Hmph.

It’s a little depressing to think that you’ve had a great new realization and then to realize that you had just forgotten a previous lesson learning.

But regardless, I’m back, and I’ll be posting more regularly now about books that I’ve read recently. And there have been LOTS!

• Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
• Against all Odds (short story collection, L.M. Montgomery)
• Towers of Brierley (Anita Stansfield)
• Goose Girl (Shannon Hale)
• Rivers Secrets (Shannon Hale)

Surely there are more…

• A Girl of the Limberlost (Gene Stratton-Porter)
• Dealing with Dragons (Patricia Wrede)
• Searching for Dragons (Patricia Wrede)
• Calling on Dragons (Patricia Wrede)
• Talking to Dragons (Patricia Wrede)
• Dragonsong (Anne McCaffrey)
• Dragonsinger (Anne McCaffrey)
• A Star in Winter (Anita Stansfield)

I finally admitted to myself recently that I am using books as as escape, and I am not sure that I like that. I pick up a book and then can’t put it down until I literally fall asleep reading or finish it, often in the early hours of the morning. I want the happy ending, I want the resolution, I want to see all the loose ends tied up in a nice, tidy little package, with the good people happy and the bad people…unsatisfied. My life is really, really busy right now (two part time jobs and a master’s thesis to finish), and I really "shouldn’t" take time to read just for fun, but I do. And once I start a new book, or even an old familiar one, I want to finish it. I really think it’s a reflection of the fact that none of my jobs (I include the thesis as an additional "job") are the type that I can "leave at work." None of them are ever really "done for the day." I am a teacher, in both jobs, and there is always more I could do to prepare for the next lesson or unit. And the thesis has been dragging on for several years. ugh. So I think I like that once I pick up a book I know that within a couple of hours I will see a problem resolved. I live vicariously through those people who get things "taken care of" within a couple hundred pages.

And, it JUST occurred to me - reading a book is a task that I know I can FINISH, whereas the whole thesis thing, I’m getting not so sure.

But - on to the books! I really enjoyed the Shannon Hale ones - those were new to me. "Enna Burning" goes between "Goose Girl" and "River Secrets," but I enjoy the writing and the story and the characters enough that even though some major plots points were spoiled by reading "River Secrets" first, I’m still planning to go back and read it. I like stories that put me in a new world that I have to learn (that’s why I like Anne McCaffrey and Robin McKinley, too), and this world and it’s magic are really interesting and not something I have encountered before.

Anita Stansfield - not one of my favorite authors, but also new to me in the last few weeks. I like "Towers" because of the fact that the plot does not END when the main characters get married - there is intrigue and revenge, and I LOVE that I did NOT anticipate the ending and the resolution. But "A Star in Winter," while still a creative set-up, was fairly predictable, and didn’t have very many characters. You only get to know one character really well, and even the main supporting characters are kind of flat. I think that’s in contrast to the Shannon Hale books, where you get SO FAR into each character that they are old friends when you encounter then in the other books.

I read "Anne of Green Gables" after watching the movie, and found myself looking for differences in the way the story is told in the different media. There are differences, but I thoroughly enjoyed them both. For the 9 millionth time.

After reading the whole series recently, not for the first time, I gave "Dealing with Dragons" to my namesake niece for her 8th birthday , and we have been reading it outloud together, even though she is FANTASTIC reader on her own. It’s fun to want her to like the good guys and not like the bad guys and get involved in the plot and enjoy it as much as I do. When I started reading it to her, at bedtime the day before her birthday, she turned her back to me as she cuddled up in bed, and I was afraid that the book was boring her and that she was asleep before I finished chapter 1. Then when I closed the book and got ready to leave she said, "Can we read another chapter?" Ah - hooked! I love it!

And the more of these short stories I read, the more I started to feel really clever, because I figured out some of the clues before Sherlock did! And then I remembered that, um, well, yes, the collection does belong to me, so I was really remembering the clues, not figuring them out. So much for my detective skills.

I also found that I was skipping over a lot of text to get to the "good stuff" - the part where Holmes describes what he figured out and how he figured it out.  After reading SO MANY plot intros (how many ways can Doyle find to get Holmes interested in a problem??), all I wanted to read was the clever stuff that he did and how crazy everyone thought he was and how amazingly he figured things out in the end.

And I really think that THAT is the danger of short stories - when you read too many in a row you start to see the formula. For example, Holmes / Doyle NEVER shares his theories with Watson / the reader until AFTER everything has been resolved. So I knew, in reading one of the stories, that this was one in which Holmes did not come up with the correct solution, because he told Watson his theory before all the action took place. And again, all the different ways that Doyle uses to get Holmes involved - someone knocks on the door (that one gets used a lot ), they find a goose, Watson is tracking down the opium-addicted husband of one of his clients and runs into Holmes in the opium den - and on and on. The beginnings of the stories get old - it becomes just the meat that I want to read, and when I hit that point I know that I have read too many short stories by the same author in a row. Like when I got on that O. Henry kick and all I wanted was the cynical or ironic or tragic punchline.

And the other danger of reading so much Sherlock at once is that I start to think that I, too, can unravel the stories of peoples’ lives from looking at them. And so I tried, as I walked across a university campus today:

Me, the detective: I deduce that that girl is a freshman, getting oriented to campus today. I can tell because I know that New Student Orientation is happening today, and because…

Me: the cynic: …and because her PARENTS are with her, genius??

Yeah…I think I am safer to leave all the "figuring out" up to Holmes and Doyle, but I do enjoy reading it, in moderation. 

Feel free to come along for the ride!