Category: Fiction

Sunday Salon

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

tssbadge1Today I started reading The Birthday Present by Barbara Vine. but I’m not sure that I really want to finish it. Maybe I’ve read too much crime fiction recently because this one just seems rather silly.

Ivor Tesham, MP decides to give his married girl friend a birthday present, one with a difference.  He arranges to have her “kidnapped” and delivered to him bound and gagged. Not my idea of fun and I nearly stopped reading at that point, but thought I’d go on a bit longer with it before giving up. I can’t say any of the characters are likeable, in fact they’re rather more stereotypes than real people – a sleazy politician, a plain single woman with no hope of romance, a beautiful young woman with no morals stuck in a boring marriage etc. And despite Ivor’s fears that he’s going to be found out and his name splashed across the newspapers ruining his chances of a dazzling political career it’s sadly lacking in tension.

Much more interesting are my current non-fiction reads:

after-the-victoriansAfter the Victorians by A N Wilson. This is not an academic study of the period 1900 – 1952 and Wilson interjects history with his own opinions and it’s full of references to art and literature as well as being an account of the political events of the times:

 … artists … hold up mirrors to what is going on in societies, they take soundings of a society’s cohesion, moral wellbeing, strength or lack of it. That is why totalitarian regimes persecute poets and composers with just as much rigour as they do to silencing overtly political opposition. Stalin and Hitler both had violently strong views about art and music. (p.156)

When the Lights Went Out by Andy Beckett. I’m enjoying this much more than I expected when-the-lights-went-outand surprising myself by wanting to read about the politics of the 1970s. But again this book is not solely a political history and there are plenty of personal touches. Beckett had interviewed many of the personalities and his accounts are compelling reading. Here he is on meeting Ted Heath:

Heath came slowly into the room, supported by a walking stick and another of his staff. His clothes – a baggy cream short-sleeved shirt with half the buttons undone, and the casual grey chinos – came as a small shock after watching hours of his pinstriped and uncomfortable early seventies political broadcasts. But his face was much the same: small determined eyes, the proud dagger nose, big plump cheeks barely lined despite his lingering yactsman’s tan – a usefully aspirational political signal back in the pre-easy Jet Britain of his premiership. (p. 28)

Part of its attraction is that it reminds me of many things I’d forgotten  – like the three-day week, the Winter of Discontent, and the TV programmes The Good Life and Fawlty Towers.

Library Loot

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

library-loot

I borrowed just three books this week from the library.coastliners For more Library Loot click on the button above.

  • Coastliners by Joanne Harris:  a novel about a hardy island community fighting the encroaching seas. A young woman returns to her home island off the Atlantic coast and tries to stop the decline of her father’s fishing village. I borrowed this book because I loved Chocolat and Gentlemen and Players.

 

  • The Thirteen Problems by Agatha Christie. This is a collection of short stories. A thirteen-problemsgroup of friends, including Miss Marple meet on a Tuesday night and tell sinister stories of unsolved crimes. I’m taking part in the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge and this week this was the only book in the library by AC. I’ve started reading it and am finding it a bit simplistic. So far it’s been Miss Marple much to the surprise of the others (but not to me) who comes up with the solution.

 

  • The Gardens of the Dead by William Brodrick: When Elizabeth Glendinning QC dies of gardens-of-the-deada sudden heart attack while making a desperate phone call to the police, her colleagues and family are devastated and mystified. What was she doing in east London at the time of her death, and what was she trying to tell Inspector Cartwright in her last phone call? I’ve never read anything by William Brodrick, so this is new territory. The quotes on the back cover are promising eg: “Worthy of Le Carre at his best”  from Allan Massie writing in the Scotsman.

A Lost Lady by Willa Cather: a Book Review

Published on by Margaret10 Comments

a-lost-ladyI was very impressed with A Lost Lady by Willa Cather and now I want to read more of her books. I read it through in one sitting, which is most unusual for me, but having started it I just had to finish it. Not that there’s any mystery to solve, but just because I was enjoying the story, the writing and the scenes it conjured up in my mind.

