Great Granny Webster by Caroline Blackwood

The signs were there to suggest that this would be a good book. It was nominated for the Booker Prize and it has recently been reissued as a NYRB Classic. And “Great Granny Webster” is said to be based, at least in part, on Caroline Blackwood’s own life and family.

Caroline Blackwood was born into the Guinness family in 1931 and she moved among the Anglo-Irish aristocracy, the Soho Bohemians of post-war England and the liberal intelligentsia of 1960s New York.

She was a respected writer, a noted beauty and a society star. But her marriages to three remarkable men – the painter Lucien Freud, the composer Israel Citkowitz and the poet Robert Lowell – were all troubled and she was plagued by alcoholism.

I’m afraid though that the book didn’t quite live up to the expectations that this background created.

At the start of the book our narrator is a 14 year old girl who has been sent to stay with her great grandmother to recuperate after an illness.

Great Granny Webster is an extraordinary creation. She lives in a large house on the outskirts of Brighton with only Richards, an elderly servant with an eye patch. There are no callers and the telephone never rings.

She is a woman takes no pleasure in life, dressing in black and spending her days sitting in a stiff backed chair in front of a fire that is never lit and going out only once a week to be driven up and down the seafront in a taxi.

(She brings the grandmother from the Giles’ cartoons that my father collected into my head, but I don’t think there is a link.)

But for all of this Great Granny Webster is intriguing and the book loses something when she leaves the stage.

As the years pass our still unnamed narrator learns more about her family.

Her Grandmother has been in an asylum for years. Great Granny Webster had her committed after she tried to kill her grandson at his christening, claiming that he had bad blood. Before that had she reigned over her husband’s Irish estate, in a style that was idiosyncratic to say the least.

And she meets her Aunt Lavinia, a much-married socialite who tells her the story of her life. Aunt Lavinia is vivacious, hard-drinking and fun loving, but she has made a number of suicide attempts. Eventually she succeeds.

All of this is reported in a wonderfully matter-of-fact style and with just enough detail to bring it to life. The humour is black but the core of this novel is tragic.

The problem though is that nothing is resolved. Did Great Granny Webster make her family what they became, or did she retreat, unable to deal with their problems?
And what happened to the rest of the family? I don’t know!

And nothing comes together, the story just ends, fifteen years after it started with only the narrator and Richard’s in attendance at Great Granny Webster’s funeral.

This was interesting to read, but as a book it felt unresolved and unfinished. With just over a hundred pages I felt that I was reading sketches for a bigger book. And that book could have been great …..

Baby Love by Louisa Young

“Baby Love” was Louisa Young’s debut novel.

Evangeline Gower had a successful career as a belly dancer until a motorcycle crash injured her and killed her pillion passenger.

That pillion passenger was Evangeline’s pregnant sister Janie, who had been desperate to escape the ex boyfriend who was threatening to break the injunction stopping him from coming near her.

Three years later Evangeline has her life back on an even keel and is raising Janie’s daughter Lily with the support of her parents.

But her equilibrium is disturbed when Janie’s ex boyfriend Jim appears with his new wife, wanting to reclaim Lily.

And Evangeline has unwittingly committed a motoring offence. Wanting to avoid prosecution she agrees to help to police with a case in which her own ex boyfriend may be involved.

That draws Evangeline into a shadowy world of drug dealers, pornographers and corrupt policemen and she finds that there were things in Janie’s life that she knew nothing about.

Louisa Young has created a believable cast of characters and she handles the emotional content – bereavement, parental love, the discovery of things you don’t like about people you love – with a sure touch.

It’s a shame that the emotional story is pushed to one side to make way for the thriller element of the plot much of the second half of the book

That side of the book is dramatic, but unbelievable in quite a few places. The fast pace and the quality of the writing carries the day though.

The ending ties things up nicely while leaving space for sequels (there are two).

“Baby Love” isn’t a book I want to keep but it’s definitely good enough to make me want to read those sequels.

Award – Let’s Be Friends!

Thank you so much to the Lynda at Lynda’s Book Blog for honouring me with the Let’s Be Friends award!

The award says:

“These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.”

