Sunday 16 August 2009

Nightingale Wood

I fully understand J K Rowling's fondness for writing in a cafe. While I have no ambition (or talent) to write I do love to read in a cafe. On Saturday while one daughter was at her gymnastics class and the other one was looking at technical gizmos in the Apple shop with my husband I spent some time reading Nightingale Wood outside a cafe in the sunshine with an iced coffee.

Villette got difficult towards the end. So much of the dialogue was in French I had to keep turning to the notes at the end of the book for a translation and began to feel that I was back on my degree course. I'm done with academia so it was quite a relief to finish it.

Comic novels must surely be among the most difficult to do well and the early twentieth century boasts some of the finest female writers of the genre. Thank goodness for Stella Gibbons, E M Delafield and Nancy Mitford.

6 comments:

LINDA from Each Little World said...

Vilette has been on my shelf for years and I still have not read it. The idea of lots of French just when I'm expecting all the threads of a book to come together is a bit of a daunting prospect.

Green Road said...

Will it look very bad if I say I haven't read any Gibbons, Delafield or Mitford? My loss, of course. It's an omission I intend to correct soon!

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Tara said...

I never finished Vilette for that very reason - the French. It became so tiresome trying to figure out the translation and overtook the story, for me.

claire said...

That's such a pretty picture. I would love to be reading in a cafe too if I didn't have to lug little kids around. When they're older I could do that. :)

Vintage Reading said...

Each Little World, don't let me put you off but I did find it hard going towards the end, less pleasure, more pain!

Green Road, I'd recommend Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love, if you like comic novels.

Tara, glad I'm not the only one!

Claire, while it's nice to be able to read in cafe's I do really miss reading picture books with the children at bedtime. Enjoy it while they are still young enough!