Category: Book Reviews

Gone To Earth by Mary Webb

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

Gone to Earth by Mary Webb was a favourite book when I was a young teenager.  I was reminded of it when I was reading Jonathan Coe’s The Rain Before It Falls recently and I wondered whether I would still enjoy it. My memory was that it was a beautiful book about a young woman and her seduction by an older man.

Reading it now I was struck by the lyrical, poetic quality of Mary Webb’s writing.  I’m pleased that I still enjoyed this book despite its melodrama and occasional moralising and philosophical  comments. I particularly liked the descriptions of the Shropshire countryside and its recreation of a rural community in the early years of the 20th century.

As John Buchan wrote in the introduction:

The book is partly allegory; that is to say, there is a story of mortal passion, and a second story behind it of an immortal conflict, in which human misdeeds have no place. Hazel Woodus suffers because she is involved in the clash of common lusts and petty jealousies, but she is predestined to suffer because she can never adjust herself to the strait orbit of human life. (page 7)

It’s the story of Hazel Woodus, torn between two men, Edward Marston, the gentle country minister she marries and John Reddin, the hard-living, fox-hunting squire of Undern. She is drawn to Edward, attracted by his gentleness and the security she finds with him and attracted to Reddin by his passion and sensuality. ‘Edward appealed to her emotions, while Reddin stirred her instincts.’ (page 187)

But, despite her fascination with these two men she wanted neither:

Her passion, no less intense, was for freedom, for the wood-track, for green places where soft feet scudded and eager eyes peered out and adventurous lives were lived up in the tree-tops, down in the moss.

She was fascinated by Reddin; she was drawn to confide in Edward; but she wanted neither of them. Whether or not in years to come she would find room in her heart for human passion, she had no room for it now. She had only room for the little creatures she befriended and for her eager, quickly growing self. (page 88)

She’s superstitious, her world is that of ancient legends, of the Black Huntsman and the death-pack hunting over Hunter’s Spinney, a world of magic and beauty too, of the woods, birds and animals. She’s naive  identifying with her pet foxcub, Foxy, predestined to be hunted and the victim of man’s cruel nature.

The landscape of the remote Shropshire countryside is brought to life, its beauty and tranquility contrasting with the old, musty dark haunted corridors and rooms of Undern. Undern was the place where the magic was not good, a place of deep sadness, that drew Hazel in within its walls.  The weather and the seasons too reflect the growing tension and suspense as the winter storm raged around Undern and across the countryside:

A tortured dawn crept up the sky. Vast black clouds, shaped like anvils for some terrific smithy-work, were ranged around the horizon, and, later, the east glowed like a forge. The gale had not abated, but was rising in a series of gusts, each one a blizzard. … From every field and covert, from garden and orchard, came the wail of the vanquished. (page 258)

One of the main themes throughout the book is the cruelty of humans, the savagery of civilised man and the sacrifice of the innocent. Hazel is horrified by the domination of the strong over the weak:

… the everlasting tyranny of the material over the abstract; of bluster over nerves; strength over beauty; States over individuals; churches over souls; and fox-hunting squires over the creatures they honour with their attention. (page 99)

Civilisation,  Mary Webb maintained was based on vicarious suffering, all built up on the sacrifice of other creatures. It reminds me a little of Thomas Hardy’s novels with its romantic melodrama and poetic intensity. There is the same sense of impending and inevitable tragedy, without hope of relief and like Hardy there is that love of nature and pity for the weak that pervades the story.

(Note: page references are to my 1935 hardback copy of the book.)

A Detective at Death’s Door

Published on by Margaret3 Comments

A Detective at Death’s Door is the first book by H R F Keating that I’ve read. I was expecting it to be good because Keating, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature  is a winner of the Crime Writers’ Association’s Gold Dagger Awards. From the information in the book I see that his most famous novels are the Inspector Ghote books. A Detective at Death’s Door is the fifth Harriet Martens novel. For more information about Keating see this article by Martin Edwards.

Source: borrowed from the library.

From H R F Keating’s website:

A Detective at Death’s Door (2004)
ISBN: 1405048069

In her most traumatic case yet, Harriet Martens finds herself placed in grave danger at the hands of a deft and cunning poisoner. Whilst relaxing with her husband at the Majestic pool one hot August Bank Holiday, Harriet does not expect the refreshing glass of Campari soda at her side to conceal a deadly drug. When she awakes from a doze she is no longer by the water, but in a hospital bed recovering from a near fatal dose of Aconitine. As Harriet makes her slow recovery, she tries to come to terms with the terrible fact that someone wanted to kill her. Even more difficult for her to face is the knowledge that she must find the person responsible, if anything for her own peace of mind. But no sooner has she mustered enough energy to begin making tentative enquiries and initial investigations, than the poisoner strikes again. And this time he is successful€¦ Will Harriet have the strength of mind and body to find the murderer before he finds another victim and before the local population begin to panic?

