Month: October 2008

Debs at War

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More book-buying shenanigans today… was in Blackwells and my eye was caught by the title Debs at War, because I thought it might refer to my heroine, Deborah Mitford. It doesn’t, but closer inspection didn’t make the book look any less interesting – the full title is Debs at War: How Wartime Changed Their Lives 1939-1945, and it’s about those who were debutantes shortly before war broke out. Anne de Courcy, the author of this book (and maybe known by some as a biography of Diana Mitford/Mosley), interviewed 47 women who were pre-war debs whose lives were dramatically changed by the war. They entered the Services, as Wrens, WAAFs, FANYs or ATS; they became nurses or VADs; some even started factory work and tried to hide their background.

As before, I’ll try to give an overview of a book by its chapter headings. The difference, of course, being that I haven’t read this one yet…

– Childhoods ‘We were taken down to say good morning to our mother’

– A Question of Upbringing
‘You won’t need exams’

– Coming Out
‘The whole point was to find a husband’

– The Approach of War
‘I stood in the room that had been my nursery, listening to Chamberlain declaring war’

– Joining Up
‘I wasn’t going to get on with anything else until we’d finished with Hitler’

– FANYs
‘Posh girls driving staff cars’

– ATS
‘We were the rough, tough ones’

– Fun in Wartime ‘Boyfriends were more important than bombs’

– Factories
‘We were working too hard to flirt…’

– Nursing
‘Sometimes the ambulance bells never stopped’

– Love and Marriage
‘…and then we got engaged. Crazy, really, wasn’t it?’

– Bletchley
‘How much German do you speak?’

– On the Land
‘We don’t want any bloody land girls here’

– The Class Barrier
‘We’d never met girls like these before’

– Wrens
‘We began to learn to do without sleep’

– The Air
‘Why are you bringing up only half an aeroplane?’

– Afterwards
‘The war made us feel capable of doing something’

Read Subtle Science

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Inspiration seems a little dry at the moment for Stuck-in-a-Book, possibly because my own pleasure-reading has been taking a back seat to my work (though, with Conrad and Kipling and Katherine Mansfield this week, that will make interesting writing when I’m finished with it) so I’m going to set a little activity which will quite possibly drive you a little insane over the next few hours/days/years…

And today’s post title tells you what the task is. If you’re feeling particularly intelligent, that is – because, no, I’m not suggesting that I’ve read subtle science, or that you should, but…

Sorry? What was that?

You at the back?

Yes! You’ve spotted it. ‘Read’, ‘Subtle’, and ‘Science’ each have a silent letter – ‘a’, ‘b’, ‘c’ respectively, in fact. Can you help me compile an alphabet of silent letters, as it were? I’ve only got about half the alphabet. I need your help. And I’m going to recycle a cartoon from my library days…

More Library Finds

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I thought I was spoilt with all the exciting things I was shown in the Bodleian last year, but the treasures just don’t end – the other day we students on the MSt course had a session looking at twentieth-century manuscripts. And what an exciting group of items they were, and quite a motley crew too. Handwritten manuscripts by C.S. Lewis and Thomas Hardy; some original drawings by J.R.R. Tolkein; mischevious cartoons by Philip Larkin; a snooty letter by Ezra Pound; a rather overly fond letter from Ernest Hemingway to his mother-in-law… all sorts.

And today I went to a talk on Jane Austen’s Volume the First, one of three notebooks in which she wrote her juvenilia – none of the manuscripts of her novels remain, so this notebook is among the small amount which still exist. I’ve held one of her letters before, but this was Jane Austen in authorial mode, and thus even more exciting… I did worry about myself a little when I realised I considered the notebook as somewhat sacred… *Jane Austen was just a human* *Jane Austen was just a human*…

