Category: Fiction

The Classics Club August question: Forewords/Notes

Published on by Margaret2 Comments

The Classics Club question for August is:The Classics Club

Do you read forewords/notes that precede many classics?  Does it help you or hurt you in your enjoyment/understanding of the work?

I might scan read the foreword/introduction before reading a book, but because these often give away the plot I certainly don’t read it all, if I read any of it. It just spoils a book. I’ve noticed that in some books (not usually classics, though) that the author has added an Afterword/ Historical Note (for historical fiction) which I prefer, and sometimes I’ll glance over it whilst I’m reading the book, reading it properly when I’ve finished the book.

I usually read the introduction after I’ve finished the book, because often it enhances my reading, giving insights into its themes that I may not have thought about, or explains references I missed. It does help too to know some details of an author’s life, what influenced their writing and how they were thought of by their contemporaries. An example of this is the Introduction to Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, which begins with an account of contemporary criticism of the novel – it was seen as a lewd book and was blamed for a couple of earthquakes in London the spring after it was published. But then it goes into too much detail about the plot and the characters, even though the editor describes it as ‘a brief summary’.

Actually the introductions are usually too long to read when I just want to get on with the book.

Books in Synch

Published on by Margaret1 Comment

South with Scott, The Birthday Boys, Race to The End

Birthday Boys & SWS Race to the End 2

 

Beryl Bainbridge’s novel The Birthday Boys is a fictionalised version of Scott’s 1912 Antarctic expedition. Ever since I bought South with Scott by Lord Mountevans when I was at school I’ve been fascinated by race to reach the South Pole and reading The Birthday Boys made me take down South with Scott from my bookshelves to compare the two. But even so I was wanting to know more and so, when I went to the library yesterday morning I thought I’d see if there was anything else I could read about. AND THERE WAS!

Race to The End cover

As Alex said last week when I wrote about the coincidence of finding The English Spy in the library when I had reserved Road to Referendum it really does seem as if books do call out to each other, because sitting there on the library shelves just as though it was waiting for me was this beautifully illustrated book – Race to The End: Scott, Amundsen and the South Pole by Ross D E MacPhee.

As I read The Birthday Books I was wondering how true to the facts Bainbridge had been in her novel. I’ve had time just to compare one event that is common to all three books, when Dr Wilson (Uncle Bill), Lieutenant ‘Birdie’ Bowers and Apsley Cherry-Garrard set off to Cape Crozier to recover emperor penguin eggs in the middle of the Antarctic winter – and Bainbridge’s version seems remarkable accurate, bringing the terrible hardships vividly to life. I think she must have read South with Scott. I shall write more about these books.

Birthday Boys & SWS Race to the End 1

The Spark by o h robsson

Published on by Margaret2 Comments

The Spark by o h robsson is an introspective and soul searching novel. Set in Norway, it’s both a love story and a mystery, but just what exactly happened in the opening chapter is not revealed until the end of the book. Although there are hints that something went wrong, that something terrible had happened in the past, as I read on I became involved in Kristoffer’s life as he and Eva, a former girlfriend meet again. Twelve years previously they had parted and Eva had married someone else. But is there still a spark between them?

Kristoffer, a photographer, is the narrator and Robsson’s relaxed style gets right inside Kristoffer’s mind. His doubts, fears and hopes are all revealed, both as he reflects on events and expresses his feelings to his grandfather, his friend Mats and his dog Anja.  I particularly liked his talks with his grandfather, who lives alone in the summer in a small cabin high up in the hills. It is rather rambling and over wordy in places, with just a bit too much philosophising which slows the narrative down, but beneath all that the tension is building below the surface just waiting to break out. And events move quickly in the last quarter of the book  bringing it to a dramatic conclusion.

The setting is beautiful in the Norwegian mountains, fjords and valleys. An added bonus is the special features section at the end of the book – photographs of  krisotoffer’s world, and  o h robsson’s world and an author interview of quick questions with rambling answers. The photographs are beautiful – Robsson was a photographer before he became a novelist – and complement the story, but even without them I could easily visualise the scenery, as in this extract:

The mist is lying in wait for me. Less than two hundred metres ahead, it’s clinging to the valley sides and swallowing everything beyond, giving the lower part of the valley an eerie, almost supernatural effect. Days like this, it’s all too easy to understand how the legends of trolls thrived so long in this part of the world, the stories of their sightings passed on from family to family, generation to generation.

I reach the edge of the mist and it’s like going from above water to below water. Within seconds I’ve left behind the big blue sky I’ve spent the day with, and entered a new world of muted greens and pastel shades. A pale grey ceiling of cloud moves above me, the horizon only a few metres away, then moments later it’s a hundred metres away.

I feel like I’m driving through a landscape painting. (Loc. 80)

The Spark is written in the present tense, which I always find a bit of a challenge, as my preference is for books written in the past tense. But there are some books that make me forget the tense and for most of this book I was simply unaware of it as I became involved in the characters and their daily lives. All in all it is a good read; it’s not a book to rush through, but one to take your time over and ponder.

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 2553 KB
  • Print Length: 364 pages
  • Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
  • Publisher: eBookPartnership.com (21 Feb 2013)
  • Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
  • Language: English
  • ASIN: B00BJOS364
  • Source: Review copy from the author

The Classics Club Spin – the Result

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

The Classics Club

The Classics Club Spin number this time is 4, and number 4 on my list of 20 titles is …

…  My Antonia by Willa Cather and I’m really pleased. I read A Lost Lady over four years ago and at that time I was very keen to read more of Willa Cather’s books. So I’m glad the Spin has given me the push to read this one. It’s not very long so I hope I’ll have read it and aim to post about it on 1 October.

