book fair

(originally posted at eclaircie.diaryland.com)

I was having a discussion about books that you can read over and over and never get tired of the other day. I came up with three that are like that for me:

Tess of the d'Urbervilles

The Scarlet Letter

The Awakening

It wasn't until the day after that I realized that they all are late-19th-century works that involve a woman that commits adultry and dies in the end. I guess that just does something for me. Somehow I just really connect with Tess and Hester and Edna. I'm not an adulteress...I'll just get that on the table, but still...they all feel so much like me. They're all very private women, maybe that's it. And perhaps they don't even seem that way to the people around them. But the people around them don't know about the long walks by themselves and the secret thoughts and...oh, man, I need to read The Awakening again. It's at home, though. I said a long time ago--I think even in this diary--that I was addicted to that novel. That semester was crazy though, I read it maybe five times. But since then I haven't read it at all, and I miss it.