Category: Books

Three Books for Christmas

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

Soon it will be Advent and we will be preparing for Christmas. I know that other people start long before I do, but for me 1 December really starts the build up (and even that is a bit early!). The Christmas Mystery by Jostein Gaarder, A Feast for Advent by Delia Smith and Skipping Christmas by John Gresham are three very different pre-Christmas books, offering different perspectives on the season.

The Christmas Mystery by Jostein Gaarder is a good book to read during Advent. Gaarder is a Norwegian writer, formerly a philosophy teacher. I first came across him a few years ago with Sophie’s World, a marvellous book about the history of philosophy.

The Christmas Mystery is a story within a story, intertwining the present and the past. The book is divided into 24 chapters, one for each day up to Christmas Eve. It’s the story of Joachim, a young boy who has been given an old faded Advent calendar. But this is no ordinary calendar. It has a beautiful picture on the cover, showing Joseph and Mary bending over the baby Jesus lying in the manger. The Three Wise Men kneel in the background, whilst the shepherds and their sheep are outside the stable with angels floating down from the sky. Each day Joachim opens a door revealing a picture and a sheet of paper falls out on which there is a chapter of the story of Elisabet who disappeared in 1948. Joachim is anticipating Christmas with great excitement and his wonder and amazement at the Christmas story grow throughout the book. As the days follow on towards Christmas Day the story travels back in time and place to Bethlehem and the birth of Jesus. A magical book.

Delia Smith is better known for her cookery books and TV programmes and also for her interest in Norwich City Football Club. She has also written spiritual books. In A Journey Into God she writes about prayer and her own experience and in A Feast for Advent she writes reflections on Christmas for every day in Advent, together with Bible passages and prayers. As she writes in the introduction she has come to understand that ‘prayer and contemplation, while utterly necessary, do absolutely nothing to ease the pressure and that on Christmas Day I will always end up horizontal!‘ In A Feast for Advent Delia offers help in escaping for a few minutes each day to contemplate the meaning of Christmas, providing a journey through Advent, illustrated with photographs and reproductions of Quidenham Cards from the Carmelite Monastery in Norfolk.

Thinking about the pressures of Christmas reminded me of a very different book I read a few years ago – Skipping Christmas by John Grisham. This is not the usual Grisham legal thriller, but a very funny little book about the horrors, commercialisation and expense of Christmas. A middle-aged American couple Luther and Nora Krank estimated that the previous Christmas they had spent $6,100 and that was not all it had cost – there was their time, the stress, worrying, bickering, ill-will and sleep-loss as well. So, as their daughter will not be home for Christmas they decide that this year they will skip Christmas and fly off to the Caribbean. They will not have any lights, tree, gifts, parties, hassles, or expenses. I must admit that I was very tempted by the whole idea.

However, when their neighbours, friends and family find out there will be no celebrations and no annual Christmas Eve party that the Kranks normally hold, they are horrified and pile on the pressure. The Kranks find that it’s not going to be as easy as they thought. Then they receive a surprise phone call and realise that Christmas is not just about material things after all. I really enjoyed this book.

Cranford TV Drama or the Book?

Published on by Margaret11 Comments
Last night I watched the first episode of the BBC’s dramatisation of Cranford. I liked it. Last week I read Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford. I loved it. They are two different things. If you haven’t read the book Cranford, don’t think that the BBC’s version is the same – it isn’t. Someone once said to me ‘Do you have to be so precise?’ Well, yes I do. It’s important to me to be accurate, to get the facts right; opinions and interpretations are different. I should have known better than to expect the drama and the book to be the same. After all, I’ve been disappointed by most televised or film versions of books when I’ve read the book first. In this case the cast with so many well known actors is a very strong point in favour of the programme. I enjoyed all their performances, although at one point it did feel a bit like spot the stars.

As I watched Cranford I kept thinking that’s not in the book, but that is in the book. The dramatisation is not pure, unadulterated Cranford – it’s an amalgamation of three books – Cranford, Mr Harrison’s Confessions and My Lady Ludlow. I haven’t read either of the other two books, but from a quick look on Amazon I see that Mr Harrison’s Confessions, is indeed about a young doctor who is invited by his father’s cousin to join his country practice but it is in Duncombe, not Cranford. My Lady Ludlow appears not to be connected to Cranford either. So my picky mind says this is not Cranford, but I can see that to enjoy the dramatisation on its own merits I need to stop myself from thinking, ‘yes that’s in the book’ or ‘no I don’t know that, it must be in one of the other books’.

