tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23239319701367366182024-03-18T19:52:25.986-07:00At night - my little Lamp - and BookUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger95125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2323931970136736618.post-80407851278613445082015-08-07T16:12:00.001-07:002015-08-07T16:12:17.383-07:00#bookfacefridaySuch a gorgeous thing to do. Some of these are real genius. Simple but so creative and funny. There's only two minutes of Friday left, but I'm going hunting through my shelves to see what I can find anyway... <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/bookfacefriday" target="_blank">#bookfacefriday</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2323931970136736618.post-44041299010204973522015-07-25T10:21:00.000-07:002015-07-25T10:21:24.173-07:00Judging Go Set a Watchman by its cover...Here are the UK (orange, left) and American (blue, right) cover designs that Penguin eventually decided on:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Ap2MU3TB1NyWgaQ1qoNDdrtRf-nghiAtPV8H4WiQkyR48UBbQlM-P600T-VwMd35ntaHZiO6dbV0IGPnWmt7HBpxDMfDIFFCuXRIO9xmCwolFg_UJZQoF8M7JJ6g1ANQyT-74yh8cy0/s1600/uk+and+american+covers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Ap2MU3TB1NyWgaQ1qoNDdrtRf-nghiAtPV8H4WiQkyR48UBbQlM-P600T-VwMd35ntaHZiO6dbV0IGPnWmt7HBpxDMfDIFFCuXRIO9xmCwolFg_UJZQoF8M7JJ6g1ANQyT-74yh8cy0/s320/uk+and+american+covers.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Personally, I prefer the American design. It seems relevant - the bird on the front of the UK edition harks too obviously back to <b>To Kill a Mockingbird</b>. There is no mention of a bird in <b>Go Set a Watchman. </b>Call me literal...</div>
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However, here are some of the designs that were rejected. I like to consider the conversations that were had about each.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjziRGZI7yS9AjgnX0mbNPixpwlPCgg9zaUgsZ1Rsg357CQxzPGFrsV93QwsHXbMO1QgZMw-EXkF8sn2qDJXn1k4tEH3zSRahbmt3Jh9J_iHuCRuwE8zMovWgFZuX1LNWO8A6rxicNEPxg/s1600/rejected++record+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjziRGZI7yS9AjgnX0mbNPixpwlPCgg9zaUgsZ1Rsg357CQxzPGFrsV93QwsHXbMO1QgZMw-EXkF8sn2qDJXn1k4tEH3zSRahbmt3Jh9J_iHuCRuwE8zMovWgFZuX1LNWO8A6rxicNEPxg/s320/rejected++record+1.jpg" width="208" /></a></div>
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"Nah, looks too much like a Tony Parsons novel."</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcl1blC7Ur_OUxLglj5J_AZudOF7j9jLjx_XeBuUJd8QBV9fl64vSFGwCuSw1uTFFNe8DxaU2aDhyphenhyphenGzvHZHuhU2xPBEHbsOOHf4bT4sRjjueDpl1wG55BrPCvqf9ILhemNwzxGSBCu5a4/s1600/rejected+chicklit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcl1blC7Ur_OUxLglj5J_AZudOF7j9jLjx_XeBuUJd8QBV9fl64vSFGwCuSw1uTFFNe8DxaU2aDhyphenhyphenGzvHZHuhU2xPBEHbsOOHf4bT4sRjjueDpl1wG55BrPCvqf9ILhemNwzxGSBCu5a4/s320/rejected+chicklit.jpg" width="209" /></a></div>
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"Definitely not. Too chick-lit. Looks like something on sale in an airport."</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh99VP5lFtFmVIO62XVZhsfr2N5UdaaJMtAa3xxfloJ8IDHNZUDKWZT8YmL4MzPnspAmu0OQPuGLU0ANiqLN5A4Vc2tRvygfy5a-io5ngpHwnIT02kmXh0d48YLt7vAg5ggg5CnHadMLtE/s1600/rejected+mod.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh99VP5lFtFmVIO62XVZhsfr2N5UdaaJMtAa3xxfloJ8IDHNZUDKWZT8YmL4MzPnspAmu0OQPuGLU0ANiqLN5A4Vc2tRvygfy5a-io5ngpHwnIT02kmXh0d48YLt7vAg5ggg5CnHadMLtE/s320/rejected+mod.jpg" width="206" /></a></div>
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"Haruki Murakami?"</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKJqkjoO14pokbqq5cvechRZM7byyE7yMpaMdgG-7IBnoS0JXHFCwM8wuoFV8g0VUkCasRQlTKs9asYkrk1PlVjalO8mksDh3CppltaCs_Xk1f1sSS0Pen-6s3JhY4xaaVOeQreuH_rqs/s1600/rejected+noir.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKJqkjoO14pokbqq5cvechRZM7byyE7yMpaMdgG-7IBnoS0JXHFCwM8wuoFV8g0VUkCasRQlTKs9asYkrk1PlVjalO8mksDh3CppltaCs_Xk1f1sSS0Pen-6s3JhY4xaaVOeQreuH_rqs/s320/rejected+noir.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>
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"Is it 1946? Are we publishing this before it was even written? Is it a Noir thriller? I don't think so."</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHAEUbhah6-IPSD6A_b2L75tCOix9pdkTQ0a9J-8mVjffyO8fm-RyVOotK_90xOljgOgaszxszDyyHRROcgQeZXz_1MHnn9Q74sCjfpUmIptN4v_zN0NpMKT4EAH8IKXqLey3FEeWSImQ/s1600/rejected+green+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHAEUbhah6-IPSD6A_b2L75tCOix9pdkTQ0a9J-8mVjffyO8fm-RyVOotK_90xOljgOgaszxszDyyHRROcgQeZXz_1MHnn9Q74sCjfpUmIptN4v_zN0NpMKT4EAH8IKXqLey3FEeWSImQ/s320/rejected+green+3.jpg" width="202" /></a></div>
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"Yawn. We do want to sell a few, you know."</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisEbQ3bO8FtJGg6deV5AAhq8IwfUmbu4pxlVAWL3iz0omDYQ7CQ1Z5h-98WAbNPiSsTloif5obTR9w6SI-wp3XxRomHI08OM3NkRqpv3G1AvpVZD0Fsxeods6oCUM6fqBsxN-34jP0j7c/s1600/rejected+crime+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisEbQ3bO8FtJGg6deV5AAhq8IwfUmbu4pxlVAWL3iz0omDYQ7CQ1Z5h-98WAbNPiSsTloif5obTR9w6SI-wp3XxRomHI08OM3NkRqpv3G1AvpVZD0Fsxeods6oCUM6fqBsxN-34jP0j7c/s320/rejected+crime+1.jpg" width="211" /></a></div>
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"You've taken the "watch" bit too literally..."</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhek-P0I_6OnixR_2dizYTDnF_reansoOluCH4mhp558cEcD50u3gut9r2wmRFKVHrF9LyuTNkNYOgg72-53U5ghIGOncZIFq5Ct1lnurFf8CBE8N6PAH4kWWcWANR_fuOzTK7N_kM2rfo/s1600/rejected+style+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhek-P0I_6OnixR_2dizYTDnF_reansoOluCH4mhp558cEcD50u3gut9r2wmRFKVHrF9LyuTNkNYOgg72-53U5ghIGOncZIFq5Ct1lnurFf8CBE8N6PAH4kWWcWANR_fuOzTK7N_kM2rfo/s320/rejected+style+3.jpg" width="214" /></a></div>
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"Enough with the cartoon women already."</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh80X0pp-9Kg0qeJJKjPzeyaQTSBdZJuCN9vbl4ZhzapEfEf84TbuZtS8X6jzxE7smSJ3x8uv4ovkbqxg3oLzyboD6OY980RSBNmcUViuJLHAfgnLkwHq-Zp8Ki81IQKhCH4PVq2f5HNFU/s1600/rejected+style+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh80X0pp-9Kg0qeJJKjPzeyaQTSBdZJuCN9vbl4ZhzapEfEf84TbuZtS8X6jzxE7smSJ3x8uv4ovkbqxg3oLzyboD6OY980RSBNmcUViuJLHAfgnLkwHq-Zp8Ki81IQKhCH4PVq2f5HNFU/s320/rejected+style+1.jpg" width="207" /></a></div>
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"Finally, we're getting close. But research shows that Brits like orange books, so change that for the UK, and Americans prefer railway lines to birds, so change that for the USA. There, both markets covered. Job done."</div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2323931970136736618.post-20904997011712223992015-07-25T07:42:00.000-07:002015-07-25T07:46:18.447-07:00Go Set a Watchman<i>WARNING: There are potential spoilers in this review. I recommend you do not read it until you have read the book.</i><br />
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As a book lover, how could I not wade in on this one? Not only did I study<b> To Kill a Mockingbird </b>myself when I was young, but as a high school English teacher, I have also taught it many times, and it never, never grows tired. So I was nervous when the news came that this missing manuscript had 'turned up', and that <b>Go Set a Watchman</b> was imminently to be published. Nervous of what? Of it being badly written. Of it being boring. Of it repeating everything in TKAM (as my students call it) but less well. Of it being pointless. It never once occurred to me that what I <i>should</i> be nervous about, was the collapse of our idealistic view of Atticus. And I read that Atticus is revealed as a closet racist before I read the book, which has probably been the case for many readers. Did it colour the way I approached <b>Go Set a Watchman</b>? Probably, because I read it - almost to the end - ready to find a defence for whatever it is he says or does that implies this racism. I say <i>almost to the end</i>, because the last forty pages leave no room for defence. I'll come to that chronologically.<br />
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The novel opens well. Scout's voice is there right from the start, written into the first few lines. The voice-over from the film (is it possible to separate that piece of celluloid perfection from the book any more?) floated through my head, its soft southern drawl telling me a new story. I was excited to read on.<br />
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I liked Scout immediately. I had read that she wasn't fully rounded, that she was flat, not the sparky little firecracker she'd been as the child we know so well. But I disagree. She fairly quickly, through dress and patter, appeared to me as a fifties beat girl, hopped up on Kerouac and New York living, still tomboyish, still not quite towing the line. She says to her back-home boyfriend, Hank, not long after her return to Maycomb, that she is used to <i>"living in sin"</i> in the Big Apple: <i>"I learned it from sleek, Madison Avenuey young marrieds - you know that language, baby?"</i> An image sprang into my mind of her leaning against a department store window, all in black, smoking and watching Sylvia Plath and her Bell Jar friends sashay into their secretarial jobs and their middle class family lives, and knowing that she would never be one of them. Scout is my kind of young woman.<br />
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Politics soon rears its head, and it is far broader here than in TKAM. Within the first fifty pages, we have had talk of the NAACP and the Montgomery bus strikes. We realise that this isn't going to be the story of one small-town incident of racism, as TKAM is, but that this book is about the wider fight for civil rights.<br />
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Minor characters from TKAM are mentioned, some very fleetingly, others are given a couple of pages. Dill is very different, now living in Europe somewhere, and never the sickly little boy of Mockingbird. Uncle Jack is not so much different, as more fleshed out. Indeed, he is more Atticus in this book than Atticus is. He is the voice of reason, the intermediary, the family saviour. He has a larger part in this novel than Atticus does, and it is he, not Atticus, who utters the phrase that gives the book its title: <i>"Every man's watchman is his conscience."</i> In Lee's re-write, much of Uncle Jack seems to have become the Atticus of TKAM.<br />
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There are some interesting sections: Scout's (I can't call her Jean Louise) internal argument with herself at the 'Coffee' given by Aunt Alexandra to allow the young women of Maycomb to welcome Scout back, is unusual, but I like it: it is an insight into Scout's personality, and the originality of the style reflects that depth of character. Critics have argued that TKAM's strength lies in its first person narrative, and that Watchman, being in third person, loses some of that power. But actually, much of Watchman <i>is </i>in first person. Lee skips from third to first effectively, and it serves to highlight Scout's aloneness, as there is a constant first person commentary on the third person action.<br />
