Reading Rambo

#24in48 approaches once more, and as always, my main delight in it is making book stacks. I mean, how many of these will I in all likelihood read? Probably three. But piles of books are mine (everybody's?) favorite, so here it is. I'm especially excited for this #24in48, as I've rented a hotel room downtown, so I will be holed up and upping my reading stats on a couch I've paid to sit on for a few hours. Readathons are particularly great because they give you license to ignore the other things going on in life because of their organized nature. "What? I'm not just 'reading all day,' I am participating in a READATHON. With these other good people. It is a group activity that we all do separately in our own spaces and with our own snacks that we do not need to share because they are ours." This year, readathons are vibing as more important to me than ever, as my girlfriend and I might be moving in, and a lot of my books are already at her ...

THIS WEEK in Elinor Glyn's Three Weeks , week 4! Paul continues to live in a weird fever dream You really get a glimpse inside Elinor Glyn's head here: "My Paul, I want you never to forget this night—never to think of me but as gloriously happy, clasped in your arms amid the roses. And see, we must drink once more together of our wedding wine, and complete our souls' delight." An eloquence seemed to come to Paul and loosen his tongue, so that he whispered back paeans of worship in language as fine as her own.  "as fine as her own." Is that what it is? She continues to whisper languorously and writhe sinuously and I am once more reminded that all this would be ruined by someone farting. The three weeks end! There's the title. They end by Unnamed Woman fleeing in the night and leaving an extremely overwrought (could it be anything else?) note for Paul. Paul collapses with brain fever, which immediately reminded me of the movie Soap...

Elinor Glyn starts chapter 13 of her epic Three Weeks at Peak Glyn: Do you know the Belvedere at the Rigi Kaltbad, looking over the corner to a vast world below, on a fair day in May, when the air is clear as crystal and the lake ultra-marine? When the Bernese Oberland undulates away in unbroken snow, its pure whiteness like cold marble, the shadows grey-blue? Ok I googled Bernese Oberland, because I legit thought it was another name for a Bernese Mountain Dog and she was like "you know how that dog jumps around in the snow and it looks great" but it is in fact this: Unnamed Woman and Paul are wandering around, and she asks if he'd ever wanted to kill someone: "to have them there at your mercy, to choke their life out and throw them to hell?" Paul says, er no. She says she would want to kill one man, a rotten carrion on this earth, and Paul is AGHAST because she is his beautiful angel lady and they do not talk about things like carrion. Anyway, s...

You love me because I give you the stimulus of uncertainty, and so keep bright your passion, but once you were sure, I should become a duty, as all women become, and then my Paul would yawn and grow to see I was no longer young, and that the expected is always an ennui when it comes!"   "Never, never!" said Paul, with fervour. At least Glyn kind of knows what's up. Now that Paul has had his first amorous dalliance (with a foreigner, no less), he is completely scornful of his fellow English citizens. Coming into a restaurant hatless, really . So like them and their kind. Not like Paul. Paul is now a sophisticated man of the world. Because, you see, he has had sex. On a tiger skin, no less. He has, as he thinks of it, a "love-secret." This lady, however, the un-first-named (first names! so common!) Madame Zalenska, continues to dine alone and not speak to him, so you know something's UP. They decide to leave for some mountain retreat, with him in ...

Here we are at the start of a new year, reading some 1907 trash. Feels right. I never thought you could actually read Elinor Glyn's books; she seemed like some distant untouchable literary figure, referenced in The Music Man , but whose works were not to be seen by contemporary eyes. Well that is nonsense. They're right there on the internet for free. Glyn's first novel was published in 1900 ( The Visits of Elizabeth ) and her last in 1940 ( The Third Eye ). This readalong focuses on one of her more scandalous works, Three Weeks . It is termed an "erotic romance novel" and concerns a young English twit who falls in love with an older (i.e. in her 30s) Eastern European woman of MYSTERIOUS ORIGINS. It was the subject of an anti-vice campaign in Boston (what wasn't, amirite?) and mainly made its cultural mark through the means of a tiger skin, seen in the book cover above. This week is chapters 1 through 6. To convince you to read this amazing work, h...