"We Build Our Identities From That Detritus of Regret. Every Relationship Worth Keeping Sustains, at the Very Least, Splintered Glazes, Hairline Fractures, Cracks. And Aren't These Flaws the Prerequisites of Intimacy?"

There is nothing I would rather do on vacation than wake up, have a cup of coffee, preferably outside with a cool early morning sun, and read a book for hours. And fortunately for me, that's exactly what I did for the last week. During that time, I flew through a casual, non-list book that I've had on my bookshelf for a while, Broken for You, by Stephanie Kallos.

The story is about an elderly recluse with an extensive antique porcelain collection who finds out she has a brain tumor and decides to take in boarders in her Seattle mansion. One of these boarders, Wanda, is a stage manager from New York on a mission to find her ex-boyfriend who she believes is in the city (kind of in a manic, stalking kinda way). The story initially seemed a bit slow and straightforward, but then morphed into a much more compelling story about how the antiques were obtained (stolen from Jews during WWII), and Wanda's painful transformation into a mosaic artist, using the shattered antiques as her tesserae (the 50 cent word I learned while reading this book) and also tells the stories of many of the unique boarders and their attempts of connect with something and assemble the pieces of their own lives (mosaic pun fully intended).

Overall, I liked the book. It was a pleasant, quick summer read. What I liked the most, were some of the breaks in prose for some sweeping statements. Ones that made me smile. That made me dog ear the page.

"Be true to what attracts you had become her motto. Keep it near. Its voice may be far away and faint, unformed and obfuscated, but that's no reason to shutter it in darkness."

"Look then at the faces and bodies of people you love. The explicit beauty that comes not from smoothness of skin or neutrality of expression, but from the web of experience that has left its mark. Each face, each body is its own living fossilized record. A record of cats, combatants, difficult births; of accidents, cruelties, blessings. Reminders of folly, greed, indiscretion, impatience. A moment of time, of memory, preserved, internalized, and enshrined within and upon the body. You need not be told that these records are what render your beloved beautiful. If God exists, He is there, in the small, cast-off pieces, rough and random and no two alike."

Moving on, next up the docket is Kim, by Rudyard Kipling. It should be an interesting read after having read Heart of Darkness not that long ago. One with a very negative portrayal of Belgian imperialism, one favoring British imperialism (or so the introduction seems to indicate). Hopefully the lazy days of summer will allow me to continue lovely mornings of coffee and reading!

"His Whole Future Seemed Suddenly to be Unrolled Before Him; and Passing Down its Endless Emptiness He Saw the Dwindling Figure of a Man to Whom Nothing Was Ever to Happen"

Well, I've been a busy little reader, although I haven't gotten around to writing posts just yet.

I have emerged from high society of the 1870s New York by finishing the Age of Innocence. And I was utterly fascinated by the portrait that Edith Wharton painted. With lavish descriptions of the luxurious food, furniture, and clothing  of the time, you certainly get a very detailed visual picture of the wealthy, high class society that the characters exist in.

She also provides a clear idea of the almost inbred quality of who was deemed acceptable to be admitted into the small circle of society. And while many of the characters display a wide spectrum of their role in this tight-knit world (from isolating themselves from it to being the busy-body at the center of it), none of the characters, in the end, will fight it. They are all so very bound to the customs and codes that have been followed for generations. So as much as the main character, Newland, is conflicted by wanting to be free from the expectations and trappings of his upbringing and class, he concurrently defends it and is as much of a snob as the rest of the characters (although this is certainly debatable).

And in fact, many of the characters display so much hypocrisy, except perhaps Ellen Olenska. So I found it kind of difficult to really like or root for any of the characters. I certainly had hoped for a different ending, but I know that was the ending that needed to be written. And while the last chapter, set 26 years after the previous chapter, provides some indication that acceptable behavior certainly had evolved in their society, it almost seemed like a consolation prize for how I had hoped the story would end.

The main thing, though, that I could not stop thinking about throughout this book, more so than any other book I've probably ever read, was how much I wanted to watch the  movie. I made the mistake of looking up the movie before I read the book, and all I could picture the entire time was Michelle Pfeiffer, Winona Ryder, and Daniel Day Lewis (although he seemed more like a Christian Bale in my head) as the main characters. I don't really know why I'm so jonesing to see it...I think it's just to put it all together visually. Plus it was directed by Martin Scorcese (surprising right?) so it intrigues me all the more. Alas, it isn't available on my cable movies, so I'll just have to figure something else out (damn you Comcast!!).

So I dug it and would highly recommend the book. I almost kind of wish there were more than just 2 other books by Edith Wharton on my lists (Ethan Frome and House of Mirth). She is certainly an author whose works I plan to read much more of.

247 books left to go.

And one last total random note: the phrase "keeping up with the Joneses" supposedly refers to Edith Wharton's father's family. File that away for random trivia night too!