The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Virago Modern Classic #50

Such a little book. Just 36 pages in my (earlier) Virago Modern Classics edition.

But what those 36 pages hold is extraordinary.

A nameless woman tells her own story. Her words are sparse but her voice comes through clear and direct.

She and her husband have a short-term lease on a large country house. She has recently given birth and appears to be suffering from what we know to be post-natal depression.

But one hundred years ago it was seen rather differently. She want to move freely, and most of all to write. But her husband, a doctor, prescribes complete rest and isolation in an attic room. A room with an iron bedstead, bars on the window and peeling yellow wallpaper.

Why? Because she cannot play the role of submissive role of wife that society – including her friends and family – has cast her in.

She has no outlet for her intellect. No means of expressing her emotions. And minimal human contact.

She becomes obsessed with the room’s hideously patterned yellow wallpaper. At first she simply dislikes it. But she grows to hate it.Then to fear it. And finally she become fascinated, absorbed by the wallpaper and the lives she within and behind it.

It is a stunning portrait of one woman’s descent into madness. And a clear indictment of a particular society’s oppression of women.

So much has been and could be written about The Yellow Wallpaper. But I feel so deeply for its narrator that I cannot write about her words intellectually.

A compelling and deeply unsettling piece of storytelling.

Chess by Stefan Zweig

“The usual last minute bustle of activity reigned on board the large passanger ship that was to leave New York for Buenos Aires at midnight. Visitors who had come up from the country to see their friends off were pushing and shoving, telegraph boys with caps tilted sidewayd on their heads ran through the saloons calling out names, luggage and flowers were being brought aboard, inquisitive children ran up and down the steps, while the band for the deck show played inperturbably on.”

Beautiful prose. Vivid pictures. Wonderful storytelling. They continue, from this opening, right through this remarkable novella.

One of those visitors points out another passenger to the friend he is seeing off. The man he points out is the world chess champion. A man who rose swiftly from obscurity to invincibility. An otherwise dull man with one quite extraordinary talent.

Word soon spreads and a group of chess lovers challenge the champion. He accepts – for a price – and crushes them quite mercilessly.

But then a soft voice from the crowd of observers offers suggested moves. Quite brilliant moves. The speaker is unknown and insists that he hasn’t played chess for more than twenty years.

Who is he? Where has he come from?

He tells his story, and it is quite remarkable.

Will he play the champion? And what will happen if he does?

Another remarkable story.

This is a little book but it says so much about a momentous period of history; about the human condition, the survival instinct, the need for a sense of purpose and so much more.

And it says it so, so well.

There is so much that I would like to say, but I really don’t want to give any more of the story away and it is difficult to find just the right words to expalin the wonder of Stefan Zweig’s words.

Read the book! Chess says so much, and, if you do read it, it will definitely stay with you.

The Victorian Chaise-Longue by Marghanita Laski

It’s a couple of years now since I read my first couple of novels by Marghanita Laski – Little Boy Lost and then The Village. Two very different books and I loved them both.

Yet I hesitated to read The Victorian Chaise-Longue. Could it possibly live up to such high expectations? Wouldn’t it be awful to not have something new by Marghanita Laski still to read?

The second problem was solved this autumn when Persephone kindly published To Bed with Grand Music. And then the November Novella Challenge inspired me to finally open the pages of The Victorian Chaise-Longue.

Could it live up to my expectations?

“Will you give me your word of honour,” said Melanie, “that I am not going to die?”

It is the middle of the twentieth century. Early in Melanie’s pregnancy her doctor found a patch on her lung – an early sign of tuberculosis. She now has a son, but she hasn’t been allowed to leave her bedroom or be in close contact with her child since the birth.

But now Melanie’s health is improving, and the doctor accedes to her wish to go downstairs and lie upon the Victorian-Chaise Longue.

It’s a strange piece of furniture. Old, worn and out of keeping with the rest of the house, and yet Melanie was drawn to it. She had to have it.

Melanie is spoiled, but she has charm and I couldn’t help sympathising with her situation. And wondering to what degree her upbringing, her family and society had taught her to behave as she did.

She falls asleep on her chaise-longue. And she wakes up on it. But she wakes up a hundred years earlier, in Victorian England. Where is she? Why is she being called Milly?

Melanie thinks she is in a nightmare. She tries to wake up, but she can’t. This is real. She is trapped and helpless.

Marghanita Laski conveys her feelings quite perfectly. The atmosphere is claustrophobic, and deeply unsettling. And the more you think the more unsettling it becomes.

