Barrel-aged reading

When putting off a read makes it that much better

Catrina Dawn Conway’s article on visiting the island of Sark has been sitting in my email inbox since the first week of June.

“A kind of fairy castle, full of wonders.” Traversing the poetic landscape of Victor Hugo’s Sark.

I tend to leave things in my inbox until I’m so tired of seeing them there, I finally deal with them—but not this one. No, I left it for over a month because I wanted to linger with it. The excerpt that gazed at me every day was so good, I knew it deserved dedicated time to read and sink in.

It was worth it.

And it might stay in my inbox a bit longer, because I’m not ready to say goodbye yet.

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Conway visited Sark in large part to follow in the footsteps of Victor Hugo, who was exiled to the Channel Islands for 19 years—primarily on Guernsey, but he also visited Sark a handful of times.

“A view across to Sark.” Photo by antony whittaker on Unsplash.

My exposure to Hugo’s writings are limited; I read bits and pieces of Les Mis in high school, and DNFed The Hunchback of Notre Dame last year.¹ But maybe I simply hadn’t landed on the right thing, because I found the article’s excerpts from Toilers of the Sea, Les Contemplations, and Les Chansons des rues et des bois incredibly moving.

Then again, maybe it’s Conway’s own writing that moves me, or a combination:

After settling into my B&B, I set out for a twilight walk. It is thrilling. Gothic silhouettes of pines bend inland, subject to the will of wind, as if struck in time by some ancient tempest. Dark figures of crumbling gravestones watch over a church. The gloaming light fades fast. Small stars pierce through sky, smoky with cloud and a faraway fire. The air is cold and numbs my ears. I see no one.

Then, I return to my room for the night. The wind whispers outside my window. As my mind drifts into dreams, one of Hugo’s poems echoes in the darkness:

“Do you grasp why everything gives voice?

Listen carefully. It is because the wind

And waves, the flames, trees, reeds

And rocks, everything is alive!”

~ Les Contemplations, Book VI (1856)²

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Can I pin this somewhere with a neon flashing caption of “This is how I want to write”?

(I’m equally glad to perform my own experiment. Opening question: Does visiting Sark similarly impact my own writing life? Remaining steps of the scientific method forthcoming.)³

All #jokingnotjoking aside, the read was worth the wait—perhaps even enhanced by it. Many a sumptuous feast is made up of things made better with time—meats, cheeses, barrel-aged vanilla, maple syrup, balsamic vinegar, even fireworks …

The fireworks were by Gandalf: they were not only brought by him, but designed and made by him; and the special effects, set pieces, and flights of rockets were let off by him. But there was also a generous distribution of squibs, crackers, backarrappers, sparklers, torches, dwarf-candles, elf-fountains, goblin-barkers and thunder-claps. They were all superb. The art of Gandalf improved with age.⁴

… and I daresay I can add two more writers to my feast of the written word.

Gandalf’s fireworks in Peter jackson’s 2001 adaptation of The Fellowship of the Ring. Image via Pinterest.

1. Sometimes you need to stop while you’re ahead. Hunchback was an object lesson in whether to push through or DNF, and I ultimately chose DNF.

2. Conway, Catrina Dawn. “‘A Kind of Fairy Castle, Full of Wonders.’ Traversing the Poetic Landscape of Victor Hugo’s Sark | Literary Traveler.” Literary Traveler | Explore Your Literary Imagination, June 5, 2026. https://www.literarytraveler.com/articles/a-kind-of-fairy-castle-full-of-wonders-traversing-the-poetic-landscape-of-victor-hugos-sark/.

3. Kidding. Mostly.

4. J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings Illustrated (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021), 27.