Week 38 (2026) Reading – Belben again & Ní Ghríofa

The six radically different chapters of Rosalind Belben’s Dreaming of Dead People constitute a kind of Cubist self-portrait. Belben’s narrative is often headed ostensibly elsewhere—on what her imaginary daughter might be like, on her fantasy Robin Hood and his 13th century gang (really!), on the dreams she has about her dead mother, on delicious trips alone to the highlands of Scotland, or on explorations among old ruins on the island of Torcello in the Venetian lagoon. But it never takes her too many pages before her attention returns to herself, or, more precisely, to memories of herself, to the giddiness of her wild childhood or the pain of dealing with her angry mother, widowed when she was three. We read about her difficult school years, her confused twenties, and the fear of becoming an “old maid” at 39, having apparently not slept with a man for a decade. She wishes, vividly, for sex again. She feels most alive in the countryside. In nature. Alone. The nature writing is superb,…

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