Melanie gradually finds out more about Milly’s life. The similarities in their lives and their circumstances are extraordinary, but the consequences in their different times are starkly different.

“We seem to be together now, she explained, you and I, both hopeless. I think we did the same things, she told her, we loved a man and we flirted and we took little drinks, but when I did those things there was nothing wrong, and for you it was a terrible punishable sin.”

It would be unfair to say too much more, but the situation and Melanie’s emotions intensify as the story build to a conclusion.

The Victorian Chaise-Longue works on more than one level. It is a fine piece of storytelling and it is also a striking analysis of the changing position of women in society.

And while many authors would make a lengthy novel out of this material, Marghanita Laski distils it perfectly into just 99 pages.

The writing and the characterisation is as wonderful as my previous experiences with her writing had led me to expect.

And, once again, Marghanita Laski has come up with a stunning final sentence. How does she do that?!

The Victorian Chaise-Longue definitely lived up to my high expectations.

Persephone Books edition endpapers

Library Loot

Do I have any library loot this week? Of course I do!

Here it is:

Thaw by Fiona Robyn

“Ruth is thirty two years old and doesn’t know if she wants to be thirty three. Her meticulously-ordered lonely life as a microbiologist is starved of pleasure and devoid of meaning. She decides to give herself three months to decide whether or not to end her life, and we read her daily diary as she struggles to make sense of her past and grapples with the pain of the present. Can Red, the eccentric Russian artist Ruth commissions to paint her portrait, find a way to warm her frozen heart?”

I have Sassy Brit to thank for this one. She took a Tuesday teaser from this book and I was immediately intrigued. And Fiona herself is planning a Blogsplash for Thaw early next year – more details here.

Their Finest Hour and a Half by Lissa Evans

“It is 1940. France has fallen, and only a narrow strip of sea lies between Great Britain and invasion. The war could go either way and everyone must do their bit. Young copy writer Catrin Cole is drafted into the Ministry of Information to help ‘write women’ in propaganda films – something that the men aren’t very good at. She is quickly seconded to the Ministry’s latest endeavour: a heart-warming tale of bravery and rescue at Dunkirk. It’s all completely fabricated, of course, but what does that matter when the nation’s morale is at stake? Since call-up has stripped the industry of its brightest and best, it is the callow, the jaded and the utterly unsuitable who must make up the numbers: Ambrose Hilliard, third most popular British film-star of 1924; Edith Beadmore, Madame Tussauds wardrobe assistant turned costumier; and Arthur Frith, whose peacetime job as a catering manager has not really prepared him for his sudden, unexpected elevation to Special Military Advisor. And in a serious world, in a nation under siege, they must all swallow their mutual distaste, ill-will and mistrust and unite for the common good, for King and Country, and – in one case – for better or worse… .”

I really liked Lissa Evans’ earlier novels and I was delighted when this one was longlisted for the Orange Prize. I saw that the library had a copy in stock and so I waited. And waited. It finally turned up just as I’d forgotten about it.

Under Fire: Children of the Second World War Tell Their Stories by Phil Robins

“Using taped interviews from the Imperial War Museum’s extensive Sound Archive, Phil Robins has gathered together this compelling collection of first-hand accounts from people who grew up during the Second World War. As well as British children’s stories of evacuation and the Blitz, this book also includes memories from survivors of the Holocaust in Europe and from Germans who as children witnessed the near-total destruction of their country. Illustrated with many contemporary photographs, and including a glossary, a timeline of the War, and an index, Under Fire provides a vivid insight into childhood experiences of wartime.”

My final War Through The Generations Challenge Book.

The Fox by D H Lawrence

“Banford and March live and work together on their meagre farm, surviving hardship only by sheer determination and dedicated labour. The farm is their world and a place of safety – that is, until a young soldier walks in and upsets the women’s delicate status quo. None could have predicted quite the effect his presence would have on their lives.”

Lawrence is a mystery, put when I saw this little novella reissued by the Hesperus place it seemed that it might be a good place to start.

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.

Teaser Tuesdays / It’s Tuesday, where are you ?

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

Here is mine:-

“His habits soon became known. To the educated, he was a man of science cursed with an appalling lack of manners; to everyone under ten he was an evil doctor who cut souls from the living bodies of naughty children and ate them.”

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by MizB

I have come to Mr Crowther’s house. He is very reclusive, and I have never been here and we have never met. But now I need his help. You see, he is an anatomist and I have found a dead man on the edge of the estate. Wearing a ring bearing the Thornleigh arms…

It’s Tuesday, where are you? is hosted by raidergirl3.

