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Back!

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I am back from a lovely long weekend in Northern Ireland, and have so many blogs to catch up with… give me a few days. Today was taken up with work and a driving lesson, in which I was ‘introduced’ to roundabouts and dual carriageways. All the fun of the fair.

The wedding I attended was beautiful and wonderful, a great time had by all – my much-loved friend Emily has now become Mrs. Sam, and is off enjoying a honeymoon in a place I only managed to establish began with M. Whilst in Northern Ireland, I and a group of other college friends took the opportunity to wander around, including a trip to Giant’s Causeway. Amazing. I’ve stolen this picture from a friend, since I didn’t take my camera.

Somehow, I also found time to read three and a half books. I’ll start by telling you about The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, and will move onto the others as and when.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson was one of my favourite books on 2006, currently a hmm-maybe for the 50 Books You Must Read But May Not Have Heard About – so I was surprised and pleased when Clare-the-Archivist was reading a Shirley Jackson at work. She did do English at The Other Place, but I suppose that needn’t completely bar her from a good taste in books. The Haunting of Hill House was duly borrowed…

I am quite a difficult creature. There is a very fine line between Gothic-y novels (which I love) and horror novels (which I hate) and perhaps it’s impossible for the naked eye to identify which books would fall into which category. Shirley Jackson is definitely the former. The Haunting of Hill House wasn’t as good as We Have Always Lived in the Castle, but was still very impressive. Dr. Montague wishes to investigate the paranormal reputation of Hill House, and invites Luke (the larcenous heir), Eleanor (downtrodden, lonely girl) and Theo (lighthearted, witty woman) to stay there with him. Everything about the house is off-putting – for example, every angle in it is a degree or two off, to confuse the mind into expecting windows to look out where they won’t, and cause imbalance. Objects are moved around; doors are knocked on in the middle of the night, but only heard by some. But the house exacts a more powerful effect on one of the four…

Outside of fiction, I find this sort of paranormal stuff nonsense at best, and damaging at worst, but in the hands of Jackson it becomes more like a Gothic detective novel – answers need to be sought; characters explored and undercurrents plumbed. Start with We Have Always Lived in the Castle, but check out The Haunting of Hill House for a tale which is chilling without sacrificing character or panache.

Mayday!

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An appropriate Booking Through Thursday today, not only because of the Mayday = panic, but because I’m flying off to Northern Ireland tomorrow, for a friend’s wedding…

Quick! It’s an emergency! You just got an urgent call about a family emergency and had to rush to the airport with barely time to grab your wallet and your passport. But now, you’re stuck at the airport with nothing to read. What do you do?? And, no, you did NOT have time to grab your bookbag, or the book next to your bed. You were . . . grocery shopping when you got the call and have nothing with you but your wallet and your passport (which you fortuitously brought with you in case they asked for ID in the ethnic food aisle). This is hypothetical, remember….
Well, it is entirely out of character for me to go anywhere without a book. I took one walking with my friend a while ago, who was not comforted by my rationale “Well, if you fall and break a leg, I’ll have to do something while I wait with you.” But I will stretch the mind… what would I do?

Hmm.

I assume the airport bookshop only has aptly named ‘airport novels’? Not sure I could force my way through one of them. Perhaps I’d stock up on magazines, and play games in my head, like how many novels by Dickens I can think of in three minutes, or protagonists for every letter of the alphabet. Or perhaps I’d become the only person engrossed with the Saftey Information… Hmm.

This exercise has made me more determined than ever to have a book at all times. Now I’m going to choose the ones to accompany me to Northern Ireland tomorrow.

“But I’ve got some lazing to do…”

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Every now and then, you need a book that is unashamedly silly. And when you’re feline like that (a-ha-ha) you need a book about cats. Obviously.

My personal favourite is on Amazon here – Jeffrey Brown’s observations are astute, witty and very catty… So, when Molly Brandenburg offered me a review copy of Everyday Cat Excuses, the only answer I was going to give was “Yes! Yes, cats!” I don’t really know how I can give a book review of a book like this. Dostoevsky it ain’t, but I rather think old Fyodor would have enjoyed flicking through this book.

