Stuck in a Book

(In the spirit of yesterday's post, and to declare my upcoming brief absence):

2012-01-31T00:00:00.000Z

Adieu, adieu, I'm leaving you,
It's sad to say goodbye.
I'll still be stuck in books (of course)
I'm off to Hay-on-Wye!

Deadline Poet - Calvin Trillin

2012-01-30T00:00:00.000Z

When I wrote recently about his disengagement with poetry, and asked for your help (much appreciated!) I didn't expect my next dalliance with poetry to be something quite like Calvin Trillin's Deadline Poet. I have Thomas to thank for introducing me to Trillin, and Nancy to thank for mentioning Deadline Poet on this post back here. And now it has filled one of the tricky 1990s spots on A Century of Books.

Given my disinclination to read poetry, it was perhaps a surprising choice for me. Even more surprising is that it's about Trillin's time writing weekly 'doggerel' (his word) for The Nation about contemporary political figures. Contemporary being, in this case, the 1990s. Trillin always refers to his boss as 'the wily and parsimonious Victor S. Navasky', whose one condition for offering Trillin $100 a week for his verse was: "Don't tell any of the real poets you're getting that much." - "Your secret is safe with me," I assured him.

Now, I know nothing about politics in 1990s America. Indeed, I know nothing about politics in any place, at any time, up to and including 2012 Britain... Thankfully Deadline Poet isn't simply a collection of verse - Trillin knows that, if a week is a long time in politics, a year is an eternity. Light verse published in a newspaper necessarily relies upon topicality - so even those who know who Zoe Baird, Clarence Thomas, Robert Penn Warren etc. are (sorry, I don't) might not remember the intricacies of various campaigns and speeches. So Trillin prefaces his poems with explanations - or, rather, the poems occupy a lot of a journalist's memoir. The poetry and prose take up about equal amounts of page space, so it doesn't feel like a collection with notes, nor like a traditional memoir, but a really engaging and funny combination of the two.

And the poetry itself? Well, Trillin probably isn't being unduly bashful when he calls himself a doggerelist. There isn't a lot of it that would make Wordsworth uneasy. Scanning and syntax tend to fall below rhyming in Trillin's list of priorities (then again, that never did Tennyson any harm) and even there he prefers an abcb rhyme scheme, rather than abab, which is a little lazy - still, there is plenty of ingenious rhyming and wittiness throughout. Here's one I enjoyed. (I should add, I have no idea who Ross Perot is. I don't even know which is Republican and which is Democrat, since the words mean the same thing. So sorry if Perot is 'your' party... you probably know by now that I am not seeking to offend.)

The Ross Perot Guide to Answering Embarrassing Questions

When something in my history is found
Which contradicts the views that I propound,
Or shows that I am surely hardly who
I claim to be, here's what I usually do:

I lie
I simply, baldly falsify.
I look the fellow in the eye,
And cross my heart and hope to die -
And lie.

I don t apologize. Not me. Instead,
I say I never said the things I said
Nor did the things that people saw me do.
Confronted with some things they know are true,

I lie.
I offer them no alibi,
Nor say, "You oversimplify."
I just deny, deny, deny.
I lie.

I hate the weasel words some slickies use
To blur their pasts or muddy up their views.
Not me. I'm blunt. One thing that makes me great
Is that I'll never dodge nor obfuscate.

I'll lie.

I imagine those of you who were politically aware in the 1990s will enjoy Deadline Poet greatly (especially if you agree with Trillin's views, which I think are liberal). It is testament to Trillin's humour and drollery that even I, entirely ignorant, found Deadline Poet a really entertaining read. Perhaps it isn't quite how I saw myself engaging with poetry, and political verse certainly isn't an avenue I'll be exploring further, but as the memoir of a weekly journalist and light verse writer, I found it a whole heap o' fun.

Blindness by Henry Green

2012-01-28T12:38:00.000Z

Normal weekend posts are suspended, since I failed to write my review of Blindness (1926) during weekdays of Henry Green Reading Week (run by Stu) - indeed, I didn't finish reading the book until last night. But let's hope the weekend counts, and get on with the show! And it's going to be quite a long show, as I ended up having a lot to say about Mr. Green...

I decided to start with Blindness because it was Green's first novel, and I've never read an author chronologically before. Blindness was great, and so I'll be reading the rest of Green's novels chronologically... over the course of many years, I suspect. I wasn't sure I'd like him, based on excerpts I had seen around the blogosphere - perhaps he has to be read in context, rather than piecemeal? Perhaps the first novel is different from the others? I don't know, but I do know that this novel has left me keen to try more.

Blindness starts with the diary of John Haye, a privileged boy at a posh school. He is something of a dandy and an aesthete, pontificating on art and culture and how to best the boys who try to best him. He's not unpleasant, but nor is there much depth to his diary. Even though orphaned (with an attentive stepmother who has been 'Mamma' for nearly all his life) it seems that nothing of great emotional moment has ever affected his life. Here's a sample diary entry:

Bell's, across the way, have bought as many as seven hunting-horns. Each possessor blows it unceasingly, just when one wants to read. They don't do it all together, but take it in turns to keep up one forced note. Really, it might be Eton. They can only produce the one note during the whole day.

In addition to this trifling detail, it is "the thing to do" now to throw stones at me as I sit at my window. However, I have just called E.N. a "milch cow," and shall on the first opportunity call D.J.B. a "bovine goat," which generally relieves matter. These epithets have the real authentic Noat Art Society touch, haven't they?

Contrast that which the first paragraph of the second section. In between there is a brief letter, from B.G. to Seymour, which tells the reader what they have suspected from the title onwards: John has been blinded. I shan't tell you how (it's good to have some specifics left for the reading experience) but immediately we drop out of the self-conscious intimacy of John's diary, and into this paragraph:

Outside it was raining, and through the leaded window panes a grey light came and was lost in the room. The afternoon was passing wearily, and the soft sound of the rain, never faster, never slower, tired. A big bed in one corner of the room, opposite a chest of drawers, and on it a few books and a pot of false flowers. In the grate a weary fire, hissing spitefully when a drop of rain found its way down the chimney. Below the bed a yellow wardrobe over which large grain marks circled aimlessly, on which there was a full-length glass. Beyond, the door, green, as were the think embrasures of the two windows green, and the carpet, and the curtains.

The buoyancy has gone; the repeated word 'weary', and 'tired', drag the writing down with heaviness which doesn't need to be overstated. Green is excellent at conveying emotion through simple thoughts, allowing the reader to interpret the characters and their states of mind without giving too much overt direction.

John is at home, now, and the main characters change. They are too well written to be accurately described in brief, but I'll give a vague sketch. John's stepmother, Mamma, is of huntin'-shootin' stock, doesn't understand her arty stepson, but would (and does) do everything for his sake. Nanny has cared for him from infancy. And then there is Joan - the daughter of a local defrocked clergyman. She isn't particularly intelligent, although she has greater depth than her conversation suggests... and her relationship with John is as awkward as it is enlivening. This is John's thoughts after first meeting her:

Voices as become his great interest, voices that surrounded him, that came and went, that slipped from tone to tone, that hid to give away in hiding. There had been wonder in hers when he had groped into the room upon them both; she had said, "Look." But before she had opened her mouth he had known that there was someone new in the room.

Voices had been thickly round him for the past month, all kinds of them. Mamma extracted them from the neighbourhood, and all had sent out the first note of horror, and some had continued horrified and frightened, while others had grown sympathetic, and these were for the most part the fat voices of mothers, and some had been disgusted. She had been the first to be almost immediately at her ease, when she spoke it was with an eager note, and there were so few eager people.

It is an interesting coincidence that I am reading this so soon after reading Helen Keller's The World I Live In. Of course there are differences (not least fact and fiction) but, although I can't really know, I think Green writes a plausible narrative of dealing with sudden blindness. And it certainly gives Green restrictions which he approaches impressively: to use, from John's perspective, no visual descriptions. I jotted down a line which I thought summed up much of the novel, and later (because I always read introductions at the end) discovered that Jeremy Treblown had begun his with the same quotation:

It was so easy to see and so hard to feel what was going on, but it was the feeling that mattered.

That's a pretty good summary of any author's task. It's essentially 'show: don't tell', isn't it?

Many of the novelists I love from the interwar years have spent the subsequent decades hovering between 'canon' and 'non-canon'. The Leavises et al may not have welcomed them, but they have been reclaimed by later critics - or left out in the dust. Ivy Compton-Burnett, Elizabeth Taylor, Elizabeth von Arnim, E.M. Delafield... to my mind, von Arnim is every bit as good as Taylor, but the latter has risen in critical appreciation where the former has not. These seemingly arbitrary decisions can be found everywhere.

As for Green, he is a curious case. You'd be hard-pressed to find a literary critic who didn't think him significant - but equally hard-pressed to find one who'd bothered writing about him. His style is often compared to Woolf's or Joyce's (although I don't think those two authors should be grouped together) - what struck me is that Henry Green writes like James Joyce would if Joyce were a lot less arrogant, and more concerned with making his prose enjoyable as well as experimental. There are several pages from Nan's perspective, meandering hither and thither, reminiscing and wondering, that Joyce would have given his back teeth to be able to write.

Does Henry use stream-of-consciousness? Yes, I suppose he does. But whereas Woolf (whom I love) incorporates beautiful imagery and stylistic wanderings like waves on a shore, Green does the opposite. He never uses a word or a metaphor that the character wouldn't speak aloud. It is beautiful, but it is resolutely simple. And thus probably incredibly difficult to write - especially for a 21 year old. Yes, Green was 21 when he finished this novel - and at school when he started it. Sickening, isn't it?

Blindness isn't just from John's perspective, though. In fact, the perspective is a bit like a butterfly - flying about, settling for a few paragraphs on one person, then moving onto another - dipping in and out of people's minds, and giving their thoughts, feelings, and worries in an honest, perceptive manner. Green builds character so well, from the inside out. Nobody is considered too insignificant for this treatment - the reader hears from the nurse, the cook, even a cockerel, alongside the principal cast. If that feels dizzying, don't worry, it is not - simplicity always remains Green's mantra. Sometimes this flitting between different consciousnesses does, though, create intriguing uncertainties. Take this excerpt, during a conversation between John and Joan - Joan is speaking:

"Yes, an' there's the chicks that get lost in the grass, I love them, an' there's a starling that nests every year in the chimney, and my own mouse which plays about in my room at night, an'..."

G-d, the boredom of this.

"... but sometimes I hate it all."

With my apparent knack for pre-empting Jeremy Treglown's introduction, he also quotes this section - although unambiguously attributing the mental interjection to John. That's certainly the most likely reading, but I like the ambiguity that Green does incorporate. It could easily be Joan's thought (it would certainly match the other thoughts we've heard from her in this scene) or even a shared moment of bored despair - connecting mentally where they do not connect verbally.

I daresay I have delighted you long enough, so I will conclude. Blindness is such an interesting novel, written so well. As a first novel by a very young man, it demonstrates astonishingly maturity; I'm very excited about reading his later works. This wouldn't be a great choice for those who prize plot above character and style, but for anyone who likes the idea of modernism, but struggles to enjoy it in practice, Henry Green's style (on the basis of Blindness, at least) is perfect for you.

Do head on over to Stu's blog to see what he and others have read during Henry Green Reading Week. And thanks, Stu, for giving me the incentive finally to read up my Greens!

Bent Objects - Terry Border

2012-01-27T00:00:00.000Z

I don't think I've ever mentioned a funny little book I once bought for my housemate, and which I flicked through the other day with renewed amusement - it's Bent Objects by Terry Border. Border has his own blog here, and is rather ingenious - he takes everyday objects, often food, and uses wire etc. to make them seem animate. He doesn't actually animate them, but does give them life - through seemingly simple construction and brilliant placement. I love him. What reminded me of the book was the ereader/book debate, and this image:

Here's another of my favourites:

It's a great silly book, and there are a few others in the series, I believe. It's not the right time of year to mention stocking fillers, but... oh well, any time of year is good for a laugh, isn't it?

The World I Live In - Helen Keller

2012-01-26T00:00:00.000Z

I was trying to remember who told me about The World I Live In (1908) by Helen Keller, when I realised that none of you did. This joins Yellow by Janni Visman and Alva & Irva by Edward Carey (both wonderful novels) in being a book I happened upon at work in the Bodleian, and decided to buy for myself. And, like them, it turned out to be a good reading experience - although rather different.

I had heard of Helen Keller, of course, although I must confess to having thought her British rather than American. For those who don't know the name, Keller lived from 1880-1968 and at 19 months' old had an illness which left her completely blind and deaf. She spent seven years with barely any proper communication with others; she describes it as a period during which she was not alive - then, when Keller was seven, 20-year old Anne Sullivan became her teacher. With Sullivan's patient assistance, Keller used hand-spelling to communicate, and became rather more eloquent than most other young women. She wrote The Story of My Life in 1903, which I have not read; the essays collected within The World I Live In were written during Keller's twenties, and make for fascinating reading - and certainly not for some sort of novelty value, but because Keller is, in her own right, incredibly intelligent, something of a philosopher, and entirely an optimist. Indeed, the NYRB Classics edition I have includes Optimism: an essay written in 1903, which includes this excerpt:

I, too, can work, and because I love to labour with my head and my hands, I am an optimist in spite of all. I used to think I should be thwarted in my desire to do something useful. But I have found out that though the ways in which I can make myself useful are few, yet the work open to me is endless. The gladdest labourer in the vineyard may be a cripple. Even should the others outstrip him, yet the vineyard ripens in the sun each year, and the full clusters weigh into his hand. Darwin could work only half an hour at a time; yet in many diligent half-hours he laid anew the foundations of philosophy. I long to accomplish a great and noble task; but it is my chief duty and joy to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. It is my service to think how I can best fulfil the demands that each day makes upon me, and to rejoice that others can do what I cannot.

When I say that Keller's worth as an author is not merely as a novelty, I mean that she should not be patronised, nor her writing viewed as some sort of scientific experiment. She is too good and perceptive a writer for that. But, of course, Keller offers a different understanding and interaction with the world than most writers would. The sections I found most fascinating were towards the beginning, where Keller writes about hands. She divides this into three sections: 'The Seeing Hand' (how she uses touch as her primary sense); 'The Hands of Others' (how hands reveal character), and 'The Hands of the Race' (where the explores hands in history and culture.) Her perspective is not entirely unique, I daresay, but I certainly haven't encountered documented elsewhere, nor can I imagine it done more sensitively, or with such a good-humoured demeanour:

It is interesting to observe the differences in the hands of people. They show all kinds of vitality, energy, stillness, and cordiality. I never realised how living the hand is until I saw those chill plaster images in Mr. Hutton's collection of casts. The hand I know in life has the fullness of blood in its veins, and is elastic with spirit.
[...]
I read that a face is strong, gentle; that it is full of patience, of intellect; that it is fine, sweet, noble, beautiful. Have I not the same right to use these words in describing what I feel as you have in describing what you see? They express truly what I feel in the hand. I am seldom conscious of physical qualities, and I do not remember whether the fingers of a hand are short or long, or the skin is moist or dry. [...] Any description I might give would fail to make you acquainted with a friendly hand which my fingers have often folded about, and which my affection translates to my memory.

As I say, it is these early sections which I found most captivating; similarly, the essay on smell gave a wonderful insight. I hope it is obvious that I intend no offence when I say it reminded me of Flush by Virginia Woolf, where the dog's primary sense is smell, and the world is focalised through this perspective. Keller does not feel that her experience of life is any less full than anybody else's - the senses of touch, smell, and taste give her a vivid comprehension of the world and, what is more, a deep appreciation of it:

Between my experiences and the experiences of others there is no gulf of mute space which I may not bridge. For I have endlessly varied, instructive contacts with all the world, with life, with the atmosphere whose radiant activity enfolds us all. The thrilling energy of the all-encasing air is warm and rapturous. Heat-waves and sound-waves play upon my face in infinite variety and combination, until I am able to surmise what must be the myriad sounds that my senseless ears have not heard.

I have to confess that the second broader section of The World I Live In left me cold. In it, she describes - at length - her dreams, since it is often 'assumed that my dreams should have peculiar interest for the man of science.' Well, perhaps they do. But I am allergic to people describing their dreams, it is utter anaethema to me (as my housemates now know!) and I skipped past this section. If you have a greater tolerance for dream-descriptions than I do, perhaps it is just as interesting as the first section.

The final parts of the book were added from elsewhere, for the NYRB edition: the optimism essay, mentioned above, and 'My Story', written when she was 12, and quite astonishingly mature for that age - let alone for a girl who had only learnt language from the age of seven.

That is what astounds me most about Helen Keller's book: that someone who came late to language should progress in it so quickly and maturely. Regardless of the reasons why she could not speak, read, or listen, the fact that she had seven years without language, overcame this, and wrote so beautifully and intelligently - well, it's astonishing. Keller is wise, sensitive, generous, and philosophically fascinating. I'm grateful to NYRB for bringing The World I Live In back into print in 2003, and would recommend this to anybody interested in intelligent, lovely writing. Here's a wonderfully insightful paragraph from Keller to finish:

It is more difficult to teach ignorance to think than to teach an intelligent blind man to see the grandeur of Niagara. I have walked with people whose eyes are full of light, but who see nothing in wood, sea, or sky, nothing in city streets, nothing in books. What a witless masquerade is this seeing! It were better far to sail forever in the night of blindness, with sense and feeling and mind, than to be thus content with the mere act of seeing. They have the sunset, the morning skies, the purple of distant hills, yet their souls voyage through this enchanted world with a barren state.

Another book to get Stuck into:

Halfway to Venus by Sarah Anderton
If this were in a thesaurus it would be listed under 'antonym' rather than 'synonym' - Anderton had one arm amputated early in life, and Halfway to Venus is a very interesting book that combines memoir with an overview of the absence of hands in art, religion, literature, and history. As such, it makes a fascinating comparison with Keller's writing on the primacy of hands in the same.

Donkeys!

2012-01-25T00:00:00.000Z

I started writing a book review (1908 ticked off the list, if that's any clue) when I realised I was far too tired. So, instead, here's a picture of a donkey! I dragged my friend Dave to a local donkey sanctuary last Saturday - it's the third time I've been. After cats, donkeys are my favourite animals, and I could (and do) spend hours stroking them and informing them that they are handsome.

Maybe it's no surprise that Eeyore is my favourite character in Winnie-the-Pooh?

But I shan't just show you that gorgeous donkey. I shall pre-empt my Weekend Miscellany and point you in the direction of two very brilliant blog reviews which have been posted lately. Claire is just as enthusiastic as I am, maybe more, about The Element of Lavishness: Letters of William Maxwell and Sylvia Townsend Warner, and Darlene writes a really beautiful, personal post about Nicola Beauman's excellent book A Very Great Profession.

Hope you're all well - tomorrow's another late night, so might be a couple of days before I get to grips with reviewing the 1908 book. If you fancy guessing, it's non-fiction, and the author's initials are HK...

Oh, hello again, Miss Hargreaves!

2012-01-24T00:00:00.000Z

I've been reading Mr. Allenby Loses The Way by Frank Baker, author of my much-loved Miss Hargreaves, and I've even been able to call it work - hopefully it'll be useful for the chapter I'm writing at the moment. It's about a man who is given five wishes by a fairy... but nowhere near as twee as that sounds. Anyway, this isn't a review of the novel (not least because I've only read the first 50 pages) but something else entirely. I was merrily reading along, when I came across this seemingly incidental piece of dialogue:

"All snatches of overheard conversation have something of interest in them. I once listened to an elderly lady who travelled with me in the same carriage from Bath to Cornford, telling her neighbour about a creature called 'Agatha.' But who, or what, was Agatha? I never discovered; I never wanted to discover."

Does that mean anything to you?

Perhaps, even probably, not. You haven't read Miss Hargreaves six times; you don't love its every word with the passion that I do. But maybe you do remember that it was set in Cornford; that Miss Hargreaves arrived on a train from Bath; that Norman made up Agatha and was told she was "sinking", without ever knowing what sort of animal/person Agatha was...

Sorry if that was gibberish for those of you who haven't read Miss Hargreaves (if you haven't, I'll want to know a VERY good reason why you haven't). But I can't tell you how thrilled I was to see her mentioned in this novel, published six years after Miss Hargreaves. It's my favourite novel, and she is my favourite of all characters - any small sign that she broke out of the bounds of her book delights me. It was so unexpected, and a treat for those with keen eyes and a good memory. Or, y'know, a borderline obsession with Miss H.

Have you ever come across this? A character slipping outside their book and popping up in another? Not in a series, that's no surprise, but a brief waft past, like this - a little gift from the author to the observant reader. Hmm?

Maestro by Peter Goldsworthy

2012-01-23T00:00:00.000Z

I wasn't intending to join in Australian Literature Month, because I didn't have any unread Australian novels, nor did any of the suggested titles fill me with longing. I'm trying to be sensible with money this academic year, since I'm no longer funded, and (believe it or not) I'm even being more circumspect when it comes to book purchases! (Keep that in your mind when you read the following...)

I bought Maestro (1989) by Peter Goldsworthy because I liked the colour of the spine. Ok, that's not quite true - it was the minty-turquoisey colour which made me take it off the shelf; when I discovered that it was Australian, and sounded interesting, I decided it was worth £2 of my money. I'm glad I did - not just because I get to join in with Kim et al, but because it was rather good.

Although it's Australian - written by an Australian, set in 1967 Darwin, Australia (the location of choice for characters leaving Neighbours, incidentally, if they're not going to London) - much of the impetus is tied to Europe. Eduard Keller is a Viennese refugee who teaches piano to fifteen year old Paul Crabbe (already an experienced pianist) whose family have recently moved from South Australia to the dry heat of Darwin. Except Keller doesn't teach piano in any traditional sense - he forbids Paul to use the piano for the first few weeks, instead instructing him in the importance of each individual finger...

Keller waggled a forefinger in front of my nose. It was our second lesson? Our third?

"This finger is selfish. Greedy. A... a delinquent. He will steal from his four friends, cheat, lie."

He sheathed the forefinger in his closed fist as if it were the fleshy blade of a Swiss army knife and released the middle finger.

"Mr. goody-goody," he said, banging the finger down on middle C repeatedly. "Teacher's pet. Does what he is told. Our best student."

Last came the ring finger.

"Likes to follow his best friend," he told me. "Likes to... lean on him sometimes."

He lifted his elbows upwards and outwards.

"Those are the pupils. This is the teacher. The elbow..."

I have an ambivalent relationship with novels about music. I enjoyed The Well-Tempered Clavier by William Coles (although I was glad that Maestro didn't follow it down the Notes on a Scandal-esque path, not least because of the sixty year gap between Keller and Paul, but also because it's not a very original course to take.) I loved The Piano Shop on the Left Bank by Thad Carhart, which is non-fiction. But novels leave me cold when they rely upon the ethos that music is the highest of all forms. I played the piano from the age of seven onwards, and although I later became friends with my piano teacher (the lady who first told me of Miss Hargreaves) and eventually grew to like playing the piano, for many years I passionately hated it. The best feeling in the world (and my brother agrees with me) was when you rang the doorbell for a piano lesson... and the teacher didn't answer! The worst feeling was when you thought the piano teacher wasn't going to answer, and then, after a long gap... she did. So, anyway, this has given me an odd relationship with stories about learning instruments, and my dislike of elitism comes into play with musical maestros.

I'm sure it's possible to be a musical expert without being arrogant and rude, of course, but Keller is not one of these. He is one of the most rude, supercilious characters I've ever encountered - but he is battling his own demons, and the love and respect Paul feels towards Keller are contagious. Even so, I found it arrogant rather than inspiring when he said things like this:

"Perhaps you could play one of the exam pieces, Paul," my father suggested. "A private concert for the three of us."

"The Brahms?"

"The Beethoven," Keller injected, "might be preferable."

I played Beethoven that night as well as I had ever played, and turned afterwards, smiling, ready for praise.

"Beautiful," my mother breathed. "Don't you agree, Herr Keller?"

"An excellent forgery," he said.

"I'm sorry?"

"Technically perfect," he said.

He drained his wineglass before continuing. It was to be his longest monologue of the evening:

"At such moments I always remember a forged painting I once saw. Each violent brushstroke was reproduced was painstaking, non-violent care. The forgery must have taken many many times longer than the original to complete. It was technically better than the original."

He rose from his chair and walked a little unsteadily towards the door: "And yet something was missing. Not much - but something."

At the door he paused, and turned: "And that small something may as well have been everything."

I find music snobbery intensely irritating - no, that's not quite true, I feel desperately sorry for people who are only content with perfection, in any field. Doubtless it is a form of discernment, but if your discernment reaches the level that you castigate and despise almost everything you encounter, you're setting yourself up for a miserable time.

But Keller is miserable for other reasons... it gradually becomes clear that he was more involved in the Second World War than he originally admits. I shan't give the game away, although it isn't a big twist and doesn't come as much of a surprise to the reader. If you're rolling your eyes at yet another long-shadow-of-war novel, then don't. It's only one element in the interesting construction of the interaction between Keller and Paul - which is the really interesting central focus of Maestro. Their relationship isn't romantic or fatherly or even particularly close. Keller resists any sort of emotional connection, and Paul is far too full of youthful insensitivity to do anything but blunder into conversations in which he is too immature to participate, even if Keller were willing. But what Goldsworthy builds between Keller and the Crabbes is still somehow beautiful. The connection between people who never open up to one another; the legacies left behind a relationship which could not even be called a friendship. Goldsworthy has done this beautifully.

One of the things I'm realising, doing A Century of Books and stepping further outside the interwar period, where I am happiest, is the way a decade colours each novel, even without the author intentionally following the zeitgeist. A bit like people who claim not to follow fashion, until they look back at old photographs and see how much they were unwittingly influenced by the style of the day. So Maestro is filtered through the lens of the 1980s, whether Goldsworthy likes it or not. I certainly wouldn't read that people 'made slow, muffled, reckless love' in the pages of an Elizabeth von Arnim novel, for instance. Indeed, the whole coming-of-age storyline (although much less irritating in Maestro than it is in some book) is very 1980s, and rather incidental to the main thrust of the novel - but perhaps it's main purpose is to demonstrate that Keller does not completely occupy Paul's thoughts. He is not obsessed by Keller, but their relationship will alter a great deal in his life.

