One of my Bookbarn companions, and a member of my online book group, is a lovely lady called Carol. Whilst we were at the Bookbarn she quizzed Diney and me about a book she'd read years and years ago and wanted to track down - only, of course, she couldn't remember the author or the title. She could give a description, though... and I volunteered to spread the net a bit wider, and ask you lovely folk. Here's what Carol remembers - please let me know if you have any suggestions or ideas! Or, indeed, if you're similarly on the hunt for a book but can't remember the title...
It must have been around in the late 1940s as it was a Sunday School prize of my mother's. It was about a girl who went to stay/live with her cousins and I think the name Pamela may have come in somewhere, or maybe Jennifer. It was set during the Peninsula War and there was lots of talk of blunderbusses and Martello Towers. I think it had an orange cover (not sure I remembered the colour the other day, and maybe I just remember a different colour every time I think about it!!) Anyway, I think mustard yellow, and by the time it came to me there was no dustjacket. No memory at all of author, name of book or publisher, so this is it, I'm afraid...
Get your thinking caps on!
Sylvia Townsend Warner and William Maxwell are two writers I love, even though I've not read a whole lot by either of them (that reminds me, I shelved The Chateau at 100pp. - must dig it out some time, and probably start again.) So, of course, I had to get The Element of Lavishness when I heard about it - it's the letters between them. I've barely started it, but already I wanted to share a couple of lovely bits from it with y'all.
STW to WM (12th June 1951)
I am thankful that Emmy is back. In her absence you do not spell as well as at other times. Does she know this? It is a delightful tribute, she should wear it as a brooch.
STW to WM (9th February 1951)
When I was young I had a young friend who was extremely sensitive to the cold. He was at Hailebury, rather a bleak and bracing public school; and then in this sixteenth year his place in class got him next to a radiator. From that moment until his schooling ended two years later, he gave his whole mind to remaining by the radiator. He told me it required the exactest calculation and foresight to remain at just that level of scholarship. It did not do, he soon discovered, to be just inertly stupid. That angered his form master, who marked him down. He had, so to speak, to row, and yet remain by the same tuft of reeds. And in summer, when the radiator was apt to slip his mind he had to be as alert as a mosquito not to give way to emulation and the line of least resistance. He stayed by the radiator, however, and left with a scholarship, much to every one's annoyance and surprise.
If I see other equally delightful excerpts, and if I remember, I'll share them as I go!
When lovely Thomas at My Porch visited England last November, he very charmingly bought all the bloggers he met (and some he didn't) books which he thought we'd like. He put a lot of thought into this, and I was impressed - for me was chosen Tepper Isn't Going Out (2001) by Calvin Trillin, which Thomas had seen in my Amazon Wishlist. It was there because of him, in fact - he wrote here that Tepper was his favourite fictional character, and that was enough to sway me. Then I read the novel last December, thought it was quirky and great, and... somehow never got around to writing about it. I'm going to do my best to remember now what was great about it.
Murray Tepper is a very laid-back, ordinary man - with one rather bizarre quirk. He likes to spend time sat in his car, reading the newspaper, minding his own business and not bothering him. He parks his car in various spots around New York, knowing which roads use which parking systems, and where he and his car can best be undisturbed. Since he's sitting in his car, he'll often get people asking if he's leaving the parking space - but Tepper isn't going out.
He doesn't try to justify his behaviour, and his intricate knowledge of the city's parking potential - leaving his wife rather long-suffering, and his daughter Linda affectionately confused:
"Hi, Daddy," she said.
"I'm not going out," Tepper said.
"Daddy, it's me - Linda," his daughter said.
"I recognised you. One of the advantages of having only one daughter is that remembering her name and what she looks like is not difficult. Are you looking for a spot?"
"Of course I'm not looking for a spot, Daddy. Be serious."
"If you are, it's good here after six. But I'm not going out."