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The plot is minimal. Scout returns to Maycomb for a visit, finds an offensive flyer in the house, follows her father and boyfriend to a racist meeting, and realises that everything she had thought was true and safe and right, isn't. There are various flashbacks to her childhood, none of which repeat the stories in TKAM (how edited is Watchman, or was it published as found?) but all of which have that same note of parable to them as those in TKAM, and none of which, other than a half page mention of her father's defence of a black man accused of rape (the incident that becomes the Tom Robinson case), touch on the central theme of racism.<br />
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I find it interesting that few critics have mentioned the penultimate chapter. For me, this is central to the book. Scout confronts her father, and they argue, both of them cleverly, as we might expect. And it is here that I stopped comparing Watchman with Mockingbird, because here, Watchman becomes a separate entity. Whilst TKAM is easily accessible for children (although it is not quite a children's book), this chapter of Watchman is adult, through and through. Scout's language is unimaginable in Mockingbird, as is protracted anger of this vehemence. I confess I had to read it with a tablet next to me, so that I could look up aspects of the American Constitution and Supreme Court rulings, none of which are explained, but all of which are central to an understanding of this chapter. It feels raw, which to Lee, at the time she wrote this, it would have been. Is the exchange between Scout and Atticus, Lee's own internal debate? Or is she trying to show the world the South's argument?<br />
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As I said at the beginning, there is a strong temptation to try to defend Atticus, simply because to lose that role model is too painful, but at page 242, I gave up. There is no defence of his views. None. I felt Scout's frustration and fury. I gripped the back of that chair with her. I echoed the names she called him. And I never thought I could agree with someone who says, <i>" You're a coward, as well as a snob and tyrant, Atticus"</i>, but I do, wholeheartedly. He cannot be forgiven. Even his defence of the here-unnamed Tom Robinson is given a darker, more selfish spin. Atticus is the worst type of man, the type who will fight change with nonsensical pseudo-science because he does not want his own position threatened. He is deplorable.<br />
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Is the ending satisfactory? No, I don't think so. Whilst she doesn't forgive her father, Scout accepts him. After her outrage in his office, I found this unlikely, and even Uncle Jack's rather odd and out of place confession in the final pages does not save the denouement from feeling lacklustre and disappointing.<br />
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So, let's address the questions everyone is asking: is it a good book, and should it have been published? Yes, is my answer to both. I really enjoyed <b>Go Set a Watchman</b>, and whilst its flaws are writ large, and whilst I agree that TKAM is by far the superior book, this shouldn't be dismissed as lightly - or as quickly - as I feel some people have done. It <i>needs</i> TKAM in order for it to make sense - if you haven't experienced the Atticus of Mockingbird, you cannot possibly understand Scout's horror in Watchman. The two books seem to me symbiotic: TKAM is narrative driven, it tells a story, indeed, many stories, and the story is what pushes it from page to page. But Watchman is like its older sibling, explaining and developing the big ideas as the story moves forward. It adds depth to Mockingbird. It invites a viable re-reading of Mockingbird. It asks questions about the naivety of Mockingbird as a story. It probably needs time to be assimilated into the legend of <b>To Kill a Mockingbird,</b> but I think that, in years to come, it will prove an apt partner. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2323931970136736618.post-14367169806427015522015-07-25T06:04:00.001-07:002015-07-25T06:04:15.107-07:00The Jewel in the CrownEvery so often, I crave a book about India. I think that subconsciously I'm trying to re-live <b>A Suitable Boy</b>, for me the most perfect novel ever written. I <i>loved </i>that book, from the opening scene to the last. And it gave me a thirst for more about that extraordinary country, although I have yet to find another novel that comes even close to Vikram Seth's.<br />
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I remember my mother watching the television series of <b>The Jewel in the Crown</b> when I was small, though I never saw it myself. And despite the almost offputtingly hideous new covers Random House have seen fit to dress Paul Scott's Raj Quartet in, I decided to give it a go.<br />
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It started well, despite its sordid subject matter: the rape of a white woman by a gang of Indian men, at a time when Ghandi's actions were throwing the politics of Indian rule into chaos. These two tenets parallel each other throughout the story, which is told in various voices, each chapter being a different characters' version of the same events. <br />
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I loved the first chapter, Miss Crane's story. I came close to 'feeling' India in the pages, as I did when I first read <b>A Suitable Boy</b>, although this is a more British India, and one less rich for that.<br />
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The second chapter, however, lost me a little. It was all over the place, and hard to piece together. Was this an intentional evocation of Lili Chatterjee's character, or simply a mis-written section of the book?<br />
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Sister Ludmila saved it for me though - the third chapter, her story, was wonderful. The plot skipped along in her short, clipped sentences, and again, one of the many Indias breathed with life in her words.<br />
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From here, it came and went in waves. The military side of it bored me a little, though it picked up again for the final, and most pertinent, narrative, that of the young woman, Daphne Manners, who was raped.<br />
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It's a clever book, political yet plot-driven, exciting yet didactic. I have not, however, been compelled to read the second book in the quartet, though I'll not altogether count out a return to its world. I might sum it up as inconsistently excellent.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2323931970136736618.post-26609659614253319262015-07-20T10:06:00.000-07:002015-07-20T10:06:07.621-07:00FidelityPersephone number 4 is a strange book. I enjoyed it immensely and yet, at the same time, I found it rather boring. How can this be? Well, to start with, it follows a well worn plot path: woman is shunned by society after social misdemeanour. This is not enough to bore me, however. Indeed, far from it. I love books that fought for the position of women to be better understood in times when the female voice was little more than a whisper.<br />
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Is the book well-written? Certainly. It has the emotional intensity, in places, of Emily Dickinson. It explores what love is, what it feels like, what it does to you, what you will do for it. And Susan Glaspell seems to revel in that knowledge. Her descriptions of falling in love, for example, capture the details of those early stages in a way that only someone who has loved intently could do:<i> "At first, it was just the faintest little breath; but it stirred something, it grew, it became a great wind that there was no force anywhere to combat."</i><br />
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Is it thought-provoking? Yes, absolutely. It takes the idea that love is all, that love will conquer, that happiness can only come from love, that to follow one's heart will lead to fulfilment... and it turns it on its head. It proposes that <i>actually</i>, without society, without friends and routine and expectations and gossip, we are nothing, and that two people in love - however deep and true that love - living alone in the wilderness, will never truly find peace or contentment, that they <i>need</i> a social circle to feel a part of. One of the characters says that <i>"just taking one's happiness is thorough selfishness. Society as a whole is greater than the that individual, isn't it?"</i> I would add, simply: discuss.<br />
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Are the characters likeable and well drawn? Again, yes. At least, those with whom we are supposed to sympathise are likeable - the least likeable is Amy, the spoiled young woman who moves to Freeport with her new husband, a young doctor who many years before had been best friends with the woman, Ruth Holland, who has so outraged society by running away with a married man. (Note that it is not the married man, a pillar of said community, who has outraged Freeport, but the woman who fell in love with him.) Amy. who will not even meet Ruth, returning to see her dying father, is the epitome of the stuck up, insular, rich young woman for whom 'society' works so well. She is judgemental and cruel, and her life seems empty and, quite frankly, miserable. One cares little for her.<br />
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And Ruth herself? I think this may be where my problem with <b>Fidelity</b> lies. I like her, don't get me wrong. She is incredibly modern in her attitude, and I'm sure I'd enjoy an evening in the pub with her, but she has two faults I find it hard to get over: firstly, she changes her mind too much. She veers wildly from one minute defending her actions and not giving two darns what Freeport thinks of her, to repenting and lamenting what her choices have done to others, and to herself. This is perhaps realistic, and shows the on-running battles and discussions she has with herself, but it happens too often. Let the pendulum swing once or twice, and let that be enough. <br />
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Secondly, she really<i> does</i> lament. At length. There are pages of it. Glaspell has an unusual style - it is flighty and high-minded (old-fashioned words like <i>"sorrowing"</i> are frequently used), slightly more formal than we might expect, even from the early years of the twentieth century. And sometimes, I'm afraid that too often, my mind wandered and I prayed for the lament to end, and for the story to advance.<br />
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<b>Fidelity</b> does not conclude the way I expected. It forced me to question the title: Fidelity to what, to whom, is most important? To society? To family? To one's lover? Or to oneself? This is an interesting novel, and one I'm glad - as with so many others - Persephone are refusing to let be buried, but it's not my favourite from this publisher by quite a long chalk.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2323931970136736618.post-48612141990841684882015-07-19T10:31:00.000-07:002015-07-19T10:37:15.020-07:00The Tenant of Wildfell HallI love Victorian Lit. I love stories with female protagonists. I love female writers. I love<b> Jane Eyre </b>and <b>Wuthering Heights</b>. And yet, an ill-timed - and ultimately deeply unsuccessful - attempt to broach <b>Villette</b> whilst on a road trip through Andalucia a few years ago prevented me, until recently, from attempting any of the other of the lesser known of the Bronte oeuvre. A schoolgirl error, I now concede.<br />
