Truly, Madly, Deeply

Flame Books are fast becoming one of my favourite independent publishers - perhaps this is a hasty decision to make on the basis of having read two of their output, but already I am sensing a definite Flamesque quality. They are novels of brave, textured writing, dealing with ordinary people experiencing the extraordinary. Confused, intricate relationships between flawed humans - with exceptional writing ability to boot.

Tru by Eric Melbye was sent to me quite a while ago, and it is through no fault of the book's inviting (if slightly haunting) cover that it has taken this long to read. I just hope I can now do it justice, since I have been battling with a dreadful internet connection for over an hour, and have reached the end of my tether, as Our Vicar's Wife occasionally says. [N.B. this was written yesterday, and I gave up...]

The 'Tru' in question is Gertrude Hayes, resident in an old people's home and member of an amusing 'gang' there - a collection of disparate characters, levelled together by their grouping at this final home, waiting for the inevitable. Tru's closest friend Agnes, dramatic and in the onset of dementia, gives her a journal for her birthday: "The journal is the destination", as she says. Tru decides to record her history, her guilt about her family, the misadventures which led to this point in her life. From then onwards, the narrative is shown through journal entries (though this is rarely evident except at the beginning of chapters, and never annoying or intrusive as even Anne Bronte was when she used the device). This motley assortment of the aged occupy some chapters; the rest charts Tru's childhood, through early tragedies and even earlier pregnancy; the fragile and mysterious relationship she has with her ethereal daughter, Maddie; echoes of longing and searching throughout the annals of her past. She lives in a dead-end town - 'Delamondians don't bother to understand a thing, only judge it' - always known as The Hayes Girl, and cannot escape the unfriendly eyes of those surrounding her.

That sounds a bit glum, doesn't it? In synopsis, it is rather - but Tru's story, in its mixture of remembering and imagining, is told with a humour and understanding which captivate rather than repel, and feels more like truth than anything else. You can find truth discomforting, but cannot challenge the teller. Melbye's writing is honest in a way which makes the title Tru so apposite, despite being fiction. In the old people's home, Agnes 'remembered days, or made them up. It's all the same now.' This threading of recollection and invention in Tru's narrative creates an emotional honesty, which even an autobiography would rarely achieve. And there are also many beautiful images amongst the loss; I liked: 'She was like a shard of broken glass, beautiful and dangerous and hardly there.'

A difficult book to categorise, and not like much that I've read before - except, as I say, similarites with The Bestowing Sun. I can't wait to see what else Flame Books has to offer.

Bears and Belgrade

What a fun and surreal day I've just had... thankfully no small part of it has spent reading, so perhaps The Block has disappeared. Nearly finished an excellent book I was sent to review by Flame Books, who published Neil Grimmett's The Bestowing Sun, about which I raved a while ago, and which I heard recently will become part of a trilogy. The other book which has brought me back to readerdom is Pride and Prejudice - I forget how wonderful Jane Austen is until I read her. For a hopeful author, it is almost discouraging to see how brilliant a writer can be (especially with dialogue) that it's almost not worth putting pen to paper anymore. I don't think I quite trust anyone who's read Austen and doesn't admire her.

The most fun and unusual activity I took part in today was... actually, both activities qualify for those adjectives, so I'll just list them in chronological order. My friend Charley celebrated her 24th birthday, and as she is known as Bear (not sure why) she had a Teddy Bears' Picnic. Bring food and teddy bear. So, I made some coconut rock cakes (since Our Vicar and The Carbon Copy hate coconut, I put it in everything I make that they're unlikely to eat) - tip: sprinkle muscovado sugar on top before baking - and took David with me to the picnic. We went on the bus, but he snuck into my bag, and didn't pay for a seat. He even brought his own marmalade with him - seen in the picture - and made some new friends. Patch and Fido had their own Teddy Dogs' Picnic at home...

