Current Reading
February 2nd 2009 00:31
Right now Im reading "The Winter King" By Cornwell, something Kman asked me to try. Ive read so many Arthur stories I wasnt sure if I could stomach another version, but I picked it up last night and before you know it, it was 2am. Im also reading "The Portable Poe" edited by Philip Van Doren Stern, which is just fantastic for the vocabulary - I had forgotten I had that book. It was so old when I picked it up at a rummage sale it already smelled like history, I found it in the feedshed on Saturday, squished into an old canvas bag with the kids book, "Stall Buddies". What were they doing in the feedshed? I used to sit and read them to Zayfir when he was injured. Its an old trick of mine - when a young horse just wont settle, or is injured, I would go to the box at a quiet time of day and read to them. "The Portable Poe" was often my favourite because it had a wide range of things to read, from poetry to fables, and Poe tends to write in a particularly soothing beat, even if the subject matter isnt what most people consider soothing. It is to me. But the power of voice in soothing animals cannot be denied, mine being particularly flexible and resonant, I found it an excellent way to get the horse used to my scent and tone. I believe its one of the reasons why Zayfir is so desperately bonded to me.
But just before I turned to Poe and the Winter King, I had read "Here On Earth" By Alice Hoffman. Hoffman is the genius who gave us "Practical Magic" which was made into a movie with Sandra Bullock and our own Nicole. It was a movie I utterly adored, and the book even more so. I found "Here On Earth" discarded at Kmans work, and took it home just because it was by Hoffman. I found myself utterly enraptured by this work.
"Here On Earth" deals with our main character March, who returns to her small home town for the funeral of her old house keeper who was more like her surrogate mother. The book deals completely and exclusively with human relationships and emotional interaction, and the sub plots are just as painful and twisted as the main one.
This book incorporates all my favourite themes in a book - vicious, cold weather, poetically expressed, so real you get a chill just reading, even in 40 degree heat. She writes with the senses - you can taste the delicious food she delicately describes. Most noteably, it is the realistic and heart wrenching human emotion that grabs me. So much pain and joy in every glance. How people know what they know about others, and how they are fooled.
From the first reading, this book struck a huge chord with me, and it would have even if it didnt have a horse on the cover. (I once read things just for that reason) The pictured horse is Tarot, he has a small but pivotal role in the novel. But Im getting side tracked.
The main plot deals with March and Hollis. Hollis was her 'adopted' brother, with whom she indulged in a sexual relationship from the age of 15. They fell utterly in love, he left her, she waited for him, but ended up marrying and leaving, only for him to return looking for her. Before the birth of her daughter they talked on the phone, he begged her to come back to him, when she refused he too married. By the time she returns for the funeral his wife has died, but March is still decidedly married and captured still, by the past.
It is eighteen years later at least. I was utterly captivated by the way she swears she will not see him, she will remain faithful to her husband, keeps telling herself the past means nothing - she has left it all behind. Still, the draw and power of Hollis is too much to take, before long she betrays her husband and falls into Hollis' arms like an intoxicated teenager. Before long she has betrayed her daughter, her friends and herself. For, in the time they have been apart, Hollis has turned into a monster. This doesnt stop March, who can only see that poor damaged boy she fell in love with so long ago.
It is a deep work that speaks directly from the heart of a woman - why do women stay with abusive men? Why do they crave them and chase them, what is the hold they have? This book explores it simply and delves into the emotions involved which are anything but simple. At times, while reading, a moan would escape my lips as I saw exactly what he was doing to her, and why she still wouldnt run. In a way, this book is too personal, cuts way too close to the bone, for me. Like exercising an abcess yet like being cut all over again, thats how it feels to me, reading this work.
I am in the process of recording quotes right now and hopefully I will have time later on to do a full analysis and exploration of the quotes I have found worth recording. I believe this would be a beautiful book for anyone to enjoy, and everyone is bound to find some common ground within it, as the emotions expressed are so explicitly human and it focuses on many different kinds of human situations and relationships.
But just before I turned to Poe and the Winter King, I had read "Here On Earth" By Alice Hoffman. Hoffman is the genius who gave us "Practical Magic" which was made into a movie with Sandra Bullock and our own Nicole. It was a movie I utterly adored, and the book even more so. I found "Here On Earth" discarded at Kmans work, and took it home just because it was by Hoffman. I found myself utterly enraptured by this work.
"Here On Earth" deals with our main character March, who returns to her small home town for the funeral of her old house keeper who was more like her surrogate mother. The book deals completely and exclusively with human relationships and emotional interaction, and the sub plots are just as painful and twisted as the main one.
This book incorporates all my favourite themes in a book - vicious, cold weather, poetically expressed, so real you get a chill just reading, even in 40 degree heat. She writes with the senses - you can taste the delicious food she delicately describes. Most noteably, it is the realistic and heart wrenching human emotion that grabs me. So much pain and joy in every glance. How people know what they know about others, and how they are fooled.
From the first reading, this book struck a huge chord with me, and it would have even if it didnt have a horse on the cover. (I once read things just for that reason) The pictured horse is Tarot, he has a small but pivotal role in the novel. But Im getting side tracked.
The main plot deals with March and Hollis. Hollis was her 'adopted' brother, with whom she indulged in a sexual relationship from the age of 15. They fell utterly in love, he left her, she waited for him, but ended up marrying and leaving, only for him to return looking for her. Before the birth of her daughter they talked on the phone, he begged her to come back to him, when she refused he too married. By the time she returns for the funeral his wife has died, but March is still decidedly married and captured still, by the past.
It is eighteen years later at least. I was utterly captivated by the way she swears she will not see him, she will remain faithful to her husband, keeps telling herself the past means nothing - she has left it all behind. Still, the draw and power of Hollis is too much to take, before long she betrays her husband and falls into Hollis' arms like an intoxicated teenager. Before long she has betrayed her daughter, her friends and herself. For, in the time they have been apart, Hollis has turned into a monster. This doesnt stop March, who can only see that poor damaged boy she fell in love with so long ago.
It is a deep work that speaks directly from the heart of a woman - why do women stay with abusive men? Why do they crave them and chase them, what is the hold they have? This book explores it simply and delves into the emotions involved which are anything but simple. At times, while reading, a moan would escape my lips as I saw exactly what he was doing to her, and why she still wouldnt run. In a way, this book is too personal, cuts way too close to the bone, for me. Like exercising an abcess yet like being cut all over again, thats how it feels to me, reading this work.
I am in the process of recording quotes right now and hopefully I will have time later on to do a full analysis and exploration of the quotes I have found worth recording. I believe this would be a beautiful book for anyone to enjoy, and everyone is bound to find some common ground within it, as the emotions expressed are so explicitly human and it focuses on many different kinds of human situations and relationships.
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