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Firstly, I must address the fact that though the book is set - of course - largely in a secluded little mansion in the northern wilderness, Anne does not have that same talent as her sisters for making the landscape a character in its own right. She tries. And sometimes, she comes close. But there is none of the primitive cruelty of Emily's heathland, nor the savage romance of Charlotte's. No, the horrors of Anne's world spring entirely from the hearts of men.<br />
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A widow, Helen Graham - a pseudonym, we correctly suspect - arrives unannounced in a society familiar to anyone who has read Austen: one where the sexes<i> "must fall each into [their] proper place",</i> as Mrs Markham, the mother of our 'hero' Gilbert, reminds us continually. She tells her son, in a discussion of marriage, that <i>"you'll do your business and she, if she's worthy of you, will do hers; but it's your business to please yourself, and hers to please you."</i> And yet, this mysterious newcomer to the area, with whom Gilbert quickly becomes enamoured, seems not to abide by these proper laws. Indeed, she shuns society at any available opportunity, and rumours soon begin to chase her.<br />
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Anne uses, rather clumsily, it has been said (and I'm tempted to agree), the Chinese Box method of narration here, as we move into Mrs Graham's diary, whereupon we learn her true history: she had married, unwisely and against advice, a man who can no better be described than as a veritable <i>rogue</i>, a dissolute gambler and, to use the modern vernacular, <i>party animal.</i> As her marriage drags through years, our heroine, we discover, now a new mother, accepts all that is thrust upon her - humiliation, violence, neglect, imprisonment, for the very reasons Mrs Markham has outlined above. Because it is her business to do so. Because that is a woman's lot. Because one belongs to one's husband and a man may treat his property however he sees fit. But when this awful man starts to ruin her son, Helen will take no more. In order primarily to protect her child, she escapes, changes her name, and moves to an empty Hall in the middle of nowhere, where she earns a meagre living as an artist.<br />
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This is a remarkably modern story. Exactly such things may happen now. And that is where the story's power lies. This is a feminist tale - so much so, that even Anne's own sister Charlotte tried to prevent publication as she saw it is a step too far - and as such, still has much to teach us. The fear with which an abused wife lives has not changed in 150 years, and it is evoked here in all its horror. The sadistic husband, who delights in the torture he inflicts on his powerless wife, is enough to drive the reader to distraction. One roots for Helen all the way through, and although I found her piety a little wearing, her lioness-like protection of her son cannot help but draw one to her.<br />
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Gilbert, on the other hand, is rather unlikeable, hence my use of inverted commas around the word 'hero'. He is dangerously impetuous, has a tendency to violence himself, and is arrogant to the point of extreme vanity. But then, what man in that society would not be all of those things? Perhaps he is merely a realistic portrayal.<br />
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<b>The Tenant of Wildfell Hall</b> is a strange mix of modern manners and outmoded mores. In places it touches a Mills and Boon-esque sensibility - but perhaps that now clichéd romance was exactly what these Bronte girls imagined and dreamed of. Whilst this novel's hair does not blow wild, like that of <b>Jane Eyre </b>and <b>Wuthering Heights</b>, it is more compact, more restrained, more rooted. I loved it, and consider that it sits proudly and rightfully alongside its better known siblings as a more political, if less fanciful, equal.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2323931970136736618.post-85881551240390500122015-07-19T09:36:00.003-07:002015-07-19T10:40:56.528-07:00Behind the Scenes at the MuseumI read this purely on the strength of <b>Life After Life</b>, which I read last year and absolutely loved. I was declaiming its virtues in work one day, when a colleague asked if I'd read <b>Behind the Scenes at the Museum</b>. At my negative response, she raved lyrical for a good while, and I was convinced. Having now read it, however, I'm not <i>quite</i> as convinced as I was...<br />
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Let me start by saying that it is well written, cleverly plotted, and that the characters are both intricate and real: Ruby is a brilliantly realised voice. Like <b>Life After Life</b>, the story switches between time frames, but in no way does it do so as cleverly as in<b> Life After Life </b>- but then, it's not the over-arching plotline in <b>Behind the Scenes</b>, whilst in <b>Life After Life</b>, that revisiting of the past is the very <i>raison d'etre</i> of the book. <b>Behind the Scenes</b> is funny, heartbreaking, unputdownable (don't you just love an adjective that exists <i>only</i> for book lovers?), and yet...and yet...<br />
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I think it's me, not the book. I have a kind of aversion to books that are set too predominantly in the real world, in a world I recognise. Although <b>Behind the Scenes</b> takes place largely in the decade before my own birth, it is a world that still exists (with a few technological additions) and I'm very much someone for whom stories are escapism, rather than a confirmation of one's own position.<br />
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I <i>did</i> enjoy this book, and I can see why people love it, and why it set Atkinson on the path to glory, but for me, mundanity got in the way of genius. (If, however, I have put you off <b>Behind the Scenes</b>, don't let that sway you from <b>Life After Life</b>: <i>that one</i> really is brilliant.)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2323931970136736618.post-75518954133839486952015-04-02T11:47:00.000-07:002015-04-02T11:52:20.329-07:00H is for HawkH is also for Hype, and if there's one thing that precedes this book, that's it. Is there any way it could live up to said hype? Well...actually, yes. It really is beautiful. I'm not sure what more I can add to the plethora of glowing reviews this account of a falconer grieving for her recently lost father whilst training a young goshawk has already garnered, but perhaps, by some slender chance, it has escaped your eagle (see what I did there?) eye, and you need a wee introduction.<br />
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Firstly, may I applaud Vintage for their outstanding cover design? And in a footnote, add how delighted I am that they have retained the same design for the paperback as the hardback. It is as clean, crisp and un-girly as the prose within.*<br />
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Secondly, the narrative itself: Helen Macdonald's father dies, and her grief becomes so caught up in the training of Mabel, her goshawk, that she can no longer distinguish the emotions that relate to one, from those that relate to the other. And <i>all</i> of those emotions are fierce. Macdonald's hunger for almost total reclusivity, for escape into an unknown wildness, mirrors that of Mabel as she learns to hunt. And it is this theme that binds the story together, as Macdonald hides herself inside the bird, soaring with her away from the real life that she will one day need to come back down to earth and face again.<br />
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<b>H is for Hawk</b> deals in death, and as such, needs writing weighty enough, earthy enough, poetic enough to realise its harrowing theme. And this is where the hype truly lives up to itself, for Macdonald's words are pumped straight from her heart onto the page. She writes in blood and magic. Here is her description of Mabel when she first sees her:<br />
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<i>"...the man pulls an enormous, <u>enormous</u> hawk out of the box and in a strange coincidence of world and deed a great flood of sunlight drenches us and everything is brilliance and fury...My heart jumps sideways. She is a conjuring trick. A reptile. A fallen angel. A griffon from the pages of an illuminated bestiary. Something bright and distant, like gold falling through water."</i><br />
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And when she gets her home:<br />
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<i>"Her eyes are luminous, silver in the gloom. Her beak is open. She breathes hot hawk breath on my face. It smells of pepper and musk and burned stone....It feels like I'm holding a flaming torch. I can feel the heat of her fear on my face."</i><br />
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Macdonald is Merlin with words. Her struggles are alive in the pages of this book, her veins bared. Mabel is a very real personality; she too lives inside the paper and typeface, and indeed, she is strong enough to rise from it above the ghost of Macdonald's father.<br />
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All wound up in this narrative, however, is a second tale, that of T.H.White, best known for his Arthurian novel <b>The Once and Future King</b>, and the Disney spin-off <b>The Sword in the Stone</b>. Known to falconers also, though, as the author of <b>The Goshawk</b>. And there is a part of me that wishes Macdonald had left that story alone, for it haunts me long after finishing the book. She traces and psychoanalyses White's own painful attempt to train a goshawk in the 1930s, as he too retired from society and lived a wild and solitary existence. Unlike Macdonald, he did not find redemption in training the hawk, and never did come to terms with his own perceived failings. But he laid down in minute detail his daily regimes with the hawk, and they make for heartbreaking reading. When he tries to tame his hawk by forcing it into public situations, Macdonald writes that <i>"just as the despairing soul will finally comprehend its helplessness in the face of continuing horror and bear it because there is no alternative, so with Gos. He had no alternative. There was no softness in his taming. He had to learn to bear things through being frightened all the time."</i> White failed with his hawk, where Macdonald succeeds with hers, and her book is testimony to that, and other, victories. <br />
