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This New Day
Apr. 22nd, 2017 09:31 amOn this new day, I'm about 100 pages into the novel that I picked up at Barnes & Noble last night. I'd gone there with a short list of books and movies that I'd hoped to find but had left it in the car, thinking that I'd surely remember what I was there for.
Which, given my distracted state of mind, was clearly not a reasonable assumption. Because once inside I was totally lost and adrift on that endless sea of DVDs, CDs, and books which smart and cultured people put on their coffee tables but don't necessarily watch, listen to, or read.
OK, to be fair, there is a coffee table in the new house. And yes, across its center, there's a fan-shaped array of recent issues of The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, NY Times Magazine, and The Writer. Along with an outdated copy of the the alumni magazine from the state college that I graduated from over five decades ago.
But that's mostly just eyewash for the daughter who set up the house for me and for the cleaning lady that she sends in once a month to ensure that matters of basic sanitation don't spiral out of control.
The truth is that I never read the alumni magazine because everyone that I knew back then is likely either dead or suffering from dementia and because the college only sends it to me to ask for money.
With respect to the cleaning lady, she's a bright and ambitious young woman who runs her own business and expects a certain standard of her clientele. Even with my daughter as a reference, I had to beg for a conditional spot on her schedule. Which simply provides that if someone else's house burns down, then she'll come and clean mine.
Anyway, the book I ended up with is Chris Cleave's Everyone Brave is Forgiven, first published by Simon and Schuster in 2016. It's a romance, a novel of society and manners, set in England at the very start of WW II.
As I write this, it occurs to me that this is the second or third such book that I've read in the past couple of months, the first one being Helen Simonson's The Summer Before the War, also set in England but just prior to the start of the First World War.
Both focus on the lives of young women, born into the upper echelons of British society, and their romantic interests from slightly lower on the social scale. Interestingly, in both stories, there's also a child who comes into their lives, having emerged from the veritable dregs of the larger society.
But my purpose in writing this is not to offer a detailed critique of anything that I've read, only to say that I have been reading. That it's quiet here and that, in this silence, I have time to reflect.
To also say that I told my wife, when I returned home last night, that I'd try not to bother her with any more questions about what I might do for her at this late moment in our relationship. Would not disturb her with matters which might only pertain to this life, of which she is no longer a part.
And finally, to say that I now question the assertion of Chris Cleave's title, that Everyone Brave is Forgiven...
LPK
@Dreamwidth
4.22.2017
Which, given my distracted state of mind, was clearly not a reasonable assumption. Because once inside I was totally lost and adrift on that endless sea of DVDs, CDs, and books which smart and cultured people put on their coffee tables but don't necessarily watch, listen to, or read.
OK, to be fair, there is a coffee table in the new house. And yes, across its center, there's a fan-shaped array of recent issues of The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, NY Times Magazine, and The Writer. Along with an outdated copy of the the alumni magazine from the state college that I graduated from over five decades ago.
But that's mostly just eyewash for the daughter who set up the house for me and for the cleaning lady that she sends in once a month to ensure that matters of basic sanitation don't spiral out of control.
The truth is that I never read the alumni magazine because everyone that I knew back then is likely either dead or suffering from dementia and because the college only sends it to me to ask for money.
With respect to the cleaning lady, she's a bright and ambitious young woman who runs her own business and expects a certain standard of her clientele. Even with my daughter as a reference, I had to beg for a conditional spot on her schedule. Which simply provides that if someone else's house burns down, then she'll come and clean mine.
Anyway, the book I ended up with is Chris Cleave's Everyone Brave is Forgiven, first published by Simon and Schuster in 2016. It's a romance, a novel of society and manners, set in England at the very start of WW II.
As I write this, it occurs to me that this is the second or third such book that I've read in the past couple of months, the first one being Helen Simonson's The Summer Before the War, also set in England but just prior to the start of the First World War.
Both focus on the lives of young women, born into the upper echelons of British society, and their romantic interests from slightly lower on the social scale. Interestingly, in both stories, there's also a child who comes into their lives, having emerged from the veritable dregs of the larger society.
But my purpose in writing this is not to offer a detailed critique of anything that I've read, only to say that I have been reading. That it's quiet here and that, in this silence, I have time to reflect.
To also say that I told my wife, when I returned home last night, that I'd try not to bother her with any more questions about what I might do for her at this late moment in our relationship. Would not disturb her with matters which might only pertain to this life, of which she is no longer a part.
And finally, to say that I now question the assertion of Chris Cleave's title, that Everyone Brave is Forgiven...
LPK
@Dreamwidth
4.22.2017
