A view and a library

There must be worse ways to spend a Sunday morning.

I woke up this morning to the usual spotlight. The key difference was that I had left my glasses on the window ledge beside my bed, so I put them on and lay there for a while, gazing out my window. In this manner, my day began with a view of the utterly gorgeous sky. It's the sort of sky that penny novelists wax poetic over. It's clean, gentle, brilliantly blue. At the very periphery of my vision, there were some clouds hanging out further out over the lake. The blue of a clear, sunny sky really is the most amazing colour I have ever encountered. There's a sort of lazy warmth to it, but somehow also a startling clarity. I could stare at the sky forever on a sunny day.

Then I read a novel. The new one by Gaiman. Utter brilliance. The only complaint I might have of the man's novels is that he writes them so infrequently. What I admire is not the quality of the prose, for there are so many people who can produce a turn of phrase prettier than he. No, it is the weaving of stories, of fantasy that reveals a subtlety of imagination that goes beyond anything I can aspire to. Even as the fantastic is scribed, the humanity of the situation is retained. The question that fascinates is not how fantastic a world we might discover or create, it is how you would react when faced with this new world.

Zelazny's Amber chronicles imagined an utterly fascinating universe, with characters so strong that you could not help but imagine that they are archetypes. Each of the characters was so recognisable and familiar from the first moment you meet them, but you know that you would never meet someone quite like that. But everyone you meet is something like them. Therein lies the brilliance.

Gaiman's characters are different, in that these are people you know, people you are. The insecurities, awkwardness, aspirations. These are the stuff of reality as opposed to the conceptual personalities of Amber. Thinking about how these characters would react to an improbable situation is akin to projecting your own reactions. As reality is unwound and rewritten, how do you think about it?

Anyway, not looking to explain my literary preferences here.

I spent a few hours curled up on my couch, reading the new Gaiman novel, listening to old Chinese music and occasionally looking out at the lake. For just a little while, life was as perfect as it could be. I felt so right. This is what is meant by enjoying your own company. Alive, relaxed, happy. Maybe this is all I need out of life. I don't need the private jet and the personal assistants and the bodyguards and the cool restaurants and the castle. Well, maybe if the castle had a lake view and a library.