Tepper's job is one of the delights of the novel. I don't know if it's the sort of thing that really exists anymore, but it lends great comic possibility. I don't know what the job title is, but Tepper and his company 'Worldwide Lists' compare lists of consumers to see where unexpected similarities between disparate lists might exist. Will buyers of binoculars want bird-watching books, or buyers of earplugs also want lettuce-dryers, etc. And they use this sort of information to sell addresses of customers to people designing products. I'll let Tepper explain the process himself:
"We start with the obvious. We make a little universe around this imaginary customer of whatever Mittigin's selling - in this case, someone trying to sleep on an airplane. So people who belong to frequent flyer programs are obviously in this universe. If there aren't enough people in the center of the universe, we just reach a little farther - where the population is thinner. Barney likes it when we find a little clot of people we didn't expect - maybe subscribers to the most sophisticated trade magazine for mainframe computer repair people, because those people are always travelling and they're usually tired and because of their technical bent they might actually be able to figure out Barney's maps. It gives him a thrill.
Barney Mittigin ("a schmuck") is responsible for some of the richest comedy in the novel - he specialises in objects which double as other objects. A candlesnuffer that also cuts out melon chunks. An attache case that turns into a foldout computer table. And, in this case, a round-the-neck sleep pillow covered in maps of major airports. Wonderful stuff.
But the main thread of Tepper Isn't Going Out is definitely Tepper's determined parking. He starts off being noticed simply by those irked by his seemingly irrational occupancy of spaces - but mayor Frank Ducavelli is on the warpath, and he thinks Tepper is an anarchist.
This is where innocent, odd but pleasant Tepper gets caught up in a furore. Everyone invests his parking with different meaning - and they line up to sit with him and ask advice. For some he is battling the status quo; for others he is the symbol of a left-wing cause. Trillin takes a quirky, slightly silly topic and looks at the hysteria that can arise around a man who doesn't say very much - but Trillin is wise, and doesn't let the novel creep too far away from its quirky, silly basis. This isn't Orwell territory, Trillin isn't trying to make huge political points through metaphor - he is enjoying the surreal and entertaining things that can happen to offbeat people.
When I'm not reading interwar domestic novels, this is precisely the other sort of novel I rave about. I keep using that word 'quirky', but that's what it is - and it's so difficult to find left-of-centre novels which aren't also macabre or ridiculous or *too* silly. Tepper Isn't Going Out is grounded firmly in the normal world, and nobody's actions and reactions are all that unlikely. It's a gem of a novel, and I'm so pleased that Thomas gave it to me - and that I finally got around to writing about it!
Books to get Stuck into:
All Quiet on the Orient Express - Magnus Mills: I only reviewed this recently, but it is a similar (if slightly more unsettling) deadpan look at a surreal situation. For other suggestions, see those at the bottom of this review!
Three years ago, I read and love Jerome K. Jerome's The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886) - brief thoughts here. At that point Hesperus were also promising to republish Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl (1891) by 'Jenny Wren' (a pseudonym, of course) but it never appeared... and then, years later, it did! And my brother bought it for me for my birthday. I read it quite some time ago, and of course forgot to write about it (I need to come up with an abbreviation for that, I say it so often. My online reading group have similarly come up with acronym HIU for 'have it, unread' since we were writing this about nearly every book anyone else mentioned.)
Jenny Wren's riposte to Jerome is in much the same vein, albeit from the female's perspective rather than the male's. It doesn't have quite his edge of brilliancy, but her views on love, bills, afternoon tea, children and dogs etc. are all diverting and fun. I can best explain by example, and here she is on the topic of train journeys:
Then again your fellow passengers are not always all that can be desired. Often they are neither pleasant in themselves nor interesting as a study. I travelled with an awful old lady the other day. She had six small packages with her in the carriage, besides her handbag and umbrellas and half the contents of an extra luggage van. The long-suffering porter who had looked after her boxes and finally put her in the train was crimson with his exertions. The generous lady, having searched several pockets before finding the necessary coin, bestowed on him a threepenny piece for his trouble! "Thank yer, mum," he went off muttering grimly, "I'll bore a 'ole in the middle and 'ang it round my neck."
