In February I started books and did not finish them, mostly.
I did complete After The Gold Rush by John Stuart Clarke which I had started the month before. My impressions are the same. The book is entertaining and full of history, curiosity, and sociology but it could have done with a better edit. Still I enjoyed it and I'm glad I took the time to read it. Then there was Maigret à l'école by Georges Simenon. The only Maigret story I read this month. Many times I nearly started a new one but February was an odd month. I had a handful of books on the go and did not feel the need for one more. My energy levels swayed between two modes only: well enough to read and not well enough to comprehend words.
I should have finished Chanson de Roland which I am reading with my brother for our medieval reading challenge but did not. Neither did he. He was in the throes of exams and had little time for our challenge. Exams done and passed, he turned to the book and so did I but failed to complete it this month. The main reason for this is simple: I am reading the book aloud. This demands energy I often do not have. I could switch to silent reading at any point but I am enjoying the flow of the words and the rhythm of the text as I speak the words to an empty house. I am very near the end though and I am confident I will finish the book before our first mini book club date later this week.
Whilst I did not finish this first short book for our challenge, the challenge occupied my mind and readings in February. I opened the pages of Medieval Europe by Chris Wickham and of Medieval Bodies by Jack Hartnell. I remember next to nothing about the medieval history lessons from over twenty years ago and I have no illusions that they were severely lacking. So I'm catching up and learning a lot. I am taking a tremendous amount of notes as I read and this slows the process down but I remember what I'm learning better this way.
Medieval Europe is full of dates and names and I often have to pause, unsure I follow anything that is written. The book is not complex or overly academic but it is dense. Chris Wickham packs a lot of information in each chapter and I have to be alert and well to read him. Progress is slow but I am in no hurry. It will take as long as it will take for me to get through a thousand years of history compacted in one paperback.
Medieval Bodies is much easier to read. Jack Hartnell's prose is more approachable, less dense with dates, names, and events. He twines history with story, weaves in narratives and ideas that illustrate his teachings. I am loving this book. It brings balance to the one by Chris Wickham. In one I learn about politics and economics, in the other I learn about sociology, medicine, and religion.
The last book I opened in relation to the medieval reading challenge is Mesnagier de Paris. This book is part of the challenge. Although we are not meant to get to it until much later in the year, I could not help but pick it up. I overlooked the moral treaties and jumped straight to the recipes. Some evenings, as my energy waned and I struggled to focus on anything, the recipes and culinary advice of the 14th century were all I could grasp. I found delight in learning new words, in understanding new culinary concepts, and in finding my preconceptions of medieval food challenged. I have since collected a list of recipes I think I can adapt and try in the 21st century. I'm looking forward to it.
February was not all about the medieval reading challenge. I also searched my bookshelf for something different. Still carrying the pleasure of reading A Woman in the Polar Night by Christiane Ritter, I chose to remain in the colder regions of the world and indulge in my obsession with ice and cold. I opened The Quickening: Creation and Community at the End of the Earth by Elizabeth Rush. She was a writer on board of the Palmer, a ship that made its way to Thwaites glacier in Antartica in 2019. Her fellow passengers were scientists, cooks, engineers, and crew members, all focused on gathering data to help us understand this part of the world and its inhabitants better as well as understand the consequences of our actions on the climate and how to find a different path forward. The book enthralled me and was not an easy read. As I write this on the 28th of February, I have read the last chapter, my bookmark placed over the opening page of the epilogue. I could finish the book tonight, it would be easy enough, but this book demands time. Elizabeth Rush takes us along on her journey through the ice as well as her journey to motherhood. Along the way, science and humanity dance together. She challenges our old conceptions of community, of adventure and discovery. She confronts us with our easy ideas around the climate crisis and the way we live. It is not overt, it is not a punch in the face and it is not commandeering. It does not ask anything from the reader in a sense but the author takes us along her own morphing and emerging reflection on those topics. This in turns makes me pause. I cannot throw myself into the book and read it cover to cover in one seating. Through its quiet reflection, I too am thrown in my own morphing ideas of community, family, and the climate in which we live.
February ended up being a mixed month for reading, just as it was a mixed month in term of energy levels. When I had strength to read I enjoyed every moment of it. I am looking forward to March, to completing some books (perhaps) and opening new ones (definitely).