Later on, I attended a Eurovision Song Contest party... perhaps that means nothing to my non-European visitors, but everyone else will have smiled and rolled their eyes. An annual competition, European countries submit a song as daft and tuneless as possible, and then vote based entirely on which countries share borders with them, eventually crowning someone the winner. Costume changes are encouraged, as are cross-dressing and pirate outfits. Bizarre rock, cheesy pop and overly-ambitious operatics are all welcomed. The UK - especially since the invasion of Afghanistan - perform spectacularly badly. This year we triumphed with joint-last place, and Russia took the crown - with an admittedly acceptable entry. Terry Wogan provides hilarious commentary, especially during the announcement of the votes, wherein he gets increasingly indignant/inebriated. A fun evening with some friends, all wielding scorecards with the categories 'Song, Performance, Dance Routine, Outfits' - we declared Armenia the winners, and they managed a respectable second or fourth or similar. Spain were unquestionably the worst, but did quite well nonetheless. Roll on next year; I can't wait.

Books on Film

I think I just made a Duran Duran reference in my post title, but I'm not wholly sure...

Thursday, and time for me to kick back from creative thought, and just copy the good people of Booking Through Thursday - and, of course, invite you to do likewise.

Books and films both tell stories, but what we want from a book can be different from what we want from a movie. Is this true for you? If so, what’s the difference between a book and a movie?

I think we've talked about that here in the past, though not certain - it is one of those questions which comes up perenially. Quite a while ago, I picked out all the DVDs I owned which were adaptations of literature or connected to literature in some way - quite a few, was the answer.

I resolutely believe that books are simply better than films, if the book came first - even if I enjoy the film more, or think it has better creative artists behind it, it remains a derivative and thus subordinate. True, you can point at Shakespeare and disprove me, as he had barely an original plot line, but still...

What do I like for in a book and what in a film? I'm happy if a film shows me one level; one story. Beauty is a nice bonus, but it is rather too easy - even the worst director can film a meadow and it will look beautiful. It takes a great writer to make that same meadow appear for the reader, in all its beauty, and not simply a word. So, from a book, I look for an interesting plot - but, more importantly, a individual and captivating style. Some depth of thought, some longevity. I probably won't read it in one go (as I would watch a film in one go) and so I want something I can live alongside, rather than compartmentalise into an evening...

Demanding, aren't I? Howsabout you?

Welly-Throwing

Today's title is one of the suggestions I've had, in the face of Readers' Block (or, since I'm just one person, Reader's Block) - I *think* I did do welly-throwing - or welly-wanging - at a village fete once, but I'm probably not ready to take it up as an Olympic sport just yet. So I'll carry on trying to shift the block, and get back to my normal Stuck position. Annoyingly, a headache has been added to the mix. On the bright side, today I completed my European Computer Driving Licence, which can be stuck squarely onto my CV, though it would be an exaggeration to say I yet understood Access or the finer workings of Excel. Part of the amusement of the course was trying to unlearn everything since about 1998, when the test was made. Formating a floppy disk, anyone?

The book I'm currently reading bits of here and there is The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee, which I bought when meeting online friends in London. It's 'a memoir, a history' of Buzbee's life with books - working in a bookshop, working as a publisher's sales rep, just generally living and loving books - and interspersed with this is the history of books and booksellers. What a lot of times the word 'book' was in that sentence - what's the opposite of aversion therapy? The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop isn't overly sentimental, since Buzbee has had to understand the commodity aspect of books, but he speaks with a voice which every booklover will recognise and respond to:

When I walk into a bookstore, any bookstore, first thing in the morning, I'm flooded with a sense of hushed excitement. I shouldn't feel this way. I've spent most of my adult life working in bookstores, either as a bookseller or a publisher's sales rep, and even though I no longer work in the business, as an incurable reader I find myself in a bookstore at least five times a week. Shouldn't I be blase about it all by now? In the quiet of such a morning, however, the store's displays stacked squarely and its shelves tidy and promising, I know that this is no mere shop. When a bookstore opens its doors, the rest of the world enters, too, the days' weather and the day's news, the streams of customers, and of course the boxes of books and the many other worlds they contain - books of facts and truths, books newly written and those first read centuries before, books of great relevance and of absolute banality. Standing in the middle of this confluence, I can't help but feel the possibility of the universe unfolding a little, once upon a time.