Maestro is a difficult little book to write about - it is wise, original, and rather beautiful. I would love it a great deal more if someone could translate it into the sensitivities of the 1940s, say, but of course that cannot be done. It reminded me a bit of Hallucinating Foucault by Patricia Duncker and Virginia by Jens Christian Grondahl, but I'm hard-pressed to say quite why - the influence of genius, for the former? The lifelong effects of a brief connection, for the latter? Perhaps, truth be told, Maestro isn't quite like anything else I've read before, but does bring together themes and traits I've seen in many other authors, writing both before and after Goldsworthy.

As for whether it's a representative Australian novel - well, of course there's no such thing. Goldsworthy conveyed the heat of Darwin very well, but aside from that... I'll have to see which other novels are picked up across the blogs during what's left of Australian Literature Month. Thanks, Kim, for indirectly encouraging to find, buy, and enjoy a novel I would otherwise have left in the shop. And thanks for helping fill 1989 in A Century of Books!

Song for a Sunday

2012-01-22T00:00:00.000Z

Happy Sunday, everyone!

Let's go old school today, with a bit of Kate Bush and her wonderful song 'Running Up That Hill'.

A quick plea...

2012-01-21T11:49:00.001Z

Does anyone have access to US magazine Time online archives? There's an article I want to read - the July 28th 1930 review of The Love Child, to be precise - but I can only see the first two lines without paying a big subscription. Chuh. So if anyone had access to it and wanted to send me the review in full, you'd have my eternal appreciation...

(Sorry there was no Weekend Miscellany... long day yesterday. Get ready for Australian Literature Month AND Henry Green Reading Week colliding next week. I've read one for the former, and started one for the latter...)

Adrian Mole

2012-01-19T00:00:00.000Z

It's the 30th anniversary of Adrian Mole today - can you believe it? - and the good people of Penguin offered me their new editions of all the books. Knowing that my brother Colin is an Adrian fan, I thought I'd suggest him as a more suited recipient. They sent off a set, and he wrote me a fab review. Whenever I feature other people's posts I want to say COMMENT, COMMENT, MAKE THEM FEEL WELCOME! The new comment system may scupper this, but if it does, go and say hello on Facebook(!) Over to you, Col.

It is 30 years since Adrian Mole leapt into the national consciousness from the pen of Sue Townsend, and to mark the occasion Penguin are re-issuing all eight volumes of the Mole saga.

Eight volumes? Really? The first surprise to many readers who loved Adrian in the seminal The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 ¾ - even the title is funny – and perhaps Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years, which was televised for the BBC, is that Townsend has been quite so prolific in writing about her best-loved creation. If for nothing else, then, this re-issue is a fine reminder that there was life after high school for the poet of Ashby-de-la-Zouch.

Adrian Mole is, to my mind, one of the finest comic creations in English literature. The diary format is perfect for exposing his lack of self-awareness, utterly delusional nature and inability to understand the world around him (a trick played many years before in The Diary of a Nobody) but, like many of the finest comic characters, we cannot help but empathise with him and hope that maybe, this time, he’ll get it right. Maybe Pandora, the woman Adrian is pathetically in love with for the majority of the series, will return his affections; maybe one of his literary efforts (Longing for Wolverhampton; Lo! The Flat Hills of My Homeland; Plague!) will get the respect it so richly doesn’t deserve; maybe his parents will cease to be a constant source of embarrassment and anguish. But then again, of course, maybe not.

As a teenager, Adrian Mole has a few themes that he returns to with unabated zeal: how much he loves Pandora (“Pandora’s father is a milkman! I have gone off her a bit”); his manifold sufferings (“I will be a latchkey kid, whatever that is”) and, unfailingly, the fact that he is an intellectual (“I have written to Malcolm Muggeridge, c/o the BBC, asking him what to do about being an intellectual”; “I am an intellectual but at the same time I am not very clever”). Then, of course, there is the Norwegian Leather Industry, knowledge of which – based on his score in a single school test – Adrian carries around with him like Bertie Wooster with his Scripture Knowledge prize. Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction begins with a reference to meeting Tony Blair at a 1999 conference on the topic.

When the series begins, Mole is – of course – 13 ¾, and by the final volume (so far; Townsend’s only comment about the future is her hope that Adrian go “onward, ever onward”) he is 40 and a grandfather, and it is a great tribute to the series that the child is still recognisable in the adult. From the first few pages of book one you could tell that he is the kind of person who would engage in a lengthy correspondence about the existence of WMDs, simply in order to get a refund on his travel expenses. Some of his traits are diminished a little by time: Mole no longer has such a heightened view of his importance in the world, and is not so blithely unaware of his surroundings as he once was. This is all to the good; a teenager whose reaction to Animal Farm is to ponder becoming a vet (later amended to boycotting bacon) is amusing; a grown man – and father to children from various different mothers – showing such vapidity would just be sad. Townsend is obviously fond of her hero, and he is not designed to be simply a figure of fun; it is genuinely touching when, in Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years, ‘The Top Secret Diary of Glenn Mole (13)’ begins “When I grow up I want to be my dad.”

As well as being an excellent character study over thirty years, the Adrian Mole series always has its finger on the political pulse, starting under Margaret Thatcher (“I was looking at our world map. I couldn’t find the Falkland Islands anywhere. My mother found them; they were hidden under a crumb of fruitcake”) and self-evident in The Weapons of Mass Destruction. Just the unlikely fact that Adrian’s only published work (actually ghost-written by his mother) is ‘Offally Good! – The Book!’, the companion to his TV cooking show, is an indictment of celebrity culture in Tony Blair’s Britain. Of course, the most overtly political entry in the Mole canon is The Secret Diary of Margaret Hilda Roberts Aged 14 ¼, which forms part of True Confessions of Adrian Mole.

As the series develops, so do the cast of characters in Adrian’s life (helpfully detailed in the back of these editions). Pandora becomes a prominent MP; school bully Barry Kent becomes a successful poet; Adrian’s best friend Nigel becomes a blind, gay, Buddhist van driver (though not necessarily all at the same time). Townsend also introduces a host of new characters, including the excellently-drawn Flowers family, one of whom becomes Mrs Daisy Mole in Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction. It is at this point that Adrian Mole lays down his pen, saying that “Happy people don’t keep a diary”, only to pick it up again in Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years (the title taken from the fact that Adrian has problems with his prostate and, true to his nature, is chiefly annoyed by people pronouncing the word with an extraneous ‘r’) to record the fact that “it is two months and nineteen days since I made love to my wife, Daisy”. In the Q&A accompanying this new edition of the books, Townsend says that her favourite book in the series is The Prostrate Years, because she herself had suffered serious health problems and wanted to tackle the subject in a comic manner. I applaud the sentiment, but I must confess that I wish she hadn’t gone down the path she chose; while Adrian’s pursuit of Pandora was always amusing for its hopelessness, his relationship with Daisy appeared to be the true romance of the series, and its collapse was unfortunate. I would rank the first two and the penultimate books as the highlights of the series, but the central character is so strong that I re-read them all with enjoyment.

So that’s the books themselves: what about this re-issue in particular? I feel sorry for Roderick Mills, who was tasked with designing the new covers, because the original cover (the bathroom mirror with a shaving kit and Noddy toothbrush, beautifully demonstrating the dichotomies inherent within a youth becoming a man) is rightly iconic – something that is tacitly admitted by including it on the inside cover of the new Secret Diary. The designer opted for pastel shades for each book in the series, which strikes me as a little odd given that I would normally associate the colour scheme (though not the overall effect, I admit) with chick-lit. Perhaps it is an attempt to emphasise that Adrian Mole can be read and enjoyed by men and women of all ages, and is not the preserve of teenage boys, even given that David Walliams’ foreword to The Secret Diary (in which he finds space to name-check his own book for children) says “boys who were proud to say they had never read a book in their life read this one”.

The new editions also include a Q&A with Sue Townsend, Adrian Mole’s CV and literary CV, the Mole story, a roll call of principal characters and the first chapter of Townsend’s new book (this last I must confess I haven’t read, but having read The Queen and I and Rebuilding Coventry, I can assert that her skill with her pen isn’t limited to residents of Leicestershire). This is a generous set of add-ons, many of which help to give a sense of continuity to the chronicles of Adrian’s surprisingly eventful life and the array of characters who enter and exit it.

When asked if she regards Adrian Mole as a millstone round her neck, Townsend was emphatic in her response: “authors who complain about the success of their most well-known characters are fools”. If she chooses to continue his run, I won’t be complaining either.

Oh frabjous day!

2012-01-18T18:04:00.002Z

Over my blogging years (nearly five!) I have spent hours trying to add features that Blogger didn't offer. It took me an age to add a third column (now available as standard); I spent a long time adding a search box (now available as standard), but the area I've spent the most fruitless hours is in trying to add inline comments. And it never worked properly.

Until now! Blogger have FINALLY done something about it, after years and years of blogspot-users begging them to do so. I spotted on Lyn's blog that she could reply to comments, and she kindly pointed out where I could do it. Hurrah! Hurray! (The page wouldn't load, naturally, but I looked at a cached version through Google.)

Now, of course, this is Blogger... so it might not work. (If it doesn't, tell me via Facebook or email...) I had to move comments down to be imbedded, rather than a separate window, which has caused all manner of drama before... but this time I'm hoping it'll be fine. No longer will I have to reply to your lovely comments in lengthy boxes far below the initial comment.

Thanks, Blogger. All is forgiven.

Firefox... Schmirefox, more like.

2012-01-17T00:00:00.000Z

I don't know about you, but my Firefox is being awful. It crashes every five minutes, which would be really bad in a car, and is also pretty bad (though not as bad) in a whatever-you-call-internetty-things. Umm... wow. Sometimes I pretend to be more Luddite than I am, in the curious belief that it makes me seem endearing, but right now I can't remember what you call IE, Firefox, etc. Hmm. This must be how computer geeks feel when they can't remember if it's 'Jane Austen' or 'Jane Austin'. That's the sort of question which keeps Bill Gates awake at night, I imagine.

So, anyway, I've switched to Google Chrome, and I'm desperately trying to remember all the passwords that Firefox had kindly (and probably unsecurely) been memorising for me. Nymeth helped me over Twitter to put in a bookmarks toolbar and, in lieu of anything else bookish to say tonight, I thought I'd show you a screenshot of my bookmarks. You might well have to enlarge it somehow... If your blog isn't there, it's not because I don't love you... it's because I love these guys more (heehee!)

Actually, I've already added someone since I took this screenshot. So... it's probably you ;)

Oh, I did have one book-related thing to say. I've got hold of an Australian novel! I'll be joining in Australian Literature Month! Are you?

Time Importuned - Sylvia Townsend Warner; or, Why Do Poetry and I Not Get Along, Wherein our Reader Struggles With Verse

2012-01-16T00:00:00.000Z

Well, I can tick off 1928 on A Century of Books, because on Saturday I read Time Importuned by Sylvia Townsend Warner. This volume of poetry was published two years after Lolly Willowes, an excellent novel about which I'll soon be writing a chapter of my thesis - but which I only wrote about very briefly on SiaB. I intended to write another post last year, when I reread it. I worry that, if I tried, I would end up writing ten thousand words... well, perhaps I'll give it a go one day, since the review I wrote doesn't do it justice.

Anyway, I read Time Importuned hoping that there would be something useful to include in that chapter (which, incidentally, there was) but I can't say I've converted to a poetry lover. This isn't going to be a proper review, because I don't really know how to write blog posts about poetry. I can analyse them in a doing-an-English-degree sort of way, and I used to quite enjoy doing that, but blogs are chiefly about reading for pleasure. The activities of the student are not those of the ardent reader - I enjoy both aspects, but they are distinct in my head. You don't want to know what I think of Warner's use of syntax. You might want to know whether or not I enjoyed reading Time Importuned - and the truth is, I don't know.

Some poetry I hate. If it doesn't make sense to me on three readings, I'm not interested. If the poet name-drops all manner of classical mythology, I raise my eyebrows; if they name-drop 21st century technology, I raise them still more (these were both frequent crimes in the Magdalen poetry society I occasionally visited.)

Some poetry I enjoy. But mostly comic verse, or things which are probably considered doggerel by those in the know (does Longfellow fall into this category? Does Walter de la Mare?)

Oddly enough, I enjoy writing poetry - but I'm under no illusion that it's very good, and I do it entirely for my own amusement or catharsis, as case may be. Since I rarely read poetry, I feel wholly unqualified to write it, and a little ashamed that I have the audacity to put pen to paper...

Something like Time Importuned... I just don't know. The topics covered tend towards hopeless love and countryside matters, often combined, and with an atmosphere almost as though they are old wives' tales, passed down in small villages for many years. Which was nice, but I did end up reading the poems mostly as though they were paragraphs of prose laid out in an unorthodox manner. Perhaps that is a valid way of reading poetry... but perhaps it also misses a lot? I don't know how else to benefit from verse. I deliberately slow myself down, by mouthing the words (I'm quite a fast reader of prose, in a manner which loses poems completely) but I still can't imagine reading a volume of poetry for pleasure. It's not that I need prose, because often I read plays for pleasure - and that's more or less as unusual a trait as poetry-adoration, so I'm led to understand.

Well, I'm going to type out a couple of the poems which I did quite enjoy, although I am far from the ideal reader for them. Poetry washes by me, enchanting others who dip in their toes, and merely splashing me slightly. So, before I get to some excerpts, I have a question... which poet/poetry would you recommend to the prose lover? How would you go about converting me to the possibilities of poetry?

Over to Warner...

The Tree Unleaved

Day after day melts by, so hushed is the season,
So crystal the mornings are, the evenings so wrapped in haze,
That we do not notice the passage of the days ;
But coming in at the gate to-night I looked up for some reason,
And saw overhead Time's theft ;
For behold, not a leaf was left on the tree near by.

So it may chance, the passage of days abetting
My heedless assumption of life, my hands so careless to hold,
That glancing round I shall find myself grown old,
Forgotten my hopes and schemes, my friends forgotten and forgetting ;
But all I can think of now
Is the pattern of leafless boughs on the windless sky.

Walking and Singing at Night

Darkened the hedge, and dimmed the wold,
We sang then as we trudged along.
The heart grown hot, the heart grown cold,
Are simple things in a song.

The lover comes, the lover goes,
On the same drooping interval,
Easy as from the ripened rose
The loosened petals fall.

Between one stanza and the next
A heart's unprospered hopes are sighed
To death as lovely and unvexed
As 'twere a swan that died.

Alas, my dear, Farewell's a word
Pleasant to sing but ill to say,
And Hope a vermin that dies hard ;
As you will find, one day.

Song for a Sunday

2012-01-15T00:00:00.000Z

Happy Sunday, everyone. The cake was nice, thanks, although we had run out of icing sugar - so I couldn't have it at work. Instead, I had it whilst watching Miranda on DVD. Chocolate cake with orange butter cream filling mmmmmmm....

Anyway, almost as nice as cake is this song from Rebecca Ferguson, 'Nothing's Real But Love'. If you live in the UK you might have heard of Lovely Rebecca (as she's known in my head) from the X Factor - a lot of people judge singers from these sorts of shows without hearing them. So... have a listen! She has a lovely, soulful voice. Over to you, Lovely Rebecca...

Stuck-in-a-Book's Weekend Miscellany

2012-01-14T00:00:00.000Z

I started a new part-time job this week (still as a librarian, but this time in a Special Collections reading room, so the materials are suddenly much more fragile and valuable!) and I'm pretty tired. Back to work today (Saturday) but with the not-very-valuable books instead... and mostly reshelving. Such is the ignominy of being a library dogsbody! Still, I made a chocolate cake this evening, so at least I'll have something delicious in my lunch, though I says it as shouldn't.

I seem to have wandered away from the book/blog post/link format of my Weekend Miscellanies of late, but that's because each week seems to be bursting at the seams with goodies. But I'll try to remember to keep all three in somewhere...

1.) For those of you who can't get enough of me here (ahem) you can read some of my writing somewhere else this week! My review of Leonard and Virginia Woolf, The Hogarth Press, and the Networks of Modernism (phew) ed. Helen Southworth is in the CILIP Rare Books Newsletter. Have a gander here (it's in Issue 91) if you fancy it. In summary, it's a good book! And my review starts by quoting E.M. Delafield.

2.) Linda Gillard's A Lifetime Burning is a very good, strange, wonderful book. I said that, in a few more words, back in a rather speedy review here. It's now available on Kindle here at the ridiculously cheap price of 88p. It's not the most comfortable read ever, but it is Linda's masterpiece. Twenty-six reviews on Amazon; all five-star - that's got to mean something.

3.) Peirene's Short Story Month competition (PeiShoStoMo), which I mentioned here, is done and dusted. Lots of congrats to Rose Rankin-Gee and her great story 'London', which you can read here.

4.) Some other lovely bloggers are joining in A Century of Books: see what Fleur Fisher, Read the Book, Geranium Cat and Harriet Devine have planned, and let me know if you post your own plans on your blog. (Sorry if you've already told me and I forgot!)

5.) I keep linking to Claire's reviews, but she keeps reviewing wonderful books wonderfully well! I can't believe another blogger has read Miss Elizabeth Bennet by A.A. Milne - read Claire's lovely review here. My plan for people to read and love AAM's obscure adult plays/sketches/novels/essays is finally coming to fruition! He wrote so, so much, I could fill up a third of A Century of Books with Milne alone...

6.) Finally, I was delighted with Slightly Foxed sent me the latest of their Slightly Foxed Editions: it's Dodie Smith's autobiography Look Back With Love. One of her autobiographies, I should say, since I think she penned a fair few. I've been wanting to read this for a while, since I love I Capture the Castle, and this beautiful edition is perfect. I hope to get onto it soon, but for now - more info is here.

"Books are like people..."

2012-01-13T00:00:00.000Z

Last quotation from Stop What You're Doing And Read This!, promise. Well, there definitely won't be more than one after this, anyway. Probably. Back to Mark Haddon's wonderful essay, definitely the jewel in this crown, and more book thoughts which both strike a chord and make me think more deeply about my reading. I seem to have run out of bookish paintings very quickly, so instead here is a musical painting by one of my favourite artists: it's Raoul Dufy's Tribute to Mozart.

"What I didn't yet understand was the importance of taste and timing. Books are like people. Some look deceptively attractive from a distance, some deceptively unappealing; some are easy company, some demand hard work that isn't guaranteed to pay off. Some become friends and stay friends for life. Some change in our absence - or perhaps it's we who change in theirs - and we meet up again only to find that we don't get along any more, an experience that I had when I returned to both Gravity's Rainbow and Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City. Unlike people, one can at least dump them or hand them to a friend without causing offence or feeling guilt. Indeed, we forget sometimes that a vital part of loving literature is hating certain books and certain writers, just as hating Spurs is an important part of supporting Arsenal; and the embarrassing truth is that I have probably got far more satisfaction out of trying to persuade friends that The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a tawdry piece of misogynistic torture porn than I have out of discussing the reasons why Wolf Hall is a masterpiece."

--Mark Haddon, 'The Right Words in the Right Order'

Stop What You're Doing And Read This!

The Poisonwood Bible: other views

2012-01-12T00:00:00.000Z

I meant to include links to other bloggers' views yesterday, but I was too tired by the time I finished exploring my own! So today's post is a little addendum to yesterday's...

The world, it seems, is filled with bloggers who have written about The Poisonwood Bible. I've just picked some of the bloggers I already know and love. If you have an insatiable appetite for reviews, I recommend you check out Fyrefly's wonderful blog search engine. It's invaluable!

"The writing was exquisitely well balanced, the story was absorbing and the Congo was portrayed as though it were another character rather than merely a place." - Old English Rose

"It's a story about religious beliefs, a story of the disintegration of a family, and a story about forgiveness." - Bibliophile by the Sea

"Recommended to anyone with the patience to read a long, slow novel." - Jackie, Farm Lane Books

"The Poisonwood Bible is a brilliant, heartfelt and passionate love letter to Africa and the problems it faces. Kingsolver manages to combine a family saga, a political treatise and a love story into a wonderful book." - Sakura, Chasing Bawa

"The setting is all-important in The Poisonwood Bible. The Congo is as much as character as any of the Prices." - Curious Book Fans

"But then, after all of that emotion, everything petered out and the book just kept going." - Eva, A Striped Armchair

"It’s a book that has stuck long in my memory, maybe because it paints such a remarkable picture based on reality and truth." - Margaret, Books Please

The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver

2012-01-11T00:00:00.000Z

Well, I finished The Poisonwood Bible (1998) with a couple of hours to spare before book group... and, having worked out what I think about it, I am ready to write my review. It's quite difficult to formulate my thoughts on this novel, because these thoughts do not all lean in the same direction. Reviews feel like they should be unified, and that's rather tricky when I have both positive and negative responses to a book. So... bear with me. I'll bear with you bearing with me. Hopefully by the end of the page we'll understand one another, no?

First things first, The Poisonwood Bible ought to be about 200 pages shorter. I don't mean that careful and judicious editing throughout is needed, to compress the narrative (although this wouldn't be a bad idea) - I mean that it should have ended on p.427. There are 616 pages in the edition I read (rather more than the supposed 350 page upper-limit of book group choices) and there shouldn't be. I am astonished that any editor let Kingsolver keep going for those final 189 pages. It was self-indulgent and unnecessary. But, now I've got that off my chest, I can return to the review proper. It gets more positive soon, promise.

The Poisonwood Bible follows the Price family from 1959 to the 1990s - Nathan is a Baptist minister from Georgia (the US state, not the country), and has brought his wife Orleanna and daughters Rachel, Leah, Adah, and Ruth May to the Congo. They are there as missionaries, but all is not going to go entirely to plan... to say the least. This is the basic premise of Kingsolver's novel - and from such a simple idea, she weaves a long and complex novel. Complex in terms of emotions, interactions, and gradual self-discovery, that is. Not a lot really happens. (Another reason why The Poisonwood Bible is difficult to write about. Honestly, Barb!)

Five voices make up the narrative, each in the first person. Orleanna Price speaks briefly at the beginning of each section - which are named after Biblical (and Apocryphal) books - Genesis, The Revelation, The Judges, Bel and the Serpent, Exodus. She speaks wearily, always in retrospect, and keeps her cards close to her chest. Doubtless this is partly so plot points aren't revealed too early, and her melancholy ambiguity includes one momentous hint which kept me gripped and guessing for hundreds of pages.

But it is the four daughters who are the mainstay of the novel. The narrative is passed between them, and Kingsolver constructs their four voices brilliantly, distinctly, and consistently. Her fellow American novelist, Marilynne Robinson, hugely impressed me with Gilead because of her ability to 'capture' a voice - and while Kingsolver has a rather different slant on a minister, she certainly writes beautifully for his daughters. Since they are so thoroughly depicted, it's difficult to summarise their characters - but, broadly speaking, I'll try.

Rachel is the eldest, a white-blonde ingenue whose Malapropisms ('never the train shall meet') and simple, unimaginative nature are initially endearing, but eventually rather concerning. She never loses the all-American slang expressions she brings with her to Congo, and I rather liked her indefatigable sassiness, even if it is accompanied with a lack of cultural awareness.

Leah and Adah are twins - Leah desperately seeks the approval of her father, and carries with her the guilt that, in the womb, she 'caused' Adah's disability. Adah limps badly, and almost never speaks. She also has a fascination with seeing things backgrounds, and especially palindromes. Silent to others, her narration reveals her cynicism and bitterness, but also her humour.

Ruth May, finally, is the youngest - and the simplest. Not in terms of intelligence, but in the simple, contented way she adapts to her surroundings, making friends amongst the neighbours, and doing her best to understand her father's teaching in their new environment.

For Kingsolver is not subtle about the clash of cultures. Here, the welcome party for the Prices is interrupted by Nathan:

"Reverend and Mrs. Price and your children!" cried the younger man in the yellow shirt. "You are welcome to our feast. Today we have killed a goat to celebrate your coming. Soon your bellies will be full with our fufu pili-pili."

At that, why, the half-naked women behind him just burst out clapping and cheering, as if they could no longer confine their enthusiasm for a dead goat.[...]"Nakedness," Father repeated, "and darkness of the soul! For we shall destroy this place where the loud clamour of the sinners is waxen great before the face of the Lord!"

No one sang or cheered anymore. Whether or not they understood the meaning of 'loud clamour,' they didn't dare be making one now. They did not even breathe, or so it seemed. Father can get a good deal across with just his tone of voice, believe you me.

This is, firstly, a great example of Kingsolver's exceptional ability to convey individuals' voices through minor verbal tics. Perhaps it isn't clear from just this excerpt, but only Rachel's narrative would have that 'why' in the second paragraph; only Rachel would finish 'believe you me'. If Adah's sections have the most obvious stylistic identifications, the others are subtly tied to their narratives too. That is the greatest strength of The Poisonwood Bible, and the strength that encourages me to read more by Barbara Kingsolver - the ability to create a character's voice.

Which makes it all the more frustrating that, in Nathan Price, she has done nothing of the kind. The women of The Poisonwood Bible are drawn so well, so cleverly. And, in the midst of them all, is Nathan. He never comes alive, he is scarcely more than a Bad Man Who Does Bad Things. His motivations aren't addressed, he has no depth whatsoever - it is a shambolic waste of an opportunity. I don't think it's simply my Christianity (and the fact that I know a lovely, hard-working, deeply loving missionary in D.R. Congo) that makes me feel this - others at book group certainly agreed. Nathan is angry, selfish, insensitive, violent... it was when he started hitting his children that my eyes rolled so much that I felt a little dizzy. Doubtless there are other novels where one meets ogres - Barbara Comyns' The Vet's Daughter, for example, or any novel by Dickens - but in those books they are in the midst of the surreal and exaggerated. Nathan Price is not, and, though all his attributes are individually believable, as a composite, without any redeeming features, they are not. It is such a pity that Kingsolver allowed herself this laziness. Had she made Nathan a character, rather than a two-dimensional face of Wicked Colonialism, The Poisonwood Bible would have been more interesting. Then again, perhaps she just wanted Nathan as a catalyst to explore the reactions of the female characters? That's the most charitable conclusion I can draw.

As I said before, very little happens. We see the daughters try to adjust to their situation - their interactions with neighbours, who are variously kind or antagonistic and endlessly curious - and the gradually altering politics of Congo. Pages and pages go by without anything particularly occurring, but they are somehow engaging. Ruth May introduces 'Mother May I' to local infants; Rachel's hair is a spectacle to all; Adah is presumed eaten by a lion (but is not); Leah grows more and more interested in the teacher Anatole... mostly Kingsolver attempts the miracle of winding a narrative through emotions and thoughts without hanging them on events - and she succeeds. It is beautiful writing. It is also nigh-on impossible to review. There is one odd thing... usually I jot down resonant or stand-out quotations whilst I read, or excerpts I think will help structure a blog post. For The Poisonwood Bible, I wrote down nothing. Kingsolver's writing is all even and constant - it all weaves into one.

