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Married life at Tranquility Ridge
May. 23rd, 2007 06:09 pmSo, what did you think of the wedding? I thought it was the best I had ever been to, though I confess I'm somewhat biased.
We arrived at our honeymoon cabin Sunday night around sunset. What a view! What a sunset! Everything was too perfect. I've become accustomed to our cabin's beauty--the light wood walls (pine?) and floors, the great room with its three rows of windows, the window from the bedroom into the great room, the double shower and enormous bathtub, and best of all the 6-person hottub out on the balcony, where we can soak and watch the stars come out over the mountain. (The cabin also has WiFi.)
We've been into town twice now. Blue Ridge is a small community that was once a spa destination for its mineral waters. It has many antique and gift stores along two streets separated by a park and a train track. The rest of it is typical South. There's even a Rose's here, which amuses my husband. We haven't yet been to the lake--it's too pretty by our cabin. When we go out I find I just want to be back "home", which is unusual for me.
I've been reading a bit this week. First I read Laura Equivel's Swift as Desire, which I picked up at McKay's. Equivel also wrote Like Water for Chocolate, which is a fantastic example of magical realism and a meld of genres. Swift was not really a good book. It has a great premise and story. The characters are engaging. I was disappointed that there isn't magical realism really, but there's a character who can hear people's hidden words and what they really mean. The problem with the book is that it needed another revision. Equivel hasn't finished thinking about the book and about her feelings for her dead father. Sometimes the book is in first person, sometimes it's in third, sometimes in the present, sometimes in the past. This can work quite well (see below), but in this case the voice of the narrator is too much Equivel thinking about her own father, whom she has fictionalized. The parallels are too close and she doesn't seem sure what she's doing.
The second book I read was Julian Barnes's Flaubert's Parrot. Here is an example of a book that can skip times and voice effectively. The narrator is Geoffrey Braithwaite, an amateur Flaubert scholar who is still grieving his wife's death. Braithwaite complains about critics and expounds about fiction. He's on a detective mission also, to discover the "real" parrot used by Flaubert as inspiration for "A Simple Heart." He teaches us about Flaubert's life, his relationship with other people, his attitudes, all the while also thinking about his own attitude toward life and love. He has a hidden agenda. It's a marvellous book. I feel like I've finished reading two books, one of them a biography of Flaubert (though I'm worried about Braithwaite's trustworthiness). I find I want to research and read his works.
I've thought a little more about A Farewell to Arms, which I panned earlier. Something in Sparknotes inspired me to reread the end, and I can see some ways that Tenente has come to love his wife, in spite of himself. That is perhaps Hemingway's appeal? Tough male characters who have trouble admitting when they feel but who do nonetheless connect with others.
We arrived at our honeymoon cabin Sunday night around sunset. What a view! What a sunset! Everything was too perfect. I've become accustomed to our cabin's beauty--the light wood walls (pine?) and floors, the great room with its three rows of windows, the window from the bedroom into the great room, the double shower and enormous bathtub, and best of all the 6-person hottub out on the balcony, where we can soak and watch the stars come out over the mountain. (The cabin also has WiFi.)
We've been into town twice now. Blue Ridge is a small community that was once a spa destination for its mineral waters. It has many antique and gift stores along two streets separated by a park and a train track. The rest of it is typical South. There's even a Rose's here, which amuses my husband. We haven't yet been to the lake--it's too pretty by our cabin. When we go out I find I just want to be back "home", which is unusual for me.
I've been reading a bit this week. First I read Laura Equivel's Swift as Desire, which I picked up at McKay's. Equivel also wrote Like Water for Chocolate, which is a fantastic example of magical realism and a meld of genres. Swift was not really a good book. It has a great premise and story. The characters are engaging. I was disappointed that there isn't magical realism really, but there's a character who can hear people's hidden words and what they really mean. The problem with the book is that it needed another revision. Equivel hasn't finished thinking about the book and about her feelings for her dead father. Sometimes the book is in first person, sometimes it's in third, sometimes in the present, sometimes in the past. This can work quite well (see below), but in this case the voice of the narrator is too much Equivel thinking about her own father, whom she has fictionalized. The parallels are too close and she doesn't seem sure what she's doing.
The second book I read was Julian Barnes's Flaubert's Parrot. Here is an example of a book that can skip times and voice effectively. The narrator is Geoffrey Braithwaite, an amateur Flaubert scholar who is still grieving his wife's death. Braithwaite complains about critics and expounds about fiction. He's on a detective mission also, to discover the "real" parrot used by Flaubert as inspiration for "A Simple Heart." He teaches us about Flaubert's life, his relationship with other people, his attitudes, all the while also thinking about his own attitude toward life and love. He has a hidden agenda. It's a marvellous book. I feel like I've finished reading two books, one of them a biography of Flaubert (though I'm worried about Braithwaite's trustworthiness). I find I want to research and read his works.
I've thought a little more about A Farewell to Arms, which I panned earlier. Something in Sparknotes inspired me to reread the end, and I can see some ways that Tenente has come to love his wife, in spite of himself. That is perhaps Hemingway's appeal? Tough male characters who have trouble admitting when they feel but who do nonetheless connect with others.