reading wednesday (at last!)

[sea_changed]

As I'm slightly daunted by summarizing the whole of my reading life this past month, I'll start this week with fiction, which is the significantly more manageable category.

The Pure and the Impure, Colette. Odd, French, but I did enjoy it. The chapter on the Ladies of Llangollen was unexpected and entirely delightful, and is certainly the section I've continued to think about the most. There was something very--"seductive" seems a little trite, but I always wanted to keep reading it, without being able to quite put my finger on why.

The Edwardians, Vita Sackville-West. The back cover of this was extremely enticing, and when it lived up to it the book was wonderful; unfortunately, it lived up to it only minimally. Lots of English aristocrats feeling sorry for themselves, which is really not my speed: there was certainly a satiric air to it all, but honestly I'm not much for (gentle) mockery of English aristocrats feeling sorry for themselves, either. The two most interesting characters were Leonard Anquetil, a lower-class explorer of modest celebrity who is introduced to the aristocratic world of Edwardian England and hates it while simultaneously feeling somewhat seduced by it (this is also, incidentally, his relationship with Sebastian, a diffident, unhappy young man who is also a duke) and Viola, Sebastian's sister (not a subtle reference), who is similarly but more quietly dissatisfied with her life than her brother, and who ends up leaving home to join the Bring Young Things of London. Unfortunately, Anquetil is in little of the book, and Viola in less; nonetheless, the sections that included them were certainly the best. The relationship between Sebastian and Anquetil is also blatantly homoerotic, and the book ends (spoiler?) with Anquetil promising to take Sebastian off exploring him, which was delightful.

When Katie Met Cassidy, Camille Perri. This looked liked it might be the upmarket lesbian romance we all deserve, but in the end really was not. There was some interesting stuff, but it was all in the characters' individual thoughts and working through of their identities: the book never quite sold me on their relationship (or, beyond those brief moments, on them individually as characters). It was, in the end, painfully superficial; which I realize might be a gratuitous critique of a romance novel, but do I need something to hold onto.

Comments

[breathedout]

I read The Edwardians so long ago that I barely remember any of it, but what little remains in my brain is basically 100% an agreement with your luke-cold disappointment here. A few things I enjoyed, IIRC, but overall not really worth the time. It's still the only thing of Sackville-West's I've read, other than her letters to Virginia Woolf. I keep meaning to look into The Land, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

[sea_changed]

"Luke-cold disappointment" really sums it up, doesn't it. I'm not sure it was the best to start with, but I really haven't seen much advice on which is better/best. Perhaps I'll just go back to her letters--I've read tons of excerpts but never the full collected volume.