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My Life in Books: Series Two: Day Three

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Hope you’re enjoying the week so far!  I certainly am.  Here’s a game you can play whilst you read, this week… spot the books which appear more than once!  One particular novel makes three appearances, I believe… and you can probably already guess which children’s author is going to dominate proceedings…

Hayley has been a member of my online book group for many years, and so I was delighted when she finally took the plunge and started up her blog Desperate Reader.  She knows as much about whisky as she does about books – which sounds like winter evenings at her house must be rather lovely!

Karyn lives in Australia and has the most niche blog I’ve come across – and deliciously niche, too, since it only covers old Penguin books.  Appropriately titled A Penguin A Week, it does when it says on the tin.  I recently had the pleasure of meeting Karyn, making her the furthest-flung blogger I’ve met.

Qu.1) Did you grow up in a book-loving household, and did your parents read to you?  Pick a favourite book from your childhood, and tell me about it.

Hayley: Yes – dad had inherited a Victorian house with a library, lots of Wilkie Collins, illustrated bibles, bound copies of Punch, and mouldering boxes of book club choices in the attic. I wish I’d had more time to explore in there before the house went. My mother is, if anything, an even more compulsive buyer of books than I am (she turned her spare room into a library which works for her because she doesn’t like guests much) so there have always been a lot of books. I remember dad reading The Wind in the Willows to me but not much else sticks. It took me ages to learn to read and then it clicked pretty much overnight – that was the power of Enid Blyton. I loved the secret series and the famous five – especially the ones set on islands, and Five On A Treasure Island was an absolute favourite. I only remember sketchy details now but bits have stuck like glue. Blyton was a terrific writer for children, she made me feel like adventure was on the doorstep – and criminals excluded, it was. Nothing could distract me from those books and happily my parents were really good about always buying us loads of books.

Karyn: No, I wouldn’t describe it as a book-loving household.  Everyone read, and reading was certainly encouraged, but no one collected books, or thought to assemble a library, or spent any time discussing what they had read. It was romance novels and adventure stories, and reading for entertainment. 

I don’t remember being read to; my parents were both very young and they worked a lot of hours saving to buy a house. I can still remember how exciting it was to be given a book though, so perhaps it didn’t happen very often.  My earliest obsession was with The Famous Five, and I’m sure I loved every one even though I don’t remember anything about them now.  I’ll nominate Five get into a Fix, because I can still remember that cover. I came across the same edition recently in a secondhand book store in Chester and bought it for my  daughter.

Qu.2) What was one of the first ‘grown-up’ books that you really enjoyed?  

Hayley: I pretty much went straight from The Famous Five to Dorothy L. Sayers when I was about 12 but much as I enjoyed herand others who weren’t children’s writers – I was still reading as a child. I think grown up reading probably started a year later with Gavin Maxwell’s Harpoon at a Venture. My sister and I had moved from one parent to another, from Scotland to England. It was a huge move and we got very homesick; a book about an abortive attempt to hunt basking sharks in the Hebrides really helped. Like most of Maxwell’s books it’s an object lesson in the best (or worst) laid plans going wrong but with wonderful writing and the sense that you could try anything however unlikely (never mind that it always seems to go wrong for him) it was inspiring.

Karyn: When I was 11 I was rewarded for winning some contest at school with the Penguin editions of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, and so they were the first grown-up books I read. I think I understood very little, although I can still remember everything about the moment at which I read of Helen’s death, of where I was and who I was with, and I think it was the most devastated I had felt by that age.

Qu.3) Pick a favourite book that you read in early adulthood – especially if it’s one which helped set you off in a certain direction in life.

Hayley: It’s not exactly a favourite but Jancis Robinson’s Confessions of a Wine Lover changed my life. I was working in a bookshop and picked it up one lunch time, her passion for wine jumped off the page and sent me straight into the nearest wine shop. That led to a job and that’s been my life for the last 13 years. Wine is endlessly fascinating – and there are new things happening all the time, this book opened up a whole world of possibilities and excitement.

Karyn: The book that helped to establish the direction of my reading life was John Fowles’ The Collector. I read constantly but aimlessly before I found it, without much idea how to choose what to read. But in The Collector John Fowles alludes to The Tempest and discusses other books and authors, and so it gave me a blueprint to follow. I set about finding and reading every book it mentioned, and then every book they mentioned, and in the 1980s that meant searching through secondhand stores or ordering them from overseas. At some point I noticed that much of what I was reading had been published by Penguin so I just started buying any secondhand book I found with an orange spine, and I’ve never stopped.

Qu.4) What’s one of your favourite books that you’ve found in the last five years, and how has blogging or the reading of blogs changed your reading habits?

Hayley: There are a lot of favourite books from the last five years and blogs have had a huge influence on my reading. About four years ago I lost two jobs over six months (most careless) after which came a spell of near unemployment. It gave me a lot of time to read and a lot more time to spend online. Blogging was a godsend; it felt like a positive thing to do and had the unexpected bonus of bringing me into contact with lots of new people. Following other blogs has bought my attention to books I might never otherwise have heard of – like Frank Baker’s Miss Hargreaves – and changed my reading habits entirely.  I think more about what I’m reading, and about what I’m going to read.  I make sure I finish books now which means I’m less likely to start something I don’t think I’ll enjoy, but the offer of review copies has lead me down paths I wouldn’t have expected.  The downside is that there are so many things I want to read that it’s hard to remember it’s not a race sometimes.  I used to re read favourite books all the time but rarely do it now, instead I get very excited about something, rave about it, and then all but forget it, however without doubt one of my favourite books of the last 5 years has been Lady Audley’s Secret.  It’s got a bit of everything – a cracking good story with a labyrinthine plot that never slows down and a touch of feminism in a villainess you can feel sympathy for. Proper can’t put it down stuff but thought provoking at the same time.  Perfect.

Karyn: Blogging hasn’t changed my reading habits as I have always collected the Penguins in order to read them, but I now discuss these books with an audience that is bigger than just my husband. I find I read fewer books now though, as it takes me a few days to reflect on what I have read in order to write up a post, whereas previously I would have just moved straight on to the next book.  The whole point of collecting and reading the old Penguins is to be exposed to books and authors I wouldn’t know of otherwise, and so I make discoveries all the time. My favourite so far has been The Last Tresilians by J.I.M. Stewart, an Oxford don better known as the mystery writer Michael Innes. It is the Penguin I would nominate as most deserving of a larger audience, and I loved everything about it.

Qu.5) Finally – a guilty pleasure, or a favourite that might surprise people!  

