Category: Fiction

Sunday Salon – Current Books

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

This week I’ve finished reading two crime fiction books:

and posts on these books will be on my blog this coming week.

I’m still reading Eden’s Outcast: the story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father by John Matteson. So far I’ve been reading about Bronson Alcott and his unorthdox ideas about educating and bringing up children.  It was quite a coincidence I thought, when I was reading the Daily Express in the coffee shop recently and came across a review of Fruitlands: The Alcott Family and their Search for Utopia by Richard Francis. The reviewer describes this book as a

… richly textured history of the life and times of a back’‘to’‘nature community in 19th-century America. It was called Fruitlands, though Fruitcakes would have been more apt.
(Read more from this review.)

I haven’t got up to this venture so far in Eden’s Outcasts. There are many entries in the index under ‘Fruitlands’ so I expect to find out much more about it. His career as a teacher was not a success and it seems that his venture into communal farming wasn’t either.

I spent other reading time this week downloading more books onto my Kindle and have read the opening paragraphs of most of them. It really is so easy to get carried away and add more books to my to-be-read lists! But I only bought one book this week, so that’s not too bad.

It’s Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose and it’s been on my wish list for a long time. I read fairly quickly and know that I often read too quickly to take in all the detail. Prose writes that reading quickly can be ‘a hindrance‘ and that it is ‘essential to slow down and read every word‘. She also contradicts the advice to novice writers ‘to show, not tell‘, when ‘the responsibility of showing should be assumed by the energetic and specific use of language‘. Using Alice Munro’s short story Dulse as an example, she says:

There are many occasions in literature in which telling is far more effective than showing. A lot of time would have been wasted had Alice Munro believed that she could not begin her story until she had shown us Lydia working as an editor, writing poetry, breaking up with her lover, dealing with her children, getting divorced, growing older, and taking all the steps that led up to the moment at which the story rightly begins.

Most interesting, I thought.

I still haven’t got used to Kindle’s use of locations as opposed to page numbers – the extract above is from Location 409 – 12. Nor have I mastered the technique of transferring my highlighted passages and notes from the Kindle to the computer!

I’m also reading The Matchmaker of Kenmare by Frank Delaney. This is an Advance Uncorrected Proof; the book is scheduled to be on sale on 8 February. It’s the first book I’ve read by Delaney, described by the publisher as a

… lush and surprising historical novel, rich as a myth, tense as a thriller …

From what I’ve read of it so far I’d go along with that description, except for the tenseness – but it’s early days yet. It’s set in 1943 in Ireland, a neutral country in the Second World War. It’s a long book and takes its time in setting the scene and introducing the characters. It promises well.

Booking Through Thursday – Firsts (on Friday)

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

Although it’s now Friday I wanted to answer this Booking Through Thursday question:

Do you remember the first book you bought for yourself? Or the first book you checked out of the library? What was it and why did you choose it?

Teddy Robinson

I can’t remember which was the first library book I borrowed – it cold have been Dear Teddy Robinson by Joan G Robinson. My mum took me to the library before I started school and I remember that whichever book it was I liked it so much I didn’t want to return it and was only consoled when mum said I could borrow another book.

I think The Gloriet Tower by Eileen Meyler is the first book I bought for myself. I still have this hardback book. The description on the book jacket describes it as a

… tale for older children set in Corfe Castle a few years before the beginning of the Hundred Years War. The family there who found themselves drawn into a strange and cruel plot had no existence except in the Author’s imagination. Nevertheless a thin thread of fact runs through the story. The death of Edward II and the power wielded by his widowed Queen and her favourite Mortimer belong to history. The plot to ensnare the King’s brother and the merry-making and the dancing on the walls are true enough and true also is the story of the capture of the Earl of Kent.  … the castle and the wild heath, lapped by the waters of the harbour, are true until this day. They are there for all to see for themselves.

As far as I remember I chose this book because of its historical setting in a castle – I loved castles (still do), and I liked the cover picture. And so began my love of historical fiction. Looking at it today I think I’d like to read it once more.

Many years later I visited Corfe Castle in Dorset, now owned by the National Trust. It was swarming with people and I wished I could have seen it in years gone by when it wasn’t a tourist attraction.

