Category: Non-fiction

Book Review: The Private Lives of the Impressionists by Sue Roe

Published on by Margaret

Non-fiction books often take me a while to read and Sue Roe’s The Private Lives of the Impressionists is no exception; not however, because it’s difficult to read or boring, but simply because I decided to read it slowly. The Impressionists were a mixed bunch, including Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Cezanne, Renoir, Degas, Sisley, Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, and Caillebotte. I feel I got to know some of them more than others and have only just skimmed the surface of their lives, which is understandable in a book covering so many people.

The Private Lives of the Impressionists tells how the early leaders of the group met when students in the studios of Paris. There was Monet, from an affluent family background originally from Normandy, Pissarro a Portuguese Jew from a very different background, born in the Dutch West Indies, Cezanne, a strange and intense student from Aix-en-Provence. The group widened with the addition of Renoir, from a working family (his father was a tailor from Limoges), Sisley the son of an English merchant and a Frenchwoman, and Bazille the son of a wealthy Montpellier wine-grower. They rebelled against the Salon and were pilloried and criticised for their work. They struggled to make a living, although now their paintings sell for millions.

Manet, whose father was a judge and mother the god-daughter of  the King of Sweden, was not really a part of their group , although over the years he supported them but never exhibited at the Impressionists exhibitions. To say that Manet was a complex character is an understatement and I’m going to read a biography devoted to him alone at some point. I’d also like to know more about Pissarro, Berthe Morisot and Renoir in particular.

This book follows their lives and loves and how their art developed over 26 years between 1860 when they first met and the introduction of their work to America in 1886. The Epilogue summarised what happened to each artist as the end of the century approached and the Paris art scene changed completely.

I now feel rather sad to have come to the end but there is a bibliography, essential for non-fiction books in my view, listing other books on the artists. If I’m being picky I’d criticise the bibliography because it’s arranged a-z by author – I’d prefer it to be arranged the individual artists. I’d also have liked more illustrations, but there are plenty of books on Impressionism.  I’d also love to travel the world to see their paintings – in London, Paris, and the US – well maybe I’ll manage the London galleries.

These are some of my favourite paintings, some of which are in this book.

Bar at the Folies Bergere by Manet
Red Roofs, 1877
La Loge by Renoir

This is the  eleventh library book I’ve read this year – still on target to complete the Support Your Local Library Challenge.

This Week’s Library Books

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

I don’t need to borrow any more books, but I had to go to the library to return The Gargoyle (see here) and of course then I couldn’t leave without at least looking at the books. This  week I concentrated on non-fiction as I already have a few novels on the go. I  read non-fiction much more slowly than fiction, so I don’t read many.

The photo below shows part of my local library’s non-fiction section. It’s not large but it has a good selection of books and I always find something of interest there.

non-fiction
Non Fiction Books

I came home with three books (I was very restrained remembering all my unread books):

library-loot-non-fiction

  • I don’t read much poetry but The Poems of Thomas Hardy, selected and introduced by Claire Tomalin caught my attention as I’ve read several of Hardy’s novels, but none of his poetry. Hardy wrote over a thousand poems and this selection traces his experiences of life and love. This reminded me that over a year ago I started to read her biography of Hardy, which I’d put down for a while to read more of Hardy’s own works before finishing it. Time to get back to it soon.
  • Impressionism by Paul Smith. I’ve become very interested in the Impressionists since taking a short course recently. The course concentrated on the sites they painted rather than their lives. To supplement that I’m already reading Sue Roe’s The Private Lives of the Impressionists. This book looks at the social, political and intellectual contexts in which Impressionism came about. Plus it has many colour illustrations of their paintings.
  • Lost For Words by John Humphrys. I like John Humphry’s style – this book is about the “mangling and manipulation of the English Language”. He thinks language should be “simple, clear and honest” and provides examples of cliches, meaningless jargon and evasive language (which I detest).

Wild Mary

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I’m still catching up with writing about books I read last year. Wild Mary by Patrick Marnham is a biography of Mary Wesley, the author of Camomile Lawn and other books. My only knowledge of her before reading this was that her first book was published when she was 70 and my impression was that she had only started to write later in her life. That was not the case, however, as she had been writing for many years and had had two children’s books published.

She had an extraordinary life – born in 1912, her mother told her she had been an unwanted child, that it would have been better if she had been born a boy and that she and Mary’s father loved Susan, her sister, more. She married Lord Swinfen and later said that she had done so to get away from her mother. She was soon bored and began a series of love affairs.

The couple eventually divorced in 1945. In 1944 she had met and fallen passionately in love with Eric Siepmann, a penniless writer, then unhappily married to Phyllis, who embarked on a campaign against him, resulting in him losing first one and then another job. Mary and Eric were married in 1952 just two weeks after his divorce. She was devasted when he died in 1970.