Cranford (the book) is a beautifully written and amusing story, centred on the lives of Miss Deborah Jenkyns and her sister Matilda, known affectionately to everyone except her sister, as Miss Matty. I was interested to read in the introduction to my copy that:

‘Most of Cranford is founded on fact – the hairless cow that went to pasture in a grey flannel jacket, the fashion displays in the little draper’s shop – all the rules of etiquette of the Cranford ladies were part of her [Elizabeth Gaskell’s] early life, and the skill and delicacy with which she draws upon her memories to build up her story proves how deeply rooted was her love for the old town and for its inhabitants who believed in the old order of things and hated change.’

Elizabeth Gaskell portrays life in Cranford and its inhabitants sympathetically and whimsically, without making fun of the characters. It made me chuckle as I read it and this came over in the TV drama – D said to me he hadn’t realised it was a meant to be a comedy. The sight of the ladies trotting along side the sedan chair was very funny.

Elizabeth Gaskell was a friend of Charles Dickens, so I found the episode where Captain Brown and Miss Jenkyns have a ‘literary dispute‘ over the relative merits of Dr Johnson and Mr Boz to be amusing. Captain Brown sings the praises of The Pickwick Papers, whereas Miss Jenkyns asserts that she does not think ‘they are by any means equal to Dr Johnson. Still perhaps the author is young. Let him persevere, and who knows what he may become if he will take the great doctor for his model.’

Cranford is a quiet tale of everyday events. Some of the characters have to overcome disappointments – bankruptcy looms and matrimonial hopes fail to materialise for some, but overall it’s a story of friendship, peace and kindliness. The last sentence in the book sums it up for me: ‘We all love Miss Matty, and I somehow think we are all of us better when she is near us.’ Dame Judi Dench is an absolute joy as Miss Matty.

The Sidmouth Letters by Jane Gardam

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

The Sidmouth Letters

The Sidmouth Letters is a collection of eleven short stories. It’s a short book of just under 150 pages, so it doesn’t take long to read the whole book. With a collection of short stories I tend not to read from the start to the end, picking and choosing which ones to read, but with this one I read the stories in the order they are in the book. I was glad I did as I think the last one is the best. The stories are nicely varied in style and content with convincing and authentic characters. I liked some more than others.

The first story is ‘The Tribute’, a perceptive and amusing study of a trio of Kensington widows exposing their small-minded attitude to a former nanny, when they receive news of her death.

I wasn’t too keen on ‘Lychees for Tone’. It is written in the present tense, which I find irritating. A lonely mother lives with her son. As she waits for him to bring home a new girlfriend she ponders what she will be like and her isolation and prejudices become apparent. I thought the ending was disappointing with a predictable play on words.

‘The Great, Grand, Soap-Water Kick’ is a story about a tramp, Horsa looking for a house in which he can have a bath, which only happens every second year or so. You can imagine the state he is in and the state of the house by the time he has finished. I liked the idea and the structure of the story. Although I liked the imagery and the style of writing does reflect the character, I found it jarring and disjointed. But then I don’t think you’re actually meant to like Horsa.

Up steps smelly Horsa.
Rings bell no answer.
Ringsgain no answer.
Ringsgainturns look updown. Not living soul. Not motor car. Not bike. Only cat gatepost watch through yellow slits. Cat stands, stretches on four fat sixpences, turns round, curls upgain, goes sleep.

In ‘Hetty Sleeping’ a married woman on holiday with her two children meets a former lover, and wonders what her life could have been like.

In ‘Transit Passengers’ two young students are leaving Greece and go their separate ways. Will their love survive, or is it as transitory as their journey?

‘The Dickies’ are a married couple. Mrs Dickie is neurotic and has to suffer her husband’s infidelities. All is not as it seems, however.

I particularly liked ‘A Spot of Gothic’. A young army wife living in the remote countryside is driving home alone late one night when she encounters a woman standing in her garden waving to her. It’s the loneliest part of the road and she is shaken and frightened at the sight. She wonders if she saw a ghost. When she returns to the road the next day she feels she is being watched and sees a woman who asks her the time and walks away, leaving the young wife feeling terrified: ‘The dreadful sense of loss, the melancholy, were so thick in the air that there was almost a smell, a sick smell of them.’ Who has she seen?

