Slim pickings, I know.
I’ve been listless and out-of-sorts this month; there’s a to-do list that’s getting longer and longer and I get spooked every time I think about sitting down to tick something off. Then at bedtime, when I usually do most of my reading – except I’m not supposed to read in bed anymore: just another item in the ‘Fucked Up Rules For People With A Fucked Up Jaw’ lore – I’m too tired.
The Summer Without Men is a slender novel (slender, but by no means ‘slight’) about a woman who is learning to adjust to life after her husband leaves her for another lover. She moves to be closer to her mother and teaches a summer creative writing class to a group of girls. That’s pretty much the plot in a nutshell, but Siri Hustvedt has such compassion and understanding of the main character, Mia, that this warmth of feeling permeates everything. I finished quickly and felt the better for having picked it up.
The Plague was tougher fare (or tougher than expected, as I tore through The Outsider) but it was fascinating too. I think part of the reason why is that I enjoy dialogue driven novels. And while that’s not to say The Plague is dialogue free, the passages of description and reflection it contains did take some patience (will add that ‘Part Four’, with Tarrou’s life-story, was amazing).
Foundation – on the other hand – is dialogue rich, but I don’t think I’m in the right mood at the moment to persist with it.
Two out of the three are on my 1001 Books list, so that’s also something!
What are you reading this month?
