Song for a Sunday

Thanks to those of you who encouraged me to continue with Sunday Songs, and thanks to Clare for introducing me to this beautiful song. It's called People Used to Dream by A Girl Called Eddy. Enjoy!

Stuck-in-a-Book's Weekend Miscellany

Happy weekend folks, hope you're enjoying 2011 so far! And let's make a pact, shall we, to say twenty-eleven, rather than two-thousand-and-eleven? Ok? 'k.

A fair few links and blog posts for today, as they've been building up for a while...

1.) I love Mary's blog Mrs. Miniver's Daughter, especially this lovely anecdotal post.

2.) John Self, over at Asylum, has written a brilliant and insightful review of Barbara Comyns' exceptionally good and unusual novel Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead - click here to read it. The new edition I mentioned a while ago from Dorothy, A Publishing Project is now out in the US; a copy is winging its way to me. Check out the Book Depository for free worldwide shipping on it...

3.) ...and whilst we're on the topic, 'seventydys' (in the comments on the above review) linked to an interview with Danielle Dutton, who founded Dorothy.

4.) The man behind Caustic Cover Critic has set up Whisky Priest publishing, reprinting some of his favourite out-of-print books using a POD publisher - see more here. He uses his expertise to make some really beautiful covers, although I can't say I love the colours on the spines - but, lots of intriguing titles.

5.) And finally... the Oxonian Review have written all about my favourite film from last year, Another Year. Rather more high-falutin' than my own thoughts - and probably rather more well-informed too!

Wikio for January

The good people of Wikio have sent me January's list - everyone loves a list, so here you go! I am very intrigued by the blog name above mine... and, as always, nice to know so many of the other people on it (and realise how delightfully daft this all is.)

Wikio.co.uk - January Literature Ranking

1	Charlie's Diary
2	Crooked Timber
3	Book Chick City
4	Quaerentia
5	The Book Smugglers
6	Stuck In A Book
7	Reading Matters
8	Savidge Reads
9	An Awfully Big Blog Adventure
10	dovegreyreader scribbles
11	My Favourite Books
12	booktwo.org
13	Asylum
14	UrbanTick
15	A Don's Life - Times Online WBLG
16	Pepys' Diary
17	Cornflower
18	Just William's Luck
19	BubbleCow
20	Gaskella

Ranking made by Wikio.co.uk

Age Cannot Wither Her

Whilst we're talking about unusual narrative structures (as we were with Sarah Waters the other day) some months ago I read Remember Remember by Hazel McHaffie, which she very kindly sent to me as a review copy. I find Alzheimer's sad, terrifying, and fascinating all at the same time, partly from experience within my own family, and I am drawn to writers who can portray dementia well. Or, indeed, any sort of illness or mental state which requires the author to give a wandering narrative voice.

McHaffie's novel is split into halves. The first is devoted to Jessica and her attempts to grapple with her mother's (Doris) dementia. Doris is becoming a danger to herself, and Jessica makes the difficult decision to find a residential home for her. Whilst sorting through Doris' possessions, she makes unnerving discoveries about her mother's and her own past. Thrown in amongst this intrigue are the everyday stuff of difficult children, unhelpful siblings, and a love interest in the form of Aaron the lawyer. I did wonder a bit whether Aaron was added at the suggestion of an editor, because he didn't seem quite to fit with the rest of the novel - does every book need a love interest, really? - but we shan't squabble over him.

To be perfectly honest, all this felt perfectly serviceable, but perhaps a little uninspiring. Documenting the grief and anguish of caring for a mother with dementia is done well, but other people's grief can only be documented so many times. And, like love, it is all-consuming when one experiences it oneself, and difficult to find captivating when one is not - with the very honourable exception of Susan Hill's In the Springtime of the Year.

So I was flicking through, thinking Remember Remember a perfectly good - and perfectly ordinary - novel, when the second half launched itself. Suddenly we move from Jessica's viewpoint into Doris':

The board says summer. 29 August. A sun, smiling. I smile.
Yellow. I hate yellow.
"You OK, Doris?" a blue lady says as she stomps past.
Doris? Doris isn't here. But I know where she is. Hiding. Hiding under the shed in our garden. Hiding from Papa.