The last story ‘The Sidmouth Letters’ deals imaginatively with Jane Austen’s love life. Annie meets a former professor who had claimed credit for her work when she was a student. He has discovered that love letters, supposedly written by Jane Austen have been found and he sends Annie off to Sidmouth with instructions to buy the letters. The story reveals how Annie gets her own back on the professor. The question is – did Jane Austen write the Sidmouth letters? This story was the reason that I read the book and it didn’t disappoint.

The Second World War

Published on by Margaret11 Comments
Sometimes I’m amazed at the links between the books I’m reading. I read the following books by choosing them individually without realising that they all had similar themes. Recently I read One Fine Day by Mollie Panter-Downes, set in England in 1946 just after the Second World War had ended. Then I read Playing with the Moon by Eliza Graham set in 1943/4 up to the present day and now I’ve just started The Great Fortune by Olivia Manning, set in Bucharest at the start of the War (currently I’m in the ‘Phoney War’ period. I’m also joining a local book group my friend goes to and the book for discussion is Surveillance by Jonathan Raban. I picked up that book yesterday and started to read it. To my surprise, although it’s set in Seattle post 9/11 one of the characters, a journalist has been assigned to interview a historian, who had been ‘an orphaned child caught up in the worst barbarities of World War Two’, spending his boyhood ‘among the displaced and terrorized people of central Europe, overrun now by Hitler’s, now by Stalin’s armies’.

I didn’t plan on reading books about the War at all and it was quite by chance that it was near to Remembrance Sunday, but it all seems so appropriate. I decided I should know more about the War and so went to the library. There were so many books that I decided to get a couple of books specifically about D-Day as my father took part in the Normandy landings and also a huge book called Chronicle of the Second World War. I then went to a bookshop and was spoilt for choice with an enormous range of books to choose from. In the end I bought Wartime Britain 1939 – 1949 by Juliet Gardiner. Juliet was the editor of History Today for five years, a research fellow at the Institute of Historical Research, author of several wartime books, and historical consultant for Channel 4’s The 1940s House and The Edwardian Country House. Thank you to Litlove who recommended this book. I thought it looked a good place to start.

So, I’ve now got lots to get me started on my search to know more about the War.

Page 161 Meme

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

Tara and Nan have posted a little meme, which I thought I’™d do as well.

Open up the book you’™re currently reading to page 161 and read the sixth sentence on the page, then think of 5 bloggers to tag.

I’™m currently reading My Cleaner by Maggie Gee and the sixth sentence on page 161 is:

‘˜Vanessa – I think I will not cook on Sunday.’™

Vanessa an English creative writing tutor, has asked Mary, a Ugandan, who was previously employed as Vanessa’™s cleaner, to live with her to help her son Justin through a ‘depression’. The balance of power in the house is changing and here Mary tells Vanessa what she will and will not do. I’™m enjoying this book, which reflects the prejudices and snobbery in our society.

I won’™t tag anyone else to do this as maybe you’™ve already done it. If not and you would like to do this please do, and let me know. I love knowing what people are reading.

Playing with the Moon by Eliza Graham

Published on by Margaret14 Comments

Playing with the Moon is Eliza Graham’s first novel and it’s very good.

It begins when Minna and Tom, who are staying at a cottage in an isolated village on the Dorset coast east of Lulworth, discover a human skeleton on the beach and dog tags inscribed LEWIS J CAMPBELL and a number. American military officials confirmed his identity as Private Lew Campbell, believed to have died in 1944 during training exercises for the Normandy landings.

Minna and Tom are trying to come to terms with the death of their baby. Tom is struggling to carry on with his business, which is in financial difficulty, and Minna, who is recovering from a breakdown, is unable to talk to him about her grief. She becomes absorbed in finding out what had lead to Campbell’s death, when she meets Felix an elderly woman who had lived in the village during the war. A fascinating story slowly emerges. Moving from 1943 to the present, the story of Felix and the American GI is interwoven with the story of Minna and Tom and the events that lead to the death of their son. Each story is mysterious and tragic. Both Minna and Felix are overcome by their grief and as they tentatively get to know each other they pour out their stories and draw comfort from each other.

The book deals with memory, the power of memory, with loss, grief and bereavement. It’s also about war, the legacy of war, and of how to make sense of our lives. I found it a compelling book to read. Although it deals with tragic events it does so gently and with compassion.

It seems to me that Playing With the Moon captures what life was like during the 1940s. It was quite by coincidence that I read this book just before Remembrance Sunday and not long after I’d read One Fine Day. There is a recurring theme here and it has set me off on a trail to find out more about the Second World War.