200 Books

Essays George Orwell Page: 63

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott Page: 220

I haven’t read Little Women in almost forever (at least 10 years) and I’m having the same nostalgic experience I had with Black Beauty. If anything Little Women is more preachy than Sewell’s book but I’m liking it better. No temperance league nonsense so far and the girls are sweet but real with real problems and tendencies. I’ve actually been close to tears a couple of times this afternoon and not just because I’m fondly remembering my mom reading it to us. I like the lessons it is trying to teach and I don’t remember finding them offensive as a child so they must not be too nauseating (children are really the best judges).

I know I’m not far enough into the Essays to make this kind of proclamation but damn the torpedoes. Orwell is a Gawd-Awful Prig. He is dreary, dull and unhappy. Nothing is good enough for him and he wants to legislate away all our problems. But oh my goodness, the pettiness of it all! And the dreariness, it makes me want to go bathe in The Divine Comedy again. Even the “Inferno” would at least be more vivid. I did enjoy the first half of Orwell’s essay “Bookshop Memories” but not his conclusions. He writes of the foibles of bookstore customers, all of whom I readily identify, but then his feeling that thousands of books together are ugly and his distaste for the dusty smell of them alienates me. I love books, love them piled together, love to dust and wipe them to make them clean, love organizing them into decent shape and love to see rows upon rows of titles lined up together.

I decided to go back and add to this post right after posting it because I realized I hadn’t said anything about my day…which was fairly normal and not at all exciting. So why am I editing? Well, Jared says he likes it when I post both about the books I’m reading and the day-to-day stuff too. And speaking of Jared, this is the third night this week that I’ve closed the shop and for some reason I miss him more than ever. I’m one of those annoying people that still likes their spouse (and I know we’ve only been married three years but we have had two kids, started two businesses, and partially remodeled a house together so it’s almost like we’ve been married ten years) and I hate the way our schedule keeps us from spending much time together. When we’re at Veritas we may have peaceful moments but we’re liable to be interrupted any second by either a customer or our boys so extended conversations are hard to manage. And, of course, we’re rarely home together unless we’re falling asleep. None of this has changed or gotten any worse but it’s been lonelier to be at the coffeehouse; probably because I don’t have Alex and Luc to distract me or to hug and hold. I’ve really enjoyed the change of pace and having a little more time to read and some peace from the incessant demands of little ones but I’m missing my husband more acutely so I think I’m making him stay up late tonight so we can have some alone time.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2008 at 7:54 pm and is filed under Alexander Douglas, Children's, Husbands are Very Important, Lucius Colby, Philosophy, History and Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.