Friday 18 March 2011

Under a Gothic Moon

This morning when I got up, the moon was shining through the breaking clouds and the tall still skeletal trees in a most gothic fashion.

It immediately made me think about old gothic novels and movies made from old gothic novels and drapey shawls and big brim bonnets.   I am reminded too, of empire waistline dresses...

Ah.  I get it.  The things I am knitting, the blankets and the shawls, and my interpretation of the things I am seeing, mean it is time to watch some Jane Austen, to read Jane Austen.  

I'm not sure why, but spring, or whatever this time between spring by calendar date and spring by climate is called, is when I read Jane Austen.   

From Jane Austen, I end up re-reading all my old favourites.  Laura Ingalls Wilder, Swiss Family Robinson, Mrs. Mike. This might be the time to read that copy of the 'Mysteries of Udolpho' I once noticed somewhere online, at Project Gutenberg, I think.

 I will have to watch all my various Austen and Austen inspired movies.  I will pull out my VHS copy of Sisters in the Wilderness, about Catherine Parr Trail and her sister, Susanna Moodie.  I might even have to go out and find some of their writings and perhaps find the biography of the two sisters that the documentary movie was based on.    

I love this time of year.  This time, when it is too cold and snowy and frozen here to see the green things grow, but the sun and everything in you says surely the winter is done.  

It is a time between, and surely a time between is perfect under a gothic moon.

1 comment:

Brendaknits said...

Hey, I've read Mrs. Mike. And I didn't know there was a documentary on the Traill sisters. Got to get that.