But, as I noted at the top, something very weird happens. The Prices' time in the Congo comes to an abrupt, tragic end. And then, p.427, they leave. After that it is as though it were another novel. We follow the various daughters at occasional intervals for another couple of decades. It is tedious and politically heavy-handed. The points Kingsolver had previously shown through her story are now told through dialogue. Show, don't tell, Barb. All the unsubtlety in her portrayal of Nathan sweeps across the others. I still can't believe that a novel can peter out quite like this one did.

So, there you are. A confusing review, I daresay, but also a confusing read. At its best, The Poisonwood Bible is phenomenally good. Barbara Kingsolver is obviously an exceptionally talented writer. The Bean Trees, which I read years ago, is also testament to this. But at its best, The Poisonwood Bible is lazy, clumsy, unsubtle and poorly edited. Overall I will say that Kingsolver's talents outweigh her occasional mismanagement of them, but it is always a shame when a novel could have been great (and, to be fair, a lot of people do consider it great) but, to my mind, failed to reach its potential.

"Memory is talismanic."

2012-01-09T00:00:00.000Z

I'm on the home straight with The Poisonwood Bible, so expect a report on that later in the week. For today, as the publishing date of Stop What You're Doing And Read This! draws ever nearer, I shall tantalise you with another excerpt - this time from Jeanette Winterson. Today's painting is Carl Larsson's 'Woman Reading'. [EDIT: Pat, thanks for reminding me that the book is Radio 4's Book of the Week this week!]

"A medium other than the book could not achieve the effect of this book [The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd] nearly so well. A book lets you follow a writer's mind. Reading does not move in linear time in the way that a movie or even a radio piece does. Of course there is a beginning, a middle and an end, but in 'good' books that is irrelevant. We don't remember the books that have mattered to us by the chronology of their story-telling, but by the impression and effect of the story and of the language used to tell it. Memory is talismanic. We hold on to what we need and let the rest go. Just as in our lives events separated in time sit side by side in memory, so the effect of a book is to let us live nearer to total time than linear time allows."

-- Jeanette Winterson, 'A Bed. A Book. A Mountain.'

Stop What You're Doing And Read This!

Song for a Sunday

2012-01-08T00:00:00.000Z

And now the first Sunday Song of 2012! But before we get to that, something I forgot to post in my Weekend Miscellany. Katie posted the following on the SiaB Facebook page, and I drew a blank, but perhaps you can help?

In my early twenties I read a book that referred to a family as "The Gannets" because this family loved to eat, go on picnics with copious ampunts of elaborately prepared food and enjoyed every moment, including the last lick of their fingertips. The family were all rotund. I think the book was written by a British writer and I read the book in 1980ish. It would be super fun to reconnect with it. I recently travelled to New Zealand and watched the gannets as they enthusiastically torpedoed into the water to catch their dinner - this reminded me of the book and I laughed all over again thinking of that family.

So... can you help?

Now over to Richard Hawley and his simply beautiful, gentle song 'For Your Lover, Give Some Time'. Happy Sunday!

Stuck-in-a-Book's Weekend Miscellany

2012-01-07T00:00:00.000Z

It's the first Weekend Miscellany of 2012, and I hope you've got a pen and paper to hand, because there's all sorts going on...

1.) Firstly - I do love a surprise book through the post! Christmas was surprisingly low on bookish gifts (my parents and brother tried, bless 'em, but ended up giving me the same book... oops!) so it was a total and unexpected delight to get What There Is To Say We Have Said: The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and William Maxwell. It came from lovely Heather, who knew that I adored the letters of Maxwell and Sylvia Townsend Warner (well, it's no secret) and thought I'd love these too. I always forget that I've read a novel by Welty (The Ponder Heart) because I don't remember anything about it, but it's definitely time I revisited her - and I'm thrilled to have this collection! I tend to read books of letters very gradually, so it could be an age before this appears again on SiaB, but it certainly will do at some point.

2.) You won't have missed my enthused posts about Stop What You're Doing And Read This - well, the day is drawing ever closer when you can go and get your hands on a copy. Even better than that, you can attend a launch party! Mark Haddon (who wrote the best essay in the book) and Michael Rosen, along with people from the wonderful Reading Agency, will be discussing reading on Monday 23rd January, 7pm, at Canada Water Library. It's free, but you have to book - which you can do here. The book also has its own blog, now: here.

3.) Increasingly, I get emails from publishers or authors saying "I don't know if you have an e-reader, but..." Well, as you probably know, I don't. But I'm happy to be an enabler, and so wanted to mention that Macmillan created Bello, their imprint of e-book reprints. I'm all for access to neglected gems, even if only electronically, and so I'll point you in the direction of their website. They've wisely started off with a select few authors - Gerald Durrell, Eva Ibbotson, Frances Durbridge etc. - and, most excitingly to my mind, Vita Sackville-West. The Heir, one of the titles they're doing, is one of the loveliest novellas I've read, and I heartily recommend that that's where you start.

4.) If you've somehow missed Kim's Australian Literature Month, you're already a week behind guys! See what Kim has to say about it, and have fun. I've hunted through my tbr shelves for an Australian author without luck, so... not sure if I'll be joining in, but I'll certainly be cheering from the sidelines.

5.) Don't forget - Stu's Henry Green Reading Week is coming up super soon. You've got about a fortnight to get prepared...

6.) There have been so many wonderful reviews around the blogosphere since I last drew your attention to some. Of course there have, there always are! But I will send you off to read what Claire had to say about Rose Macaulay's Crewe Train, what Tanya had to say about E.H. Young's Miss Mole and E.F. Benson's Secret Lives, and what Jane had to say about G.E. Stern's Ten Days of Christmas. I'll even point you in the direction of Darlene's thoughts on my much-beloved The Slaves of Solitude, even though I don't agree with her. That's new year benificence for you.

Frankenstein and The Love Child

2012-01-06T00:00:00.000Z

I'm very much enjoying your many and varied reading challenges/aspirations for 2012, do keep them coming!

Today I just wanted to share an amusing coincidence that I came across whilst preparing for my thesis. I've just started writing up my latest chapter (I make enormously detailed plans - this chapter had an 18,000 word plan - and then build them into proper paragraphs) and it includes a little bit on Frankenstein. Quite a few of you will probably be familiar with Mary Shelley's account of how the inspiration for Frankenstein came to her, courtesy of the 1831 Preface she wrote to her 1817 novel:

When I placed my head on my pillow, I did not sleep, nor could I be said to think. My imagination, unbidden, possessed and guided me, gifting the successive images that arose in my mind with a vividness far beyond the usual bounds of reverie. I saw—with shut eyes, but acute mental vision, —I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. […] On the morrow I announced that I had thought of a story. I began that day with the words, It was on a dreary night of November, making only a transcript of the grim terrors of my waking dream.

At first I thought but of a few pages of a short tale; but Shelley urged me to develope [sic] the idea at greater length.

Well, having read that, check out what Edith Olivier wrote about The Love Child in her autobiography Without Knowing Mr. Walkley:

Ten or eleven years ago I woke up in the middle of the night with the idea of a story in my head. I had not thought of it before that moment, but it struck me as being a very good subject, and I immediately sat up and scribbled away for three or four hours. I thought at first that it would be finished in one chapter, but when I began to write I found that it was going to be a much bigger thing than that. Before morning I had finished two chapters of The Love Child – my first book. […] I was sleeping badly at that time and I wrote practically the whole of that first book during those feverish wakeful hours when the body is weary but the mind seems to let loose to work abnormally quickly. I have often thought that in wakeful nights one is quite another person to one’s ordinary everyday self. One ceases to be human and becomes a tangle of the super-human and the sub-human.

Curiously similar, no?

Just thought that might be of interest... well, it beats telling you about all the sheep puns my friend Clare and I made up today. Actually, that sounds equally interesting, now...

Reading Projects 2012

2012-01-05T00:00:00.000Z

A Century of Books, and my regular blogging, has hit rather an obstacle - in the form of doorstopper The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. I'm not going to be finished any time soon, and a lovely New Year's Cold is putting paid to late nights.

So I'm handing over to you to do my job for me today (ta!) - what are your reading projects for 2012?

They might be group challenges, or tasks you've set in stone for yourself, or they might be vaguer hopes for your reading this year. Perhaps you want to read more non-fiction, or older books, or... well, you fill in the gap!

As for me, alongside/within A Century of Books, I'm hoping to read more literature in translation, and more poetry. Since I've read two or three books of poetry in the past five years, reading more shouldn't be difficult...

Is there any single book you're determined to read by the end of 2012? For me, if I don't finish Eye of the World by Robert Jordan, lent to me by Colin years ago, I'll be pretty disappointed... I'm about 600 pages in. And I started it nearly two years ago.

Book Society Review of Provincial Lady in Wartime

2012-01-03T00:00:00.000Z

Every now and then I like to share contemporary reviews of much-loved books, and this review of The Provincial Lady in Wartime from a 1940 copy of the Book Society News looked like something you might all enjoy. I like to make Stuck-in-a-Book have something of a scrap-book feel... and this is a fun way to do it! Over to Edmund Blunden, and his review:

‘This is one of the occasions where expectation has been busy, and is to be abundantly rewarded. Is the Provincial Lady as entertaining as ever? There is no doubt of it. Whatever else may be said about the past few months on the home front, they have been satisfactorily productive of the kind of conservations [sic] and encounters and minor comedies and tragedies which Ms. Delafield’s humour delights in. From September onwards her quiet satire plays upon the worthies of village and town, and the experiences which have befallen (it may be) a good many of those who have been endeavouring to give their services to their country in the Emergency.

The Provincial Lady succeeded in the end, but it was a queer time until the official mind decided to make use of her talents; and meanwhile she had been filling her sketch-book with studies of Aunt Blanche, Our Vicar’s Wife, poor Mrs. Winter-Gammon (who claimed to have been, during the last war, a favourite of Lord Kitchener), the Blowfields, the mysterious but incompetent Monsieur Gitnik, and lots besides who will be seen to have flourished at this period. There they are, doing so in her books, to be our recreation now and the discovery of future readers when the war has receded. Let us hope to look back in some measure of serenity later on, and remind ourselves through these social pages that such were the themes, the rumours, the people of the second half of 1939; that there was a lighter side.

And, apart from all that the future will want to know about us, let all those who have recoiled from recent interviews with a sense of injustice – vague, burning or blatant – see how the Provincial Lady made them thoroughly enjoyable, and say, content with the artistic revenge, “Here’s my comfort”. But sometimes a truly doleful note is struck, which may sound really like the horrors of war. “An attractive pamphlet,” says Lady Blowfield, desirous of directing the literary energies of the Provincial Lady, “on the subject of Root Vegetables might do a lot just now.”

Then there is a Commandant who “lives in description” here so fiercely that some of us may be grateful for past mercies; but presumably the successful conduct of a canteen depends on such displays of energy and dictatorship as the Provincial Lady records with such unheroic candour. Or does it? There are signs of instability about this dictatorship by the fifth week of the War, and the Provincial Lady, when last engaged, appears to be winning the war of nerves. But she finds other people who would be sufficiently difficult to disturb: the old lady, for instance, who arrives at Coxton Hall with a protest. “She was paying a visit in Scotland when National Registration took place and her host and hostess registered her without her knowledge or permission. This resulted in her being issued with a ration book. She does not wish for a ration book. She didn’t ask for one, and won’t have one.”

But, naturally, this is a book of countless touches of the kind, and it is clear that the time we have just been living through was one particularly likely to offer Ms. Delafield the “minor calamaties of life” which she presents so easily and wittily. I can scarcely think that The Provincial Lady in Wartime will fail of a big welcome even while we move from day to day under the vast gloom and insistent injuries of this war. We may as well make the best of all the opportunities for cheerfulness and the pleasantly absurd while we can; and so, here is a first-class opportunity.’

Jane Austen by Margaret Kennedy

2012-01-02T00:00:00.000Z

One day in, and the first book for A Century of Books is completed. Truth be told, I read the first two-thirds in 2011, but spent this afternoon finishing it off. It's a bit of a cheat, because although it was published 1950, it's one of those not-very-of-its-time books - being Jane Austen by Margaret Kennedy.

I was sorting through my books in Somerset and found a paper bag filled with books from my aunt, which she was either lending or giving to me back in 2004 (Jacq - which was it?!) and discovered this book in it. I've yet to read anything by Margaret Kennedy (despite getting a lovely copy of Together and Apart for Christmas) and I had no idea that she'd written a book about Jane Austen. Being in the mood for a little quirky non-fiction, I picked it up and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Apparently it was the first in a series called The English Novelists, and it is part-biography, part-criticism. In fact, it's mostly an assessment of Austen's various novels - written by an unashamed fan, but one who is not incapable of pointing out what she believes to be areas for improvement. Her views are unusual - how many of us would call Mansfield Park 'the most important of the novels, the most ambitious in theme, and the best example of her powers'? - but it's a good look through the eyes of an perceptive reader of the 1950s, to see how Austen was estimated sixty years ago.

Jane Austen is scarcely more than a hundred pages long, but Kennedy packs a lot in, with precise organisation. In fifteen pages she covers 'The Background'; a wonderfully informative summary of the novels which preceded Austen's. Then Kennedy covers 'The Life' in fourteen pages, thereby providing as good an overview as you're likely to encounter in many books ten times that length. It is a more modern phenomenon to elaborate where details are not known, or invent suppositions where discretion is more flattering. Austen's momentary engagement, for example, is not mentioned. Was it not known in 1950?

The next sections onto 'The Letters', which are often held up simply as an example of the biographer's disappointment. Kennedy is no different:

To search through these letters for any trace of the novels is a most disheartening task. It is not merely that the books themselves are scarcely ever mentioned; there is so little trace of the material from which the books were made. We feel as some archaeologist might, who comes upon some large and promising mass of fragments buried under a lost city once famous for its art, and finds that they are all shards of coarse kitchen ware; that every trace of sculpture, urns, tiles, tablets and inscriptions has been scrupulously removed. It is with gratitude that we identify a few cooking pots. There is a Moor Park apricot tree at Chawton; we remember one at Mansfield Parsonage. Isabella Thorpe advised Catherine Morland to read The Midnight Bell; here is Mr. Austen reading it at an inn.

I do not entirely agree with this estimation of Austen's extant letters, but I love the image Kennedy devises. I also love the sensitive way she explores the difference between Austen's early and later letters. Like everything else in Kennedy's book, it's a speedy but excellent summary and assessment.

And then the chapters for which I was waiting. 'The Novels - First Period' and 'The Novels - Second Period'; 'Some Criticisms' and 'Jane Austen's Place in Literature'. It's no secret that I love Austen's novels, and I especially like reading about her novels - an area understandably skirted around by those with a strictly biographical outlook. In these, Kennedy gives quick outlines of the novels, before delivering her own verdict - always admiring, but never gushing. She knows Austen's characters as well as her own friends and family - watching their actions, carefully considering their qualities, and understanding the work of the author all the while.

At twenty-one she has served her term. She knows what she wants to say. She has discovered how to say it. First Impressions, afterwards called Pride and Prejudice, is written with all the fresh exhilaration of that discovery. It has faults which are to disappear in the later books, but never again is she to write with quite the same vitality and high spirits as she does in this first spring of her powers. They give it a quality which makes very many of her readers choose it as their favourite.

We are told that it was extensively polished, corrected and revised between 1796 and 1813, when it was published. But its great merit must have been inherent in the first draft, since characters spring to life at once or never, and truth is one of the things which cannot be "put in afterwards."

I'm not sure I agree with this somewhat whimsical statement, but I would very much like to. However, what makes Kennedy's analysis of the novels so worth reading is her own status as a novelist. She writes of the characters with an authorial eye; she critiques their well-roundedness or believability with the voice of one who has striven at the same tasks and encountered the same obstacles. I especially liked her imagined scenario of Austen considering Jane Fairfax as a heroine, and being gradually swayed to focus instead upon Emma Woodhouse.

In the final sections of the book, Kennedy considers views of Jane Austen from her death onwards, and is especially good on Charlotte Bronte's notorious bad-mouthing of Austen (without getting as vicious and biting as I would.) I'm once again amazed that Kennedy can write so economically - covering such ground in so few words.

I cannot think of a better person to write a book like this. Being both a novelist and an Austen addict, she has both the authority and the affection to write a book which is knowledgeable and perceptive, but never cold or detached. Anybody who could write the following wins my approval:

Kitty is better managed; her complete insignificance is so well relieved by the untimeliness of her coughing fits.

Austen isn't lacking in admirers and there is no shortage of words written about her. A slim 1950 hardback will probably get lost amidst the Tomalins, Jenkins, Le Fayes etc. - but I would definitely encourage you to seek it out. As a reader and a writer, Kennedy has written a beautiful little book which is a stone's-throw away from an appreciation - but with an authorial acumen which prevents it being the enthused ravings of someone like me, who, without Kennedy's restraint, would doubtless fill all 107 pages with the single sentence I LOVE YOU, JANE AUSTEN, I FLIPPIN' LOVE YOU.

A Century of Books has got off to a good start!

A Century of Books

2012-01-01T00:00:00.000Z

1900
1901
1902
1903
1904
1905
1906
1907
1908 - The World I Live In by Helen Keller
1909
1910
1911
1912
1913
1914
1915
1916
1917
1918
1919
1920
1921
1922
1923
1924
1925
1926 - Blindness by Henry Green
1927
1928 - Time Importuned by Sylvia Townsend Warner
1929
1930
1931
1932
1933
1934
1935
1936
1937
1938
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950 - Jane Austen by Margaret Kennedy
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989 - Maestro by Peter Goldsworthy
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994 - Deadline Poet by Calvin Trillin
1996
1997
1998 - The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
1999

Books Read 2011

2011-12-31T00:00:00.000Z

(an 'x' indicates a re-read - thanks, David, for pointing out that I'd forgotten to mention this!)

1. Howards End - E.M. Forster
2. And Furthermore - Judi Dench and John Miller
3. The English - Jeremy Paxman
4. The Skin Chairs - Barbara Comyns
5. Bonjour Tristesse - Francoise Sagan
6. Personal Pleasures - Rose Macaulay
7. A Kind Man - Susan Hill
8. Gay Life - E.M. Delafield
9. William - E.H. Young
10. Gilead - Marilynne Robinson
11. The Machine Stops/The Celestial Omnibus - E.M. Forster
12. At Large and At Small - Anne Fadiman
13. To Tell My Story - Irene Vanbrugh
14. Saplings - Noel Streatfeild
15. The Gingerbread Woman - Jennifer Johnston
16. A House in the Country - Jocelyn Playfair
17. Echo - Violet Trefusis
18. People on a Bridge - Wislawa Szymborska
19. As We Are Now - May Sarton
20. Love of Seven Dolls - Paul Gallico
21. Not to Disturb - Muriel Spark
22. The Return of the Native - Thomas Hardy
23. The Perfect Pest - Adiran Porter
24. Mr. Chartwell - Rebecca Hunt
25. Countess Under the Stairs - Eva Ibbotson
26. The Caravaners - Elizabeth von Arnim
27. Broderie Anglaise - Violet Trefusis
28. The Thought-Reading Machine - Andre Maurois
29. Freakonomics - Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
30. Going Postal - Terry Pratchett
31. The Unbearable Bassington - Saki
32. Virginia - Jens Christian Grondahl
33. A View From Downshire Hill -Elizabeth Jenkins
34. A Truth Universally Acknowledged - (ed.) Susannah Carson
35. Illyrian Spring - Ann Bridge
36. Jennie - Paul Gallico
x37. Mr. Pim Passes By - A.A. Milne
38. Life Among the Savages - Shirley Jackson
39. How Can You Bear To Be Human? - Nicolas Bentley
40. Fingersmith - Sarah Waters
41. The Slaves of Solitude - Patrick Hamilton
42. The Lady and the Little Fox Fur - Violette Leduc
43. The Lottery and other stories - Shirley Jackson
x44. The Love-Child - Edith Olivier
x45. I Capture the Castle - Dodie Smith
x46. Lady Into Fox - David Garnett
x47. The Taming of the Shrew - William Shakespeare
x48. Lolly Willowes - Sylvia Townsend Warner
49. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
50. The Element of Lavishness - William Maxwell and Sylvia Townsend Warner
51. The Triumphant Footman - Edith Olivier
52. The Town in Bloom - Dodie Smith
53. Lipstick - Lady Kitty Vincent
54. Sylvia & David - the letters of Sylvia Townsend Warner and David Garnett
55. Gin & Ginger - Lady Kitty Vincent
56. Dearest Jean - Rose Macaulay
57. Hotel du Lac - Anita Brookner
58. A Fairy Leapt Upon My Knee - Bea Howe
59. People Who Say Goodbye - P.Y. Betts
60. Shaving Through the Blitz - G.W. Stonier
61. Exercises in Style - Raymond Queneau
62. Memento Mori - Muriel Spark
63. Red Pottage - Mary Cholmondeley
64. Westwood - Stella Gibbons
65. One Day - David Nicholls
66. Live Alone and Like It - Marjorie Hillis
67. Without Knowing Mr. Walkley - Edith Olivier
68. The Tiny Wife - Andrew Kaufman
69. Prison to Praise - Merlin Carothers
70. Safety Pins - Christopher Morley
71. A Baker's Dozen - Llewelyn Powys
72. The Earth Hums in B Flat - Mari Strachan
73. The Misses Mallett - E.H. Young
x74. Still-William - Richmal Crompton
75. Common or Garden Crime - Sheila Pim
76. Christopher and Columbus - Elizabeth von Arnim
77. Our Hearts Were Young and Gay - Cornelia Otis Skinner and Emily Kimborough
78. The Love Affairs of a Bibliomania - Eugene Field
79. The Invention of Morel - Adolfo Bioy Casares
x80. William the Good - Richmal Crompton
81. Singled Out - Virginia Nicholson
82. Two Serious Ladies - Jane Bowles
83. Appius and Virginia - G.E. Trevelyan
x84. The Backward Shadow - Lynne Reid Banks
x85. The L-Shaped Room - Lynne Reid Banks
86. Living Alone - Stella Benson
87. Night Thoughts of a Country Landlady - Edith Olivier
88. Here's How - Virginia Graham
x89. The Venetian Glass Nephew - Elinor Wylie
x90. Two Is Lonely - Lynne Reid Banks
91. The Pearl - John Steinbeck
92. The Man Who Was Thursday - G.K. Chesterton
93. So Long, See You Tomorrow - William Maxwell
94. Up At The Villa - W. Somerset Maugham
95. The Double - Fyodor Dostoevsky
96. The Amorous Bicycle - Mary Essex
97. Wasted Womanhood - Charlotte Cowdroy
x98. Miss Hargreaves - Frank Baker
99. The House - Richmal Crompton
100. Let Not The Waves of the Sea - Simon Stephenson
101. A Streetcar Named Desire - Tennesse Williams
102. Nella Last's Peace - Nella Last
103. A Covenant With Death - Stephen Baker
104. Stop What You're Doing and Read This - various
105. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
106. Eats, Shoots and Leaves - Lynne Truss

"When we lose ourselves in a book..."

2011-12-29T21:19:00.003Z

I don't think I'm going to do a traditional review of the lovely bookish essay collection Stop What You're Doing And Read This! - I'm just going to continue quoting pieces from it now and then, because there are so many wonderful little snippets from it. And I'll try to find nice paintings of readers to accompany them (and do my best not just to copy Harriet's!) The first post was here; today's comes from author Nicholas Carr (and the painting is anonymous, unsold at a 2010 auction):

"It is only when we leave behind the incessant busyness of our lives in society that we open ourselves to literature's transformative emotional power. That doesn't mean that reading is antisocial. The central subject of literature is society, and when we lose ourselves in a book we often receive an education in the subtleties and vagaries of human relations. Several studies have shown that reading tends to make us more empathetic, more alert to the inner lives of others. The reader withdraws in order to connect more deeply."

--Nicholas Carr, 'The Dreams of Readers'

Stop What You're Doing And Read This!

End of Year Meme

2011-12-28T00:00:00.000Z

Tonight I shall be doing a little variation the meme I've done for the last few years - which has been developed and expanded by various other bloggers - and getting a bit more specific. But quite a few of the same questions will reappear... (In case you missed my Top 15 Books of 2011, click here.) First, here's the books and authors I read this year, in a pretty word cloud:

Number of books read:
Only 106, which is the fewest for quite a few years, and doesn't bode too well for my A Century of Books project... still, it's not a bad number. (I wonder how many I bought?)

Male/Female authors ratio:
36 by men, 65 by women, and 5 by both male and female authors.

Fiction and non-fiction ratio:
28 non-fiction, 77 fiction, and one volume of poetry which could be either.

Number of re-reads:
13 - including five in a row at the beginning of June - but it was late April before I re-read anything.

Shortest book title:
Echo by Violet Trefusis

Oldest book read:
A re-read of The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare - but, the Bard aside, it is Mr. Dosteovsky and his 1846 The Double.

Newest book read:
Is, by the miracle of advance review copies, not published til 2012: Stop What You're Doing and Read This.

Books in translation:
Ten - which came under the names of Francoise Sagan, Violet Trefusis (x2), Wislawa Szymborska, Andre Maurois, Jens Christian Grondahl, Violette Leduc, Raymond Queneau, Adolfo Bioy Carlos, and Fyodor Dostoevsky. So, thank you Irene Ash, Sian Miles, Adam Czerniawski, James Whitall, Anne Born, Derek Coltman, Barbara Wright, Ruth L.C. Simms, and Constance Garnett for your translations!

Most books read by a single author:
4 by Edith Olivier; 3 by Richmal Crompon; 3 by Lynne Reid Banks.

Best non-blog recommendation:
Rhona, from my online book group, told me about my favourite book of the year, Patrick Hamilton's The Slaves of Solitude.

Best blog recommendation:
Thank you to Rachel for encouraging me to read Gilead, finally.

Most unexpectedly good book:
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, which I thought I'd hate.

Most unexpectedly bad book:
For some reason I was certain I'd love Violette Leduc's The Lady and the Little Fox Fur, based on the title, blurb, etc. But, sadly... I didn't. And then there was Hotel du Lac, which has put me off Anita Brookner for life.

Generally vilest book:
Wasted Womanhood by Charlotte Cowdroy. 1930s book about single, childless women. Made me want to go back in time and thwack her around her unkind head with her unkind book.

