So I FINAlly finished Geraldine Brooks’ “People of the Book,” a novel spanning five- centuries through Europe and the Middle East, telling the true story of an ancient illuminated manuscript: the Sarajevo Haggadah. Usually, I’m a pretty quick read, but having read Brooks before I should have known better. I won’t go into minute, atomic, thorny, lengthy detail because that would be just plagiarizing the novel. Brooks is certainly informative. So is Wikipedia. I could have just read her “afterword,” and come away with the same opinion in 30 seconds rather than 2 weeks.
The best part of finishing a book is getting to pick the NEXT one!!! It’s like the night BEFORE the big dance. What to pick? What to pick? I haven’t read a GREAT novel in a couple of years. I read William Lobdell’s fantastic memoir, Losing my Religion, which I feel he wrote personally for me (i’m such a narcissist), and which still stays with me today. Sorry Mom. Sorry Father Jerome.
But I want fiction!!! So why am I picking Virginia Woolf, where apparently plot is a non-issue, stream of conciousness rules, prose is serpentine and challenging to follow, and the main character is fragmented and two winks of a cuckoo clock????? Um, Hello? Maybe this is MY memoir??
No, I thought it was finally time I had read myself some Woolf. I thought reading The Hours by Michael Cunningham counted as reading Mrs. Dalloway, This also from a girl who thinks buying the soundtrack to Schindler’s List counts as seeing the movie. I’m ready. I’ve got my raincoat full of rocks, and I’m ready to read.
Let me know you’re thoughts on Virginia.
