I am endeavouring to be better with keeping track of my reading; unsurprisingly, much of my reading has been non-fiction like the glorious catalogue for the tarot exhibit at Accademia Carrara, which is not only full of gorgeous plates, but there are even English translations of all the essays in the back (ah, those blue pages!). The catalogue for the sister event at the Morgan Library has already arrived in New York, so I will see it eventually (and the exhibition). Catalogue-wise I also have the slim volume for the Carrington exhibit at the Freud Museum and am most of the way through it. I also have the hefty catalogue for the Schiaparelli exhibit which is gorgeous.

I finally got to finishing Charlotte Brontë’s Shirley which is the only major work of hers I had not read. I started in back in the winter but left it behind because of course I had other heavier books to bring back with me and it would keep. It’s a strange book which deals with a difficult time of change — the dark satanic mills — as well as the challenges for women who want more than they have been allotted by the men in their lives. It even has some odd touches of gothic but I can see why it is harder for people to love being many things at once and flipping around between characters — including the titular woman who is a fascinating if late arriving character, but Brontë keeps us a bit at arms-length with her even though she is fascinating and unlike most women in her time, relatively independent and liking it.

Keeping on the tarot theme, I decided to read Ben Okri’s Madame Sosostris & The Festival of the Broken Hearted. Obviously the Eliot inspiration there. I have not read anything else by Okri despite him being a widely renowned writer. I seem to be mostly reading older books and non-fiction. I like the surreal magical aspects of it; it has the desire to be a sort of modern fairytale with people gaining insights they would otherwise remain oblivious to — but it’s hampered by its focus on the monetary elite. Yes, they are the people the most in need of change (or being et) but it’s very hard to have much sympathy for these self-involved, pampered people. Do any of them actually change from their glimpse of mysteries in the magical woods at an exclusive enclave in the south of France?

Megan Abbott’s El Dorado Drive on the other hand hit more directly. Set in my homestate in a place I know only glancingly: Grosse Pointe. I remember my brother and I taking a turn along the lake to look at the fancy houses when we dropped our parents off at the Detroit airport. Swanky. But with the collapse of the auto industry even those rarified places fell off the economic cliff. Abbott’s novel focuses on women who already fell off that edge and are scrabbling hard to hold onto the life they continue to covet. It’s not a pyramid scheme–it’s a club! Sisters, daughters — it’s Abbott, it’s good of course. Read it.

Also on the tarot theme was The Tarot Reader of Versailles by Anya Bergman (Noelle Harrison). It weaves French and Irish history together through Mademoiselle Lenormand and the Irish woman who ends up being her companion. As the political tensions grow in late eighteenth-century Paris, so do the personal bonds. Much of the history of the most famous fortune teller (and contemporary of Etteilla) has to be imagined; her papers were destroyed by her nephew after her death but Bergman gives a reality and urgency to the woman’s life. People who are not tarot-obsessed may be less interested in the spreads that intersperse the narrative, but I suspect many of the people who pick up the book will enjoy them. It’s always difficult to use the cards to structure a narrative but interesting interpretations do arise. A fun read.

Many more things in progress; I shall endeavour to remember to keep track.