On the other hand:
Live Alone and Like It by Marjorie Hillis, also from the interwar period and about much the same thing, was a thousand times nicer.

Best oh-I-didn't-realise-you-wrote-other-good-books moment:
Who knew Stella Gibbons could write something like Westwood? Very good, not remotely like Cold Comfort Farm.

Worst oh-I-wish-I'd-stopped-with-the-previous-book moment:
I thought I'd cracked Thomas Hardy last year. And I drudged my way through The Return of the Native.

The book which looked like it would be brilliant, but ended up having too many twists:
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters. Halfway, I thought it was book of the year. And then the carpet was pulled from under my feet so often that I must have started on a pile a metre high.

I had no clue what was going on:
I love Muriel Spark, but Not To Disturb was incredibly confusing.

Favourite character encountered this year:
If we're excluding a re-read of Miss Hargreaves (and we'd better) then it's got to be a late-comer to my 2011 reads: lovely Joe Gargery in Great Expectations.

Title nearest the beginning of the alphabet:
Articles not included, it's the wonderfully-titled The Amorous Bicycle by Mary Essex.

Title nearest the end of the alphabet:
Step forward, Without Knowing Mr. Walkley by Edith Olivier.

Misnomer of the year:
Jocelyn Playfair's A House in the Country does, strictly, include a house in the country, but if you're expecting a gentle tale of a summer garden party, you'll be surprised. I was very pleasantly surprised. (Yes, The Earth Hums in B Flat by Mari Strachan is also possibly a misnomer.)

Title where I learnt a new word:
Red Pottage by Mary Cholmondeley. Well, I say 'learnt', but I can't remember what it means.

Books with anthropomorphic animals:
Mr. Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt; Lady Into Fox by David Garnett (re-read); Jennie by Paul Gallico.

Other assorted supernatural/fantastic things which happened in novels this year (ask if you want to know the books!):
A man could miraculously heal people; a machine transcribes people's thoughts; a post-office filled with millions of letters is guarded by clay golems; a woman became a witch; a captured fairy helped unite an estranged couple; death started phoning the elderly; a wife kept shrinking; an ape learnt to talk; a man built his nephew from glass; a house tormented its occupents; a clerk encountered his doppelganger. Oh, and Miss Hargreaves came along, of course.

Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

2011-12-26T00:00:00.000Z

Doctor Who is on downstairs, and since I am both (a) not a fan of Doctor Who, and (b) a coward, I am sitting in my room and writing a blog post about Great Expectations. There is something of a link, though, since people in Britain will be able to watch an adaptation of Great Expectations on 27th December - I'm looking forward to it, even with Dickens adaptations being, in general, not so great. What makes Dickens so brilliant, to my mind, is the way he writes the narrative, and the pacing of the dialogue - which is usually lost on television, for some reason. More on that later...

I actually started Great Expectations over a year ago - I held off reading it too quickly in the final days of December 2010 lest it unsettle my Top Books of 2010... and yet, the year whirled by, and I finished it after having compiled my Top Books of 2011. It might have been on there. Now we'll never know...

What can I possibly say about Great Expectations (1861) and Charles Dickens? I suspect the outline of the plot is known to most of us - Pip looks back on his life, starting with a graveyard encounter with a terrifying convict... Miss Havisham... Estella... Jaggers... and Bob's your uncle. Because, of course, the plot is too complicated and strange to recount in any detail. The characters are too many and manifold, some of which (like Miss Havisham) have entered the nation's consciousness - others, equally wonderful, have not. Pip's sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, who complains at all times of having to 'bring him up by hand', is equally wonderful an invention. Kind, honest Joe Gargery ("Pip - what larks!"), with his twisting attempts at speech, meaning all sentences seem to start with the word 'which', is about the loveliest character in any novel I've ever read. Here he is, in conversation with Pip, who has stopped visiting Miss Havisham and is now Joe's apprentice (the typos are his):

"Here am I, getting on in the first year of my time, and since the day of my being bound I have never thanked Miss Havisham, or asked after her, or shown that I remember her."

"That's true, Pip; and unless you was to turn her out a set of shoes all four round - and which I meantersay as even a set of shoes all four round might not act acceptable as a present in a total wacancy of hoofs --"

"I don't mean that sort of remembrance, Joe; I don't mean a present."

But Joe had got the idea of a present in his head and must harp upon it. "Or even," said he, "if you was helped to knocking her up a new chain for the front door - or say a gross or two of shark-headed screws for general use - or some light fancy article, such as a toasting-fork when she took her muffins - or a gridiron when she took a sprat or such like ---"

"I don't mean any present at all, Joe," I interposed.

"Well," said Joe, still harping on it as though I had particularly pressed it, "if I was yourself, Pip, I wouldn't. No, I would not. For what's a door-chain when she's got one always up? And shark-headers is open to misrepresentations. And if it was a toasting-fork, you'd go into brass and do yourself no credit. And the oncommonest workman can't show himself oncommon in a gridiron - for a gridiron is a gridiron," said Joe, steadfastly impressing it upon me, as if he were endeavouring to rouse me from a fixed delusion, "and you may haim at what you like, but a gridiron it will come out, either by your leave or again your leave, and you can't help yourself---"

"My dear Joe," I cried in desperation, taking hold of his coat, "don't go on in this way. I never thought of making Miss Havisham any present."

"No, Pip," Joe assented, as if he had been contending for that all along, "and what I say to you is, you are right, Pip."

Now, you either do or don't find that incredibly funny. I do. I really do. But what I cannot accept is that it is boring. How Dickens has got the reputation for being boring, I cannot imagine. Maybe it's those TV adaptations, after all? Because I believe that Dickens is, perhaps after P.G. Wodehouse, the best comedic writer that Britain has ever produced.

Whenever humorous writing is discussed, it's a matter of course to point out that humour is impossible to explain, and if you don't find something funny then no amount of argument will change things. And that's true. But I think I can pinpoint what it is I love most about Dickens' humour - and it's the verbal tics he gives characters. I think it's seen better in Our Mutual Friend, but it's present in all the Dickens novels I've read (which amounts only to four, come to think of it.) Whether it's Jaggers' insistence upon precision or Joe's 'larks' or Wemmick's 'portable property', there is no author, except Patrick Hamilton, who uses repetition so perfectly. He threads these traits through his novels, always ridiculous but never impossible, and holds together his plots filled by these delightful grotesques. Grotesque in the sense of odd and exaggerated rather than disgusting. His characters are not realistic, but, hidden in the surrealism of the stories and their enactors, lie truths and humanity and reality. Wonderfully sewn up with the absurd.

But Dickens, of course, is not simply a wonderful dance of the ridiculous - the sort which inspires Spark, Comyns, Bowles - but a constant tightrope between the funny and the saccharine. For while Dickens' reputation for dullness is unwarranted, there is plenty of evidence to support the stereotype of orphans dying, overpowered by the force of their own virtue, Little Nell, etc. etc. This is the sort of thing which survives most in film and TV adaptations, with inevitable tinkly piano music, and it is an image which does Dickens a disservice. This strain is mostly kept at bay in Great Expectations, but does escape a bit in the final third. I tire of it myself, but if that aspect of Dickens' writing were not present, he'd probably be even meaner than Evelyn Waugh. No sadistic writer ever came up with the ogres and tyrants of Dickens - but because they are not realistic, they are not truly terrifying. They are menacing only encased in the pantomime and carnival of Dickens' extravagant language.

But it is deservedly Miss Havisham whose light outside Great Expectations has burned brightest. She is a true original. Spurned on her wedding day, she lives for years in that moment, in a festering wedding dress. And she has raised Estella to be cruel and incapable of love, hoping to punish men in revenge for her own broken heart. Pip is snared.

Then Estella being gone and we two left alone, she turned to me and said in a whisper:

"Is she beautiful, graceful, well-grown? Do you admire her?"

"Everybody must who sees her, Miss Havisham."

She drew an arm round my neck, and drew my head close down to hers, as she sat in the chair. "Love her, love her, love her! How does she use you?"

Before I could answer (if I could have answered so difficult a question at all), she repeated, "Love her, love her, love her! If she favours you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces - and as it gets older and stronger, it will tear deeper - love her, love her, love her!"

Never had I seen such passionate eagerness as was joined to her utterance of these words. I could feel the muscles of the thin arm round my neck, swell with the vehemence that possessed her.

"Hear me, Pip! I adopted her to be loved. I bred her and educated her, to be loved. I developed her into what she is, that she might be loved. Love her!"

She said the word often enough, and there could be o doubt that she meant to say it; but if the often repeated word had been hate instead of love - despair - revenge - dire death - it could not have sounded from her lips more than a curse.

As I said earlier, too much happens in Great Expectations to attempt a summary or even an introduction to the plot. What I really wanted to address is, simply, that Dickens is not dull. If you've got that impression from television or hearsay, please go and pick up Great Expectations or Our Mutual Friend. I also find Hard Times hilarious, but I recognise that even amongst Dickens-lovers that is rather rare. I think he is a brilliant comedian, and genuinely unique - although I have mentioned a few other authors in this post by way of comparison, there is really nobody even close to being like him. You might hate him. But if you do end up hating Dickens, please hate the real Dickens, and not television's chocolate-box version of him.

Happy Christmas!

2011-12-25T01:11:00.003Z

Just back from the midnight service, and wishing you all a blessed Christmas, wherever you are in the world.

Also, because why not?, a picture of me at Christmas in 1991.

with love - Simon

Top 15 of 2011

2011-12-23T00:06:00.000Z

I'm going to have a few days' rest from blogging and celebrate Christmas - let's face it, there have been plenty of reviews recently for you to get your teeth into! But I shan't leave you abandoned, oh no.

I love lists, I really love 'em. Putting things in order has delighted me ever since Mum used to empty a big tin of buttons on the table for us to sort. That's why I don't make a top-ten-in-no-order list - I rank my most loved books of 2011 in strict order, even when it is a far from exact science. It's how much I liked them, how much I admired them, how much I enjoyed reading them (all of which are slightly different) all rolled into one.

Some amazing books have been left out, but it's still a nice mix of male and female authors (7.5 each), various decades, and... well, three non-fiction books in there. And a lot of funny books too, or at least books with funny elements (numbers 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 6, 5, and 1 would all qualify). Enough jabbering, over the list - do link to your own list, if you've made one.

15. Two Serious Ladies (1943) - Jane Bowles

A wonderfully surreal, oddly detached, and brilliantly written novel - which I'd recommend to any fans of Muriel Spark or Barbara Comyns.

14. The Unbearable Bassington (1912) - Saki

The best ending I've ever read, and plenty of other good pages before that - an amusing and ultimately heart-breaking view of Edwardian high society.

13. Howards End (1910) - E.M. Forster

Further evidence that two lacklustre reads shouldn't put me off trying a third - hilarious, clever, and deservedly a classic.

12. A Confederacy of Dunces (1980) - John Kennedy Toole

This wins the year's prize for Book I Thought I'd Hate and Ended Up Loving - Ignatius J. Reilly is utterly obnoxious, but tales of his arrogance and verbose ineptitude made for uproarious reading.

11. Life Among The Savages (1952) - Shirley Jackson

To recycle my line, more Provincial Lady than Headless Lady - and utterly delightful.

10. Nella Last's Peace (2008) - Nella Last

The second volume of this extraordinary (and yet somehow ordinary) woman's observant and moving diaries.

9. Let Not The Waves of the Sea (2011) - Simon Stephenson

The only 2011 book on this list (and one of only three I read this year) this is easily the most moving book I read, but far, far more than a melancholy memoir.

8. Virginia (2000) - Jens Christian Grondahl

The only novel in translation on the list, this novella is beautiful and a must for any fans of fallible memory narratives. Better than Atonement.

7. William (1925) - E.H. Young

Such a perceptive, calm take on the infidelity narrative - and one which shows how exceptionally well Young could write about families.

6. Christopher and Columbus (1919) - Elizabeth von Arnim

Somehow both cynical and life-affirming - an utterly joyous romp of British-German twins through wartime America.

5. The Skin Chairs (1962) - Barbara Comyns

Comyns never lets me down, and this surreal novel with its utterly matter-of-fact narrator is no exception. Nobody else could do anything bizarre and brilliant in the same way.

4. Love of Seven Dolls (1954) - Paul Gallico

A girl falls in love with the puppets from a puppet theatre? Sounds enchanting - but Gallico's novella gets pretty dark, and is an ingenious tale which is too fairy-talesque ever to be too disturbing.

3. Gilead (2004) - Marilynne Robinson

The best novel I've read from the 21st century. A simple plot of an old minister writing to his young son, Robinson captures a voice in a way which is much more convincing than most autobiographies, let alone novels. So beautiful, and makes Robinson, from my reading, the greatest prose writer alive.

2. The Element of Lavishness (2003) - William Maxwell and Sylvia Townsend Warner

Only recently reviewed on SiaB, these letters show the best talents of both of these wonderful writers - a collection which I will revisit many times, and the benchmark against which I'll set all future published volumes of letters.

1. The Slaves of Solitude (1947) - Patrick Hamilton

From the first page onwards, Hamilton's writing was so good that it left me actually astonished. How could an author be this talented? He is the 1940s missing link between writers as disparate as Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. A shy woman bullied in a boarding house is an unlikely topic for great literature, but this is one of the best novels I've ever read - and Hamilton one of the most exceptional writers.

Safety Pins - Christopher Morley

2011-12-22T00:00:00.000Z

I seem to write my reviews in protracted parts now - there are the bits I can't help typing out and posting as soon as I read them, and then, rolling along months later, comes the actual review proper. The snippets are probably more enjoyable to read, and certainly speedier to write, but I'll leave that sort of blogging to people like Claire who does it so beautifully. Me, I like the sound of my own voice. So not only did I give you Christopher Morley's delightful, wonderful essay 'On Visiting Bookshops' back in July (go and read it now, if you didn't then) but I'll cover the whole collection it came in: Safety Pins (1925). (I'm pretty sure these essays are collected elsewhere under another name, or scattered through different collections - grab any book of essays with Morley's name on it!)

Morley was best known to me as the author of Parnassus on Wheels, which I love, and its sequel The Haunted Bookshop, which is a curate's egg. I love little literary or personal essays, and was delighted to find that he had written some - doubly delighted when I discovered that it included bibliophilia of that order. The rest of the collection is something of a mixed bag - brilliant at its best, and humdrum at its worst. Actually, that assessment isn't quite fair: I find him fascinating when our interests overlap, and less so when they don't - only the greatest essayists can make a subject compelling which would otherwise be considered dull. I don't even remember the topics of those that I skimmed through, so let's move on to those I loved? And when I love Morley's essays, I really love them.

When he writes about books and writing, I am besotted - 'The Perfect Reader' is sweet and sensible; 'On Unanswering Letters' is farcical and yet oh-so-true (how letters are accidentally left unanswered for so long that it is impossible to do so, and no greeting works); he even admits to 'the temptation to try to see what books other people are reading - this innocent curiosity has led me into many rudenesses, for I am short-sighted and have to stare very close to make out the titles.' But beware the man who falls asleep while reading in a chair:

And here our poor barren clay plays us false, undermining the intellect with many a trick and wile. "I will sit down for a season in that comfortable chair," the creature says to himself, "and read this sprightly novel. That will ease my mind and put me in humour for a continuance of lively thinking." And the end of that man is a steady nasal buzz from the bottom of the chair where has collapsed, an unsightly object and a disgrace to humanity.

Not even Shakespeare is safe from Morley's attentions - in 'On Making Friends', he gives his own views on those tenets laid down in Hamlet:

Polonius, too, is another ancient supposed to be an authority on friendship. The Polonius family must have been a thoroughly dreary one to live with; we ave often thought that Ophelia would have gone mad anyway, even if there had been no Hamlet. Laertes preaches to Ophelia; Polonius preaches to Laertes. Laertes escaped by going abroad, but the girl had to stay at home. Hamlet saw that pithy old Polonius was a preposterous and orotund ass. Polonius's doctrine of friendship - "The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel" - was, we trow, necessary in his case. It would need a hoop of steel to keep them near such a dismal old sawmonger.

You probably sense Morley's tone - and have a good idea whether you'll love him or loathe him. Some people do have an odd hatred for insouciant humour. Morley's essays are like A.A. Milne's or Stephen Leacock's or anybody who deals in slightly over-the-top whimsy - but rooted in a love of ideas and a passion for literature. Morley becomes earnest, when on the track of his hero R.L. Stevenson, but is equally adept at cod-earnestness - for example, in the title essay, in praise of 'Safety Pins':

The pin has never been done justice in the world of poetry. As one might say, the pin has no Pindar. Of course there is the old saw about see a pin and pick it up, all the day you'll have good luck. This couplet, barbarous as it is in its false rhyme, points (as Mother Goose generally does) to a profound truth. When you see a pin, you must pick it up. In other words, it is on the floor, where pins generally are. Their instinctive affinity for terra firma makes one wonder why they, rather than the apple, did not suggest the law of gravitation to some one long before Newton.

Well, quite. I keep using the word 'delightful', but it is the perfect word for Safety Pins. If he is not entirely consistent, at least that is better than being consistently dull. There is plenty here for the bibliophile, and plenty more for those who like to laugh at the little things in life. I love it - I think a lot of you will too.

Other things to get Stuck into:

Once a Week by A.A. Milne - every now and then I eulogise about AAM, and hope that one or two of you will try him and love him. The review I link to is really more about Punch, but hopefully you'll be inspired to try Milne's whimsical, clever essays.

Literary Lapses by Stephen Leacock - the great Canadian humorist deserves a better post than I gave him, but you can at least read one of his pieces there. His sketches and essays brim over with humour, and he was wonderfully prolific too.

Any other humourous essayists you think I would enjoy?

The Man Who Was Thursday - G.K. Chesterton

2011-12-21T00:00:00.001Z

I've nearly come to the end of my pile of must-review-before-the-end-of-2011 books (and I really should have spaced them out a bit, perhaps... oh well, we'll have a bit of a rest after Christmas. Or an avalanche of my Books of 2011 posts. We'll see.)

Now, The Man Who Was Thursday (1908) is a curious little book, not least because the central importance of it doesn't reveal itself right until the end - at which point the rug is pulled from under your feet, and everything you've read takes on something of a new dimension. Hmm... I don't think it'll spoil the book if I tell you the revealed theme, but in case you don't want to know I'll hide it in a link. The Man Who Was Thursday would make an ideal companion read to (spoiler fans click here) this. Ok, confused? Good.

The Man Who Was Thursday is subtitled 'A Nightmare', which I wasn't expecting, given that I know Chesterton best as a humorist. Nor does the subtitle come into play for quite some time. We start with Gabriel Syme, a member of secret anti-anarchist police, who meets anarchist Lucian Gregory at the party of a poet. The opening scenes, where these characters debate the structure or chaos of poetry, are as amusing as anything found in this whimsical, witty decade, if a little more philosophical and theoretical than usual.

"The poet delights in disorder only. If it were not so, the most poetical thing in the world would be the Underground Railway."
"So it is," said Mr. Syme.

"Nonsense!" said Gregory, who was very rational when anyone else attempted paradox.

It's all very jolly and garden-party-esque - cucumber sandwiches all round. Syme and Gregory exchange verbal quips stridently, but without intending any of their barbs to hit home. Indeed, far from being offended, Syme agrees to go with Gregory to an underground anarchist meeting, so that Gregory can prove what Syme doubts: that he is serious about anarchism.

What follows is a rather lovely piece of satirical reasoning. Gregory is a serious anarchist - and had previously asked his leader how he could blend into the world, to perpetrate his ideology:

I said to him "What disguise will hide me from the world? What can I find more respectable than bishops and majors?" He looked at me with his large but indecipherable face. "You want a safe disguise, do you? You want a dress which will guarantee you harmless; a dress in which no one would ever look for a bomb?" I nodded. He suddenly lifted his lion's voice. "Why, then, dress up as an anarchist, you fool!" he roared so that the room shook. "Nobody will ever expect you to do anything dangerous then." And he turned his broad back on me without another word. I took his advice, and have never regretted it. I preached blood and murder to these women day and night, and - by God! - they would let me wheel their perambulators.

Clever. But Syme manages to outwit Gregory, and get himself elected to the central council of anarchists, where each is assigned the name of a day of the week. Syme, as the novel's title suggests, is Thursday. Head of them all is the mysterious Sunday.

That's as much as I shall reveal of the plot - it becomes something of a intoxicating mix of spy novel, epigrammatical social novel, and even philosophical/theological. The subtitle 'nightmare' is odd, but the style certainly has a dreamlike quality - swirling from one event to another, with twists and surprises along the way. It's a little madcap, but never to the extent that you think Chesterton's been at the opium.

I don't think it's the sort of novel that would be published now - it's too varied and unusual. Which I think is great, of course, but probably wouldn't satisfy the demands of a marketing department. Chesterton still remains a bit of a mystery to me, and The Man Who Was Thursday is intriguing and admirable rather than lovable, but I would recommend it to readers who enjoy satire and surprises, washed down with a bon mot or two.

Others who got Stuck into it:

"Weird. Nightmare-ish. Imaginative. Chestertonian." - Sherry, Semicolon

"Despite its philosophizing, its humor makes much of it a very light book, and some of the more "adventurous" scenes would make an awfully good film--there's even a car chase." - Christopher, 50 Books Project

"To say that the novel develops a nightmarish quality is not to say that it’s scary. I think perhaps most nightmares are only scary to the person who dreams them." - Teresa, Shelf Love

Santas everywhere!

2011-12-20T00:00:00.000Z

I've been a lucky boy today, since my Persephone Secret Santa arrived to coincide with opening day for the LibraryThing Virago Secret Santa - so I got this little lot of goodies, courtesy of lovely Emma and lovely Rob. Thanks, guys!

Emma chose Miss Buncle Married and this lovely Christmas tree biscuit (I'm glad I took a photo, since I've eaten most of it now) - Rob surprised me with two authors I've been intending to read this year: G.B. Stern's White Oleander and Margaret Kennedy's Together and Apart.

Have any of you read any of these?

Nella Last's Peace

2011-12-19T00:00:00.000Z

Nella Last's War was my favourite read from 2010, and when I tell you that Nella Last's Peace is more of the same, then that should tell you how impressed I was by it. Thank you Profile Books for sending it to me.) True, I didn't warm to it quite as much, and I'm not sure it's of quite such historical importance, but it is only repetition that will inevitably place this book lower on my reads of 2011 - last year I was expecting mediocrity and was bowled over; this year I expected Nella Last to be as good as she is.

For those who have thus far missed the whole Nella Last phenomenon, she was a 'Housewife, 49' (to quote the television adaptation title) when she signed up to write for the Mass Observation project. Every Friday Last posted her diaries away, recording the everyday life she observed so shrewdly, and in such plain but crafted language. Actually, 'crafted' is the wrong word - it seems to have just flown from her pen. 'And what he thought,' as the First Folio editors said of Shakespeare, 'he uttered with that easiness, that we have scarce received from him a blot in his papers.' Except with Nella Last it was true.

I said at the top that Nella Last's Peace might be less historically significant than Nella Last's War, but I'm already beginning to doubt that statement. Although the war years were doubtless more momentous, they are also well documented. The earliest peace years, with its hardships and regrets, has given birth to far fewer records - but Nella Last kept going, indefatigably.

I said once at the WVS [Women's Voluntary Services] Centre, "I feel like a piece of elastic that has been stretched and stretched and now has no more stretch - and cannot spring back." hey laughed, but several said it was a pretty good description of their own post-war feelings and I can tell Arthur has somewhat the same reaction. More and more do I feel I must take each day as it comes, do the best I can and lay my day aside, taking up the next. Sometimes I feel so dead tired, like a burnt-out shell, craving only to relax and rest. Then my mind rises and rebukes my tired body - says, "So much to be done, so little time." The stars shine brightly tonight. I love stars. They make me feel trivial and unimportant - and are so stable. I don't wonder the old ones thought Heaven was above the bright blue sky.

Without her war work in the canteen, and with different anxieties concerning her boys, Nella mostly turns her attentions to her recalcitrant husband, large circle of neighbours, and everyday life when money is scarce and rationing in full flow. She grows more impatient with her husband (I start to sympathise with him at times!), and readier to give her friends the rough side of her tongue, but remains practical, thoughtful, and a force of commonsense to be reckoned with. There are any number of activities and opinions I could quote from her diaries, but I'd be in danger of typing out the whole lot. Instead I'll quote a trip to the Lake District which shows how gifted a writer Last was - not solely as an observer of people and pastimes, but in a strain which is almost poetic:

My husband had to go to Ulverston and we decided to go on to have a look at frozen Windermere, if the roads were not too bad. We felt a queer awe at the steel grey sheet that was the friendly rippling lake of summer - it looked austere and remote. The sun was smiling behind a shoulder of a hill, and its slanting rays seemed to lick out every shorn hillside, every ugly gaping gully where trees had been dragged to the road. There was not a sound anywhere. An awful stillness seemed on everything and that queer atavistic desolation gripped me. I felt I wanted to lift my voice in a wild 'keen', if only to break the silence We seemed the only living and moving things left on the earth. I felt thankful to leave the unfamiliar scene. The hills around were patched rather than crowned with snow. The fields were white instead of freshly ploughed as they should have been by March, and heaps of dung stood frozen and useless. I wonder if it will mean a bad crop and harvest, with so late a season. Heavy sullen clouds rolled in from the sea, looking as if we would have more snow, and we were glad to get home to a fire and our tea, with the table drawn close to it.

One thing I wish I could do is reach across the decades and reassure Nella Last that she is a talented writer - and that her writings would not be forgotten. Here is a glimmer that she understood this herself - and yet the terrible fact that she did not realise her own worth and the books which would eventually be published!

Such a nice letter from MO [Mass Observation]. Arthur can see a value in my endless scribbles. He told me long ago they were of more use than 'clever' writings, as they wanted an ordinary woman's viewpoint and routine. There's so little help I can give now. It gave me a grand feeling I could help someone. An idle thought struck me - the weight and volume of over eight years' scribbling must be surprising. Supposing I'd been clever, there could have been a few books! Always I longed to write, but there was something missing. Only in my letter writing and MO have I found fulfilment of my girlhood yearning to write. Anyway, they might have been good books. At least my letters have cheered and comforted - the boys always like them.

