This is the last post before I'm back in August.

Well, I've packed up the knitting. I plan to work as far as I can on the Sitcom Chic while waiting around today. I'm up to the garter-and-eyelet rows, so I'm close to done with it.
 
This morning, I finished the Trollope novel I had been reading, La Vendée. Some of the discussion I've seen of it described it as one of his lesser novels. Certainly, it's a departure - there's not a foxhunt or lawn party to be found in the whole thing, and it's more blood-and-guts than any other Trollope I've read (There's one scene involving the butt of a pistol being wielded by the Romantic Male Lead connecting with the brains of an enemy soldier that's surprisingly vivid and gross. Or maybe I just found it surprisingly vivid and gross.)
 
I will say that were I an opera composer, I would be greatly inspired to turn this into an opera - it has all the desirable themes: young love (even more, doomed young love), a cause to be loyal to, a character that goes mad, dramatic deaths (although, off-stage, at least in the Trollope version) of several sympathetic characters, exciting fight scenes, beautiful young noblewomen fleeing for their lives, a stunning rescue complete with the Romantic Male Lead (he'd have to be a baritone) leaping from a balcony with his lady-love in his arms, a comic factotum, and good costuming.
 
(It is the story of a band of French royalists, lead by a couple of noblemen, who revolted against the Republic. A very interesting take, when most of what you hear of the history of the French Revolution - or at least, most of what *I* heard in school - is that it was glorious and took down the excessive aristocrats and freed the peasants. Oh yes, and there were some excesses on the part of the new Republic as well, but those aren't as important.... This book takes the Royalist side, and I dare say, is enough to turn one into a Royalist, at least as long as one is reading it.)
 
My copy was  a Folio Press edition, but I do find there's a version of it online through Project Gutenberg, if you enjoy reading long novels off the computer screen. (I will say it's vanishingly hard to find a print copy of this novel; I was on a "notify me" list at Powells for a couple years before they found me a copy. And I'm happy they did.)