I’ve started rationing “Middlemarch” because I enjoy it so much more when I read slowly. Some books are meant for speed–all stripped down action and best read quick. It’s fun to stay up late at night and read a novel all at once.
Other novels are meant for contemplation. You want to live in them as long as possible. “Middlemarch” is this kind of book. There is so much to contemplate:
Mary and Rosamund standing side by side at the mirror.
Young Lydgate, bright but easily bored, deciding to become a doctor when he takes an old anatomy off the shelf.
Peter Featherstone, like Volpone in bed, mocking his greedy relatives–and each of those relations! Greedy, anxious, ridiculous, proud, needy, self-important. You can see them all if you take the time to look.
This novel is like a cathedral with its grand architecture and flying buttresses, its great shafts of light, its breathtaking windows, illuminating so many souls, and yes, its gargoyles, its Featherstones. Even the name is gargoyle-like, connoting rock carved with wings. The cosmic joke in imagining flight and weight together, or daring pigs to fly or drawing blood from stone.
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This is my first visit to your blog. I am reading Kaaterskill Falls and am absolutely loving it. I just described it to friends as being like George Eliot, so I thought it was funny to find you discussing her on your blog. Obviously the kinship is real! Thanks for a marvellous and thought provoking book–I look forward to reading more of your work.
Dear Allegra,
I have listened to two of your books on audio disc while driving
back and forth to work in Cambridge where I teach ESL at the
Cambridge Center for Adult Ed. I read, or listened to Intuition
first and just last night finished the Cookbook Collector. Now I
have ordered all of your books on Amazon. I find it difficult to
sit still and read at home, where I am distracted by so many things.
Your writing and story weaving, story telling is wonderful. I never
want to end the book. Especially the Cookbook Collector. In this
book especially, each character was completely loveable with their
own complexities. But the real thrill is the way you include science
and technology into the stories so that the reader learns much.
Many of my students are scientists and one of them a physicist in
Harvard’s bio dept who is working on the origins of life, told me
that he was dealing with a similar problem as that in Intuition.
He said biologists are terrible at record keeping and he is
responsible for correcting their data errors.
Having lived and worked in cambridge and gone to harvard as a
grad. student in Human development at the School of Ed. it is a
pleasure to travel through familiar territory. As an undergrad I
studied painting and photography at San Francisco Art institute, so
West Coast pieces are also real to me.
Of course, i have my own started and not finished first novel
called Venus Strabismis. I started writing it in the late 90′s
and even won a finalist award by the Mass Council. Then life inter-
vened. My mother, husband and finally father all died pushing me
into survival mode. My life goals are to exercise, finish the novel,
, and make necklaces out of the thousands of gemstone beads that
I’ve been buying on Ebay.
I have only one comment to make about your writing, which is nearly
flawless “wrap her/his arms around”. A favorite phrase of yours,
frequently used. Yet, it is such a lovely image that I just wish
I wrapped my arms around more people these days.
with admiration,
Paula Rhodes
Waltham, MA
PS I also spent 3 months on Maui in 1973 making a John Watersish
version of the little mermaid with a friend from SFAI.
Dear Paula,
Thank you so much for writing. I appreciate everything you say–including your gentle suggestion that I use the phrase wrap his / her arms around quite often. I’ll watch for that!!
Like you, I’m a fan of audio books. I spend a lot of time driving my younger kids to and from school and lessons and we’ve listened to dozens from the library. I also like to listen to poetry on audio.
I’m working on a new book right now–and it’s set in Cambridge. Can’t wait for you to see it in a few years.
With great appreciation for your encouragement,
Allegra