The Tiger in the Well
Aug. 1st, 2005 06:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qosOne of my keen frustrations of the past many months has been the lack of really good books to read. I keep picking up books, reading 20-40-60 pages, putting them down, and forgetting I had ever picked them up.
Then![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ladyvivien wrote about the Sally Lockhart series by Philip Pullman, better known for his His Dark Materials series, which starts with The Golden Compass. I had read all three books of HDM, and hadn't liked them well enough to keep. But I've been enjoying Sally Lockhart.
Enjoying, until today. Today I read about a young single mother in Victorian London, a career woman, who had built her business with her own smarts and determination, who had an unknown enemy claim that she had married him and then deserted him, taking their child with him and stealing his money. The first third of the book relates the relentless destruction of her life, as Victorian law and society, which doesn't recognize a wife as an independent being, nor a single mother as having even the possibility of virtue, calmly and without question accepts every well-documented lie her enemy tells, as he tries to gain custody of her young daughter and deprive her of all her assets.
By the time I was finished with my lunch today, my stomach hurt. I've had some ambivalent feelings about motherhood from the beginning, but the story of Sally's desperate struggle to keep her daughter from being taken had me in knots of empathy.
Traffic was bad on the way home today, and my own daughter staying the night with my parents, so I ended up pulling over to the curb on the non-freeway route I was taking home, turning off the car and reading. I sat there for over ninety minutes, because I absolutely had to finish the story. It didn't help that I knew, intellectually, that Sally would triumph. But I couldn't bear the suspense. I had to reassure myself that all did End Well.
I can't remember the last time I read a book I simply could not put down.
Then
ladyvivien wrote about the Sally Lockhart series by Philip Pullman, better known for his His Dark Materials series, which starts with The Golden Compass. I had read all three books of HDM, and hadn't liked them well enough to keep. But I've been enjoying Sally Lockhart.Enjoying, until today. Today I read about a young single mother in Victorian London, a career woman, who had built her business with her own smarts and determination, who had an unknown enemy claim that she had married him and then deserted him, taking their child with him and stealing his money. The first third of the book relates the relentless destruction of her life, as Victorian law and society, which doesn't recognize a wife as an independent being, nor a single mother as having even the possibility of virtue, calmly and without question accepts every well-documented lie her enemy tells, as he tries to gain custody of her young daughter and deprive her of all her assets.
By the time I was finished with my lunch today, my stomach hurt. I've had some ambivalent feelings about motherhood from the beginning, but the story of Sally's desperate struggle to keep her daughter from being taken had me in knots of empathy.
Traffic was bad on the way home today, and my own daughter staying the night with my parents, so I ended up pulling over to the curb on the non-freeway route I was taking home, turning off the car and reading. I sat there for over ninety minutes, because I absolutely had to finish the story. It didn't help that I knew, intellectually, that Sally would triumph. But I couldn't bear the suspense. I had to reassure myself that all did End Well.
I can't remember the last time I read a book I simply could not put down.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-02 09:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-02 12:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-02 06:02 pm (UTC)The last book that I read that did that to me was the Warrior-Prohpet by Keith Bakker.
It is always great to get lost in a good book.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-03 01:15 am (UTC)And all too rare these days.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-02 06:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-05 02:45 am (UTC)Book suggestions
Date: 2005-08-04 08:27 pm (UTC)Alternatively, for walking in a world out of whack, Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere and American Gods, especially the latter.
If you've read all those, give me a whack upside the head and tell me to try harder!
S.
Re: Book suggestions
Date: 2005-08-05 02:44 am (UTC)I tried to read the Thomas Covenant books years ago and found them utterly unlikeable. However, I very much enjoy Mordant's Need. Likewise, I'm a great fan of Neverwhere, but American Gods just didn't move me.
In the area of fantasy, my favorite authors are Parke Godwin, Guy Gavriel Kay, and Jacqueline Carey -- all of whom I buy in hardback. I enjoyed Elizabeth Moon's Paksenarrion series and Anne Bishop's Daughter of the Blood trilogy. I've gotten rid of a lot of fantasy over the years, but those are at the top of my list of "keepers."