Winter

In addition to The System, I'm also been reading Muriel Spark's The Hothouse by the East River. I usually read e-books at night, in bed; and actual books in better light. Plus I like to read more than one book at a time.

Every time I think I've read everything that Muriel Spark ever wrote, I find one that I missed. I'd never heard of this one, and it was a relatively late novel for her (1973). I think that Spark was preoccupied with mental illness of a particular sort, and in some of her novels, the reader is never 100% sure if we're supposed to accept a character's version of reality or not. This is one of those. The main characters are a very wealthy couple living in a luxurious Upper East Side apartment in the early 1970s. The apartment is always overheated, and despite their wealth, the man and woman can't seem to do anything about the excessive heat except to open the windows, no matter the temperature outside.

The reader knows that both the husband and the wife worked for British intelligence during the Second World War, but we don't know what they did. We do know that they're haunted by the war, and that they have never adjusted to peace and the post-war world.

I've been reading this in bed, a few pages at a time, and the combination of real and surreal as I'm falling asleep has left me unsure about what is actually happening to the characters, especially the wife, who might or might not be dead. I'd forgotten how crazy Spark's novels can be. I'm glad I found this one.

*****
It's actually really cold now, legitimately winter-cold. I've learned that dreading cold is worse than actually living through it. Not that I like it, but I'm kind of reconciled to it; for now, at least. There's a little bit of snow, and the house is decorated for Christmas, and it's kind of cozy. Plus, I have new boots. No season that involves Christmas trees and new boots and Washington Capitals hockey can be all bad. It's not good, but it's not all bad.

*****

So I finished The Hothouse (still neck-deep in The System, too, God help me), and have moved on to Joan Didion's Play it as it Lays. I read one Joan Didion essay once and that's all. I'm always late to every bandwagon. I like the book so far, though I'm only one chapter in.

*****
It's December 15; Friday night and a week before Christmas vacation. Another high school swim meet tomorrow; and at some point between now and December 25, I must do the thing that I dread even more than winter. I complain about cookie-baking every year, and although the cookies stubbornly refuse to bake themselves, hope springs eternal.