In December, I received the book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West for my birthday. I had just seen the play and had heard the book upon which it was based was excellent.
It’s now March and I’m on page 28. At this rate, I’ll do well to finish the book before my next birthday.
This isn’t because I’m not enjoying Wicked. On the contrary, it’s because I am.
I like to read, but I don’t finish more than about two or three books a year. The better the book, the longer it takes me. Sure, I can polish off a Nora Roberts trilogy in one beach vacation. That’s like slurping up a triple scoop hot fudge sundae—no chewing involved, except for the crunchy sprinkles of guilty indulgence.
Newspapers, magazines and online news and opinion consume a healthy share of my reading.
Books are different. For me, a really good read isn’t always a page-turner. It’s not always a sundae. It’s a protracted dinner composed of superbly seasoned courses, savored slowly to appreciate each nuance. Like a good dish, a well-written sentence might hit the cranial taste buds with a burst of garlic, and leave a hint of smoked poblano on the back side.
The reason it’s taking me so long to read Wicked is that I am re-reading—and re-re-reading—each sentence. I enjoy each one so much that it pains me to move on.
To say author Gregory Maguire has a way with words is akin to saying Julia Child made a decent bowl of onion soup.
Let me feed you a few bites, just to whet your appetite:
“In the kitchen yard Malena floated gently, not with the normal gravity of pregnancy but as if inflated, a huge balloon trailing its strings through the dirt. She carried a skillet in one hand and a few eggs and the whiskery tips of autumn chives in the other.”
“In the minister’s lodge, Malena struggled with consciousness as a pair of midwives went in and out of focus before her. One was a fishwife, the other a palsied crone.”
“’Look, a rainbow,’ said the senior, bobbing her head. A sickly scarf of colored light hung on the sky.”
“After the double blow of the birth and his public embarrassment, he was not yet up to professional engagements and sat whittling praying beads out of oak, scoring and inscribing them with emblems of the Namelessness of God.”
“Malena, groggy from pinlobble leaves as usual, arched an eyebrow in confusion.”
Hungry?
Watch for a full review, likely around year’s end.
How will you honor the occasion, after digesting your daily dose of Word Nymph, of course?
Gentlemen, a fashion expert on one of the morning news programs did say recently that even men would be wearing the new length this season. I can’t wait to see how you adapt to this.
Many parents have given up on correcting children who say “Me and Brittany are going to the mall.” No one is around to apprehend young adults, having graduated from prestigious universities, who say “Me and Justin went out last night.” It seems a lost cause, gone the way of “where are you at?”
I’d like to issue three simple pleas to parents: One, don’t let your babies of whatever age get away with beginning a sentence with “Me and…” Two, don’t let your babies believe that “me” is inherently bad. Three, take the time to teach your children the difference between subjective (or nominative) and objective pronouns. I’d rather hear a kid say, “My Mom took me and Brittany to the mall” (which is technically correct) than “My Mom took Brittany and I to the mall,” which is not.
This remarkable blogger, writing under the name of The Digital Cuttlefish, articulated graphically the challenges of keeping up with a daily blog. In a post entitled 
Upon waking this morning, I pulled my copy of The Cheese Course off the shelf. This book is mostly about the preparation of cheese dishes, but there’s an introductory section I found amusing. Author Janet Fletcher wrote in 2000 that “We Americans are clearly in the midst of a cheese revolution.” How did I miss that? Also, I’m fairly certain, if I were editing this book, that I’d have found a better place for the discussion about cutting the cheese than in the Cheese Etiquette section.
This said, I tread lightly into the language of wine. This might be because I have not been exposed to the business of wine.
Another batch of snow fell on us yesterday. Not a deal-breaker, by any means; just enough to ugly up the landscape and annoy commuters. The sun has been scarce for way too long and there’s a piercing chill in the air.
I looked up “doldrums” and was surprised to learn that it’s actually an oceanographic term. It seems that doldrums are regions of light ocean currents within the inter-tropical convergence zone near the equator. I didn’t know this. My husband, an oceanographer who specializes in ocean currents, didn’t either. I learned that the doldrums give rise to converging trade winds that produce clusters of convective thunderstorms.
Word Nymph 