Hayley: I save the really trashy stuff for television where I’ll watch any old rubbish as long as it’s super colourful and glossy looking but sometimes (and this may not be a surprise, and I don’t feel very guilty about it either…) that spills over into my reading.  I have a soft spot for Jilly Cooper circa Riders and Rivals. 1980s bonkbusters with horses and very little political correctness – Riders was my book of choice for long train journeys back up north and it was a blast (apart from the bit where a horse dies which inevitably caused tears somewhere near Oxenholme). It was totally absorbing with a great villain and didn’t demand much thought which was a great way to bookend a holiday. I tried to read James Joyce’s Ulysses on the same trip once but it didn’t take. 

Karyn: My reading is strictly Penguins or books on maths and statistics, so no guilty pleasures there.

And… I’ve told you the other person’s choices, anonymously.  What do you think these choices say about their reader?

Karyn, on Hayley’s choices: With the exception of Five on a Treasure Island these are books I don’t know, which makes it rather difficult have a guess at what these choices say about their chooser (no vintage Penguins!) I’m relying here entirely on the outlines published on the internet .  Confessions of a Wine Lover seems the easiest, for it suggests this is someone who appreciates good food and wine, and perhaps this also implies someone who enjoys company and being social. I can see that the book is actually much more than this though, telling the story of Jancis Robinson’s lifelong obsession with wine, and that it is one of two autobiographies on the list. And I read that Lady Audley’s Secret also includes many biographical details, so perhaps this reader has an interest in people, in their stories and in their lives. The subject matter of the chosen titles is varied, but they all seem to share a grand scale; they seem to be complex and elaborate tales full of drama, adventure, and romance, celebrating life. I picture someone female, who is vibrant, outgoing and friendly, and with a wide range of interests.
Hayley, on Karyn’s choices: I would love to meet this person and spend an afternoon in bookish chat (assuming I haven’t already) choosing the Famous Five and Jane Eyre shows that we have common reading ground.  I’ve skirted around The Collector for years and would love to get my hands on a copy of The Last Tresilians now I’ve read about it.  I also like that this is someone who feels no guilt over their reading and like to think that this is because they see no reason to feel guilty about time spent with a book – it would be intimidating to imagine a person who is so well organised that there’s no time for self indulgence.  It hardly needs saying that this is clearly a cultured, thoughtful reader.  This list is a nice balance between classics, contemporary, and what I’m guessing was a chance find, I’d also guess that they collect books, and probably other things, as much for the book itself as for what may be inside it, and although there is probably a theme that runs through the books they really love I have an impression of someone who reads very widely to find those books. 

My Life in Books: Series Two: Day Two

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Day Two – we’re barely getting started!  Plenty more to come this week, including at least one more blogger who correctly identified their mystery partner…

Claire lives in Canada and writes one of my absolute favourite book blogs, The Captive Reader.  It’s hard to believe her blog has only been around since 2010 – she’s definitely a fixture of the blogosphere now.

Colin and I first met sometime before we were born… yes, he is my twin brother.  Younger twin brother.  He is also a blogger, although books are not the main focus of his blog (which long predates mine, having been going since 2003!) Colin’s Only Diary.  You’re more likely to hear about football, politics, or sitcoms – but books get an occasional look-in.  Get ready to see how different twins can be…

Qu.1) Did you grow up in a book-loving household, and did your parents read to you?  Pick a favourite book from your childhood, and tell me about it.

Claire: My parents had both been avid readers but, with busy careers and two children to take care of, I don’t remember them reading a lot when I was little.  Still, their books were all over the house and I had unfettered access to them, something I took gleeful advantage of.  My grandparents were all devoted readers and they were the ones who really set the example for me.  My maternal grandmother volunteered in my school library and was my constant escort to the public library while my paternal grandparents, who I only saw once or twice a year since they lived so far away, used to take me to their library whenever I visited them.  My first press appearance was a photo in their local paper of me, as a toddler, listening attentively during story time at the library.

Even though my parents did very little reading on their own, reading before bed was an important family ritual.  My mother took charge of fairy tales, which she loved even more than I did, and my father covered everything else.  He introduced me to Tolkien, to Enid Blyton, and to Roald Dahl.  But before all that, he introduced me to A.A. Milne.  I had received The World of Christopher Robin (which unites When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six in a single volume) as a christening gift and for years it was the most important book in my life (I showed my sincere affection by scribbling in it with crayons).  My strongest memories of childhood bedtimes are of chanting “Disobedience” alongside my father and tearing up when he read “The Dormouse and the Doctor”.  That poor dormouse!

Colin: I remember a questionnaire in a school English class that asked how many books we had in our house, and the maximum answer was “Lots (20 or more)”. Even as a schoolchild I was astounded by the idea that 20 books was a lot – or even that any household could hold fewer than that – because our house had walls full of books. The ones in Dad’s study were somewhat beyond my ken (commentaries on Nahum were not my standard fare as a child; nor are they now) but there were plenty to suit my tastes, including bundles of Famous Five books and sundry other Enid Blytons. The first ‘proper’ book I read was a Famous Five (Five On a Secret Trail, I think) and – if you don’t count the Mr Men – that series was probably my favourite when I was about 7 or 8, although a couple of years later I would have chosen The Silver Sword or Cue for Treason. And yes, my parents did read to me – I particularly remember Mum reading me and my brother The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Qu.2) What was one of the first ‘grown-up’ books that you really enjoyed?  

Claire: Growing up, I was remarkably unaware of the distinction between children’s and adult’s books.  At home, I could try anything and there really didn’t seem that much of a difference between children’s authors Hans Christian Anderson and Robert Louis Stevenson and ‘grown-up’ authors Mary Stewart and Daphne du Maurier (all grouped together at one point in our distinctly unorganized bookshelves).  They were annoyingly shelved in different sections of the public library but, as far as I was concerned, a book was a book.  If it sounded interesting, I wanted to read it.  What did my age have to do with it?  Sadly, the librarians disagreed and continually denied me access to what I wanted most.  When I was ten, there was a battle to check out volume one of The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery.  By that point, I had read all of her novels and short stories, had visited Prince Edward Island, and was completely obsessed with Montgomery.  I wanted to know everything about her and the juvenile biographies were not cutting it.  I needed the journals.  I forced some adult family member (most likely my grandmother) to convince the librarians to let me take out it for ‘work on a school project’ (a blatant lie) and rushed home with my prize.  And then I started reading.  This was even better than her novels!  This was Montgomery herself!  She was vivid and conflicted, always interesting even though I didn’t have much sympathy for some of her dramatics.  Getting to read her thoughts, to see her speak for and about herself, was an amazing revelation.  I discovered a passion for diaries and, perhaps more importantly, learned that an author could be completely fascinating without being someone I would necessarily like if we met in real life.


Colin:Between the ages of about 12 and 15 I read little other than Agatha Christie, having been introduced to her through Murder On The Orient Express. I don’t remember being so captivated by a book before, and even now I am reminded of it if I hear snatches of the Spice Girls’ debut album (which my brother was listening to on the other side of the bedroom wall while I was reading). I followed it up with Murder On The Links, and over the next few years read and re-read another 70 or so of her novels – I’ve always been very happy to re-read, even when I can remember exactly how the plot-line will pan out; and, to be honest, I often can’t remember.

