Rain, said the weather forecast, and my God, did it rain this morning! Torrents of the stuff, coupled with a chill wind that made it feel more like March than the end of May! The picture above was taken last July, when Oxford was doing a reasonable impression of Venice. The Punts don't normally sit on the path in the Botanic Garden!
Still, despite having rather wet feet all day, I've read 'Lolita' which was better than I had expected, and followed it up with 'The Great American Mousical' by Julie Andrews, which took all of fifteen minutes!
I am now happily wrapped up with 'The Rebecca Notebook', a part of which I feel like quoting.
Talking about her grandfather, Gerald's, fiction, Daphne du Maurier has this to say:
'Yet these two stories [Trilby and Peter Ibbetson] sounded such an echo in the emotions of the men and women of his day ... that they were read, and reread, and thumbed again, year after year, down to our time; and not only read, but in some inexplicable fashion deeply loved. When a novel can affect the human heart in such a way it seems to mean one thing only: not that the tale is exceptional in itself, but that the writer has so projected his personality on to the printed page that the reader either identifies with that personality or becomes fascinated by it, and in a sense near hypnotised.'
Hypnotised. Yes - I do feel that at times. Compelled to read more as well, certainly. I know exactly what she means.
No comments:
Post a Comment