Fiction – Page 264 – BooksPlease

Beryl Bainbridge Reading Week

Published on June 23, 2012October 12, 2021 by Margaret4 Comments

All week Gaskella has been hosting the Beryl Bainbridge Reading Week and I’m just in time to join in.

Beryl Bainbridge (1934 – 2010) was made a Dame in 2000. She wrote 18 novels, three of which were filmed, two collections of short stories, several plays for stage and television, and many articles, essays, columns and reviews. Five of her novels were nominated for the Booker Prize, but none of them won it. Years ago I read two of her books, historical novels, one being According to Queenie, a novel about the life of Samuel Johnson as seen through the eyes of Queeney, Mrs Thrale, and the other Master Georgie, set in the Crimean War telling the story of George Hardy, a surgeon.

This week I’ve read A Quiet Life, first published in 1976 before she wrote her historical novels.

Synopsis from the book jacket:

Alan, a schoolboy living in a seaside village after the war, is concerned about the behaviour of his sister Madge. She has been seen talking to a German prisoner on the beach. Gradually her nightly disappearances affect the whole household. The parents become bitterly estranged, the wireless is turned up full volume so the neighbours won’t hear the rows and the slamming of doors. Inexorably, Alan’s conscience and his love for his family lead to disaster. Does time distort or clarify events in the past? After twenty years can one ever be sure they took place at all?

My Thoughts:

I didn’t know before I read it that it is a semi-autobiographical novel, using her own childhood and background as source material. I was struck immediately by the claustrophobic atmosphere pervading the novel. The family live in a small house, their living arrangements reduced by the fact that the rooms were full of furniture and ornaments and they kept the freezing cold lounge just for visitors of which they had very few. And Alan had to have his mother’s permission to use the dining room to do his homework. They lived on top of each other in the kitchen where the armchairs in front of the fire made it difficult to enter and move about.

Most of the time they spent escaping from the house – Father to the garden, Mother out, thought by Father to be having an affair, Alan to school, church or youth club and Madge to the pinewoods or to the beach with her German. As Madge says Alan ‘keeps everything bottled up, … anything for a quiet life.’ Whereas Alan realised that Madge ‘came out with things for precisely the reasons he hid them – to avoid embarrassment.’

Alan’s embarrassment is increased when he gets a girlfriend, Janet and is made worse by Madge’s behaviour – she gets away with much worse than he ever can. There are some wonderfully vivid scenes, such as Alan scrambling up a sand dune and seeing Madge and the German caressing each other behind a small hillock. Then there is Father hurling the arm of his father-in-law’s chair out of the house onto the lawn, followed by him manhandling the chair out of the house, lurching across the grass with it to the greenhouse and then setting fire to it. The whole episode is rendered farcical when his false teeth fly out of his mouth into the fire and Mother squealed with laughter, the sound carrying across the ‘bleak and desolate gardens.’

There’s pathos and dark humour and I found it moving and disturbing. Madge in particular seemed a problem for her parents and Alan, at one time manipulative and at another understanding and sympathetic. It expresses the pain of living with parents who don’t get on, the frustrations caused by rigid code of behaviour and class structure of the period, the shame they would suffer if the neighbours ever discovered what was happening, and the rows, stress and unhappiness they all endured.

I was interested to know more about the book and found this fascinating interview between Beryl Bainbridge and Anthony Clare in August 1983. I was intrigued to hear that so many of the descriptions and incidents in A Quiet Life were based on her own experiences. In fact she said that her creative urge was fuelled by what happened to her and from the age of 9 or 10 she had started to write about her parents and her background. She described herself as a child as an ‘awkward little devil‘, and I could see so much of that in the character of Madge – even down to the bad cough she could bring on at will.

My verdict: A brilliant book. She doesn’t waste any words, but still clearly sets the scene, portraying the everyday dilemmas, disasters and scandals of her eccentric characters. I’ll be reading as many more of her books that I can find.

A Weekend with Mr Darcy by Victoria Connelly

Published on June 17, 2012 by Margaret5 Comments

I don’t normally read romantic chick-lit fiction, but this book was a gift, described as a light easy read and it is. I didn’t expect too much from it but I quite enjoyed it. A Weekend with Mr Darcy takes place at a Jane Austen conference, attended by Katherine Roberts, a university lecturer who doesn’t want her colleagues to know she is a Jane Austen fan and Robyn Love, a Jane Austen fanatic who is stuck with Jace,a boyfriend from her childhood who dislikes anything to do with Jane Austen.

They meet at the conference at Purley Hall in Hampshire, not far from Jane Austen’s birthplace, Chawton Cottage. Katherine is hoping to meet the novelist Lorna Warwick, famous for her risquÃ© Regency romances, but Lorna who has been writing to Katherine is reluctant to go, not wanting Katherine to find out that she is in fact a man, Warwick Lawton. (This is not a spoiler as it’s revealed early on in the book.) But as Warwick he goes to Purley Hall and the inevitable conclusions follow. Robyn is desperately trying to ditch Jace, who has insisted on driving her to Hampshire and staying at a local pub. Chaos follows as Robyn falls in love with Dan, who she thinks is ‘totally beautiful’.