Qu.3) Pick a favourite book that you read in early adulthood – especially if it’s one which helped set you off in a certain direction in life.

Claire: I had nothing but contempt for romance novels growing up.  Without ever having read one, I condemned them all as poorly written and an awful waste of time.  It was the one area of the library I never ventured into.  Then, while visiting my grandmother one summer while I was in university, I picked up These Old Shades from her sizable Georgette Heyer collection.  I had spent so many years sneering at Heyer’s books without ever having taken the time to learn what they were about that I was shocked by how much I adored it.  The experience may not have precisely set me off in a new direction but it did make me much less snobbish about my book choices and far more likely to browse through libraries and bookstores without prejudice, changes which have certainly enriched my reading and my life by leading to some wonderful discoveries.


Colin: Early adulthood? I’m not sure when that is, but it must be around the time that I read Are You Dave Gorman?, a hilarious book about a chap called Dave Gorman trying to find other people called Dave Gorman. I hadn’t read a great deal of non-fiction up until that point, but this paved the way into other travel/humour type books, including Round Ireland With A Fridge, Yes Man, Googlewhack Adventure etc. Whilst the books cannot be described as great literature (or, indeed, literature) I have rarely read anything so amusing in fiction (Wodehouse is, of course, the most notable exception) and this not only opened up one genre to me, but persuaded me of the merits of non-fiction. Up to that point I had read one or two autobiographies – including Agatha Christie’s, which is excellent – but rather more since.

Qu.4) What’s one of your favourite books that you’ve found in the last five years, and how has blogging or the reading of blogs changed your reading habits?

Claire: Blogging has made me a much more analytical reader, since as I’m reading now I’m always thinking of what I want to touch on in my review.  Whereas before I might only have considered the story and characters, I’m now much more sensitive to a writer’s style and to my personal preferences as a reader.  And of course my favourite bloggers have introduced me to so many wonderful books and publishers that I would otherwise never have discovered!  For instance, I had never heard of Angela Thirkell but I kept coming across the most intriguing mentions of her books on various blogs.  Finally, in early 2011, I picked up one of her early Barsetshire books for myself and was absolutely delighted by what I found.  I’ve loved all of her books that I’ve read, but my favourite has to be Summer Half, an energetic comedy that is the perfect blend of sharp wit and affection. 

Colin: The Wheel of Time is a superlative fantasy series written by the late Robert Jordan, with the final volume due this year (writing duties having been taken over by Brandon Sanderson) and whenever a new volume comes out I am very eager to read it. However, given that it is a series that I started about ten years ago, it’s probably cheating to include it in this question. Instead, I’d have to say that the most interesting books I’ve read have been the autobiographies of Barack Obama, Tony Blair and Michael Palin. It’s been a sadly long time since I’ve read a novel that I really loved: probably not since Northanger Abbey, which I read about three and a half years ago.

Blogging has not changed my reading habits at all! My own blog touches only lightly on books, and the only book-related blog I read is this one… despite your best efforts to persuade me of the wonders of Miss Hargreaves, The Diary of a Provincial Lady and Orlando, I have not especially enjoyed any of them and would be as wary of taking your literary advice as you would be about taking mine!

Qu.5) Finally – a guilty pleasure, or a favourite that might surprise people!  

Claire: I think some people would probably be surprised by my love of survival fiction.  Fiction is the key part of that.  I want a slight element of fantasy and distance, even though the real pleasure comes from imagining what you would do in the same circumstances.  My father was the one who initially put me on to these books, beginning with the excellent My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George, one of his childhood favourites. The only book that has ever come close to challenging my affection for it is Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet, though, as an adult, I also adore survival-focused post-apocalyptic science fiction novels (like Lucifer’s Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle).  Details are important in these books and survival fiction writers seem to  be almost as obsessed with them as I am, with the best books reading less like novels than ‘How To’ guides.  Half the fun of My Side of the Mountain comes from trying to make the traps described in the book. 

Colin: My student days are behind me now, but at the time I found Trev & Simon’s Stupid Book absolutely hilarious (and I’m not sure I wouldn’t still find it funny now…), but since it isn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, a novel, it probably doesn’t count. If we are still supposed to be guilty about Harry Potter it would have to be that, or my Cliff Richard autobiography.

And… I’ve told you the other person’s choices, anonymously.  What do you think these choices say about their reader?

Colin, on Claire’s choices: Right then. I know the game here is to draw vaguely pleasant conclusions from the books listed (“they sound very interesting, and I’d love to talk to them about books”) but that feels a bit too easy to me, so I’m going to make some proper guesses. L.M. Montgomery makes me think my guessee is female – I’ve not come across the selected journals, but Anne of Green Gables gives me a clue – and, given A.A. Milne’s involvement, I would hazard that they started reading keenly as a child and had a very happy childhood. I’d not heard of My Side of the Mountain, but given that it was a book for young people that was first published in 1959 (thank you, Wikipedia) I reckon that my guessee is aged 50+… and possibly likes birds. Finally, according to an Amazon review from 2004, Summer Half conjures up a pleasant world and is amusing, so I would say that my guessee has a gentle sense of humour. They would probably prefer pooh-sticks to poker.

Claire, on Colin’s choices: From this selection, I’d guess that this person reads primarily for pleasure, letting their broad range of interests guide their choices.  They seem to have a good sense of fun and enjoy being well-informed.  Happily, it seems like the reader has retained the curiosity and desire for adventure that no doubt made Enid Blyton’s books so attractive in childhood.  My first reaction was that this is someone I’d love to sit next to at a dinner party, knowing that any conversation would be sure to be entertaining and wide-ranging, able to touch on anything from current affairs to Golden Age mysteries. 

My Life in Books: Series Two: Day One

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Welcome, welcome, to a second series of My Life in Books on Stuck-in-a-Book, shamelessly ripped off from the TV series.  This time around there are even more bloggers involved: sixteen lovely folk all said yes!  I’ve grouped them into pairs, but without revealing to them who their mystery partner is – which makes it all the more fun when they guess what the books say about the chooser!  

I’m really excited about the wonderful people involved, and I hope you’ll enjoy the week.  Do comment, and fingers crossed the bloggers in question will be along to reply.  Here goes!

Rachel, also known as Book Snob, writes one of the loveliest and most popular book blogs around, and describes herself as a “book loving, tea drinking, quilt making, cake eating, itchy feet possessing Londoner.”

Teresa, along with Jenny (who’ll appear later in the week!) is one half of the blogging duo behind Shelf Love, a pun which it took me about two years to get.  She’s also the first blogger I met from outside the UK!

