Category: Book Reviews

Gone With The Wind: Some Thoughts

Published on by Margaret16 Comments

Gone with the wind 001

Yesterday I finished reading Margaret Mitchell’s masterpiece, Gone With The Wind. I loved it. When I started it I decided that I wouldn’t take any notes as I read and neither would I mark any passages. I just wanted the pure reading experience, reading to get immersed in the story and Margaret Mitchell was a superb storyteller. There are parts full of description that enabled me to see the scenes and parts where I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough to discover what happened next, or how the characters would behave. It was a grand experience, and not just a reading experience but a learning experience too.

I saw the 1939 film many, many years ago and my memories of it are vague, not much beyond its setting, Clark Gable as Rhett Butler and Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara, and a few quotes: ‘Tomorrow is another day’ and Frankly, my dear I don’t give a damn’ – this is actually a misquote from the book – Rhett says ‘lightly but softly: ‘My dear, I don’t give a damn.’

 My knowledge of American history is quite limited, so I learnt a lot about the American Civil War and Reconstruction, about slavery (very different from Uncle Tom’s Cabin) and a lot about Georgia and Atlanta – I couldn’t even have placed them on a map before!!!

I liked the structure of the novel – straightforward chronological sequence told in the third person.

The characters are well-defined and are developed as the book progresses. Even the minor characters are distinct and I had no trouble identifying them. But the main characters are magnificent: Scarlett O’Hara, wilful, spirited, supremely self-centred and single-minded, a cheat and liar, but also charming, brave and fearless, as her character develops from a frivolous flirt to a much darker personality. She is obsessed by her infatuation for Ashley Wilkes, by her need for money and her desperate desire never to be hungry ever again. I swung between not liking her, admiring her courage, then thoroughly disliking the person she became and willing her to change – she didn’t of course.

Rhett Butler, black-hearted, flashy, a speculator, blockade runner and scallawag, who scandalises Atlanta, is the anti-hero who is gradually revealed as a hero, a tender-hearted, over-indulgent father, who really does love Scarlett, even though he can’t tell her. He’s a much more complicated character than Scarlett who understands human nature much better than Scarlett, seeing both the goodness and strength in Melanie Hamilton (Scarlett’s sister-in-law and Ashley’s wife).

There is so much to write about this book, (and I’m thinking of writing at least one more post about it) but for now I’m ending with these words from Margaret Mitchell when she was asked what Gone With The Wind was about:

… if the novel has a theme it is that of survival. What makes some people come through catastrophes and others, apparently just as able, strong and brave go under? It happens in every upheaval. Some people survive; others don’t. What qualities are in those who fight their way through triumphantly that are lacking in those that go under? I only know that survivors  used to call that quality ‘gumption’. So I wrote about people who had gumption and those who didn’t. (1936) (About the Author)

Saints of the Shadow Bible by Ian Rankin

Published on by Margaret2 Comments

I finished reading the latest Rebus book, Saints of the Shadow Bible a few days ago and have been wondering what to write about it that would do it justice. Ian Rankin is one of my favourite authors and his Rebus books never fail to impress me both with their ingenuity and the quality of their plots and characterisations – Saints of the Shadow Bible is no exception. In fact, I think it’s one of the best – a realistic and completely baffling mystery.

Rebus is now back on the force, the rules on retirement age having changed, but as a Detective Sergeant, not a DI and Siobhan Clarke is his boss. It begins with the discovery of a crashed car, on the face of it just a straight forward road traffic accident but it soon develops into a complex, multi-layered case, linking back to one of Rebus’s early cases on the force as a young Detective Constable. A case that with the changes in the double jeopardy law in Scotland can be reopened.

Rebus has always been an outsider, not one to play completely by the rules but his past gets put under scrutiny when Inspector Malcolm Fox investigates that case from the 1980s. There are suspicions that Rebus and his colleagues, who called themselves ‘The Saints of the Shadow Bible’ were involved in covering up a crime, allowing a murderer to go free.

The ‘Shadow Bible’ was a copy of Scots Criminal Law, a big black book

‘with a leather cover and brass screws. And we all spat on it and rubbed it in until it was dry. I thought it was a kind of oath, but it wasn’t – we were saying the rules could go to hell, because we knew we were better. We were the ones in the field …

The evidence was tainted, interviews hadn’t been conducted properly. How was Rebus involved, was he a Saint, and just how much did he know as a very junior member of the team?

