It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single reader in possession of a bed, must be in want of a good book.– Anonymous ( NOT Jane Austen)
I am a proponent of reading in bed. Many are not. Some outlaw this practice. One imagines the Moms for Liberty waving torches in front of houses where they have sussed out reading in bed.
Some readers find it cozier to listen to whale sounds before bed. They say it sends them instantly to sleep. Others apply numerous creams and moisturizers to their faces and arms and legs and then don a sleeping mask. Again they fall into immediate ZZZZZZs.
I regard reading in bed as a portal to sleep. Wherever I go, I proselytize its benefits. It puts me in touch with myself and the universe so I can make the transition to sleep.
The first book I read in bed was a mystery by Patricia Moyes, which I read one afternoon while waiting to go to Christmas dinner. It had a calming effect on an exciting holiday. Later, when I lived for several months with my father, I kept nocturnal hours and stayed up late reading Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook, tucked cozily in a sleeping bag on top of the bed (because what teenage bookworm ever makes the bed, right?).
As an adult I have devoted many evenings to reading in bed. I recommend getting lost in a Victorian classic, such as Trollope’s The Way We Live Now; Golden Age Detective fiction by Margery Allingham and Ellery Queen; Elizabeth Bowen’s lyrical novels; and the latest by Tessa Hadley, After the Funeral and Other Stories, many of which explore the theme of living in a hippie family. The characters and situations can be comical and poignant, but on one occasion, the hippie children are tragically resentful and unbalanced at their mother’s wedding.
Speaking of which, has anyone noticed that Tessa Hadley is never nominated for the Women’s Prize or the Booker Prize? I find that unfathomable, since she is one of the best English writers today. She has won other awards, doubtless prestigious but unknown to me. I hope her next book wins one of the big prizes.
Reading is bed is such a comfort, but over a period of weeks I put the practice on hold, because my husband objected to my reading the Poldark books in bed. He claimed my reading woke him up in the wee hours, because I was clearly so enthralled by it. (Can you hear silent enthralling?) Yet I couldn’t put the Poldark books down even for his sake, and if you’ve read Winston Graham’s well-written, dashing historical novels, you’ll know what I mean. So I took to reading Poldark in the spare room.
The prolific, multi-talented Winston Graham also wrote Marnie, which was adapted as a film by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Sean Connery and Tippi Hedren. It is a gripping movie, simmering with terror, neurosis and repressed sex. There is an eerie scene between Marnie and her mother that haunts me.
As for Poldark, I admit that I have not finished the series. Someday I’ll get back to it. I love the complex characters and the vigorous writing. It begins when the charming, smart Ross Poldark, a veteran of the Revolutionary War and the part-owner of a couple of disused mines, returns from America to Cornwall only to find that he was presumed dead, and that Elizabeth, his former fiancée, has married his cousin, Francis. Naturally, Ross is moody and upset, though later, he marries Demelza, a young woman he rescued from her violent father, and who grew up as a servant in his house, and who becomes a charming woman. But it takes a long time for Ross to properly appreciate Demelza, though she is a far more sympathetic character than the neurotic Elizabeth. Demelza is a skilled gardener, a sympathetic listener with many friends, a good mother, and capable of lying to the British soldiers to protect smugglers. The repair of the mines owned by Ross and Francis requires a glib tongue (Ross’s) to acquire money to get them into shape. The working conditions in the mines are as humane as possible, unlike the horrific practices described in Zola’s Germinal or in Richard Llewellyn’s How Green Was My Valley. Still, there are accidents.
Lately I’ve reread lots of Henry James (The Ambassadors, The Spoils of Poynton), Mark Twain’s witty, inimitable novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and a couple of books from the Booker International and Women’s Prize longlists. All of these are appropriate bedtime reading.
But if you really want to go to sleep, why not try something by Dumas? Anything by Dumas! Oh, dear, I wish I loved his books, but I feel myself falling asleep at the thought of reading one.
ZZZZZZZZZZ…
Good night, all!