As she later writes, 'whatever else that one is or has been, there's never been a trace of dullness!' It is evident to me that the lack of dullness has little to do with events, and everything to do with Last herself. She is a fine example of making the most of any situation - and an even better example of the powers of keen observation. To her perceptive eye, nothing could be dull - and we are forever lucky that she kept this diary for so many years.

Cornflower's meme - and a Sunday Song

2011-12-18T00:00:00.000Z

I do like a meme which plays with book titles, and Karen has started this one - I've also seen it done by Harriet, Claire, and Jane. A few of these will be appearing in my Top 15 of 2011 (yes, it's gone up to fifteen - there were just too many good books.) Have a go yourself, if you like...

My Day in Books

I began the day with A View From Downshire Hill

On my way to work I saw The Town in Bloom

and walked by People on a Bridge

to avoid The Perfect Pest

but I made sure to stop at A House in the Country.

In the office, my boss said, "How Can You Bear To Be Human?"

and sent me to research Life Among the Savages.

At lunch with Two Serious Ladies

I noticed The Gingerbread Woman

under The Skin Chairs

then went back to my desk, A Kind Man.

Later, on the journey home, I bought The Amorous Bicycle

because I have To Tell My Story

then settling down for the evening, I picked up Gin and Ginger (The Double)

and studied Exercises in Style

before saying goodnight to People Who say Goodbye.

Enjoy that? Well, here's a song to finish off, courtesy of Our Vicar:

The Lottery and Other Stories - Shirley Jackson

2011-12-17T00:00:00.000Z

Back in June, I posted Shirley Jackson's most famous short story 'The Lottery' and promised that, sooner or later, I'd write about her collection The Lottery and Other Stories. Well, six months later I'm finally going to write a post about it, but I have a feeling that it won't quite qualify as a review. But I'm not one of those bloggers who gets myself in a tizzy over whether or not to use the word 'review', so shall we move on?

If you haven't read 'The Lottery', I suggest you click on the link above and acquaint yourself. It won't take long, and it will leave quite an impression. Enough of an impression that some people (naming no names) have been wary of reading anything more by Jackson. I, however, love me some Shirley - her gothicy, psychological novels We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Haunting of Hill House as well as her Provincial Ladyesque Life Among the Savages. Where in this broad spectrum, pondered I, would her other short stories fall?

A whole new territory, it turns out. After 'The Lottery' (you should go and read it before I accidentally give the game away) I expected Jackson's stories all to pivot around shocking twists, with menacing backdrops of small town life. As it happens, all the other stories collected here are rather different from 'The Lottery'. Where that story is a masterclass in structure, building in tension until a revelatory climax, Jackson's other stories are much more nebulously structured. They rarely have an end, and often don't have a beginning - instead they are slices of life, and significant experiences rather than momentous, er, moments. Going through the other short story writers I've read, in my head, the nearest I can think of are Alice Munro and Kate Chopin - much shorter than Munro's stories, but with that balance of interrogation and eventual mystery.

Jackson's stories, though, still lean towards the familiar themes of claustrophobic. small town life. A few deal with racism. In one of the longer stories, 'Flower Garden', a friendship between young mothers unravels owning to differing views about letting their children play with a black boy. In turn, one of the mothers (a newcomer) is gradually ostracised by the community.

[Mrs. MacLane] stared at the blue bowl, and said slowly, "When I first came, everyone was so nice, and they seemed to like Davey and me and want to help us."

That's wrong, Mrs. Winning was thinking, you mustn't ever talk about whether people like you, that's bad taste.

Jackson often quietly questions the codes which hold together communities, and the hypocrisy within society. The same theme is visited more subtly in a much shorter story - 'After You, My Dear Alphonse' - which demonstrates how brilliantly Jackson follows that first rule of writing: show, don't tell. She never has the here's-the-moral-we-learnt moment, but rather shows normal people and lets them reveal their own dark natures. Dark, but not evil - her characters are always understandable, if not quite sympathetic.

My favourite story here, aside from 'The Lottery', is probably 'The Daemon Lover' - a mysterious, haunting story of a bride wandering door-to-door on her wedding day, trying to find her groom. It gives one a prolonged shudder, rather than a sudden shock, and the atmosphere laced through it is Jackson at her best. Flicking through at random, 'The Tooth' is almost hallucinatory; 'Of Course' is witty and wise; 'Charles' is actually an excerpt from Life Among the Savages and has that wry, warm tone; 'Afternoon in Linen' shows a slightly more jarring childhood moment. There are twenty-six stories in The Lottery and other stories and, as often with short story collections, it's difficult to pinpoint a unifying theme. But I think I may have spotted one... and it's not just the curious repetition of the name 'James Harris' throughout, to which this Wikipedia entry lends a clue.

A lot of perceptive critics have noted the domestic claustrophobia of Jackson's two most famous novels, We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Haunting of Hill House - a Gothic influence that is absent from almost all these stories. But Jackson has broadened this theme into the more widely felt one of entrapment. People in these stories are so often trapped - in sad situations, in unwelcoming towns, or in their own unmovable prejudices. Even within the way the stories are written, denying the characters a big moment of narrative climax, finishing in the middle of ongoing scenarios rather than ending neatly, the characters are trapped in unfinalised tales, unable to escape. If this is more often sad or staid than scary, then that only emphasises Jackson's impressive sensitivity - and versatility.

Persephone Secret Santa

2011-12-16T00:06:00.003Z

Well, today is the day we are supposed to reveal our Persephone Secret Santa gifts... but... I don't have mine yet.

Turns out I was going to be given it at the Persephone Books Open House today, but in the end I couldn't go... because I had locked myself out! I wasn't stuck outside for very long, but I was on quite a tight schedule, and it was long enough to make it impractical to get to London and pack for going home for Christmas (which I'm doing later today.)

However, I did get a card from my Persephone Secret Santa this morning! In lieu of a book, I'll show off my lovely, intriguing card:

Thanks to Claire and Verity for organising this - I look forward to seeing everyone unveiling their books, and yelping about how exciting it all is. You'll just have to comment on my card and cartoon (bonus points if you recognised the Persephone logo...), for the time being...

If you got a Persephone Secret Santa, do pop a link to your reveal post in the comments. I'll show off mine when it arrives!

So Long, See You Tomorrow - William Maxwell

2011-12-15T00:00:00.000Z

I want to cry a little bit, because I just spent two hours writing a post on So Long, See You Tomorrow, which disappeared when I tried to add a picture. Sometimes I hate Blogger... Well, I'm going to give it another go, but if my enthusiasm wanes a little, you'll know why...

It has ended up being quite neat, though, that I'm blogging about a novella by William Maxwell - following on from other reviews in this vein this week. I fell in love with Maxwell when I read They Came Like Swallows (thanks Karen!), bought up a few of his books, read half of The Chateau, and... stopped. Not sure why. But Rachel's review of So Long, See You Tomorrow (1980) catapaulted it up my tbr pile, and while I didn't love it quite as much as They Came Like Swallows, it's not far off.

I love books which centralise the memory of long-distant, momentous events - especially if uncertainty, anxiety or guilt bring these recollections to the fore. That makes me sound a bit sadistic, doesn't it? But examples like Ian McEwan's Atonement and, even better, Jens Christian Grondahl's Virginia (reviewed here) show how this can create a structure of dual narratives, looking forwards and backwards, memories and regrets influencing the telling of past and present. Guilt is perhaps the most powerful of emotions, especially when nothing can be done to appease or rectify.

The novella opens with a murder, told in Maxwell's deceptively simple manner:

One winter morning shortly before daybreak, three men loading gravel there heard what sounded like a pistol shot. Or, they agreed, it could have been a car backfiring. Within a few seconds it had grown light. No one came to the pit through the field that lay alongside it, and they didn't see anyone walking on the road. The sound was not a car backfiring; a tenant farmer named Lloyd Wilson had just been shot and killed, and what they heard was the gun that killed him.

Lloyd Wilson and the murderer, Clarence Smith, had once been best friends. Living on neighbouring farms, their families had grown alongside each other, and Maxwell builds up this dynamic between neighbours and friends in a believable, simple manner - until circumstances change and the friendship is gradually unwoven, with the tragic results already revealed to the reader at the outset. The narrator's guilty remembrances stem from failing to support his best friend, Cletus Smith, while his life fell apart. This guilt colours the narrator's presentation of the past, and is a net from which he has not been able to escape. The novel moves between past and present, developing each narrative line, and demonstrating the far-flung influence of long ago events - in a way which flows beautifully, never forced, quietly showing Maxwell's novelistic expertise.

The narrator's own life was not easy. Crippling shy and suffering from the early loss of his mother, the narrator feels that he has disappointed his father, and is out of kilter with the sort of boy he is expected to be. Maxwell touches gently on the father's grief, in an example of his understated but powerful style:

His sadness was of the kind that is patient and without hope. He continuted to sleep inthe bed he and my mother had shared, and tried to act in a way she would have wanted him to, and I suspect that as time passed he was less and less sure what that was.

Many lesser novelists would have spent several pages dissecting the narrator's father's emotions, but Maxwell's talent is that he does not need to do so - he encapsulates everything we need to read in two short sentences. It is this approach which exemplifies Maxwell's brilliance, but also how easily he could be underestimated.

The father does remarry, and the family is moved to a new home. I love portrayals of houses in literature, and the scenes of their new home being built make for some great sections - the narrator compares the building site to Alberto Giacometti's sculpture 'The Palace at 4am'. There is no picture of the sculpture in the book, it is only described verbally, but I went and tracked down an image. In its curious form, seemingly incomplete and distorted, it reflects not only a building site but the structures of memory:

For, despite the murder and the family tensions, the true subject of So Long, See You Tomorrow is memory and the fallibility of memory. Not so much that facts may be altered, but the distortion of remembered emotions and responses; superimposing later feelings over old ones, and the overlap between past and present:

What we, or at any rate what I, refer to confidently as memory - meaning a moment, a scene, a fact that has been subjected to a fixative and thereby rescued from oblivion - is really a form of storytelling that goes on continually in the mind and often changes with the telling. Too many conflicting emotional interests are involved for life ever to be wholly acceptable, and possibly it is the work of the storyteller to rearrange things so that they conform to this end. In any case, in talking about the past we lie with every breath we draw.

A murder mystery usually has a fairly straightforward structure - clues must be laid, of course, and herrings must be red, but the masters have laid out the pattern. By removing the mystery of whodunnit, Maxwell explores the much more human, fascinating dynamics of how circumstances and personalities led to murder - and how the aftermath continues for decades and decades. To construct a narrative through the abstract themes of grief, regret, love, pain, and guilt, Maxwell sets himself a much more difficult task - and achieves it. I'm excited eventually to read more of Maxwell, and it was worth having to write this post twice to tell you how good this little book is...

Others who got Stuck into it:

"I don’t think I have come across a finer work of modern fiction." - Rachel, Book Snob

"Maxwell’s prose is sparse and beautiful, very different from McEwan’s florid poetic and sometimes beautiful prose." - Trevor, The Mookse and the Gripes

"This book will bear many readings whilst doubtless yielding new insights each time." - Lynne, dovegreyreader

Up At The Villa - W. Somerset Maugham

2011-12-14T00:00:00.000Z

I'm trying to get through all the books I've read and not reviewed in 2011, so there will be a flurry of reviews over the next fortnight. Prepare yourselves!

A while ago I did one of my novella reading weekends, but I don't think I ever actually told you about it, before or afterwards. One of the books I read was my first stab at W. Somerset Maugham, only eight or so years since I first bought one of his books. Which wasn't the one I read. Up at the Villa (1941) came recommended by Simon Savidge (see links at the bottom) and is only 120pp - plus it has a lovely cover, so why not?

Up at the Villa is rather difficult to classify - in terms of length, it probably counts as a novella, but structurally it seems much more like a short story. There are all manner of attempts to define the short story, and I find a few quite helpful. Brander Matthews suggested over a century ago that "a short-story deals with a single character, a single event, a single emotion, or the series of single emotions called forth by a single situation." In 1979 Wendell Harris picked up on the same focal word in his definition: "single memorable curve of action revealing a single memorable personality." Poe wrote more vaguely, but sensibly, that the short story must have "unity of impression". All these definitions essentially suggest singularity - no room for interweaving plots, multiple focalisation, etc. etc. Of course, there are dozens of writers and hundreds of short stories which break these rules, but rather fewer novellas and novels which fit so neatly into the definition.

Up at the Villa doesn't take us far from beautiful young widow Mary Panton's perspective, nor from the events of a single momentous day. In the wake of her husband's death, Mary is living in a beautiful borrowed villa overlooking Florence. Her beauty is striking, she is privileged (if not quite opulent) and at the beginning of the novel she even receives a proposal from an older man who is soon to be Governor of Bengal. Not to mention the rakish attentions of Rowley Flint, who doesn't have marriage on his mind.

So where does this single memorable curve of action take us? It starts with one act of generosity:

They had dined late and soon after eleven the Princess called for her bill. When it grew evident that they were about to go, the violinist who had played to them came forward with a plate. There were a few coins on it from diners at other tables and some small notes. What they thus received was the band's only remuneration. Mary opened her bag.

"Don't bother", said Rowley. "I'll give him a trifle."

He told a ten-lira note out of his pocket and put it on the plate.

"I'd like to give him something too", said Mary. She laid a hundred-lira note on the others. The man looked surprised, gave Mary a searching look, bowed slightly and withdrew.

"What on earth did you give him that for?" exclaimed Rowley. "That's absurd."

"He plays so badly and he looks so wretched."

"But they don't expect anything like that."

"I know. That's why I gave it. It'll mean so much to him. It may make all the difference to his life."

And, one thing leading to another, it does make a difference to a lot of lives. But I'm not going to reveal any more of the plot...

I do love stories where one seemingly innocent action leads to a huge fallout. The only one which comes to mind right now is a broken cup in an episode of Flight of the Conchords, which probably isn't a seriously helpful example... but you know what I mean. I thought Maugham manipulated the situation well, and without contravening the personalities of the characters drawn at the beginning. Mary is impulsive and romantic and not always able to deal with the outcome of her actions, and this makes for a plot which snowballs out of her control - a touch melodramatically, but still within the realms of feasibility.

My only confusion is why it became a 120 page book. Most authors would have condensed it into thirty pages, or added more characters, more ideas, more occurrences - and another 120 pages. It might seem an odd thing to focus on, but Up at the Villa falls between two stools, which is difficult to ignore. What makes me want to return to Maugham, and try one of his more famous books, is that even with these reservations, I still found Up at the Villa a skillful, interesting read.

Others who got Stuck into it:

"Up at the Villa is a perfect book when you want something slightly familiar and yet something that completely throws you." - Simon, Savidge Reads

"The pacing of the story is excellent, starting off at the slow, languid speed that you might expect from a novel about the English upper classes in Italy and gradually speeding up until it feels almost out of control." - Old English Rose

"It’s a fine and entertaining diversion, and it’s got guns in, and sometimes that’s all we need" - John Self, The Asylum

Warner and Maxwell

2011-12-13T00:00:00.000Z

38. The Element of Lavishness : Sylvia Townsend Warner & William Maxwell

I have had a very good reading year - so many wonderful books which have blown me away. It's going to be tricky, compiling a list of my top ten at the end of the year - indeed, making lists of my all-time favourite books is getting harder than ever - but I'm pretty certain this volume will be featuring on 2011's best reads (coming up soon). And it's nabbing place 38 on the books I think you should read, but might not have heard about. Which means there are only twelve more that I can add - ooo! Thrilling, no?

I still have so many novels and stories by Warner and Maxwell to read - it seems crazy that I've only read two novels by Warner and two-and-a-bit by Maxwell, since I still consider them amongst my favourite writers. But even with these stockpiles still to read, I was delighted to discover that they were correspondents. It seemed too good to be true - that two authors I love should have collaborated on a book in this way, especially since Maxwell lived in the US, and Warner in England, and they met only two or three times. (Most, perhaps all, of my quotations here are from Warner, but that is because I read the book whilst researching a chapter on Warner - Maxwell is equally wonderful a letter-writer. Almost.)

The title Element of Lavishness comes from a letter in which Maxwell writes to Warner that:

The personal correspondence of writers feeds on left-over energy. There is also the element of lavishness, of enjoying the fact that they are throwing away one of their better efforts, for the chances of any given letter's surviving is fifty-fifty, at most.

I love the ethos here: even if they don't know whether or not their letters will be read more than once, fleetingly, it's almost as though they can't help writing to the best of their ability. Evidently a lot of the Warner/Maxwell correspondence did survive, and it certainly reflects their talents. While I love them both as novelists, I think The Element of Lavishess is the best thing I have read by either of them. It's quite possible that this post will descend (ascend?) into a myriad of quotations - so beautiful are the sentences these authors penned so casually.

They wrote between 1938 and Warner's death forty years later, but only really became friends in the early 1950s, where the letters veer from the strictly practical to the lavishness of the title. The relationship between Warner and Maxwell began professionally - Maxwell edited The New Yorker, to which Warner started contributing stories. He loved them (I have shelves full of them, unread) and gradually this exchange became a friendship that encompassed not only work and writing but every conceivable facet of their lives.

Warner and Maxwell remained each other's most fervent fans, and happy to express it. Novels and stories were read and praised, always carefully and thoughtfully; Warner embarked on her successful Kingdoms of Elfin series expressly to please Maxwell - and yet, throughout, Maxwell maintained his role as New Yorker editor. He praised and praised - but would also, occasionally, turn down submitted stories. How strong a friendship must be to survive this! How brave of Maxwell, and how gracious of Warner! And how beautifully Maxwell himself phrases his response to Warner's appreciation:

You have a way of putting praises that makes it hard for me to walk afterward. My feet have a tendency not to touch the ground. Listing a little to the right or the left, I levitate, in danger of cracking with happiness. When one has been pleased one’s whole life as profoundly as I have been pleased by your work, one does terribly want to do a little pleasing in return, I mean I love you.

Naturally they did not solely get to know one another, but became as intimately involved in each other's families. Warner's partner Valentine; Maxwell's wife Emmy and his two children. They often ask after these people, of course - but, more than this, they grew to understand and love these background figures to their correspondence. I love this quick note of Warner's:

I am thankful that Emmy is back. In her absence you do not spell as well as at other times. Does she know that? It is a delightful tribute, she should wear it in a brooch.

Maxwell helped Warner through Valentine's illness and death, acting as a necessarily far-flung support - and the exchange of touching, thoughtful, perceptive letters became all the more vital. For Warner, in her final years, to all intents and purposes widowed, the correspondence was a weapon against loneliness. Those little observances and stories she might have told Valentine across breakfast became the anecdotes she wove into her letters. This was possibly my favourite letter - indeed, I immediately wrote it down and sent it off to my own correspondent, Barbara-from-Ludlow:

All this time I was picking & cursing strawberries. I had an enormous crop, & my principles are of a niggardly kind that can’t let fool go to waste. But I got one pure pleasure out of this. I was picking & cursing and searching who I could give the next lot to when I saw a paddle rise above the garden wall. And looking down, there were two boys in a canoe. So without explanation, I commanded them to keep about, & hurried (to Valentine’s workroom) for the shrimping net, and filled it with strawberries and lowered it down to them. They were silent and acceptant; & it was all very Tennysonian, & I realised that when they are old men they will remember those strawberries.

(This was written in 1972. Let us assume the boys were twenty years old, at the most - so they are now no more than sixty. Where are they? Do they remember? I believe I, at least, will remember this quirky, moving scene for many eyars.)

Here, in letters, where Warner is not constrained by the novelistic strictures of plot and character and can instead turn her attention to anything and everything, Warner is at her most perceptive - and at her most deliciously playful. She never writes a dull letter, and here are just a couple of examples from the notes I made:

Don’t ever think twice about asking me to amplify. I love amplifying. If I had lived when people illuminated MSS I should always have been looking for unoccupied capital O’s and filling them up with the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian and a pig-killing.

and

One of the emotions of old age is amazement that one was alive so long ago. I suppose that is why so many people write autobiographies. They are trying to convince themselves that they really were.

They are so lovable, so warm! I want to quote to you endlessly - I want to tell you how Maxwell has ‘a defective sense of rancour [...] the first thing I know I am beaming at someone I suddenly remember I shouldn’t even be speaking to'; how, when Warner and Valentine had a servant, 'we used to count the hours till her half-days & evenings out when we would rush into the kitchen and read her novels and magazines: [...] such a grateful change from Dostoevsky.' But I shan't - because I think you should just go and buy it yourself. If you're even remotely fond of Warner or Maxwell, you'll love this. Even if you've not read a word by either, or don't even recognise they're name, I would recommend this collection to you - anybody with any interest in friendship, literature, letters, perception... this book will delight.

Perhaps I should end with an excerpt from Warner, one of their early letters, which leaves me wondering quite how she would respond to my adulation:

But no reviewers ever understand one’s books; and if they praise them, they understand them even less. Praising reviewers are like those shopwomen who thrust a hat on one’s head, a hat that is like the opening of the Judgement scroll in which all one’s sins are briefly and dispassionately entered, and then stand back and say that it is exactly the hat that Modom needs to bring out her face. I have never yet had a praising review that did not send me slinking and howling under my breath to kneel in some dark corner and pray that the Horn would sound for me and the Worms come for me, that very same night. The horn doesn’t and the worms don’t, and somehow one recovers one’s natural powers of oblivion, and goes on writing.

"Reading is primarily a symptom"

2011-12-12T00:05:00.001Z

I mentioned Stop What You're Doing and Read This! the other day, and I am still loving it - so much so that I'm not going to confine it to one post. I love essays about books, mostly because I agree with what they say - even better is when they make me reshift and reconsider my passionate views on reading. Here's a quotation from Mark Haddon's essay 'The Right Words in the Right Order':

Talking about reading as the cause of anything is to get things back to front. It exists in the valley of its own making. It gives us pleasure; and our embarrassment about pleasure, our fear that reading is fundamentally no different from sex or sport, tempts us into claiming that reading improves us. But pleasure is a very broad church indeed, and we do literature no great service if we try to sell it as a kind of moral calisthenics.

Reading is primarily a symptom. Of a healthy imagination, of our interest in this and other worlds, of our ability to be still and quiet, of our ability to dream during daylight. And if we want more people to enjoy better books, whatever that means, we should concentrate on the things that prevent people reading. Poverty, poor literacy, library closures, feelings of cultural exclusion. Alleviate any of these problems and reading will blossom.

--Mark Haddon, 'The Right Words in the Right Order'
Stop What You're Doing and Read This!

Song for a Sunday

2011-12-11T00:00:00.000Z

Time to get festive with Sunday Songs - and the next couple of weeks will be suggestions people have emailed me (feel free to pop a link to your favourite alternative Christmas song in the comments.) Ruth sent me a link to Christine Guldbrandsen's 'Surfing in the Air':

Hope you enjoyed this take on 'Walking in the Air'!

Stuck-in-a-Book's Weekend Miscellany

2011-12-10T00:00:00.000Z

First things first - happy birthday to Our Vicar!

It's definitely getting Christmassy at our house, since the Christmas tree has gone up (sans tinsel) and presents have been wrapped. I'm heading down to Somerset at the end of next week, where Sherpa will inevitably destroy any decorations which go up - but I could forgive that little sweetheart absolutely anything, of course.

I'm not going to be particularly festive right now, though, as the weekend miscellany is dashing everywhere from the derivation of a popular phrase to the Twilight Zone. It's an odd one this week... enjoy!

1.) You know when you start with an honest, sensible Wikipedia search... and then quarter of an hour later you're reading about the chart hits of Destiny's Child or an unsolved murder case from the 1840s? Yes? Perhaps you'll sympathise with me: my initial search started with something for my DPhil on fantastic novels where rooms shift shape. It ended with... an episode of the Twilight Zone called 'Five Characters in Search of an Exit.' I thought I'd post it here, because (a) it makes for good watching, and (b) since it plays on the title of the Pirandello play Six Characters in Search of an Author, it's literary-by-proxy. I do enjoy The Twilight Zone because it's surreal and mysterious without being terrifying or gory. You can read the Wikipedia article here, and watch below (hopefully).

2.) I spotted this via Kirsty, I think (whose blog Other Stories seems to have disapparated?) Ever wanted to know where the odd expression 'stealing someone's thunder' comes from? The Oxford Words blog obliges here. I absolutely love these quirky little idioms and their history. Any others to share?

3.) I haven't read nearly enough books published in 2011 to submit my own results, but if you have, pop over to The International Readers Book Awards on the website for my new favourite podcast, The Readers, run by Simon of Savidge Reads and Gav of Gav Reads.

4.) This weekend's book (I have taken liberties with my normal Weekend Miscellany, but there has to be a book, doesn't there?) came through my letterbox from Vintage Books. It's called Stop What You're Doing And Read This - what else could I do but obey? I'm afraid it's not out until 5th January, but I couldn't resist telling you about it in advance - because it's just the sort of book-about-books that I adore. To quote them, 'this book is a mission statement about the transformative power of reading.' Well-known authors, publishers and sundry others have written essays about reading and the importance of books - preaching to the converted here, of course, but a topic which always captivates me. So far I've read Zadie Smith on libraries (wonderfully impassioned), Blake Morrison (mainly about biographies, and very interesting), Carmen Callil (most fascinatingly for me, the origins of Virago), Tim Parks (the one dud essay so far; trying far too hard), and Mark Haddon (unexpectedly brilliant, actually.) Other essayists are Jeanette Winterson, Michael Rosen, Dr. Maryanne Wolf, Jane David, and Nicholas Carr.

Of course I'll write more in depth about this later, but I wanted to sound the alarm early. It'll only be £4.99 when it's published, which I thought pretty reasonable, and it might just join Anne Fadiman, Susan Hill, and Alberto Manguel on my beloved books-about-books shelf.

E.M. Delafield in Passionate Kensington

2011-12-09T00:00:00.000Z

I recently gave Rachel a copy of Passionate Kensington (1939) by Rachel Ferguson, because it seemed like it would be up her street. I only flicked through it myself, and now probably won't be able to afford my own copy if y'all go out and buy all the copies available online - but I photocopied a few pages. Although about a year in Kensington, Ferguson wanders on all sorts of lovely literary tangents - and I knew some of you would be interested in the excerpt below. (How lovely would it be to hear EM Delafield on the radio?!) I agree with almost everything Ferguson says - not where Provincial Lady in America is concerned - and wish I lived in a world where this sort of book was still published.

It was in Earl's Court Road that Messrs. W. H. Smith once organized something of this nature and announced a lecture by E. M. Delafield. Nothing but my hatred of lectures kept me from her side, for she ranks high in my list of Delights, with certain reservations. Also, if her broadcast on current books is anything to go by, I am embarrassed and alienated by her voice which came through to my drawing-room not the Delafield I like and admire so well, but as a genteel and didactic governess, successfully flattening the interest from the morning lessons.