The reader is swept into Doris' confused and disorientating perspective on the world - and it is confusing and disorientating. This has been done brilliantly elsewhere - I recommend Eric Melbye's Tru and Margaret Laurence's The Stone Angel - but, if not quite at their heights, McHaffie offers a unique twist to the narrative of dementia. Each chapter of Doris' perspective takes a step back in time. To be honest, I never worked out if the time gaps were sequential or cumulative (i.e. did 'three years earlier' mean subtract another three years, or simply three years from the present?) but that doesn't really matter. What McHaffie cleverly presents is a mind, and thus a prose, that gets gradually more and more coherent - the mirror image of a mind disassembling through dementia.

As with Sarah Waters' novel, there is much that is revealed through this anti-chronology - and I don't want to spoil anything for potential readers. What I will say to anybody who does pick up Remember Remember is: persevere. The first half may feel a little ordinary, but I think McHaffie was just readying herself for the second half. That's when things get interesting - in terms of structure, narrative events, and especially narrative voice.

Thanks for sending me your novel, Hazel - and I'm pleased I finally remembered to write about it! And, because I forgot to mention it earlier, a big gold star to Tom Bee, who provided the design and image for the beautiful cover. Give yourself a pat on the back.

1000!

I've been scheduling posts to appear at various times, and have a few drafts waiting, but I hope and I think I'm right in saying... this is my 1000th post!

(photo source)

When I started my blog, back in April 2007, I thought it would be good fun and I'd have a dozen or so readers. I never dreamt that I'd be offered review copies of books, or get to meet so many wonderful bloggers in person, or even that I'd still be bothering with it in a year's time. Here we are, over three and a half years later.

I'd love to give you all sorts of stats about number of comments, or word count, or whatever - but I don't think I've any way of doing that. I can tell you there are about 290 book reviews up - see the lot here - and far more lovely readers than I'd ever imagined.

I'll use this celebratory post to announce the winner of Debo Devonshire's Wait For Me! which is going to... Mistress Cynica! Do send me your address, and I'll get the book off to you...

Waters run backwards

The final book I read in 2010 - deftly added to the list I posted a couple of days ago - was Sarah Waters' The Night Watch. This is my third Waters novel, and this year was the year of Third Time Lucky (c.f.: Evelyn Waugh; Muriel Sparks) - but not, as it happened, with Waters. That sounds like one of my shortest reviews, doesn't it? Sorry, folks, but I'm not stopping there... After quite liking Affinity back in 2003 or 2004, I loved The Little Stranger this summer - and if it hadn't been for that frustrating ending, it would have been one of my favourite reads this year. But I had caught the Waters bug, and my post-Christmas read was The Night Watch, only approx. four years after everyone else.

For those who haven't read this already, I'll give you a quick overview. The unusual angle of The Night Watch is that it is told backwards. Events kick off in 1947, and work their way backwards to 1941, stopping off in 1944. That's not as many stepping stones as I expected, when I read various reviews of this novel in 2006, when it was published, and it does rather put the novel between two stools. On the one hand, there are all sorts of clues laid down regarding past events (further on in the narrative); on the other hand, since there are only three sections - and the final one is very short - it feels a bit like Waters didn't let herself experiment quite enough. Al this leads me, if you're not careful, to start talking about sjuzhet and fabula, or histoire and recit, if we're getting all theoretical. Apologies if this is known already, but quick crash course in a bit Russian Formalism: 'fabula' is the chronological series of events; 'sjuzhet' is the way this is arranged in a narrative. So Waters has her sjuzhet all in a twist.

Which all means that Waters could be a little self-conscious when she writes this:

"I go to the cinema," said Kay; "there's nothing funny about that. Sometimes I sit through the films twice over. Sometimes I go in half-way through, and watch the second half first. I almost prefer them that way - people's pasts, you know, being so much more interesting than their futures. Or perhaps that's just me..."

But, as usual, I'm getting ahead of myself.

There are plenty of characters, and plenty of things going on, in The Night Watch. Sarah Waters being Sarah Waters, quite a lot of the novel is about being a lesbian in wartime (I loved the if-you're-in-the-know reference to 'Quaint Irene' from Mapp and Lucia as the name of a boat) - and four of the central characters are lesbians, who seem to all be in love with each other at various stages of the novel. Well, one of them - Mickey - appears to be immune to the charms of Helen, Julia, and Kay, but they are all embroiled with one another. To be honest, I didn't find any of the female characters particularly well delineated - throw in Viv, Helen's colleague at a sort of post-war dating agency, and they all rather blurred into one. Even Julia's novelistic career didn't help me remember which one was which until we were a hundred or so pages in.

