renault's Purposes of Love which I found a cheap copy of, and Marryat's Frank Mildmay which is rollicking fun, showing its influence from Roderick Random heightened by that sense of real experience underlying the vivid physical and emotional detail--and in its turn causing echoes of scenes and structure of Dickens and various later maritime writers.
Contrast that with the exquisite prose of Mary Renault's book, pubbed in 1939. I don't know if the shadow of war creates the intense sense of anxiety, almost depression, I pick up from this book--no overt reference so far, at all--or if some of the anxious signals in the characters trigger off my own anxieties, but good as it is (and I've read very few writers who are better at depicting the moment interest turns into attraction) I can only read it in bits.
Here's an added frustration; I jot down reccos, but I think I am going to have to start keeping track of where they came from, so I can go back and find original discussions. Did I get this particular one from on-line? I'm pretty sure I did, and recently, too, but I just can't remember, and I can't seem to find any discussion, so maybe I conflated it with some other memory-image. Too hot, I guess.
Contrast that with the exquisite prose of Mary Renault's book, pubbed in 1939. I don't know if the shadow of war creates the intense sense of anxiety, almost depression, I pick up from this book--no overt reference so far, at all--or if some of the anxious signals in the characters trigger off my own anxieties, but good as it is (and I've read very few writers who are better at depicting the moment interest turns into attraction) I can only read it in bits.
Here's an added frustration; I jot down reccos, but I think I am going to have to start keeping track of where they came from, so I can go back and find original discussions. Did I get this particular one from on-line? I'm pretty sure I did, and recently, too, but I just can't remember, and I can't seem to find any discussion, so maybe I conflated it with some other memory-image. Too hot, I guess.