Obtain The Honey Month Rendered By Amal El-Mohtar Displayed In Version

is a delightful little book uite remarkable It is based on a very simple idea and on a simple gift A friend of El Mohtars gave her a gift of some samples of different types of honey With this gift she wrote a set of tasting notes and reflections for each honeyin all El Mohtar is a poet and writer of speculative fiction and she puts her talent to good use This is an example of one of the tasting notes“DayFrench Rhododendron HoneyColour The colour of sugar dissolving in hot water that white cloudiness with a faint yellow tint I can only see when looking at it slantwise to the left of me not when I hold it up to the lightSmell Strange it has almost no scent at all its also crystallised so its a bit difficult to scoop some out with the wand but it smells cold with an elusive citrus suirt hovering about its edgesTaste There is a kind of sugar cube my grandfather used to give my sister and me every morning when we were small not so much a cube as a cabochon irregularly rounded clear and cloudy by turns It was called sikkar nabet which is “plant sugar” This tastes like it The honey taste is so pale so faint it really is almost sugar water Im reminded of maple sap in buckets right at the beginning of the boiling process that produces maple syrup where its still water enough to be used for steeping tea”After each set of tasting notes is a piece of fiction or poetry These are very varied poems gothic and unusual tales some are very sensual and erotic some are almost fairy tales and mythical She drinks the light like lemonadeSips it bit by liuid bitUntil the day falls dark and softLicked slow as honey cleanHer throat is wide as an open doorInviting honest full of songAnd the light it wants it tumbles inLike a girl after a rabbitShe swallows every now and thenLicks her lips parts them for Every now and then she sleepsWhile she does the Moonish manBuilds his nets chases his dogShe would take him by the handLook into his eyes and say Love you should know better nowThe world is not for catching loveNot for having not for keepingThe world is all for sipping loveSo tilt back your head and drinkBut he will never hear her sopreocuppied with precious plansHe has no willing ear to lendWhile he mutters on and onShe wakes to uiet lonelinessDresses walks to her windowsillAnd sip by sip lick by lickDraws night back home againThere are nods to Goblin Market Angela Carter and but this is really very original stuff Temptation awakening attraction seduction and interesting undercurrents abound The art work and illustrations are excellent Its very short and best read in small chunks but the whole is a delightThis is one book where I think it helps to have read the blurb before reading I didnt and found myself uite lost for some time It turns out that the book was inspired by a gift of honey samples each section is a riff on a different flavour and I think it really does help to know that at the beginning because the book consists of lyrical sensuous writing with little or no narrative like a collection of poems with a related theme than anything else I love gorgeous writing I often find evocative imagery beguiling than a plot structured with a protagonist and antagonist and events leading from A to B But even in poetry where imagery is the language rather than narrative I find I crave a thread of meaning a layering of imagery that leads to some unifying feeling or understanding What I experienced here was like an amazing meal with delicious tastes but I had no idea what I was eating It was like rich food that leaves you hungry I was listening to gorgeous music where the sounds were everything and I was left longing for a thread of melody to layer and unify the whole To use the books imagery I could say that a whole meal of rich and subtle honeys left me unsatisfied and craving something substantialThere certainly were repeating layered images in this work images relating not only to taste but to love and loss threads of melody but for me they ultimately didnt yield enough depth Where the imagery was emotional it felt somehow disconnected and unreal If the book was designed to be a set of beguiling sensuous variations on a theme it hardly seems fair to expect something different But for me the point of layered imagery is that the work ends up touching you There were one or two sections towards the end in particular where I began to feel something but on the whole the book remained a collection of intriguing images that teased but barely moved me This could have just been me of course perhaps I just didnt get it or I read it at the wrong time Perhaps the book was designed to be playful than anything else and Im looking for depth that was never intended to be there Perhaps its best read slowly and over time rather than in one goI sometimes get tired of the usual way genre fiction is written and this work is refreshingly different I enjoyed and appreciated it but then it was gone and nothing was left

On the one hand I appreciate its courage and originality on the other it left me unsatisfied But Ill certainly be watching out for of this authors work So beautiful and flavorful and just deliciously synesthetic This is a book worthy of worship and I encourage you to enjoy its succour in small doses of devotion one honey at a time My full review is over at I first became aware of this collection when a version of Cranberry Honey appeared during the Podcastle Flash Fiction contest last year The writing blew me away so when I saw Amal at WisconI got it storypoem is based on a jar of honey Amal received as a gift sampler Such a beautiful collection The poems and stories in this need to be read slowly aloud but just under your breath and preferably barefoot Outstanding Beautiful uiet and thoughtful I might be a part time vegan but I need some of this honey Particularly the peach honey The stories and poems in this collection are short creative and lovely I hope to read by El Mohtar This is the most beautiful work of fiction I have read since I had the privilege to read Lisa L Hannett this year and I think this tiny book will stay with me for a long time The Honey Month is inspired and inspiring The writing is ethereal and sweet like a flake of a sugar crystal The book is what art would translate to words and the short stories and poems in here will reform your soul A lovely collection of poetry prose poetry and microfiction all inspired by different types of honey I could practically taste each honey as it was described experience it as the stories and poems and scraps of myth unfolded It's a very sensuous and beautiful collection and for all that it's so slight it's very worth reading Such an unusual book I know I've never read anything like it and maybe never will again Very sensuous in the telling and describing of the honey using poetry stories self made myths It makes this reader want to taste them all alldays of honey though some definitely entice than others Amal El Mohtars The Honey Month with an introduction by Danielle Sucher ranks among the years most exuisite treasures This beautiful volume of short fictions and poems takes as its inspiration the authors tasting ofdifferent kinds of honey one per day Each tasting leads to a different literary creation each entry beginning with a description of the honey in terms that will be familiar to wine connoisseurs “DaySag Harbor NY Early Spring Honey” which has a color “pale and clear as snowmelt” and the smell “cool sugar crystals” but also brings to mind “a stingless jellyfish I once held in my hand in Oman” The taste “like the end of winterwhen you can still see clumps of snow on the ground and the air is heavy with damp” The differences between the types of honey allow El Mohtar to move back and forth between the poetic and the casually contemporary with the experiment of the tasting as the unifying structure A perfect gift a hidden treasure a delight for the senses.