More Mapp

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There was a period earlier in the year when most of my posts seemed to be about how wonderful E.F. Benson’s Mapp and Lucia books are. I might assume for this post that readers know everything about the series…(for those who don’t, and indeed those who do, I came across a wonderful Mapp and Lucia Glossary site today). My first foray into eulogising was this post, and every now and then I remark on the sheer brilliance and wit and innocent charm of these novels – I paused after re-reading the first four, and have two left unread…

And then a bit later I interviewed Guy Fraser-Sampson (read the interview here), and he told me all about the new Mapp and Lucia book he’d written – Major Benjy, who, as fans will recall, is the local blustery military man in Tilling, and eventual husband of Miss Mapp. Major Benjy isn’t a sequel (as Tom Holt’s additions to the Mapp and Lucia canon were) but slips into Tilling history between Miss Mapp and Mapp and Lucia – in fact, the last few pages see Lucia’s arrival at Mallards, Miss Mapp’s house. Little did we know what took place mere hours before…

I don’t want to ruin the plot, so shall skirt about that and talk about the style instead – what is obvious throughout is that Guy loves the characters, and knows them inside out. He read the books as a child and has read them many times since, and all their foibles and peculiarities are in tact. For example, this paragraph about Susan Wyse (once Susan Poppit):
It was of course their second visit to the Wyses in two days and the only change appeared to be that Susan’s M.B.E. has been inadvertently placed in an even more prominent position, this time on the hall table where it could hardly fail to be seen as people left their hats and gloves. Unfortunately Susan did not seem to notice this until after the last guest had arrived, whereupon she gave a little scream of horror and snatched it up, exclaiming “oh, what will those servants do next?” as she did so. … Miss Mapp said sweetly “dear Susan, in all the many times I have admired your medal I have never seen it looking so impressive. A pity you are not wearing your furs tonight; it would set them off so nicely.”

So the characters are all there – Miss Mapp, Major Benjy, the Wyses, Diva Plaistow, Quaint Irene… and Lucy. Like Elaine (see her lovely review here) I had only the smallest recollection of Irene’s ‘companion’ Lucy, but she is rather brought to the fore in Major Benjy – and is symptomatic of the aspect of Fraser-Sampson’s novel which I least liked. Tilling has been rather over-sexualised, sometimes quite shockingly so – yes, gentle in comparison to most novels, but still rather more than Benson’s innocent, leave-it-to-the-imagination society warranted.

This aside, the novel is a joy – the incidents don’t always have Benson’s subtle touch, but there is a little storyline concerning a cake-baking competition which would be worthy of the original series. And mostly he has got the quiet back-stabbing, social-climbing, gossipy, cheerful and insouciant style just right – I can’t see any excuse for a Mapp and Lucia fan not to own this book. If you like the series, or know anyone who likes the series, then I demand you go and get a copy – like Elaine I welcome any addition to the canon, and though not perfectly Bensonian, it’s not far off.

And the clocks go back…

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The clocks go back tonight. Or is it forward? (Spring back / Fall forward… Spring forward / Fall back… that’s no help at all). Anyway, the upshot is that I get an extra hour in bed tonight, and that is something to be cherished.

In honour of this event (which sees Merton Colleg hold a ceremony involving drinking whilst walking backwards around a quadrangle) I shall pose a literary/clock question… in which books are clocks important? Not necessarily time travel, just significant clocks.

I’ve got two, both children’s books, off the top of my head… let’s see if you can match those or find others… you’ve got an extra hour to think about it!

Bloomsbury Baby

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I wasn’t sure whether or not to introduce this book to my 50 Books You Must Read But May Not Have Heard About, but the longer it is since I read it, the better it seems in my mind… so, step forward Deceived with Kindness by Angelica Garnett. In the end, I’ve included it because it’s such a useful and captivating book about the Bloomsbury Group, whether or not you know anything about it before.

It’s been months since I read it and, like The Brontes Went to Woolworths, I’ve been promising to review the book on here for simply ages… so forgive me if I repeat all the things I’ve already mentioned about it over the past weeks.