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The process of writing this account must have been cathartic for Macdonald, and I can only think it will do the same for many others reading it. But it is more than a treatise on training a hawk - though, my word, I learned a lot about that too! - or on the stages of grief. It is simply the story of being human, and of how we as humans fit into a world that is, despite our best efforts to tame it, still very wild at the edges. It is the story of all of us, and I feel richer for having partaken.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">* My recurring publisher's meeting nightmare: "It's about a <i>lady</i> falconer? Brilliant! Is it like a gender-reversal <b>Lady Chatterley's Lover</b> - is she a gamekeeper? Where does the romance bit start? I can see the cover already - a pastel green background to represent the countryside, and then a stylised cartoon of the falconer - jeans, blouse, high heeled boots - with the bird on one arm and a load of shopping bags on the other..."</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2323931970136736618.post-53029341513137954332015-03-09T15:37:00.000-07:002015-03-09T15:39:27.878-07:00The Philosopher's PupilI love Iris Murdoch's novels so much that I'm not sure there are words to express it, but I'll give it a feeble attempt: it's an addiction, I think, an addiction to writing so precise, so clever, and to plots and characters so sublime, that I almost start hyperventilating at the thought of it. Every so often, I will sit bolt upright and declare that I must read another Murdoch right now and that no other author will do.<br />
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I do not allow myself to gorge on Murdoch. I am pacing myself, leaving time between each book I read so that I can fully digest it; to read them one after another might taint them, I might attach a character to the wrong book, they might bleed into each other... No, better to separate and to always know there are more to come.</div>
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<b>The Philosopher's Pupil</b> is set in a spa town, enabling Murdoch to indulge her preoccupation with water and drowning metaphors. Inhabitants congregate around the Roman baths and hot mineral springs, and their desires, prejudices, doubts and fears hang over them like the steam over the outdoor pool. Wading through both this figurative and actual fug are various members of the McCaffrey family, an extended mob whose myriad inadequacies are held up by Murdoch to intense moral scrutiny. One of the McCaffreys, George, is obsessed with his old philosophy teacher, a walrus of a man who has returned to his hometown for a short period. It is around this relationship that Murdoch is able to present the philosophical arguments and ponderances for which she is so famous.</div>
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This particular book is up there with the best of the Murdochs I have read so far. I <i>absolutely</i> loved it. I'm not sure that it has supplanted <b>The Sea, The Sea</b> as my favourite, but is probably running joint second with <b>The Black Prince.</b></div>
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It has everything a Murdoch connoisseur could want: a middle aged male lead whose over compensation for self-doubt leads him down murderous paths; older men obsessing over younger women and lost passions; pathetic middle aged women who lack the strength to break free of their overbearing husbands; failed academics; hints of the supernatural; and humour, plenty of humour. </div>
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It has flaws - does the mysterious narrator, 'N', really add anything to the book? His cryptic ending seems suspended somehow, balanced precariously <i>over</i> the novel rather than being part of it. I also question whether I'm convinced by Tom and Hattie's relationship - but Murdoch's younger characters are rarely as rounded as her older ones. And honestly, despite these minor quibbles, <b>The Philosopher's Pupil</b> is a tour de force, a page turner extraordinaire, a thought-provoking insight into the lives of a disparate group. Does our pleasure as readers come from the fact that we recognise elements of ourselves in these people, or does it come from our delight at realising we are not so damaged as they are?</div>
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If you are already a Murdoch fan, <b>The Philosopher's Pupil </b>will enchant you as all her best books do. And if you are new to her oeuvre, this is as good a place to start as any.</div>
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Now I must ween myself off her for a while, and give some other poor hapless author a chance to impress. But I might just pop into Waterstones and start thinking about which Murdoch I will read next...just so I'm ready when the time is right, you understand. I can stop any time I like...</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2323931970136736618.post-10812902625957066022015-03-01T09:50:00.001-08:002015-03-01T09:56:26.783-08:00Someone at a DistanceAlthough a long time Persephone addict, I have never yet read their self-professed favourite author, Dorothy Whipple. Maybe it's her name, but I just haven't been able to get the image of a blue rinse out of my head, and have therefore pressed Ms Whipple snobbishly into the background. That, I suppose, is exactly what publishers have done with her for the past several decades, hence Persephone's championing of her, and so it is with some delayed guilt that I finally picked up <b>Someone at a Distance.</b><br />
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It must first be said that, while there is a thread that runs through the majority of Persephone's output, by no means are all their books the same. Some of my personal favourites are those that tread a fraught path - <b>William, An Englishman</b> and <b>Little Boy Lost</b>, for example - though I have also loved some of the frothier numbers such as <b>Patience</b>. Whipple walks a line somewhere between the two, I think. <br />
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<b>Someone at a Distance</b> is a harrowing tale, the story of a perfectly ordinary middle class housewife whose husband is lured away from her by a dispicable French hussy. And when I say dispicable, I mean it: Louise Lanier has <i>nothing</i> to endear one to her, nothing. She is vain, self-centred, rude, lazy, classist, sexist..an awful human being. That isn't to say she is two dimensional, however. She is frighteningly - worryingly, perhaps - real. It is in this complexity that she becomes more than just a warning, which she might otherwise have been, and instead engages us fully and generates <i>enormous</i> (enjoyable) ire. How <i>dare</i> this horrendous being ruin Ellen's delightful life? Ellen, who keeps a lovely home and whose sole harmless interest is gardening. Ellen, who is devoted to her husband and children, and who delights rather overly in her simple social life, which comprises of little more than a morning chat with the postman, the grocer, the fishmonger. Ellen, who...quite frankly, is rather dull, certainly not as exciting as Louise. Are we then, to find ourselves <i>sympathising with</i> pathetic husband Avery? Are we, like him, excited by what we know is bad, unable to see the beauty in the norm?<br />
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I don't think it was Whipple's intention that we should find the sections of the book that focus on Louise - particularly those when she is back in France - the more interesting, but I really did look forward to them. Of course, I had no sympathy at all for either her or Avery, whose weakness and cowardice in breaking up his family comes absolutely down to the fact that he doesn't have the guts to face his daughter after she finds him in a rather compromising position with Louise. He drives away from the house immediately, and <i>literally</i> never sees his daughter, or speaks to her, again. One feels extraordinarily for Ellen after this, as she struggles not only to support her children emotionally and financially, while holding herself together, but tries to, I suppose, muster enough personality to move on with her life. At forty odd, unqualified, unskilled, inexperienced, she is incapable of finding a career, and yet somehow, as her own kindness is repaid by those she has been good to in the past, she manages to find independence of a sort.<br />
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Whipple's style is simple, engaging, real. She is, like most Persephone authors, easy to read. There is humour in here, though it is somewhat rueful in nature. Above all, for me, the interest in this book comes from the reminder that women's position in society, even two generations ago, was so far from our own today. Books written by women at a time when women were still, not repressed as such, but sidelined, hold enormous interest for me, and this is just one of the many reasons I think Persephone is such an important publisher.<br />
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<b>Someone at a Distance</b> is not my favourite Persephone, but I enjoyed it a great deal, and will certainly head for another Whipple soon. It has more bite, and is much less blue-rinsey, than I had expected...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2323931970136736618.post-50382817960793391632015-03-01T08:56:00.000-08:002015-03-01T08:58:07.005-08:00Cutting for StoneThis is an outrageously good book, purchased on a whim while passing through Waterstones to get from one street to another. Maybe I was particularly susceptible to the colour yellow that day, as there is little else about the cover to distinguish it, and I can't fathom any other reason it might have caught my eye. However, catch my eye it did, and I am so glad of that.<br />
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Abraham Verghese sets his tale in Ethiopia, and the story begins in the 1950s, when a young nurse dies giving birth to twin boys. (Let me just say, though, that this brief synopsis is a real over-simplification of even <i>that</i> small aspect of the story, but this is not the place to reveal too much. For that, you must read the book, and I <i>do</i> urge you to do so). The story is then the tale of these twins, their childhood and teenage years growing up in a turbulent, dangerous country, and of the people, their extended family, with whom they share this time. Later, the tale moves to America, but it is the time in Ethiopa that has stayed with me, that has educated me, and that I loved most of all. Verghese weaves actual events - a political coup, for example - with his fictional world so that a picture of Ethiopia during the middle decades of the twentieth century is brought to sometimes terrifying life before you. There is real skill here, and it is one that has taught me so much.<br />
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The characters - Ghosh and Hema in particular - are so real, so beautifully constructed, that I find it almost impossible to believe that they are fictional. I do not want to believe that they are 'merely' invented. Adis Ababa is brought into startling relief to the extent that I almost feel I could find my way round the city having no guide but my memory of this book. This is a story you will invest in, one that you will care so deeply about that finishing the book is like losing a limb (or at least, a digit).<br />
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There is a lot of medical detail in here - it is set largely in a Mission Hospital, after all - and though I am by nature a squeamish individual, I found this more interesting than nauseating: I was genuinely fascinated by the gynaecological work that Shiva undertakes.<br />
