In Which the Enjoyment of a Book Comes About

I "finished" Wives and Daughters, by Elizabeth Gaskell today. I couldn't actually finish the book, because Gaskell had the misfortune to up and die before she finished writing the book. The audacity!(Footnote one) It's almost to the end - far enough to know what the end will be, but not where everything has worked out yet, so I'm left emotionally hanging, not narratively hanging. Although since this book is character driven, and not plot driven, I've always known how it was going to end. I've enjoyed it so much because of its gentle, unhurried, and so all the more rich and detailed descriptions of day to day life, interactions, and the growth (or not) of characters in the book. And that there is no cure for.(Footnote Two.)

I am going to watch the miniseries next week with Carrie, who also gave me the book for my birthday, and they ended it, so I'll have some resolution at least.

Anytime after I read a book from yore, I always go through life mentally describing my life, surroundings and speech in a Victorian flavor. Yesterday Avram spoke to me on a subject, and I shortly answered back, and then in my head narrated out in proper 19th century Literary style how I kept part of my answer back, and this lack would grow between us, a foreshadowing of...and then I mentally laughed, and said what I hadn't said before. The entire day I mentally thought Victorianese. I love it. I wish I could reproduce it at will on my blog.

My favorite time period for literature is the Victorian age (and the regency period). I love Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte and (some) Dickens. A couple of years ago my friend RoseE mentioned an author, Elizabeth Gaskell and a book she wrote called North and South, about industrialization in England. RoseE raved about the book, but I never got around to reading it until I lived in England myself and focused on British books for the year. Until I began actually reading the book I thought that Gaskell lived in the modern day and wrote historical fiction, but no, it turns out she was a contemporary of Dickens, and wrote six novels (I think) and was quite famous in her time. I loved North and South, and I've loved Wives and Daughters even more.

All of you my readers, I command you now to put down whatever drivel you might be contemplating (or Gibbon's Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire) and immediately pick up some Gaskell.

I don't know how I managed to go 24 years of my life without ever hearing about Gaskell, and 25 without reading her. She's great. She's like Jane Austen, but more real somehow. She includes details like how "fresh" a dress is (how many times its been worn; how "fragrant" it is), and a million and one other more concrete details of life. I hope that literature is undergoing a Gaskell revival, because I'll be right at the front of it.

I should take this literary moment to say that I still am using my list of recent books that I've read that I recommend, but that I hadn't read any books for three months, in between the Wheel of Time series that I finished at the end of June until Elantris, that I read mid October (I wanted to read Wives and Daughters first, but Elantris is shorter. Which is saying something; Elantris was enough of a dog-killer itself). As my mother likes to call me, I'm a book-a-holic, and once I start a book, come hell or high water I'll sit in my rescue boat with my couple worldly possessions and my two daughters - and my book, which I'll still be reading. In fact today while finishing Wives and Daughters Lydia rolled in a multicolored inkpad while naked and then tore off the paper wrappings from a pile of wool yarn. My sister Tali and I (sort of, on her side at least) had a game growing up where she would see how much she could do to me/how outrageous she had to be before I would notice her or break off reading to look at her. I've stayed up all night on numerous occasions to finish books all in one sitting, and I've read entire series that most decent people spend months on in a matter of a week or two.

However, I am also a wife, a mother and a homemaker, not to mention now a babysitter (I'll be working Monday through Wednesday for the rest of the month), and alas, the foregoing exploits in the land of fiction are not conducive to a well kept, or even a badly kept, home. Children must be dressed, diapers must be changed, food must be made, and the living room and kitchen must at least be pretended to clean.

So currently in my life I tend to feast or famine on books, because as long as I'm not reading, I'm okay. I can go a long time without beginning any books; it's just once I've begun that I can't stop. I thing that blogging also takes up some previous reading time, because since I can only read up to what people have written thus far, I also can't stay up all night to finish it. Unless I go back and read a blog from its induction. Which I may have done a couple of times. Ahem. Someday I have a goal of being able to pick up a novel, read for a couple of chapters, and then put it down again and be productive. Until that time, expect my recommended reads to grow in fits and starts.

Footnote One: Robert Jordan, author of the Wheel of Time series, also up and died on me, without finishing the final book of his twelve book series. The nerve. Luckily it's being finished by Brandon Sanderson, who wrote Elantris, which said book I read and thoroughly enjoyed, so all is well.

Footnote Two: If I were my friend RoseE I would finish the book anyway by writing it myself as fanfiction. RoseE, I commission you to finish Wives and Daughters. So let it be written, so let it be done.