Not so the men. Viv's brother Duncan is doing a menial job in a factory, and has a surprise reunion with Robert Fraser. Duncan's naive, bulky uncertainty and Robert's confident charm are done very well - but the reader has no idea what sort of reunion is taking place. Were they colleagues, comrades-in-arms, or romantically involved? I couldn't possibly tell you, of course...

I'm being a bit critical, so I shall redress the balance - Waters' structure is often done very well. The careful laying of clues, and all manner of mysterious events, lead to plenty of gasp-moments in the second half. Obviously I shan't reveal these, but the secret passing of a ring; curious Uncle Horace; and whispers of infidelity are all clues to watch out for... and lead to satisfying 'oh, right' moments later.

But as with The Little Stranger, which was almost all compelling reading but had a dud 100 pages, The Night Watch is longer than it needs to be, and drags occasionally. At her best, Waters can tear a story along - but at her worst, it feels rather self-indulgent and unedited.

And then... I feel a bit mean, quoting this bit, as it's the worst offender - but:

"What's the matter? Aren't you happy?"

"Happy?" Viv blinked. "I don't know. Is anybody happy? Really happy, I mean? People pretend they are."

"I don't know either," said Helen, after a moment. "Happiness is such a fragile sort of thing these days. It's as though there's only so much to go round."

Do people talk like this? Did people ever talk like this - except in novels? It's the sort of thing 1930s plays are scattered with, but I doubt it ever spilled over into read life...

But I'm only picking all these holes because I'm trying to work out why The Night Watch got shortlisted for all sorts of awards. There is so much to like in Waters' novel, and it was definitely compelling reading much of the time. Writing the narrative backwards is a good idea executed without pretension, but also perhaps without reaching its potential. But somehow, for me, Waters missed the mark. The Little Stranger was very nearly a brilliant novel. The Night Watch was very nearly a very good novel. I've not read all of Waters' novels, but... is she destined to always fall short from her potential? Or am I a lone voice in the wilderness? Fans of Waters - convince me!

End of Year Meme

Except, naturally, it's the beginning of the year - but this is my little sum-up of 2010 in books. I'm using the same meme I've been using since 2007, which adds a nice continuity to it all. And here goes...


- How many books read in 2010?
115, which is rather fewer than last year, but I'd wager I've read more pages this year.

- Fiction/Non-Fiction ratio?
96/19 - surprising few non-fiction titles, given how much literary theory I've been reading. I intend to read more non-fiction this year, but then again I intend that every year.

- Male/Female authors?
47 by men; 67 by women; 1 by one of each. Not an unusual ratio for me...

- Favourite book read?
Nella Last's War by Nella Last, as I mentioned in my Top Ten List.

- Least favourite?
I gave up on one or two, but of the ones I finished I confess I was disappointed by The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery.

- Oldest book read?
I think that honour goes to Mary Shelley and Frankenstein (1818).

- Newest book read?
This little lot were all published this year.

- Longest book title?
I must confess, I haven't done a thorough count of all the titles, but, discounting subtitles, I think Pont wins with The British Character Studied and Revealed and 37 characters.

- Shortest book title?
I've had three-letter titles and four-letter titles win this accolade in past years, but in 2010 the shortest I managed was Christos Tsiolkas' The Slap at 7.

- How many re-reads?
Only 13, which is far fewer than last year's 31 - not something I noticed decreasing, and I can't beging to imagine why.

- Most books read by one author this year?
E.M. Delafield and C.S. Lewis tie on four apiece, despite not having read any Lewis this year until the 20th December. Barbara Comyns is snapping at their heels with three.

- Any in translation?
Probably the most ever, at 12, mostly from the French but with a Scandinavian title or two.

- How many books were borrowed from the library?
27 from the library this year, and at least half a dozen borrowed from friends.

- Name a book you've read this year which was recommended by a blogger?
Annabel (aka Gaskella) not only recommended, but lent, All Quiet on the Orient Express by Magnus Mills - thanks Annabel (and thanks for pointing out that I'd written the wrong title here!)