Weddings 2

Two short (and equally shocking in their own way) stories about the before and after the wedding.

'The Wedding of Zeina' ( from the novel 'Aisha') by Ahdaf Soueif

Set in Egypt, Aisha's nurse Zeina, recounts how she was brutally 'tested' at the age of 15 before her wedding night by both male and female members of her family.

'Child's Play' by Elizabeth Jane Howard

Six weeks after her wedding,feeling that her marriage is already in trouble,18 year old Shirley returns home for a visit to her parents.Abandoned by her husband, indulged by her father and envied by her mother Shirley, young,spoilt,disillusioned;thinking that marriage would be 'candlelit dinners,friends dropping by,using all the presents,setting the table as perfectly as she did her face' is also brutally treated, in this case psychologically by family members.

Both stories from 'The Secret Self;Short Stories by Women selected by Hermione Lee,pub J.M.Dent & Sons 1985

ilovethecover

I love this cover! It's very autumnal although we seem to have moved swiftly on to Winter now!

I bought it in the amazingly higgledy- piggledy 'The Fifteenth Century Book Shop' in Lewes at the end of October whilst waiting for the bus to Charleston, home of artist Vanessa Bell, having heard about it on Radio 4's 'Open Book'(24/10/10)

The community bus wound its way through the lovely golden Sussex countryside past pubs and pumpkins and posters for the famous Lewes firework display and procession.It was the last day of the season before the house closed down for the winter. I had a lovely day with my daughter and we can't wait for Spring to visit Monk's House country home of writer Virginia Woolf nearby.

Other reads inspired by weeds: Weeds by Richard Mabey, Day of the Triffids by John Wyndam, After London by Richard Jeffries,The Boats of Glen Carrig by William Hope Hodgson,

The Book of Dave by Will Self,The Weeds by Stephen King (short story)Midworld by Alan Dean Foster,A Hospital Odyssey by Gwyneth Lewis.

Oh and I also quite love this!