Louisa May Alcott: Little Women

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

I had forgotten that Little Women is such a moral tale. In fact, I doubt that when I first read it years ago I ever thought of it as a moral tale at all, but the emphasis on the characters of the four sisters  with their individual flaws and efforts to overcome them was the dominant theme that struck me whilst I was reading the book this time.

I loved Little Women when I first read it and re-read it several times. It remains in my memory as one of my favourite childhood books. But reading again now it seems dated (although I did like reading what the girls wore – gloves were essential wear for a party!) and rather pious. I’m also reading Eden’s Outcasts: the story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father, so I flipped forward in that book to see what John Matteson had to say about Little Women and Louisa May’s thoughts on writing her book. She wrote Little Women after Thomas Niles, a partner in the publishing firm of Roberts Brothers had asked her to write a book for girls. She wasn’t too keen but agreed to do so even though she said that:

I don’t enjoy this sort of thing. Never liked girls or knew many, except my sisters. (Quoted in Eden’s Outcasts page 332.)

She consulted her mother and sisters and with their consent wrote the book based around the Alcott girls’ lives.

Little Women is about the four March sisters, Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy, and their mother – ‘Marmee’. Their father is absent for most of the book, working as a chaplain in the army,during the American Civil War.  The first part of the book is a series of scenes of the March family life illustrating each sister’s burden of character flaws, and their attempts to overcome them. Meg is vain and materialistic, Jo has a temper and flies into great rages, Beth is painfully timid and shy and Amy is selfish. This section of the book is loosely based on Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, as some of the chapter headings indicate – for example, Playing Pilgrims, Amy’s Valley of Humiliation, Jo Meets Apollyon and Meg Goes to Vanity Fair.

The second part of the book centres on Jo (based on Louisa herself), her writing and her reluctance to grow up. Again this hadn’t struck me when I read as a child (I can’t remember how old I was); I’d thought of her as a tomboy character. She says to Meg, who at 17 is a year older and falling in love:

Don’t try to make me grow up before my time, Meg: it’s hard enough to have you change all of a sudden; let me be a little girl as long as I can. (page 162 of my copy of Little Women)

Laurie, who lives next door with his grandfather becomes a friend to all the girls, but especially to Jo. The family go through a number of dramas, both small and large, culminating in Beth catching scarlet fever after visiting the poor Hummel family, whilst Marmee is in Washington staying with Mr March who was very ill in hospital. Mr March is mostly absent from the book, and even when he does come home there is very little mention of him; he is a man of few words. He discovers that his ‘little women’ have changed for the better whilst he has been away, despite it being a rough road for his little pilgrims to travel:

“But you have got on very bravely; and I think the burdens are in a fair way to tumble off very soon,” said Mr March, looking with fatherly satisfaction at the four young faces gathered him. (page 232)

Little Women ends with Meg’s engagement to John Brooks, Laurie’s tutor. The story continues in Good Wives,which I have as a separate book, but it was originally published as volume 2 of Little Women. These two books were followed by Little Men, the story of Jo and her husband Professor Bhaer at Plumfield school, and Jo’s Boys, continuing the lives of the family and the boys ten years later.

Even though it is a sentimental tale, which it wasn’t in my memory, I did enjoy the experience of re-reading Little Women – some of the magic was still there. And I think I’ll re-read the other books soon as well.

Attacking the TBR Tome Challenge – result

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

Emily’s challenge Attacking the TBR Tome is coming to an end. The challenge was to read or attempt to read 20 books from your TBR pile and to post on each one. And it was also not to buy any new books, or borrow any books from the library until you had read the 20 TBR books. I knew at the outset that I couldn’t do that and I didn’t.

I did, however, read  25 books during the year, all of which I owned before December 1st 2009. I only read two of the books on my original list (the first two listed below), but I did give myself the option of reading other books from my TBR piles and I read the following books. I’ve written about all of them except the last one, which I only finished reading yesterday.