Those of us who have owned cats, or currently own cats, know that they’re not the most active and servile of creatures. They might be able to recognise their own name, but aren’t stupid enough to pay any heedance to it. They know when it’s dinner time, and the rest of the itinerary is on their terms. So, if you ask them to do something, it’s more or less a given that they’ll have an excuse…

And so Molly draws cartoons depicting these excuses. An example is pictured – it’s the cartoon which is a great deal more polished than mine! My favourites are the little series of “Because I need to go outside.” “Actually, I need to go inside.” “Inside? Craziness – outside for me, please”. And so on. (I paraphrase). There is so much to observe in our feline friends. For a novel with a great cat, I recommend Ivy Compton-Burnett’s Mother and Son. For an amusing present to a cat lover, do check out either Molly’s book, or Jeffrey Brown’s (linked to above).

Something properly literary soon, promise!

If Music Be The Food Of Love…

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I am feeling quite inspirationless today (to the extent of making up such words as inspirationless) and am not quite sure what to blog about… Could tell you about my driving lesson, in which I did things like a ‘turn in the road’ (we don’t call ’em three-point-turns anymore) and ‘parallel parking’ (not sure what I was parallel to, but it certainly wasn’t either the car in front or the kerb). When we arrived back at my house, we discovered that one of the front tyres was flat (which explained the odd, urgent motions a cyclist had made on the way) – and so I ended the lesson holding an umbrella over my instructor, whilst he changed the tyre. Our Vicar has repeatedly tried to explain to myself and The Carbon Copy how to change a tyre, but always seemed to choose a day when I was wearing white, and thus not overly eager to be ‘hands-on’…

Something I hadn’t got around to mentioning yet is that Kirsty tagged me for Six Random Facts about myself – well, I went two better back in May 07, when someone asked me to do Eight Random Facts – see it here. Which got me thinking about music, as that was one of my random facts.

What do you listen to when you read? Some favourite CDs, or the radio? Or do you need silence? Perhaps you read anywhere, with people chatting all around you.
I tend to go for quiet, soothing, beautiful music – though with a singer, rather than classical or instrumental. Usually, like the books I like best, by women. Nothing too distracting, and preferably all by the same artist, so that it can blend into the background and offer no surprises…

I’ve dotted some of my favourite CDs around this post. Clicking on them should take you to their relevant Amazon page…

Yellow

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I have been having good luck with books recently. You may remember that I impulsively bought Yellow by Janni Visman, after having barcoded it in the Bodleian – based on the blurb and the cover, and the fact that Amazon has lots going for a penny. Well, I couldn’t resist – it’s now been read, and I can declare it excellent.

Stella is agoraphobic, to the extent that she cannot leave her flat at all. She lives there with her partner, Ivan, and her cat, George. When Ivan moved in, she made three rules:

No stories from the past.
No unnecessary anecdotes.
No questions.

“Suits me fine,” he said.

Stella is also neurotic. Not in a Monica-from-Friends-hilarious-way, but in a studied attention to details and fixation with routine. She wears the same colour shoes for months, and the decision to change from blue to red is momentous. As an aromatherapist, she has a steady stream of clients come to her treatment room – all of whom call her Ms. Lewis, and from whom overtures of friendship are unwelcome. Throughout the novel, Stella treats her own and others dilemmas with treatments from the ordered phials in the one metre square cabinet: ‘To a glass of water I add five drops of Bach Flower Remedy White Chestnut for “constant worrying thoughts and/or mental arguments”. I note I need to order another bottle.’

One day Ivan is wearing an old gold bracelet with his name on it, and ‘True love forever over every single rainbow XXX S.L 1978’ inscribed inside. Who is S.L.? They are Stella’s initials – they are the initials of her sister, Skye. Whose else could they be? ‘Yellow is the colour of gas, of fear, of jealousy.’ As her partner, her sister, her new neighbour and even her cat begin to behave strangely, Stella’s jealousy and paranoia become deeper and deeper and increasingly damaging. But is there some justification?

Janni Visman’s novel is short, but immensely powerful. The first person narrative is sparse and often detached; the voice of a woman trying to control her worries by ordering them. As a portrait of paranoia, this is intense and affective – gripping and taut, occasionally disturbing but always compelling.

Visman cites Hitchcock’s Vertigo as partial inspiration (see a great interview here), but (especially since she trained as a fine artist) this painting, shown alongside the book, could have been made for the book, and was the bookmark I used – Vilhelm Hammershoi’s Interior, Sunlight on the Floor 1906.

