Falling in Love
Those who've read my book reviews, or watched my video reviews, will know that I don't generally indulge much in plot summary, and certainly not in extended quotation. In the first place, there are plenty of reviewers who do so, and even the back-blurb will give you sufficient plot for most books. In the second place, I have a short attention span.
But I can't help it in this case. I've fallen in love, you see. Those who know the feeling, who have truly fallen in love, know what I'm talking about: the new lover has a tendency - no, a compulsion - to catalogue the tiny details of the beloved. Not just what dress was she wearing, but how did she wear it, did her shoulder slip, for just twelve delicious seconds, out of the fabric, could you count the hairs which brushed over that exposed skin, could you describe their smell even though you were across the room? That's falling in love.
And I've fallen in love. I'm sorry. I'll have to tell my wife eventually, but I have some confidence that she won't mind terribly much, just roll her eyes a little and either indulge my raving or quietly but firmly return to her own books. She is the Smartest Person in the World, you see, and she's wise enough to know that trying to muzzle a lover in the giddy, infatuated stage would be pointless.
The subject of my adoration is Jo Walton's Among Others, and here's the passage, about 15% of the way in, which sent me over the edge:
"Gill laughed. 'I want to be a scientist,' she confided.
'A scientist?'
'Yes. A real one. I was reading the other day about Lavoisier. You know?'
'He discovered oxygen,' I said. 'With Priestley.'
'Well, and he was French. He was an aristocrat,a marquis. He was guillotined in the French Revolution, and he said he'd keep blinking his eyes after his head was off, for as long as he had consciousness. He blinked seventeen times. That's a scientist,' Gill said.
She's weird. But I like her."
You see that? The flatness of the delivery, the interjection of "I said" between oxygen and Priestly, paces the moment wonderfully. This is a completely bland slice of life which manages to convey everything important about two characters, contextualize their ages and education and hopes and concerns in less than a hundred words. It's incredibly economical. Walton follows the passage with one in a completely different tone, in which her protagonist matter-of-factly describes how haunting works, and why certain knives hunger for human blood, with the same flatness of affect. I'm utterly lost in this book.
So, in love. The condition means that I'm going to be pressing this book on everyone I meet for a while, and won't understand how they're not blown away. To the infatuated adorer, the object of devotion is beyond reproach, infinitely fascinating. And it may be that someday I'll be disappointed, that she'll wreck it with some unacceptable plot twist or mischaracterization, but for now...well.
Every little thing she does is magic.
But I can't help it in this case. I've fallen in love, you see. Those who know the feeling, who have truly fallen in love, know what I'm talking about: the new lover has a tendency - no, a compulsion - to catalogue the tiny details of the beloved. Not just what dress was she wearing, but how did she wear it, did her shoulder slip, for just twelve delicious seconds, out of the fabric, could you count the hairs which brushed over that exposed skin, could you describe their smell even though you were across the room? That's falling in love.
And I've fallen in love. I'm sorry. I'll have to tell my wife eventually, but I have some confidence that she won't mind terribly much, just roll her eyes a little and either indulge my raving or quietly but firmly return to her own books. She is the Smartest Person in the World, you see, and she's wise enough to know that trying to muzzle a lover in the giddy, infatuated stage would be pointless.
The subject of my adoration is Jo Walton's Among Others, and here's the passage, about 15% of the way in, which sent me over the edge:
"Gill laughed. 'I want to be a scientist,' she confided.
'A scientist?'
'Yes. A real one. I was reading the other day about Lavoisier. You know?'
'He discovered oxygen,' I said. 'With Priestley.'
'Well, and he was French. He was an aristocrat,a marquis. He was guillotined in the French Revolution, and he said he'd keep blinking his eyes after his head was off, for as long as he had consciousness. He blinked seventeen times. That's a scientist,' Gill said.
She's weird. But I like her."
You see that? The flatness of the delivery, the interjection of "I said" between oxygen and Priestly, paces the moment wonderfully. This is a completely bland slice of life which manages to convey everything important about two characters, contextualize their ages and education and hopes and concerns in less than a hundred words. It's incredibly economical. Walton follows the passage with one in a completely different tone, in which her protagonist matter-of-factly describes how haunting works, and why certain knives hunger for human blood, with the same flatness of affect. I'm utterly lost in this book.
So, in love. The condition means that I'm going to be pressing this book on everyone I meet for a while, and won't understand how they're not blown away. To the infatuated adorer, the object of devotion is beyond reproach, infinitely fascinating. And it may be that someday I'll be disappointed, that she'll wreck it with some unacceptable plot twist or mischaracterization, but for now...well.
Every little thing she does is magic.
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