Category: Book Reviews

The Right Attitude to Rain by Alexander McCall Smith

Published on by Margaret3 Comments

The Right Attitude to Rain is the third in the series of Isabel Dalhousie novels, set in Edinburgh and the Scottish Borders. It’s a pleasure to read but difficult to write about. Not a lot happens and reading it is like being inside Isabel’s head. She takes a great interest in the affairs of others and likes watching people. Some people might call this nosiness.

Some things do happen – Isabel is buying a flat for her housekeeper, Grace. Cat, her niece has a new boyfriend, Patrick, but Isabel doubts his possessive mother is happy about that. Meanwhile she is wondering if her love for Jamie, 14 years her junior and Cat’s ex-boyfriend, could ever be reciprocated:

There is no point in my loving this young man, she told herself, because it can never go anywhere. And yet did it matter if love was not reciprocated? Was it not possible to love somebody hopelessly, from a distance even, and for that love to be satisfying, even if never reciprocated, even if the object of one’s affections never even knew? (page 33)

A large part of the book is taken up with their developing relationship and the tensions it arouses. Then there is the American couple Isabel watches in the Scottish Gallery who turn out to be friends of her cousin Mimi, who is staying with her for a few weeks. This gives Isabel the opportunity to meet the couple and become involved in their lives. Mimi also has a revelation concerning Isabel’s ‘sainted American mother’, which causes Isabel some distress.

It’s a study of relationships, communication and misunderstandings as Isabel mulls over philosophical and moral dilemmas, and conducts internal debates instead of simply making a decision and acting upon it. Grace sums her up admirably:

Isabel’s life was a good one; she was a kind woman, and she felt for people, which was more than one could say about a lot of people in her position, Grace thought. But there were certainly areas of Isabel’s life where what was required was a little less thought and a bit more action. (page 125)

What about the rain? Well, it all depends on your attitude – any hint of warm weather and you’re optimistic about being outside:

… but resigned to being driven back in by rain, or mist, or other features of the Scottish summer. (page 10)

I’d add that it’s not only Scotland where it rains …

The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

I have always liked trees, particularly in spring when you can see the branches through the leaves and in autumn when the leaves change colour and fall to the ground. There are many trees in our garden and when we moved here last December the trees were bare and I couldn’t recognise many of them, having forgotten how to identify them by their shape and structure. As they began to grow leaves and blossom I still couldn’t identify all of  them (except the sycamores, silver birch and weeping willow) and so as usual turned to books and the internet for information. The best book I found is The Reader’s Digest Field Guide to the Trees and Shrubs of Britain. This has illustrations and photos of different ways to identify trees – by their bark, buds, flowers, leaves, twigs and shape. Some of the trees here are well established, predating the house and others are quite young – the history of the garden is probably more interesting than the history of the house.

Given my interest in trees Simon’s review of The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono intrigued me. Then I discovered that the local library actually had a copy. It’s very short book (a short story really), just over 50 pages, with illustrations – wood engravings by Michaell McCurdy, about a shepherd who transformed the land by planting trees. Not just a few trees, thousands of them over the years. Where once the earth was dry and barren the trees brought water back into the dry stream beds, seeds germinated, meadows blossomed and new villages appeared. Contrasted against a background of the destruction caused by war, the lonely shepherd, Elzeard Bouffier shows the power of nature to regenerate the land, planting oaks, birches and beech trees:

Creation seemed to come about in a sort of chain reaction. He did not worry about it; he was determinedly pursuing his task with all simplicity; but as we went back to the village I saw water in brooks that had been dry since the memory of man. This was the most impressive result of chain action that I’d seen. (page 25)

The wind too scattered seeds. As the water reappeared, so there appeared willows, rushes, meadows, gardens, flowers, and a certain purpose in being alive. (page 26)

In an Afterword by Norma L Goodrich, she recounts how she met Jean Giono in 1970 shortly before his death. His book was first published in Vogue in 1954 under the title The Man Who Planted Hope and Grew Happiness. His purpose in writing this story was to

… make people love the tree, or more precisely, to make them love planting trees. (page 45)

It’s a simple story, simply told of the harmony possible between man and nature.

The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths: Book Review

Published on by Margaret8 Comments

When I started reading The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths I nearly didn’t bother carrying on because it’s written in the present tense, but I’m glad I did because I did enjoy it and at times didn’t even notice the tense. This is a debut crime fiction novel, even though it’s not the author’s first book.