It may sound an odd comment upon so prosperous a writer, but I feel pretty sure that she does not, and probably never will, receive the recognition she deserves, and the reason, I think, for this is that she tends to present her material under a guise of flippancy which misleads all but the acutely perceptive. There are passages in The Diary of a Provincial Lady of absolute genius, and that is not a word one flings about lightly, and this book was an unmistakable success because it was earmarked as a frolic. But the good things and subtleties in her 'straight' novels are far worse submerged by this same general effect of flimsy treatment which, too often, is so fatally of the 'light' school of fiction undertaken by writers not fit to be mentioned school of fiction undertaken by writers not fit to be mentioned in the same breath with her that she is in danger of going through life self-cheated. She is, by those who seem to have missed the point of her, roughly rated as an agreeable rattle. These assessors would probably dismiss the works of Jane Austen as nice books for the beach, and do not perceive that petit point, though very small indeed, may be exquisite.

It was this agreeable rattle notice which resulted in Miss Delafield being invited to 'go and be funny about Russia', and gave us Straw Without Bricks. Now, Russia is a tragedy, not a comedy, and she is a comedy, not a tragedy. The result was neither good Leningrad nor good Delafield. A rather similar error occurred in Gay Life, which sought, if it sought anything, to rouse our pity and contempt for the wealthy-waster class in a Riviera resort. This novel, so to speak, agreeably rattled just enough to eliminate our social scorns, and was, on the other hand, just sufficiently bedroomy and cocktailed to put Miss Delafield herself under the table and alienate her following. Neither good adultery nor recogizable author, it was not her cup of tea or my gin and It. Let cheaper pens and brains, lacking her delicate inner resources, deal with this tiresome stuff. It is not for her and never will be.

The fact is that E. M. Delafield is essentially great enough to be the mouthpiece of the very small. She can, if she will, tell ordinary human nature about itself and for them render articulate that humiliating compromise which is the daily life of most of us - a fine and splendid gift, handsomely withheld from most writers of to-day. It is a trust she should respect, for it carries with it that balm we all need which is reassurance, the comforting knowledge that one we admire has also trudged through bogs of boredom, pettiness and disappointment.

Why was The Provincial Lady in America so unbelievably dull and inferior to its two predecessors? Because Miss Delafield had been false to her real metier, fobbed us off with what was barely more than a traveller's note-book and perpetrated a type of work which has already been done ad nauseam (and better) by writers of not half her quality. And whether in Russia, France or America she fails us because she has no need to seek outside herself for what we want and she can give.

What do the critics think about her? The gist of two comments remains in my memory:

"I do not know what the standing of E. M. Delafield is, I only know I enjoy her work thoroughly." The man who wrote this was evidently worried subconsciously by his dual perception that, with a strain in this author so unique, so individual, she should yet be in the ranks of those novelists for admiration of whose work you still have to shuffle your feet and look sheepish. It is possible that he does not know her completely perfect novel, The Way Things Are, about which I dare not let myself go. I have read it at least fifty times and shall read it fifty more; it satisfied on every count (save for some amazing culinary slips), and yet it is precisely this book which, to judge from the blank stares of my friends when I talk about it, is her least known.

The second critics said: "I know of no writer whose journalism is so uneven." And here is a tangible grievance, easily stated and accountable. It is possible to write too much. Miss Delafield claims, I understand, to be able to "write anywhere". But is this a real recommendation? Can it not be that she is confusing quantity with quality? The temptation I recognize to the full.

There comes a point in the career of many successful novelists when journals and magazines solicit them for articles ad stories, and they dash off this snippet and that before lunch; the result is, too often, laboured, mediocre and pot-boiling. It doesn't matter from a practical point of view because the literary critics won't see it, and the circulating library public will miss most of it, but it is sapping, and drains vitality from the novelist's real work and justification for existence - his books. It may not 'tell' for years, but it will in the long run. A little journalism, by all means, but don't make a hard-labour business of it if you can afford not to. Also, the muse of humour is a tricksy person, elusive, exacting, and by no means always at call, and if, as one definition runs, genius is ' calculation rapidly made', the calculation made too rapidly through overwork is apt to be not greater genius but a slip in which the books won't balance.

And it is because I have such a belief in E.M. Delafield, because I take such a keen, fighting interest in her work which I feel for few other writers to-day that I come down on her so hard. I value her because she is potentially qualified for that so rare class of novelist which to myself I have always called 'the loved writer', and which on the stage was represented by Hawtrey, Irving, Ellen and Fred Terry and John Martin Harvey. And when or if she can overcome that insubstantial element in her work - which is probably a defective style or 'maner', like a nervous laugh - I firmly believe that her humour and super-sensitive observation should make of her one of the best and most significant writers we possess, a comforting and timeless writer whose comments will delight a hundred years hence.

- from Passionate Kensington by Rachel Ferguson

Let Not The Waves of the Sea - Simon Stephenson

2011-12-07T00:00:00.000Z

Jackie recently posed an interesting question about whether or not there had been any books published in 2011 which were destined to become modern classics. I wasn't much help... because I've only read three books published in 2011 (which is two more than I initially thought) - two novels (The Tiny Wife and A Kind Man) and one brilliant work of non-fiction, which I'm going to write about today: Let Not The Waves of the Sea by Simon Stephenson.

Quite of few of you were moved by this article, which I linked to a few months ago. It's by Simon Stephenson, about losing his brother in the 2004 tsunami, and acts as a very touching introduction to Let Not The Waves of the Sea. It made me want to read Stephenson's book (which John Murray had sent me, and was stashed in a pile somewhere) mostly because so few books, fiction or non-fiction, centralise the fraternal relationship or pay respect to the bond between brothers.

Dominic Stephenson was 27 when he and his girlfriend Eileen were killed while staying on the island of Ko Phi Phi in Thailand. I'm sure we all remember the images and videos which were shown around the world - so shocking and appalling an event, which killed nearly a quarter of a million people, is difficult to comprehend. Stephenson notes in the afterword to Let Not The Waves of the Sea that two people died for every word that is in the book, which brings it home a little. But this enormous tragedy was a million personal tragedies, and Stephenson's book is the result of just one of these.

This is not the sort of book I usually feature on Stuck-in-a-Book, where I am more likely to mention the casualties of the Second World War than the victims of a 21st century natural disaster. But even if this sounds like something you would never choose, can I encourage you to read on - Let Not The Waves of the Sea is a truly spectacular book. I am conscious of the need to write about it carefully and respectfully, and it feels almost offensive to make any sort of value judgement about so personal and painful a book. But by publishing it, Stephenson obviously invites others to join him on his path - and Let Not The Waves of the Sea widens its scope beyond that of a grieving brother - or, rather, we see the widening path that leads the brother through grief.

Stephenson starts with the events leading of December and January 2004, as the news unfolds and the waiting game begins - his family had to wait some time for Dominic's body to be identified, as the quotation below explains, and it is a moving exploration of one stage of grief:

It seems impossible that my brother could have left in such a way, even more so that he might have done so without telling me, that I will never now exchange another word with the only soul that was built from the exact same pieces as mine. It seems impossible, and so at a certain point I once again simply stop believing that he is dead. In this new world of chaos it seems no more implausible than any other explanation, and each day that passes without a call to say his body has satisfied the identification requirements only reinforces this. Stories are how I have been earning my living lately and it seems clear to me that fate is playing this one with a twist: the dental records did not match because of any problem with the nomenclature, but because they were being compared to somebody else's teeth; the body lying in the funeral home in Thailand is not Dominic's, but that of a thief who stole his wallet shortly before the water arrived. Dominic is safely marooned on an island or lying in a hospital somewhere with his transient but utterly fixable amnesia. Soon a passing ship will spot his signal fire. Soon he will come to and recall everything with a start. Soon his name will light up on my phone and I will answer it to hear a voice that asks, "Alright, Si?"

But the phone call that arrives in the middle of March is not this one that I have again started to expect. A fingerprint on a glass the police officers took from the kitchen of their flat has proven a match and the criteria have been satisfied. Dominic really is dead, and his body is to be flown home overnight.

Let Not The Waves of the Sea is, however, far from being simply a diary of those awful days. The blurb notes that the book 'is something more than a book about what it means to lose a brother: it is a book about what it means to have one in the first place.' The article I linked to at the top explores some of this aspect - Simon was 16 months younger than Dominic, and they seem to have always been close. Even if tragedy had not darkened the Stephensons' lives, this book would be a beautiful paean to brotherhood and childhood - in amongst arrangements for funerals and travel, Simon relates anecdotes they shared, from his earliest days to school days to the time they spent together at university. There are plenty of memoirs which relate romances, many which document parental or filial affections, but very few which show how important siblings can be. I'm sure Simon and Dominic argued and fought, but - even if Simon laments never having spoken it aloud - they never doubted their mutual love.

(photo credit)

But Let Not The Waves of the Sea adds another dimension to these facets - Simon, understandably, wants to visit Ko Phi Phi. In the end he stays there for months, and returns for several anniversaries of the event. His book becomes also the documenting of his travels, getting to know the locals and forming the deep friendships which can exist only between those who have suffered the same pain. Foremost amongst these is Ben, a Thai man who lost his wife and daughters, and deals with grief in a way entirely different from Simon. Although (as you know) I don't usually read travel writing, Simon's journey was far more than geographical - and the things he does and learns on the island are engrossing - sad, but with that irony of good coming out of bad. Still, some of his experiences continue to be unsettling in new ways - the everyday can never be quite everyday, in a place still recovering from the extraordinary. Here, Simon sees a bone which has washed ashore:

It is down on the water's edge, nestled in seaweed and bleached by the sun, the tapering downstroke of a brilliant white exclamation mark. I pick it up and turn it over in my hand: three inches by one half inch, S-curved along its long axis and gently bowed across its short one, it is a perfect match for the clavicle of a young child.

I tell myself that there are a hundred other creatures this bone could have come from, and yet when it comes to it find that I can name at most three: a dog, a cow, perhaps a goat, though in truth I have never seen either of the latter on Phi Phi, where even dogs are a rarity. I run my finger along it, trying to think of reasons why it cannot be human, trying to recall my anatomy lectures from medical school, as if there were some fact that, if I only could remember it, would allow me to discard it.

I wish that I had not noticed it, wish I had not picked it up, wish that I could simply throw it back into the sea, but I cannot. It might be nothing, but there is a chance that even such a single small bone could yield all the information that a family ever gets. I wrap it in a tissue and put it in my pocket.

The book doesn't always make for the easiest reading. I cried pretty much every time I picked it up - including when I was reading it on the bus, in a cafe, and in a quiet ten minutes at work. Partly that's because my worst nightmare is something happening to my own brother - partly it's because Simon invites us to join him in his journey. Horrible expression, much overused by reality TV programmes, but it is fitting - literally and figuratively, the reader goes on Simon's journey: around the world, through all the stages of grief, into his happy memories - and through two other medical crises he has to face along the way. Note how I have unconsciously changed from calling the author 'Stephenson' to calling him 'Simon'? That's the sort of closeness that develops, without ever feeling mawkish or as though the reader is intruding or rubber-necking.

And the title, Let Not The Waves of the Sea? It comes from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, a sort of fable composed of essays (it seems) which was beloved by Dominic. This passage provides the title, and were the words Simon read at his brother's funeral:

Let not the waves of the sea separate us now, and the years you have spent in our midst become a memory.
You have walked among us a spirit, and your shadow has been a light upon our faces.
Much have we loved you. But speechless was our love, and with veils has it been veiled.
Yet now it cries aloud unto you, and would stand revealed before you.
And ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.

It is often said that first-time authors put everything into their book - with novels, this is meant is a criticism. Every idea is thrown in, to the detriment of the structure and unity required of fiction. With non-fiction, with Let Not The Waves of the Sea, putting everything in is what makes Stephenson's book so special. It is not a memoir, not a travelogue, not a work of philosophy - or, rather, it is all of these things. Let Not The Waves of the Sea is a response to grief and the outworking of it - this book is as full and varied and complex as the life it commemorates, and I consider it a privilege to have been able to read it.

The Double - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

2011-12-05T00:00:00.000Z

And here is the other 'strange little book' I was going to tell you about, finally! The Double (1846) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. (Initially it might seem like it has nothing common with my first 'strange little book', A Fairy Leapt Upon My Knee - and, strangeness apart, the narratives don't really. But The Double was translated into English by Constance Garnett: mother of David Garnett, owner of A Fairy Leapt Upon My Knee. It's nice when these connections appear...) So, it's by a well-known author, but perhaps he is better known for his longer titles. The Double, at only 135 pages in my Dover Thrift edition, probably only counts as a short story for this author. Indeed, the subtitle is 'a Petersburg poem' - although it is certainly prose, from where I'm standing.

The Double concerns Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin, a humble office-clerk who discovers himself followed and usurped by a doppelganger. It's more or less the blueprint for later doppelganger narratives, often referenced in theory on the topic, and although the idea of the double is probably as old as humanity, Dostoevsky seems to have been one of the first modern writers to develop the idea.

He goes about his fairly insignificant life, unpopular with women and colleagues, cheated by his servant and ignored by the world - when this happens:

The hero of our story dashed into his lodging beside himself; without taking off his hate or coat he crossed the little passage and stood still in the doorway of his room, as though thunderstruck. All his presentiments had come true. All that he had dreaded and surmised was coming to pass in reality. His breath failed him, his head was in a whirl. The stranger, also in his coat and hat, was sitting before him on his bed, and with a faint smile, screwing up his eyes, nodded to him in a friendly way. Mr. Golyadkin wanted to scream, but could not – to protest in some way, but his strength failed him. His hair stood on end, and he almost fell down with horror. And, indeed, there was good reason. He recognized his nocturnal visitor. The nocturnal visitor was no other than himself – Mr. Golyadkin himself, another Mr. Golyadkin, but absolutely the same as himself – in fact, what is called a double in every respect…

Golyadkin's double usurps not only his likeness but his name and occupation too - turning up opposite him in the office. But Golyadkin Jnr. (as the narrative often refers to him) is more popular, confident, and powerful than Golyadkin Snr. What is worse, he is incredibly changeable. Sometimes he treats Golyadkin Snr. as a dear friend - at other times, with disdain and insult. The Double becomes the narrative of Golyadkin Snr.'s humiliation - it often makes for uncomfortable reading, as he is not only menaced by this doppelganger, but mocked and pilloried at the same time.

As the novella progresses, unsurprisingly the question of Golyadkin Snr.'s sanity rises in the reader's mind - and is never wholly satisfied. There are plenty of options. Is he mad? Is he schizophrenic? Does he have dissociative identity disorder? Is he the victim of some elaborate prank - or is it (within the novella) simply true? It all makes for a fascinating psychological study, whether or not there is a natural explanation within the narrative. Since the whole work is from Golyadkin's perspective (albeit in the third person) the reader is trapped claustrophobically in his panicked and chaotic mindset.

Lending support to the madness theory is the writing style. Perhaps it's just because it's from the Russian, but a lot of the narrative left me a little confused. Golyadkin himself tends to talk at tangents, not completing sentences, and leaving his interlocutors more baffled than anything:

"But I will say more, gentlemen," he added, turning for the last time to the register clerks, "I will say more - you are both here with me face to face. This, gentlemen, is my rule: if I fail I don't lose heart, if I succeed I persevere, and in any case I am never underhand. I'm not one to intrigue - and I'm proud of it. I've never prided myself on diplomacy. They say, too, gentlemen, that the bird flies itself to the hunter. It's true and I'm ready to admit it; but who's the hunter, and who's the bird in this case? That is still the question, gentlemen!"

That's Golyadkin's voice, but the narrative is equally clause-strewn and confusing at times.
The narrator does say, after two pages of description, "For all this, as I've already had the honour of explaining, oh, my readers! my pen fails me, and therefore I am dumb." I really hope Dostoevsky was being ironic, there. I know it makes me sound ignominiously unintellectual, but if I have to struggle to make sense of paragraphs, I'm unlikely to love the novel. Enormous sentences with dozens of clauses is a big no-no for me (hence my dislike of Turn of the Screw, for instance) and while The Double wasn't as bad on this front as some works I've read, it certainly wasn't easy going. There was enough of interest to sustain me, but I had to read it slowly.

The difficulty of reading an author's writing style is, of course, made more difficult by the mediating presence of the translator. Constance Garnett was responsible for 71 translations of Russian works (so the Wikipedia article tells me, and who am I to doubt it?) and helped popularise Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Chekhov amongst English-speakers. That brief Wikipedia article does make for interesting reading - apparently Garnett has her fans and detractors. DH Lawrence and Joseph Conrad (*shudder*) gave her the thumbs up, but Russian poet, essayist, and unknown-to-me Joseph Brodsky wrote:

The reason English-speaking readers can barely tell the difference between Tolstoy and Dostoevsky is that they aren't reading the prose of either one. They're reading Constance Garnett.

Ouch. Low blow, Joe. But it is food for thought, isn't it? How much of my struggle with Dostoevsky's prose - indeed, how much of my appreciation for those sections I got my head around - is owed instead to Garnett's writing? It's the perennial question for translated works, but I think it's all the more pertinent when discussing a popular translation which is itself nearly a century old - and thus carrying its own datedness.

But until I learn Russian, I don't have any other option. I'm definitely glad that I read The Double, not least because it proved useful for the chapter I'm writing of my DPhil, and the themes Dostoevsky explores are fascinating and important. I suppose I'm trying to say that Dostoevsky is a writer I admire, and could grow to find very interesting, but I will never love him. I shan't be kicking back with a hot chocolate, biscuit, and Crime and Punishment - but I respect anybody who would, and recommend The Double for anyone interested in exploring a literary archetype - but would probably recommend A Fairy Leapt Upon My Knee for anyone more interested in an engaging book to read with a cup of tea.

Song for a Sunday

2011-12-04T00:00:00.000Z

Despite being twins, my brother and I don't share our taste for books, music, films... we used to like more or less the same TV shows, but even that seems to have diverged (how can anyone not love Samantha Who?? - first question mark in the title; second question mark in my question, y'all...) However, when he likes female singers or I like male singers, we tend to agree. And he introduced me to Amos Lee's beautiful song 'Colours'. A quick peak at Wikipedia suggests Mr. Lee is now doing rather well for himself, so you might have heard of him, but this song has been on my iTunes for years now...

Have a good day :)

Londoning (and, er, books)

2011-12-03T00:00:00.000Z

As I mentioned, I spent a couple of days gallivanting around London - and I thought I'd share my experiences with you, since most of them were of a bookish nature.

It all started on Wednesday morning when I took the Oxford Tube bus into London for the first time in quite a while, which was rather more miserable than I remembered - no leg-room, lots of delays etc. - but did manage to read quantities of Simon Stephenson's excellent book Let Not The Waves of the Sea on the way (a sort of memoir/travel-log/philosophy about his brother who died in the 2004 tsunami, which I mentioned a while ago) - I've finished it now, and will report back on it soon.

My first stop was the Notting Hill Book & Comic Exchange, since the bus happens to stop mere metres away from it. This time I didn't bother with the everything-50p-each basement, since I was short on time, and there were plenty of wonderful things upstairs. I came away with:

The Wedding Group by Elizabeth Taylor
The Solitary Summer by Elizabeth von Arnim - two reliable authors
The Friendly Young Ladies by Mary Renault - I know nothing about this, but it's not historical - the reason I've previously stayed away from Mary Renault. About a 17 yr old girl who runs away from Cornwall to bohemian London, which apparently turns disturbing - love this premise!
It Falls Into Place: the stories of Phyllis Shand Allfrey - Allfrey wrote The Orchid House, one of the first Viragos I bought, and one I still haven't read.
Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski - I already have the Persephone Original, but not the Classic!
A Letter to Madan Blanchard by E.M. Forster - The Hogarth Letters No.1, which was rather a lovely find. There's a tiny pencilled '2' on the first page, which I like (fancifully) to imagine was inscribed by Virginia Woolf herself...

I also bought Lolly Willowes as a gift for the next person I saw...

...a lady called Marie, who had contacted me after seeing Richmal Crompton's novels mentioned here on my blog, or on LibraryThing, or somewhere. One email led to another, and we exchanged rare RCs via post (I read the wonderfully histrionic The House). I arranged to give them back in person, so I trotted off to her beautiful house. We had a lovely chat, and she took down lots of my recommendations (hurrah!) and I went away with another four books borrowed! Two rare Richmals, and two by EM Delafield (in her email she wrote "Have you heard of an author called E.M. Delafield?" Er - yes!!) The internet is wonderful for encountering bookish types, isn't it? Thank you, Marie, for your delightful generosity. The books are The Thorn Bush and Portrait of a Family by RC; Three Marriages and Zella Sees Herself by EMD.

My next stop was delicious Thai dinner with a couple of bloggers - Claire from Paperback Reader and Rachel from Book Snob - before we went to a screening of Descendants at Twentieth Century Fox, courtesy of Vintage press. More on that soon - as a spoiler, it was very good! Rachel very sweetly offered me a place to stay for the night (and gave me Mr. Skeffington by Elizabeth von Arnim, which was so nice of her!) I gave her a Rachel Ferguson book called Passionate Kensington - about a year in Kensington, but with all sorts of detours and tangents. I'll quote a bit of that soon, too (this post is turning into dozens of others!) I totally threatened Rachel with a no-holds-barred expose on what she's really like, but... I'll save that for another day ;) (Rachel: is that why you bribed me with a book?)

My token I-came-to-London-for-study moment happened at the British Library, and you've already seen some of the fruits of that. It was very productive, turning up reviews for Miss Hargreaves, Provincial Lady in Wartime, and more. And it made me a bit late for meeting up with the lovely ladies of dovegreybooks, an online book discussion group of which I've been a member for nearly eight years. Nine of us met up at the Geffrye museum, including Elaine and Barbara, both of whom have written their own reports on the day. We had our Christmas lunch and, as always, chatted away nineteen-to-the-dozen. Despite my plans to make my book bag lighter, I ended the trip as heavy-laden as I started - thanks to the dovegreybooks Secret Santa, and a general book swap. So that added these four titles to my winnings:

Trains and Buttered Toast by John Betjeman
Elizabeth Jenkins' biog of Caroline Lamb
A London Girl of the 1880s by M.V. Hughes
Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons (super-excited about this!)

Not to mention a lovely literary calendar (from Barbara) and some beautiful bookmarks (from Sherry, who wasn't there and lives in America - I still haven't worked out how these arrived!)

So, all in all, a productive London trip! Quite tiring, what with all that dashing about, but great fun - and all of it the result of online literary friends! Lovely.

Books Will Go On

2011-12-02T00:00:00.000Z

Sorry, I meant to review that other book... but... I didn't. Next week, promise! Instead, I was off having fun in London for a couple of days, including several bloggers along the way - I'll tell you all about that (and the books I got!) soon. Tonight I thought I'd share an article I read in the Book Society News. Part of my time in London was spent in the British Library, reading old copies of this newsletter for the biggest book-of-the-month style club in the UK. The copies I read were from 1939 and 1940, and this piece by 'A.B.' (Arnold Bennett?) came from October 1939 - the first issue after the Second World War had been declared. I know I am in a privileged position, having access to these sorts of gems, so I wanted to share it with you all:

(photo credit)

Books will go on. They are needed more than ever in wartime; and they are not rationed. Thus far, all the news has been most of the reading, but before long people will turn to books as the best comfort, the greatest recreation in an anxious, darkened world. In the last war it happened during 1915, and by the middle of 1916 more books were being bought than in any summer of Edward peace.

This time the urge to read often will come earlier. The present war is a grim, not to say drab affair. We have no false exaltation; the prevailing mood is that of 1917 rather than 1914; and much beyond our evenings has been blacked out. The one always reliable refuge comes from access to what the Poet Laureate writing to The Times calls "the treasury of the universe of the mind." Books may become more necessary than gas-masks.

If history is a guide, the supply of good literature will keep pace with the demand. It was in the worst years of the war with Napoleon that Jane Austen, a quiet spinster in Bath, wrote Pride and Prejudice, and that Walter Scott, bearing a load of debt, wrote Rob Roy. Flaubert, Maupassant and others were in full creation while the Prussians were battering at France's Second Empire. And in 1914-18 some of the best work by Kipling, Conrad, Galsworthy, Wells, Maugham and Walpole arrived.

So the Book Society, also, will go on. Already we have in view two exceptional new books for the months ahead, and there are plenty of alternatives if you prefer them. We shall vary our recommended lists between books that reveal the strange times we live in and literature that bridges the gulf between to-day's madness and the sanity that lives in fine imagination.

Consider, meanwhile, what one copy of a good new book can achieve in wartime, even though restrictions multiply and we are taxed beyond a millionaire's worst fears. The book costs less than a few sandbags at the profiteers' price, or a bottle of evaporating scent, or a stall in the peace-time theatre. Yet it can keep boredom at bay for days and fill inactive evenings with pleasure, stimulation, forgetfulness of the present. In any house it can do this for several readers in succession; and thereafter, it can be kept for an encore while serving as a decoration. Or it can be sent or lent to do as much for those on national service, among whom the need for books is even more urgent.

A Fairy Leapt Upon My Knee by Bea Howe

2011-11-30T00:00:00.000Z

Most of you, my lovely readers, chose the obscure novel yesterday - which goes to show how lucky I am to have you lot reading my blog! I'll probably end up writing about both - perhaps the well-known author will even pop up tomorrow in my absence, whilst I'm gallivanting in London. Dark Puss suggested I wrote about the one I enjoyed more... well, I enjoyed this one more, but the other one was probably better. (Other people used to that feeling?)

As you might have spotted from the post title, this is an obscure book, but I have mentioned it before. A Fairy Leapt Upon My Knee (1927) by Bloomsbury Group hanger-on Bea Howe lent its paper to my new blog background - I thought it was time I told you what was on the pages (other than David Garnett's signature!) (Some of you may even have spotted a very brief section of this review in your blog readers yesterday... oops!)

The outline of the novel is pretty simple - William and Evelina have fallen in love, and deal with the difficulties of not being able entirely to understand one another. Much of the narrative flicks back and forth between their minds, as they grapple with starting a new stage of their life together - melding two rather different personalities into one prospective marriage. Oh, and along the way a fairy turns up.

