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Sometime -- Never
Sometime -- Never takes place on a transatlantic liner one New Year's Eve, within the bonus hour of the westward crossing, when the clock each day is put back sixty minutes. Clare Leighton uses this time to reflect on her past year, fears, and hopes for the future.
The book is illustrated with Leighton's drawings.
The book is illustrated with Leighton's drawings.
178 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 1939
15 people want to read
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August 23, 2015
Sometime Never is a forgotten gem that I stumbled upon in the Denver Botanic Gardens Library. I was curious about this unknown work of British fiction being smack in the middle of a botanical library, and the charming, old-fashioned cover only added to the book’s allure.
On a voyage via steamer from London to New York, the unnamed narrator recalls memories from her life—her birthday on an early spring day in the English countryside, the joy of buying bulbs to plant in American terra incognita, drinking absinthe on a bicycling tour in the Pyrenees. Each vignette swirls seamlessly into the next like a beautiful watercolor, and puts one in mind of the same stream of consciousness techniques as Virginia Woolf, a contemporary of Clare Leighton.
One passage that I found particularly beautiful was this:
“Something within me is frozen, as surely as the earth itself. I am numbed, and within my mind there is no blossoming and the life force seems dead. Impatient of this numbness, I turn to go upstairs. There, in the bedroom, in a drawer of the dressing table, lies salvation. It lies inside five small bottles. With the scent from these small bottles I can throw forward the year, till the sun stands high in the sky and the lanes and fields are filled with flowers. I can spin the earth on its axis, and the bees will hum all day in the blossoming lime trees….”
On a voyage via steamer from London to New York, the unnamed narrator recalls memories from her life—her birthday on an early spring day in the English countryside, the joy of buying bulbs to plant in American terra incognita, drinking absinthe on a bicycling tour in the Pyrenees. Each vignette swirls seamlessly into the next like a beautiful watercolor, and puts one in mind of the same stream of consciousness techniques as Virginia Woolf, a contemporary of Clare Leighton.
One passage that I found particularly beautiful was this:
“Something within me is frozen, as surely as the earth itself. I am numbed, and within my mind there is no blossoming and the life force seems dead. Impatient of this numbness, I turn to go upstairs. There, in the bedroom, in a drawer of the dressing table, lies salvation. It lies inside five small bottles. With the scent from these small bottles I can throw forward the year, till the sun stands high in the sky and the lanes and fields are filled with flowers. I can spin the earth on its axis, and the bees will hum all day in the blossoming lime trees….”
Displaying 1 of 1 review