It’s a strange one!

This all comes courtesy of Instruments of Darkness by Imogen Robertson

Arthur Rackham: A Life With Illustration

Where I first saw Arthur Rackham’s illustrations is lost now, in the mists of time: I have loved them for as long as I can remember. So when I saw this book on the returns trolley in the library I just had to pick it up.

What makes these illustrations so wonderful? The introduction suggests that is the perfect balance of grace and grotesque. Yes it is, and the wonderful balance of the realistic and the fantastic too.

But I’m not inclined to analyse too much, I just know that they are wonderful!

Alice in Wonderland

So who was the man behind them?

A simple, quiet man it seems. His life is set out clearly, and with a wealth of fascinating detail.

Did you know, I wonder that the Mad Hatter in Rackham’s illustrations for Alice in Wonderland was a self-portrait?

At first the illustrator struggled for commissions, but soon he was in demand. He could pick and chose. Later he could even create his own projects. How many illustrators can do that?

Towards then end of his life his popularity dipped a little. Woodcuts were in vogue.

But Arthur Rackham never quite went away. His work is still in print today, seventy years after his death.

It’s quite a legacy.

James Hamilton’s book is beautifully written and clearly very well researched.

It is supplemented by a detailed bibliography, a chronological list of rackham’s work and a fascinating account of how an illustrator makes a living.

It feels definitive to me.

And best of all, it is packed full of wonderful images. And I really can’t resist posting a few!

Peter Pan

The Ring

Gulliver

The Case of the Gilded Fly by Edmund Crispin

There have been many reissues of golden age crime novels in recent years, and this is one I was particularly pleased to see.

You see, a couple of years ago I snatched up a selection of Edmund Crispin’s works in elderly green Penguin editions. Pretty books, but unfortunately when I opened the first in the series I discovered that it began at page 25.

The mystery of the missing pages is unsolved, but I have learned to open and check old books now before buying.

Now, back to the book.

I always find it difficult to write about mysteries. Difficult to say waht you want to say without giving too much away. So here’s what the cover tells you, and then I’ll expand a little with my reaction:

“Yseut Haskell, a pretty but spiteful young actress with a talent for destroying men’s lives, is found dead in a college room just metres from unconventional Oxford don Gervase Fen’s office. The victim is found wearing an unusual ring, a reproduction of a piece in the British Museum featuring a gold gilded fly but does this shed any light on her murder? As they delve deeper into Yseut’s unhappy life the police soon realise that anyone who knew her would have shot her, but can Fen discover who could have shot her? “The Case of the Gilded Fly” is the first Gervase Fen mystery and is the perfect introduction to this most idiosyncratic, eccentric and entertaining detective.”

Gervase Fen is an Oxford don. His subject is English literature and he has a keen interest in the art of detection.

His old friend, Sir Richard Freeman is Chief Constable of Oxford and he is fascinated by books and literature.

Two wonderfully drawn characters, giving a very interesting perspective on the events which will unfold.

Both are travelling back to Oxford by train.

The story opens with a passage describing the varying behaviour of passengers as a train approaches its destination. Maybe not essential to the plot but, because it is so perfectly observed, so engaging and so beautifully written, that it is the perfect appetizer.

All of the principals in the story that is to come are travelling to Oxford by train too. Each in turn is carefully described. a little contrived maybe, but it is so well done that you really can’t mind. And the relationships of the theatrical troupe at the centre of things are quite complex, so its useful to be able to refer back.

There is a death. A strange death. It couldn’t have been suicide, it couldn’t have been an accident, and it definitely happened, so it must be murder. There is no shortage of suspects – pretty much anybody could have had a motive for this particular killing. But just how the murderer did it is quite baffling.

That makes this mystery particularly compelling, and a wonderful cast of characters gives it life and depth.

Fen has the solution almost immediately, but he struggles with his conscience when it comes to identifying the murderer.

That solution, when it comes is extraordinary, but utterly logical and possible.

And so you have a perfect mystery, beautifully written and perfectly evoking time and place.

Gervase Fenn though is a character you are likely to either love or hate. He is erudite but has a tendency to be verbose; his conversations are peppered with literary illusions – some I picked up and some passed me by; and he has immense confidence in his own abilities.

For me it was love, and I look forward to meeting him again.