The interaction between Rebus and Fox is one of the joys of this book as unlike Rebus, Fox does play by the rules. Ah, but does he? Beneath his controlled exterior Fox is just as much a loose cannon as Rebus, he’s not a team player either and it is fascinating to see how Rebus gets under his skin and reveals Fox’s true nature. For Rebus and Fox it’s the job that matters, but can they trust each other?

I wonder, though, just how much I would have enjoyed it if this was the first Rebus book I’d read. I have a feeling that I wouldn’t. There are characters who were in earlier books and references to previous cases which would have been lost on me otherwise. The first Rebus book I read was Set in Darkness (the 11th book) and whilst I had no difficulty in following who was who and their relationships I realised then that I had to read the books in order to fully understand the background and how the characters had evolved. I felt they were real people and I wanted to know more about them. I then went back to the beginning (Knots and Crosses) and read them in sequence, right up to the present day.

It’s all been an exhilarating and most enjoyable journey and I have a sneaking suspicion that this may indeed be the end – who knows? Only Ian Rankin and he isn’t telling, but he’s off on a year’s sabbatical in February and by then Rebus will almost be due a second retirement.

The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

Last week I was thinking about taking Kate Grenville’s book, The Idea of Perfection back to the library without finishing it. But I gave it another go and this time it interested me enough to finish it. I thought her book The Secret River was brilliant, one of the best books I read last year and I also loved Sarah Thornhill, but I didn’t think The Idea of Perfection was as good as either of these, which surprised me as it won the 2001 Orange Prize for Fiction. That’s not to say I didn’t like it because I did, just not as much as the other two books.

I think the reason is that for the most part it lacked the drama of the other books and I found the beginning very slow. The title indicates the theme of the book with the characters all falling short of the impossible aim of perfection. Set in Karakarook, in New South Wales the two main characters are Douglas Cheeseman, an engineer who has come to pull down a quaint old bent bridge before it falls down and Harley Savage, who has come to advise the residents how to promote their inheritance. They both know they are far from perfect. On the other hand there is Felicity Porcelline, the local bank manager’s wife who thinks she is perfect and everything she does is aimed at perfection, which she doesn’t achieve either – just the opposite, in fact.

It’s quite a touching tale as Douglas and Harley, both middle aged and with failed marriages behind them, are shy awkward characters and although they are attracted to each other for most of the novel they find it almost impossible to express their feelings. They are both outsiders, neither fitting easily either into their own families or within society. Underlying their relationship is the conflict about the dilapidated bridge – should it be restored or replaced with a modern bridge? And just what should the proposed Pioneer Heritage Museum contain? – heirlooms, jewellery, silver teapots and lace christening robes, or the things Harley thinks are right – the really old shabby things that show how people used to live, the old bush-quilts made from old clothes, for example.

It’s the setting that really stands out – the dusty little country town in a valley in New South Wales, the hillsides, the river and the ‘huge pale sky, bleached with the heat.‘ Kate Grenville paints a picture of the town and its surrounding countryside with such detail that you can feel the heat and dust and see the buildings, the houses clinging to the hillside, tilting, patched and stained with rusting roofs and the dirt road leading out of Karakarook.

The strange thing is that after I finished reading it this book has grown on me as it were. And now I’ve written about I think I appreciate it more than I did whilst reading it. It’s precise writing, full of detail about the people and the places within its pages and also full of thoughts about love, loneliness, relationships and the impossibility of perfection.

The Year of Miracle and Grief by Leonid Borodin

Published on by Margaret

I received my copy of The Year of Miracle and Grief by Leonid Borodin, translated into English by Jennifer Bradshaw, for review from the publishers, Quartet Books. It’s a new edition due to be published in November, a beautiful little book – just 192 pages, and a pleasure to read.

