Did I mention that Esther and I are going to New Zealand in two weeks time? No? Well, I haven't really dared talk too much about it for fear of getting over-excited too soon. We booked our flights in January this year, in quite a drunken state - probably far above the safe limit for being in possession of a laptop and a credit card - and have been planning ever since. The whole adventure was prompted by Esther's sister, who has been living and working in Wellington for the last year: in the circumstances it seemed silly not to take the opportunity to visit her and see the land of Lord of the Rings into the bargain. I have always wanted to go, but never really took the idea seriously - its such a long way, and expensive, and I've never travelled beyond Europe. Even now, with just 12 days to go until we take off, I can't quite believe we took the plunge and booked those tickets. Of course, if we'd known when we pressed the 'Buy Now' button on that fateful travel website how many more times we would find ourselves pressing 'Buy Now' over the next nine months, we probably wouldn't have plucked up the courage to do it. Since we're spending three weeks travelling in both the north and south islands there has been an inordinate amount of organising and booking of internal flights (four in total - eep), ferries (one, at present), train journies (two), bus journies (two), bicycle hire (in three places), hostels (too many) and B&Bs (definitely too many). It has been a most stressful and exhilarating experience. Until now I never really understood the 'travel bug'; I have wanted to go places but I haven't relished the thought of long distance holidaying. I get it now. The anticipation, mixed with the uncertainty, mixed with the sense of liberation and adventure.
Having gestated into a fully-grown, fully-planned trip over the last nine months, the time is almost nigh now. And I'm in need of your reading advice. As you can imagine, flying from the UK to New Zealand is a truly long-haul experience: 24 hours in the air, plus lay-over time in the USA. It turns out that choosing which books to take with me is the most difficult last-minute decision I have to make. I have to take into account weight (not too heavy) and length (not too short, not too long), and I have to choose books that I'm willing to leave in NZ at the end of the flight - since I'll have to buy more books to fly home with, I can't afford to cart back those I took with me.
I've decided that two books, each about 500 pages in length, is my quota. Enough to keep me occupied, but not too much to weigh me down. I have to remember that there will also be plenty of inflight entertainment. So far I've managed to decide on one of these books. A few months ago I picked up my first BookCrossing book, left in a local museum, and I've decided it would be fun to pass it along somewhere in New Zealand. It couldn't possibly travel further from York than that! The book is Shirley by Charlotte Bronte, and I'm just in the mood for it. But what about the second book? I've already got a Classic, so I want something contemporary. After an hour of vacillation and browsing I've narrowed it down to three possibilities, and would love your opinion on which I should go with. The choices are:
1. Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz - This is the first book in the Cairo Trilogy and is set in Egypt just after World War I. The blurb describes it as 'a sweeping and evocative portrait of both a family and a country struggling to move towards independence in a society that has resisted change for centuries.' It introduces the Al Jawad family - the tyranical, hypocritical Ahmad, a middle-class shopkeeping who runs his household strictly according to the Qur'an but dallies with the delights of Cairo; his three, very different sons; and his gentle, oppressed wife and cloistered daughters. I've had it on the TBR shelves for a few years now and am drawn by the quote from the Independent on the back which compares Mahfouz with Tolstoy or Proust.
2. The Echo Maker by Richard Powers - I received a copy of the Jan-June 2010 Atlantic catalogue yesterday, and noticed that Powers had moved his new novel and his back catalogue to them. It reminded me how much I want to read this book, which won the National Book Award in 2006. The synopsis sounds part psychological thriller, part commentary on the nature of the self. It is about Mark Schluter, a truck driver who nearly dies in an accident on a remote Nebraska road. When his sister Karin arrives in the aftermath to take care of him he becomes convinced that she is not his sister. Although she looks, acts and sounds like Karin, he is sure she is an identical imposter. Meanwhile, armed with only a note left my an anonymous witness, Mark attempts to learn what happened on the night of his accident. Sounds intriguing, yes? I have read the first paragraph and must admit to being extremely impressed with the prose.
3. Acacia (Book 1: The War with the Mein) by David Anthony Durham - This is probably the most indulgent novel of the three, a high fantasy recommended to me by someone who doesn't ordinarily read fantasy and whose appreciation, therefore, speaks all the louder of its quality. I won't give the synopsis because fantasy tome blurbs are always faintly ridiculous and this one is as impenetrable as usual, but it is enough to say it is almost certainly My Sort of Thing. Epic, blah, defiance of conventions, blah, morally ambigious, etc. You get the gist. While there is a part of me that wants to take Powers or Mahfouz because I want to read those novels desperately, and what better time to tackle a long-term TBR shelf resident than when trapped 30,000 feet in the air, there is another part of me that thinks they're too serious and dense (particularly because my other book is Bronte). Wouldn't a fantasy epic be the perfect anecdote to the trauma of flying and jet-lag?
What do you think? Has anyone read these books and loved/hated them? Votes in the comments much appreciated.
~~Victoria~~