🧐 A review, ten years later.

I decided to challenge a renowned author. And the difficulty of unraveling a playground toy in Denmark.

I really admire people who read things more than once. I'm the type of person who can watch a movie over and over again. My husband always asks how is this possible. For me, it's just fun. And if it happens in the company of someone who didn't watch the movie, I still have the pleasure of witnessing that discovery. It's always nice.

But reading something again is different.

This task fills me with a profound sense of effort. Even reading again a text is an activity that my brain questions – congratulations to those who are able. I admire you.

With that said, I had a recent experience reading a book for the second time. Today, I believe I managed to do this as a challenge to the author, which in this case was just Marion Bradley, who wrote the bestsellers “The Mists of Avalon” – books I never read 😬

What few people know is: the story told in the Mists begins much earlier. There are several other books by Marion – if I've read her twice, it means we're intimate – that tell the entire precursor story of the Round Table, going back to the extinct societies that originated Morgaine and company.

Before getting to The Mists of Avalon, I researched the entire bibliography and decided to start from the beginning. I found the first two books only in an old books store. They are aged, and few people know them. Even finding the cover images on Google in Portuguese is not easy. I have the two volumes called “The Fall of Atlantis”, the Web of Light and the Web of Darkness.

The reason that brought me back to these books comes from the fact that I read them more than 10 years ago. We all change a lot in such an extensive period, right? Would my perception change?

In my first experience, I remember being absolutely delighted with Marion's writing. A mature language, very rich in vocabulary and at the same time not being too far-fetched. An adult book that navigates through human complexities in a playful and fictional environment.

Perhaps that was my main point of fascination: it talks about complex human relationships, using a fantasy and magical scenario, far from being childish. This is an ability few people have.

For me, a closeted writer, it was like seeing everything I wanted to be in front of me, in a simple and engaging way that made it seem easy to write that way.

Fast-forward to last year, 2022.

I decided that I would come out of the literature closet and put my written arts on display. At a time when I was expanding my repertoire and exploring my creative abilities, I decided to read one more time Marion's books that had caused me so much enchantment (and a certain frustration because I thought I was too far from achieving that literary capacity).

The challenge I unconsciously made to the author was: will her writing still give me goosebumps after 10 years, or will the maturation of a decade make me see her words in a youthful way?

What do you think happened?

Either I haven't learned anything over the years or Marion's writing is truly GENIUS.

Filling in forgotten gaps in the story with the same words from years before not only made me enchanted, but also admire her even more. The pages remain yellow, and the book is still hard to find, but what Marion has created is timeless, vivid, intelligent, and kind. Exploring the weaknesses of human beings and the disputes between compassion and society's rules as she does is unique.

The big difference between my perception then and now is that where there was personal frustration, there is now only reverence and gratitude.

I'm not Marion Bradley and never will be, but I believe that we both have something to add to the world, and now I'm on my way to figuring out how to do that.

Thank you, Marion, for so much.

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🇩🇰📷 Meanwhile in the Kingdom of Denmark

The other day, we went to see a neighborhood that could be our future home, and we came across a playground that looked like a lot of fun.

Until we came across this “slide”:

At first, it was just a toboggan, closed by chains, but we noticed that its fall was more than 90 degrees. And that felt really weird.

Until we understood what was it about, we were like the lady in the GIF below:

The answer: it wasn't a toboggan, but a climbing tunnel. You don't "go down" through the tunnel, you go up through the tunnel - using the chains to support yourself 🤯

I concluded that if we, adults, had fun trying to understand what that was, it must be wonderful for children. And good luck to anyone trying to climb it because it doesn't look easy - would you let your kid play there?

That day we saw other peculiar architectures, but I'll show you another day.

Have a nice day with the powerful message on this rug I saw in a shop window today. It's by the artist 𝐁𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐚 𝐌𝐢𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐞𝐭𝐳.

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Remember: english is not my native language! This is a translated version of Liliando in portuguese. If you see any major mistake, please be kind and just let me know!