I was an English major in college, specializing in nothing particular, but rather enjoying it as the profs were fascinating. Have you ever taken a course on Shakespeare taught from a Freudian viewpoint? Enacted Chaucer in the dialect of the time? Well, you get the idea. But if the truth is told, I am truly a reader of modern trash more than classics, and I often wonder about my tastes. It is only in the past few years that I have returned to more classical literature, admittedly in small doses, and of the early 1800s British variety. This means Wuthering Heights and Jane Austen and Frankenstein. The cruelty in Bronte’s book was stunning – I remember the hanging of the puppies, done out of boredom, with horror. Shelley’s monster is heartbreaking. And Austen? She is fluff by comparison, with a lightness that is like a summer breeze that can roll into capricious bursts.
It is quite funny to read Pride and Prejudice on my Kindle. A novel written with a quill and iron gall ink being read on an electronic device is quite a shift in time.
And then the electricity fails mid-afternoon. Sewing is out of the question (though I could use the treadle or hand-crank sewing machines), as is baking (I wanted a coffee cake). I went out to the side patio to listen to an audio book and comb out one of the dogs.
No electricity!
What do you do when it gets dark? All the USB devices were down to their last jolts of current. As light faded, I found my little section of town was dark, but two doors down the lamps were bright. I had a flashlight or two, and I had candles. Out came the candles, out came the Kindle, and on with Jane Austen, Darcy, and Miss Bennet! Wandering around the house, I found my way with the light of my Kindle, not wanting to drip wax on the floor or carpet, much less myself.
When the esposo came home, it was pitch black. We went out to dinner – who wants to scramble eggs using a flashlight to see by (or a candle) over a gas flame? Off to the other world to dine, and then return, once more, to our black hole.
And then to bed with the Kindles, to read Jane Austen and Terry Pratchett, to remember where the flashlights were, and hope there is electricity by dawn after a projection by the electric company that civilization would be restored by noon the next day.
And so it passed . . . the electricity returned in the middle of the night, the lights went on, the devices squawked, and the candles were, once more, obsolete.
Ink, Yarn & Beer 