I have been reading this year, just like I promised. Well, maybe not just like. I thought I'd be reading a lot more than I am, but I am still reading. This week (and last) I read The Whole World Over by Julia Glass. I picked it up at the Book Thing because of its good reviews and because the main character is a cook.
Julia Glass' writing is rich. The care she takes with her words makes the book a deep, delicious piece of chocolate cake, with hazelnut icing. Or perhaps one of Greenie's famous lemon tarts.
Glass follows four New Yorkers around the city, through their departures and travels, and in and out of old loves, lost memories, and new relationships. Greenie, a feisty baker, Alan, her troubled husband, and Walter, their flamboyant neighbor open the book with frustration and longing. Saga, a city-visitor, after her accident, is constantly struggling to remember words and old kindnesses. She stumbles upon new-old truths throughout.
The book itself was an opening of these doors for me. There are things that I'd forgotten with not-reading. The truth of a one-page conversation's ability to stir me through the rest of my day, a character's rigorous soul-searching way of stirring my own soul to look deeper.
The Whole World Over is no epic novel. The reading is quick and burbling. It turns pages quickly and doesn't force heavy questions upon the reader. The knowing is in the sweet taste of strawberry on just-light-enough angel food cake, the watchfullness of returning memories, and each character's willingness to step out into vulnerability.
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