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<b>Cutting For Stone</b> is a wonderful piece of literary fiction. You feel good for having read it, and the experience of reading is enriching. It is an intelligent, divinely written epic that will drag you halfway round the world with its characters, and that will sit in your heart for a long, long time after you have put it down.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2323931970136736618.post-84706595651939225502014-12-10T02:57:00.003-08:002014-12-20T04:21:20.587-08:00The Paying GuestsI love Sarah Waters. Or at least, I love her Victorian novels, <b>Fingersmith</b> remaining one of my all time favourite books: if you haven't read it, why not? Go and do so immediately! However, I have to admit to giving up on <b>The Night Watch</b> (tedious) and, although I enjoyed <b>The Little Stranger</b>, and thought Waters captured a crisp, haunting atmosphere, it seemed to lack something, some ribbon that would draw it all together as one neat, enclosed package. But, I loved <b>Fingersmith</b><i> so much</i>, consider it such a perfect masterpiece, that I am always willing to give a new Waters a go, and bought <b>The Paying Guests</b> without the slightest idea what it was about. That's trust, no?<br />
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The story is set in 1922. Welcome to a middle class suburban London peopled largely by women and the ghosts of the men they lost in the War. This is the beginning of the Britain we know now, when once well-heeled families, no longer able to afford servants, must do their own housework and shopping, and hang their heads at the shame of it all. It is an unhappy world, grey, faded, cracking and peeling. Frances and her mother, desperate to hang on to the family house, despite having lost most of the family that once lived in it, take in a lodging couple, the Barbers, who seep into their lives in unexpected ways - although I have to say that if you know anything at all about Sarah Waters, what happens is not that unexpected! And that might be my first criticism: the first two thirds of the book are taken up with nothing more than the 'shocking' revelation that Frances is gay. Now I accept what Waters is doing here - she takes a glimpse of that twenties Bohemianism, that 'anything goes' attitude of the Bright Young Things, and stuffs into the moral circles of middle class society long before that society is ready even to acknowledge its existence, let alone accept it. Frances has been forced to give up her girlfriend and now withers, little more than a housekeeper for her mother, who ignores what she knows about her daughter and continues to try and set her up with a 'nice young man'. </div>
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So, that is, as I say, the first two thirds of the book. The characters are believable, are real, and grow over the expansive time Waters gives them to do so. Relationships are complicated, and become more so as the book unwinds. Plot revolves around these people, with little seen of the world beyond the house on Champion Hill at all. People go out for the day, but we rarely go with them: instead we stay in the house, and begin to feel as hemmed in, as claustrophobic, as Frances herself does.</div>
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But this is Sarah Waters, and I kept reading, kept reading, waiting for the twist, waiting for the action to come.</div>
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And it does. It comes suddenly, not entirely unexpectedly, but shockingly, nevertheless. And it is classic Waters. It is a game changer. And the book becomes something else. I couldn't put it down. My mind was running reels. And I wonder if this is the cleverness, the enjoyment I get from Waters' books, that I am never satisfied that I have the whole, or indeed the <i>real</i> story... I found the end slightly disappointing, a bit wishy-washy - or did I? Because even when it's all over, I still find myself asking, yes, but <i>did</i> Lilian...? Could she have..? Did she...? </div>
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Although I felt the first half of the book could have been shorter, and although the ending did not excite me as much as I would have liked, I still loved this book. It was easy to read, a real page turner, and thrilling, in places, as only Sarah Waters can be. It retains touches of the Victorian melodrama that I feel is her true strength, and to which I wish she would one day return, whilst capturing the feel of post-war cynicism: I found the distrust of veterans, begging on street corners, an interesting, and probably accurate, middle class female attitude that sat nicely alongside the more accepted canonising of lost sons and husbands.</div>
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I would heartily recommend<b> The Paying Guests, </b>and would go so far as to say it is <i>close</i> to being a return to form of one of Britain's most brilliant writers.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2323931970136736618.post-70526611262039985602014-11-10T07:11:00.003-08:002014-11-10T07:12:45.717-08:00The True and Splendid History of the Harristown SistersThis is such a fun book. Black as all hell, but fun nevertheless. <br />
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It tells the story of seven sisters with outlandish names (I particularly fell for Pertilly and Manticory) and even more outlandish hair which, in the age of Millais's Ophelia, makes them popular with men of a slightly grubby, fetishistic persuasion, a couple of whom see a business opportunity and proceed to exploit the poor backwoods girls mercilessly. They are not alone, however: demonic eldest sister, Darcy - who, in a surreal twist late in the book, actually becomes physically diabolical - is a stunning literary villain, and from the very beginning, the reader's heart aches for her comeuppance. But this is just one of the many strands, woven like a lustrous auburn plait into a complex plot, that urges you through Manticory's narrative to the explosive denouement.</div>
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The characters themselves are key here, and all fulfil their given roles beautifully. Each sister is, if anything, slightly two dimensional (and in a few cases, personality is little more than plot device) but this seems to me to be purposeful: seven varied personalities makes for one whole, complex entity, and I do feel that author Michelle Lovric wanted the girls to be nothing alone, but to function purely as part of a greater whole.</div>
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<b>The Harristown Sisters</b> will not tax you overly, but equally is more than just froth. It has something to say (perhaps about the eternal exploitation of women, perhaps about society's worship of the physical and vacuous, perhaps about the complexity of familial and romantic relationships...) but is above all, a beautifully written (I love the slow crows and thin geese), right rollicking adventure through poverty to wealth and back again, from Ireland to Venice and back again. </div>
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If Christmas is starting to take up all your time, and you need a book that will transport you from mundane everyday nonsense without feeling like you are feasting on cotton wool, this is perfect. Enjoy.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2323931970136736618.post-5827821827063575812014-08-20T05:43:00.000-07:002014-08-20T05:45:33.397-07:00A couple of classicsAs I'm sure I've said here before, I frequently roll against the grain and judge books by their covers. I was thus tempted by the delicious designs of the Penguin English Library classics collection, and opted for Waterstones' bargainacious 2 for £10 offer. (There, a little free advertising for our only remaining high street book chain, which, as my best friend keeps telling me, I cannot complain about losing if I don't shop there.). This is what enticed me to buy:<br />
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I intend to build a lovely big library of these classics. Not only does the design appeal to me, but the books themselves are gorgeous to read - I'm in love with the paper, the typeface, the complete package. This series really enhances the whole reading experience. And as for the content... Well, it's tried and tested, isn't it?<br />
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I'm not sure I've ever read a novel as unputdownable as <b>The Woman in White</b>. I have a sneaky suspicion I should have read it as part of the Victorian Melodrama module of my degree, but clearly didn't, which is also clearly a great shame. But then, we never enjoy what we are forced to read as much as that which we choose for ourselves, so maybe my lack of diligence at 18 is a blessing now. Either way, I cannot recommend this highly enough if you haven't already read it. It's heart-racingly exciting from about page 40 onwards, with a twist on virtually every page thereafter. There is a bevy of likeable, detestable, frustrating, brave, and pathetic characters spilling out of every new narrator's tale, and the myriad coincidences that move the story ever onward are actually a breath of fresh air in today's cynical literary world. And now I know where Sarah Waters gets so much of her inspiration from; I love to see that heritage passing through the generations. Utterly brilliant.<br />
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<b>The Mill on the Floss </b>is an entirely different proposition. <i> </i><b>The Woman in White</b> might be considered populist fluff in comparison, though the populist fluff of the 1860s hardly warrants linking with that of similar criticism today. George Eliot specialised in 'normal' tales of 'normal' people, though Maggie Tulliver can in no way be considered a 'normal' Victorian woman, despite the fierceness with which she tries. There is clearly an element of the writer in her, and as such, Eliot's compassion for Maggie shines through every mistake the poor girl makes. The book is both a riveting story and a serious criticism of aspects of society - and a criticism that still largely holds true. The fact that the women of the town prefer salacious gossip to a truth that is staring them in the face, and that this gossip ruins a woman's life, sounds to me remarkably similar to stories we hear of people destroyed by comments on social network sites. Eliot's satirical look at the stress placed by people on material goods as indicators of social standing...again, is this not the very society we live in now?<br />
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Despite a rather melodramatic and unconvincing ending, I admit to shedding a tear for the inevitably tragic Maggie, and for finally finding, in Stephen Guest, a character to rival Angel Clare as 'most villainous gentleman in all literature'! Again, utterly brilliant.<br />
