The others went out for a day about town while I elected to remain at the resort and swing on a hammock and read my book. Pickwick, of course. The hammock swayed gently and I sometimes glanced up at the needlelike leaves of the coniferous trees it was tied to, and bits of blue sky. The sounds of the sea broke in through it all. And it was so peaceful, I fell fast asleep, clutching my book to my chest.
Later, I woke up to stagger my way to my room, order room service (one club sandwich and one banana caramel tartlet with ice cream), which I enjoyed while reading about the little bachelor's party given by Bob Sawyer and the select footmen of Bath's soiree....as Sam would say, this is the first time I've heard of biled mutton being called a swarry...
Anyway, I fell asleep, woke up, read some more, curled up under the covers (the air con was a little on the cold side), fell asleep some more, woke up, read some more...had half the club sandwich for dinner (but not the banana tartlet though, because that was long gone), sighed through Mr Pickwick's wrongful incarceration at Fleet for a debt he refused to pay...
The hotel staff knocked on the door somewhere in the evening...asking if they could clean the room. They could. I sat out in the balcony and waited. And by the time I lifted my eyes from my book, the room was spick and span.
Ah, Pickwick, how I love you. How full of fun and good cheer you are. How every line is loaded, how you make fun of everything and everyone and do it so well. Matrimony, pretty ankles, fur-topped boots, black eyes, sighs and lamentations, gaiters and silk stockings, corpulence, fat boys who fall asleep standing up, pretty housemaids, widders (as Tony Weller would say with a shudder), Samivel, lawyers who know what's what, coachmen....stories around a bar, stories written down on pieces of paper, stories hurried along by mugs of ale...elections and fearsome editorials written in leading newspapers about the Opposition...ahhh Pickwick the priceless...what other book would give me half so much pleasure?
So, it is difficult to know where to go from here (maybe I should have saved this for last, but what's done is done) and what I should read next. I'm thinking Bleak House and although I don't seem to have the book here in KL, at least I can read it online, because well, all of Dickens is online, isn't it?
But wait, I know Nicholas Nickleby will give me pleasure as well...especially the Cheeryble brothers and Mrs Nickleby whom I find one of the most hilarious characters ever created.
OK, it's a toss up between her and Samivel's father (why worn't there an alleybi, Sammy?)
I'll let you know when I decide. Which should be soon. As I've got a year to read everything and Dickens did not believe in keeping it short. There is an expansiveness to his books, a space, that is utterly bewitching.
These days as we seek to compress everything into tiny little spaces, into soundbytes, into hacker-speak...what could be more of sheer indulgence than a thick novel by the fireside, nicely wrapped up, with the dog by my side, my pipe full of the old tobacco, maybe some milk punch or mulled wine to take off the edge of cold?
I'm thinking of cold now because the skies are dark and lowering and it's going to rain. Whenever that happens, the office becomes that much colder.
I shall now go back to transcribing whatever I recorded about the Ford Focus. But ah, it's lovely. Ah, it's addictive to drive...ah, what richness...maybe I could call it the Dickens of the automotive world.
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