Famous Last Words

I do believe it's Thursday, and thus Booking Through Thursday time. This week's question:

What are your favourite final sentences from books? Is there a book that you liked specially because of its last sentence? Or a book, perhaps that you didn’t like but still remember simply because of the last line?

This is going to be a tricky one to answer without giving away plot details... also tricky because I can't think of any off the top of my head... I do think the last line of Miss Hargreaves by Frank Baker is very moving, but it has to be read in context, as it's simply ' "Miss Hargreaves... Miss Hargreaves..." '. You'll have to trust me on that one. I also love the final line of Woolf's To The Lighthouse: 'Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision'. Lengthier, and more famous perhaps, is that from Northanger Abbey. Our Jane doesn't go for short sentences, mind you...:

To begin perfect happiness at the respective ages of twenty-six and eighteen is to do pretty well ; and professing myself, moreover, convinced that the General's unjust interference, so far from being really injurious to their felicity, was perhaps rather conducive to it, by improving their knowledge of each other, and adding strength to their attachment, I leave it to be settled by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny, or reward filial disobedience.

As usual, over to you! More difficult than opening lines, isn't it?

What on a Wednesday

If my self-splurging the other day weren't enough, you can see another profile of me today! Mark Thwaite, of erudite blog ReadySteadyBook.com and the Book Depository, asked to do a blog profile of me on the latter. I was very flattered - you may have spotted profiles of dovegreyreader and Cornflower, amongst others, over the past few weeks - and of course agreed. The result can be found by clicking here - and it's also the first time I've revealed a picture of myself, except for sketches and the like.

I mentioned a few books in the interview (who'd have thought!) so might be nice if I provided links to my reviews of them, in case anybody has wandered over from that part of the blogosphere.

Miss Hargreaves by Frank Baker
Vanessa and Virginia by Susan Sellers
The Brontes Went To Woolworths - not yet reviewed, will do soon!
The Bestowing Sun - Neil Grimmett
Yellow - Janni Visman
Angel - Elizabeth Taylor
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer
(by the way, for a chance to win the excellent Guernsey Lit. etc, go along to Elaine's blog at Random Jottings and enter her prize draw!)

Illiterati

This is another one of those posts which will, sadly, exclude non-UK readers of Stuck-in-a-Book. My little map at the side informs me that people across the world have little activity filling their days other than going to obscure destinations and looking at my blog - perhaps it's simply members of my immediate family taking surreptitious holidays, but... perhaps not. Anyway, I wanted to blog about a TV programme which is on Channel 4, and thus available to UK readers if they go to 4 on Demand.

Can't Read, Can't Write is a documentary series about adult literacy. Phil Beadle, for whom the terms 'maverick' and 'rough diamond' were probably invented, takes a group of adults with reading ages between 0-12, including some who can't recognise or pronounce any letters at all. Over six months, he wants to teach them to read and write - despite never having taught anyone to read before.

If this sounds like a stunt or silly experiment, well, perhaps it once was in the minds of channel executives - but the pupils in the programme put a stop to any of that. They are such involving people, really loveable and make empathy as easy as turning the television on. Granted, we only seem to follow four people (perhaps the others didn't want to be interviewed?) but that's more than enough. There's James, 28, a labourer who has nobody to help him learn at home; Linda, 46, who listens to Shakespeare on audio book but doesn't know her alphabet; Kelly, so keen to attend lessons that she brings her children in the rain when she can't get childcare. The most wonderful, though, is Teresa (above). In her 50s, she couldn't read a word - and, through being introduced to a phonetic method of learning, is quite an able reader within a few weeks. One of the most moving moments I have ever seen on television was last week, when she finished A Very Hungry Caterpillar. "I've read a book," she wept, "I've read a book." This week she joined a library, and got a copy of Little Women, the book she'd always wanted to read. The joy and pride across her face was stunning to watch, and certainly brought a tear to my eye.

Reading is something I take for granted - I remember struggling a little bit an early age (well, I was slower than The Carbon Copy - probably not very behind, but every minute's difference matters for twins) but it's something which I couldn't do without. That these people have to go through life without reading - usually because of an education system which couldn't differentiate learning methods, and sometimes even having to hide their inability from their families - well, it's shocking. Especially when these are people who really want to read, not lazy drop-outs by any means. I'm glad Can't Read, Can't Write has brought the matter to national attention, but more than that it is a spectacular piece of documentary, and utterly moving.