Qu.1) Did you grow up in a book-loving household, and did your parents read to you?  Pick a favourite book from your childhood, and tell me about it.

Rachel: I would say it was more ‘book appreciating’ than ‘book loving’. We didn’t really have any books in the house at all when I was growing up except for an ancient set of crumbling Dickens novels my mum inherited from her grandad and kept locked in a glass cupboard. Neither of my parents have ever been big readers, but my mum always appreciated the importance of reading and let me read whatever I wanted, and read to us every night. I got all my childhood books from the library, and my mum took me twice a week to change my books. I really loved going to the library – all those bookshelves full of choice! 

My favourite childhood book was The Secret Garden – my Nan bought it for me when I was about 7 and I have loved it ever since. Victorian and Edwardian children’s books can be quite earnest and sickly sweet but The Secret Garden isn’t either of those things. Mary Lennox is a wonderful heroine because she is a right little madam – she’s a spoilt brat who has a tantrum whenever things don’t go her way – but she’s also good hearted and wants to change, she just isn’t sure how. As an adult you can see that Mary’s behaviour stems from her parents’ indifference and neglect of her, and I like how Frances Hodgson Burnett explores the importance of having a nurturing home environment during a time when most parents of a certain class wouldn’t have seen much of their children at all. Mary’s gradual awakening and blossoming is wonderful to read, as is that of the sickly and querulous Colin Craven, who has also suffered from poor parenting. The Secret Garden itself is a beautiful metaphor of the transforming power of love, but I think this would probably go over children’s heads – for them, it’s a magical story about discovery and adventure and friendship. Plus, as a child who grew up in London, I LOVED the descriptions of the moors in Yorkshire – it was so different from the concrete jungle I was used to!

Teresa: I don’t remember anyone except me doing a lot of reading in my childhood home, although my mother did read romance novels now and then, and I have vivid memories of her reading Charlotte’s Web to me when I was around 5 years old. I always had lots of books, especially Little Golden Books and book and record sets. The latter were usually based on Disney movies or longer novels and popular children’s stories. I used to spend hours sitting on our family room floor following the words in the book as I listened to the records. I can still remember exactly what the narrator’s voice in the record for Black Beauty sounded like. That book and record was a special favorite, so I was excited when I was old enough to read the real book. But the book that I really want to talk about is the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I read these over and over again and longed to live in pioneer days and cook a pig’s tail over a fire or take my lunch to school in a pail. (Now, you couldn’t pay me enough to live such a hard life.) I loved them all, but looking back, I realize that my favorite book at any given time was usually the one where I was closest to Laura’s age.

Qu.2) What was one of the first ‘grown-up’ books that you really enjoyed?  


Rachel: Probably Jane Eyre – I first read it when I was 12 – an awkward age for everyone!  I didn’t get all of it, but I was swept away by the romance and tragedy of it all. It made me feel very sophisticated – I’d never really read much about sex and relationships before – and it made me think about how complex adult life was and how love wasn’t as straightforward as I’d thought it would be. I was quite naive and sheltered and reading about a man who has a wife locked in an attic and then tries to marry someone else and then attempts to force that woman into an immoral relationship because his lust prevents him from living without her opened my eyes to what men could be capable of!



Teresa: I feel like I was slow to start reading “grown-up” books. I always happily stuck to my age range, and no one pushed me to challenge myself. On my own steam, I tried Jane Eyre when I was 12 and got hopelessly lost in the language and gave up. The first adult book that properly hooked me was Great Expectations. I read that when I was 14, my first year in high school, and I found it thrilling from beginning to end. For class, we actually read an abridged version in our textbook, and I loved it so much that I got the complete version and read it right after. Before this, I’d never been all that enthusiastic about English class. I did well in it, and I loved to read outside class, but I was mostly bored with the assignments in class.  This was the first time I could see the potential for literature as something to study and reading as something more than a way to pass the time. It wasn’t long after that that I decided I would study literature in college.


Qu.3) Pick a favourite book that you read in early adulthood – especially if it’s one which helped set you off in a certain direction in life.

Rachel: Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain had a very powerful effect on me when I read it as it made me realise how fragile life is, how fleeting youth is, and how much I took mine for granted.Vera Brittain had seen, experienced, done and survived so much by the time she was 21, and she made me feel rather pathetic in comparison. Her achievements and her bravery massively inspired me, and she remains an important role model of mine.  Her heroism especially humbled me –  her reaction to what she experienced made me determined to make something of my life, to use my passion and my voice to stand up for what I believe in, and to be deserving of the sacrifice her generation went through to ensure mine would have the freedom I have been enormously fortunate to have enjoyed. 

Teresa: This is a strange question to answer because even though I read lots in my early adulthood, not many of the books I read had much affect on me. I was very serious about my life as a Christian at the time, so the books that got to me would have dealt with some aspect of the spiritual. I remember a reread of Jane Eyre, which I had eventually conquered as a teenager, helping me see that a woman can be pious, independent, and happy. This was a huge revelation when I mostly got the message that devout Christian women would only be happy if tied to a properly Christian man. Probably the most important book, however, was Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. Foster is a Quaker author, and this book is a practical guide to spiritual disciplines like meditation, study, confession, fasting, and so on. I read this in my early 20s, shortly after I started to care about my spiritual life, and it was so helpful. It’s not just a how-to book, which would have been a turn-off. He gets into the reasons for practicing these disciplines and gives good, sensible advice without ever seeming to push a specific regimen. It’s one I reread every few years.

Qu.4) What’s one of your favourite books that you’ve found in the last five years, and how has blogging or the reading of blogs changed your reading habits?

Rachel: I discovered Persephone books through the blogging community, and from there an entire world of early to mid century women’s writing has opened up to me, which has revolutionalised my reading world. As someone who mainly read classics, I was delighted to find excellent, literary, beautiful writing that explored female experiences I could relate to, from a time period that had always fascinated me. My favourite discovery over the last five years has probably been Elizabeth Bowen, and I can’t really name a favourite of her novels, because they are all magnificent. Her subtle, intelligent, gorgeous writing mesmerises me, and I adore her depictions of 1930s England – she really captures that sense of uncertainty and pending change that rippled under everyday life in those immediate pre-war years.

Teresa: Where can I begin with how blogging has changed my reading? The biggest change is that it’s made me a more thoughtful reader. After I graduated college, but before I began blogging, I read a lot, but most of the books fell right out of my brain as soon as I read them. Once I was out of school, I didn’t have a place to discuss what I was reading and no real reason to think deeply about all those books. Blogging gives me that reason.