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I try, every year, to read at least two or three classics that I have hitherto missed, and after enjoying these two <i>so much</i> - the quality of the writing alone is addictive - I feel I will have no problem increasing my intake. A brief respite from the old in order to avoid spoiling myself with over-indulgence, and I shall be back for more, hungrily feasting on the Penguin English Library with gusto.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2323931970136736618.post-67700763765544610442014-08-20T04:39:00.004-07:002014-08-20T04:51:46.810-07:00A Death in the FamilyThis is one of those books that I bought purely because 'everyone's talking about it', it's a 'literary sensation', blah blah blah. And it <i>is </i>well written, and I suppose it's interesting in the sense that every intelligent person's life is interesting because articulateness enables them to turn ordinary events into great swathes of philosophy. But in all honesty, I found that while it made me feel worthy, and garnered approving looks from fellow bibliophiles on trains, I just couldn't get into it, and even found I was preferring to snuggle directly into my duvet at bedtime than pick up this book. As a result, I gave up at about page 100.<br />
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In its favour, I will say that perhaps I just wasn't in the right mood for it, as I have enjoyed similar books in the past, and I <i>have</i> left a bookmark - ok, the receipt - in it at the page at which I gave up, should I decide, at any further prompting and persuasion, to resume reading. My overall response to <b>A Death in the Family</b>, though, is that <i>my</i> life is too short to spend listening to Karl Ove Knausgaard philosophising about his own. It's no <b>Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius</b>, that's for sure.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2323931970136736618.post-58751177170751644222014-07-04T12:41:00.000-07:002014-07-04T12:41:45.894-07:00WakeThe adjective most applied in publicity for and reviews of this novel is "timely", which in some ways does it a disservice. It is about the First World War, and so, in this centenary year, is indeed auspicious, but there is a richness to <b>Wake</b> that raises it above the average.<br />
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Briefly, it takes place over the 5 days in 1920 when the 'Unknown Warrior' was selected and brought from the battlefields of France to his final resting place in Westminster Abbey. The story follows three women, each touched by the loss of a loved soldier during the war. To say more would be to give too much away.<br />
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It is beautifully written, in prose that conjures without inappropriate embellishment: London two years after the war is described as a "post-khaki world". I found I understood all three characters - they seem to represent three stages of life - without necessarily liking them or even agreeing with their views or behaviour. The five days are also symbolic: the exhumation of the body as the women confront their issues; the journey of the Unknown Warrior as the women fight their demons and learn new truths; its arrival at Westminster Abbey as those demons are laid to rest. This analogy is not as clunky as my explanation makes it sound, however. The book is a Galaxy chocolate bar, smooth as silk, the storylines winding in and out of each other like funereal ribbons.<br />
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I could easily see this as a BBC drama, and if you want to see how it would look, check out the YouTube footage of the procession of the coffin; you can almost see Ada and Ivy laying wreaths at the cenotaph.<br />
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<b>Wake</b> is a superb example of its type, an intelligent, interesting, well-written story that rewards the thoughtful reader. Anna Hope could potentially give the likes of Helen Dunmore a run for her money, and I look forward to hearing more from this first timer in the near future.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2323931970136736618.post-17545029459742361192014-06-18T13:29:00.001-07:002014-06-18T13:37:07.407-07:00Viper WineI wanted so much to come up with a brilliant, poetic, intelligent, witty opening line for this review, one that reflects, and is worthy of, the brilliant, poetic, intelligent, witty content of the book itself...but as you can see, I failed dismally. And that is why Hermione Eyre is a novelist, and I am but an English teacher.<br />
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<b>Viper Wine</b> tells the story of Lord Kenelm and Lady Venetia Digby, happily married and somewhat oblivious to the rumblings of imminent civil war in 1630s England. Now, the first thing that is of interest here is that these characters were once real people. I find that I really enjoy fictionalised accounts of real people's lives. Fine, you say, but what makes <i>their</i> story novel-worthy? <i>I've</i> never heard of Kenelm and Venetia Digby, you say, so why <i>has</i> Hermione Eyre chosen to fictionalise their lives? The answer is simply that they were each extraordinary: Kenelm (I pronounce it with a silent "l" for my own aesthetic purposes, though this may well be entirely wrong) was a natural philosopher, a scientist in an age when science was looked at askance by common folk, named witchcraft by some and outrightly poo-pooed by others<i>. </i>Venetia, however, a great beauty in her youth, is perhaps of greater interest to a reader cynical of our own age's insidious obsession with appearance, for the lengths to which she will go to retain her youthful radiance is almost instantly recognisable from the pages of current women's magazines. The Viper Wine of the title is exactly that, a concoction imbibed by Venetia and her friends, the active ingredient of which is snake poison. It is no different to a Botox injection, and the result, by all accounts, was virtually the same: a china smooth complexion and a rigid, blank expression.</div>
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So much, then, for the content - and I must be honest here and say that as plots go, this is fairly thin. BUT - and this is the entire crux of the matter - the <i>way</i> this book has been dovetailed together, written, illustrated with both images and genuine documents, is a revelation. Eyre's style is at once lyrical, funny, grand and chatty. <b>Viper Wine</b> is both personal and impartial, both gossip mag trash and scholarly account. A favourite line from early on:</div>
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<i>"She has filled her paps out with paper and her eyebrows are made from mink hair and egg white, but she looks good on't."</i></div>
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It makes me smile. It also makes me frown - have women <i>really</i> poisoned and tortured themselves in this manner for so many centuries? Does <i>nothing</i> change? Do we not learn?</div>
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And then, on top of all this, Eyre has somehow injected into this decidedly Stuart story, our own world. The modern seeps through the cracks in Gayhurst House like snakes through chicken wire. It is subtly done, and with a surgeon's precision; anachronisms abound. When Kenelm returns from an overseas voyage, he gives a talk to high minded individuals who will spread the word of his discoveries; in other words, he holds a press conference: </div>
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<i>"You're not the kind of man who turns back, though, are you?" said Michael Parkinson, ingratiatingly.</i></div>
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<i>"Are you an authoritarian below decks? Do you swing the cat-o'-nine-tails?" said Jonathan Ross, a fool with weak 'Rs'.</i></div>
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<i>"Ask my crew," said Kenelm.</i></div>
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<i>"We did," said Ross. "Some of them liked it a lot." </i></div>
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<i>[...]</i></div>
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<i>"And did you divide your profits amongst your crew?" asked Paxman, wincing with his own impertinence.</i></div>
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Later, Kenelm sings to his son, and the lyrics are Bowie. Words like "nanotechnology" are scattered carefully over the pages, yet never seem out of place embedded in the archaic language of Cromwellian England. It is beautifully done.</div>
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As well as the central players and beautiful writing, there is so much else in this book to fall in love with: the comically grotesque figure of Ben Jonson (<i>"He spoke almost entirely in his own verses now... His brain had become the maggoty, abbreviated book of his own quotations"</i>), and the scene in which Inigo Jones puts together a court masque is so craftily layered with image and meaning that it becomes far more than just another chapter in a good book:<br />
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<i>"Inigo Jones [was] in the gantry, using a megaphone. 'These shows are nothing else but light and motion,' [...] said Inigo, sitting in his director's chair."</i><br />
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Mary Tree is another delight; her tragicomic story weaves in and out of the main action until the very end, when she finally Miss Marples her way into the primary plot.<br />
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Stylistically, this novel is very filmic. Eyre frequently uses the cinematic technique of cutting between Venetia and Kenelm, juxtaposing their actions with short, fast edits. In places, I realised that what I saw in my mind was the BBC's 2005 <b>Casanova</b>. The sense of heightened reality, of dark, tragic glamour, is very Baz Luhrman.<br />
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I think that finally, in a nod to those bookworms who, like myself, still shun the e-reader, it is worth mentioning that this is also <i>physically</i> a remarkably pleasing book. It is, in hardback, a lovely size and shape, comfortable to hold, and I love the typeface.<br />
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Despite its anachronistic heart, then, <b>Viper Wine</b> paints, like Van Dyck in the book, a very true picture of Noble (and sometimes noble) Stuart Britain. It is fun, exciting, pertinent and above all, utterly enjoyable. Taste Hermione Eyre's lyrical alchemy for yourself.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2323931970136736618.post-63869893613386209652014-06-02T13:27:00.000-07:002014-06-13T09:49:28.921-07:00Quiet DellI always judge a book by its cover, or at least <i>select</i> a book by its cover, and the photo on the front of <b>Quiet Dell </b>drew me to it: a large group of sepia men, shirted and hatted, stand in a circle around an earthy hole they are clearly digging. A few haughty women hang back, hands on hips, and there is an air of discomfort, as though what is happening here is distasteful, unpleasant, disquieting.<br />
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A quick recce of the blurb placed the scene: bodies are being recovered, the bodies of a woman and her three children murdered by a man posing as a suitor. Although I had never heard of this, the Harry F. Powers case, (why are murder cases always remembered by the murderer's name, not the victims'?) I get the impression it is one of those that lives in the American consciousness, has become almost folklore, and in <b>Quiet Dell</b>, Jayne Anne Phillips brings the story and those it affected to life by fictionalising it.<br />