Major Benjy

I'm sure the glimpse of Mapp and Lucia got you all happy and either nostalgic or full of anticipation for the future. Well, the end is not yet in sight. I mentioned Tom Holt's much-loved sequels to the Benson novels - well, there will soon be another volume to add to the flock, to mix metaphors. Step forward Guy Fraser-Sampson, and Major Benjy...

I've been in touch with Guy, and asked him to tell us a little about it all...

-Start with a brief biog, about 40 words, perhaps?

[Guy Fraser-Sampson] Hard on the heels of Sebastian Faulks’s re-launch of James Bond comes resurrectionist news of a very different ilk. Guy Fraser-Sampson, until now known as a best-selling non-fiction author, has written a new Mapp and Lucia book with the full blessing of E.F. Benson’s estate. “Major Benjy” will be published by Troubador on 1 September and will be eagerly awaited by fans around the world, as the original books (made into an equally popular TV series some years back) still command a huge cult following.

-So, how did you first come across EF Benson's Mapp & Lucia series?

[Guy Fraser-Sampson] At the age of 10, listening to “A Book at Bedtime” under the bedclothes! I have to admit, though, that I appreciated them more the older I got. I have re-read them all repeatedly over the years.

-Ok, imagine I've never read any of them - who are Mapp & Lucia, and what are the books about?

[Guy Fraser-Sampson] Fred Benson wrote both “Queen Lucia” and “Miss Mapp” as single books, but then later had the stroke of genius to bring these two dreadful women together, set them up in opposition to each other, and turn it into a series. Set in the mythical town of Tilling (in fact Rye , where Benson lived) they are constantly attempting to out-do and out-wit each other with hilarious results. With the sole exception of Jeeves and Wooster , it must be the most enduring series of comic fiction ever published. It retains a huge cult following to this day, with countless internet fan groups, local clubs and a grand gathering in Rye every September.

-So - where does 'Major Benjy' fit in?

[Guy Fraser-Sampson] “Major Benjy” is slightly unusual in that it is not a sequel in the true sense. It fits into a narrative gap between two of the existing books (“Miss Mapp” and “Mapp and Lucia”) and ties up a lot of loose ends in the process.

-What do you EF Benson would think of them?

[Guy Fraser-Sampson] That’s not really for me to say, but my instinct is that he would love “Major Benjy”. There was a lot of stuff he could not expressly articulate at the time – about gay relationships for example – which I can state, albeit very gently. In addition, I have fleshed out the supporting cast which even his fans admit was a bit of a weak point with Fred himself.

-And the questions to which I always want to know the answer at Stuck-in-a-Book - who are some of your favourite authors?

[Guy Fraser-Sampson] That’s a big question since I don’t have TV and have always been a voracious reader. I consume several books a week. For fiction other than Benson: Durrell, Farrell, O’Brian, Burgess, Davies and Rushdie. For unjustly neglected novelists I would say Hamilton and Raymond (though I see their work is now being re-printed) Derek Robinson and Frank McGillion. For lighter reading, I enjoy Vargas, Pryce, Perez-Reverte, and de Berniere’s South American trilogy.

-what book are you reading at the moment?

[Guy Fraser-Sampson] “Murther and Walking Spirits” by Robertson Davies, bought in a second-hand bookshop in Lyme Regis. I am also re-reading Tilling on Forster and Forster’s “Abinger Harvest”, both bought from my local book stall at Swiss Cottage market. Ditto “Cultural Amnesia” by Clive James bought from Daunt Books in Marylebone.

-And how can I buy a copy of Major Benjy?

[Guy Fraser-Sampson] There have already been some good orders from independent bookshops all over the UK , so please check your local bookshop first. If not, go to http://www.troubador.co.uk For US and Canadian readers, the best option is probably Amazon unless you happen to live near a large bookstore.

Mapp and Lucia

I can't believe I've been blogging for over a year and not made mention of a series of books which I'm sure you all either do love or will love - the Mapp & Lucia series by EF Benson. I've recently had the pleasure of watching Elaine at Random Jottings succumb to Elizabeth and Emmeline, and it has set me off re-reading. I've only read the first four of the six, actually, and if you throw in Tom Holt's well-respected sequels (in the style of EF Benson) then I have only got halfway. More news on Benson sequels very soon...


