Literary Blog Hop: February 2-5

It's time for the Literary Blog Hop, hosted by The Blue Bookcase. I haven't posted the ground rules in awhile, so here they are:


This blog hop is open to blogs that primarily feature book reviews of literary fiction, classic literature, and general literary discussion.

How do I know if my blog qualifies as "literary"? Literature has many definitions, but for our purposes your blog qualifies as "literary" if it focuses primarily on texts with aesthetic merit. In other words, texts that show quality not only in narrative but also in the effect of their language and structure. YA literature may fit into this category, but if your blog focuses primarily on non-literary YA, fantasy, romance, paranormal romance, or chick lit, you may prefer to join the blog hop at Crazy-for-books that is open to book blogs of all kinds.



This week's prompt comes from Robyn:

What setting (time or place) from a book or story would you most like to visit? Eudora Welty said that, "Being shown how to locate, to place, any account is what does most toward making us believe it...," so in what location would you most like to hang out?
The place I would most like to visit would be the south of France just before the start of the Albigensian Crusade. A mini-Renaissance was occurring in Occitania, and I would love to have been able to experience the courts, hear the troubadours, etc. However, I don't know how long I could manage to hang out there. Even if I were lucky enough to be wealthy and had noblewomen for tourguides, the culture shock would be too great.

More specifically, if I were to pick a book setting I wanted to jump into, I would want to go hang out with Laura Ingalls on the prairie. (Only not during The Long Winter.) I could use the lesson in living in the moment. I would drink in the beauty of the setting. I'd take the time to smell the wildflowers and learn their names. I would feel summer's heat or winter's cold against my skin and deal with it without all the grumbling that I do now when there is "no" heat in my office. I would cook from scratch, truly from scratch, and savor every morsel of slow food. And I would listen to people sing and play fiddles, challenge each other to spelling bees, and talk--instead of spending the evenings on the computer or watching TV.

And then after a couple of days of that, desperate for a hot shower and a mocha I'd head on home.

Where/when would you like to go?