Page Boy

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I had intended to spend my Saturday in an indulgence of writing letters and reading books, but somehow it became a day of cleaning and slumbering… I feel rather like the worst bits of Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty rolled into one. So it is with gratitude that I accept Angela‘s tagging for a meme, which saves me thinking of something myself…

1. Pick up the nearest book
2. Open to page 123
3. Find the fifth sentence
4. Post the next three sentences
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you

Well, what do you think the book nearest to me is? You guessed it – The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters. At least I don’t have to worry about it having at least 123 pages…

Oh dear. Page 123 doesn’t bring out the best in the Mitford clan…

[Letters from Diana to Deborah, 2nd June 1938]
“Last night the Fuhrer was talking about which of us was going to the Parteitag, and he says he specially wants you to go. Isn’t it wonderful. I told what a marvellous rider you are and he thinks you are so beautiful and wants you to see the Parteitag while you are young.”

Oh, Mitfords…

More Mitfords…

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I couldn’t leave it just at the Mitford letters, now, could I?

Having fallen down before Deborah in a frenzy of adulation, I had to seek out Counting My Chickens… and other home thoughts by Debo, or the Duchess of Devonshire as such as I should call her. It’s a collection of all sorts of writings Deborah has published in newspapers and periodicals over the years (most notably the British Goat Society Yearbook 1972); lots of short articles and thoughts, something to dip in and out of.

Deborah isn’t a natural prose writer, not in the way Nancy was. She frequently claims not to be able to read, let alone write (though Charlotte Mosley notes in The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters ‘Diana believed that unlike most people who pretend to have read books that they have not, Deborah pretended not to have read books that she had’.) Counting My Chickens, accordingly, is no sweeping grand narrative – but in the vignettesque pieces, Deborah demonstrates a gently witty and loveable nature. Who can fail to adore her when, asked to choose her ten books for a Trans Siberian Railway (!), she writes ‘My third book is Patrick Leigh Fermor’s Between the Woods and the Water. I am sorry to say I have not read it…’

Most of Counting My Chickens is little thoughts, connected to Chatsworth or the countryside – her opinions are sometimes applaudable, sometimes baffling (why doesn’t she like female weather forecasters?), but always entertaining or interesting. She has a habit of writing a statement, and simply putting ‘Good.’ as the next sentence. What a flood of ink could be saved if other authors used rhetoric so simple!

To be honest, Deborah Mitford could have written her views concerning the telephone directory, or a list of her favourite three digit numbers, and I’d have lapped it up. She is, after all, more or less like a sister to me now. A somewhat older sister, it must be said, but a sister nonetheless. I wonder what on earth she’d make of that – seeing as I am vegetarian, never milked a cow, and have been known to say ‘talking with’ when I mean ‘talking to’…

My next Mitford read will be Hons and Rebels by Jessica – a few of you rightly said that I should read more by or about Decca before judging her, so I shall give her the benefit of the doubt…!

By the way, I’m keeping a list of the Alphabet Meme as it goes on through the blogs, so if you’ve done one, just let me know…

Mitfordmania

StuckinaBook All , 12 Comments

I am forlorn. There is no other word for it. Having started it in November, I am drawing to the final pages of The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters. Only two sisters are still alive, and I have lived every period of their lives. It is rare, I must confess, that I want a book to continue when I’ve come to the end. Almost always I am happy to finish and move onto the next, even if I’ve really enjoyed reading the book. It is astonishing that an 800+ page book should leave me wanting more.

When I started The Mitfords in November, I had heard of Nancy, Jessica and Diana, though got them a little mixed up, and had no idea about the rest of them. I knew they were fairly posh, and had written some books between them, of which I had only read The Pursuit of Love and letters between Nancy and Heywood Hill. Oh, those early days of reading the letters, when I had constantly to flick to the front, to work out which one Pamela was and whether or not she was older than Diana, and whether or not Jessica was married yet and if Unity was two or twelve or twenty. How far away such ignorance now seems! I can name them all in order of births and deaths, state political leanings; spouses; sororal favourites and antagonisms; every bit of their characters which could be revealed in these letters.