Evelina is not unlike a fairy herself - she is fanciful, thoughtful - bright, light, and sparkling:

She was dressed in a silver frock with a deep jewelled belt that gripped her waist. Her light brown hair was cut quite short like a boy's and brushed softly over her ears; it was shot with gold at its curling tips. But it was her eyes, of an odd green colour, that William first noticed. They regarded him so intently; like a child's. They were also very bright. Eyebrows thin, dark, arched, gave a flying look to her face. Her face which was painted and pale.

William, on the other hand, is a little more staid and grounded. Where Evelina is concerned with her 'secret self', and often wanders off into realms of imagination (although not in an annoying way, for the reader at least) William is an etymologist - the fluttering world of moths is his chief concern, and he approaches it with the eyes of a scientist. (Scientists will doubtless tell us - indeed, my brother does tell me - that there is a greater beauty in the structure and order of numbers/nature etc. than in its aesthetics. Well, horses for courses.) William's captivation by lepidoptera is all-consuming, and colours even his attempted romantic overtures:

"One day I will tell you all about my moths. In some odd way you remind me of them." His voice was low and gentle. Evelina did not know that this was the first compliment he had paid a woman.

Yet it is he, the scientist, rather than she, the wistful romantic, who stumbles upon the fairy. I once attended a nighttime moth hunt, and sadly no fairies turned up. The one William finds has not quite the daintiness of Tinkerbell et al:

A pale, extremely ugly, wizened-looking little face, about the size of a hazel-nut, stared up at him. And this face did not belong to a giant moth or beetle! The filmy stuff, the cobwebby matter which had first stuck between his fingers and given such a peculiar sensation to his skin, was evidently part of this creature’s clothing. Underneath its thin protection, William could see the vague outline of a tiny body. It was a woman’s body, shaped quite perfectly, like a minikin statuette. With a vague feeling of embarrassment he knelt down and rolled his prisoner gently off his palm on to the ground. The fairy did not move. She only remained looking in a dazed way at him. William gazed back. He still felt completely bewildered.

A Fairy Leapt Upon My Knee is a strange little book, not least because the fairy doesn't do very much, except sit listlessly in William's house. She emphasises, however, the disparity between William and Evelina. He has no personal curiosity in the fairy, except as a scientific specimen - 'It had not even occurred to him to think of her as another living being.' Evelina, on the other hand, is jealous that she did not make the discovery - and the existence of the fairy propels her even further into realms of the fanciful and fey.

A Fairy Leapt Upon My Knee is a simple story which I found charming and enchanting - but which really could have done with a better structure. It feels a little as though Howe started writing on page one, and put down anything that crossed her mind - which does give the novel a feeling of freedom and flow, but it ultimately lacks the impression of unity and progression which a properly planned novel has. Evelina and William fall out and make up and fall out and make up - often without even seeing each other in between - which is possibly more life-like, but a little dizzying to read.

This was Bea Howe's only novel (although she wrote a few biographies) so it's impossible to tell how her style might have progressed. For a first novel, A Fairy Leapt Upon My Knee is rather delightful, and I'd definitely recommend it to anyone with a taste for a touch of whimsy - as an only novel, it does lead one to speculate what Bea Howe could possibly have followed it with, and gives me an altogether bemused impression of Howe as an authoress. That creative inspiration should hit only once in this manner, and in such a manner, is curious and amusing. Perhaps, just once, a fairy leapt upon her knee?

Tomorrow... another strange book, but one from almost eighty years earlier and a different language altogether. Ten points to anybody who can guess...

The Readers

2011-11-29T00:00:00.000Z

I'm going to be community minded again tonight (for which read: it's too late for me to write a proper book review) and point you in the direction of the latest episode of The Readers (click zee link). For those not in the know, it's a podcast run by Simon S and Gav, covering all manner of bookish topics - always including plenty of recommendations for reading.

This week's podcast features lovely Kim as a guest, and equally lovely Polly also pops up with her five favourite books (and a mention of me!) The chief topic of discussion is book blogging - a subject dear to all our hearts, of course. I am in love with their discussion! It covers so many areas - why they started; how long they take to write reviews; positive vs. negative posts, and so on. All stuff I find fascinating - some people don't care much for blogging-about-blogging, but I'm all about the meta-conversations. And all the way through I wished I were there to join with the chatter... (They also talk about book-culling, and it's lovely to hear a tbr pile of 450 considered 'not bad' - my real-life-in-the-flesh friends consider half a dozen unread books as somewhat pressing.)

So, pop over and have a listen to the whole thing, but especially the first half. And I'll be back tomorrow with another strange little book... (which is my vague way of saying that I haven't decided between two strange little books waiting for review. Would you rather hear about the well-known author or the utterly obscure author?)

Henry Green Week with Stu

2011-11-28T00:00:00.000Z

Thank you so much for all your lovely comments - they do mean the world to me. I get very nervous about changing how my blog appears (goodness knows why I would get nervous about it, but... I do!) so I'm chuffed to bits.

A quick post today - something I missed out of my last Weekend Miscellany, because I hadn't spotted it - Stu (from the blog Winston's Dad) is planning Henry Green Week January 23-29 next year. I announced all the way back in May that I intended to read some of my newly-acquired Henry Green novels soon. And, of course, I still haven't - but I'm more than keen to join in with Stu's planned week. Basically, pick one or more Green novels and join in! These are the ones I have at my disposal:

Doting, Back, Party Going, Blindness, and Concluding.

I can't decide between starting with Blindness, because it was his first - or with Party Going, because it's the one I've heard great things about. Or maybe even both!

Let me know - and let Stu know - if you're thinking about joining in... c'mon, if you all did it for Anita Brookner, you can definitely do it for Henry Green.

Playing - and Song for a Sunday

2011-11-27T00:00:00.000Z

After four and a half years, it felt like time for a little face-lift. I have made myself a Blog Header for the first time! I hope you like it - the pictures I chose felt appropriate, and the paper-background is actually from a page of A Fairy Leapt Upon My Knee - the copy I own signed by David Garnett! That's the same paper that forms my new background. I have waved goodbye to my dots... for now, at least.

(Comment facilities back to normal, after all that kerfuffle, so I hope it works. Or works as well as anyone else suffering the vagaries of Blogger, that is! As always, if you have problems, let me know...)

Enough of that - let's have a song, shall we? To be honest, I'm running out of unusual artists to feature... so you might well have come across Aimee Mann before, but 'Wise Up' is too beautiful a song to ignore. Over to you, Aimee:

All previous Sunday Songs here.

Stuck-in-a-Book's Weekend Miscellany

2011-11-26T00:00:00.002Z

I am not best pleased, as the post I spent 45 minutes writing just disappeared. Darn it darn it darn it. Well, I'll try again, but I might be a little less insouciant than usual...

Firstly, I have yet to reach the end of the tunnel when it comes to comments. Apparently some of you can't see other people's comments - curiouser and curiouser! I think this might be people using Internet Explorer - can I recommend the all-round-nicer Firefox! I'm going to keep the new comment format for the next few days, and if the problems don't clear up then I'll probably change back...

EDIT: well, it wasn't working, so we're back to the old way of commenting for now... well, it's teething at the mo, but we'll be back to normal by tonight. I will keep trying!

But enough of these shenanigans! It's the weekend, it's already been miscellaneous, that can only mean that it's Stuck-in-a-Book's Weekend Miscellany!

1.) The blog post - is over at Tales From the Reading Room, and a fascinating discussion about Why Write Reviews? This isn't quite the same as Why Blog? A few bloggers noticed that full-length reviews tended to get fewer comments than other posts, and also themselves were often more reluctant to read full-length reviews than bookish-chatter type posts. Which led Litlove to write an interesting analysis of why she writes reviews - and, of course, the comments box is filled with conversation on the topic, including my tuppenyworth.

2.) The question - (for there is no link this week!) is on similar territory. I was wondering what you thought of the post Claire and I co-created on One Day? A few of you commented - most of you (of course!) did not. What did you think of the conversation format? Do you think it worked? Those bloggers amongst you - would you like to have a go yourself? I'd love to know your thoughts. (If the comments box doesn't work, email them to me!)

3.) The book - is The Outward Room (1937) by Millen Brand, which New York Review of Books Classics gave to me a while ago. I forget quite why I asked for it, or where I heard about, but I'm even more excited about it since I spotted in an old interview with Persephone Books that they had it forthcoming. Those plans must have been shelved, perhaps because of the NYRB edition, but a Persephone stamp of approval doesn't go amiss. Since I've yet to read it, I thought I should at least give it a mention. It's about a woman, Harriet Demuth, who escapes from a mental hospital and goes on a journey both of New York and of self-discovery. That synopsis puts me in mind of Margaret Laurence's The Stone Angel, which is no bad thing - and it sounds as though it might have been rather revolutionary for 1937.

Ok, that's it for this miscellany - have a good weekend, everyone.

November

2011-11-25T00:00:00.000Z

So far in November I have...

Tried and failed to take a photo of Sherpa.

Tried and succeeded to take a photo of Sherpa. (Doesn't she look daft?)

Taken a photo of my Mum playing Scrabble. (She was less likely to scamper away.)

Made a road-trip-themed-collage-covered notebook for my housemate Mel.

Taken icing sugar from a box of kitchen stuff left on the street.

Appreciated autumn.

Attended a proper village Christmas fayre.

Gone jumping in the street.

I've also done a fair amount of reading, but people tend not to take photos whilst I'm doing it. For which I am quite grateful...

Update on Comments...

2011-11-24T14:57:00.004Z

[this page has been edited to be used as a comments-help...]
I've changed the way comments work - they are now on the main screen, rather than a separate window. You are able to reply to individual comments (this will bring up a new window - simply add your comment after the HTML string.)

People have reported problems, of not being able to see other people's comments. This mostly seems to be the case with Internet Explorer - I recommend downloading the all-round-nicer Firefox or Google Chrome!

If this isn't working please do email me (simondavidthomas[at]yahoo.co.uk) or tell me on the Stuck-in-a-Book Facebook page.

If people are still having problems, I will have a rethink...

Living Alone by Stella Benson

2011-11-24T00:00:00.000Z

You're probably quite used, by now, to my taste for odd books. My doctoral research into fantastic novels has disproportionately weighted my blog towards ladies turning into foxes, imaginary children coming to life, old ladies being invented by accident etc. So perhaps you'll forgive me if another title hoves into view, which somebody mentioned to me in relation to Lolly Willowes, since it's also about witches. Living Alone (1919) by Stella Benson, as the post title suggests, is that book. Before I get any further, I should mention that it is free on Kindle...

For those of you who live in the UK you, like me, might be vaguely familiar with Stella Benson's name. I seem to have stumbled across it time and again in secondhand books - usually espying the 'Benson' bit, getting excited thinking it was 'E.F.', and realising it wasn't. For some reason I put Stella Benson in the category of Marie Corelli or Ethel M. Dell - prolific writers who were rather sub-par. I bought Living Alone as a Dodo Press reprint (original editions being prohibitively expensive) but had no high expectations. Turns out, while Living Alone ended up being a little too weird for my tastes, Stella Benson is neither a poor writer nor an especially prolific one. According to a rather scattergun Wikipedia page, she only wrote a dozen or so books - including poetry, short stories, and travel essays alongside novels.

Living Alone was her third novel, and is set during the First World War, although published shortly afterwards. A note at the beginning states 'This is not a real book. It does not deal with real people, nor should it be read by real people.' That should have set me up for the oddness which follows, but the first section of the book (easily my favourite part) is in the very real, very recognisable world of committees (in this case, one for War Savings). The assembled characters include, indeed, 'Three of the women were of the kind that has no life apart from committees.' They're the sort of people that E.M. Delafield is so funny about - people who take themselves incredibly seriously, and are unable to see themselves as others see them. Rather than the insipid romantic drivel I had somehow associated with Stella Benson's name, her prose is delightfully dry and witty - I would happily have read a whole novel devoted to the committee meeting. But... a Stranger runs in, and hides under the table.

To anybody except a member of a committee it would have been obvious that the Stranger was of the Cinderella type, and bound to turn out a heroine sooner or later. But perception goes out of committees. The more committees you belong to, the less of ordinary life you will understand. When your daily round becomes nothing more than a daily round of committees you might as well be dead.

The Stranger turns out to be... a witch. She doesn't seem to have a name (although this wonderful exchange does take place:)

She grew very red. “I say, I should be awfully pleased if you would call me Angela.”

It wasn’t her name, but she had noticed that something of this sort is always said when people become motherly and cry.

'Angela' lives in a house called Living Alone, a sort of guest-house for eccentrics and those of a reclusive bent. It is thus perfect for witches. And it has all manner of curious rules - for example:

Carpets, rugs, mirrors, and any single garment costing more than three guineas, are prohibited. Any guest proved to have made use of a taxi, or to have travelled anywhere first class, or to have bought cigarettes or sweets costing more than three shillings a hundred or eighteenpence a pound respectively, or to have paid more than three and sixpence (war-tax included) for a seat in any place of entertainment, will be instantly expelled. Dogs, cats, goldfish, and other superhuman companions are encouraged.

She has a broomstick called Harold, and flies about on this. At one point she has a battle with a German witch during an air raid. There isn't much of a linear plot, and it's all rather a jumble of mad characters and curiosities. Some are too unusual to inhabit your average novel (such as another inhabitant of Living Alone, Peony, who speaks with a thick Cockney accent, mostly about a boy she once found in the street) but others would feel at home in Delafield or von Arnim or even Stella's namesake E.F. Benson. (Were they related? I don't know... but Stella's aunt was Red Pottage author Mary Cholmondeley). Lady Arabel (who 'was virtuous to the same extent as Achilles was invulnerable') is one such character - she would fit alongside any agitated, eccentric Lady anywhere.

I wish I could explain the narrative to you, but it dash all over the place without any real logic. The overall impression is more or less surreal. Certain paragraphs give a sense of this surrealism - for example, this family group observed in an air raid shelter:

It was a group whose relationships were difficult to make out, the ages of many of the children being unnaturally approximate. There seemed to be at least seven children under three years old, and yet they all bore a strong and regrettable family likeness. Several of the babies would hardly have been given credit for having reached walking age, yet none had been carried in. The woman who seemed to imagine herself the mother of this rabble was distributing what looked like hurried final words of advice. The father with a pensive eye was obviously trying to remember their names, and at intervals whispering to a man apparently twenty years his senior, whom he addressed as Sonny. It was all very confusing.

Although I loved excerpts like this, I think it offers the key to my ultimate dissatisfaction with Living Alone. I think novelists are most successful (or at least most pleasing to me!) when they chose either to write of ordinary life in a surreal way (Barbara Comyns, Muriel Spark, Patrick Hamilton) or of surreal events in an ordinary way (my oft-cited Pantheon of Edith Olivier, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Frank Baker, David Garnett.) By writing of the surreal surreally, Stella Benson makes Living Alone feel rather overdone. I felt the same with the small amount I read of Douglas Adams, incidentally. I loved the unbalanced dialogue and exaggerated scenarios when feet were otherwise firmly on the ground - while we were in the world of WW1 committees - but as soon as broomsticks were given names, I wanted the dial turned down. The writing was still good, but I was getting altitude sickness myself. (A rather more positive review, and one which seemed to understand the plot better than I did, can be read here.)

I do not mean to say, as one reviewer of Edith Olivier's The Love-Child did, that I wish her to:

a brilliant future might be predicted for her if it were not for the consideration that the thing is a tour de force, and that it has yet to be discovered what she can do when dealing with lives lived out soberly under the light of the sun and not with a world of fantasy.

I do not wish her narrative to be sober. I want it to be eccentric and unusual, but I do want it to be outside the world of fantasy. Lucky for me, it seems Living Alone was a one-off, in terms of topic. There are plenty of others out there that might well fulfil what I'm hoping to find, and I certainly shan't leave Stella on the shelf next time I stumble across her... have any of you read anything by Stella Benson?

(If you're finding comments difficult to process, I've been told that Comment Verification letters aren't displaying properly - click 'submit' and they should appear the second time.)

Other books to get Stuck into:

Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner - mentioned a couple times above, this 1920s novel about a spinster becoming a witch is never over the top, and, even without the twist, is an exceptionally good domestic novel.

The War Workers by E.M. Delafield - nothing fantastic about this, except the quality! If talk of WW1 self-important committees got you interested, this satirical novel is perfect.

The Spinster - 100 years ago

2011-11-23T00:00:00.000Z

I've mentioned before that I'm writing about spinsters in the early twentieth-century. I find it a fascinating topic, and I know that many of you do too. We all have access to wonderful spinster novels such as Life and Death of Harriett Frean by May Sinclair, The Love Child by Edith Olivier, Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner, Alas, Poor Lady by Rachel Ferguson etc. etc., but having the Bodleian at my lucky little fingertips does give me more scope than many. Having read an article called 'The Spinster', published in a journal called The Freewoman, I thought I'd share it with you. What makes it even more noteworthy is that it was published on November 23rd 1911: exactly one hundred years ago today. The views are sometimes rather shocking. I wonder how much has changed, and how much has stayed the same? (For one thing, paragraphs were much longer!)

The Spinster. By One.

I write of the High Priestess of Society. Not of the mother of sons, but of her barren sister, the withered tree, the aciduous vestal under whose pales shadow we chill and whiten, of the Spinster I write. Because of her power and dominion. She, unobtrusive, meek, soft-footed, silent, shamefaced, bloodless and boneless, thinned to spirit, enters the secret recesses of the mind, sits at the secret springs of action, and moulds and fashions our emasculate Society. She is our social Nemesis. For the insult of her creation, without knowing it she takes her revenge. What she has become, she makes all. To every form of social life she gives its complexion. Every book, every play, every sermon, every song, each bears her inscription. The Churches she has made her own. Their message and their conventions are for her type, and of their Ideal she has made a Spinster transfigured. In the auditorium of every theatre she sits, the pale guardian. What the players say and do, they say and do never forgetting her presence. She haunts every library. Her eye will pierce the cover of every book, and her glance may not be offended. In our schools she takes the little children, and day by day they breathe in the atmosphere of her violated spirit. She tinges every conversation, she weights each moral judgment. She rules the earth. All our outward morality is made to accommodate her, and any alien, wild life-impulse which clamours for release is released in secret, in shame, and under the sense of sin. A restive but impotent world writhes under her subtle priestly domination. She triumphs, and we turn half expecting to see in her the joy of triumph. But no, not that even. She has no knowledge of it. All is pure fatality. She remains at once the injured and the injuring. Society has cursed her and the curse is now roosting at home.

The indictment which the Spinster lays up against Society is that of ingenious cruelty. The type of intelligence which, in its immaturity, conceived the tortures of a Tantalus might have essayed the creation of a spinster as its ripe production. See how she is made, and from what. She is mothered into the world by a being, who, whatever else she may be, is not a spinster, and from this being she draws her instincts. While yet a child, these instincts are intensified and made self-conscious by the development, in her own person, of a phenomenon which is unmistakable, repellent, and recurrent with a rapid and painful certainty. This development engenders its own lassitude, and in this lassitude new instincts are set free. Little by little, the development of her entire form sets towards a single consummation, and all the while, by every kind of device, the mind is set towards the same consummation. In babyhood, she begins, with her dolls. Why do not the parents of a prospective spinster give her a gun or an engine. If Society is going to have spinsters, it should train spinsters. In girlhood, she is ushered into an atmosphere charged with sex-distinctions and sex-insinuations. She is educated on a literature saturated with these. In every book she takes up, in every play she sees, in every conversation, in every social amusement, in every interest in life she finds that the pivot upon which all interest turns is the sex interest. So body, mind, training, and environment unite to produce in her an expectation which awaits definite fulfilment. She is ready to marry, ripe to marry, needing marriage, and up to this point Society has been blameless. It is in the next step that she sins. Did Society inculcate nothing more, Nature would step in to solve her own difficulties, as she does where Society and its judgments have little weight. Among the very poor there is no spinster difficulty, because the very poor do not remain spinsters. It is from higher up in the social scale, where social judgments count, where the individual is a little more highly wrought, better fashioned for suffering, that we draw the army of actual spinsters. It is in the classes where it is not good form to have too much feeling, and actual bad form to show any; where there is a smattering of education, and little interests to fill in the time, that their numbers rally and increase. It is here that Society, after having fostered just expectations, turns round arbitrarily on one perhaps in every four and says, "Thou shalt not." No reason given, only outlawry prescribed if the prohibition is disregarded. And because Society has a dim consciousness of its own treachery - for its protection and like a coward - it lays down the law of silence, and in subtle fashion makes the poor wretch the culprit. (It is probably this sense of self-defection which keeps these cheated women from committing rape. Imagine an equal proportion of any male population under similar circumstances!) Probably, one will ask, What is all the fuss about? Is it all because a man did not turn up at the right time? Well, partly yes and partly no. Not any man. It was the right man she was expecting, HER man. Rightly or wrongly the theory of the right man has been dinned into consciousness of the ordinary middle-class woman. It may be merely a subtle ruse on the part of a consciously inadequate society to prepare its victims for the altar. However that may be, the result is the same. The Spinster stands the racket. She pays the penalty. She is the failure, and she closes her teeth down and says nothing. What can she say? Is she not the failure? And so the conspiracy of silence becomes complete. Then, mind and body begin. They get their pound of flesh and the innermost Ego of the Soul, the solitary Dweller behind the Mind, stands at bay to meet their baiting. Day by day, year by year, the baiting goes on. To what end - for what temporal or final good is all this? This is the question to which Society, in sheer amends, has to find an answer. This unfair war waged by instinct and training against poor ordinary consciousness can only be rendered decent by some overwhelming good accruing to someone or something. To whom and for what? These are questions to which we demand an answer as a right. Then, being answered, if any woman considers the benefit conferred upon Society great enough to outweigh the suffering entailed upon herself she may possibly undertake it in the spirit of some magnanimous benefactor. Because this inward warfare cannot truthfully be considered for one moment as benefiting the Spinster herself. Her character for instance, is not in need of that kind of tonic. For, be it noted, the Spinster does not overcome Sex as a Saint overcomes Sin. She does not, save rarely, crush out of existence that part of her which is threatening her life's reasonable calm. Driven inward, denied its rightful ordained fulfilment, the instinct becomes diffused. The field of consciousness is charged with an all-pervasive unrest and sickness, which changes all meanings, and queers all judgments, and which, appearing outwardly, we recognise as sentimentality. It is to this sentimentality that all reason and intelligence has to bow. It is by this means that we are all made to pass under the yoke. It is not, however, to be believed that every spinster will thus suffer mind and body to enter into bondage. Some are finding a way of escape. Some women have taken this way, and more will take it. It is the final retort. It is the way of the Saint. It would be the right way in overcoming sin. But in overcoming the life instinct itself, who shall say it is right? The way is to destroy the faculty. With a strong will and a stern regime it can be done. Women are doing it with a fierce joy that would have gladdened the heart of some old Puritan. You take the body and tire it out with work, work, work. In any crevice of time left over you rush here and there, up and down, constantly active. And for the mind, you close down the shutters on that field. No image, no phrase, no brooding, nothing there which speaks of emotions which produce life. And this sort of Spinster, more and more, is bringing up the younger generation. Another unconscious revenge! But this is the way of the few. As for the many, they go the sentimental way. For there is no shuffling possible in this matter. The Spinster must either keep her womanhood at the cost of suffering inordinate for the thing it is, and be compelled to turn what should be an incidental interest into the basis of all interest; or she must destroy the faculty itself, and know herself atrophied. There is no alternative. To offer work, pleasure, "doing good," in lieu of this is as much to the point and as sensible as to offer a loaf to a person who is tortured with thirst.

Let the social guardians remember that in the fulness of time physical developments show themselves, and that as they appear, so must they be provided for. This social slaughter can no longer pass without challenge, and they may remember for their comfort that if prurience has slain its thousands, chastity has slain its tens of thousands. In this matter, it remains for Society to justify itself.

Comments...

2011-11-21T20:47:00.001Z

Apparently quite a few people are having problems posting comments - I don't know if that's just for my blog, or for Blogger in general. If you've had trouble, would you mind letting me know at simondavidthomas[at]yahoo.co.uk, just so I know the scale of the issue! And if there are any comments you'd like to make, and can't, I'll post them on your behalf :)

Two Readers; One Day

2011-11-21T00:01:00.001Z

So, Claire (Paperback Reader) and I had both read One Day by David Nicholls, along with seemingly everyone else in the world, and we both wanted to put up posts on it. But we thought it might be fun to do something a bit different. We're having a real-time conversation via email, and will post the results on both our blogs... hopefully it'll have the feel of a book group, but with the bonus that we can edit ourselves to sound better! For a conversation covering not only One Day but Thomas Hardy, Mr. Darcy, and what constitutes good writing - read on!

SIMON: Hi Claire! Hope you're well?

CLAIRE: Hi Simon, I am well, thank you. Funnily enough, I was watching something that provoked me into thinking about missed connections/potential but interrupted moments, which was the essence of One Day, in my opinion. I found those "what if?" and *nearly* sections of the novel both frustrating and emotive; I think we can all identify with them on some level. What do you think?

SIMON: Good point. I suppose, in outline, One Day is fairly inevitable - we know the lives of Dexter and Emma are going to overlap after their day/night together at the end of university - otherwise there wouldn't really be any point to the novel. So Nicholls had to lace it all with will-they-won't-they moments, near-misses and misunderstandings etc. I suppose One Day could borrow that 'only connect' mantra from Howards End - it's about two people trying, and repeatedly failing, to connect with each other. I was worried it would feel too gimmicky, the concept of coming back to each of them on the same day every year - or too full of coincidences - do you think it was?

CLAIRE: I felt it was very contrived. The anniversary of when they met happened to be the same date as all of those key moments in their relationship and [the big spoiler at the end!]? Really? Life is full of coincidences but I think that Nicholls took the gimmick too far. I agree though that it is about two people trying -and failing- to connect with each other. I think that the reason I found it so frustrating is that those near-misses and misunderstandings are such an integral part of life and something we have all fell victim to at some point ... I felt that Emma and Dex's relationship was hopeless/futile and that these connections are so often outwith our control/at the whim of fickle fate and a bitchy traveller who steals other people's books!

Your allusion to Howards End reminds me of the tribute the book made to Tess of the D'Ubervilles and Hardy; it's been so long since I read Tess (and I have a hopeless retention for key plot details) but what was the relevance between it and One Day?