A Lost Lady is about Mrs Forrester, a beautiful woman married to an older man, an elderly railroad pioneer living in a house on a hill at Sweet Water in the Nebraska plains along the Burlington railroad. She’s a well-loved, beautiful “lady-like” woman and the house, well known for Mrs Forrester’s hospitality and welcome, is in an idyllic setting. The story is told mainly through the eyes of Judge Pommeroy’s nephew, Niel Herbert, aged 12 at the beginning of the book.

There is an episode near the beginning of the book that completely shocked me, involving boys and a woodpecker. Even the boys watching who were not especially sensitive were “indignant and uncomfortable, not knowing what to do.”  This episode signals the end of an idyllic life style. Captain Forrester looks back with nostalgia at his early days in the West, a time when

One day was like another, and all were glorious: good hunting, plenty of antelope and buffalo, boundless sunny sky, boundless plains of waving grass, long fresh water lagoons yellow with lagoon flowers, where the bison in their periodic migrations stopped to drink and bathe and wallow. “An ideal life for a young man,” the Captain pronounced. (page 48)

His working life was ended by a railroad accident, and it’s now a time when life is changing. He is aging and helpless, and with the failure of the bank in Denver his dreams have ended. Mrs Forrester who adapts to change also symbolises the end of a past age. Niel has idolised her but as she begins to drink and takes a lover he is shattered, disllusioned:

In that instant between stooping to the window-sill and rising, he had lost one of the most beautiful things in his life. Before the dew dried, the morning had been wrecked for him; and all subsequent mornings, he told himself bitterly. This day saw the end of that admiration and loyalty that had been like a bloom on his esixtence. He could never recapture it. It was gone, like the morning freshness of the flowers. (pages 83-4)

Mrs Forrester is indeed “lost”, no longer the woman she was, not only “lost” to Niel, but “lost” to the values of the times. Other themes explored in A Lost Lady are the rise of materialism, a longing for the past seen as a golden age, the spoiling of the countryside in the name of progress and the changing role of women in society. There is also an emphasis on the need to adapt and to accept the possiblity of loss. I can see some similarities to Madame Bovary, in Mrs Forrester’s adultery (the book has been called “the Madame Bovary of the American frontier”), but there aren’t many similarities between the two woman other than that. Madame Bovary reads romantic fiction, is dissatified with her husband and commits suicide, whereas Mrs Forrester carries on with her life, is practical and does not give in to despair.

A Lost Lady is a complex novel, written in 1922 and published in 1923, and although it deals with the passing of the old order it still seems relevant today. Perhaps every age is the end of one period and the start of another.

The Spare Room by Helen Garner: A Short Book Review

Published on by Margaret7 Comments

It was with a sigh of relief that I read the last page of The Spare Room by Helen Garner. I’d read about this book and when it was offered on LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers Programme I ticked the box, never thinking I would “snag” it, but I did. I was hesitant about reading it, because it sounded a tough subject – for three weeks Helen’s friend Nicola who is suffering from cancer, stays with her whilst she undergoes alternative therapy. Nicola refuses to accept that she is dying and Helen struggles to cope with the situation.

It’s not a book that I would say I enjoyed. It is a difficult book to read, not because of the style of writing, which is fluent, but because of the agonising descriptions of Nicola’s condition and the anguish and anger that hits Helen. But I’m glad I read it; it was nowhere nearly as bad as I imagined it would be and I will look out for more books by Helen Garner.

Library Loot

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

Hurray! Since writing my post on Gluttony last ThursdayI’ve managed not to buy any books! 

library-lootBut I had to go to the library to pick up two books I’d reserved, so I was unable to resist the temptation of browsing, which inevitably lead to finding more books that looked good – at least they’re not permanent additions to the “library at home”.  I took home a mixed bag of books – two psychological thrillers, one chick-lit, one book of short stories, an American classic, and a book shortlisted for this year’s Orange Prize for Fiction, awarded to awarded to the woman who, in the opinion of the judges, has written the best, eligible full-length novel in English.

library-loot-cather

The first two listed below are the ones I reserved:

  • The Reunion by Simone van der Vlugt, which according to the back cover is “a tour-de-force from Holland’s top-selling crime writer.” I first read about it on another blog (can’t remember which one – sorry).  Also from the back cover: “Sabine was 15 when Isabel disappeared. She remembers nothing from that hot May day. Nine years later, unwanted memories are returning to her. What if she saw something the day of Isabel’s disappearance? What if she could put a name to the shadowy figure in her dreams? What if her knowledge was dangerous?”
  • The Wilderness by Samantha Harvey – shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction this year. This may be painful reading as it’s about Jake who has Alzheimer’s. He is in his early 60s, has lost his wife, his son is in prison, and he is about to lose his past.  I am both fascinated and appalled by Alzheimer’s.
  • The Fantastic Book of Everybody’s Secrets by Sophie Hannah. I keep reading Sophie’s name all over the place, so when I saw this book on the shelves I thought it was time to read something by her. This is a book of short stories. I read the first one “The Octopus Nest” yesterday and would have read more of them if I hadn’t been going out in the evening. I think I’m going to really enjoy this book, based on this first story about a stranger who keeps appearing in the background of a family’s holiday photographs.
  • Shoe Addicts Anonymous by Beth Harbison. An unknown-to-me author, but I love shoes and fancied something light and funny. This looks like chic-lit and I can’t imagine ever meeting up with friends to swap shoes, which is what the women in this book do, but maybe it’ll be entertaining.
  • A Judgement in Stone by Ruth Rendell. I still haven’t read her book “The Birthday Present”, so this should have stayed on the shelf but the first sentence hooked me: “Eunice Parchman killed the Coverdale family because she could not read or write.” So we know right away who did the murder, but not why.
  • A Lost Lady by Willa Cather. I have never read anything by Willa Cather. I liked the title, the book cover and the intriguing words on the front cover: “The Madame Bovary of the American frontier.” I opened this this morning just to look at it and read it straight through! It deserves a post of its own.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: a Book Review

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

jane-austen

Jane Austen has long been one of my favourite authors, ever since I read my mother’s copy of Pride and Prejudice   – it’s the brown book shown in the photo.

I’ve read this now so many times, watched TV and film adaptations that I’m not sure what to write about it. Usually I write about the plot and the characters to help me remember a book, but I don’t need to in this case.

What struck me this time in reading Pride and Prejudice is the language. Jane Austen is never sentimental or preachy, but treats serious subjects with humour and irony. Pride and Prejudice is full of wit and humour and timeless characters – foolish people, flirts, bores, snobs, self-centred and dishonest people as well as “good” people like Jane Bennet, who is determined to see good in everyone.

I was also aware of the many times she used the word “civilities”, and its variations. This was a society where manners were most important, behaving civilly towards each other and observing the correct etiquette. It’s a novel about manners as much as about pride and prejudice, about how people behave and how they see each other and the world. I like the original  title Jane Austen gave her book – First Impressions – because the first impression Elizabeth and Mr Darcy had of each other wasn’t love at first sight (or was it?), not a promising start. I used to try to work out which one was proud and which prejudiced, but decided that each of them is both. Fortunately, both weren’t too proud to admit they were wrong.

I enjoy reading about Jane Austen and her world and there are many books available. I have Maggie Lane’s Jane Austen’s World which looks at daily life in Jane’s England and includes accounts of the numerous dramatisations of her books. When I won a giveaway book from Dorothy at Of Books and Bicycles I was delighted that one of the books she had on offer was Jane Austen: a Life by Claire Tomalin. I’ve started to read it and now I’ve finished Pride and Prejudice I’ll be able to concentrate more on it. I love the cover, which shows the painting The Great House and Park at Chawton, owned by Jane’s brother Edward.

Several years ago I read Carol Shields’ biography, which lead me to James Edward Austen-Leigh’s Memoir of Jane Austen, published in 1869. He was her nephew and of course, knew her personally. I found a copy in my local library. In it he described her as a

clear brunette with a rich colour; she had full round cheeks, with mouth and nose small and well formed, bright hazel eyes, and brown hair, forming natural curls close round her face.

She was

fond of music and had a sweet voice, both in singing and speaking.

And he thought she was a calm and even person distinguished from other people by

that peculiar genius which shines out clearly enough in her works.

And I think that says it all – she was a genius.