Storytelling Starters ~ Much reading
Saturday, March 5th, 2022
Portrait of George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) by Francois D’Albert Durade, 1850
These days, I sometimes don’t get out of bed till coffee-time. This is because I have an increasingly strong sense that, unless there are appointments to attend or other particular things that have to be done at home, it doesn’t really matter what time I get up. Meantime, there’s lots of reading to do. How much time is available for this on any particular day fluctuates. But compared with my past life as a working storyteller when an early get-up was almost always a necessity, having time to sit in bed reading is a wonderful luxury. Or dare I admit it both to myself and to you reading this blog, it has become something of a necessity.
What I’m reading at present is Adam Bede, one of the big novels by 19th century writer, George Eliot. What a mixture of satisfactions and tragedies the characters’ lives prove to be. And how well-drawn those characters are. The book is full of incident as it traces the ups-and-downs of their lives and as I read, I am both admiring and pitying their travails. I started upon Adam Bede at the suggestion of my good friend, the translator Margaret Costa, the person I call my Book-Pair. It was a suggestion I welcomed for I’d previously read other George Eliot books with great pleasure and admiration. I don’t know why this one had got missed out.
Like so many 19th century novels, Adam Bede is both long and demanding. It moves between scenes of rural contentment to others of imminent tragedy. And imminent tragedy is where I am right now as one of the events in prospect is the hanging of the main female character. Oh my goodness, will this actually happen? Or will she be saved in some way or another? With such cliff-hangers as part of this long novel, perhaps it’s not surprising that I’ve spent a good part of recent mornings gripping my copy in apprehension at what might transpire.
As crime novels regularly do, Adam Bede (which is no crime novel) keeps you on your toes as to what’s going to happen to its main characters. Also in my case, in between times of reading, it keeps me wondering about my own reading. I studied English Literature at University. How come I didn’t get round to Adam Bede? The answer, I suppose, is that, not even including the recently-published novels I get to read as a member of my Book Group, there’s been so much else to turn to.
At least I can honestly say that I’m glad I’m a reader. Poetry, essays, biography, novels … toss them in my direction and I’ll at least pick them up and give them a go. And then, of course, quite apart from reading, there’s no lack of other things to do. On Monday this week, for instance, there was the evening at the London Welsh Centre in Gray’s Inn Road to celebrate St David’s Day. It was a most enjoyable time. Wonderful Cawl a chan- traditional lamb soup and plenty of singing.Paul and I wore daffodils from our garden and its quite marvellous to be able to report that both are still blooming today as if they’d freshly opened. No shriveling or wilting or brown bits despite a whole evening at the London Welsh Centre in and the several days that have passed since then. Amazing!
PS: The sunflower from our garden is here today as a tribute to the people of Ukraine whose national flower it is.