The weather doesn't help, moving from the sanity of winter to the uncertainty of spring. Granted, the end of March/ beginning of April in Toronto can feel as domestic as porridge, especially in a cold grey year when it might as well be November, but this is still by nature an unchancy season. The March sun is too strong and gives the world a Daliesque cast; equally, the washy cloud of a warm spell hints at Ensor-like horrors lurking in the thickening tree branches and the dirty disreputable garden mess newly emerged from the snow. (Bird corpses, dog poo, garbage rousted out by raccoons-- stuff like that.)
Though it's really not Easter I dislike so much as the Good Friday holiday. Which is All Wrong. *Monday* is the holiday day, and the only exception is the rare Friday July 1. (Christmas / Boxing Day happens in the holiday season and doesn't count.)
So with all this antsiness attached, it's probably not a good idea, when looking for Good Friday reading, to start Bogarde's West of Sunset, set in Los Angeles: a city which fantods me at any time of the year. Luckily it's written by an outsider, very much aware of his outsiderness: because insiders take Los Angeles seriously, and that can be fatal.