  1. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
  2. Be Near Me by Andrew O’Hagan
  3. Drood by Dan Simmons
  4. Let it Bleed by Ian Rankin
  5. Black and Blue by Ian Rankin
  6. The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie
  7. Can Any Mother Help Me? by Jenna Bailey €“ see also here
  8. The Hanging Garden by Ian Rankin
  9. The Warrior’s Princess by Barbara Erskine
  10. The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey
  11. Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? by Agatha Christie
  12. Hearts and Minds by Amanda Craig
  13. Faithful Unto Death by Caroline Graham
  14. Bad Science by Ben Goldacre
  15. The Falls by Ian Rankin
  16. Resurrection Men by Ian Rankin
  17. Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie
  18. Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky
  19. Portrait of an Unknown Woman by Vanora Bennett
  20. Fleshmarket Close by Ian Rankin
  21. The Naming of the Dead by Ian Rankin
  22. The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie
  23. Exit Music by Ian Rankin
  24. Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman
  25. Reflex by Dick Francis

I’ve signed up for a few challenges for next year that should help me reduce my TBR piles even further – except, of course, that I have added more books to the piles this last year.

Teaser Tuesday

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly event hosted by MizB where you share ‘teasers’. I’ve adapted it a bit to include more information about the book and longer teasers.

Yesterday I finished reading Where Three Roads Meet by Salley Vickers. I borrowed it from the library simply because I’ve enjoyed other books by Salley Vickers –  in particular Miss Garnet’s Angel and Mr Golightly’s Holiday.

Where Three Roads Meet is different, but just as good. It’s one of the Canongate Myths series, modern versions of myths told by a number of different authors. I’ve read others in the series – A Short History of Myth by Karen Armstrong, Weight by Jeanette Winterson (the myth of Atlas and Heracles) and The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood (the myth of Penelope and Odysseus).

It’s the Oedipus myth as told to Sigmund Freud during his last years when he was suffering from cancer of the mouth. Under the influence of morphine he is visited by Tiresias, a blind prophet of Thebes who tells him his version of the Oedipus story. In between telling the story, Freud and Tiresias discuss language and the origins of words. The point where the three roads meet is the place Oedipus and his father had their tragic meeting, setting in motion the sequence of events that led to his downfall and to the fulfilment of the prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother.

In Tiresias’s version Freud’s interpretation wasn’t quite right:

Because, if I may say so, here in all the world was the one person you could safely say didn’t have the complex you dreamed up for him. He was Oedipus, plain Oedipus. But not simple. What was complex about him was not that he wanted to sleep with his mother (as she herself said, that impulse is not so uncommon) nor even that he killed a man who had once threatened his life. Tit for tat, some might say. What was so remarkable was that his own safekeeping was usurped by the need to know what he needed not to know. (page 169)

This is a book with multiple layers, not a simple book. Although it’s easy enough to read it straight through, it is complex, with many ideas about life and death, and truth and ambiguity to ponder. Even if you know the story of Oedipus it seems fresh and new in this version. I found the details of the operations Freud had, their effect upon him and the terrible pain he suffered was quite shocking. All in all, a satisfying, entertaining and challenging book.

Two Moons by Jennifer Johnston: A Very Short Book Review

Published on by Margaret3 Comments

There’s a touch of magic about Two Moons by Jennifer Johnston and I think it’s one of the best books I’ve read this year.

Set in Dublin it’s the story of three women. Mimi and her daughter Grace live in a house overlooking Dublin Bay. Grace, an actress, is absorbed in rehearsals for Hamlet in which she is playing Gertrude, and Mimi, her elderly mother is similarly absorbed in talking to an angel, Bonifacio, who is invisible to everyone except Mimi. Their lives are disrupted by the arrival of Grace’s daughter, Polly who arrives to stay for a few days bringing with her, Paul, her new boyfriend.

Two Moons is a warm and intimate novel, portraying the problems of falling in love at all ages and the difficulties of  growing old and coming to terms with the disappointments of the past with great sensitivity. I especially liked Jennifer Johnston’s style – delicate and light yet at the same time there is a great depth of meaning. The characters are all real and their emotions are so beautifully expressed.

I read it as slowly as possible to savour the experience and I shall certainly re-read it. But I wish I could read it again as though it were for the first time.