Books about books, spiders about spiders
Heya, hope things are good with you! It's been a very quiet couple of weeks here.
NATURE REPORT
One thing that happened is: I went to stay at a friend's place in the country for a night. It was SO nice but wow, the country has a lot of spiders in it. I found three in the bedroom (and in one case the bed) in the evening, and woke up to find another four just hanging out on the carpet, running back and forth with morning vigour. Is this how many spiders there always used to be in houses, when more people lived in the country, and walls had more gaps in? Whenever we read something about people in the 1700s should we imagine them occasionally plucking spiders from their wigs as they chat?
To be clear I have been in the country before, but mostly in Australia, where the spiders are too large to sneak in through the windows.
READING REPORT
A week or two ago I sent in an edited version of my book manuscript to the publishers, and since then I've been exclusively reading novels in which a character writes a novel and then everything goes horribly wrong. Jean Hanff Korelitz's The Plot, R.F. Kuang's Yellowface, Andrew Lipstein's Last Resort, D.E. Stevenson's Miss Buncle's Book, etc.
Here is a list of everything that can go wrong when you write a novel, according to novels:
You stole the plot and/or manuscript from someone else but eventually your secret starts to come out: not applicable to me! Reassuring!
You based all your characters on real people, who get angry: also not applicable to me! Also reassuring!
Your first book is great but then you fail to live up to your early promise and become slowly embittered: obviously possible but I'm 42 which is honestly a bit late for failing to live up to your early promise; according to novels this mostly happens to people aged around 27 to 35. Sort-of reassuring?
You spend your time obsessively reading Goodreads reviews and searching Twitter for people's opinions about your book, and enter a terrible spiral of despair and anger: TBC but presumably Twitter at least will have collapsed completely by the time the book comes out. Not particularly reassuring but let's see how we go!
Miss Buncle's Book is great by the way, it's from 1934 and it's about a woman who writes a book about all the people in her village, and then the people find out. Charming and funny and pleasant and odd, and it also has a surprisingly lesbian couple for a mainstream book from 1934 (by which I mean: if you are unfamiliar with the concept of lesbians perhaps this book will not introduce you to their existence, but if it's not a new idea to you then there's not much "oh they're such good friends" ambiguity). Recommended!
HOUSE REPORT
DID YOU KNOW: if you put a bunch of flowers right up against a mirror it looks like you have twice as many flowers? Perhaps you did. I must have known in principle, because I've read about Dutch gardeners in the 1600s who put little mirrors in their gardens to multiply their dozens of tulips into hundreds. See for example this (LOTS of ads, sorry):
The secret of the gardens of Heemstede was a weird contrivance of wood and cunningly angled mirrors that stood in the middle of the tulip bed. It was a looking-glass cabinet, designed to multiply whatever stood before it. Its purpose was to create an illusion of plenty where really there was none.
From a distance, and with this strange invention’s help, Pauw’s single tulip bed looked densely planted with hundreds of brilliant flowers. It was only when a curious or appreciative visitor approached more closely that he would realize it was just an optical illusion. The mirrors of the wooden cabinet had turned the few dozen tulips in Pauw’s collection into a spectacular profusion.
But I've rediscovered it in my own home and it's good, extra flowers for free.
That's everything this time, I think; like I say, it's been a quiet couple of weeks.
Speak soon though,
Holly