This good dame never ceased to worry all through the journey. She pulled her things from under the seat and put them up in the rack, and then reversed their locality. At each station she called frantically to the guard to know where she was and if she ought to change. Finally, when we reached our destination, it was proved that she had taken her ticket to one place and had her luggage labelled to another; and there she was, standing on the platform gesticulating violently, while the train was steaming off with her belongings. What happened I do not know, for I was hurried off by my friends; but I should think it would be long before she and her luggage met again.
Fortunately she never knew how near she was to her death. If ever I had murderous intentions in my heart, it was on that journey north.
I wonder if E.M. Delafield ever read this?
It's all joyful nonsense, of the very best sort - and I think would be enjoyed by anybody who likes to laugh at the silly foibles of life, preferably those evinced by other people. I can imagine each chapter of this book being a separate newspaper column, and they're diverting in the way that the funniest section of a Sunday newspaper magazine is diverting. And with the added advantage of being from the 19th century, you can even feel fairly cultured whilst you read them.
You probably think you know Cyndi Lauper... but you might not know this beautifully sad song 'Sally's Pigeons'... look out for a young Julia Stiles in the video.
What a wonderful Royal Wedding! I especially admire those of you across the globe who woke up at crazy o'clock to watch the royal nuptials - it was a beautiful ceremony, and Kate's dress was wonderful. All in all, as I sat waving my mini union jack, I loved it. And then we had a street party! Not quite in the street - it was in the park at the end of our road, but loads of people came, and it was a really, really fun time. I do feel like I've been baking non-stop for the past day, and this was one of the creations we offered (sugar decor by Mel):
But I haven't managed to put together a Weekend Miscellany - instead, I'll just unveil the winner of The Unbearable Bassington and selected short stories by Saki. Special royal congratulations to...
Rosie H!
Have a good Bank Holiday weekend, if you've got one!
Whilst at home (I am now back in Oxford) I had a day heading off to the Bookbarn, and then onto Bristol to see my brother. It left me with a deep distrust of Bristol's road systems, especially those lanes which lead exclusively into multi-storey car parks. But the Bookbarn part, and the brother part, were great fun.
For those not in the know, the Bookbarn is a huge warehouse of books out in the middle of nowhere in Somerset. It used to be all open to the public - now they are increasingly shutting off stock for internet buying, which is a shame. You used to have to choose to only look at authors beginning with C, for example, because that would take the best part of an hour. Now they have a relatively small fiction section - but I say relatively, because the amount on view is still about five times the size of most bookshops. AND, for a bonus, the books are only £1 each. And there's a huge unsorted section, which made for fun scouring...
I met up with two members of my online book group, Carol and Diney, who also live in the West Country, and they did not disappoint. Between us we bought 76 books. These are my kind of people.... anyway, 31 of those purchases were mine, and I'm not the sorta guy who buys books and keeps quiet about them. So... here goes with all the books I added to my shelves (and yes, the rearrange left plenty of room for them):
These aren't going to be in the order of the photograph, I'm afraid, since I took the photo a day or so ago, and I am now at some distance from all the books! My eyes are hurting now, after typing everything out, and everytime I count the books in the list and in the picture they come to different totals. But I know I bought 31...
- Confessions of a Story-Teller: short stories by Paul Gallico
- The Small Miracle by Paul Gallico
- Ludmilla, and The Lonely by Paul Gallico
- The Adventures of Hirm Holliday by Paul Gallico
Paul Gallico certainly seems to have been prolific! I left some behind, but these were the ones which most appealed. Since he seems to have covered the spectrum from fey to very dark, I'm going to have to tread carefully, I think...
- A Village in a Valley by Beverley Nichols
I keep stockpiling Nichols books, and have still read none...