Synopsis adapted from Quartet Books website:

Nearly thirty years after its first publication in English, in November Quartet Books will publish a brand new English edition of a classic fairytale, The Year of Miracle and Grief by Leonid Borodin. A twelve-year-old boy, the son of teachers, finds magic, mystery, romance, and sadness at beautiful Lake Baikal in Siberia. Deep in Siberia lies the second largest and deepest lake on earth, Lake Baikal. When a small boy arrives on its banks, he is amazed by the beauty of the lake and surrounding mountains. As this astonishment yields to inquisitiveness, he begins to explore the fairytale of the area.  

My view:

This book combines the elements of fantasy and reality, so much so that the narrator is convinced that he is not a spinner of yarns, but that he is relating what actually happened in his childhood. Writing 25 years later, he is now free to tell the tale. And it is a magical and grief stricken tale, a tale of love, forgiveness and suffering!

As he explores the area he is fascinated by Lake Baikal and Dead Man’s Crag, a high bare crag except for a pine tree on its peak, a pine tree with just four branches, two pointing up towards the sky and two larger ones pointing down along the trunk. Despite warnings not to climb the Crag he does just that and it is there that he meets a woman sitting on a throne of stone in a niche hollowed out of the rock. This is Sarma, a wrinkled old woman, so old it was impossible to imagine anyone older:

Her hermetically sealed lips were supported by a large jutting chin which came up to meet her nose, and her eyes were so deeply sunk into the network of wrinkles that the old woman seemed to be blind. She was wearing flowing sky-blue clothes, and this flowing blue enveloped her from head to foot; only her hands, encased in sky-blue gloves reaching to the elbow, contradicted the impression that the blue cocoon contained only a head. (pages 44-5)

She is a descendent of the Great Sibir (the origin of the name Siberia). She flooded Prince Baikolla’s valley, the Valley of the Young Moon, creating Lake Baikal, and guards the cave/underground castle where she holds the Prince and his daughter Ri captive, bewitched by a spell because the Prince had killed her son. But she allows the boy to enter the cave where he falls in love with Ri and begs Sarma to release her. What follows is a dramatic transformation in the boy’s life.

Borodin was a Christian and a Soviet dissident. He was born in 1938 in Irkutsk, near Lake Baikal and both his parents were teachers, like the boy in his book. He was imprisoned twice and wrote A Year of Miracle and Grief whilst in prison. It contains Christian elements focussing on the nature of forgiveness and suffering. He won the 2002 Solzhenitsyn Prize and died in 2011.

Other elements of this book are the landscape, the lake and the mountains and the miracle that takes place in experiencing the beauty of the world, the transformation of your thoughts, feelings and your entire being ‘into a sensation of total rapture in the presence of a miracle.’ (page 8).

A Murder is Announced by Agatha Christie

Published on by Margaret7 Comments

A Murder is Announced was first published in 1950. My copy is in a collection of four Miss Marple stories – A Miss Marple Quartet. I particularly like this cover, showing Joan Hickson as Miss Marple.

Synopsis from Amazon:

The villagers of Chipping Cleghorn, including Jane Marple, are agog with curiosity over an advertisement in the local gazette which reads: ‘A murder is announced and will take place on Friday October 29th, at Little Paddocks at 6.30 p.m.’ A childish practical joke? Or a hoax intended to scare poor Letitia Blacklock? Unable to resist the mysterious invitation, a crowd begins to gather at Little Paddocks at the appointed time when, without warning, the lights go out.

Of course it isn’t a practical joke and someone is murdered. But the mystery is to identify the victim – it’s not as straight forward as it first appears and there are plenty of red herrings. I vaguely remembered seeing the TV version (with Joan Hickson, perfect as Miss Marple) years ago and although I couldn’t remember who did it knew that I had to pay close attention to the detail of where people were sitting or standing in the room at the Little Paddocks when the lights went out. But even though I read it very carefully I was still baffled. It all hinges on family relationships and details of the characters’ identities which are so skilfully hidden that I was kept guessing until very near the end.

It’s not without flaws, some of the characters are a bit sketchy, and some of the novel borders on farce, with Miss Marple imitating a dead person’s voice whilst hiding in a broom cupboard and Mitzi, the highly strung and paranoid cook, a refugee from Germany, screaming like a siren and insisting that the police will take her away and torture her. Still, I wish her recipe for the chocolate cake ‘Delicious Death’ had been revealed.

