Halloween, the midnight hour is close at hand, and my RIP challenge is complete.
Four wonderful books read:
Plus three lovely portmanteau books:
A wonderful season.
Thank you Carl!
“My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.”
So much praise for this little book. Could it possibly live up to expectations? Of course it could. And I knew it would from that wonderful opening paragraph.
Merricat (well how would you abbreviate Mary Katherine ?!) is a quite wonderful narrator – engaging, unreliable and utterly unique. And her tale is quite extraordinary.
But I’m not going to say too much about that tale. Much has been written already. And if you haven’t read the book you really should. And you will enjoy it more for knowing little beforehand.
Merricat lives in the family home with Constance, her elder sister and Julian, her elderly uncle. The rest of the family has died.
How?
Merricat is the only member of the family who ever goes to town – to do necessary shopping. She is regularly jostled and jeered.
Why?
The arrival of a visitor prompts a series of events and revelations.
What?
The answering of those questions is intriguing and compelling and will take you into a very strange and different world. A world were every detail, every charater, ever relationship is just perfectly executed.
The main revelation is guessable, but that really doesn’t matter. It just throws up more questions.
I started intigued and finished unsettled.
Praise more than justified, and expectations more than met.
On 3rd August 1936 Heywood Hill opened a bookshop in Curzon Street. It still bears his name.
In the early years he and his wife Anne ran the shop together.
Anne writes simply and openly of this period in the introduction to this volume, her love for books, the shop and, of course, her husband shining through.
But then in 1939 war broke out. And in 1942 Heywood was called up.
Letters, of course. ensue.
Anne writes vividly of events in the bookshop. The antiquarian book trade seems largely unaffected by the war and the London literati – most often Osbert Sitwell and Frances Partridge – pass through. Anne cannot fill her husband’s shoes as manager, but her colleagues clearly tactfully support her. And of course, like so many other women, she desperately missed, and worried about, her husband.
Meanwhile Heywood struggles with basic training. Like so many of his generation he has been called upon to play a role for which his life has been no preparation. He persists though, and eventually finds his niche in intelligence.
Looking back I see that my paragraph about Anne is significantly longer than my paragraph about Heywood. That mirrors their contributions to this volume book – it is more “A Bookshop’s War” than “A Bookseller’s War”.
Initially this made interesting reading, but soon the gaps were very apparant.
No references to friends and family, beyond the fact that Anne had seen them or heard from them.
No references to home-life, or even to the coming child.
No references to the wider world.
Of course some editing must have been necessary, and of course the privacy of all those involved must be protected. But what is left is so devoid of context, so unrooted in a recognisable life, that it ends up just floating by.
The book ends when Anne steps down from the shop to look after her new daughter.
And I’m afraid that it didn’t offer enough to make it stay with me.
I had wonderful luck at the library last weekend – three wonderful books from the new books shelf!
Here they are:
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffennegger
“Julia and Valentina Poole are normal American teenagers – normal, at least, for identical ‘mirror’ twins who have no interest in college or jobs or possibly anything outside their cozy suburban home. But everything changes when they receive notice that an aunt whom they didn’t know existed has died and left them her flat in an apartment block overlooking Highgate Cemetery in London. They feel that at last their own lives can begin …but have no idea that they’ve been summoned into a tangle of fraying lives, from the obsessive-compulsive crossword setter who lives above them to their aunt’s mysterious and elusive lover who lives below them, and even to their aunt herself, who never got over her estrangement from the twins’ mother – and who can’t even seem to quite leave her flat.”
This one probably didn’t need an introduction, but it got one anyway. I had it on order in one library and then it turned up on the new books shelf in another. Of course I pounced on it!
The Finest Type of English Womanhood by Rachel Heath
“It’s 1946, and seventeen-year-old Laura Trelling is stagnating in her dilapidated Sussex family home, while her quietly eccentric parents slip further into isolation. Then she meets Paul Lovell – a chance encounter that will change the course of her destiny, and bring her a new life in pre-apartheid South Africa. Three years earlier, and many miles north, sixteen-year-old Gay Gibson is no less desperate to escape England. Gay’s heart is set on stardom – but first she must find a way out of Birkenhead and the dreary prospect of secretarial college. When their paths cross in Johannesburg, Laura is exposed to Gay’s wild life of parties and liaisons. Thrown together, each with her own agenda, the girls find their lives inextricably entangled, with fatal consequences.”
I’ve read a lot of good things about this book, and I’m thinking it’s going to make a nice change from all the darker, gothic mystery-type books I’ve been reading recently.
