Recent reading
Apr. 24th, 2014 11:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luzulaSummer Will Show, by Sylvia Townsend Warner (first published in 1936)
Ack. I expected to love this book from the summary: "a Victorian wife travels to France in 1848 to confront her husband's charismatic mistress, only to fall for the woman herself and be drawn into the revolutionary struggle." This has to be good, right? And I mean...it is good. I love the writing; it's just beautiful. But the book doesn't quite grip me, and I can't put my finger on why. : ( Perhaps because there's a distance in it where I wanted it to flare up and be passionate? I dunno. It did grip me more towards the end. Still, it's an interesting book, and may work better for someone else, so I do recommend it to your attention.
Also, let me quote you this lovely implied sex scene (or at least I can't read it any other way):
"But you will stay?"
"I will stay if you wish it."
It seemed to her that the words fell cold and glum as ice-pellets. Only beneath the crust of thought did her being assent as by right to that flush of pleasure, that triumphant cry.
"But of course," said Minna a few hours later, thoughtfully licking the last oyster shell, "we must be practical."
Ack. I expected to love this book from the summary: "a Victorian wife travels to France in 1848 to confront her husband's charismatic mistress, only to fall for the woman herself and be drawn into the revolutionary struggle." This has to be good, right? And I mean...it is good. I love the writing; it's just beautiful. But the book doesn't quite grip me, and I can't put my finger on why. : ( Perhaps because there's a distance in it where I wanted it to flare up and be passionate? I dunno. It did grip me more towards the end. Still, it's an interesting book, and may work better for someone else, so I do recommend it to your attention.
Also, let me quote you this lovely implied sex scene (or at least I can't read it any other way):
"But you will stay?"
"I will stay if you wish it."
It seemed to her that the words fell cold and glum as ice-pellets. Only beneath the crust of thought did her being assent as by right to that flush of pleasure, that triumphant cry.
"But of course," said Minna a few hours later, thoughtfully licking the last oyster shell, "we must be practical."