Deceived with Kindness is the seventh non-fiction book in the 50 Books, but like most of the others listed there, it is literary in nature – Angelica Garnett was the daughter of Vanessa Bell, and thus the niece of Virginia Woolf. She was also Duncan Grant’s daughter, believed Clive Bell was her father for many years, and later married David Garnett (author of 50 Books entrant Lady Into Fox) – so she is well qualified to give her autobiography the subtitle A Bloomsbury Childhood. In fact, her book is less an autobiography than a focalised biography of the group – how could it be anything else with such fascinating people around her? They’re all here – as well as those mentioned above are Leonard Woolf, Roger Fry, Lytton Strachey, John Maynard Keynes…

I’ve read a few books about the people Angelica writes about, especially Virginia Woolf , but though others might put years into research and erudition, Angelica Garnett doesn’t have to do all this because the material is right in front of her. Which means she can treat the topic without a scholarly reverence or a postmodern desire to re-evaluate the concept of being or anything like that – instead, there is an intriguing meld of affectionate childhood memoir and biography of the renowned. She sees them as her family and family friends, but also recognising their importance in literary history. We see her childhood relationship with Vanessa and Clive Bell, and later some moving chapters on discovering that Duncan Grant was her actual biological father. Before this, she reaches back into her mother’s upbringing, and provides brief but well-drawn biography, imbued with filial feeling. Her encounters with ‘The Woolves’ were of particular interest to me – and the relationship between Virginia and Vanessa is viewed with understanding and compassion: ‘Of Vanessa’s love for Virginia there was no question: she simply wished that it could have been taken for granted.’

I’m not sure I’ve given an accurate impression of Deceived with Kindness – the greatest quality of Garnett’s book is an intimacy which gives the reader greater access to the Bloomsbury group than any other biography I’ve read. For an introduction to the group, or something to add to your extant knowledge, this book is invaluable – and definitely one to read before starting Susan Sellers’ excellent novel Vanessa and Virginia.

Brontes and Woolies

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I’ve been meaning to write a post about The Brontes Went To Woolworths by Rachel Ferguson for quite a long time, and somehow it never quite happened – perhaps it’s the prospect of having to write ‘Brontes’ so often, without the necessary accents. I know *how* to find them, but to do it everytime… it’s probably best just to pretend they don’t exist.

Anyway, it’s now been so long since I read the novel that I can’t remember all that much about it. What’s more, most of the blogosphere appear to have been read it this year – Danielle’s review; Lady Bug’s Books’; Cornflower’s; dovegreyreader’s. Sorry if I’ve missed some people out, and I’m sure I have, but those are the ones I could lay my hands on – in the unlikely event that anyone hasn’t heard about this book, I advise clicking on one those links for a proper summary of the book! Mine will be brief…

“How I loathe that kind of novel which is about a lot of sisters”, is how this novel about sisters begins. They’re all rather mad, and I can’t remember any of their names, but their important characteristic is that they create fantasy personalities, which cluster around them. Not their own personalities, nor other fantasy people – but rather they choose people (sometimes a doll, sometimes – centrally – a judge they’ve encountered only in the newspaper) and have conversations about and with these people. Which all becomes rather complicated when the judge in question becomes an acquaintance, and has to learn how to act the part he has already been given.

And it’s all rather dizzying. But in a quite brilliant way. As reviews of Edward Carey’s Alva & Irva recently, and Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns a while ago (see the 50 Books…) demonstrate, I’m rather a fan of the quirky and surreal, and Rachel Ferguson dishes this up with abandon. So I can only add further endorsement to the recommendations others have already given – The Brontes Went To Woolworths is charming and zany and I can remember the feeling of reading it, even if all the other details escape me.

