Guard thy tongue from barking idly.

Current book: The Wings of the Dove
Pages read: 274 (57) - 349 (132)

Stuff actually happened! Kind of! If by "stuff happened" you mean "people talked to each other a lot," then it totally happened!

So, basically, Kate and Merton get secretly engaged to one another after Merton's interview with Maud, but both agree to keep it on the downlow (Are we capitalizing downlow? Is it silly to ask grammar questions about slang?) so as to keep Maud happy for as long as possible. Merton goes off to America, and the narration switches to the story of Milly Theale, an American heiress, and her sometime companion, Susie Stringham. The two women met each other in Boston and have basically become a pair of female best friends who keep each other company. (In the parlance of the time, this was referred to as a "Boston marriage," and considered an appropriate thing to do before you really got married. Is there speculation about a high number of lesbian relationships at the time? You bet there is.)

So, Milly and Susie gallivant to London, and there they meet, through mutual acquaintances, Aunt Maud and Kate. Milly and Kate hit it right off and become new best friends, thereby endangering the relationship between Milly and Susie. Also, as it turns out, Milly and Susie are acquainted with our dear Merton, whom they met in Boston. There's an implication, though it hasn't been said, that Milly and Merton may have had mutual romantic interest in one another as well. In the meantime, Aunt Maud has embarked on a campaign to get Kate to marry Lord Mark, a young nobleman from the area with good prospects who is also clearly a total jerk and whom Kate does not like at all. (Also, Lord Mark? Really?) Aunt Maud mentions, to Susie, the romantic entanglement of Merton and Kate, and Susie shares the information with Milly. That's where we are, then. At the moment, everyone is busy speculating about who's involved with whom, and how extensively, and whatever will become of them all.

It's a bit more interesting now due to the fact that things are occurring in the present, and therefore it seems as though the plot is actually progressing, although I still have to say that this was kind of a pathetic amount of development for 75 pages. Not a lot to add, I'm afraid. I'll try to be more thoroughly snide next week.

A note about my posting schedule: Monday through Thursday will be whatever I've read that day, Friday will be a recap of the week's conclusions and whatever else I want to talk about, including cooking, and Saturday and Sunday I'll be taking off. We all know how Saturday and Sunday posting went before, so I think I'll just nix all the excuses and call it a workweek blog.