It’s difficult to pick just eight from so many wonderful blogs, but here are the ones that I’m awarding:

Wendi at Wendi’s Book Corner
Lisa at Alive on the Shelves
Sandra at Fresh Ink Books
Alessandra at Out of the Blue
Eva at A Striped Armchair
Carrie atBooks and Movies
Gubbinal

and last, but definitely not least:

Margot at Joyfully Retired

Library Loot

Library Loot is a weekly event hosted by Eva and Alessandra to share the library books we find each week.

I am in arrears with my library reading, but a couple of books that I had on order turned up this week and I picked up a few more that I just couldn’t leave behind.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

This is one of those books that seems to be being talked about all over the place, so I ordered it for the Lost in Translation Reading Challenge.

Words of Love by Pamela Norris

An absolutely wonderful history of women’s writing from Heloise to Sylvia Plath. It’s wonderfully readable and will inspire me a to read lots more books! I suspect that this is a book I won’t want to take back and that i will end up buying my own copy to look back to.

The Great Western Beach by Emma Smith

This is a childhood memoir. Emma Smith is a wonderful writer and she grew up between the wars very near where I grew up some years later.

The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

I have been interested in this book for ages and I found a lovely unread “Millennium Collection” edition in the library. Isn’t it nice when you are the first person to read a new library book?!

The Virago Book of Food edited by Jill Foulson

I am definitely a Virago geek and this is a lovely anthology that I will be dipping in and out of over the next few weeks.

The Owl Service by Alan Garner

I loved Alan Garner’s books as a child and his name was the first that came into my head when I thought about the Childhood Favourites Reading.

But, because I always borrowed his books from the library and have never owned any of them, this was the first time I have held one of his books in several decades.

It was a risk to go back but I had faith in the quality of Alan Garner’s writing, and so I took the chance and ordered up a copy of “The Owl Service” from Cornwall County Library’s fiction reserve.

The copy that arrived dates back to the sixties, so it could even be the very same volume I read as a child.

“The Owl Service” is a wonderful story that brings Welsh mythology to life in a modern day setting.

Alison hears scratching above her ceiling when in bed with a stomachache. The cook’s son Gwyn helps her to open the hatch leading to the loft so they can investigate. All they find is a pile of plates.

The plates have what looks like an abstract patterned border. Alison discovers though that when she traces around the pattern on pieces of paper and fit them together they form tiny paper owls.

And then strange things start to happen. The pattern disappears from plates brought down from the attic and, however many owls Alison constructs, they all disappear.

Gwyn’s mother is clearly alarmed by the discovery. The hatch to the attic is nailed up and, when their interest persists, Alison and Gwyn are forbidden to meet them to meet.

When he hears what is happening Huw, the elderly and eccentric local handyman tells Gwyn a local legend that may be linked to the owl service. It seems that there are things in his own past that Gwyn knows nothing about and that he may have a role to play….

Alan Garner writes lovely prose, cleverly working in a Welsh myth from “The Mabinogion” into his contemporary story, and creating a real page-turner. I was happy to find that “The Owl Service” still had the power to both scare and enchant me.

I’m so glad I risked the re-read!

Tuesday Thingers

This week’s question posed by Wendi:

Prior to today, were you aware of Open Shelves Classification? Have you helped to classify any books yet? Is this something you are interested in? Did you know that if you classify any books, it will also show you who else has classified the book?

My answer:

I read something on the LT blog about the Open Shelves Classification a while ago and took a look at the discussion group, but I didn’t really follow it up.

The Dewey Decimal System has its problems, particularly with some numbers being heavily used and some pretty much redundant and with issues of rights to use and display the details, but I’m used to it.

When I look up a book in the library I don’t think about what its number means, I just go and look for where that number lives.

But there’s no harm in looking to see if there’s something better so I’ve had a go at categorising a few of my books.

The new system doesn’t seem to solve some of the issues I have at the moment. For example, does the biography of a historical figure go in biography or history? I still don’t know!

But if libraries could display a full explanation of book classification, which they can’t with Dewey, wouldn’t that be a very good thing?

Teaser Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by MizB

Just quote a couple of spoiler-free sentences the book you’re reading to tempt other readers.

Here is mine:-

“Edith was frightened of being left in this strange house, alone with her living mother and her dead father. She could not own to her fear, but she did everything in her power to delay the departure of her brothers and sister”

From “All Passion Spent” by Vita Sackville-West.