- Four Years at the Old Vic 1929-1933 by Harcourt Williams
- The Theatre Since 1900 by J.C. Trewin
One of my interests is theatrical history, especially in the first half of the 20th century. I was a bit overwhelmed by the three bookcases labelled 'Theatre', and plucked these more or less at random... but they do look fascinating.
- Nonsense Novels by Stephen Leacock
I haven't mentioned Leacock much on my blog, but I adored his writings in 2002 (when I read eight or so) and must revisit. I picked this up intending to give it to someone, but delightfully (for me!) it seems to be one of the few Leacock books I didn't already have.
- Countries of the Mind: Essays in Literary Criticism by J. Middleton Murry
Aka Mr. Katherine Mansfield. I loved his collection Pencillings a few years ago.
- Dreams in War Time: A Faithful Record by E.M. Martin
This pretty, deckled-edge little book was too peculiar to leave behind. It is what it says - someone has written down their dreams during WW2. I love bizarre little finds, and this could be really interesting.
- Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
I don't know why I know about this novel, but I do... or, rather, I know about its existence. Anyone?
- Letters to a Sister by Rose Macaulay
You probably know my fondness for Macaulay, and I've previously enjoyed her letters to a priest who was a friend of hers - I hadn't realised this collection existed, and it was definitely a bargain.
- After the Stroke: a journal by May Sarton
As it sounds, it's an autobiographical book about life after a stroke.
- Summer in February by Jonathan Smith
Carol told me this was great, and I believe her :)
- The Dud Avacado by Elaine Dundy
Excellent condition Virago Modern Classic for £1? Yes please.
- The Love Child by Edith Olivier
This lovely first edition I bought to give to someone else
- Star Quality by Noel Coward
Coward short stories: why not?
- The New Immortality by J.W. Dunne
This one is for my research - Dunne wrote some strange metaphysical books which are quoted by one or two of my authors...
- Conversations in Ebury Street by George Moore
Back in 2004 I read a quotation from this about Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte, with which I completely concurred (i.e. that it's brilliantly formed) and I've been hoping to stumble across an affordable copy ever since. Looks to be one long conversational ramble - lovely!
- My American by Stella Gibbons
Still only read the delectable Cold Comfort Farm (and I'm excited about the Vintage reprints of her novels coming out soon!) but always worth having more in store...
- Her Book by Daisy Ashford
Basically everything she wrote except The Young Visiters [sic] - should be fun.
- The Unspeakable Skipton by Pamela Hansford Johnson
In my head, The Unbearable Bassington and The Unspeakable Skipton have always gone hand-in-hand. Somehow loving the former has made me want to try the latter - I have previously loved one PHJ novel and disliked another, so who knows with this one?
- The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg by Louis Bromfield
- Mrs. Parkington by Louis Bromfield
Rachel (Book Snob) and her enthusiasm for this author has made me intrigued...
- The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
I adored this novel last year, but had read a library copy - this was definitely one I wanted to have for myself.
- The Ginger Griffin by Ann Bridge
Just read Illyrian Spring (that Rachel again...) and loved it, will review soon, have more ready to read!
- Leave it to Psmith by P.G. Wodehouse
You can never have too much Wodehouse: FACT.
- Wonderful Clouds by Francoise Sagan
After enjoying Bonjour Tristesse, I wanted to try more. So pleased to have found another author I enjoy who writes exclusively short books!
- A Summer Bird-Cage by Margaret Drabble
Another author I'm stockpiling, despite having read nothing by her...
- The Abbess of Crewe by Muriel Spark
Since I seem to have bought something by Spark everytime I post about recent purchases (she was apparently indefatiguable) it seems an appropriate book to finish with.
Phew! Quite a haul, and came in at only £31. As always, comments on books you've read, want to read, or have never heard of...
(p.s. HAPPY ROYAL WEDDING DAY! So exciting...)
