Reading: Age of Innocence

Moving: errr

Listening: KBCO

Watching: ER, natch

25 January 2001: Intervention

How do I keep doing this? I know not. Perhaps it's just that the library on Thursdays with this particular coworker is dangerous. First we returned our books and then walked through the children's room (sighing with appreciation) on our way to the adult stacks. Looking at a circus tent (still in the children's room) filled with recommended books, I picked up a book based partly on its title In the Stone Circle but mostly for the font that title was in. I knew it was going to have some faux medieval theme, and I was right: mallrat of prepubescent U.S. girl doesn't want to spend the summer in Wales while her father who is a professor of medieval studies does some research. What happened to that resolution not to read children's books until I'd made a good stab at the Modern Library list? Hmmm.... And then, on the shelves for new adult fiction, the spine of a pretty cover caught my eye and I read the title as I removed the book from its shelf: A Far Better Rest. Could it be? Oh yes, if the title and cover art, looking straight out of the 18th century, were any clue. Indeed, it's Sydney Carton: the Lost Years. I'm not a rabid Dickens fan, though A Tale of Two Cities is certainly among my favorites of his, so I put it back. And then, not because of the cover but because of the title, I pulled out The Other Rebecca. I took it, but I doubt I'll read it. Instead of being a subversion of Rebecca, Rebecca's life during life instead of flashbacks, it's a retelling of Rebecca and opens with the second but not yet Mrs. DeWinter still a companion. I'm not a rapid fan of Rebecca and don't know it well enough to feel compelled to read this, but then Wide Sargasso Sea is perfectly enjoyable and meaningful without ever having read Jane Eyre. My third mistake I knew I was making, because of the author and title both, before the book was off the shelf: Joan Aiken, Lady Catherine's Necklace. I bet this would better serve to cleanse my mind of The Bar Sinister than a reread of Pride and Prejudice would.

When I spoke of Austen retellings and perspectives, I forgot Mansfield Revisited. This is unfair of me because it's really the best of Aiken's that I've read. Probably with The Bar Sinister I was just remembering the bad ones. Mansfield Revisited is better than Jane Fairfax which is better than Eliza's Daughter; Joan Aiken is better than Julia Barrett.

Just for variety I also borrowed a book of Robert Graves's short stories. Officially after The Age of Innocence I'm reading Lolita, though.