Honeyed Words: After The Sugar Rush

After The Sugar Rush · 26 December 2006

I know that the last thing on my mind today is food. And while logic decries that it was a false claim by my mom when she declared, “I’m not going to be able to eat anything else for a week!” I can sympathize with the gastrointestinal stupor that motivated her comment. In respect to everyone’s bulging stomachs today’s entry will be mercifully food free and the excellent consumables of yesterday will be featured on some future day.

In between eating, my family is prone to relaxing in the throes of “food coma.” And while I gorged on prose during the eating downtime this weekend, I utilized the same method for books as I did food by setting up a virtual plate of goodies and sampling a bit from each. I can’t yet commit to writing comprehensive reviews but I can offer teasers about what is on my literary plate. I’m currently in the midst of four novels and I’m thoroughly enjoying them all.

First, I started The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Sparks. This is a short book but one that should be savored and not simply rushed through as I’ve been doing to some of the feather light fiction that I’ve been reading recently. This book is on the Random House Modern Library 100 Best Novels Board’s List at number 76, which is how it came to my attention, and has promise of living up to expectations.

Then, I picked up Immortality by Milan Kundera. The last time I read a novel by Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, was in High School, and since everything you read there is rife with symbolism and rich with meaning, I’d forgotten just how much Kundera likes us to think beyond the plot and pay attention to the myriad details he provides to his stories. Needless to say, I haven’t been breezing through Immortality either. At just 40 pages in, I find the theming excellent but can’t say much about the story progression.

To break up the rigor of the previous two novels, I began The Golden Key, by a host of authors. This is the best fantasy book I’ve read in a few months and I’m really enjoying it. It reminds me of a few of my recent favorites, the books from the Kushiel’s Legacy series by Jacqueline Carey. My inability to finish The Golden Key over the weekend lies more with the fact that it’s over 800 pages and I’ve been up to a host of other activities than in any fault of the book.

Finally, though I didn’t need to add anything more, I picked up Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor: Being the First Jane Austen Mystery by Stephanie Barron. I had intended to read this book eventually, but not in the immediate future. It was accelerated in my schedule due to being requested on a book trade site I belong to. Faced with losing the novel forever before reading it, I picked it up last night and have enjoyed the first 100 pages. The book, first in a series of mystery novels with Jane Austen as the central figure, attempts to channel the voice of the departed author. I’m not a Jane Austen scholar by any means, but Barron manages to include both wit and sensibility in the opening chapters of this story, much in the spirit of the author her character is based on.

Until normalcy is achieved, which is not scheduled until after preparation for and celebration of New Year’s, I doubt I’ll have the time to finish these novels. Even though it’s at least two weeks away, I’m sorely looking forward to a nice peaceful afternoon of reading not only the above books, but the stack I received as gifts this year.

But for now, it’s back to the revels!

Searchable keywords: Books, Fantasy, Fiction, Literature, Modern Classics, Mystery

Posted by fortrix