Thursday, April 15, 2010

When A Good Book Ends

My sister Tuna really likes to be near my mom. I like to be near my mom too but Tuna really likes to be near my mom. Once at the train station my mom and I were waiting to put Tuna on a train back to college. Tuna went to buy a magazine and told us not to move. We moved. Some seats opened up and we moved twenty feet to go sit down. Tuna of course came back, panicked and promptly had my mom paged on the loudspeaker. When we rushed to the security desk, Tuna just shrugged and said "I wanted you to show up."

When I finish a good book I get a little homesick, a little restless and a little strange flutter of panic. I want to page the next good book to show up at once. I want one that will inhabit the exact silhouette of the last one. I want the edges to match. I am in the market for a congruent shape.

I loved Kate Morten's The Forgotten Garden. It was lyric, but stopped just short of being distractingly so. It was surprising but not irritatingly surprising. It was lit in a gentle, mellowed afternoon light and peopled with complicated, compelling people. The foreshadowings of this story, told in fluidly broken chronology, were heavy but amiable. It follows three stories: two trying to solve the mystery of the third. It works.

I went to the bookstore yesterday and there was no congruent shape. I was not surprised my luck had run out. The Forgotten Garden had already filled the empty shoes of Daphne, the story of Daphne Du Maurier, also set in early 20th century Cornwall. So I decided to up sticks and move to the London modeling scene circa now, and am going to read Wendy Holden's Beautiful People. Let's see if snappy, sharp language and a gorgeously kitch pink and blue cover will make me want a different shape.

20 comments:

  1. Oh my goodness how I LOVED The Forgotten Garden and House at Riverton. Let's just say i LOVE Kate Morton.
    And I read Beautiful People too. It's not the same at all but it's enjoyable.
    I can't wait until fall for Kate's new one!

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  2. i loved it too! i miss it! i tried to get the house at riverton but they were out!

    glad you liked beautiful people!

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  3. I have a blog friend who is after me to read The Forgotten Garden. I love your thoughts about it!
    Thanks for stopping by Bookfan :)

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  4. definitely read it! i love your blog!

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  5. Your description of how you feel when you finish is good book is exactly like mine....panicky that your next read won't be as wonderful. I've not read The Forgotten Garden...maybe I should! :)

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  6. I get sad every time I finish a good book, It feels like I lost a good friend.

    Glad to hear that The Forgotten Garden is good, I have been contemplating reading it.

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  7. I agree totally about wanting a new book just like the newly finished one -- but when it doesn't happen the fall-back solution is always Jane
    Austen. Even when you know them all backwards and forwards, her books never fail to be just the thing.

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  8. that is true! jane austen always works!

    whitney and missy b, definitely read it but don't expect it to enthrall you right away, it is more of a gentle creeping addiction.

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  9. Priya, I popped into my local Barnes & Noble today, and The Forgotten Garden was on staff rec. Sold! I look forward to falling into the dream of this book...

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  10. yay! it is not a catch fire immediately sort of book but it gets you and doesn't let go! have fun!

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  11. I am glad you liked The Forgotten Garden! It did start slow but once i really got hooked in, I was there till the end.
    Now it sounds like a real jump in pace. Enjoy Beautiful People.

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  12. Hi Priya, thanks for your comment on my blog. It's funny that other people should feel the same as me when finishing a book, though lately (and I've always always been a reader) I simply cannot find enough time to read... Love the name (and meaning of it) of your blog and I'm glad to have found it. Love from London, Carole x

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  13. Priya, I am so pleased you did enjoy the Forgotten Garden. I find that after enjoying a book so much, it is often a good idea to have a complete change of writing style,so that you do not make comparisons.

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  14. marthae, i totally agree! it is a slow sort of falling for it but it stays with you!

    carole, thank you! ao happy you stopped by!

    lindyloumac, i know that is true and it does help once i do it--i am enjoying beautiful people--but when one book ends, especially historical fiction, i just seem to want to keep living in that neighborhood!

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  15. I've been wanting to read The Forgotten Garden, I'll have to pick it up soon!

    I get like that with books to. I'm really sad for anything to end because it's impossible to find books that match so perfectly. Sometimes I read through an authors work in an attempt to get the same feeling from more than one book at a time. It doesn't always work though.

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  16. i agree. i will often read through an author's entire body of work hunting for the same atmosphere.

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  17. I've never read The Forgotten Garden, but now you've convinced me...and in such a beautiful way. I, too, get a pit in my stomach when I near the end of an amazing book. Can't wait to START this one.

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  18. I loved The Forgotten Garden too, Kate is an Aussie author that lives not far from us so when I came across her work a couple of years ago, it made the find, extra special. So glad you enjoyed it :-)

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  19. that always makes a book more fun! she is a superb storyteller!

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