“John Stone: a financier and armaments manufacturer, a man so wealthy that in the years before World War One he was able to manipulate markets, industries and indeed whole countries and continents. Stone’s Fall is a quest to discover how and why John Stone dies, falling out of a window at his London home. Chronologically, it goes backwards – London in 1909, then Paris in 1890, and finally Venice in 1867 – and Stone’s character and motivation deepen as the book progresses; in the first part he is almost an abstraction, existing only in the memory of those who knew him; in the second he is a character, but only a secondary one; in the third he is the narrator of the story. A quest, then, but also a love story and a murder mystery, set against the backdrop of the evolution of high-stakes international finance, Europe’s first great age of espionage and the start of the twentieth century’s arms race.”
When Jackie described this as “my favourite book of 2009 so far” a couple of weeks ago I sat up and took notice. She has read some great books! So I had to pick this one up too.
Have you read any of these? What did you think? Which book should I go for next? And which are you curious to know more about?
And what did you find in the library this week?
See more Library Loot here.
Posted in Library Talk
Last week the Cornish coast was lashed by storms.
I was tucked up at home with a book, with waves outside crashing against the sea wall and being forced up over the promenade and the road. Our garden was soaked by the spray and the downstairs windows got a salt water rinse.
It’s a marvellous sight when you’re inside, secure in the knowledge that your home has withstood a multitude of storms over a hundred years and more.
And in the pages of my book two children looked out on a similar storm.
Ethan and Cathy were home alone, in an inn on the edge of a Cornish cliff. They had been sick and their widowed father had set out through the storm to fetch the doctor. After he left they felt better and got up to watch out for his return. But the man who appeared outside was not their father, but a young sailor.
Where had he come from? What was he doing out on such a night?
While Ethan hesitated Cathy granted the man admission to the inn. And they stuck a bargain. The man, Thackery, would be given refreshment and shelter from the storm, and in exchange he would tell the children stories of the sea.
Wonderful stories! Filled with all of the traditional elements of sea stories yet fresh and new. Each one simple,clear and engaging – and holding a striking twist.
Favorites? A compelling tale where the ship’s cat plays a central role. The story of two sailors who visit a tattoo parlour in a foreign port with extraordinary consequences. And, for me, the most haunting tale told of a child picked up from a small boat adrift.
And as the stories unfold Ethan begins to wonder where his father is and why Thackery has come. Ethan asks questions. Thackery tells no more than he wants to, and deflects attention by offering up more stories.
Until the final tale, which explains everything, twisting, not just once, but twice.
Everything is executed just perfectly – the words of Chris Priestley and the illustrations of David Roberts.
Yes, the format is the same as their previous work, Uncle Montague’s Tales of Terror, but it works. This volume is distinctive enough to stand up in its own right and just that little bit more sophisticated than its predecessor.
Perfect reading for the season – and I look forward to the next volume!
“Nothing looks more peaceful and secure than a country house seen at early morning. The broad daylight gives the look of safety and protection, and there is the tranquillity of night mixed with the brightness of day, for all is yet silent and at rest about the sleeping house. One glorious July morning saw this calm loveliness brood over the Tower of Mainwarey, a dwelling so called, because the chief part of the building consisted of a square tower many centuries old, about which some well-fitted additions of the more recent possessors had grouped themselves. It stood in the midst of a garden bright with summer flowers, which at this hour lifted their silver heads all splendid with dew and sunshine; and it looked down the valley to the village, which stood at a little distance, intersected and embowered with orchards, and crowned with the spire of the church. Early as it was, another half hour had not passed before the master of the house descended some steps which led from the window of his dressing-room, and walked through his blooming garden to the stable, where his horse was ready for him, as it had been every morning for the last few weeks; and whenever the day was beautiful as this was, he had passed the early hours in riding.”
A lovely setting and a charming opening, as Paul Ferroll – clearly from the very start a classic Victorian gentleman – rises early to ride over his estate, meeting and speaking with his tenants.
A little too lovely? A little too charming? Yes! An servant is sent out from the house to break shattering news to its master. His wife has been murdered – stabbed as she lay sleeping.
A servant is tried, but acquitted, and subsequently emigrates with his family. Paul Ferroll shuts up his house and goes away.
It’s a fast-paced, dramatic and compelling opening and it really whets the appetite for what is to come.
Subsequent events unravel at a rather more stately pace. Paul Ferroll returns with a new wife, with whom he will soon have a daughter. And he continues to play the part of the gentleman very well. He becomes a magistrate and a respected author and meets all of his social obligations.
Yet something is amiss. Why does he reject every friendly overture from his neighbors? Why is he remote from the daughter who clearly adores him? Why is he unconcerned about the risks of a cholera outbreak?