The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop is materially beautiful, with deckled edges and thick paper, but much more significant is the kindred spirit you'll find inside. If anything can make me remember how much I love books, this should do it.

Working my way back...

Thanks everyone! You've really encouraged me, and showed me the right thing to do when in the midst of readers' block. First of all, I'm ignoring all the books I should be reading (sorry people who've sent books for review, they will be read, but this is a medical emergency) and... out comes the Provincial Lady. I wanted to turn to this a few days ago, but thought I couldn't sidetrack myself from the review books - and then realised how silly it was that reading had become a chore. So, a couple of days are going to be taken out, and EM Delafield is coming with me.

I wrote about this collection of four books quite a while ago, and it is still a worthy contender for my favourite book. Funny on every page, warm, witty, touching and a book into which I can really sink my toes (as opposed to my teeth). Like a long bath, and Step One on defeating The Block.

Bear with me...
And, by the by, yesterday's inspiring post was no.300!

Brevity

...won't be the soul of wit today, I'm afraid. My evening is being spent practising for my ECDL (European Computer Driving Licence) and by 'practicing' I mean 'learning'. Most of it has been fairly simple, but now I'm trying to learn about Access, which I've never used, and have no clear idea what it is.

Not much reading happening at the moment, either. Have four books on the go, none of them making much headway... it's very rare that I get 'readers' block', but that is what it feels like at the moment... Anyone else get this? Reading doesn't get anywhere, and you become amazed that you ever managed to read so many thousands of words on hundreds of pages... Very un-Stuck-in-a-Book, and not something I get often, but right now I'm not feeling at all bookish. Oh dear!

Remedies, please....

50 Books You Must Read But May Not Have Heard About

It's been a while since I added to the ongoing, no-particular-order list of 50 Books I think you'd love, but would be unlikely to see on 3 for 2 tables or even in bookshops at all. It's a list of potential gems, but also gives you a good idea of the sort of books most at home here at Stuck-in-a-Book.

Today's entrant was part of a Postal Book Group I'm in, where we pick a book and send it to the next person in the list. Every two months we post a book along, and at the end of the year get back our book with a notebook of comments. Fun, and provides such wonderful books as (drumroll, please) The Long Afternoon by Giles Waterfield. So, thank you Angela for bringing it to my attention.

The Long Afternoon (published in 2000) isn't a riveting title, is it, but does work on two levels - it is the long afternoon of Henry and Helen Williamson's marriage, in the long afternoon approaching the First World War, and between the wars, for the Brits too old to fight who took up residence on the Riviera. That is where this novel takes place - the first chapter opens in November 1912, in Lou Paradou, with Helen Williamson enthusiastically looking over a house with an estate agent.

Henry smiled so sweetly, and with such affection, and waved at her and left the carriage and called to her, "Jolly nice place, darling!" It was easy from this distance to communicate with someone below, however far they might seem. She called back, "Darling, I think it's lovely," and then, remembering the agent who though he said he did not speak English certainly must understand it, added, "I mean there are problems but it is very pleasant," and felt absurd for having used such a limiting English word. Not just pleasant but exquisite, sheltered, pure...

It is from this beautiful home, with a third person narration still suffused by Helen's uncertain personality, that we see the onset of the First World War and, later, the Second. The cracks show in the faux-English community on the Riviera, and the lives of soldiers overlap and challenge the Williamsons' luxury.

More subtly, The Long Afternoon is a psychological portrait of Helen Williamson - who spends one day a week in bed, for the sake of her nerves - and as the novel progresses we hear more and more from her children and their Scottish governess, throwing complicating light upon her presentation of herself.

Giles Waterfield's first novel is a gentle examination of large-scale tragedies and small-scale frailties - this is no simple dismissal of the indolent of the wars, but a beautiful and elegant portrayal of a very real couple in destructively surreal surroundings. The Long Afternoon is impossible not to admire, and difficult not to love.