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros

Published on by Margaret12 Comments

Every Tuesday Diane at Bibliophile By the Sea hosts First Chapter First Paragraph First chapterTuesday Intros, to share the first paragraph or (a few) of a book you are reading or thinking about reading soon.

The Cabinet Room, 10 Downing Street, London, 4.30pm, 9 May 1940

Churchill was last to arrive. He knocked once, sharply, and entered. Through the tall windows the warm spring day was fading, shadows lengthening on Horse Guards Parade. Margesson, the Conservative Chief Whip, sat with Prime Minister Chamberlain and Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax at the far end of the long, coffin-shaped table which dominated the Cabinet Room. As Churchill approached them Margesson, formally dressed as ever in immaculate black morning coat stood up.

‘Winston.’

Churchill nodded at the Chief Whip, looking him sternly in the eye. Margesson, who was Chamberlain’s creature, had made life difficult for him when he had stood out against party policy over India and Germany in the years before the war.He turned to Chamberlain and Halifax, the Prime Minister’s right-hand man in the government’s appeasement of Germany. ‘Neville. Edward.’ Both men looked back; no sign today of Chamberlain’s habitual half-sneer, nor of the snappy arrogance which had alienated the House of Commons during yesterday’s debate over the military defeat of Norway. Ninety Conservatives had voted with the Opposition or abstained; Chamberlain had left the chamber followed by shouts of ‘Go!’ The Prime Minister’s eyes were red from lack of sleep or perhaps even tears – though it was hard to image Neville Chamberlain weeping. Last night the word around a feverish House of Commons was that his leadership would not survive.

This is the opening of Dominion by C J Sansom, a novel about what might have happened, an alternative history, if Germany had been triumphant in the Second World War. All events that take place in this book after 5 p.m. on 9 May 1940 are imaginary.

I’ve read and enjoyed Sansom’s earlier books, the five Matthew Shardlake historical mysteries and Winter in Madrid, historical fiction set in Spain in 1940, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to read Dominion, his latest book, described on the book jacket as ‘a vivid, haunting re-imagining of 1950s Britain’ and ‘a gripping, humane spy thriller and a poignant love story.’

I like the opening paragraphs I’m still not sure because ‘re-imaginings’ don’t exactly appeal to me. I prefer historical fiction to be historical and fiction to be fiction, not  an alternative version of history. But when I saw a copy on the library shelves I was tempted to at least look at it and brought it home to see if it’s any good. After all it’s written by C J Sansom, so it can’t be bad, can it?

The English Spy by Donald Smith

Published on by Margaret8 Comments

I’d gone to my local library to collect Road to Referendum by Iain Macwhirter, a book I’d reserved after I read about on FictionFan’s blog, and was browsing the shelves when this book, The English Spy caught my eye. Road to Referendum is about the run up to the Independence Referendum to take place in Scotland in September 2014. It also has chapters on Scottish history leading up to the present day as background.  So, it was quite a coincidence finding The English Spy as this is a novel about the build up to the political Union of England and Scotland in 1707 – the Union that Independence for Scotland would break.

My knowledge of the Act of Union in 1707 was limited to just the fact that by that union Scotland and England, together with Ireland and Wales, became the United Kingdom and I thought it was to settle the successor to Queen Anne who was childless and ill. Of course, it was much more complicated than that and The English Spy tells the story of how Daniel Defoe, at that time still known as Daniel Foe, was sent to Scotland under secret instructions from the English government to persuade the Scots to give up their independence. It’s a fascinating story of intrigue and backstabbing amongst the members of the Scottish parliament!

The narration moves between multiple viewpoints, mainly in the first person and some in the third person of various characters, some obviously historical figures and others possibly(?) fictional ones. There are Foe’s own account, letters between Isobel Rankin, his landlady in Edinburgh and her friend Nellie in Glasgow, the journal of Lord Glamis and a third person narrative of Robert Harley, the first Earl of Oxford. There are several other characters who pop in and out of the story – Lady O’Kelly and Aeneas Murray amongst others. This is a story about spies and the struggle between various factions for power and once I had got the characters sorted in my mind I was swept along with the intrigue and dangers of the times, keen to see how the Union came about.

The English Spy is a mix of fact and fiction but A Warning to the Reader at the beginning of the book clarifies that Daniel Defoe had indeed been sent to Scotland and was required to provide London with ‘clandestine reports on affairs in the north’. The Scottish Government was led by the Marquis of Queensberry who favoured union with England and the Duke of Hamilton was opposed to the union. Donald Smith warns:

Yet why did Scotland surrender its hard won and long cherished independence? The historians remain divided. What is offered here is fiction, yet as Defoe himself shows, the truths or apparent deceits of fiction may be uncomfortably closer to home.

Now, over 300 years later the question of independence for Scotland is still in question!

Dr Donald Smith is a founding member of the Scottish Storytelling Forum and of Edinburgh’s Guid Crack Club, and he is currently Director of the Scottish Storytelling Centre at The Netherbow.  He has written, directed or produced over fifty plays and is a founding director of the National Theatre of Scotland.

Now to read what Road to Referendum has to offer.