Wild Mary is a detailed book about a complicated life written at Mary’s invitation, based on her personal papers, and conversations between Mary and Patrick Manham in 2002. One of the most fascinating things about Mary’s life for me was her wartime experiences, working for MI5 in the decoding unit. She was an intensely private person who lived her life dividing it into compartments. As Patrick Marnham describes:

Almost everyone who remembered Mary Siepmann agreed on one thing; she lived her life in separate compartments. In love and friendship she was happiest with one-to-one relationships, and when she loved her love grew from a response to the distinct separate personality that confronted her own. She had three sons but in the last twenty five years of her life she never invited them to her house at the same time. Her sons, with three different fathers, also had three different mothers – since she could be a different person to each when she saw each alone; and she never shared a child with its father.

She was estranged from her oldest son Roger (due to a legal case between him and his half-brother Toby) but two months before she died he visited her and it had been nearly 30 years since they had seen each other!

I found Marnham’s portrayal of Mary Wesley difficult to follow in parts, maybe because there was so much intrigue and rumour surrounding her life which he was disentangling and at times I thought I certainly wouldn’t like to have met Mary. She seems to have been a difficult and determined woman who aroused strong passions in those who knew and loved her. Although Marnham highlights the links between Mary’s own life and the novels she wrote this biography did not make me want to rush out and read more of her novels.

The Sunday Salon on a cold wet Sunday

Published on by Margaret10 Comments

It’s raining and cold here for today’s Sunday Salon post. Summer wasn’t very long this year but then it often isn’t. It wasn’t in England in 1860 according to my reading today in Kate Summerscale’s remarkable book The Suspicions of Mr Whicher or The Murder at Road Hill House, when summer was brought to an end on the evening of 19 July by a tremendous downpour over Somersetshire and Wiltshire. Ditto this year.

This book is the winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction and it is terrific (Ian Rankin also thinks so). I’ve read nearly half the book and I only started it yesterday. It’s compelling reading but I do have a growing feeling of discomfort because I’m beginning to feel a bit of a voyeur. There is so much detail, not just of the brutal murder of Saville Kent, aged three, but of everything in the lives of the Kent family and the investigations of Detective Inspector Jonathan Whicher of Scotland Yard.

It’s the most amazing book with all the suspects of a classic murder mystery – the original country house murder. Kate Summerscale has thoroughly researched the case using the National Archives, Family Records Centre, and many libraries and museums, including the London Metropolitan Archives and the Metropolitan Police Historical Collection.

Her sources include not just books, pamphlets, essays and newspaper articles but also maps, railway timetables, and so on and so forth – even the weather details are accurate being taken from press reports and the dialogue is from testimony given in court. Did you know that a defendant was not allowed to give evidence at his or her own trial until 1898? I didn’t.

Then there are also the fascinating descriptions of how writers like Dickens and Wilkie Collins used real life police detectives as models in their novels – for example Bleak House, The Moonstone, and The Woman in White. It makes me want to rush and read those books again. Interspersed with the story of the investigation into the murder are details of the role and status of detective, the origin of the word clue, the comparison of a detective with a “sleuthhound” by Charlotte Bronte and the conduct of newspaper reporters. The word “detect” stems from the Latin “de-tegere” meaning “unroof” and the original figure of the detective was the lame devil Asmodeus who took the roofs off houses to spy on the lives inside! That’s exactly what it feels like reading this book, peering right down to the private lives of the Kent family.

It’s just the most wonderful book, no wonder it won the Samuel Johnson Prize.

I’m just wondering if all the copies of this book have the small red blob on the head of the pages that is on the one I’m reading? A nice touch I think continuing the splashes of blood on the front and back covers.

Slow Down – You Read Too Fast

Published on by Margaret10 Comments

I read too quickly and it stems from the time when I learnt to speed read, scanning the page, picking out the key words, not reading all the letters in each word and so on. This has its drawbacks – I don’t actually read headlines in newspapers properly, nor chapter headings. I’ve realised though that I am never going to be able to read all the books I’d like to no matter how quickly I read.

A few years ago I came across this book – In Praise of Slow by Carl Honore and as I was thinking about slowing down my reading speed I dug it out again. This is not just about reading slowly as it covers many aspects of life and it’s really about living better by striking a balance between fast and slow. I’ve come across this quote in other places:

“There is more to life than increasing its speed.” (Gandhi)

There are some things that just cannot be hurried – they just take time. Hand knitting is an example, although some people can knit at great speed, and because the rhythmic, repetitive movement of the needles is so therapuetic knitting can actually lower the heart rate and blood pressure. I find doing a jigsaw puzzle can have the same effect, provided it is not too difficult. It’s an absorbing pastime that requires concentration and has a calming effect.

