4 good books and 1 piece of fluff

It’s one of those times where my pile of ‘to review’ books has got a bit teetering, so I’m going to write a little bit about five books I’ve read recently. And ‘recently’ goes back several months in some of these cases. They’re all books that I enjoyed to some extent, and some that were really brilliant – but, yes, one of them is a completely inconsequential piece of fluff.

One Apple Tasted by Josa Young

This was actually a gift from the author, for which many thanks. It takes places in three timelines – which start in1939, 1958, and 1982. We kick off in the most recent of these, where the excellently named Dora Jerusalem meets Guy Boleyn – a flirty, easy, charming man who bowls her over. Dora may not be flirty, easy, or charming but she is determined and scrupulous – and one of her scruples is about not having sex before marriage. And so Guy proposes to her…

The earlier periods are involving for their own reasons, but also gradually come together to show us the background to these two lives. I thought, at first, we’d be dashing between the three timelines – but they are mostly sequential, with sustained periods getting to know the characters in each section. One Apple Tasted reminded me quite a lot of Eva Rice’s writing, and that is certainly a good thing – I really enjoyed reading this.

The Familiar Faces by David Garnett

Garnett was one of the main authors in my DPhil – or, rather, his first novel Lady Into Fox was one of my main novels. I dipped into bits of his autobiographies at the time, but have never actually read one of them – and I started here, with volume three. He has only just published that first novel as the autobiography opens, and I am far more interested in his life as a writer than in anything that came before.

I loved this book. Garnett is not always a very nice person, as I gleaned from Sarah Knights’ biography of him – and, yes, he is very callous in this book when hinting at his extramarital affairs, even while his wife is seriously ill with the cancer that would later kill her. But he is very good at detailed portraits of people he knew – and, as the title The Familiar Faces suggests, this is more about snapshots of his friends and acquaintances than about his own life. Among them are Dorothy Edwards, T.E. Lawrence and George Moore. He certainly gives the rough with the smooth, and these are never hagiographies. And heaven help anyone who crossed him and gets the bitchier side of his writing. Here he is on Hugh Walpole…

A year or two before Moore’s death I received one of the very few letters that Hugh Walpole ever wrote me. It was to say that ferreting about in the Charing Cross Road he had bought the inscribed copy of The Sailor’s Return which I had presented to George Moore and he was writing to ask if I would mind his keeping it, hinting that it had been unworthy of Moore to sell it. Walpole’s letter oozed malice. Quite obviously it was written to wound my vanity and to estrange me from the friend who had helped me to whom I had dedicated my story. It failed in its effect.

High Rising by Angela Thirkell

A while ago I decided to read through all of Thirkell’s novels in order. I’ve managed to read one in six months, so it’s going about as well as any structured reading project goes with me.

The novel is about Laura Morland, a writer of middling sorts of books, and her neighbourhood – specifically her neighbour George Knox, whose new secretary might be suspect, and his daughter Sibyl, who is looking for an engagement. And there’s her schoolboy son Tony, whom she seems largely to despise but in a way that I can fully recognise is warranted.

I thought this was a lot of fun. Laura is on the borderline between likeable and snobby/arrogant, but it’s a line that gives the novel some realism in the midst of its gossipy village plot. It’s very identifiably Thirkell from the off, and I fully intend to continue the project thought it may take the rest of my life.

Chedsy Place by Richmal Crompton

I blitzed through an enormous number of Richmal Crompton novels almost two decades ago, but still have quite a few on my shelves waiting to be read – sometimes I think I read all the best ones early on, but Chedsy Place was very fun. Chedsy Place is an ancestral mansion that the new inheritor can’t afford to live in – though he is certainly fond of it from his childhood days there. His enterprising wife decides they should temporarily open it up to paying guests – he is reluctant, but they go for it. We don’t see an awful lot of this husband and wife after that…

Crompton loves an enormous cast of characters, and I’m sure I was better at keeping them in my mind when I was a teenager than I can deal with now. Luckily they are listed somewhere, so I could make little notes alongside to remind me. And there are types to whom Crompton often returns – including the dominant/subordinate pair of women who are emotionally too involved with each other, who appear in almost all her novels under different names.