Blogging has also expanded my knowledge of the many worthwhile books out there. I’ve become much more aware of little-known classics and international authors. So in that spirit, I’ll mention a book I never would have known about were it not for blogging and that’s the fascinating Nox by Anne Carson. It’s both a memoir and translation of a poem by Catullus, all presented in an accordion-fold format in which Carson’s writings are interspersed with photos and bits of letters and other items that demonstrate how fragmentary our memories are. It’s a beautiful book, but not one that you’d be likely to find in many libraries or bookstores, and I never would have known about it had several blogging friends not enthusiastically written about it.

Qu.5) Finally – a guilty pleasure, or a favourite that might surprise people!  

Rachel: My guilty pleasure is Rosamund Pilcher – as I said before, we didn’t really have any books in our house when I grew up, and all my books were from the library, so when I had finished all my library books, I had nothing left to read – a nightmare for an insomniac like me! One night in my mid teens I was stuck with nothing to read, so my mum gave me Coming Home, a battered paperback she had in her bedroom drawer. I was hooked from page one, and so my mum tracked down her other books, read them, and passed them on to me afterwards, and we had great fun talking about them and then watching the TV serials they did of most of Rosamund Pilcher’s books in the 90s and early 2000s. I can’t quite put my finger on why I enjoy them so much – I think they’re just great escapism, but well written, well characterised, and well plotted escapism, with interesting settings and historical details. Whenever I am ill and can’t concentrate much, I love wallowing in a good old Rosamund saga!

Teresa:  It’s been a long time since I’ve read any of these books, so a lot of people probably aren’t aware of my fascination with true stories about people who survive (or don’t survive) extreme physical dangers. These days, I mostly get these stories through movies (128 Hours is my most recent favorite), but I went through a phase where I was reading one disaster narrative after another. Into Thin Air, Into the Wild, and Miracle in the Andes were particularly gripping, but I also remember enjoying historical works like The Children’s Blizzard, The Worst Hard Time, and The Johnstown Flood. There’s something cathartic about reading these books and imagining what it would be like to face such a challenge, but I always feel a little guilty about it, like I’m getting my entertainment from someone else’s tragedy. (And now I’m craving a disaster book.)

And… I’ve told you the other person’s choices, anonymously.  What do you think these choices say about their reader?

Teresa, on Rachel’s choices: This reader clearly loves reading about the past, with a strong preference toward the British Isles, so I’m guessing she (or he! although I’d guess she if I had to) is either British or a confirmed Anglophile. Her love of The Secret Garden, Jane Eyre, and Rosamund Pilcher tell me that she’s something of a romantic, but one with her feet on the ground. She does, after all, choose Jane Eyre over Wuthering Heights, and she mentions Testament of Youth, which is grounded in the difficult realities of life. Because almost all the books she mentions are from the early 20th century or earlier, I couldn’t hazard a guess about her age. I will say that whatever her age, she probably has old-fashioned sensibilities, not in a stodgy, stick-in-the-mud way, but in a way that appreciates and embraces what we can learn from the past. She’s also read all the books I’ve been meaning to read but can’t seem to get around to! (All those books have been on my list for ages, but Jane Eyre is the only one I’ve actually read.)
Rachel, on Teresa’s choices: The choice of books is interesting and eclectic but has an overriding theme of journeying – the person seems to have a real interest in reading about personal journeys and how people have overcome challenges to get to where they are. The inclusion of a book about spirituality is a pointer to a Christian faith and I suspect that having the Little House books as a childhood favourite means the person grew up in America.  Overall I would say this person is ambitious, adventurous and has a constant desire to grow and develop as a person, and looks to the lives of others who have battled hard to reach their goals or overcome difficult personal circumstances for inspiration and encouragement. [Simon: I should add, Rachel correctly guessed Teresa, but didn’t want to say in case she turned out to be wrong!]


A Week of Lives (Series 2)

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Lots of us are probably currently enjoying BBC2’s My Life in Books – I find it incredibly refreshing to have intelligent discussion of books on television, even if Anne Robinson wouldn’t have been my first choice of host.

I mentioned a little while ago that I’d be hosting a second series of the bloggers’ version of My Life in Books – and it will be starting tomorrow!  (I’m taking a bit of a risk here, as I’m still waiting to hear from some people… but I have full faith that they’ll get their replies to me before their slot comes up… please!)

So this is the last you’ll be hearing from me for a week and a bit.  This time around we have 16 participants, in pairs, running from tomorrow until the following Monday.  I’ve asked questions which cover books loved in childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, and today – as well as a guilty pleasure or surprise.  The resulting lists probably wouldn’t be each blogger’s top five favourite reads, but they certainly reveal a lot about their cumulative reading lives.

Oh, and I emailed everyone their mystery partner’s choice of books, and asked them to answer a tricky question: what do these books say about their reader?  Always the most fun part, in my opinion.

Thanks to everyone who has agreed to play along – I think it’s going to be a really fun week.  Please do comment about the books you’ve read or want to read, and if you’re one of the bloggers for that day, please do feel free to answer away in the comment box.

Lovely!  Have fun…!

Stuck-in-a-Book’s Weekend Miscellany

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Happy weekend, folks!  Mine is looking chirpier than last week, as I seem to be back on my feet.  A bit of coughing here, a bit of sneezing there, but it no longer feels like my brain has gone on holiday without leaving a forwarding address.  (This isn’t what I wanted when I hoped my blog would go viral, ba-duhm-crash.)  For the first time in a while, I’m actually going to be disciplined and stick to a book, a link, and a blog post.

Oh, but first a reminder that it’s March!  And thus it is time to read A View of the Harbour, if you’re participating in Elizabeth Taylor Centenary Celebrations.  I’ll be hosting a discussion later in the month, and will hopefully start reading it myself this weekend (if I don’t get distracted by reading In Cold Blood for book group.  I know Polly and Simon love it, but I’m a bit trepidatious…)

1.) The link – comes via my housemate Debs’ friend Jo.  It’s a response in the Guardian to that list of beautiful bookshops which did the rounds a while ago (did I post them here?  I can’t remember – there were some stunning places.)  Basically it’s about the most unattractive and haphazard bookshops containing the best ‘finds’ – and does raise the question: why are so many secondhand bookshop owners grumpy and unpleasant?  Is it just me who has found this?  Is it because I buy cheap books, and they’re hoping I’ve got my eyes on £500 first editions?  (There are notable exceptions, of course – the staff in Slightly Foxed bookshop, for instance, are always lovely.)  Enough waffle from me – the article is here.

2.) The book – Urania, in the Virago Modern Classics LibraryThing group, mentioned a book in passing which really intrigued me: The Faster I Walk, The Smaller I Am by Kjersti Skomsvold.   All I know about this book is that it’s a Norwegian novella – but those are two definite buzz words for me, and I was immediately sold.  Onto the Amazon wishlist it went, for a post-Lent purchase… but I’d love to know if you’ve come across it already, and what you think?