Reading slowly is not an easy thing for me to do, especially when I’m engrossed in the story and am impatient to find out what happens next, but sometimes this means that I miss a lot of the details and cannot remember much of the book when I’ve finished it. This is why I like to re-read a book that I’ve enjoyed and often find so much more in it than on the first reading.

I’ve also found that writing about the books means that I’ve slowed down. I never used to take notes when reading, unless I’d been studying for an exam, so this was a new thing for me when I started to write my blog. And going over it again in my mind thinking about its themes also helps. But this book suggests that reading is more of a pleasure if you take your time and read in small sips – much in the same way that Dicken’s novels were first published in monthly installments spread out over a year. So maybe my pitifully slow progress in reading Les Miserables is the best way to read it, or maybe not as I keep stopping and reading other books in between.

There is so much more in In Praise of Slow than slowing down reading and as the pace of life seems to ever increasing it pays I think to stop living my life by the clock and trying to fit in as many things as possible. I shall start with reading slowly.

Sunday Salon – Our Longest Days

Published on by Margaret10 Comments

This week I’ve concentrated on reading Our Longest Days: A People’s History of the Second World War by the writers of Mass Observation, edited by Sandra Koa Wing. I’ve been completely immersed in the war years through this fascinating and personal book.

Mass Observation is a social research organisation, founded in 1937, with the aim of creating an “anthropology of ourselves” – a study of the everyday lives of ordinary people in Britain. The information was gathered in various ways, including a team of paid observers and a national volunteer panel of writers. People were interviewed on a number of topics and filled in monthly ‘directives’ on themes such as jokes, eating habits, money and marriage. In August 1939, with war approaching, the organisation asked its panel to keep diaries to record their daily lives and selections from fifteen of these diaries are included in Our Longest Days. They make fascinating reading.

From Sandra Koa Wing’s introduction:

It is worth noting, however, that the diarists did not represent a true cross-section of British society during the war. Although they came from a variety of backgrounds, and from different regions, most of them were middle-class, well-read and articulate. They tended to be people with a natural capacity for observing – and for recording what they observed. Moreover, on the whole their political leanings tended towards left of centre; several were pacifists or conscientious objectors.

Because they are personal accounts there is that sense of being actually there during the air raids, hearing Churchill’s speeches, reading the newspaper reports, experiencing the grief at the number of casualties and deaths and the terrible devastation of the war, the food and clothes rationing and the excitement of D-Day. There is also the hopelessness of the defeats during the first years of the war, the weariness as it went on and on, the yearning for peace and then the excitement, the anticipation and the anti-climax of VE Day and VJ Day.

The main events of each year are summarised before the diary entries for that year, which I found very useful as a quick guide to set the diaries in the context of world events. I began to feel as though I knew the people who wrote the diaries, so the brief biographies are the end were also interesting as there were brief details about what happened to them after the war. There are also a number of photographs, an excellent index and a selection of further reading of Mass Observation publications and other histories of Britain in the Second World War together with a list of related websites.

I think one of my favourites is Muriel Green, who was 19 when the war began. She became a land girl and moved around the country. On her 21st birthday she was working as an under-gardener at Huntley Manor in Gloucester. She wrote:

I shan’t forget my 21st birthday. Apart from getting two greetings telegrams and achieving the first bath for nearly a month it has been the last word in flat. Totally depressing in fact. Life wasn’t all depressing for Muriel and she is one person who kept mainly optimistic and in October 1944 she reflected: It seemed strange to think that the war had been on over five years and how little different it was for us in spite of the ravages of war and what some had gone through. Of course it will never be the same again, but there are many families with far greater losses than our petty grumbles.

Muriel’s family was among the lucky ones. Not so Kenneth Redmond, whose brother Tom was killed in action. His entry on 11 November 1944 reads:

This day only means Remembrance of Tom – War and its horrors, Peace and the best of life that it can bring – all these things will mean to me Tom. I get very morbid when I think of it.

Herbert Brush was 70 in 1939. He was living in south London, a keen gardener, art lover, reader and writer of verse. He wrote diary entries from September 1940 to March 1951 and I particularly liked the personal details he included. He couldn’t buy any razor blades in June 1942 and at the same time he was wondering how accurate the reports of the numbers of casualties reported by the Germans and Russians were, thinking of how pleasant it was ‘to read about so many Nazis being slaughtered and noting the number of different pronunciations of ‘Nazi’.

Churchill says ‘Nazzi’, others say ‘Nartzi’, or’Nertzi’ or ‘Nassie’. I like Churchill’s best as he puts a snarl into the word.

My dad must have liked Churchill’s best too as that is how he said it.

Margaret Forster is quoted on the front cover: ‘I relished all these diaries’. Me too. An excellent book.