Set in Norfolk it’s an interesting mix of investigations into a cold case – the disappearance of Lucy, a five year old girl ten years earlier and a current case of another missing four year old girl. Are they connected and just how does the discovery of a child’s bones from the Iron Age fit in? The police ask Dr Ruth Galloway, who lectures in archaeology at the local university and lives near the finds in a remote cottage at Saltmarsh overlooking the North Sea, to date the bones. She becomes more involved when DI Harry Nelson asks her to look at the anonymous letters the police have received ever since Lucy disappeared – strange letters full of archaeological, biblical and literary references, taunting the police about Lucy’s whereabouts and details of ritual sacrifice.

There’s a satisfying amount of information about Ruth’s earlier life and just enough about the archaeological digs to whet my appetite, plus some whacky characters like Cathbad who lives in a decrepit caravan on the beach. I liked Harry Nelson, a gruff northerner obsessed by Lucy’s disappearance and I became very fond of Ruth, an overweight woman nearing forty who lives on her own with two cats. I found the setting in Norfolk  in winter with its immense skies was very atmospheric – its remoteness, treacherous mud flats, marshlands and driving rain made feel as though I was there. In fact there were parts of the story involving quicksand that reminded me of Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone, in which Rosanna Spearman drowns in quicksand on the marshes and there is a remarkable similarity between the names of Sergeant Cuff (in The Moonstone) and Sergeant Clough (in The Crossing Places).

The mystery isn’t too difficult to solve and I’d guessed the culprit quite early on in the book, so the ending wasn’t a surprise. I thought there were maybe just one too many coincidences in the connections between the characters, but none of this spoilt the book for me and I’m adding the next Ruth Galloway book, The Janus Stone to my list of books to look out for.

The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie: Book Review

Published on by Margaret2 Comments

Agatha Christie didn’t enjoy writing The Mystery of the Blue Train (first published in 1928). In her autobiography she wrote that it had not been easy writing it and that she had always “hated” it:

To begin with I had no joy in writing, no élan. I had worked out the plot – a conventional plot, partly adapted from one of my other stories. I knew, as one might say, where I was going, but I could not see the scene in my mind’s eye, and the people would not come alive. I was driven on by the desire, indeed the necessity, to write another book and make some money.

That was the moment when I changed from being an amateur to a professional. I assumed the burden of a profession, which is to write even when you don’t want to, don’t much like what you are writing and aren’t writing particularly well. (pages 368-9)

As she was writing this book at the time of her disappearance and divorce from her first husband, Archibald Christie it’s hardly surprising. It may not be her best book, but it’s still a good read. Ruth Kettering, the daughter of millionaire Rufus Van Aldin, is married to Derek, against her father’s advice. Agatha’s views on divorce are clear when Van Aldin tells Ruth she should divorce Derek, who he thinks is no good, rotten through and through and had only married her for her money, saying:

Have you got the grit to admit to all the world that you’ve made a mistake. There’s only one way out of this mess, Ruthie. Cut your losses and start afresh. (page 20)

Later Ruth is found strangled in her compartment in the Paris-Nice train, known as the train bleu, on its arrival in Nice and the fabulous ruby, the Heart of Fire that Van Aldin had given her, has been stolen. Fortunately Hercule Poirot is also travelling on the train and he of course unravels the mystery. There are a number of suspects ranging from Derek and his mistress, the dancer Mirelle, who had both the motive and the opportunity, to Ruth’s lover, the Comte de la Roche, suspected of stealing the jewels.

I liked the reflections on detective novels through a conversation Poirot has with another passenger on the train, Katherine Grey, from St Mary Mead who has inherited money from her employer. She is reading a roman policier when they meet at dinner and Poirot comments that they always sell well. She replies that may be because they give ‘the illusion of living an exciting life’ and that ‘nothing of that kind ever happens to me.‘ From then on however, she is drawn into the mystery along with Poirot, that

 small man, distinctly foreign in appearance, with a rigidly waxed moustache and an egg-shaped head which he carried rather on one side. (page 80)

It may be that Poirot is a bit of a caricature in this book, but the characters are in the main believable and the book certainly has a 1920s feel to it.