3.) The blog post – is Tom’s very amusing review of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which I saw on Simon S’s Twitter feed (yes, Twitter – I’m there occasionally!)  Turns out Tom and I have a mutual friend called Carly from Real Life.  She also blogs, or blogged, here.  And now the indefinite chain of blog-links-to-blog-links-to-blog is in full force…

Country Moods and Tenses – Edith Olivier

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It’s no secret that I love Edith Olivier’s The Love Child (by the by, any of you who are enjoying Eowyn Ivey’s The Snow Child, I definitely recommend The Love Child as a companion read).  I keep reading more books by Olivier, and being disappointed that they’re not as good… Well, this blog post mentioned Country Moods and Tenses (1941) as their favourite of her works, and it sounded like it might be useful for my thesis, so I got a copy online and read it speedily.  And I paid a teeny bit more to get this unusual and beautiful cover, created by Olivier’s friend Rex Whistler.

Sorry the photo is a bit dark, but you get the impression.

Well, long story short, it won’t replace The Love Child in my affections – but it’s still rather a lovely book to have on the shelf, and is quintessentially Olivier.  The more I read by her, especially her non-fiction, the more I realise that she sees herself primarily as a countrywoman, and as a Wiltshire-woman.  She was mayor, after all.

Country Moods and Tenses is subtitled a ‘Non-Grammarian’s Chapbook’, and in it Olivier outlines village life in five grammatical tenses/moods: Infinitive, Imperative, Indicative, Subjunctive and Conditional.  The associations between these and the chapters is somewhat fanciful (Indicative for travelling; Conditional for the changes of modern life; Subjunctive for human relationships, etc.) but it’s as good a method as any for discussing the countryside in a period where traditions and village-individuality was already fast disappearing.  There’s plenty of country folklore, which Olivier swears by:

Birds and animals have many habits which indicate the coming weather to a wise watcher.  If the partridges are still flying in coveys on February 1st, it foretells a late spring; if they pair as early as the last week of January, the season will be an early one.  Pheasants crow in the night to warn of the approach of bad weather, but lately they have decided that German bombs are as bad as tornadoes.  They are extremely sensitive to the sound of a coming raid, and can hear, or feel, the fall of a high-explosive bomb quite twenty miles away.  Then at once they lift up their voices in shrill chorus.
But it is not just the flora and fauna in which Olivier is interested.  She turns her attention to the human inhabitants of Wiltshire, including many photographs.  Those of scenery are a little underwhelming (being in black and white, they offer rather less than modern day equivalents) but the many and various photographers (including Cecil Beaton) have captured some astonishingly natural shots of labourers and villagers.  These were the most interesting to me.  Indeed, through Olivier’s country moods, it was human behaviour which most appealed to me. Those of us who are familiar with E.M. Delafield’s Provincial Lady will identify with this excerpt – which, by the by, is one of the elements of Olivier’s countryside which certainly hasn’t changed:

In spite of the country genius for making festivals out of buying and selling, nothing can prevent a Sale of Work from being a terribly dreary affair; yet every village must have at least one every summer.  For weeks beforehand the whole parish is busy with preparations.  A garden is lent; the morning arrives; the stalls are prettily arranged; and then, a few hours before the time fixed for the opening ceremony, the goods have to be hurriedly scrambled into the schoolroom to escape a deluge of rain.  Everyone agrees to make the best of it.  A leading lady of the neighbourhood declares the sale open.  The clergyman makes a tactful speech.  The members of the audience look feverishly round.  There is nothing at all to buy, and nobody to buy it.
One of my problems with Olivier’s writing elsewhere is that her writing is rarely witty – all a little too earnest. So I was grateful to find the above section, with its Delafieldian tones.  Although Country Moods and Tenses does lean towards the solemn for the most-part, these little flavours of humour help elevate the book.  And Olivier finds humour in her observations about the countryside she so dearly loves, in both present and past.

In the Middle Ages, the traveller in Europe (or even in England if he went beyond his own county) had to be an adventurous fellow indeed.  Morrison, who published one of the earliest road-books, tells his readers that they should certainly make their wills before leaving home; and one of his first bits of practical advice is an instruction on the different technique of duelling in each European country.  He tells the traveller that he will meet with more thieves in England than anywhere else; but he adds this encouraging postscript: “Having taken purses by the Highway, they seldom or never kill those they rob.  All private men pursue them from village to village with hue and cry.”
It is the future which Olivier cannot observe with laughter, from her 1941 vantage.  She worries about universal education meaning that village children no longer learn a trade, or follow in their parents’ farming footsteps; she is concerned about the buildings which are insensitive to their surroundings; she fears that village will become homogeneous, losing their customs and heritage.  Who’s to say that she was wrong?

But this certainly isn’t an exercise in hand-wringing.  Olivier writes joyfully about the countryside, even while documenting its changes.  Who knows quite what her purpose was in writing Country Moods and Tenses?  Surely she couldn’t have hoped to stall the changes.  Perhaps she just wanted a simple set of recollections.  It would be impossible to encompass all of 1940s village life in one book, but Olivier does capture at least her enthusiasm.  I’ll finish with one sentence, entirely honest, which demonstrates Olivier’s ethos – as well as the shifting sands she was up against:

And no one with a first-hand knowledge of the two could possibly prefer a screen decked with film-stars to a sty full of little pigs.

Ivy & Stevie – Kay Dick

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The first book I read from my recent Hay-on-Wye haul was Kay Dick’s Ivy & Stevie (1971) about Ivy Compton-Burnett and Stevie Smith.  Dick was friendly with both, and recorded conversations with them as part of a wider project she was researching.  ‘When’ (she writes) ‘Stevie Smith died earlier this year, not long after Ivy Compton-Burnett, it occurred to me that public interest in them both was sufficient to warrant publications of these two conversations on their own.’  So the book is divided into two – transcripts of each interview, paired with Dick’s reflections on each author.  Ivy C-B gets the first half of the book (and is the reason I bought it), while Stevie Smith gets the second half.

