pagesofjulia

Thanks to Rose City Reader for hosting this meme. To participate, share the first line or two of the book you are currently reading and, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line.

Recently, after trying so hard to be patient, I finally gave up on The Aviator’s Wife (more on that next week), and breathed a sigh of relief and pleasure as I hit “play” on this novel by Isabel Allende. Her language is so lovely, rhythmic and perfectly chosen; her sentences, translated from Spanish by Anne McLean, are both short and simple, and lyrical. Also, I am very much enjoying this reading by Maria Cabezas.

The book begins with a quotation that I can’t help but share:

Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

–Mary Oliver, “The Summer Day”

And then Allende begins writing, in the voice of 19-year-old Maya Vidal:

A week ago my grandmother gave me a dry-eyed hug at the San Francisco airport and told me again that if I valued my life at all, I should not get in touch with anyone I knew until we could be sure my enemies were no longer looking for me. My Nini is paranoid, as the residents of the People’s Independent Republic of Berkeley tend to be, persecuted as they are by the government and extraterrestrials, but in my case she wasn’t exaggerating…

Isn’t that a wonderful beginning? We have a precipitous moment, as Maya sets off on what is clearly a fraught journey, to an unknown destination; the colorful character of Nini; the suspense of this 19-year-old girl’s “enemies”; and the humor involved with the “People’s Independent Republic of Berkeley.” I’m so happy to be back in Allende’s capable hands.

Filed under: book beginnings | Tagged: misc fiction |