Some Books

. . . just need to be put away for later.

A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf - This book is derived from a speech she did about women writers and fiction. Interesting! But -oh holy jumpin's- her threads are all over the map. I tried to follow along but kept fumbling for context and having to go back and reread to the point where I thought perhaps I had had too much wine at dinner and ought not to be trusted with a book. So, I'd pick it up again, the next day maybe, in the morning when I'm fresh, and look for a familiar passage to start my reading all over again. Nothing. I couldn't do it. She went off on tangents before I could even get a foothold on the previous sentence; and it was driving me batty. Maybe there is something about this book that I'm just not getting. After three or four attempts I had to concede (temporary) defeat.

I really wanted to like this! Really I did. Just look at the cover: A solitary woman in a lovely room thoroughly engaged at her desk. If that alone doesn't speak to me . . .

I'll try this one again another time. But for now I will have to retire her gently back to her place on the bookshelf. To ripen.

The New York Stories of Edith Wharton - I don't think it's Edith Wharton so much as short stories. I like to know my characters and settings a little more than to just be plunked down in the middle of someone's day and then yanked out again. I do like the older style of writing, though, sometimes, when the mood strikes. It can be quite wistful and engaging. But right now it's just not working for me. So this book will also have to be quietly retired for another day.

Fall On Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald - I got about a hundred pages into this but was so bogged down with glum melancholia that I couldn't keep going. Maybe it's a good story. Maybe it's not. But the writing was so intent on relaying some kind of moodiness that I just -ehn- lost interest.