Books in Devon

Claire and I did a leisurely charity shop trawl round Paignton this morning and I came home with a lovely little haul, mainly people I had not previously encountered apart from Julian Barnes, having watched the film of 'Sense of an Ending' on Netflix the other day.

'The Magician's Assistant' by Ann Patchett was picked up from the pile the day Dunk and I went to Edinburgh, because I knew he wouldn't particularly want to chat on the train for four hours (there and back again), and what a delight it was. Sabine is in love with Parsifal, who is in love with Phan. Sadly both Phan and Parsifal are dead, and the bereft Sabine finds that what she thought she knew about her magician's life was not the case after all. Enter the fray, Dot, Kitty and Bertie, Parsifal's mother and sisters, and they draw Sabine into their lives and their world, from sunny Los Angeles to snowy Nebraska. They bond over their devotion to him and their shared devastation. She thinks she is going to try and understand better this man she spent her life with, but finds that she comes to love these women who welcome her into their family without reserve. The story is punctuated by a series of vivid dreams that Sabine has, which brings to life the love and life she shared with Parsifal and Phan.

So many scenes I could quote. Here she is arriving in Nebraska:

"Even when the plane was parked, Sabine still felt the ground moving. A man in blue zip-up coveralls held her hand as she walked down the movable staircase into the snow. Immediately snow blew down the neck of her sweater and dampened the bare skin of her wrists between the ends of her coat sleeves and the tops of her gloves. Snow filled her pockets and pressed into her mouth. She had to stop and lean against the jumpsuited man.

'Not much farther,' he yelled over the wind, and put his hand beneath her arm in a professional manner. As they walked across the tarmac, sheets of snow pooled and vanished beneath her feet. It was like walking on something boiling. In every direction the snow was banked into high hills. Plows worked on either side, nervously rearranging what could not be made right. the flat, smooth place they were walking across now had been carved out like a swimming pool. The man worked hard to open the heavy metal door, and the wind made a sucking and then howling sound when it, with Sabine, was let into the warm building.

Dot and Bertie Fetters were waiting.

They looked different in Nebraska. Even at the first sight of them in the hallway, Sabine could tell they looked better here. Instead of seeming merely bulky, the heavy coats with toggles made them look confident, prepared. Sabine wondered if she too could buy high boots with rubber covering the feet. When they saw her, they called her name with a kind of joyful wonder that she had never heard in the word Sabine before. They threw themselves together onto her neck. What was lost is now found." (p.143-44)

And here, just thinking about Parsifal's childhood:

"In Dot Fetter's tiny ranch house, which in this blanket of heavy snow, and probably without it as well, appeared to be exactly like every other tiny ranch house in every direction, Sabine was finding a part of the husband she had lost. Guy the alter ego, the younger self. She imagined him flying down the street in the bracing cold, stomach to sled. She saw him at the kitchen table spooning through a bowl of cereal before school, his eyes fixed to the back of the box. Guy, who would some day be Parsifal, lying on the floor in the living room, reading library books on magic, frustrating books that never gave the information you needed to have. She imagined him popular, tight with the neighbourhood boys, good to his sister. At night she saw him asleep in the bed next to her bed, not the man he would be later on, the one that was gone, but this slighter, very present version of himself. She saw him in Kitty and Bertie, sometimes in Dot and How and Guy. She saw him at six years old and nine and twelve, because she needed to, every minute. Missing him was the dark and endless space she had stumbled into." (p.217-18)

And this, Sabine waking from a dream to find she has fallen asleep with Kitty:

"Sabine closed her eyes and tried to slip back. She had been dreaming, it had left a taste in her mouth. Her pillow was damp from crying. She wanted not to remember but to sleep, to be inside again. Where was she now? Nebraska. Parsifal's room. This should be the dream. The place she had been a minute ago was more familiar. She dug herself into the pillow and took the regular breaths of sleep, but there was no going back. Bit by bit the real world surrounded her. Dot and Bertie were home now, and the boys? She could hear their faint noise down the hall. Dot was laughing. They would wonder what she was doing sleeping in the middle of the day. Sabine felt guilty whenever she was caught napping. Not like Parsifal, who flaunted his naps, stretching out over the sofa in the middle of the day, the ringer on the phone turned off in anticipation of a long voyage. Sabine shifted her weight slightly, rolled forward on her hip, and that was when she noticed the warm breathing on the back of her neck, the weight of an arm across her waist. She was in Parsifal's bed. She had fallen asleep. Kitty had been telling a story, another horrible story. Kitty was in the twin bed, both of them on their sides, Sabine facing the window, Kitty facing Sabine. Of course she could hear her now, the nearly undetectable sounds another person makes when she is at her quietest. She could feel the warmth on her back, warm enough to fall asleep without a blanket. Though she would have been embarrassed if Kitty was awake, for this one minute she was grateful for the luxury of having someone to lie next to. Sabine tried to remember the last time she had slept with another person." (247-48)

As you might imagine, I loved this book. It was so full of warmth and love. It was like a blanket on a cold evening. 

The jasmine and the passion flower are still looking lovely at Claire's house. 

Stay safe. Be kind. Relish the end of the summer.