One of the books I got for my birthday was a new Persephone - Miss Buncle's Book by D. E. Stevenson. My lovely friend Lucy, who knows more about modern fiction than anyone else I know, gave it to me - so thank you Lucy! D. E. Stevenson is one of those authors whose name has been at the back of my mind, and on my shelves, for years - but never made it to actual reading. I have two or three already, but have been on the lookout for Miss Buncle's Book for quite a while, as it is reportedly Stevenson's best. The folks at Persephone Books obviously agree, and have made this hard-to-find title a lot easier to find. The premise is difficult to dislike - Barbara Buncle, a quiet, amiable lady in a quiet, amiable village decides to write a novel, and features all her neighbours in it under thinly disguised names. Luckily for her all the villagers seem to have surnames which are adjectives or nouns (Bold, King, Pretty) or with obvious associations (Fortnum/Mason; Dick/Turpin) and this all adds to the fun. The village all read the novel, and are scandalised at the accurate (and thus not always flattering) depiction of themselves - and are determined to root out the identity of 'John Smith', the alias Miss Buncle chose for herself.
A rather wonderful idea for a novel, which somehow doesn't get too complicated, Miss Buncle's Book would have been even better in the hands of Angela Thirkell, and a literary classic if E. M. Delafield had penned it. As it is, D. E. Stevenson's writing isn't quite as good as her ideas - a lot of cliches and unoriginal turns of phrase which prevent the novel from being in a higher league. Don't misunderstand me, this is better than a lot of writing out there, but Persephone so often publish those whose writing is exceptional (perhaps my recent immersing in Katherine Mansfield has spoilt me for lesser writers, which is most of 'em) that I didn't expect to have to be on cliche-watch.
Having said all that, Miss Buncle's Book is still a delight. The characters are fun and the situation very amusing. She handles it all with liveliness and a healthy dollop of whimsy, and I would certainly recommend the novel wholeheartedly - it just doesn't quite become the classic it could have been.
You know that, even when you have hundreds of unread books, not a lot of spare cash, and no spare reading time - sometimes, even with these limitations, a book will make you buy it? Impossible-to-resist, head-straight-to-Amazon-to-buy sort of book? Well, my e-friend Lyn (from dovegreybooks Yahoo group, a source of many such books) mentioned one the other day, and, mere days later, it is in front of me.
It's The Bread and Butter Stories by Mary Norton. For those who recognise the name but can't think where, it's probably because she is the author of The Borrowers, a back I'm shamefully never read, but indeed to do so soon. We grew up loving the TV series. I'll tell you what Lyn wrote about it, not sure where it's quoted from, perha
ps the Virago website...
Reminiscent of Elizabeth von Arnim and Elizabeth Taylor, these 15 recently discovered short stories by the author of The Borrowers are wonderful period pieces about being an upper-middle class woman in the 1940s and early 50s. Many are reminiscent of Brief Encounter with their longings for adventure or romance to break the stifling constraints on their lives. Here are respectable conventional women settled into dull marriages finding themselves entertaining the notion of an affair while on holiday; a dowdy woman who suddenly decides to have her face done and take the £1.00 post-office savings and blow it on a fine hat. Then there are funny, satirical pieces: useful knowledge like how to cure cold feet at bedtime, a sideways look at acting for a television drama and a very entertaining and fascinating piece on writing for children which includes dialogue with an editor who wants short words and happy stories. Written with a wry and gentle humour, the collection makes for fascinating reading.Doesn't it sound wonderful? I've yet to read them, but it will only be a matter of time... Lyn did only mention the book four days ago, after all. I have read the Introduction by Mary Norton's daughter - apparently Mary Norton called these stories 'bread and butter stories' because they put bread and butter on the table - written for magazines, but not published together until the 1990s when found in the attic... I'll report back when I'm done, but I'm willing to bet at least one person will already be scrambling to Amazon or abebooks to get their hands on a copy!
Wow! Unanimous for 'music' - I thought the results would be a little more even... and, in fact, I'm going to put in the lone vote for 'art'. I counted doing-it-myself, and pictures on the covers of books, etc. etc. - I couldn't cope without it, whereas music has always been an enjoyable peripheral to my life. But I feel a little culturally out of my depth now that I know what aficiandoes you all are! Art 1: Music 20.
Without any attempt at a link here, I'm going to mention a book I read the other day for my course - Foe by J. M. Coetzee. I'd always avoided him, mostly because I got him mixed up with another author, whose name I can't now remember... somehow these prejudices stick, even when they are proved irrational, and I'd never picked up one of his books. After Foe, I think I might change my mind.