As I say, ICB – sorry, Dame ICB – is the reason I bought this book.  Maybe only one fifth of people who try Ivy end up liking her, but that one fifth will be passionately pro.  And she came across pretty much as I imagined she would from her writing and from photographs – formidable, amusing, confident, rather intimidating.  I think all of that comes across in this response:

What question do you most dislike people asking you about your work?
[…] ‘Do you find other people’s conversation useful?’  I went to a cocktail party the other day, and some woman I was talking to said, “Mustn’t this be useful to you?”  Of course it wasn’t useful.  Whatever good would it be to put down, “Do you feel that draught?”, and “Are you sure you won’t have another sandwich?”?  Conceit, because the don’t say a thing that would be any good at all.  One would be only too glad to take it down if one heard something deep or revealing or interesting.  Certainly not at a cocktail party, which is a dreadful function in itself.  I can’t bear them.  I went to this one because it was given by the landlord.  We’re frightfully friendly.  That is to say he’s frightfully friendly to me.  I believe it’s because of the enormous rent I pay him.  He rather likes my fame, but he thinks of the rent much more.
If I was hoping to learn a lot about her writing process, I was rather out of luck.  The interview is mostly about her thoughts on religion, families, even her characters – but not really about how she creates them.  And the big question that everyone must ask when they encounter ICB – why so much dialogue? – is sadly one which she cannot answer herself:

I don’t know why I write so much in dialogue.  I think it must just have been my nature.  It just came like that.  I don’t think one can explain these things – they probably go deep, these reasons, don’t you think?
So, there you go.  Was she being disingenuous?  Hard to say.  There is an air throughout that ICB is slightly above these sorts of discussions, or that she feels distanced from them somehow.  Perhaps that’s just her no-nonsense personality, and that isn’t to say she doesn’t give her views firmly.  I liked what she had to say about accusations that her novels were old-fashioned (I’m going to keep quoting quite a lot from these ladies, because the whole point of Ivy & Stevie is that it focuses on the authors’ voices.  That, and typing out quotations takes less energy than forming my own sentences!)

I know you get very annoyed, don’t you, when people say that you write about a world that is no longer there, because, as you say, human beings are always there.
Oh, I think the world will always be there.  It is true I put my books back, because the kind of world one knows one doesn’t know completely until it’s finished.  In a sense one has to wait until it’s finished.  Things are so much in a state of flux now.  I think that some of these modern books that depict human life with people just roaming about London and living in rooms and sleeping with everybody – it’s not interesting, because, of course, I can’t read them.  Everybody doesn’t live like that, do they? […] They live in civilized houses as they always did.  They have servants as they always did, although fewer.  Supposing I were living fifty years ago, situated as I am, I should have had a house and a cook and a housemaid, and, I suppose, a pony trap and a stable boy, instead of just a flat and one factotum.  But that’s a superficial difference.  I don’t think people do alter – if they do, they react back again, don’t they?  There must be family life.
Stevie Smith says something quite similar in her interview:

What do you think of the world today?
Well, much the same as I always thought of it yesterday.  It doesn’t change very much does it?
Well said, Stevie!  I think the difference between question and answer here can be attributed to the difference between journalist and novelist.  Not that Dick was a journalist (she was an erstwhile novelist herself) but she takes that stance for these interviews.  The journalist focuses on change, and everything being new in the present moment; the novelist (especially one as perceptive as ICB) looks at that which stays the same; the consistencies of human nature throughout the generations.

When I say that I bought Ivy & Stevie because of Ivy, I don’t imply any distaste for Stevie.  I just haven’t read anything by her – except for ‘Not Waving But Drowning’ – although I do have a novel or two of hers on my shelf.  Having now read the interview with her, she comes across as a charming, modest, slightly scatty woman – qualities which make me rather love her.  She lived with her aunt for a long time, who obviously took scant interest in Smith’s writing, and she describes it wonderfully (I think there is something in the expression ‘my dear’ which will always win my support):

What did you aunt think of your work?
Oh, her attitude was simply splendid, everything one asks for really.  I should hate to live with a literary aunt.  My aunt used to say, “I’m very glad to hear you’ve got another book coming out, but as you know I don’t know much about it.  It’s all nonsense to me, my dear.”  I felt this was the right attitude.  My aunt had a faintly sardonic attitude, I think, to the whole world.  Her highest praise was when, after I got the Cholmondeley Award, she said, “I wish your mother was alive and could have known about this dear.”
Being unfamiliar with her work, I couldn’t really relate it to what she said.  My main knowledge of Stevie Smith comes from Kathryn Williams’ song ‘Stevie’, from the album Leave to Remain.  I can’t find a version online to imbed, but it includes the line ‘They say she’s obsessed with death and that / but what else do you laugh at?’  Which prepared me for Stevie Smith saying something like this:

There’s a terrible lot of fear of life in my poems.  I love life.  I adore it, but only because I keep myself well on the edge.  I wouldn’t commit myself to anything.  I can always get out if I want to.  I think this is a terribly cowardly attitude to life.  I’m very ashamed of it, but there it is, dear.  I love death, I think it’s the most exciting thing.  As one gets older one gets into this – well, it’s like a race, before you get to the waterfall, when you feel the water slowly getting quicker and quicker, and you can’t get out, and all you want to do it get to the waterfall and over the edge.  How exciting it is!
So I came away with a new fondness for Smith, and determination to read her writing, and a renewed admiration for (and slight fear of) Dame Ivy.  As for Kay Dick herself, I rather enjoyed her brief reflections upon knowing both writers.  Neither sticks in my mind particularly, but the personal touch was valuable.  I thought I knew Kay Dick’s name from somewhere, but can’t track down where… I Googled her and read an obituary which I wish I hadn’t, as it was incredibly vicious (and provoked letters giving opposing views.)  Well, whatever else Dick was or wasn’t, did or didn’t do, I am grateful that she preserved these conversations, which could only take place with an interviewer with whom the authors felt comfortable.  An invaluable resource for anyone interested in either of these writers – or, indeed, in the lives of writers in general.

Forthcoming Dodie Smiths

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Following on from my recent enthusiasm about Dodie Smith’s autobiography, I was excited when someone (Claire, I think, or maybe Verity) pointed me in the direction of Corsair’s new reprints of some obscure Dodie Smith novels.  I wrote about The Town in Bloom a while ago, which I thought started very well and got a bit worse, but lots of folk have told me that I should be reading The New Moon with the Old.  Once these come out on 15th March (or, more precisely, when Lent is over and I’m allowed to buy books again) these will definitely be flying their way to me.  I love the cover designs, and I really love the cheap price they’re going for at Amazon.  And I say that despite never having got around to sorting out an Amazon Affiliates account.

Anyway, still too under the weather to write much, so I’ll just leave you with the pictures…

The World My Wilderness – Rose Macaulay

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I hope this will turn out coherent.  I wrote most of it a while ago, sent the book away to a friend, and am now trying to complete a review sans book and sans health.  Here goes…

Here, ladies and gentlemen, is my first overlap of A Century of Books.  Rose Macaulay’s The World My Wilderness was published in 1950, a spot which is already occupied on my list by Margaret Kennedy’s Jane Austen.  First come, first reviewed, so it’s Kennedy who’s on the century list.  But I’m still going to talk about Rose Macaulay, naturally…

This is the fifth novel (and eighth book) that I’ve read by Rose Macaulay, and she is becoming one of those reliable writers I know I can pick up and enjoy; the only dud I’ve encountered was Staying With Relations.  Wikipedia tells me that her final novel, The Towers of Trebizond (which I have not read) is ‘widely regarded as her masterpiece’.  I am edging ever closer to it, since The World My Wilderness is her penultimate book, and the other one which people tend to have heard of, if they’ve heard of Macaulay at all.

