Welcome to One Bright Book! Join our hosts Frances, Rebecca, and Dorian as they discuss HARRIET HUME by Rebecca West, and chat about their current reading.
For our next episode, we will discuss THE WILD IRIS by Louise Gluck. We would love to have you read along with us, and join us for our conversation coming to you in March.
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Books mentioned:
- Harriet Hume by Rebecca West
- The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West
- The Judge by Rebecca West
- Orlando by Virginia Woolf
- The Waves by Virginia Woolf
- The Palliser Novels by Anthony Trollope
- The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding
- Howards End by E. M. Forster
- Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
- Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh
- The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West
- Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West
- Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
- Lote by Shola Von Reinhold
- Rebecca West: A Life by Victoria Glendinning
- Sunflower by Rebecca West
- The Fortune of the Rougons by Emile Zola
- His Excellency Eugene Rougon by Emile Zola
- The Octopus by Frank Norris
- McTeague by Frank Norris
- A Green Equinox by Elizabeth Mavor
- The Tree of Life by Chava Rosenfarb
- In the Land of the Postscript: The Complete Short Stories of Chava Rosenfarb by Chava Rosenfarb
- Confessions of a Yiddish Writer and Other Essays by Chava Rosenfarb
- Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell
- This Little Art by Kate Briggs
- The Preparation of the Novel: Lecture Courses and Seminars at the College de France by Roland Barthes
- The Long Form by Kate Briggs
- How to Live Together: Novelistic Simulations of Some Everyday Spaces by Roland Barthes
- The Wild Iris by Louise Gluck
You might also be interested in:
OED Entry for “Slut:” https://www.oed.com/dictionary/slut_n?tl=true
Rebecca’s Substack for #KateBriggs24: https://readingkatebriggs.substack.com/p/introducing-katebriggs24
Hear Roland Barthes Present His 40-Hour Course, La Préparation du roman, in French (1978–80): https://www.openculture.com/2014/07/listen-to-roland-barthes-deliver-his-40-hour-lecture-course-la-preparation-du-roman-in-french-1978-80.html
A collection of resources about Yiddish writer Chava Rosenfarb: https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/chava-rosenfarb
One Bright Book 
I saved this until I started reading the book. I liked Harriet Hume and it grew on me once I stopped expecting it to be a conventional story. When I started reading it as a fable/fairy tale (with even the voice that one would read a fable) it really worked for me.
I didn’t see it as a messy book, because I wasn’t looking for a neat answer. Whether Harriet was a good witch, a bad witch, the ghost of Christmas to come or some other fable character I didn’t need to know. What was important to me was her relationship with Arnold, and her dominance/strength in that relationship. I definitely saw Arnold as the weaker of the two.So thank you Frances for championing Harriet Hume and for this episode.
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