Adopting the French attitude

Whilst in the middle of 'Passion', I suddenly felt that it was all getting a bit too much. Mary Shelley was spending far too much time worrying about the fidelity of her lover/husband (depending on how far I'd read), Byron was being suitably Byronic with his sister, and Lady Caroline Lamb had seemingly gone completely mad and was being very tedious about it.

Time for break. Or as the Monty Python boys would have it - now for something completely different! Bemoaning the lack of anything completely different, my mother handed me 'Two Lipsticks and a Lover' by Helena Frith Powell. Pushing aside my turned up nose, she assured me it was a very good read, and so I sat down and immersed myself in all the various attitudes the French have to clothes, appearance, love, sex (quite different to Love, and more destructive) and education.

It's memoir, rather than chick lit, which is perhaps why I like it so much. And I found myself suddenly immersed and absolutely adamant that I had to have matching underwear all the time, different cleansers depending on whether I was wearing make up or not, and on no account was I to wear trainers or flat when I could wear heels.

Of course, not much of this has stuck, but I remain impressed by the light hearted but interesting look at another culture. I can't say I'm surprised that Helena Frith Powell found herself changing into a French woman.

It was a good book to break the passions of the romantics with, and pushed me into a reading frenzy. More books to come, I'm back on a roll people!

Mourning the lack of time

Summertime is upon up (or past us, depending on your view of the significance of the summer solstice) and I find that the time I have come to know as my massive book reading period has disappeared in a puff of smoke!

I have surprised myself by taking three weeks to read a book that in earlier years would've taken me a week to read. I've even had to take a break and read something infinitely lighter! This (I think) is what's known as 'life'. I don't like it, and it's definitely getting in the way of my reading.

I have decided to take a stand. I will be firmer with my reading habits, and my blogging habits too (for when my reading slows my blogging disappears all together, no matter how many ideas float around my mind).

Fear not, I am still here - surfing the waves and turning pages at an ever increasing speed - and I'll bring you more tales of my reading life as quickly as I can. Life wont beat me. Books are too important!

Poem of the Week

A summer Day - Lucy Maud Montgomery



I

The dawn laughs out on orient hills
And dances with the diamond rills;
The ambrosial wind but faintly stirs
The silken, beaded gossamers;
In the wide valleys, lone and fair,
Lyrics are piped from limpid air,
And, far above, the pine trees free
Voice ancient lore of sky and sea.
Come, let us fill our hearts straightway
With hope and courage of the day.


II

Noon, hiving sweets of sun and flower,
Has fallen on dreams in wayside bower,
Where bees hold honeyed fellowship
With the ripe blossom of her lip;
All silent are her poppied vales
And all her long Arcadian dales,
Where idleness is gathered up
A magic draught in summer's cup.
Come, let us give ourselves to dreams
By lisping margins of her streams.


III

Adown the golden sunset way
The evening comes in wimple gray;
By burnished shore and silver lake
Cool winds of ministration wake;
O'er occidental meadows far
There shines the light of moon and star,
And sweet, low-tinkling music rings
About the lips of haunted springs.
In quietude of earth and air
'Tis meet we yield our souls to prayer.

Hope everyone is enjoying the weather, and not getting too burned (my back is bright pink, oh dear!)