I suspect that this is not one of Keating’s better books. The pace was slow as Harriet regains her strength and tries to get involved in the police investigations, against her doctor’s advice and her husband’s wishes. It was repetitive as one by one more deaths occur with little build up of tension.  Harriet is known as the ‘Hard Detective’ but for most of this book she  is in ‘a state of fluffy confusion‘. Still, I liked it enough to borrow One Man and His Bomb, the sixth Harriet Martens book, from the library last week.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday

Published on by Margaret2 Comments

I wasn’t sure that I’d like Salmon Fishing in the Yemen as its title put me off. In fact I only read it because it was my face-to-face Book Club choice. It sounded far too quirky and I’ve never had much interest in going fishing – but I did like it. I even liked all the details about salmon and the conditions necessary for them to thrive. Of course, the conditions in the Yemen are completely wrong and that is the conundrum that Dr Alfred Jones has to solve when Sheikh Muhammad wants scientific advice on how best to introduce salmon fishing into the Yemen. The sheikh has an estate in Scotland where he pursues his great love of fly fishing.

I didn’t get on at first with the format of the book. The story unfolds through a series of diary entries, letters, emails, extracts from Hansard and reports, but after a few entries I found myself enjoying it and being entertained by the satire of bureaucracy and politics. The project is completely barmy, but once I thought of it as nonsensical tale I began to enjoy the book for what it is.

Dr Jones is dead against the idea at the start but is forced into considering it by his bosses and eventually by the prime minister who sees it as the ideal photo opportunity – one of him not only fishing in a wadi, but catching the first salmon in the Yemen. Alfred is not a happy man at home either. He and his wife Mary have been married for over 20 years. Their relationship is distant at the beginning and becomes increasingly estranged the more he gets involved in the project. They both come across as dull, boring and pompous.

His life begins to change when he meets Harriet Chetwode-Talbot, who works for the Land Agents acting for the Sheikh. Harriet is the opposite of Mary, young and attractive and Alfred noticed immediately that she dressed

… as if she was about to go out to lunch at a smart restaurant rather than for a hard day’s work in the office. Mary always says it is demeaning for working women to dress themselves up like that. She herself is a strong believer in sensible, practical working clothes which do not accentuate the wearer’s femininity. (pages 21 -2)

Indeed, as Alfred begins to warm to the project under the sheikh’s influence his life is changed completely. He becomes more human, and not so totally absorbed in his small world as a fisheries scientist where his main preoccupation was with the cadis fly larva. It is through his diaries that we see his world opening up and he moves from being an atheist to someone who believes in belief. He also begins to fall for Harriet, whose fiancé is a soldier missing somewhere in Iraq.

There is also much in this book contrasting the secular western world with the faith-based societies of the Middle East. The sheikh contrasts the UK class system with the tribal system prevalent in the Yemen. He considers that there is a lot of snobbery in the UK  and people don’t seem to know what class they belong to with the result that the country is ridden with class prejudices, whereas in the Yemen there are many different ranks that are accepted without question – each person knows their own place and there is no fear of ridicule or restraint (paraphrased from pages 52-3).

However, he knows that the Yemeni are sometimes violent and quick to pick up a gun to finish an argument and this is one reason he wishes to introduce them to fly fishing. He has noticed that fishermen have patience and tolerance and fishing would change his countrymen’s nature.

This a light comic novel, much of it complete but enjoyable nonsense. Some of it such Prime Minister’s Question time and the interviews didn’t seem credible. Parts of it made me laugh – the ridiculous way politics and companies conduct their business for example. As it draws to it’s inevitable dramatic conclusion I was actually hoping the project would be successful and that salmon would run up the waters of the Wadi Aleyn in the heart of the mountains of Heraz.

Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman: Book Review

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

I finished Practical Magic a few days ago. It’s one that has been on my to-be-read shelves for some time, so it was good to read it. It’s a light easy read, about the Owens sisters, Sally and Gillian. I have to admit that one of my reasons for choosing this book in the first place is that my mother’s maiden name was Owens and her aunt was called Sally. The resemblance ends with the name as my Sally Owens was nothing like this Sally Owens.

Sally and Gillian were orphaned when they were very young and went to live with their eccentric, elderly aunts in New England. Generations of the Owens women have lived in the house for more than two hundred years and have a reputation as witches. Everything that goes wrong in the town is put down to them. Yet women come to their door at night looking for remedies, particularly for love potions. Sally and Gillian grow up and both move away from their aunts to make their own way. Gillian, the younger wayward sister, has lots of love affairs ending up with Jimmy. Sally, the sensible one, meanwhile has two daughters and is a widow. When Gillian lands up on her doorstep with a dead Jimmy in the car, Sally’s life is turned upside down as she tries to cope with the situation. In the end it is the aunts who are called upon for help.