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Her research is awe inspiring; littered throughout the novel are actual newspaper reports and trial transcripts, photographs - the one on the cover is genuine, which perhaps explains its haunting quality - and witness testimony. This really works, and, certainly for the first two thirds of the book, reality and fiction are woven together beautifully. I even remained transfixed when one of the few entirely made-up characters, a female journalist, falls immediately in love with the banker who genuinely funded the investigation. It's utterly implausible, but I was already hooked and went with it, as one does with a book one is enjoying. However, Phillips <i>does</i> start to push me when this same journalist finds and adopts a street urchin while she is covering the trial. Furthermore, the way she speaks is ludicrous. Even in the thirties, no-one - except perhaps Celia Johnson - talked like this:<br />
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<i>"I'm a reporter, here to write about the trial. You're not going to steal anymore because you're going to work for me...You will be my assistant and archivist. An archive is a collection of documents...I have a separate room in the hotel where you can sleep, and you can begin work tomorrow, that is, if you're willing to have a bath and a meal. Are you willing? ...I need to hear that you understand and that you accept my terms."</i><br />
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And that's just how she addresses eleven year old thieves!<br />
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For all that, I really did enjoy this book. It is bursting at the seams with atmosphere and intriguing characters - I would have loved more about Powers' odd wife and her strange sister, for example, and his father, who is sympathetic yet disturbing. These complex characters are the book's strength, and perhaps Phillips should have stayed with them rather than creating lead roles of her own. <br />
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The magnitude of Powers' serial murders will always remain unknown - he was convicted and executed for one death, but may have been responsible for literally hundreds. This book goes some way towards bringing to life the victims behind the police statistics. Much is made of the horror of their final days, bound and starved in cells below his garage, and there is no jot of glamour attached to Powers himself; he is presented as a pathetic and impotent creature.<br />
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For me, this is a winter book that I read at the wrong time of the year, and though flawed, is atmospheric and intriguing enough to warrant recommendation, if with reservation.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2323931970136736618.post-11540667691901256962013-11-12T02:20:00.001-08:002013-11-12T02:28:50.212-08:00The Art of LookingI found <a href="http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/08/12/on-looking-eleven-walks-with-expert-eyes/">this</a> via Twitter, and think it looks like the sort of book that feeds your brain. Muesli for the mind.<br />
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Want.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2323931970136736618.post-39131496118754638732013-04-02T03:17:00.000-07:002013-04-02T03:22:37.911-07:00A Monster CallsOK, I'm a little late on this one; it won <a href="http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/carnegie/">the Carnegie</a> <em>last </em>year. But better late than never, particularly with a book as darkly beautiful and profound as this one.<br />
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Written by Patrick Ness (quickly becoming <em>the</em> name in YA literature, particularly for boys), but based on an idea by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siobhan_Dowd">Siobhan Dowd</a>, <strong>A Monster Calls</strong> tells the story of a boy whose mother is dying of cancer, whose relationship with his grandmother is fraught, whose father has a new family on the other side of the Atlantic: a boy who is being bullied at school, and who has horrific nightmares that destroy the only supposed peaceful time he should have. So far, so cheery. Into this mess comes a Monster, a force of nature who arrives one night armed with three stories.<br />
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<em>"Stories are wild creatures," the Monster said. "When you let them loose, who knows what havoc they might wreak?"</em><br />
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They are fairy-style tales ('long ago...a wicked witch...') but they do not end the way our hero, Conor, expects them to. In fact, they infuriate him. They expose injustice. They tell us that not all stories have happy endings - the Monster is forewarning us about the very book we are reading. They tell us that people are complicated, that right and wrong, good and evil, are never straightforward concepts.<br />
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Then the Monster wants something in return. He wants a story from Conor. But not just any story: he wants the story of Conor's recurring nightmare. For buried inside this nightmare is a painful Truth, and before he can begin to come to terms with his mother's inevitable death, Conor must face this Truth. He <em>must</em> speak it aloud.<br />
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There is an element of <strong>Fight Club</strong> to this book, most noteably in the scene where the Monster beats up the school bully, and intelligent young readers will quickly pick up on what is <em>really </em>happening here.<br />
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But what truly brings this book to life are the extraordinary illustrations by Jim Kay, and I urge you to buy the version that contains them - I can't imagine why they have even bothered to publish it without them, but mine is not to reason why.<br />
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How's<em> this</em> for a visual representation of the fear of losing your mother?<br />
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The pictures, which often take up double pages, curl tendrils into the text and literally weave themselves around the words. They are terrifying, comforting, astonishing... beautiful.<br />
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One word of warning though - for the last quarter of the book, you <em>will</em> need tissues!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2323931970136736618.post-5170972824500559762013-04-02T02:14:00.000-07:002013-04-02T02:14:44.340-07:00The Childhood of JesusI'd never read a Coetzee - no, not even <strong>Disgrace</strong> - though I am very aware of the esteem in which he is held. When I came across<strong> The Childhood of Jesus</strong>, I had heard nothing about it, but was drawn by both the cover, a rather threatening Edwardian photo (if that isn't an oxymoron) of a young woman and two young men with a vicious looking dog - it indicated E M Forster gone bad, transposed to the East End, adapted for the screen by Guy Ritchie - and the title, which is, having now read the book, even more intriguing. <em> Is</em> the story a parable? How is one supposed to interpret the action in the light of the title? For there is no Jesus in the story. There is a little boy, yes, a strange and unique little boy (or<em> is</em> he? We are<em> told</em> he is by the adults who look after him, but other than the way he reacts to school life I'm not sure that he ever does actually come across as 'special' any more than in the sense that <em>all</em> parents think their own child is special). Anyway, the title adds another layer of philosophical discourse to the novel, as though there weren't already enough within the story itself.<br />
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It is a tale without time or place - by which I mean it is <em>outside</em> time or place - and appears to be a step in the journey through existence; I say<em> existence</em> rather than<em> life</em> because there is the possibility that Novilla is in some way an <em>after</em>life. A man and boy - unrelated though travelling together, and each with a name they have recently been given - arrive on a bland, emotionless island that seems trapped in its own futility. There is no progress here, on any terms, whether industry, relationship, thought... The pair are looking for the boy's mother, and eventually find a woman willing to take on the role.<br />
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I enjoyed <strong>The Childhood of Jesus</strong>, very much. I must have been in the right frame of mind for it, because it is not the type of book I would normally read. But it is written in a very precise style, sparing, consciously leaving gaps for questions, which fits perfectly with the subject matter itself. The scene where they find La Residencia is overwelmingly reminiscent of <strong>Le Grand Meaulnes</strong>, and is almost a dreamlike sequence in the heart of a prosaic world.<br />
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Does the book have a circular narrative? It ends with our main characters heading off to find and begin a new life. But isn't that the way it starts, as well?<br />
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Really, my only criticism is technical. There is a certain confused use of the pronoun 'he', whereby I was not always sure which 'he' in the room was being referred to. This may have been another conscious device on Coetzee's part, or it may have been bad editing, but having had exactly this issue with <strong>Wolf Hall</strong>, I'm tempted to say it is an onrunning problem with Booker Prize winners who write in present tense...<br />
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This isn't one for those looking for a nice, simple story - this is a book for those who want an enjoyable challenge, who want their minds to be pushed a little further than the average novel can take them. However, it<em> is</em> quite short, it is surprisingly easy to follow, and, although it leaves you with a great many questions (and would therefore be good for book groups, but would need a structured discussion format), is actually a very satisfying read.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2323931970136736618.post-14015545280825358302013-03-17T11:25:00.001-07:002013-03-17T15:57:59.050-07:00Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Many years ago, I read Alexandra Fuller's first book, <strong>Don't Let's Go To The Dogs Tonight.</strong> Her beautiful way with words stayed with me - I remember her descriptions of Africa's smells <em>("hot, sweet, smoky, salty, sharp-soft. It is like black tea, cut tobacco, fresh fire, old sweat, young grass...")</em> and how she contrasted that with her first visit to England: <em>"...the damp wool sock of London-Heathrow."</em> I knew that here was a writer I wanted to follow, a writer whose playful use of language brought to life places and experiences I would probably never know for myself. For example, I've wandered round southern Spanish cities in forty five degree heat, but Africa is something else entirely:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><em>"<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Century Gothic";">It is so hot that the
flamboyant tree outside cracks to itself, as if already anticipating how it
will feel to be on fire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The dogs are