Agatha Christie and the Eleven Missing Days by Jared Cade

Published on by Margaret8 Comments

In December 1926 Agatha Christie disappeared from her home, Styles, in Berkshire. She was found eleven days later in a hotel in Harrogate, Yorkshire apparently suffering from amnesia. Agatha Christie and the Eleven Missing Days by Jared Cade delves into the mystery of her disappearance. The book is not just about those eleven days but is a biography that reveals how those eleven days and the events that led up to her disappearance influenced the rest of her life.

Agatha’s Autobiography is silent on the matter. She recalls how they chose Styles, remarking that it was an unlucky house and that she had felt it as soon as she moved in. She then moved swiftly on merely saying:

The next year of my life is one I hate recalling. As so often in life, when one thing goes wrong, everything goes wrong. (page 356)

Sadly she was  right, as Jared Cade reveals from information given to him by Judith and Graham Gardner. Judith’s mother was Nan Watts, Agatha’s sister-in-law and life-long friend. They showed him photographs and private letters shedding light on the situation.  It makes a fascinating book. I did feel as though I was intruding into Agatha Christie’s private life that she had not wanted made known but Cade writes sympathetically. Now I really must read her life story in her own words, as so far I’ve only dipped into it reading snippets here and there.

The Holly-Tree Inn by Charles Dickens

Published on by Margaret2 Comments

The Holly-Tree Inn by Charles Dickens and others is a lovely little book, both to hold and to read. It’s a Hesperus Press publication, smooth paper and a softback cover with flaps you can use as bookmarks. I received my copy via Library Thing Early Reviewers Programme. I enjoyed reading it.

This was originally published in 1855, being the Christmas number of Dickens’s periodical Household Words. It was so popular that it was then adapted for the stage. It’s a collection of short stories by Dickens, Wilkie Collins, William Howitt, Adelaide Anne Procter and Harriet Parr, around the theme of travellers and  inns. I liked Collins’s and Howlitt’s stories the most.

It begins with a story by Dickens, The Guest in which a gentleman on his way to Liverpool is snowed in at the Holly-Tree Inn in Yorkshire. To keep himself entertained he reminisces about inns he has visited, giving glimpses into travel and inns in the 19th century. Having exhausted his own memories, this story ends with the idea of asking the inmates of the inn for their own stories.

So, the next stories are from:

The Ostler by Wilkie Collins. In this the landlord tell’s the ostler’s tale of his dread of his wife after dreaming that she is about to murder him, a tale of impending doom:

His eyes opened owards the left hand side of the bed, and there stood – The woman of the dream again? – No! His wife; the living reality, with the dream spectre’s face – in the dream-spectre’s attitude; the fair arm up – the knife clasped in the delicate, white hand. (page 53)

The Boots by Charles Dickens – according to Melisa Klimaszewski’s Introduction this tale was such a favourite that Dickens included it in his later public readings. It’s not quite to my taste, a sentimental tale about two young children determined to elope, staying at the Holly- Tree inn:

Boots could assure me that it was better than a picter (sic) and equal to a play, to see them babies with their long bright curling hair, their sparkling eyes, and their beautiful light tread, a rambling in the garden, deep in love.

The Landlord by William Howitt. An entertaining tale of the landlord’s brother who emigrated to Australia in order to better himself. But when they get there they wished they’d stayed in England. It seems they arrived just at the wrong time. Howitt, himself had travelled to Australia in search of gold and his experience is reflected in his tale. 

The Barmaid by Adelaide Anne Procter – a sad story told in verse by the landlord’s niece of Maurice and his love for ‘the loveliest little damsel his eyes had ever seen.’  Not the most challenging of tales.

The Poor Pensioner by Harriet Parr. Hester lives at the inn on ‘broken victuals’, now a poor demented creature refusing to believe that her son was guilty of murder. She waits in vain for his sentence to be reversed. This tale reveals how her wild and wilful ways as a young woman led her to seek for change and excitement with disastrous results. 

The Bill by Charles Dickens. This story completes the cycle. A week has gone by, the Guest’s route is now clear of snow and he can leave.He then discovers that his enforced stay at the inn has changed his life!

Reading this book has made a welcome break in reading modern fiction and has made me keen to read more of Dickens’s and Collins’s books.  I knew nothing about the other authors but fortunately there is a short section at the end with biographical notes about the contributors.