The return after eighteen years of the widow of the servant acquitted of the murder of Paul Ferroll leads him to make a confession.
And that leads to a conclusion as fast-paced, dramatic and compelling as the opening. Paul Ferroll is tried, convicted and sentenced to death. But, with the help of his daughter, he escapes and the two start a new life in Boston. Where he eventually dies, peacefully and in his own bed.
It’s a cleverly structured and quite extraordinary tale.
On one level it is a portrait of a society that, though it suspected that husband killed wife, dismissed those ideas simply because he was a gentleman.
And on another it is a psychological portrait of a remarkable murderer.
The aspect though that sets this book apart is that it makes no judgements about the behaviour of Paul Ferroll. That is left to the reader and that, together with the absence of the traditional downfall of the villain, makes reading unsettling and compelling in equal parts.
Paul Ferroll was a highly successful and influential book in its day and its place in literary history is easy to see. Its anti-hero shares a number of characteristics with a certain Mr Rochester, and his story has many of the features of the sensation novels of Wilkie Collins and Mary Elizabeth Braddon that would come later.
But the book was also heavily criticised for its moral ambiguity, and maybe that is why it does not have the prominence of other novels of the period. It should!
The Valancourt edition is beautiful and provides a wealth of background material about both author and novel. I warmly recommend it to anyone with an interest in the period.
Hello! Jane has asked me to write a post to explain why we haven’t done any blogging or commenting for a few days.
It started on Thursday. Jane had to work late, and so it was beginning to get dark when we went out for our evening walk.
On the way home we were coming across the beach and, while Jane was waiting around the corner for me to finish sniffing, we got separated. I thought that she had gone to the boating pool, and so I went to look for her there. And she thought I was still on the beach, but when she looked back I was gone. She was very worried and looked up and down the promenade and the beach for me. But I wasn’t there.
I went all the way home on my own. Through the boating pool and over some busy roads. I went to the back door, but I couldn’t get in. I didn’t know that Jane had come home for a torch and to organise a search party to look for me! And that her mother, who can’t walk very well, was listening for the phone and asking passers-by if they had seen me.
So I went to the gardens to look for Jane. I went all round the gardens, but she wasn’t there. And then the security man locked all the gates. I couldn’t get out! So I barked very loudly. Lots of people heard and came to the gate. And Jane heard me! She came and climbed over the fence and we were reunited! A happy ending!
And that’s why there was no blogging on Thurday.
On Friday Jane was poorly so there was no blogging then either.
But today she is feeling a little better and so we are back. And we are cheering for the Read-a-Thon.Ra Ra Ra !
or as we dogs say: Grrrr Grrrr Grrrr!
And happy birthday to me – 4 years old tomorrow!
Posted in Thoughts & Ramblings
Marg is coordinating Library Loot this week.
I’m still trying to be being strict, and just three books came home this week:
The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa
“He is a brilliant maths professor with a peculiar problem – ever since a traumatic head injury some seventeen years ago, he has lived with only eighty minutes of short-term memory. She is a sensitive but astute young housekeeper with a ten-year-old son, who is entrusted to take care of him. Each morning, as the Professor and the Housekeeper are reintroduced to one another, a strange, beautiful relationship blossoms between them. The Professor may not remember what he had for breakfast, but his mind is still alive with elegant equations from the past.He devises clever maths riddles – based on her shoe size or her birthday – and the numbers, in all of their articulate order, reveal a sheltering and poetic world to both the Housekeeper and her little boy. With each new equation, the three lost souls forge an affection more mysterious than imaginary numbers, and a bond that runs deeper than memory.”
Last time I checked the library catalogue there wasn’t a copy in the county. But then a shiny new copy appeared before me. I didn’t hesitate!
“A rich collection of specially commissioned work, featuring some of Britain’s leading poets and scholars, Chatter of Choughs intertwines poetry, prose and illustrations with ornithological accounts of the chough’s recent fortunes in Cornwall and further afield.”
I like to have a book to hand that I can dip in and out of, and this one looks particularly lovely.
The Haunting of Hilll House by Shirley Jackson
“Four seekers have arrived at the rambling old pile known as Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of psychic phenomena; Theodora, his lovely and lighthearted assistant; Luke, the adventurous future inheritor of the estate; and Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman with a dark past. As they begin to cope with chilling, even horrifying occurrences beyond their control or understanding, they cannot possibly know what lies ahead.
Another book on the new book shelf that I just had to pick up!
Have you read any of these? What did you think? Which book should I go for next? And which are you curious to know more about?
And what did you find in the library this week?
Posted in Library Talk
