Haunting the margins
Mar. 5th, 2019 07:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorosa_12Thirty Day Book Meme Day 5: Doesn't belong to me
Technically there are a lot of books on my shelves both virtual and physical that don't belong to me, because when Matthias and I moved in together we brought together our two collections of books, which we've obviously continued to add to in the years since. And our Kindle libraries are connected, as well, so we can share ebooks if we want to.
I'll go today with Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke, because it's one of my favourite books, and I don't really talk about it all that much.
It's a book that rewards rereading, digging back through the footnotes scattered throughout, revelling in the gorgeous, gorgeous language and just all around strangeness. But my favourite part of the book is the pervading sense of melancholy and the uncanny, hovering slightly off the page, or banished to cryptic footnotes — that sense of a larger, creepier story lying submerged, known by all the inhabitants of Clarke's imagined world, but only alluded to, because for them it's their history, and common knowledge, but only understood imperfectly. I love above all the character of John Uskglass, and the way he stalked through the pages of the book, haunting it from the margins, and the eerie mythology underpinning the story. It's a book I always come back to.
6. The one I always give as a gift.
7. Forgot I owned it.
8. Have more than one copy.
9. Film or TV tie-in.
10. Reminds me of someone I love.
11. Secondhand bookshop gem.
12. I pretend to have read it.
13. Makes me laugh.
14. An old favorite.
15. Favorite fictional father.
16. Can't believe more people haven't read.
17. Future classic.
18. Bought on a recommendation.
19. Still can't stop talking about it.
20. Favorite cover.
21. Summer read.
22. Out of print.
23. Made to read at school.
24. Hooked me into reading.
25. Never finished it.
26. Should have sold more copies.
27. Want to be one of the characters.
28. Bought at my fave independent bookshop.
29. The one I have reread most often.
30. Would save if my house burned down.
Technically there are a lot of books on my shelves both virtual and physical that don't belong to me, because when Matthias and I moved in together we brought together our two collections of books, which we've obviously continued to add to in the years since. And our Kindle libraries are connected, as well, so we can share ebooks if we want to.
I'll go today with Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke, because it's one of my favourite books, and I don't really talk about it all that much.
It's a book that rewards rereading, digging back through the footnotes scattered throughout, revelling in the gorgeous, gorgeous language and just all around strangeness. But my favourite part of the book is the pervading sense of melancholy and the uncanny, hovering slightly off the page, or banished to cryptic footnotes — that sense of a larger, creepier story lying submerged, known by all the inhabitants of Clarke's imagined world, but only alluded to, because for them it's their history, and common knowledge, but only understood imperfectly. I love above all the character of John Uskglass, and the way he stalked through the pages of the book, haunting it from the margins, and the eerie mythology underpinning the story. It's a book I always come back to.
6. The one I always give as a gift.
7. Forgot I owned it.
8. Have more than one copy.
9. Film or TV tie-in.
10. Reminds me of someone I love.
11. Secondhand bookshop gem.
12. I pretend to have read it.
13. Makes me laugh.
14. An old favorite.
15. Favorite fictional father.
16. Can't believe more people haven't read.
17. Future classic.
18. Bought on a recommendation.
19. Still can't stop talking about it.
20. Favorite cover.
21. Summer read.
22. Out of print.
23. Made to read at school.
24. Hooked me into reading.
25. Never finished it.
26. Should have sold more copies.
27. Want to be one of the characters.
28. Bought at my fave independent bookshop.
29. The one I have reread most often.
30. Would save if my house burned down.