Today begins the much anticipated year of 2012. I hope it is a happy and blessed one for us all.
The cold and often gray month of January has become a welcome time of refreshment. With its short days and low demands except for those I place on myself, one thing I feel set free to do is to open waiting books and read with intensity. I just finished The King’s Pleasure, a biographical novel about Katharine of Aragon written about forty years ago by Norah Lofts, and recommended by a co-worker. As we know, a well written book has the ability to take us to another time and place; this one took me to sixteenth century England.
Just about as much as I am taken to a bygone or different era or situation, by the time I get into a book I also start feeling a connection with the author. I wonder what the room is like that she is writing in. I picture her sitting alone, writing by hand, on an old typewriter or new computer, pulling just the right words from her brain, and reviewing for long hours, for that is what it would take to come up with a cohesive and interesting tale. (Unless of course one is manic.) In their pensive, quiet times, authors also must precisely record their astute observations that give stories their character. Here are some simple and true observations Lofts gave about people.
”…it happens when too much power falls into the wrong hands.”
“To become excited, to laugh and cry too readily, to show rage…it never serves.”
“Sharp words, spoken with a smile, can pass for wit.”
“Patience and time sort all things.”
“Smiles are interchangeable currency.”
No comments:
Post a Comment