Category: Books

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.)

Agatha Christie on Poirot

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

These are some of Agatha Christie’s thoughts on creating Hercule Poirot, taken from her Autobiography.

She had decided to write a detective story whilst working in a hospital dispensary during World War 1. Surrounded by poisons it seemed natural that death by poisoning would be the method. She then decided who should be poisoned, who would be the poisoner, when, where and how. And then who should be the detective? She was steeped in the Sherlock Holmes tradition but decided she had to invent a detective of her own and he had to have a friend as a ‘kind of butt or stooge’. He had to be unique, a character that hadn’t been used before. She considered a schoolboy, or a scientist, but when she remembered the Belgian refugees who were living in a colony in Tor that is who she settled on.

She decided her detective should be a Belgian – a refugee and a retired police officer and only later realised what a mistake she had made:

What a mistake I made there. The result is that my fictional detective must be well over a hundred by now.

Anyway, I settled on a Belgian detective. I allowed him to grow slowly into his part. He should have been an inspector, so that he would have a certain knowledge of crime. He would be meticulous, very tidy, I thought to myself, as I cleared away a good many untidy odds and ends in my own bedroom. A tidy little man, I could see him as a tidy little man, always arranging things, liking things in pairs, liking things square instead of round. And he should be very brainy – he should have little grey cells of the mind – that was a good phrase: I must remember that – yes he would have the little grey cells. (page 263 -4)

And then he had to have a name, rather a grand name. She wondered about calling her little man Hercules but his last name was more difficult. She didn’t know how the name Poirot came to her – whether it just came into her head or whether she saw it in a newspaper or written down somewhere, but it didn’t go with Hercules; eventually she decided that it should be Hercule – Hercule Poirot. So, The Mysterious Affair at Styles was conceived and eventually published. She was jubilant – her book was going to appear in print. She didn’t know that this was the start of her long  writing career and that

Hercule Poirot, my Belgian invention, was hanging round my neck, firmly attached there like the old man of the sea. (page 285)

Because  Poirot had been quite a success in The Mysterious Affair at Styles she was encouraged to use him again and then she realised that she was tied to both Poirot and his Watson: Captain Hastings.

I quite enjoyed Captain Hastings. He was a stereotyped creation, but he and Poirot represented my idea of  a detective team. I was still writing in the Sherlock Holmes tradition, eccentric detective, stooge assistant, with a Lestrade-type Scotland Yard detective, Inspector Japp – and now I added a ‘human foxhound’, Inspector Giraud, of the French police. Giraud despises Poirot as being old and passé.

Now I saw what a terrible mistake I had made in starting with Hercule Poirot so old – I ought to have abandoned him after the first three or four books, and begun with someone much younger. (page 290)

Poirot, whatever Agatha Christie thought of him is one of her most famous characters, vying in popularity with Miss Marple. Each time I read on of the 33 novels he appears in or see him portrayed by David Suchet (who is Poirot for me) I think he is my favourite. But then I’m equally as fond of Miss Marple (Joan Hickson fitted the part to perfection) and she too is my favourite. I can’t pick one over the other – they are both outstanding creations.

ABC Wednesday – Q is for Queues

Published on by Margaret21 Comments

ABC Wednesday is the place to share a photograph, piece of art or poetry each week. This week it’s the letter Q.

Queuing is not my favourite activity – I always pick the wrong queue at the supermarket for instance. All the other queues move much quicker than the one I’m in. I’m too impatient to wait patiently but I know that if I move to another queue that one will slow down immediately – there will be a query about the price, or the till roll will need changing or the till operator has to go on a break. And those people who queue-jump are most annoying.

Queues at airports are even more frustrating. You’ve dashed to get there hours before take-off as you’re told to do and then queue up to check in, only to be told that the flight’s delayed and then hang around for hours before the announcement to board and then rush to the plane.

Hospital waiting rooms are just as bad. You check in at the reception desk, then sit in the waiting area. Then a nurse calls your name, good you think, and walk off behind her, only to go to yet another waiting area. I always take a book, but it’s hard to concentrate what with crying children, and chatty people all around you, not to mention worrying what the doctor will say or do when you eventually get called through.

