electricland

This morning I finished The Beckoning Lady.* It's the second time I've read it, but I'd completely forgotten who dunnit (as I often do) and even if I hadn't the book's other pleasures are so many that it wouldn't have mattered. Damn, she was good. It made me realize that a device I'm very fond of in books is The Party. Not just any party, but a huge, fabulous, lovingly constructed party, one that's anticipated for days and where the preparations take as many pages as the party itself, if not more. (That's certainly the case here; the preparation and the party are as important as the crime.)

Of course, the fact that New Year's is coming factors in here. For decades my aunt and uncle have thrown a theme New Year's party; the house is decorated, the guests come in costume and bring appropriate foodstuffs. There are traditions: the wearer of the best costume wins a rutabaga. The young fry, like myself, are rarely invited; the only exception was to the millennium edition New Year's party, where the theme was the Roaring Twenties if memory serves. (We do get to come by the next day to help eat up the leftovers.) For this party over the years I have personally created a tiger skin out of newsprint (the Raj); helped paint the Grand Canal on the windows in the sunroom (Venice); and drawn an Art Deco railway poster (that must have been for a Cote d'Azur theme, unless it was the Orient Express, but then it would've been the wrong poster). Lovingly constructed and anticipated for days? You bet!

So I've been racking my brain to think of other Great Parties of Literature. They show up in My Family and Other Animals-era Gerald Durrell (although apparently those actually took place). The only other one I can think of offhand, though, is the one at the start of The Fellowship of the Ring. Help me out! Great Parties of Literature -- what are some of your favourites?

*That illustration looks more like a sickle than a ploughshare to me. Can anyone of a more agricultural bent confirm?