Oxford World’s Classics: Which Character are you?

Find out who you are here!

Who am I?

“You have the characteristics of Alice from “Alice In Wonderland” and “Through The Looking Glass” by Lewis Carroll.

You are a dreamer with a vivid imagination, someone who thinks outside the box, with a tendency to end up in unusual situations.”

How wonderful to be cast in a book I have always loved!

And it gives me a chance to post some of Arthur Rackham’s wonderful illustrations:

The Caucus Race

Advice From a Caterpillar

A Mad Tea Party

The Mock Turtle's Lament

Cards Flew Up

Books, Baguettes & Bedbugs: The Left Bank World of Shakespeare & Co by Jeremy Mercer

“If you ever come to Paris
On a cold and rainy night
And find the Shakespeare store
It can be a welcome sight

Because it has a motto
Something friendly and wise
Be kind to strangers
Lest they’re angels in disguise”

 

Shakespeare & Co in Paris is one of the world’s most famous bookstores. The original store opened in 1919 and became known as the haunt of such literary heavyweights as Ernest Hemingway, George Bernard Shaw, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

The shop was forced to lose in 1941 – allegedly after owner Sylvia Beach refused to sell the last copy of “Finnegan’s Wake” to an occupying Nazi officer.

A decade later another bookstore with a similar free thinking ethos opened on the Left Bank and 1964, with the agreement of Sylvia Beach, its owner George Whitman resurrected the name “Shakespeare & Co.”

The shop was the principal meeting place for a new generation of writers, and would become renowned for its run ins with the authorities, its cluttered but captivating interior and its open door policy to visitors – even providing beds for those of a literary mindset who found themselves down on their luck.

That tradition continues still and Canadian Jeremy Mercer was one of those who found shelter in the bookstore. He had a career as a crime reporter but, when information from a criminal source that he had promised to hold back was published, he thought it wise to flee. He went to Paris with a vague idea of studying French to complete an unfinished college course.

Jeremy Mercer reveals a world inside the bookstore that seems utterly unbelievable at times. Residents are required to write an essay for admission, evict the previous occupant of their space, read a book a day and help out

Misadventures and anecdotes abound. The most interesting concern owner George Whitman, a man who regards money with disdain, sets fire to his hair in order to give it a trim, and dreams of his estranged daughter taking over his empire. He accommodates an ever-changing group of residents, who rise and fall in his favour.

The story in a reporter’s style and while the book is readable it also has some serious flaws. Jeremy Mercer as a central character is not that engaging and some of the stories are tied up a little too tidily, to the point where I had to seriously consider whether they had been somewhat embroidered.

This isn’t a bad book – I’m glad I read it – but Shakespeare & Co is worthy of better. Maybe there’s another book out there …..

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

“How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrid, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June. If it was only the other way! If it was I who were to be always young, and the picture that were to grow old! For this – for this – I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give!”

I loved this book. It combines wonderful writing with a striking and engrossing plot and it has contemporary resonances that make it truly worthy of the overused label “classic”.

Dorian Gray sees his youthful beauty captured in a painting and wishes that he could stay like that for ever and the picture age instead.

Dorian’s wish is granted and the picture becomes twisted and ugly as a result of his selfish hedonism in his perpetual youth.

All of this happens after Dorian falls under the influence of Lord Henry Wotton. Lord Henry advocates the pursuit of pleasure at any and all costs and the hazard of a virtuous and peaceful life. Dorian is suggestible and Lord Henry’s influence is profound.

Painter Basil Hallward expresses more conservative views but his words are not heeded, and Dorian takes steps to evade him because does not want Basil to see what is happening to his painting.

The story is both horrifying and hypnotic to watch. It was widely believed in the Victorian era that you could see a man’s character on his face and, as Dorian becomes depraved, selfish, and cruel, this is etched upon his portrait until it becomes too much for him to bear.

The book is filled out with long conversations about conversations covering a multitude of themes. Sometimes they disturb the pace but the characters are psychologically true and that carries the day.

And best of all, the language used in this book is a joy. Wonderful, flowing, vivid descriptions of characters, places and actions verge on poetry. It may be a bit too flowery for some, but it is the kind of writing I love.

I am only sorry that “The Picture of Dorian Gray” is Oscar Wilde’s only novel.