This is the first book by Alice Hoffman that I’ve read and whilst I thought it was OK I shan’t be rushing out to find more of her books. It has the feel of a fairy tale, mixed up with reality which I liked. There was enough suspense to keep me wondering how it would end and I liked how the characters interacted – Sally and Gillian were both well-drawn. I wasn’t that keen on the love stories, which seemed to be of the type of instant attraction with disastrous consequences. Interestingly, for me at any rate, I didn’t mind that it’s written in the present tense, most of the time I didn’t even notice it.

I didn’t identify this as a book for the RIP Challenge, but it fits in well, I think.

A Change in Altitude

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

I wasn’t sure when I was reading A Change in Altitude which time period it is set in and discovered from Anita Shreve’s website that it is set in the late 1970s, which surprised me because I’d thought it was possibly the 1950s. This is the story of Margaret and Patrick, a young American couple who have recently arrived in Kenya. At the start of the novel they have just arrived. They are living in a small house in the grounds of their new friends, Diana and Arthur because the plumbing has failed in their own house. Diana is a native white Kenyan and Arthur is British.

Seen through Margaret’s eyes, Kenya is a place of appalling poverty, discrimination and heat. She and Patrick  feel obliged to the other couple and agree to go on a climbing expedition up Mount Kenya, despite their inexperience. I felt very much for Margaret as she struggled to keep up with the others as they ascended the mountain. They were led by guides, roped together, crossing scree and then a glacier, when the inevitable accident happened and Margaret is overcome by feelings of guilt.

From that point on I began to lose interest in this book. I don’t know whether it’s my taste in reading that has changed but this book, fell short of Anita Shreve’s earlier books, which I enjoyed so much. Maybe I should re-read one and see if it’s me or her writing that has changed. Despite the drama of the accident there was no sense of suspense or tension. I liked the account of the change in attitude that was stirring in Kenya as the inequalities in living conditions and culture are highlighted, but as for the change in altitude I just didn’t understand the symbolism. At times the writing is disjointed and the characterisation unconvincing. It’s basically a story about marriage and love and how events and their aftermath affect our lives. All in all, although it promised to be good, it was rather disappointing.

Heartstone by C J Sansom: Book Review

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

Mantle (Macmillan) 2010
Pages 640
ISBN 9781405092739
Dimensions 234mm x 153mm   Weight 0.95 kg

Publisher’s blurb:

Summer, 1545. England is at war. Henry VIII’s invasion of France has gone badly wrong, and a massive French fleet is preparing to sail across the Channel . . .

Meanwhile, Matthew Shardlake is given an intriguing legal case by an old servant of Queen Catherine Parr. Asked to investigate claims of ‘monstrous wrongs’ committed against his young ward, Hugh Curteys, by Sir Nicholas Hobbey, Shardlake and his assistant Barak journey to Portsmouth. There, Shardlake also intends to investigate the mysterious past of Ellen Fettiplace, a young woman incarcerated in the Bedlam.

Once in Portsmouth, Shardlake and Barak find themselves in a city preparing for war. The mysteries surrounding the Hobbey family and the events that destroyed Ellen’s family nineteen years before, involve Shardlake in reunions both with an old friend and an old enemy close to the throne. Soon events will converge on board one of the king’s great warships gathered in Portsmouth harbour, waiting to sail out and confront the approaching French fleet. . .

This is the fifth novel in the Matthew Shardlake series and to my mind although it’s good, I think it’s not quite as good as the others. Compared to the earlier books it’s a bit plodding as Shardlake goes on numerous journeys. But that aside it’s great on detail about life in Tudor times. There’s the war against the French, details about how the troops were recruited and trained, about the French attack on Portsmouth and the sinking of the Mary Rose. Actually I found that more interesting than the mystery surrounding Hugh Curteys, which I’d guessed quite early on, although it began well with Shardlake out of his usual area of expertise, going through the records at the Court of Wards.

The story about Ellen Fettiplace is more intriguing. Ellen had been an inmate in the Bedlam for 19 years and Shardlake discovered that there was no order of lunacy to authorise her imprisonment. His searches lead him to Rolfswood, the place where Ellen had lived. There he eventually discovers the terrible truth. Shardlake is dedicated to protecting the underdog, championing those unable to help themselves and above all to justice and truth, disregarding his own safety. But his dedication has become obsessive and there were times when I agreed with Barak that he should let go and return to London.

As usual, reading Sansom’s historical novels there is the echo of the past repeating itself. In this one I found myself thinking of the nature of war, the power that national leaders have in making decisions and the effects it has on ordinary people who get dragged into the battles willy-nilly. His research is excellent, his characters are well drawn and the atmosphere and sense of place are convincing. Whilst I was reading I was transported to Tudor England at a time of war.