I’ve started The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall, progressing steadily. The book doesn’t appear to be as popular or well-known as I expected — Amazon.com/.ca is filled with out-of-print listings, and only a recent Wordsworth classics edition. (Wordsworth classics are all right, I suppose, but isn’t it with Penguin and (especially) Oxford too?) Only a little under 400 people list it at LibraryThing — low for a classic. I rather thought it was the Lady Chatterly’s Lover of lesbian fiction but I guess not (as far as popularity goes).

Another surprise is how masculine the book is. It’s clear that Hall does not think much of the female mind, its tastes, its usual societal pursuits. She explains her heroine Stephen’s physical and mental alacrity by categorising her as a “third sex”, neither wholly male nor female, but clearly modelled on a masculine ideals ie excels at hunting, fencing, lifts weights, reads Greek etc. It could get annoying but Stephen is such a poignant, unique character — she reminds me of Anne Shirley — that I can’t help but turn the page to find out what happens next. And Hall’s writing improves as Stephen ages — she drops that mildly precious tone so many authors can’t resist when dealing with young protagonists.

I finished Craig Thompson’s Blankets in a day, my first graphic novel. I read about it at Ted’s. He recommended I read Bechdel’s Fun Home first because it would suit my “literary” tastes better, but I chose to end on a high note and started with the reported lesser of the two. I had a swell time reading, intoxicating even, laughing, sighing, more or less having a grand ol’ time, even when reading it at the bus stop. But it did not leave a deep mark. It will linger in memories but I was not suffused with it, I don’t even know if I’ll ever re-read it, even though the form practically begs it. I would push Blankets on anyone who though the graphic format was only suited to super-hero antics; it was loads of fun.