For those who don't know, EF Benson wrote Queen Lucia in 1920, Miss Mapp in 1922, Lucia in London in 1927 - and by 1931 had the brilliant idea to bring his creations together in Mapp and Lucia. I haven't read the final two books, as I say, but presume that the characters remain united enemies in them. Mapp and Lucia are not likeable characters, by any means - both with their varying pretensions and self-delusions, but both holding sway over their neighbourhood, there is inevitable friction and competition when they meet. And these characters, especially when they meet, are an absolute delight to read about. We laugh at them, we are fond of them, we realise how intimidating it would be to meet them in real life.


My dear friend Barbara-in-Ludlow introduced me to these books, back in 2004, very kindly lending me her beautiful Folio edition. These were returned when I went to university, and I bought up the Black Swan paperback editions. Very nice, even featured in my post about favourite book covers - but I did hanker for the beautiful Folio editions. When I was reading Barbara's, I was so worried I'd get them dirty that I read them with custom-made brown-paper covers. What can people have thought I was reading... Anyway, I found this boxset secondhand in Oxford, and was utterly delighted. Annoyingly, I have to use my glasses to read them (never know why this is true of some books and not others - nothing to do with font size) but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.


Advance apologies to anyone who now must go out and buy this edition... but it's worth it.

Quiz Results

Well, even after my avalance of clues, the character-as-author quiz remains unsolved... so here are the answers.

Any more novels I should read with characters who write?

1.) Her manuscript was burnt by her sister.
Jo - Little Women by Louisa M. Alcott

2.) Struggling to follow up his masterpiece Jacob Wrestling, he eventually wrote a novel which began 'The cat sat on the mat'.
Mr. Mortmain - I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

3.) Based on Marie Correlli, this selfish girl wrote romantic sagas, and didn't understand that a large percentage of her buying public was laughing at her.
Angel - Angel by Elizabeth Taylor


4.) This Jewish writer had a typewriter called Minnie.
Toby - The L-Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks

5.) This vicar's wife wrote romantic novels, dictating them to a secretary, and wrote so many at once that she got the plots and characters constantly confused.
Mrs. Sanders - Frost at Morning by Richmal Crompton

6.) Two Victorian poets, whom 20th Century academics discover were lovers.
Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte - Possession by A.S. Byatt


7.) She wrote detective novels about Finnish detective called Sven Hjerson, and was a parody of her own authoress.
Ariadne Oliver - lots of Poirot novels, by Agatha Christie

8.) Having published a 'minute and unpretentious literary effort', her children compare her to 'Shakespeare, Dickens, author of the Dr. Dolittle books' and her husband says 'It is Funny - but does not look amused'.
The Provincial Lady - all the Provincial Lady books after the first one, by E.M. Delafield (these quotations from The Provincial Lady Goes Further)

9.) This detective novelist was arrested for the murder of her lover, and later married a man with a monocle.
Harriet Vane - several novels by Dorothy L. Sayers

Thursday

My computer is in one of its slow moods (do I have a virus? Hmm.) so I'm not going to give you the answers to the quiz yet - it would require uploading photographs which are not yet on my computer. But I will give you some clues to the ones which nobody has yet got correct - 4, 5 and 8. All of them are in my 50 Books You Must Read But May Not Have Heard About, in the list so far, in the sidebar. That should narrow down the odds from all of literature!

My friend Mel and I spent the day doing a 'road trip' (by way of train, bus and foot) to Marsh Gibbon. We choose our destinations almost solely by their names - in the past we have visited Kingston Bagpuize, Horton-cum-Studley, Goring-and-Streatley, and Thrupp. We took a train to Bicester, and walked from there, stopping for a picnic in Launton. All was going well - we saw a bridleway sign saying 'Marsh Gibbon, 2 miles' - and the pathway took us past some utterly adorable piglets, very tiny and very confused, falling over each other and scampering like puppies. It was after this that the walk descended into anarchy - we wandered through field after field for about two hours, occasionally seeing a footpath arrow, but generally having to make our own guesses. Nothing was signposted, really, and any designated footpath which does exist was impossible to find. Fearing that we'd never see civilisation again, we eventually spotted the roof of some barns. Where there are barns, there's a farm; where there's a farm, there's a road. And there was. We eventually got to Marsh Gibbon, where The Plough quenched our thirst.

I'll leave you with my latest painting effort - Spotlight.