Unraveled Wednesday: 5/22/24

I'm happy to join Kat and the Unravelers today with a sock and three-quarters. 

I barely knit on the way to and from my sister-in-law's and only knit a few rows during our lovely cocktail hours. I have worked on the sock here at home and am just a few rows from starting the toe decreases. I am meeting two very special people tomorrow for coffee, conversation, and knitting, so I may finish them then. It's more likely that I'll knit a few rows and spend much more time laughing and enjoying meeting up with these two, but that's just fine. I'm sure that by next week I'll have a finished pair of socks and can get back to my Hitch on the Move. 

I finished an ARC this week, The Glassmaker by Tracy Chevalier. I have loved several of Tracy Chevalier's previous novels, for her writing, the stories she told, and what I learned. The Glassmaker contains some of these things, but I found it lacking in some areas. Chevalier tells us about glassmaking in Murano, Italy, focusing mainly on the Rosso family. It starts in 1486 when Orsola Rosso is envious that the men in her family can work with glass to produce goblets, bowls, and other beautiful items. As a female, she is relegated to household chores, but she finds a female glassmaker from another family to teach her how to make glass beads. I found the glassmaking interesting and educational, but I wished for pictures of some of the beads. I imagined chapter headings illustrated by a color drawing of the beads as Orsola learned and became more masterful.

There is a trite love story that didn't add much to the book for me, and then there is the matter of the odd timeline. Chevalier vaguely introduces this idea in the prologue: “The City of Water runs by its own clock.” The story begins in the 15th century and ends in the present day, covering a bit more than five centuries, yet Orsola and her family members have only aged about six decades. They experience The Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment, two World Wars, the Plague, and Covid-19. It was an original device but also confused me quite a bit and I struggled to see why the author would make this choice. I thought it was a confusing distraction, and gave the book three stars. It just didn't come close to her previous books, The Girl With the Pearl Earring, Remarkable Creatures, or The Lady and the Unicorn for me. 

Thank you to Edelweiss and Penguin Random House for providing me with a copy of this book. It will be published on June 18, 2024.

If this book sounds like one you might be interested in, there is a giveaway on Goodreads. 

What are you making and reading this week?