I've just had the most lovely morning. Bright and sunny - just a gentle breeze - with a trip to the library and then to Borders (for Starbucks and a Guardian, not to buy you-know-whats).
My leisurely walk took me past St. William's College...
Through the Deanery Gardens...
Across the west front of the Minster...
And down Duncombe Place to York Central Library, which stands in the shadow of the ruins of St. Mary's Abbey...
All of this confirming that I do indeed live in one of the most beautiful parts of one of the loveliest cities in England. We've been here nearly two years now and I'm still bright-eyed as a tourist walking around the place. (Necessary Caveat: This is not true of the occasions when I go out to buy milk and am forced to fight my way down the Shambles, dodging in and out of the hordes of day-visitors. Then, I feel like a truely jaded local.)
The purpose of my trip to said library was to collect five novels, Booker contenders all. When the longlist was announced on Tuesday I placed holds on the books available through York City Libraries (which was all but two - tis a very impressive library network), then sat back and hoped for their speedy arrival. I've been well-served; the books have been dutifully piling up all week and I'm now in possession of:
Darkmans by Nicola Barker,
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid,
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones,
The Gathering by Anne Enright, and
Consolation by Michael Redhill
I duly retreated to Borders for a coffee and a peruse. I made a big fat pile on the table in front of me, all neat and in size order - from Darkmans, the size and weight of a brick, to The Reluctant Fundamentalist, which is small and slight - then dived in, sampling the first two pages of each.
All of them were immediately compelling in their different ways: Mister Pip has a flavour of Margo Lanagan about it; The Reluctant Fundamentlist opens in the interrogative first person; The Gathering begins vague and dreamy, while Consolation kicks off with a dark poetry. But it was Darkmans that had me sold halfway down the first page and held me all through the first chapter - I'll undoubtedly be keeping it on as my fourth read of the longlist. Just roll this around your mouth for a moment:
He now knew the internal mechanisms of that old mill as well as he knew the undulations of his own ribcage. He had crushed his face into its dirty crevices. He had filled his nails with its sawdust. He had pushed his ear up against the past and had sensed the ancient breath within it. He had gripped the liver of history and felt it squelching in his hand -
Expanding -
Struggling -
Yum.
So this weekend promises more Darkmans, as well as (hopefully) the whole of Edward Docx's Self-Help. I'm about half way through it as of this morning and am feeling more positive then I imagined I would on Wednesday - it's overwrought at times, but chugs along nicely enough.
~~Victoria~~