Foe is a novel related to Robinson Crusoe - which I haven't read, so I daresay I missed hundreds of nuances, but I know *enough* not to miss them all - not really a retelling or a new perspective, but an exercise in the idea of storytelling, narration, truth... The lead character is Susan Barton, washed up on Crusoe's island after having been victim to a ship's mutiny. The Cruso (note the missing 'e') and Friday she encounters are subtly different to Defoe's, and sometimes not so subtly different (Friday's race is changed; Cruso seems to have no real knowledge of his background and continually gives different versions of it). But the most interesting part comes when Susan is back in England, meeting the author Foe - or (De)Foe if you will - who is turning her story into a novel. But here the tussle for control over the narrative begins - and becomes increasingly complex as Susan's long-lost daughter arrives, though Susan is adamant that she is not her daughter - has Foe invented her? What power does he have over their lives?
As a venture into the stormy waters of postmodernism, this is happily an utterly accessible and enjoyable novel (the overlap of experimentation and readability is sometimes narrow in this field, isn't it?) - Foe raises all sorts of fascinating questions, but also lets you nod at these with interest and still read a rather good novel. Oh, and it's short - always a tick in the 'pro' column for me!
Another sleepy evening, and so another little poll. I'm quite intrigued by the results for this one... imagine you could only keep one: Art or Music?
and yes I know music is an art, but you know what I mean...
Responses in the comments, please, and we'll see which wins out!
Glad you all took a trip down memory lane with me - I'm sorely tempted to buy the DVD of The Herbs... but probably shouldn't.
That book I was going to talk about... A Boy at the Hogarth Press by Richard Kennedy, which my friend Barbara gave to me, and which (I hear) is being republished by Slightly Foxed. I've had my eye on this for a while, but somehow hadn't got around to buying it when Barbara sent me a copy, and so I was rather delighted. The list of Woolf-related books I've read isn't small, and it is growing - I like to dip back into Bloomsbury waters every now and then, especially the books which are first-hand, but from the peripherals. The most recent addition to 50 Books You Must Read But May Not Have Heard About was one of these - and while Kennedy's isn't *as* good, it's still rather wonderful.
Richard Kennedy was just what the title suggests - a boy at the Hogarth Press, the small publishing venture started by Leonard and Virginia Woolf. Kennedy did the day-to-day tasks, but was also occasionally asked his opinion about the books people sent in - winning something of a victory when he (with the help of his uncle) called Ivy Compton-Burnett a genius, while Leonard Woolf dismissed her as being unable to write. His book was written about forty years after his time there, but is still in the form of a diary, which leads to a rath
er odd mix of naivety and disingenuosness - but an uncomplicated eye amongst the complicated which is difficult to resist. All new angles of Virginia are welcome to me, but perhaps especially one who wasn't all that afraid of her, and judged her by such standards as it being 'bad form to laugh at your employees'. Love Virginia Woolf though I do, sometimes contemporary accounts of her can be a little nauseating. How much more precise is: 'I think she is rather cruel in spite of the kind, rather dreamy way she looks at you.'
Richard Kennedy would never rival his employers in terms of writing - the boyish charm is needed to carry a patchwork of recollections, tied together by similarly boyish sketches - but A Boy at the Hogarth Press is a refreshing and amusing addition to the canon of Bloomsbury onlookers.
Sorry, I meant to review a book tonight. But I've spent my time using YouTube to re-discover children's programmes from my youth... and before. Especially The Herbs. I await joyful cries...
I mentioned that I'd read Richard Yates' Revolutionary Road last week, for part of my Masters course, and Lucy added in the comments that a film is coming out - which probably means the novel (complete with Leonardo DiCaprio and
Kate Winslet on the cover, no doubt) will be rocketing up bestseller lists again. Well, whatever small amount my influence can do will, I hope, give the book a start on its way.
Published in the early 1960s, Revolutionary Road was successful in some respects, but widespread popularity doesn't seem to have been one of them, at least not for very long - Yates' is now described as a 'writer's writer', whatever that means. Has to be a good thing, one assumes. Revolutionary Road tells the story of Frank and April Wheeler, idealists who live in non-ideal suburbia. The novel opens with a play in which April plays the lead - and it is an unmitigated failure. So (watch out for the simple transferral of allegory) is April's performance as a housewife; so is her performance as a latent revolutionary. The Wheelers dream of better things, and think they are hiding their gold amongst dross - but the credentials of that gold come under question when April decides to put their long-held plans into action.
Revolutionary Road is unmistakably American, and I don't know why. It's not just the "Geez, baby"s that crop up from time to time, but... well, I just don't know. The American Dream in the background, perhaps. The striving for an achievement, even when that achievement is impossible - striving where the English would have cynically given up and put on a pot of tea.
Similarly, I don't know why this novel is so good. All the usual - writing that grabs you, situations which need resolution, a subtle wit throughout - though undeniably sad, too. As I was reading (and before I knew that the Titanic co-stars would be reuniting) I kept thinking the book would make an excellent film - the plot is so event-led. Lots of emotions on the surface, or lots of surface emotions anyway. Kate Winslet rarely does a bad film, and never turns in a bad performance, so I'm quite excited at the prospect of seeing this one on the silver screen. Hopefully Yates will become a readers' writer.