As Jo Rowling says: ‘A novelist would never get away with inventing this: a correspondence spanning eight decades, written from locations including Chatsworth and Holloway Prison, between six original and talented women who numbered among their friends Evelyn Waugh, Maya Angelou, J. F. Kennedy and Adolf Hitler’. As a social document alone, this book would be one of the most important of recent years. Throw in six unique, unmistakable characters, gifted women with affection and great humour – The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters is unquestionably the best book I’ve read thus far in 2008, and I can’t see it being bettered before the year is out.

It is impossible to read about Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica and Deborah without emerging with favourites. Seeing their true selves exposed and shared, I couldn’t help form opinions and imaginary kindred spirits. So, I did warm to – no, strike that, adore – Deborah (indisputably the heroine of the book) for her warmth, lovingness, refusal to adopt a political viewpoint which would damage her sisterly relationships. Witty, too, without the barbs some of her sisters planted. Pamela is adorable too, forever known as Woman for her unfeminine qualities, but she is the least garralous sister. The only sister I couldn’t stand by the end of the collection was Jessica – I think it unacceptable to cut a sister from your life because they have different political leanings. Extreme ones, on both sides, yes – but the ties of siblingship are above such things. And a minor quibble over a scrapbook was being dregged up by Jessica FIFTEEN YEARS after the event happened. For goodness’ sake, woman!

Such are the strong reactions The Mitfords provokes, you see… and anyone else reading it will form different alliances, I daresay. Hopefully anyone staying away from this collection because of the Mitford reputation will be swayed. Yes, they were rich, and sometimes a little eccentric – their sense of humour and catchphrases take some getting used to, but isn’t that true of all families? I long, now, to say “do admit!” when I mean “you must admit that’s funny”, or “screamed” for “was amused”. Their range of nicknames is baffling, but delightfully so – and, once I got the hang of it, it felt rather like I’d been invited into the family group. Not quite into the group, actually, of course – but with the privileged position of benevolent eavesdropping…

Utterly fascinating, endlessly moving (I gasped aloud at a miscarriage one sister suffered) this collection of letters is a treasure chest and a social document; a comedy and a history; unavoidably brilliant without the least pretension to being anything other than the letters between six sisters.

In theory…

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Isn’t it nice when something spreads across the internet?

When I listed my A-Z favourite authors, with accompanying books, I hoped a few people would get puzzling over their response – and, to my gratification, quite a few of you did. So thought I’d point you all in the various directions –

Sibylle (shares a massive seven authors with me…)
Margaret
Danielle
Elaine
Kirsty
Cath
Lizzy
litlove
Norm
Iliana
Joanna
Ted
Tiffany
Nymeth
Pat
Robin
Juxtabook
CallMeMadam

Have I missed anyone?
Was considering compiling a list of authors chosen, but you can go and have a look yourselves. I think George Eliot wins out, by virtue of her unusual ‘E-‘ surname – though I was expecting more Austen. Isn’t it great that there are so many favourite authors out there, in the blogosphere? Lots of names to investigate.

In other news, I passed my Driving Theory Test this morning – hurray! I now have two years to pass my driving test proper, and might need all of that time… But at least I now know that a horse might go in any direction at a roundabout, and that a mobile ‘phone increases the risk of an accident by four times. Goodness knows what calamities a horse on a mobile ‘phone would cause…

Reduced Billybob

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A very fun evening at the theatre, watching The Reduced Shakespeare Company perform The Complete Works of Shakespeare in 97 minutes. Now, if only they’d been around while I was doing my revision.for finals…

This post contains quite a few spoilers, both of Shakespeare and how they used Shakespeare, so read on only with the greatest caution…

Great fun. We saw Hamlet in a few minutes, complete with sock puppetry, shark and Ophelia’s id being acted out by the audience waving their hands rhythmically; the Histories were performed as a game of American Football; the Comedies were rolled into one performance (“Which is the one which starts with a ship wreck, has identical twins, and ends with a wedding?” “All of them.”)

Since the troupe was a three-man-band, all the female parts were (appropriately enough) played by men. Unlike the Renaissance stage, they were taken by one man in a bad wig, who screamed a lot. Actually… ahem. Hamlet’s Ghost held up a sign saying ‘Boo’; one man played the balconey in Romeo & Juliet; Juliet failed to kill herself because her sword was a retractable stage one; Othello had toy boats tied around his neck, as they’d misunderstood the meaning of ‘Moor’…

Oh, it was great. And not the least informative.