Rain rain go away, or, on the bright side, at least I don't feel guilty reading on the couch in June
We will always have Paris, by waldopepper on Flickr
I grew up in a climate slightly rainier than Corvallis, so I learned to appreciate sunny days! Because of this, I always feel guilty staying inside when the weather is nice – it just feels wrong. So normally I would feel bad enjoying a great book on the couch in June, but since the weather is so crappy, I’m focusing on the bright side – guiltless reading!
And the weather isn’t getting me down too much, because I’ve discovered a new author (well, new to me anyway).
I’m reading The Blue Flower, by Penelope Fitzgerald. It was on my list of books to try for a long time and I’m pleased I got around to it. Fitzgerald won the Booker for her novel Offshore, and The Blue Flower was chosen nineteen times as “Book of the Year” in British newspapers in 1995, according to the back cover of the edition I’m reading now.
It shows -The Blue Flower is a great read. I’m never good at summing up books in an elegant way, so here’s a quote from the Library Journal review (3/1/97):
[Fitzgerald] reconstructs the life of 18th-century German romantic poet Novalis, focusing on his boisterous family, his struggle to articulate his longings, and, most tellingly, his passion for 12-year-old Sophie, a simple child he intends to marry despite the furious reservations of family and friends. Fitzgerald doesn’t make it entirely clear what draws Friedrich von Hardenberg (Novalis’ real name) to little Sophie–but that is precisely the point. Throughout, he is carried aloft by an inchoate desire for something beyond that is summed up in his little story of the blue flower: “I have no craving to be rich, but I long to see the blue flower….I can imagine and think about nothing else.” As a counterpoint to her protagonist’s beautifully captured romanticism, Fitzgerald successfully evokes the sights, sound, and smells–and the constant sorrows–of domestic life in 18th-century Germany.
The book isn’t very long, but I look forward to reading the other titles we have in our collection. I love when I discover another author I like, because then I know I have a guaranteed selection of good books ahead of me. I’m a pretty picky reader, so it’s a nice feeling. 
As a person, Fitzgerald is interesting – she didn’t publish her first book until she was 60 years old. The Guardian has a nice obituary of her (she died in 2000), that includes interesting observations on her body of work. Harriet Harvey Wood writes about Fitzgerald:
What is striking is the accuracy of her observation, the aesthetically satisfying precision with which, stylistically, the arrow goes straight into the centre of the gold. The economy with which she achieved her effects – “I always feel the reader is very insulted by being told too much,” she said – and her ability to combine a microscopic with a panoramic perspective, made most other contemporary novels appear flatulent and over-written.
Anyway, I wanted to share my “discovery” with you. Are there any authors you’ve found recently that you want to share with other readers?
Posted by Lisa, a second floor librarian
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