Life before 2008 29 Sep 2005 05:04 am
What to do, what to do….
I’ve been on a reading jag since moving here, finding a renewed thirst for great novels. There is one that has been on my list for years that I finally got at the library here, and now I don’t think I can actually bring myself to read it!
The book is called Precious Bane, by Mary Webb. I’ve wanted to read it just because so many others who I share book interests with have loved it. I didn’t really know what it was about. From the intro, I can see that it’s got something to do with “sin eaters” and I’ve read about them before; it should prove to be a very interesting read.
Indeed, the forward alone was captivating! I’ve got a nice, small hardback copy; just my very favorite asthetic for books. It’s been read many times before, my many different readers, which makes it even better.
So why can’t I read it? I didn’t get any further than the first page when I reached to grab a pencil…and I can’t write in this book! It’s not mine! It has all the makings of becoming one of my “friends”, on the shelves for years to come, and I may have to return this copy and wait until I can buy my own, aged, used book. And yet….here it sits, begging to be read.
Here’s an excerpt from the foreward:
“To conjure, even for a moment, the wistfullness which is the past is like trying to gather in one’s arms the hyacinthine colour of the distance…..The past is only the present become invisible and mute; and because it is invisible and mute, it’s memoried glances and it’s murmurs are infinitely precious. We are tomorrow’s past. Even now we slip away like those pictures painted on the moving dials of antique clocks– a ship, a cottage, sun and moon, a nosegay. The dial turns, the ship rides up and sinks again, the yellow painted sun has set, and we, that were the new thing, gather magic as we go.”