The attraction of the book for me is in the Jane Austen references and in particular the Jane Austen quiz. The book may not be entirely my cup of tea, but it has made me keen to re-read the Jane Austen novels I haven’t read for many years, such as Mansfield Park, Sense and Sensibility and in particular Northanger Abbey which I haven’t read since I was at school.

For a more detailed and enthusiastic review than mine see this post on the Austenprose blog.

Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

Published on June 15, 2012December 5, 2020 by Margaret10 Comments

Synopsis from the book cover:

By 1535 Thomas Cromwell, the blacksmith’s son, is far from his humble origins. Chief Minister to Henry VIII, his fortunes have risen with those of Anne Boleyn, Henry’s second wife, for whose sake Henry has broken with Rome and created his own church. But Henry’s actions have forced England into dangerous isolation, and Anne has failed to do what she promised: bear a son to secure the Tudor line. When Henry visits Wolf Hall, Cromwell watches as Henry falls in love with the silent, plain Jane Seymour. The minister sees what is at stake: not just the king’s pleasure, but the safety of the nation. As he eases a way through the sexual politics of the court, its miasma of gossip, he must negotiate a ‘˜truth’ that will satisfy Henry and secure his own career. But neither minister nor king will emerge undamaged from the bloody theatre of Anne’s final days.

Some thoughts:

Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel is described on the sleeve of the book cover as ‘a speaking picture, an audacious vision of Tudor England that sheds its light on the modern world.’

It is, of course, the sequel to Wolf Hall and I was too keen to read it to wait for the paperback to come out. I finished it a while ago and have been mulling over in my mind what to write about it. On balance, I didn’t enjoy it as much as Wolf Hall and I had just a little feeling of anti-climax about it, but then the novelty of Wolf Hall for me was the way Hilary Mantel not only brought the Tudor world alive but also how she overturned my ideas of both Thomas Cromwell and Sir Thomas More. As there is no denying that I knew that Anne Boleyn was not going to make a go of her marriage to Henry VIII, so there was little drama there for me. I didn’t even want her to escape her fate.

And yet, Bring Up the Bodies is still a brilliant book. It’s beautifully written, even if it is in the present tense, full of colour and detail so that there is no doubt that this is 16th century England, with vivid descriptions of the people, buildings, fabrics, and landscapes of both town and countryside.

One of the things that stood out for me in Wolf Hall was just how much of a family man Cromwell was, how much he loved and protected them. In Bring Up the Bodies, my overall impression of him is as a politician, a schemer and an implacable enemy. Right from the start he’s in the thick of the action as he and Henry are out hunting, flying their hawks. Cromwell’s are named after his dead daughters, a reminder of him as the family man, but immediately we are made aware that he is very much in the king’s service.

He never spares himself in the king’s service, he knows his worth and his merits and makes sure of his reward: offices, perquisites and title deeds, manor houses and farms. He has a way of getting his way, he has a method; he will charm a man or bribe him, coax him or threaten him, he will explain to a man where his true interests lie, and he will introduce that same man to aspects of himself he didn’t know existed. … he is distinguished by his courtesy, his calmness and his indefatigable attention to England’s business. (pages 6-7)

Truly, a man not a man to ignore. A man to be wary of, and even though Henry fondly and familiarly calls him ‘Crumb’, a man needing to take great care of himself. Anne Boleyn, in contrast, by the end of the book is ‘ a tiny figure, a bundle of bones’ when she is brought to the scaffold. But Cromwell is not deceived:

She does not look like a powerful enemy of England, but looks can deceive. If she could have brought Katherine to this same place, she would have. If her sway had continued, the child Mary might have stood here; and he himself of course, pulling off his coat and waiting for the coarse English axe. (page 395)

However, this is not the end of Cromwell:

Summer, 1536: he is promoted Baron Cromwell. He cannot call himself Lord Cromwell of Putney. He might laugh. However. He can call himself Baron Cromwell of Wimbledon. He ranged all over those fields, when he was a boy.
The word ‘however’ is like an imp coiled beneath your chair. It induces ink to form words you have not yet seen and lines to march across the page and overshoot the margin. There are no endings. If you think so you are deceived as to their nature. They are all beginnings. Here is one. (page 407)

And so, on to the next book …

A Classics Challenge – June Prompt

Published on June 13, 2012 by Margaret3 Comments

This month’s prompt for the Classics Challenge is to create a visual tour using quotes from the book you are reading; a series of images that closely represents how you see the scene or description. It doesn’t have to absolutely follow the text but it must reflect the mood.

I’ve been reading Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities and so there are many scenes I could choose from, varying from London to Paris, from calm and peaceful scenes to trial scenes and scenes of violence, revolution and death by guillotine.

But I’ve decide to concentrate on the place described by Dickens as Doctor Manette’s house in London, the house he lived in with his daughter, Lucie after he was released from the Bastille in Paris.