These days you also have to queue on the phone, listening to horrible music, interspersed with announcements telling you that ‘your call is important to us’ and ‘you are now number …  5 …  in the queue.’

But here’s a queue I do like. This is my queue of books waiting to be read. These are just the A-L books. I’d lined them up on the floor to sort them in A-Z author order before putting them on the bookcase.

Arranging Books 1

 

Teaser Tuesday – Missing Link by Joyce Holms

Published on by Margaret11 Comments

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Share a couple or more sentences from the book you’re currently reading.

On Sunday I was wondering which book to read next and eventually decided upon Missing Link by Joyce Holms. She is a new writer to me. I liked the description of her at the front of the book:

Joyce Holms was born and educated in Glasgow. The victim of a low boredom threshold, she has held a variety of jobs, from teaching window dressing and managing a hotel on the Isle of Arran to working for an Edinburgh detective agency and running a B & B in the Highlands. Married with two grown up children she lives in Edinburgh and her interests include hill-walking and garden design.

Val McDermid’s blurb on the front cover reads, ‘Holms is a magician – the reader is so busy laughing, the clues just slip by unnoticed.’ More words by other authors are on Joyce Holms’s website , like this from Ian Rankin: Joyce’s humour is sharp without being nasty, her characters well drawn, and her Edinburgh a place you’ll want to spend time in….. read her books.

I began reading and was immediately drawn into the mystery. Mrs Sullivan wants to be proved guilty of murder and asks Fizz Fitzpatrick, a lawyer to help her. This extract is from the Prologue describing the murder of Amanda Montrose. Amanda is  driving home when the narrow country road ahead is partially blocked by old Volkswagen and someone has the bonnet up and is leaning under it. Amanda goes to see what’s the problem:

The driver straightens and turns, smiling, and fear surges through Amanda’s body like an electric charge. She sees the hammer. She sees the gloating, resolute eyes. And she knows she is looking at her own death. (page 14)

The question is did Mrs Sullivan kill Amanda or was it Terence Lamb, a known criminal, or one of the other people who also claimed to have killed her?

Sunday Salon – Sunday Selection

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

Recently the weekend is the time when I’ve just finished a book and am deciding what to read next. This weekend is no exception. Yesterday I finished Mary Webb’s Gone to Earth, a book I first read as a young teenager. This is a dramatic romantic tragedy, first written in 1917. It tells the story of Hazel Woodus and her marriage to Edward Marston, the gentle, local church minister. Hazel is an innocent, a child of nature, wild and shy and a protector of all wounded and persecuted things. She becomes the prey of John Reddin, the squire of Undern who is obsessed by her. I’ll write more about it in a later post.

Because I enjoyed Gone to Earth so much it’s hard to find a suitable book to read next.  I have started All Bones and Lies by Anne Fine, which is the choice for my local book club. But so far I’m not sure if I want to finish it. It’s about Colin and his mother, who could complain for Britain. He has a twin sister who is estranged from her mother, making up a unhappy family who don’t get on. It’s about old age and the problems of carers and  up to now I’m not finding it at all uplifting. It paints a sad picture of the frustrations of old age and the problems of everyday life. I’ll give it a few more pages before deciding whether to finish it or not.

Other than that book, I have several library books I could read next.

  • The Beacon by Susan Hill – a short book (154 pages), examining truth, mental health and memory. Maybe that’s not right for me today as it sounds like another family with problems.
  • Missing Link by Joyce Holms – a new author for me, this book is a murder mystery a case for the detective duo Fizz and Buchanan. This one looks promising.
  • The Missing by Andrew O’Hagan – about people who disappear from society, a merging of social history and memoir. Described on the back cover as ‘elegantly written, affecting and intelligent.’

I’ll also look at some of my own books, to reduce the growing pile of to-be-read books. I started A S Byatt’s The Children’s Book a while ago. I think I’ll start that one again, or maybe look at Margaret Atwood’s The Robber Bride, or a shorter book such as The Highest Tide by Jim Lynch.

Although writing posts like this does help a bit to clarify my thoughts, sometimes I just can’t decide what to read next and today is one of those days.

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.