SIMON: Oh gosh, now you're testing me... The letter goes missing under the carpet in Tess, maybe that? Can't see much of a link between the two, myself. Nor did I find One Day as contrived as I'd thought it might be - because big events were recalled, rather than all happening on July 15th. But I agree that The Big Spoiler Moment happening on the same date as their meeting was a coincidence too far…

Whilst we're on intertextual references - I was chuffed to see what Emma had on her bedside table at the beginning of the novel. Now I can't remember what they all were (argh!) but I do know that I'd read them all - there was Milan Kundera, maybe a Muriel Spark? It certainly made me like Emma, at the start at least. I'm easily won over like that. How sympathetic did you find Emma and Dexter, and did it change as the novel progressed?

CLAIRE: That sounds about right; I knew it was something about miscommunication/confessions going astray! I did think it was clever that we were told rather than saw some of the key moments in their relationship as everything occurring on July 15th would have been ridiculous,

I was delighted by the intertextual references - we do love our books about books! I took note of this wonderful quote about Muriel Spark.

But at the best of times she feels like a character in a Muriel Spark – independent, bookish, sharp-minded, secretly romantic.

I certainly warmed to Emma, at the start, due to her love of books; however, both she and Dexter grated on my nerves throughout and not just because of their ineptitude in getting together. My sympathies towards Dexter changed as the novel progressed, as I found Dexter became more sympathetic, but, conversely, Emma became an unsympathetic character. Regrettably, Emma was far from the Muriel Spark character that she professed to be. Ultimately, I didn't like either of them very much- did you?

SIMON: There were definitely moments when I couldn't imagine Dexter being any more loathsome. The period where he was constantly on drugs, doing appalling television, feeling self-important and neglecting Emma - I just wanted her to high-tail it outta there. I found this quotation, from that year, one of the most moving in the book:

"Dexter, I love you so much. So, so much, and I probably always will." Her lips touched his cheek. "I just don’t like you anymore. I’m sorry."

I think the conflict between loving and liking someone (romantically or otherwise) is something with which we can all identify. Nicholls phrases it so simply there - and since it comes at the end of a long scene where Dexter has proved unbearably awful, and Emma has tried so hard, I found it really powerful.

But I came out the opposite of you - by the end, I liked them both. Eventually I even warmed to Dexter! How important do you think sympathising with characters is in One Day?

CLAIRE: Oh, that's interesting. He was loathsome but I think as the novel -and the years- progressed I understood Dexter more; I think he was an addict, which, as I said above, made him more sympathetic to me. Emma, I thought, was dissatisfied/unfulfilled and although that made me sad it also made me find her a little... fickle; once she had Dex she still wasn't happy and it was inevitable that their story had a tragic ending (spoilers galore! I think that there is a statute of limitations, especially on a book that is everywhere. Mwah ha ha). I found it sad that as a thirty-eight year old Emma was so disillusioned by love and far removed from her twenty-two year old self.

Normally I do not have to sympathise, or even like, characters in order to enjoy a book but with One Day I think it hampered my enjoyment. Although I liked it well enough I did not love it. I needed to be more invested in their story, to will them together, but I didn't care enough about them; Em/Dex are not the star-crossed lovers of our generation. Do you agree?

SIMON: I had a fairly odd relationship with the novel - in that, whilst I was reading it, I loved it. I raced through it on holiday - and you know me and long books; it doesn't often work. But almost as soon as I finished it, I started doubting myself. Had I really liked it as much as I thought? Was it actually a very good novel? I did care about the characters - I must have done, to make me find it so compelling. But afterwards I started to think - is Nicholls a good stylist, for example, or simply good at making a novel pacy? (Is there a difference?!)

CLAIRE: I think there is a difference. I similarly found it compelling-and we have established it wasn't due to my love for the characters- but I think it suffered from undue hype. Surely to be classed as an epic love story of our times, we have to be more engaged and invested? Mr Darcy doesn't start out as likable but, oh my, is his and Lizzie's story compelling. One Day was absorbing and it absorbed me for more than one day but I don't understand why so many people love it/cry over it. I saw the tragic moment coming, although it did make me gasp a little. However, I don't think that really answers your question. It was a good read but not a good book, if you see the same difference as I do?

SIMON: That's exactly it! Except I might be a trifle more generous and say it was a great read but not a great book - it might just sneak into 'good book' territory for me. I have a feeling that those who wept/cheered over One Day either have had close experiences, or have yet to read Pride and Prej etc. (or my favourite romantic couple, Jane/Toby in The L-Shaped Room.)

CLAIRE: I will temper my comment by saying it was a good read but not a great book (that seems fairer and more truthful to my own feelings). I hate to say it (well, not really) but I think that as far as mainstream love stories go, Emma and Dexter, are fitting but they were too close to ... human for me; I prefer my love stories either more romantic/idyllic or far grittier (of which polar opposites both of your examples fit). Emma and Dexter’s story was distinctly average.

SIMON: Like you, I more or less saw the tragic end coming. That's one moment which I thought the film did extraordinarily well - and I wished I hadn't known it would happen, because it was quite a shocking moment of film.

Ah, the film. Let's swap our reading glasses for our cinema specs for a mo - first off, who would you like to have played Emma and Dexter? I would have loved Emma to be Romola Garai, which was only enforced by seeing her in a smaller role in the film.

CLAIRE: I haven't seen the film (I know!) I meant to... then all the criticism of Anne Hathaway's shifting accents deterred me. Did you find though while reading it that you had the cast in your mind's eye? I always find it hard to re-imagine a character once they have been imagined for me onscreen. I love Romola Garai, however, and think she would have made a lovely -and altogether more sympathetic- Emma; as for Dex, I'm not sure... somebody that does cad and endearing/vulnerable/messed up male well.

SIMON: I never visualise characters when reading, so I was pretty open to any actors, visually at least. Gotta say, I'd never heard of Jim Strugess before One Day, but he was a brilliant Dexter. Dexter's more annoying phases were played with an undercurrent of embarrassment, so that he never felt quite as loathsome as he did in the novel. Anne Hathaway... oh, Anne, I love you normally, but that accent was beyond dreadful. Most of the time she was vaguely British, and then she would lapse into ee-by-gum Yorkshire. No, Annie, no.

CLAIRE: I've seen Jim Sturgess in a film before and thought he was well cast (not seeing how he actually comes across onscreen though, I can't judge if I was correct.)

SIMON: We've not really covered all the other characters... have to admit, Emma's boyfriend Ian made me feel very uncomfortable - mostly because I kept wondering how similar he was to me! I'm totally the guy who makes jokes all the time, whatever the tone of the situation... What did you think of Ian and Sylvie, as the substitute partners for Emma and Dexter?

CLAIRE: Ian made me very uncomfortable too; he started off sweet and self-deprecating and then became quite scary. I don't think you should be at all concerned of being the same as him, Simon! He had his insecurities and was obviously very much in love with Emma; I did think it was good of Nicholls to bring him back for Dexter in end, which redeemed his character. Sylvie never really rang true for me; she was quite one-dimensional and what was with her family?! The Sylvie of early Dexter/Sylvie and the Sylvie at the end of their marriage were disparate but, then, people and relationships evolve/devolve. Neither character was a fitting substitute character, I thought, but acted as a foil to the "meant to be" partner.

SIMON: Sylvie's family were ghastly, weren't they? 'Are you there, Moriarty?' sounds like the worst game ever, and I usually adore silly family games. I wish Nicholls had made her a little more believable, as a person Dexter would have picked. Ditto swarthy French bloke, for Emma.

I suppose we should be drawing this discussion to an end, since it should take up less than one day(!) - can I just say, though, what fun it's been, Claire! I hope the readers enjoy the format (shameless plug for 'we love you guys' comments!) Perhaps we can just sum up our thoughts in one or two sentences?

CLAIRE: It's been a pleasure, as always!

Hm, one or two sentences? One Day was a book about missed opportunities and failed connections and, regrettably, it failed to connect with me.

SIMON: Nice! Ok, my turn. One Day felt like a great read one day, a good read the next day, a mediocre film a later day, and a great conversation today!

Song for a Sunday

2011-11-20T00:00:00.000Z

I recently got a lovely covers album called Birdy and, er, by Birdy. This is the first song she released from it - a cover of Bon Iver's 'Skinny Love'. She has such a nice tone to her voice, it's a bit weird to discover that she's only 15 years old.

To watch other Sunday Songs, click here.

Stuck-in-a-Book's Weekend Miscellany

2011-11-19T00:00:00.000Z

Our Vicar's Wife is staying at the moment, so give her a cheery wave. Thanks!
Feeling sleepy this weekend, so we'll move straight onto the book, blog, and link - although I'll whisper a little advance warning for Monday... I'll be trying something a bit different, and another blogger will be along to help me...

1.) The book - came from the lovely people at Sort Of books, responsible for the wonderful Tove Jansson editions and my recently-reviewed Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles. Basically, their books are beautiful and they don't put a foot wrong. They spotted my review, and thought I might like Telescope by Jonathan Buckley. This is their blurb, from the website:

Daniel Brennan, approaching the premature end of his life, retreats to a room in his brother’s suburban house. To divert himself and to entertain Ellen, his carer, he writes the journal that is Telescope, blurring truth, gossip and fiction in vignettes of his own life and the lives of those close to him. Above all he focuses on his siblings: mercurial Celia, whose life as a teacher in Italy seems to have run aground, and kindly Charlie, the entrepreneur of the family.

Enriched with remarkable observations on topics ranging from tattoos and Tokyo street fashion to early French photography, Telescope is a startlingly original and moving book, a glimpse of the world as seen by a connoisseur of vicarious experience.

More info here - but I'd be surprised if I didn't love it, given how similar my tastes seem to be to this publisher's own.

2.) The link - a lot of you will have heard of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) where aspiring novelists scribble as fast as possible during November to create their first draft. Well, Peirene Press (lovely Peirene Press, I mean) have created PeiShoStoMo. Peirene Short Story Month. I'm afraid I'm announcing this nineteen days late, but you still have a week and a half to write 900 words, if you're interested... more here.

3.) The blog post - you know I can't resist it when I find reviews of my favourite books, especially when they're wonderfully enthusiastic reviews. This one, of Miss Hargreaves (which I've just finished for the sixth time) was actually written back in March, but I didn't see it then. It's a lovely review, and the post includes a picture of the first edition dustjacket, which I hadn't seen before and which I love. (It's not the one pictured... I'm saving the surprise for when you've clicked on the link.) Oh, I flippin' love everything to do with Miss Hargreaves - every time I read it I love it even more, and wish ever more fervently that (a) I could have seen Margaret Rutherford play her on stage, or (b) Maggie Smith would play her in a film. Please, please, pleeeeeeease.

Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau

2011-11-18T00:00:00.000Z

Thanks for your lovely comments on my Holywell Cemetery post - I was a bit tentative about sharing that side of my interests, but lots of us seem to have similar activities! I'm sorry my responses to comments have been lax of late - will get onto that soon.

Since my 26th birthday has come and gone, it's about time I finished writing about the books I received for my 25th birthday, isn't it? Well, truth be told, I've yet to read all of them, but I have read one of those given to me by Colin: Exercises in Style (1947) by Raymond Queneau.

Oddly enough, I was offered a review copy of this back in the dim, distant past. I said yes-please-thank-you-very-much, and they sent me... The Fox by D.H. Lawrence. (Which, incidentally, was very good - read more here). Not sure how that happened, but it put Exercises in Style onto my radar, and I was pleased when Col gave it to me. Before I go further, I must add that it was translated by Barbara Wright. Thanks, Barbara!

The premise is simple, and the execution is complex. An everyday incident takes place, described thus on the blurb:

On a crowded bus at midday, the narrator observes one man accusing another of jostling him deliberately. When a seat is vacated, the first man takes it. Later, in another part of town, the man is spotted again, while being advised by a friend to have another button sewn onto his overcoat.

Queneau's experiment is to find as many ways as possible to express this anecdote. There are ninety-nine different styles used - some are expected (Past, Present, Reported Speech), some are quirky (Couplets, Cross-Examination) and some are just plain weird (Paragoge, Parts of Speech, Permutations by Groups of 2, 3, 4 and 5 Letters).

This definitely isn't a book to read cover-to-cover in one go. I read it gradually over the course of several months, which worked out to be a pretty good approach. Exercises in Style is, of course, more of an experiment in what can be done with words than a gripping beginning-middle-end read. As such, it is interesting in the abstract, wider-view - but would be far too repetitive if read in one go. I have to admit to flicking past the styles which removed any linguistic sense from the anecdote, and the Dog Latin meant little to me, but I was impressed by how varied the same unremarkable story can be, simply through stylistic choices.

Perhaps Exercises in Style should be on hand for the aspiring novelist - it should certainly be flicked through by anybody who claims to like novels 'in a plain, unfancy style' - because it reveals that there is no such thing as a plain style. True, few novels would focalise wholly through smell, feel, or sound (as some of these styles do) but Queneau reveals how many different ways a writer can approach even the most mundane objects. I'd recommend anybody interested in language or the importance of writing in fiction should have a copy of this on the shelves, to dip in and out of, smiling.

It goes without saying that, being in translation, some of Queneau's nuances will have been lost - perhaps more important in Exercises in Style than other books, but the fact of translation doesn't diminish the point that language choices affect the ways we read. Indeed, it enhances it.

Rather than go on any further, I think I'll type out a few examples, so you can see for yourself the sort of variety which Queneau creates:

Zoological

In the dog days, while I was in a bird cage at feeding time, I noticed a young puppy with a neck like a giraffe who, ugly and venomous as a toad, wore yet a precious beaver on his head. This queer fish obviously had a bee in his bonnet and was quite bats, he started yak-yakking at a wolf in sheep's clothing claiming that he was treading on his dogs with his beetle-crushers. But the cock got a flea in his ear; that foxed him, and quiet as a mouse he ran like a hare for the perch.

I saw him again in front of the zoo with a young buck who was telling him to bear in mind a certain drill about his pelage.

Passive

Midday was struck on the clock. The bus was being got onto by passengers. They were being squashed together. A hat was being worn on the head of a young gentleman, which hat was encircled by a plait and not by a ribbon. A long neck was sported by the gentleman. The man standing next to him was being grumbled at by the latter because of the jostling which was being inflicted on him by him. As soon as a vacant seat was espied by the young gentleman, it was made the object of his precipitate movements and it became sat down upon.

The young gentleman was later seen by me in front of the Gare Saint-Lazare. He was clothed in an overcoat and was having a remark made to him by a friend who happened to be there, to the effect that it was necessary to have an extra button put on it.

Couplets

On the bus once (an S, or of that ilk)
I saw a little runt, a wretched milk-
Sop, voicing discontent, though round his turban
He had a plait, this fancy-pants suburban.
How he complained, this strange metamorphosis
With elongated neck and halitosis:
One standing near who'd come to man's estate
Refused, he said, to circumnavigate
His toes, when passengers got on and rode,
Late for lunch, panting, to some chaste abode.
There was no scandal; this sad personage
Found where to sit and end his pilgrimage.
As I went back towards the Latin Quarter
He reappeared, this lad of milk and water;
I heard his foppish friend say with dispassion:
"The buttons on your coat are not in fashion."

Feeling Grave

2011-11-16T00:00:00.000Z

Whenever I wander from the topic of books, it's inevitable that I'll leave some of my lovely literary readers behind - just because you like books doesn't mean you'll share my taste in CDs, films, cakes, cats, donkeys... but today's post might alienate even more than usual! Because I'm going to write about graveyards. Well, not really graveyards-plural, just graveyard-singular: Holywell Cemetery. It's attached to St. Cross Church in Oxford, where I used to worship, and which closed down three years ago (see my post here.) I had half an hour to spare the other day, so off I went with my camera...

I often sought refuge there as an undergraduate - being a country boy stranded in a city, this was the closest I could find to home. Holywell Cemetery has a policy of leaving different areas untended in various cycles, for reasons to do with wildlife etc. I believe, so there are always plenty of beautifully overgrown areas.

But my love of Holywell Cemetery doesn't life entirely in its rural feel. A lot of people find graveyards spooky or disconcerting. Not I. For me, a deep peacefulness pervades them. Entering a cemetery, one seems to have escaped time. Those born in 1650 lie alongside those born in 1950, all equal.

But what really fascinates me, having said that, what is above ground, and the infinite variety there. Tombstones. The lasting monuments to individuals really were varied - through the years, but also according (I assume) to wealth. Some were huge and ornate:

Others were tiny; you can barely see this one hidden amongst the brambles. It made me wonder - did that person (name now illegible) die after everyone they knew, or were their grieving family too poor to afford more than this small slab?

I think that's what I treasure about cemeteries - it's like rows and rows of book covers. You can deduce a little, but only a little. Unlike books, the stories aren't waiting to be revealed - tombstones offer all the information there is, unless one is willing to bury oneself in record offices. There are mysteries in each epitaph - what, for example, is the story behind this?

'Martha Hawkins. Died August 11th 1849. Aged 18 years.' The very barest outline of a life, but why so young at her death? Who chose this inscription - who mourned Martha's passing and celebrated her life? All these brief clues to lived lives. I could read tombstones all day - the whole spectrum of emotions are there. Joy, grief. Regret, triumph. Simplicity, complexity.

Above all - love. The final words that will be dedicated to someone - and the words they choose hold such importance, often amongst such simplicity. Unsurprisingly, I was especially touched by those triumphant headstones which proclaimed Bible verses.

Who could fail to be moved by these three words?

'Toby Kay. Died at birth'. There was another similar tombstone, for a baby who had lived for 18 days. It also had a little engraving of a toy duck. But since it was only a few years old, I thought it best not to take a photo or post it here, since the grief is still fresh. Other markers tell their own tale of history:

The circular plaque reads: 'This cross near his sister's grave stood where Ronald rests in the R Berks cemetery, Ploegsteert Wood, Belgium.'

Nor is Holywell Cemetery without its fair share of famous 'residents'. Two Kenneths might be of interest - Grahame and Tynan.

And then, of course, there are some tombstones that are simply beautiful, and examples of fine artistry. The first of those below was perhaps my favourite that I saw - not as ornate as others, but perfectly appropriate for the setting.

If you are ever visiting Oxford, I recommend that you make time to visit Holywell Cemetery - and not in a rush, either, but slowly and contemplatively. Stepping into the graveyard, and walking between the tombstones, time seems to stand still - or simply not to matter. Time has melded all the decades into one, here. Beautiful craftsmanship sits alongside the simple and unassuming. Lengthy epitaphs are next to those striking by their brevity - which, in turn, stand by those which time has rubbed illegible. Each headstone reflects a life, lived for a hundred years or a single day, and each of those lives reflects outwards to mother, father, siblings, spouse, children, grandchildren... It is a beautiful place to be, and not just for the eye. It is beautiful for the spirit and the mind and the soul.

The Only Way Is (Mary) Essex

2011-11-14T00:00:00.000Z

Sue, Ann, and Erika were all intrigued by the opening to Tea Is So Intoxicating by Mary Essex, which I posted the other day, and asked if I would say a bit more about her. Here are those lines again:

It is highly probable that the tea shop would never have started at all if Commander David Tompkins hadn't fancied himself at being something of a dab-hand at cooking.

Well, never let it be said that I ignore the cries of my people. I do misinterpret them a bit - because I don't remember all that much about Tea Is So Intoxicating, I decided to read one of the other Mary Essex novels I have on my shelf - the equally wonderfully titled The Amorous Bicycle.

You see, I read Tea Is So Intoxicating almost a decade ago, and I read it immediately after finished Moby Dick. Anything would have been refreshing right then - and, while I knew I loved the novel, which is about the struggles of setting up a provincial tea-room, I didn't know how much this depended on comparison. Whom could I ask? Nobody else knew anything about her. I'm the only person to own any Mary Essex novels on LibraryThing (since Geranium Cat very kindly gave me her copy of Six Fools and a Fairy.) And I bought Tea Is So Intoxicating on a whim, because it had a brilliant title and only cost 10p.

Turns out, I knew more about Mary Essex than I realised. But I'd nearly finished the novel before I discovered that, so I'm going to make you wait until the end of the review to unveil the surprise...

The Amorous Bicycle (1944) takes place in Queen Catharine's Court, an 'ultra-modern, ultra-select block of flats situated in South London, not too south of course, because that would not have had a desirable district number for notepaper, but fairly south.' There is a huge cast of characters (which isn't the only thing which reminded me of Richmal Crompton's novels) and not really any principals - although the first we meet is Mr. Vyle, the resident manager of the building. He's a bit of a coward, and unduly proud of his position, but basically a good egg.

I was going to go through the lot, but it might get a bit bewildering. Suffice to say, they do all become fully-formed - it just takes quite a few pages. Some are closer to stereotype than others - the retired Colonel and his ex-comrade cook are in the 'closer' category, not to mention the temperamental French chef for the building's restaurant. There's also the James family - a long-suffering mother who is more than willing to share her sufferings, her actressy daughter and casual son, and her estranged husband (preposterously called Henry James) who is ditched by the mistress he absconded with, and tries to go back to the family he hasn't seen for a decade. There's a coquettish young woman; a coquettish older woman; a browbeaten decorator determined to paint every flat 'pile blew'; a lascivious doctor; a self-important, plagiarising novelist... the list goes ever delightfully on.

It all sounds a bit like a soap opera, doesn't it? Well, it's closer, as I said, to Richmal Cromptons novels - a useful comparison only, of course, if you've read any of them. Gossip and intrigue sustain the residents of the building, all of whom seem to be contemplating romantic alliances to greater or lesser extents.

I am no great fan of romantic novelists. If that is all they bring to the table, I must confess myself bored - but you probably know how greatly I prize good writing and Essex's is certainly not bad. It would, admittedly, be infinitely better if she had never discovered the use of the exclamation mark. I think it can be used to great aplomb in dialogue (c.f. The Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton, still my forerunner for Read of 2011) but is nigh-on unforgivable in narrative. It always looks amateurish.

BUT - Essex's writing is funny. Of course humour is subjective, but I think a lot of you might enjoy her humour too - it reminded me of E.M. Delafield, in that wry, observational style which occasionally does a little twist in the middle of a sentence. Her unexpected turns made me smile - she is especially good, I thought, at introducing characters with quick, witty sketches. Which is a mercy, given how many of them there are. Here are three examples:

He was under forty, and good-looking in a rugged, rather ugly way.

The next one hit a bit close to home...

Professor Tyrrell, unmarried, and completely self-contained, lived in Number Ninety-one. He was pedantic, he was finicky, he spoke repulsively correct English, in fact it was so correct that it was wrong.

And, self-deprecatingly, this was my favourite:

He was a vegetarian, and looked it.

Only the other day, when reviewing Edith Olivier's Night Thoughts of a Country Landlady, I lamented that she hadn't availed herself of the many opportunities to laugh at the absurdities of wartime. Well, Essex barely comments on the more serious aspects of war (all but one person seem miraculously unaffected by any actual fighting) but is rather wonderful on the deprivations suffered by economising housewives and frustrated customers.

She proffered the menu. It read Lunch 3s.6d. (and on the back Dinner 6s.). Bread, one penny, Napkin, one penny, Coffee, sixpence. Minerals and soda water. On reading the menu, which on the face of it looked to be lengthy and extremely good, one's mood changed, because most of it had a tendency to boil down to Spam.

Indeed, it is the rumour of a far-off fishmonger selling 'dabs' (whatever they might be) which compels Miss Hungerford-Hawkes to belie the dignity of her years and procure a bicycle. This is the first, but by no means the last, mention of bicycles in The Amorous Bicycle. Essex's title derives from the well-known rhyme 'Daisy, Daisy' (read it here, if you don't know it.) For somehow, often quite tenuously, the advent of bicycles to Queen Catharine's Court leads to all sorts of happenings, romantic and otherwise (and it is rather nice that Essex focuses on romances between those not in the first flush of youth - this is by no means a youthful romance-by-numbers novel.)

I did have to laugh at the following line - I know enough evangelical cyclists to understand. (Guys, it's just a mode of transport. I don't tell you at length how great walking down the street is. Just saying. Oh, and when I'm driving, please don't cycle down the middle of the road, or jump red lights. Ta.)

Really, Mrs. Plaistow decided, people with bicycles were very much like people with babies, they just couldn't stop talking about them.

And not everybody has a fondness for this wartime economy:

Mr. Vyle didn't think so much of a nice bike. He found that biking made his ears cold, and he was fed to the teeth that he would probably have to give up his car because he couldn't get the petrol for it and he knew that Mrs. Vyle would point out that other people had "ways." Mr. Vyle hadn't any ways. He was rather alarmed at the prospect of what might happen to him if he tried any tricks. All the same he'd see this blasted war somewhere else before he bought himself a nice bike, as Tutton suggested.

Incidentally, when I worked in Rare Books in the Bodleian, I dealt with a lot of boys' comics from the early twentieth-century. Throughout the early 1940s the back cover held advertisements for a bike manufacturer (showing boys on bikes capturing Nazis; using their bike bells to win the war, etc.) but each said essentially "Sorry, bicycles not available during wartime, but keep an eye out once the fighting's all over." The residents of Queen Catharine's Court do, admittedly, have some trouble procuring their vehicles - but a fair few manage it in the end.

While I was reading, I wasn't trying to decide whether or not Mary Essex was a great novelist. She obviously isn't. My quandary was whether or not she was good - and, exclamation marks aside, I decided that she was. I'd certainly read more by her, and have one more waiting on my bookshelf. Her characters and plots don't reinvent the wheel, but are diverting enough, and her style is pleasantly amusing.

So, that twist I promised you. While hunting around on the internet, I discovered what I had already suspected - that Mary Essex was a pseudonym. What I had not expected was that I had already heard of Mary Essex under her actual name - which is (drum roll)... Ursula Bloom.

I expect a lot of you have heard of her. Perhaps you've seen her mentioned in the Guinness Book of Records. Because Ursula Bloom wrote over 500 books, under various names. In terms of quantity, she could look Barbara Cartland in the eye.

This discovery did leave me a bit shocked... how could someone so prolific actually write good books? I know a lot of you will think "All that matters is that you enjoyed it." That's partly true, but I've always been a believer that literary merit exists, and that books can't be judged entirely subjectively, or on how pleasing they are to the reader. Was my judgement wildly off? There are so many books I have disparaged or discarded because of poor writing, yet I thought the writing in The Amorous Bicycle above average.

So... I am left puzzled. Did Ursula Bloom put extra effort into her Mary Essex titles, or am I so enamoured by the 1940s that I'll forgive a wartime novelist that which I'd condemn from a 21st century writer? I don't know... but I'd love any of you who've read any Mary Essex to comment, or if you've got one languishing on your shelves - grab it, read it, and get back to me.