books, books, books

Ok--

I really should write about my trip, 'cause it was really wonderful. In fact, I was in such denial about it ending that I didn't really say goodbye to Jen (I'm sorry!!!). I ADORE the Baltics and the little glimpse I got of Scandinavia. I'll post more pictures from Tallinn, Estonia and Riga, Latvia, and Klaipeda, Lithuania.

Back in 1989, when I was 10-goin'-on-11, I was so proud of these three little countries for telling the USSR where to go. Unlike Hungary, these countries weren't satellites with thier own puppet governments. These three little Baltic countries had their borders erased and were official Soviet States. Look on a cold-War era map--they don't exist. Ever since '89 I've wanted to visit...and I'm so glad that I finally did, and that--in Lithuania at least--I experienced more than the average tourist.

BUT, I sat down to write about books, not about the Baltics. Before Jen came to France, I challenged myself to read three books that I wanted to have read, but didn't actually want to read: Henry James' Washington Square, Virgina Woolf's To a Lighthouse, and Lewis' Four Loves. Predictably, I would recommend Lewis to everyone, and the other two only to serious literature-types...and even then with some caveats about stream-of-consciousness and depression.

Now that I'm back, I'm treating myself with books. Reading is one of my main sources of distraction, entertainment and sustenance here in France, and if I keep reading books I "should" read (rather than ones I want to read), I'll go insane. So, right now I am gobbling down Jason Elliot's Mirrors of the Unseen about his travels in Iran. I'm adoring it, and at this point I like it even more than his An Unexpected Light about Afghanistan. Elliot is fluent in Farsi/Dari, and his experiences in these countries are fascinating. From now on, I will not accept any political commentary about Iran from anyone who has not read this book, or one like it (Reading Lolita in Tehran would also fulfill the requirement).

Last night I was literally switching back and forth between the Iran book, and Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone, which T.S. Eliot called "the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels ... Everything that is good in the modern story can be found in The Moonstone." You can't get much better praise than that. Collins' was close friends with Charles Dickens, and the two worked together and published each others' work. It seems that Collins (who was just as famous in their day), enjoyed his fame a little too much...and his work suffered. The Moonstone is generally considered his best work, although The Woman in White is also lauded. His other works don't really match up.

Both these books are so good, that I was reading a section of one and then the other, and back and forth all evening. It was one of the first times in my life when I wanted to be able to read two things at the same time.

Because I am so enmeshed in these, I haven't begun Michener's Alaska. But I'm looking forward to reading it soon.

Needless to say, Jen and I hit Shakespeare & Co.'s two-euro book table while she was here... :)