‘Reliable’ is just another word for ‘consistent’, really, and Macaulay does seem to write in a consistently dry, almost satirical style, pursuing a similar theme in each novel – albeit a theme so broad that she could have written two thousand novels and never needed to approach it from the same angle twice.  It is dangerous to summarise thus (and others may have said this before me – indeed, now I see that Karyn has) but I believe Macaulay’s broad theme across her novels is: ‘What does it mean to be civilised?’  In Keeping Up Appearances this is addressed through literary eschelons; in Crewe Train through the ‘civilised savage’; in Dangerous Ages through psychoanalysis, and so on and so forth.  In The World My Wilderness, the title alludes to this debate – and the setting, postwar France and England, offers the physical destruction and moral weariness that the word ‘wilderness’ suggests.  Macaulay includes an anonymous epigraph, from which she draws the title:

The world my wilderness, its caves my home,
Its weedy wastes the garden where I roam,

Its chasm’d cliffs my castle and my tomb…

The cast of characters is initially broad and confusing (or at least it was to me) and I pesevered by ignoring those who weren’t dominant in the narrative at any one time, then slotting them all together later.  There are so many children and stepchildren and half-siblings that I had to throw my hands up in the air in defeat.  Ok.  Stiffen the sinews, summon the blood.  Here goes.

Helen and Gulliver had Barbary and Richie.  Helen and Gulliver divorced; Helen moved to France with Barbary (leaving Richie behind) and married Maurice, while Gulliver married Pamela.  Helen and Maurice had Roland.  Maurice was drowned in mysterious circumstances, leaving Helen with a stepson Raoul.  Gulliver and Pamela had David, and Pamela is pregnant again.  Phew.  That will do – I’m leaving out mother-in-law and uncle, who make cameo appearances.

There are so many characters, but I’m only going to focus on the two I thought most important.

The novel begins with Barbary and Raoul moving to England (Richie visits his mother in France) and these two form the chief interest of the novel.  Macaulay is often quite playful with names, and I don’t think it’s any coincidence that ‘Barbary’ is so close to ‘barbarous’.  She is used to running amok with the French maquis, a group whose aim was to resist the invading Germans, but who extend this resistance to all forms of authority.  She has the same attitude in England, except now her companions are deserters and thieves, living their lawless lives in the bombed out old churches and houses of London.  Her old nurse warns her against being too trusting:

“And I ask, Miss Barbary, that on no account will you ever trust those young men, for of trust they will never be deserving.”

Barbary, experienced in discredited young men, had never thought of trusting any of them.  Lend them something, and you never had it back; leave anything about near them, and you did not see it again.  If they could derive advantage from betraying you, betray you they would; these were the simple laws of their lives, the simple, easy laws of the bad, who had not to reckon with the complication of scruples, but only with gain and loss, comfort and hardship, safety and risk.
[…]
“Oh no, Coxy,” Barbary said, in surprise at the eccentric idea suggested to her.  “I should never trust them.  I mean, trust them with what?  Or to do what?  There couldn’t be anything…”
Barbary is a very Macaulayan character, if you’ll excuse me coining the term: she is something of an outsider, straight-talking, independent, but uncertain of her place in the world.  And the apple hasn’t fallen too far from the tree – but while Barbary’s inability to cohere with society turns her into a restless, waif-like exile from civilisation, her mother Helen is the selfish, self-absorbed type whose callousness hides behind a veneer of grace and elegance.  She claims to have a ‘phobia of being bored’, and very little breaks through to her heart.  Helen is overtly uncivilised, as Barbary is, but she respects none of the values of civilisation – preferring, instead, a reckless and ambiguous love for beauty.

“As to one’s country, why should one feel any more interest in its welfare than in that of other countries?  And as to the family, I have never understood how that fits in with the other ideals – or, indeed, why it should be an ideal at all.  A group of closely related persons living under one roof; it is a convenience, often a necessity, sometimes a pleasure, sometimes the reverse; but who first exalted it as admirable, an almost religious ideal?”

“My dear Madame, not almost.  It is a religious ideal.”  The abbe spoke dryly, and did not add anything about the Holy Family at Nazareth, for he never talked in such a manner to his worldly, unbelieving friends.
It is worth noting that Macaulay delights in giving her characters views that are not her own.  She signposts this with a motif running through her novels; that of looking down on writers and novels.  Some readers always want authors to be making a point, moral or otherwise, in their writing; I am happy if a writer can convey characters acting believably.  That is ‘point’ enough for me, and I think for Macaulay too – it would be a mistake to extrapolate too much from her writing, other than an examination of the way that certain characters behave in certain circumstances.  She extends beyond this, to questions as vast as the role of civilisations, but she doesn’t attempt to answer these questions.  Nor could she.

Speaking of her writing… Macaulay has a dry, ironic tone which I’ve preferred in other of her novels.  Sometimes, in The World My Wilderness, she seemed to get a bit carried away with a romanticised, flowing, almost baroque writing style.  Perhaps that fits into the themes – but it did include this section, all of which is one sentence:

In this pursuit he was impelled sometimes beyond his reasoning self, to grasp at the rich, trailing panoplies, the swinging censors,of churches from whose creeds and uses he was alien, because at least they embodied some cintuance, some tradition; while cities and buildings, lovely emblems of history, fell shattered, or lost shape and line in a sprawl of common mass newness, while pastoral beauty was overrun and spoilt, while ancient communities were engulfed in the gaping maw of the beast of prey, and Europe dissolved into wavering anonymities, bitter of tongue, servile of deed, faint of heart, always treading the frail plank over the abyss, rotten-ripe for destruction, turning a slanting, doomed eye on death that waited round the corner – during all this frightening evanesence and dissolution, the historic churches kept their strange courses, kept their improbably, incommunicable secret, linking the dim past with the disrupted present and intimidating future, frail, tough chain of legend, myth, and mystery, stronghold of reaction and preserved values.
This isn’t particularly representative of The World My Wilderness – 200 pages of this would have driven me crazy – but it does pop up now and then, and adds to the richness of Macaulay’s writing, if you can cope with this sort of thing.

I’m afraid this review is going to peter out rather, because I seem to be heading towards semi-consciousness… so, in summary… I liked it, but I think Macaulay newbies might be better off with Crewe Train or Keeping Up Appearances.  Let’s hand over to some other folk, who might have been more conscious whilst writing their reviews…

Others who got Stuck in this Book:

“[…]it is despairing, and unrelentingly sombre and pessimistic.” – Karyn, A Penguin A Week 

“It’s a beautifully written and nuanced story that’s filled with amazing (in the fantastic sense) imagery of a post-war London” – Danielle, A Work in Progress

“It’s a stunning, well-written novel.” – Katherine, A Girl Walks into a Bookstore