library day

[alchimie]

Smol daughter was coughing too much to sleep solidly last night and around 10:30 badly wanted company in her misery, so I sat up until midnight in her room reading Naomi Novik's Spinning Silver on my phone until she finally settled. Today she is still feverish but less miserable; I am extremely tired but nonetheless made it to my brief morning volunteer committment and then later on to the library to turn in overdue books and acquire new books for my children. Now I am in what is quickly becoming my journalling position: in bed, laptop, tea, music playing. One-eyed cat was sleeping against my thigh most of the day but I moved quickly and upset him so he is sulking elsewhere, which is a pity; I like his warmth and affection.

On my way to the library today I was thinking of how my enjoyment of Library Day has become much more vicarious now that I read almost everything electronically. I love the convenience (and instant gratification) of searching for books at many libraries simultaneously using Overdrive and I love being able to carry dozens of books with me without having to literally carry an overfull backpack everywhere as I did in my 20s and 30s. But I miss the particular pleasure of filling a bag with books, bringing them home, and then sitting down to slowly look each of them over. I have tried occasionally to go back to this, but paper books are just so hard to keep track of, and their font size stays stubbornly the same no matter what tricks my eyes are playing. So for me the digital books, and I bring home the bags of books for my children to read.

All of that being said, the library did have a few paper books waiting for me today; the one I am most excited about is Reappraising Jane Duncan by Rita Elizabeth Rippetoe, which is the only critical work on Duncan I've been able to find. I hope it is the enjoyable kind and not the sort which makes me want to argue heatedly with the author.

(Cat just returned to my room and climbed into the box of recycling in protest as to my earlier behavior. Or maybe he just likes the crunching noises the papers make.)

Off to prepare dinners for my offspring and coax smol son into finishing his 'All About Me' poster so he may share it with his class tomorrow.

Comments

[oursin]

Oooh, critical study of Jane Duncan!!! chases up.

Jane Duncan

[alchimie]

I have only just started it and I am not certain if it will really be a critical study or more of a companion to the novels with plot summaries and such, but I am pleased either way. And it might spur me to reread them all, although it might not have been long enough since my last time through and there are so many other things I am reading already... but if I end up wanting to argue with her I'll almost certainly start rereading so I can argue properly.

Re: Jane Duncan

[oursin]

I thought there was quite a bit of repetition between the different sections, and it seemed to me more of a 'guide for people who haven't read Duncan' as to her merits than anything else (and being British and if not of Duncan's own generation of one not far removed, didn't really need a lot of the helpful explanations of cultural context!). But I'm not sure I've ever seen the complete original order intended vs published order before (as opposed to the 'she wanted Muriel to go first'), which was interesting. And she does get that there is a lot going on in the books that the reviews she cites missed. Possibly a side-effect of the original covers? they were a bit twee as I recall, at least for original UK hardcover editions.

Re: Jane Duncan

[alchimie]

I have finally finished it myself, and I agree entirely about the repetition. I appreciated that she made some motions towards unpacking what is happening in the books but I wanted more, especially with some of the patterns -- Duncan's 'awful' women are many of them awful in similar ways, and I think there is something in there about narcissism that Duncan was very concerned with, whatever words she might have used to describe it.

I suspect the original covers had a lot to do with brushing them off, perhaps also the marketing around it -- that they are the sort of books Delafield could give someone who said "I want a *nice* book..." -- or perhaps some of the contemporary reviews stopped early in the books, when they tend to be more towards meandering trains of thought and less into the meat of it all.

I was thinking next time I did a reread I might try the original intended order... I may have read Muriel and Monica too often, though.