A Detour The Size of the Balkans

At this point, all six of you following me for book stuff know that I’ve been reading Rebecca West’s Black Lamb and Grey Falcon for the past six-ish weeks. I have exceedingly positive feelings about it along with an embarrassed, “well, this CERTAINLY is a relic of its time!” – which is relevant in the sense that other blog posts about this book usually have some lead up along the lines of, “This book used to be on the must reads/best of reading lists, but no one is reading this now” and the wrap up will end in, “Wow! EVERYONE should be reading this!” or “Pah–NO ONE should be reading this!” As for me, I’m a solid, do you like really great prose? are you tired of reading today’s style but don’t want to dial the crank all the way back to the eighteenth century? want to read something structurally complex? want to read some great chapters????? can you stomach some real 1940s-isms? absolutely, read it! do you want to learn about history? ummmmm, oh boy, if you want….???

A good Rebecca chapter is an amazing chapter by any writer, elegantly guiding you from effortless comedic dialogue to the site of a gruesome and terrible event that dovetails into art, history, and economics then makes a wily pivot back to its central image. On a beat-by-beat level, there’s really a lot to love and admire. Really amazing curation of imagery and moments. And I think it’s also a really great book about friendship and friendship disintegrating over political and personal disagreements in small and difficult to navigate ways.

( Even more Black Lamb and Grey Falcon )