Mary Wesley

Yesterday I read An Imaginative Experience by Mary Wesley. It was a re-read, because I have read it once or twice before. I like the book, but find a lot of it forgettable between reads. Perhaps the last couple of times I had read the first chapter only, and stopped.

My favourite of Wesley's is actually her last book, Part of the Furniture. Others will tell you that The Camomile Lawn is her best. Again, it was good once or twice, but I forgot it between readings and I came to find that I didn't really care for the characters. It was one of those been there, done that type books after a time. I feel sort of the same about Joanna Trollope novels. Although with those I now don't feel like reading new ones, either.

But Part of the Furniture has stuck in my mind. Last year I found a hardback copy, as new, in a used book shop and read it for probably the fourth or fifth time. Every time I find something new in it to understand or enjoy. I think those are probably the best novels. The ones you can read again as you age and understand better each time. Not that I didn't understand it the first time, in my late teens or early twenties, but now I have a better understanding in myself of all those emotional and physical yearnings.

It has been years since I've read the rest of Wesley's adult novels. The third of my favourites is Jumping the Queue. I have it on the pile of bedside reading to glance at while I'm here. I might not get to it this trip, but if not I have it at home in the US, too. There is one book of Wesley's that I have not read at all, yet. A Dubious Legacy. One of these times I'll get to it.

In the meantime, I recommend you look up the works of Mary Wesley. Chances are, you'll enjoy them.

Gas Price Check

Just a quick note, a little food for thought for those of you who have recently had a surprise with the rise of gas in the US:

Based on a Pennsylvania price of $2.85 per gallon over the weekend, Clyde and I calculated that the price in the UK right now is about $7.00 per gallon!

Everything is relative.

On the Life of Plum

I finished my second read of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince a few days ago. I have some theories, but I'm just going to keep sitting on them because I know there are people reading this blog that have not yet had the chance to read the book.

Since then, I caught up with Stephanie Plum, in the Janet Evanovich series about the chaotic New Jersey Bounty Hunter. I was going to say inept, but frankly she usually gets her man, even if there's frequently a close call with rubbish in the process. I read Ten Big Ones as a refresher, and followed it up with Eleven On Top. While I loved the sexy, flirty nature of Ten Big Ones, I didn't think it was the better books in the series. Evanovich pretty much ended the story as soon as the bad guy was caught - and yes, I realise that you can't go on and on with the story once you've completed the plot, but I thought it stopped rather suddenly. Eleven On Top, however, was much better. Much more a reminder of her original style of writing. She managed to develop several key characters and give the plotlines a little more substance. I was genuinely freaked out by some of the creepy stuff (I was reading in bed in the middle of the night in a house that creaks and rustles), and I figured out the twist around the same moment as Stephanie. I liked the very ending, too.

And this is funny - for a long time, I, like Stephanie, seemed convinced that she should stick to Morelli because he seemed the most stable of the two men in her life. He's got a decent job, blah blah blah. But now I find that my opinion has swung much more in the direction of Ranger. Sure, he might work outside of the law and have a dark secret, but he loves her. He has more depth. And they seem to be able to communicate better than she does with Morelli. I don't know. It's just a book, some would say. These are made up characters. But I like make believe better than real life a lot of the time. Books make things so easy. Real life is more difficult because when faced with hard choices, we know that there's always a possibility of some one being hurt. So many variables.
And so, books and Buffy.

Windy Autumnal Days

I'm sitting in looking out a full wall of window, at an idyllic scene of English countryside. Lots of green trees and a meadow beyond the little stone wall. There are birds on the feeders. Usually squirrels eyeing the feeders, too. But not yet today.

When it's a blowy day, as it has been these last couple, I am reminded of the poem by Robert Louis Stevenson, from A Child's Garden of Verses:

Whenever the moon and stars are set,

Whenever the wind is high,

All night long in the dark and wet,

A man goes riding by.
Late in the night when the fires are out,

Why does he gallop and gallop about?

Whenever the trees are crying aloud,

And ships are tossed at sea,

By, on the highway, low and loud,

By at the gallop goes he.

By at the gallop he goes, and then

By he comes back at the gallop again.

I like blowy, windy autumnal days. I haven't been in England at this time of year for a full five years now, and it is my favourite time. Not least because it is my birthday next week. September and October feels like a time of renewal to me. Perhaps that's just because of the birthday aspect, and maybe everyone feels like that around their celebratory time. But somehow I think that it's just me.

Yesterday I stood in a field with pigs and horses, found myself nuzzled by a lovely dappled rose horse. He was seventeen hands. A big boy. He smelled me up and down, checking out the scent of outdoor cat, ducks, dogs and chickens. Then he blew into the hair at the top of my head. It made me giggle. But if I had more time that afternoon, I would have stood in the open field nuzzling with this lovely spirit and enjoying the wind as it blew through the trees.

Stat Check

Hey, this is really interesting:

Most of the people reading this blog, are, predictably, reading from within the USA. Some of them are reading from England, also predictable. I told my friends about it, and the idea was originally to be able to keep in touch with people I already knew, so obviously it's working to some extent. I have some who read regularly, and some who drop in once a month or so.

But this evening I looked up my stat counter and I learned that I have visitors from the Virgin Islands, Israel and Albania!

Someone in Albania found this site while searching the internet for information on beans. What an amazing thing this (the internet) is. We really are a World Wide Web.

If you're one of those people, please come back and tell me how you came across Literary Seeds. You can comment anonymously if you prefer.

I'm baaa-ck

I have not forgotten the blog. I'm back. Actually, I'm away, not back. But that's neither here nor there.

I'm posting from England, as those of you who have been paying attention will recall. I arrived yesterday morning and slept a good part of yesterday, although mostly through the night. It is now one a.m. again, and I was moved to send an email to a nearly teenage friend of mine, so I thought I'd pop on here and remind you all that I exist.

England, or at least, our little corner of it, was rainy today. It was a snuggle up in the house with an open fire sort of a day. I managed to keep the fire going for more than twelve hours, I'm pleased to report. Every time it thought it would die down, I threw another log on and it revived. We also spent a good bit of time dead-heading geraniums in the greenhouse, and I helped my Mum remove the tomatoes which had grown a lurgy of sorts and were covered in white fly.

After dinner and during a haphazard discussion of Jason and the Argonauts (or Jason and the Chicken Nuggets as one two year old I know refers to it as) I was moved to Google exactly who the Furies, Muses, Graces and Harpies were. I could tell you, but someone would correct my pronunciation. And at this time of night, my transliterate-spelling.

I'm half way through the latest Harry Potter book again, for the second time in two months. At least this time I can skip the bits where Ron and Hermy are getting on one anothers nerves. I'm sort of looking for clues about what has happened and what's to come. I also started Word Freak, by Stefan Fatsis (you might have heard him on NPR), and Murder Plays House, by Ayelet Waldman. I'm reading Half Blood Prince as "comforting" jet lagged night time reading. Word Freak is good, and he's not kidding. I thought I was doing well by completing 300 point (Scrabble) games, but these people are making nearly 600 points per game! I obviously have a lot to learn, or memorise, if it comes to that. Not that I'm planning on competing. I play for fun. And I find doing a lot of crosswords has really helped me develop my Scrabble skills.