1 Today

A charm for the first birthday of my blog, because I have been charmed:

• By so many wonderful blogs. I’m still discovering new ones.
• By so many lovely people out there. I’ve had more insight into so many different lives.
• By so many wonderfu, creativel ideas. From memes to challenges to many more things I can’t put a name to right now.
• And of course by books. So many that I might not have found had other bloggers not taken the trouble to write about them.

So if you’re out there, THANK YOU!

Year one has been a joy, and I do believe year two will be too!

Stone’s Fall by Iain Pears

“The church of St Germain des Pres, at the start of what was supposed to be spring, was a miserable place, made worse by the drabness of a city still in a state of shock, worse still by the little coffin in front of the altar which was my reason for being there, worse again by the aches and pains of my body as I kneeled.”

I tried to resist “Stone’s Fall“. Such a big book – 590 pages – I really didn’t have the time, or the space on my library ticket. And I hadn’t been that taken by “An Instance of The Fingerpost“, my only previous encounter with Iain Pears.

But Jackie had written such a glowing report that I just had to pick it up and take a closer look. I opened the pages, read those words and was immediately hooked. Home it came!

I am so glad that it did.

The central question is simple: How and why did the wealthy and powerful industrialist John Stone come to fall to his death from the window of his London home? The answer is anything but.

First there is a prologue, set in Paris in 1953. Two men meet after a funeral. It is short and simple but it sets the tone beautifully and provides a firm basis that will hold together what is to come.

And then the story travels back in time: to London in 1909, to Paris in 1890 and finally to Venice in 1967.

In 1909 John Stone is dead, in 1890 he features in another man’s story, and in 1867 he tells his own story. Three engaging and distinctive narrators.

Stories told backwards rarely work for me, but this one did. The plotting is so well executed, with all of the twists and turns rooted in the history of the characters.

What wonderful characters! Wonderfully observed and utterly intriguing. Settings too, vividly evoked. This is definitely one of those books where you can hear the voices and see the scenes in your head.

There is much going on: financial, industrial and political intrigue; mysteries and investigations; and a striking love story. It all works together beautifully.

And all of this in lovely, cool, clear prose.

For most of its pages “Stone’s Fall” is a story for the intellect, but at key points the emotions were perfectly pitched, and they hit hard.

The story was long and involved, but it held on to me right up to a startling conclusion that shifted my perceptions and made me rethink many elements of what had come before.

Am impressive achievement.

Library Loot

I love libraries. Most important are the books of course. But there are other things too. Like library steps. I love steering them to the right shelves, climbing up to find treasures tucked away and then sitting down on top to read. One day I will have a set of my own!

I mention that because this weeks Library Loot is all old books, two of them found when I took trips up the library steps.

Here they are:

From the bottom up:

London War Notes 1939 to 1945 by Mollie Panter-Downes

“For six years Mollie Panter-Downes covered the war from London for the New Yorker.”

I headed straight up the library steps when I saw the name Mollie Panter-Downes on a title that I hadn’t come across before.   She wrtes wonderfully, and just glancing through I can see that this book is packed with wonderful details, and that it is going to be so informative.

Night Thoughts of a Country Landlady, edited by Edith Olivier

“She was not well off, but she had never thought of taking in paying guests, and only a European war could have driven her to such a revolution.”

I spotted this when I was at the top of the steps with  Mollie Panter-Downes! I fell in love with Edith Olivier’s “The Love-Child” last year, was charmed by her autobiography this year and, now I have found this little book, whick looks equally wonderful.

Away From The Bombs by Ricky Clitheroe

“Evacuee! What did it mean to a small boy and thousands more like him who were ordered away from their homes and families 50 years ago?”

I fell in love with Terence Frisby’s “Kisses on a Postcard”, a memoir of life as an evacuee in Cornwall a while ago, and when I was talking to somebody about it in the library he warmly recommended this little book from the Cornish section. A memoir of a boy evacuated to a place that is so familiar to me – my father’s home town of Newlyn.

Emmeline by Charlotte Smith

“Charlotte Smith’s first novel created a sensation on its appearance in 1788. Among its earliest readers was Jane Austen, who drew on the character of Emmeline when she created Catherine Morland of Northanger Abbey.”

Doesn’t that sound wonderful? I’ve been meaning to order this one up from reserve fiction for a while. I’m particularly glad I did now i see that Emmeline hasn’t been out since 1999. Poor girl!

A wonderful set of books!

Apart from the books, what do you like best about libraries?

And what did you find in the library this week?

See more Library Loot here.