The quiet lodgings of Doctor Manette were in a quiet street corner not far from Soho Square.

Soho Square illustration is South-west Corner of Soho Square in 1816. From an aquatint in John B. Papworth's Select Views of London

I was intrigued by it being described as a quiet street corner – in Soho. But the Soho of 1780 was rather different from what it later became, so I had to alter my mental picture of it. This view of Soho Square is from about 50 years after the events in the book, but it shows the rural nature of London at that time.

I wondered about the location of the Manettes’ lodging house, just where was it? And then I founnd this plan (see illustration below) showing the location of Soho Square, coloured in green. Just below the Square are Greek Street and Rose Street. It has been conjectured that Dr Manette’s house was No.1 Greek Street with its courtyard in Rose Street. In 1895 Rose Street was changed to Manette Street after Dicken’s character:

However that may or may not been, at that time Soho was very much in the countryside:

A quainter corner than the corner where the doctor lived, was not to be found in London. There was no way through it, and the front windows of the doctor’s lodgings commanded a pleasant little vista of street that has a congenial air of retirement on it. There were few buildings then, north of the Oxford-road, and forest trees flourished, and wild flowers grew, and the hawthorn blossomed, in the now vanished fields.

Hawthorn bushes

Somewhat different from the London scene these days!

Doctor Manette occupied two floors of the house, with a courtyard at the back:

where a plane-tree rustled its green leaves

It was where Lucie, Mr Lorry from Tellson’s Bank and Charles Darney sat under the tree talking and drinking wine and where Lucie and her father sat when she told him she was going to marry Darney:

I could just imagine the scene:

Never did the sun go down with a brighter glory on the quiet corner in Soho, than one memorable evening when the Doctor and his daughter sat under the plane-tree together. Never did the moon rise on a milder radiance over great London, than on that night when it found them still seated under the tree, and shone upon their faces through its leaves.

Crime Fiction Alphabet : Letter D

Published on June 11, 2012 by Margaret7 Comments

This week’s letter in Kerrie’s Crime Fiction Alphabet is the letter D.

I’ve chosen to focus on Dana Stabenow, an Alaskan writer. I came across her books through Amazon Kindle, where her first book in the Kate Shugak seriesis available for free! It’s A Cold Day for Murder, which won an Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original in 1993.

Dana’s biography is on her website, where there is a complete list of her books. She’s a prolific writer who writes science fiction, mystery, and suspense/thriller novels.

The books in her series about Kate Shugak, an Aleut who is an investigator living in a National Park in Alaska, are:

1. A Cold Day for Murder (1992)
2. A Fatal Thaw (1992)
3. Dead in the Water (1993)
4. A Cold-blooded Business (1994)
5. Play With Fire (1995)
6. Blood Will Tell (1996)
7. Breakup (1997)
8. Killing Grounds (1998)
9. Hunter’s Moon (1999)
10. Midnight Come Again (2000)
11. The Singing of the Dead (2001)
12. A Fine and Bitter Snow (2002)
13. A Grave Denied (2003)
14. A Taint in the Blood (2004)
15. A Deeper Sleep (2007)
16. Whisper to the Blood (2009)
17. A Night Too Dark (2010)
18. Though Not Dead (2011)
19. Restless in the Grave (2012)
20. Bad Blood (2013)

Novellas:
Conspiracy (2011)
Nooses Give (2011)
Wreck Rights (2011)

There’s more information on Dana’s writing on her blog. I’m only part way into read A Cold Day for Murder, but so far I’m finding it fascinating with lots of description of both the setting, environmental issues and the characters. Kate comes across as a strong and independent female detective.

Crime Fiction Alphabet 2012 – Letter C

Published on June 6, 2012 by Margaret3 Comments

The Crime Fiction Alphabet is run by Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise. This week’s letter is the letter C.

C is for Catriona McPherson, who writes the Dandy Gilver Mysteries. She is a Scottish author who was born in South Queensferry, near Edinburgh. Until 2010 she lived in Galloway and now lives in Northern California. Catriona, by the way, is pronounced Kuh-TREE-nuh (just like the hurricane). In addition to her website she has a blog, sitting typing alone in a room, where she writes about being a writer, gardening on her farm in North California, and reading.

Her favourite books include Rebecca, The Water Method Man, The Pursuit of Love, Agent to the Stars, The Bean Trees, Jane Eyre, After These Things, Wolf Hall, The World’s Wife, Oryx and Crake, The Handless Maiden,The Testament of Gideon Mack. (copied from her facebook page)

The first Dandy Gilver novel was short-listed for the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Dagger 2005 and the second was long-listed for the Theakston’s Crime Novel of the Year Award 2007.There are currently six Dandy Gilver books available with the seventh due out in July:

(Links are to my posts)

1. After the Armistice Ball (2005)
2. The Burry Man’s Day (2006)
3. Bury Her Deep (2007)
4. The Winter Ground (2008)
5. The Proper Treatment of Bloodstains (2009)
6. Unsuitable Day for a Murder (2010)
7. Bothersome Number of Corpses (2012)