Sometimes I think that was the happiest day of my life, those hours of heat and silence and colour, alone with David high up on the moor. But then I remember that I have said that of many other days,… Continue reading →| Novel Readings
Probably most of the audience here knew the piece. But knowing it only made them eagerly anticipate the high point all the more. Masaru’s heart beat faster. And as always it struck him: What …| Novel Readings
On the approach to Richmond, they passed a sign, a large board with a map of the path they were following, the scrawled red line from west coast to east, an arrow two-thirds of the way across label…| Novel Readings
We watched this meeting with its strange weight of human dignity and goodness. I could not ever have believed that saying sorry might mean so much. None was their government. None bore responsibility. No one spoke for anyone other than… Continue reading →| Novel Readings
Cold in the earth—and fifteen wild Decembers, From those brown hills, have melted into spring; Faithful, indeed, is the spirit that remembers After such years of change and suffering! — Emily Brontë I expect Karen Powell’s Fifteen Wild Decembers is more… Continue reading →| Novel Readings
I thought I had done very little reading in July, and I was prepared to defend myself: “Fred! Very distracting! Too hot! Can’t concentrate!” Both of these things are true: having …| Novel Readings
He breathes in. He breathes out. He turns his head and breathes into the whorls of her ear; he breathes in his strength, his health, his all. You will stay, is what he whispers, and I will go. He s…| Novel Readings
The lull is over: papers are in, exams are incoming, and for the next little while I’ll have my head down taking care of business. Last week, while I waited for the work to arrive, I got in s…| Novel Readings
4 posts published by Rohan Maitzen during February 2025| Novel Readings
Abandonment, Richness, Surprise: Virginia Woolf as Critic From a certain perspective, Virginia Woolf did not write criticism at all. Her literary essays and journalism are truer specimens of belles…| Novel Readings
In my previous post I wondered whether we knew what Woolf’s wishes were for her diary: whether she imagined it as something others would someday read, or thought of it as—and hoped it would remain—a private space. How might these different… Continue reading →| Novel Readings
Woolf misses just five days in her diaries, skipping from 4 July 1918 to 9 July, and feels bad enough about it to mention them apologetically as “lost”: here I am catching up after week…| Novel Readings
The flimsy walls did not shut out the world but made a sounding box for it; through every crack the smell of the world crept in, the smell of rain and sun and earth and the deodar trees and a… Continue reading →| Novel Readings
I had barely recovered from my jet lag after my recent trip to Vancouver when I got caught up in another big distraction: I have adopted a cat! Her name is Fred, short for Winifred (she happily ack…| Novel Readings
We are frogs in a saucepan. All of us. We never noticed the water getting warmer and warmer. And now it’s almost too late to jump out. We tolerate the slow erosion of our climate the way a fr…| Novel Readings
Last week in my classes it was Reading Week, a.k.a. the February “study break.” Although overall this term has not been nearly as hectic as last term, I was still grateful for the chanc…| Novel Readings
I remembered being a wife and mother, rinsing the herring for dinner, using a sharp knife to scrape away the scales before hanging the fish above the fire. Days later I’d find scales between …| Novel Readings
I don’t want you to blame yourself for what happened. I know you would have come to get me if you could, but I couldn’t have gone anyway, not with Agnes ill. I wanted to come, and if I …| Novel Readings
The books by George Meredith in fine bindings line shelves. In the cupboard in a velvet case lies a drawing from the hand of another young lover, of a beautiful, large-eyed woman smiling a little, …| Novel Readings