splayed out on the floor, wherever they can find bare cement, panting and
creating wet pools with their dripping tongues.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Our throats are papered with the heat; we sip at cups of cold, milky tea
just enough to make spit in our mouths.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The sky and air are so thick with wildfire smoke that we can’t see the
hills, they are distant, gauzy shapes, the same colour as the haze, only
denser.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The colour is hot, yellow-grey,
breathless, breathsucking colour.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Swollen clouds scrape purple, fat bellies on the tops of the surrounding
hills.”<o:p></o:p></span></em></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Century Gothic","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Century Gothic","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Century Gothic";">So, I was quite excited to finally get round to her second family biography, the magically named <strong>Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness</strong>. It does not disappoint. Her mother - the central figure - is a wonderfully three dimensional woman (nevertheless of a type), whose strength in the face of adversity that soon tips over into horror is both heartbreaking and inspirational.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Century Gothic","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Century Gothic","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Century Gothic";"></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Century Gothic","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Century Gothic","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Century Gothic";">This tidy little book is funny, terrifying and intelligently told; above all, it is true. Fuller weaves just the right amount of history into her personal tale that someone as hopelessly ignorant as myself about the arrival of the Afrikaner farmers in S.A. and the origins of the Mau Mau uprising is able to comprehend the situations her parents found themselves in, trying to raise a young family on their own little piece of a continent they love.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Century Gothic","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Century Gothic","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Century Gothic";"></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Century Gothic","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Century Gothic","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Century Gothic"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Century Gothic";">If it wasn't a place built on so much violence, and so deeply soaked in the blood of tribal hatred, I would be packing a carpet bag and taking my own Le Creuset pots to Africa right now. But I couldn't face what Nicola and Tim Fuller did, not for all the beauty of the Zambezi Valley or the stillness of "leopard-watched" nights. What Alexandra Fuller does, though, is make me feel I might have been there in some dream or past life, so vivid does that red soil become on reading her books. And for someone who never gets to travel as much as she wishes she could, that is the very best thing a book can do.</span></span></span><br />
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</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2323931970136736618.post-77247397818528096622013-02-10T10:12:00.001-08:002013-02-10T14:38:40.282-08:00Judging Dr Zhivago by its CoverI'm currently reading Pasternak's wonderwork, and thoroughly loving it. As with so many modern classics, it's had its fair share of cover designs. Here are a few - which do you like best and why?<br />
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First up, the one you find reduced in places that shouldn't really sell books, like HMV. It's an ok cover, does what it needs to, and I quite like the fact that it focuses on the war aspect rather than the love story. I also like the colours - it brings out the historical side, the 'Reds vs Whites'. The cynical me, however, thinks maybe this is the boys' cover?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDjOOHcaPNa0inWcRcJXoJ6lW1KINJhyphenhyphen8jCIKr6JynMLCKJXa5cH8FYbXVnJxbfdrd35dypRHBX1DAWQW30cXLR_HM4rXNKg4Q-U9DKy5sH9i_oybfrDCbgwU138PxWOIyvPrLPa1kvYg/s1600/zhivago3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDjOOHcaPNa0inWcRcJXoJ6lW1KINJhyphenhyphen8jCIKr6JynMLCKJXa5cH8FYbXVnJxbfdrd35dypRHBX1DAWQW30cXLR_HM4rXNKg4Q-U9DKy5sH9i_oybfrDCbgwU138PxWOIyvPrLPa1kvYg/s320/zhivago3.jpg" width="208" /></a></div>
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Next up, the version I have. Simple, modern, computer created, part of the Vintage series, into which it fits nicely. I have to admit I like the simplicity of this design.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhce1VnSz7oQlY5f8scVXdjucHWaAq68AL3TOWO7ODbPQbL3sVp_FIGkPvve6tBwW4h_SCCMQDEIJjvlVMmVyYR93UcJ38yBj4FvC4H6Bib8LyXHOgMXWpuKqELh7G70CAbVtEvCbGr9Xk/s1600/zhivago4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhce1VnSz7oQlY5f8scVXdjucHWaAq68AL3TOWO7ODbPQbL3sVp_FIGkPvve6tBwW4h_SCCMQDEIJjvlVMmVyYR93UcJ38yBj4FvC4H6Bib8LyXHOgMXWpuKqELh7G70CAbVtEvCbGr9Xk/s320/zhivago4.jpg" width="201" /></a></div>
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I find this next one rather bland. I can't say I'd even notice it on a table of 3 for 2s. It tells me very little about the type of book this is, except that it's probably hard going yet worthy.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJBskC-hIPlp-1rjmbBrlNOHTtnA_vc6rlu0Iq7lKf1C9nVDkiXzF6wm_CtyKdCiTXpYt1zaIpaXaoPCwsNde88567dRo_3sQ1BCPkUVt9sk2vkvoVi-tb8mdrAboHzR5araYTtr9atr4/s1600/zhivago1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJBskC-hIPlp-1rjmbBrlNOHTtnA_vc6rlu0Iq7lKf1C9nVDkiXzF6wm_CtyKdCiTXpYt1zaIpaXaoPCwsNde88567dRo_3sQ1BCPkUVt9sk2vkvoVi-tb8mdrAboHzR5araYTtr9atr4/s320/zhivago1.jpg" width="206" /></a></div>
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This fourth is my personal favourite. It's been carefully and thoughtfully created, and speaks to me of the Russian Constructivist movement. As well as being eyecatching, it tells me this book is political, important. The face - presumably Lara - is taken straight from propagandist architecture of the Stalin period; this is Russian all over, and I love it.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCjQZ9aNxzSWPDyCUEkbK3a-WCTRNzX1cyfffY1s2fCRN11dOoIskoI-XKqbltdlyYBdMhJ0kg0qlqyANNXib24SmuKb3g_hrTPH2yt3WN0TAg2qtLsqgtcoJpj3MY5cfPoe7nKGfcH6o/s1600/zhivago2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCjQZ9aNxzSWPDyCUEkbK3a-WCTRNzX1cyfffY1s2fCRN11dOoIskoI-XKqbltdlyYBdMhJ0kg0qlqyANNXib24SmuKb3g_hrTPH2yt3WN0TAg2qtLsqgtcoJpj3MY5cfPoe7nKGfcH6o/s320/zhivago2.png" width="226" /></a></div>
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I like the sixties-ness of the next one, although it hints at content of a Middle-Eastern flavour rather than Russian. The colours are also interesting - browns are the one pallet I would not have associated with Dr Zhivago.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm9AfBU5UvAY70CQtQUy3xcbKpqNnn9362TtXwuUd3DsXr2YNxFagVThyphenhyphenMuHTAKhzhzOfLGveOxQ_Z1EvS70iVGmEW3ocB3yFHUynlZxaMaGK4Mw1nBxUzxIoQHiAJEz8rYY4XuJG7bzM/s1600/zhivago5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm9AfBU5UvAY70CQtQUy3xcbKpqNnn9362TtXwuUd3DsXr2YNxFagVThyphenhyphenMuHTAKhzhzOfLGveOxQ_Z1EvS70iVGmEW3ocB3yFHUynlZxaMaGK4Mw1nBxUzxIoQHiAJEz8rYY4XuJG7bzM/s320/zhivago5.jpg" width="197" /></a></div>
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And finally, this wonderfully hideous pulp seventies design. Clearly meant to evoke the David Lean film without paying for the rights to images of Omar Sharif et al, it manages to turn a novel of profound social importance into Mills and Boon style trash. Kitsch, or just sinful?<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2323931970136736618.post-23191114948111170312013-02-10T09:20:00.000-08:002013-02-10T09:22:53.008-08:00Ethan FromeEvery winter, the list of snow-set books that I haven't read yet diminishes; this is fairly self evident, as the more I read, the fewer there are to read. <strong>Ethan Frome</strong> has long been on the list, but is no more, as I made it my first read of 2013.<br />
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It has immediately entered my Top Ten classics with a bullet. What a beautiful, heartrending little story! It is, simply, the tale of a love affair that cannot be, set deep in a turn of the century Massachusetts winter. It's a gorgeous snowglobe of a tale, perfectly self-contained, with an impending air of tragedy from the very beginning. Wharton draws her main characters so thoroughly and subtley that once met, they will never leave you. Even now, my stomach lurches as I think of poor Mattie, and of the unecessary horror that is the way Ethan's life turns out, and I have an overwelming urge to re-write the ending!<br />
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I would recommend taking the few evenings it needs to read this novella - it is truly one that will enrich your life.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2323931970136736618.post-13318975050937311902012-10-28T10:57:00.003-07:002013-02-10T09:22:30.478-08:00The 'Alberta' TrilogyI can't even remember how I came across these little gems, but as winter spreads her frosty cloak over the north of England once more, I turn to comfort reads: for me, these are snowy reads, cold reads, Northern and Eastern European reads. <strong>Alberta and Jacob</strong>, <strong>Alberta and Freedom</strong> and <strong>Alberta Alone</strong> are a trilogy of loosely veiled autobiographical novels by Cora Sandel, and follow the life of the eponymous heroine from her native Norway to Paris and back again through the late Edwardian period. Alberta is not easy to like - perhaps she reminds me too much of myself, the girl with a thousand dreams who sits around waiting for life to happen <em>to her</em> instead of setting out to happen to life. But then, I think that part of Alberta's popularity (the books are essential reading for all young woemn in Scandinavia, I believe) stems from the dichotomy of her striking individuality and her role as an <em>everygirl</em>. Like so many of us, she is simultaneously extraordinary and utterly unremarkable.<br />
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Only the former, though, is true of the books themselves. Even in translation, Sandel's beautiful turn of phrase melts across every icy page, and her descriptions of the tiny, isolated village in which Alberta is brought up and from which she longs to escape are breathtakingly realised. You will snuggle ever deeper into your duvet as you read of Alberta's constant sneaking into the kitchen for forbidden cups of coffee around which to warm her frozen fingers, and the glacial tragedy that befalls her parents in the second book will have you hugging your hot water bottle tighter and tighter.<br />
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If the sudden change in temperature this weekend has left you craving something fittingly literary, allow me to nudge you gently in the direction of these fabulous Norwegian classics.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0