The other thing I can bring to the party is a different picture, since my copy is an old hardback. What an odd cover. More intriguing, Rachel Ferguson (known to many of us as author of Persephone Books title Alas, Poor Lady) is also ‘”Rachel” of Punch’ – hmm, wonder what she wrote there… might have to get a copy up in the Bodleian and have an investigation…

Humble Pie

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I mentioned briefly, in that Booking Through Thursday quiz, that I’d bought Nicola Humble’s The Feminine Middlebrow Novel 1920s to 1950s but I couldn’t just leave it at that, could I? I’ll warn you now, it’s not cheap (paperback about £28, hardback much more) so get onto your local library… because for those whose reading tastes are most aligned with mine, or at least overlap significantly, that book title must sound like manna from Heaven – and, figuratively, it is. Literally, it’s just a book title… Ahem.

I read Humble’s book when writing my thesis on the topic as an undergraduate, and got rather peeved because she’d said all sorts of things I was hoping were original to me – but don’t hold that against her. She writes about all sorts of authors close to the Stuck-in-a-Book heart: EF Benson, Elizabeth Bowen, Agatha Christie, Ivy Compton-Burnett, EM Delafield, Monica Dickens, Rachel Ferguson, Stella Gibbons, Rosamund Lehmann, Rose Macaulay, Nancy Mitford, Dodie Smith, Elizabeth Taylor, Angela Thirkell, Virginia Woolf. What a list. Even if you haven’t read all those authors (I’ll confess, there are two listed whom I’ve not read), you’ll probably still be interested in their spheres and their ethos. Do see what Danielle had to say about it on her blog.

The chapter headings are:
1. ‘Books Do Furnish A Room’: Readers and Reading
2. ‘Not Our Sort’: The Re-Formation of Middle-Class Identities
3. Imagining the Home
4. The Eccentric Family
5. A Crisis of Gender?

All such fascinating topics – and Humble writes with a style and verve which makes everything completely accessible without ‘dumbing down’. All rather middlebrow, now I come to think of it. EM Delafield would be proud to be included, and I can think of no higher, nor more apposite, praise than that.

The Good Life

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As promised, another book to add to my (in no order) 50 Books You Must Read But May Not Have Heard About – and the sixth non-fiction book to make the list. White Cargo by Felicity Kendal was a book I picked up 20p in a local charity shop years ago, on the strength of loving her performance in The Good Life. For those who don’t know it (the programme was called Good Neighbors in the US) it was a 1970s sitcom about self-sufficiency in Suburbia. Felicity Kendal and Richard Briers kept chickens and a goat in their suburban back garden, much to the displeasure of their decidedly upper-class (and hilarious) neighbours, played by Penelope Keith and Paul Eddington.

So, I assumed Felicity Kendal’s autobiography might focus on this sitcom, and the British acting scene of the 1970s. I couldn’t have been much further from the truth. What I didn’t know about Felicity Kendal was that she was born and brought up in India, as part of an acting troupe led by her father Geoffrey Kendal – they toured from place to place, performing everything from (lots of) Shakespeare to (hurray!) A. A. Milne. These recollections are leant poignancy by the fact that Kendal writes her autobiography at the bedside of father Geoffrey, who is in a coma and slowly dying. It would be mawkish in fiction, but in non-fiction it is courageous and moving and gives Felicity Kendal a real drive to write her history.

And a compelling history it is. Having her father so near death doesn’t affect the honesty of her narrative – the loving/warring relationship between the two is represented with great truthfulness, and comes to a head when she decides to move to England to pursue her acting career. Before that decision is made, she describes a childhood surrounded by hand-to-mouth actors with a love of their trade – as well as a firsthand guide to living in India in ‘the long twilight of the British Empire’, as the Evening Standard described it.

Utterly fascinating, moving, witty and with a writerly skill which makes one wonder if the stage’s gain was the book’s loss. Certainly the best autobiography I’ve read by someone whose profession isn’t writing. Even if you’ve never heard of Felicity Kendal, this is a captivating account of an experience both extraordinary, and representative of a type of acting group whose story is seldom told, and which doesn’t seem to exist anymore.