January Roundup

Despite the snowy, cold weather we've been having in Colorado, I don't feel like I have been doing much reading. I just realized that the puzzle I just finished consumed a lot of my reading time, so I guess that explains it.

Apart from finishing a very short classic, Elizabeth and Her German Garden, I only managed to read three books this month but they were all quite enjoyable.

Rosamunde Pilcher binge - I read Winter Solstice in December as part of my holiday reading and loved it so much that I decided to indulge in rereading both The Shell Seekers and September. Both were a real treat. 

I gave The Shell Seekers five stars and vowed not to wait another 30 years to reread it! Absolutely love the setting--Cornwall mostly and the flashbacks to the years between the wars. Penelope Keeling is definitely a character I admire and reading the book made me long to get back in my garden and get my hands dirty with planting, weeding, pruning, transplanting, and admiring my handiwork. She has such a zest for life that I found invigorating, and I loved the story of her youth, and the art world, and Cornwall...did I mention Cornwall? It is rapidly moving up the list of places I must visit and soon. Two of her three children were maddening to the point of distraction, but that was part of the story.

I gave September four stars. It was great and I loved the Scottish setting and the diverse cast of characters, but the story was just quite not up to the same level as that of The Shell Seekers. I'm a huge fan of small town settings and this was a good story, but it didn't have a character that I could love quite as much as Penelope from The Shell Seekers. 

I was thinking I might watch one of the two versions of The Shell Seekers, but am not sure. I read that the original version, with Angela Lansbury, varies quite a bit from the book, which would drive me to distraction. The version with Vanessa Redgrave was a German production and I haven't been able to determine whether it is in German or not. If anyone has seen either one and can provide some insight, I would appreciate it.

Apart from basking in Pilcher-land, I also read Peter Ackroyd's biography of Edgar Allan Poe, Poe: A Life Cut Short. I enjoy Acroyd's writing and he is a first-rate biographer, but this was such a somber book to read. I learned an immense amount about Poe--I had thought I had a handle on him--but I was sorely ignorant. First of all, he lived much earlier in the 19th century than I had thought, and while he lived in poverty for virtually all of his life, his genius and talents were recognized by his peers and the reading public. 

I am in no way qualified to diagnose his mental challenges, but he clearly suffered from various mental disorders that made his sad life so much harder and sadder. I found myself comparing Poe to Dickens, who was just three years younger than Poe. Both had troubled childhoods, with parents and surrogate parents who didn't provide them with the care that children need. Both worked as journalists, for newspapers as well as magazines. Dickens was driven to succeed and was energetic almost to a fault. Poe was sporadic, sometimes bursting with energy but then diving into despair and self-destructing via alcohol. I think in terms of raw talent, they were comparable, but Dickens was able to channel his talents better. While Poe's stories and poems have stood the test of time, I do feel that his output is far more limited than was that from Dickens and he didn't mature as a writer in the same way that Dickens did.