Added to this, there’s a psychic novelist, a lady with dementia, a lady who wears tweed and complains, a blind man who resents his wife, an ineffectual vicar, a couple who love crosswords, twin sisters looking for romance, a common woman with badly dyed hair, a woman who is described as ‘sloe-eyed’ almost every time she appears… and so on and so on. There are 29 main characters, and it is rather dizzying. Some of them are described with a casual unkindness that wouldn’t be published today, but in general I found the novel an engaging and fun maze of not particularly detailed characters having fairly high emotions and very low stakes – for the reader, at least.

Improper Prue by Winifred Boggs

And, finally, for the piece of fluff. Yes, even fluffier than Chedsy Place. Ever since reading the brilliant Sally on the Rocks, I’ve been hunting down other Winifred Boggs novels – and some of her titles are such a delight, like this one. And, indeed, Prue is a delight – she is everything you could want from a witty, flighty heroine. Her dialogue is a joy, never taking anybody particularly seriously and yet with an underlying decency – e.g. her closest friend is an older woman called Jane, largely ignored by the world and revitalised by Prue’s affections.

Then she heads off to a lengthy house party, peopled by any number of eligible and ineligible men. Everything gets a little gothic in its heightened emotions, and proposals abound – there’s even a murder. The whole thing is very silly – entertaining, but absolutely impossible to have any real emotional investment in what’s happening. Curiously, Sally on the Rocks is a very insightful and thoughtful look at women’s lives in the 1910s – while also being great fun – whereas the other novels I’ve read by her (including this one) have been gossamer light and not remotely thoughtful. So, still fun to read – leaving more or less nothing in the mind, and a smile on the face.

14 thoughts on “4 good books and 1 piece of fluff

  • August 15, 2021 at 7:14 pm
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    I’m shockingly about to finish my Thirkell project with the last three wartime ones lined up to finish this month. I thought I’d never get to the end of them, even though I really enjoy them when I get to them. So there is hope!

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    • August 19, 2021 at 11:12 am
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      Oh well done, nice work!! You have given me hope :D

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  • August 15, 2021 at 8:18 pm
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    This is a fair range of reviews! About your Thirkell project – are you looking at reading all of the Thirkell books in order, or just the Virago Modern Classics editions? I started reading AT before they were available, so I had the challenge of tracking down various editions. I think I have read nearly all of them now at least once – but it has taken many years! I find that they are the sort of book I keep to read when everything else is too much!!

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    • August 19, 2021 at 11:12 am
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      All of them, in principle! I was very lucky to be given all of her books in someone’s will a few years ago.

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  • August 15, 2021 at 9:18 pm
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    Simon, you don’t mind if I go ahead and link this to the High Rising post for my project, do you? You stated your intention of trying to do this project along with us, so I thought it would be all right with you.

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    • August 19, 2021 at 11:12 am
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      Yes, go for it :)

      Reply
  • August 16, 2021 at 8:39 am
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    I have only read Thirkell’s Australia-set book, Trooper to the Southern Cross, but I’d be intrigued to read more, to check her out. Sounds like she’s an enjoyable read. I did like her tone in Trooper.

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    • August 19, 2021 at 11:12 am
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      I don’t think I’ve heard much about that one, but do have it somewhere!

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  • August 16, 2021 at 4:41 pm
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    While I’m still a relative newbie when it comes to Thirkell, High Rising is my favourite so far. There’s something rather endearing about Laura (despite the moments of snobbery), and young Tony, with his unquenchable enthusiasm for trains, is a comic delight. So glad to see how much you enjoyed it!

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    • August 19, 2021 at 11:11 am
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      Unquenchable is the perfect description for him, yes!

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  • August 18, 2021 at 1:35 am
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    Very intrigued by One Apple Tasted – anything that prompts comparisons to Eva Rice is worth trying! Also, obviously delighted you’re reading early Thirkell and having fun.

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    • August 19, 2021 at 11:10 am
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      Oh I think you’d like it a lot, Claire

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  • August 25, 2021 at 8:18 am
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    ” I fully intend to continue the project though it may take the rest of my life.”
    Ha ha, this is me with every single reading project I start on!!
    But glad to have stumbled upon the Thirkell readalong and hope it inspires me to get to more of them sooner rather than later.

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    • August 25, 2021 at 11:41 am
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      I hope you manage to be speedier than I am managing :D

      Reply

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