Persephone

It's Persephone Reading Week, hosted here and here. I actually have no time to read anything that isn't for class, but I was seduced by the lure of Persephone, so I am rebelling against my lack of time and reading anyway. Which is kind of dangerous, because I've started Greenery Street, by Denis Mackail, and I already love it and am going to have to continue reading it.

I can already tell this is going to be one of those books that winds up with numerous post-it notes in it of paragraphs I want to quote. A compulsive reading aloud book, is what this is. It's the story of the first year of a happy marriage, basically, so it's nice and cheerful and funny. Here's one of the paragraphs I've already marked. It's on the occasion of Ian meeting his future father-in-law.

'How do you do, sir?' said Ian, courageously. As before, he extended the right hand of salutation.

But old Humphrey, who was at least ten times more embarrassed than anyone else in the room, found himself incapable of making the necessary contact. Instead, he nodded at Ian with an odd kind of familiarity - rather as though they had secretly spent the whole day together in not very respectable surroundings - and began rubbing the tips of his fingers against each other. (pg 27)

This entire scene is quite hilarious, really, tense in the way scenes like this are tense in a movie or on stage (which makes sense as Denis Mackail was in theatre), almost farcical.

It really is a lovely book, and I'm so excited to read the rest of it despite my utter lack of time.