What I really like about A Murder is Announced is the picture it paints of life in post-war Britain, showing how society was in the process of change. Miss Marple is her usual brilliant self, now seeming very old with ‘snow white hair and a pink crinkled face and very soft innocent blue eyes’, chattering and fluttering, but still as sharp and observant as ever. As she explains the world has changed since the war when everyone knew who everybody was. But now people come and settle in a village and all you know of them is what they say of themselves – you don’t know who they really are! And so, she compares them to the people she does know, people in her village of St Mary Mead, which helps to throw light on the mystery. It’s a layered mystery involving past illness, identities, and questions of inheritance.

Ten Little Niggers by Agatha Christie

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I wondered when I began to write this post whether to use the current title, And Then There Were None, for this book, but chose to use its original title, Ten Little Niggers as that is the title of my copy, a 1968 reprint of its first publication in the UK in 1939. Because of its offensive title it was first published in the US a few months later in 1940 as And Then There Were None.

Ten Little Niggers

Description from the back cover:

10 people are invited to a fabulous mansion on Nigger Island off the coast of Devon. Though they all have something to hide, they arrive hopefully on a glorious summer evening… But soon a series of extraordinary events take place: the island is suddenly bathed in a most sinister light .. panic grips the visitors one, by one … by one… by one…

Eight people are invited to the island (based on a real island – Burgh Island off the south west coast of Devon). They are met by the butler and housekeeper/cook who explain that the owner, Mr Owen (U.N.Owen) has been delayed but has left instructions for their reception. In each of their rooms is a framed copy of the rhyme about the ten little nigger boys who all met their death. On their first evening they sit down to dinner in good spirits until, without any warning they hear a Voice accusing each of them (including the butler and housekeeper) of having caused the deaths or murdered a number of people. From that point onwards, one by one they are found dead, corresponding to the deaths in the rhyme and one by one a china figurine on the dining room table mysteriously disappears.

As the weather worsens they are stranded on the island and unable to leave or to get help from the mainland. Agatha Christie has created not only a ‘locked room’ type of mystery but also a mystery full of suspense, as the guests try to identify Mr U N Owen and become increasingly suspicious of each other. Their fear is further amplified by the house itself, which surprisingly is not an old Gothic house full of creaking wood and dark shadows –

But this house was the essence of modernity. There were no dark corners – no possible sliding panels – it was flooded with electric light – everything was new and bright and shining. There was nothing hidden in this house, nothing concealed. It had no atmosphere about it.

Somehow, that was the most frightening thing of all …

They exchanged good-nights on the upper landing. Each of them went into his or her own room, and each of them automatically, almost without conscious thought, locked the door … (page 52)

Despite their precautions the deaths continue, and each time no one sees or hears anything. I’d marked the page with the rhyme and kept flipping back to it to check how the next victim was going to meet with death, as I tried to work out who the murderer was and how he/she was able to carry out the murders unobserved. What makes it more tense for the reader (or at least for me) is the technique Agatha Christie makes of revealing the thoughts of the remaining characters, but without letting on who the thinker is.

In 1943 Agatha Christie adapted the book into a play, changing the ending, and there have been several film versions, none of which I’ve seen, so I didn’t know who the murderer was, although I knew the outline of the plot. Part way through the book I thought – ah, there is only one person who could be the murderer and I was right. I must re-read the book sometime to see if there were any clues, because if there were I missed them. My idea was based on the probability of that character being the murderer rather than any specific clues.

It is an ingenious mystery, revolving around the concepts of guilt and justice. There was no doubt that each of the victims had committed murder or caused/influenced the death of another person. But did the punishment fit the crime and could it ever be justified? As the murderer explains in an epilogue there were varying degrees of guilt among the victims and those whose guilt was lightest were killed off first!

This is possibly the most famous of Agatha Christie’s books. In her Autobiography Agatha Christie wrote that she had written the book because it was so difficult to do and the idea fascinated her. I found it fascinating too, but as an exercise and a puzzle rather than as a novel. Writing about the play and the book she stated:

I don’t say it is the play or the book of mine I like best, or even that I think it is my best, but I do think in some ways that it is a better piece of craftsmanship than anything else I have written. (page 489 of An Autobiography)

I agree.