Mary Stewart

Lately I've read a few novels by Mary Stewart. They've floated across my Amazon page as "Recommended for you." I vaguely remembered her name from maybe high school. I read one or two of her novels now, and then I saw the title Touch Not the Cat. Now that one I was pretty sure I had read. I remembered that the heroine talked telepathically to the man she loved before she met him. She thought he was one of her distant cousins. I also kind of remembered something about a mosaic of a tiger or some other wild cat under water. So I re-read it now, and those details were there, along with a lot I didn't remember.

Just today I started reading The Ivy Tree, which I thought I had never heard of. But in the first chapter, when a man mistakes the heroine for someone he used to know, it started to seem familiar. I thought, if he says the woman he knew was a horse-whisperer, then I've read this book before. Sure enough, he said it. Whenever I read this book previously, probably in high school, I think it was the first time I'd ever heard of a horse-whisperer.

Oh, my goodness! I just googled her and found out she's the author of The Crystal Cave and the other Arthurian sequels! Now, those I remember very well. I love the Arthurian legends in all their permutations, with the possible exception of movies starring Keira Knightley. I loved the movie Camelot, with Richard Harris and Vanessa Redgrave. I loved the T.H. White novel The Once and Future King, although it was a sad book that I read at a sad time in my life, so I've never re-read it. I loved the Howard Pyle versions. I also read some Jungian interpretations by Robert A. Johnson in my 20s, when I went through a phase of being fascinated by Jung.

Well, good. That's a good discovery. I don't know that I'll go straight back and read The Crystal Cave. Right now I'm only buying really cheap books on my Kindle. I got The Ivy Tree for $1.99, I believe. I can remember the premise of the book and a certain plot twist, but I don't remember how it all goes. If I read it in high school, and I think I did, it's been about 40 years since then. Wow, my adult life is middle-aged.

I'm older than I think I am. I was talking to some friends a couple weeks ago about getting new pets. We're all the same age, and the male half of the couple said that by the time a new kitten was 13, we'd be 70. No, I said. (Remember how good I am at math?) I was thinking that if we're in our 50s, then our 70s are 20 years away. But he pointed out that, since we're 57, age 70 is just 13 years away. I know he's correct, but it still just doesn't sound right. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss.