Sometimes Only Fiction Will Do

I usually have several books going at once. A few days ago, I found that the books on my current, partly-read pile included three nonfiction books and one book of poetry, as well as a book of short stories that was turning out to be something I wasn’t at all enjoying reading. (That last one got taken back to the library only partly read. No sense wasting any more time on it.) The first four books were all interesting and satisfactory, but something was missing. I needed to have at least one novel or short story collection on the pile, one that I was enjoying and looking forward to reading more of. How could I have forgotten that I always have to have fiction easily available, i.e., in my house? (Of course I have novels on my bookshelves, but mostly classics that I have read several times, and I wasn’t in the mood to re-read at this particular time.) I didn’t have time to immediately go to a library or bookstore, but fortuitously I remembered that I had a library book in the trunk of my car that I had put there in case I needed it while waiting somewhere. (My philosophy is to always have something to read wherever I am! Waiting at the doctor's office; waiting in line; having unexpected times between errands.) Hurray! It was a novel that I had already read and enjoyed some time ago, but liked it so much that I wanted to re-read it. I went to the garage, retrieved the book, plunged in, and immediately felt the joy, relief, comfort, and pleasure of being immersed in well-written fiction, and in a world that I wanted to learn more about. The book was “The Flight of the Maidens” (Carroll & Graf, 2000), by the inestimable writer Jane Gardam. I have read most of Gardam’s novels and short stories with great pleasure and admiration (see my posts of 3/8/10; 6/3/12; 6/22/13; and 9/9/14), and every one of them is well worth reading and re-reading. I have read this book before too, but before I started this blog, so I have not posted about it here. It is the evocative story of three young women, friends, from Yorkshire, England during the summer of 1946, before they leave home for college, all on scholarships. Each is figuring out who she is and what she wants. Each has secrets. Each has adventures that summer, going out into the world on her own. The writing is, as Gardam’s always is, of a very, very high quality, and at the same time very approachable and compulsively readable (not that these are incompatible, but perhaps you know what I mean.) If you haven’t discovered Jane Gardam’s fiction yet, please consider checking it out. And, getting back to my main point in this post: in the future I will make sure that I always, always, have some (good!) fiction at hand!