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Happy Birthday to me!

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It was on April 10th a year ago, in the throes of Finals revision, that I impulsively decided to start writing a literary blog. I was immersed in Middle English (through no choice of my own) and needed a window into kinder literature; books on which I would not be tested. Though I did have some people to share book loves with, I knew there must be even more out there. And perhaps even some people who might want to know my 50 Books You Must Read But May Not Have Heard About…


That was the sketch from my very first entry – and it is more appropriate than ever.

It’s been such a joy to have you all come by here over the past year. I don’t think Stuck-in-a-Book will ever bring in thousands (I’ve trotted along at more or less the same, very nice, number of visitors for the past six months or so) but I’ve made so many friends amongst you. I shan’t name you, but you know who you all are, I hope.

It’s been a fun year, one of much change in my life – here’s to Year Two!

As a birthday present to you all, and to myself, I’ve collected all the posts which are specifically book reviews, so that they can be found easily… rather than clutter up the column at the side, I shall instead place a link under the ‘Home…’ bit. That will link to a post which, in turn, links to all the reviews. Look out for it in the next couple of days!

More Cold Comfort Farm

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I’m just back from a very enjoyable meet-up in London with some bookish people, more on that in the near future. Today, I just couldn’t leave you mystified as to my opinions concerning Ms. Gibbons and her Farm of Cold Comfort. So interesting to read the views of others before I throw my own out there, must try that again some time.

And what an interesting disparity there is amongst you! Some love; some loathe; some fairly indifferent. Well, it’s time to nail my colours to the mast – I love, love, love Cold Comfort Farm and think it’s in the top ten funniest books I’ve ever read. Quite a bold statement to make, and knowing that lots of you have already read it, I probaly have to justify my position… I’ll do my best. But I think humour in a book is the most difficult thing to define, encapsulate or explain. Why do I find something funny? Goodness knows. And trying to work out why something is funny kills the humour. Oh well. I’ll do my best…

I read Cold Comfort Farm in January 2004, and re-read it last week for Book Group – what had been enjoyed at 18 was delighted in at 22. Perhaps my pleasure will go up in four-yearly increments, leaving me in delirium by the time I’m 98. What made the most difference, I think, is that I have read some Lawrence, some Hardy, some interwar psychoanalytical novels in the interrim. For Cold Comfort Farm is pastiche on every page – mostly, apparently, of Mary Webb, whom I have not read – and not a word is intended to be taken seriously.

Ironically, Cold Comfort Farm is both pastiche and wholly unlike any other book in the world. It couldn’t be. Flora Poste, the chic London ‘heroine’, finds herself orphaned and decides to live with a relative. She tries several, including the Starkadders of Cold Comfort Farm, albeit reluctantly: ‘ “because highly sexed young men living on farms are always called Seth or Reuben, and it would be such a nuisance. And my cousin’s name, remember, is Judith. That in itself is most ominous. Her husband is almost certain to be called Amos; and if he is, it will be a typical farm, and you know what they are like.” ‘ It is this sense that Flora is walking into a cliche – which is evident even if one has never touched a rural novel of the type being satirised – which characterises the whole situation, and the rest of the novel. She breezes into Cold Comfort Farm, and encounters every type of absurd, farcical and outlandish character imaginable. And I loved every one of ’em.

90 year old Adam, who cares only for his cows Feckless, Aimless, Graceless and Pointless; over-sexed Seth who is perpetually undoing shirt buttons and believes women only want “yer blood and yer breath”; Mr. Mybug who sees Flora’s revulsion towards him as ‘inhibitions’ and claims Branwell Bronte wrote Wuthering Heights; preacher Amos who doesn’t plan his sermons but “I allus knows ’twill be summat about burnin’…”; most famously Aunt Ada Doom, confined to her room, who once “saw something nasty in the woodshed”. And a host of others, all of whom are keen to impress on Flora that “there have always been Starkadders at Cold Comfort”.

In response to Angela’s comment yesterday, I do think the characters are supposed to be cartoonish – or absurd, anyway. It is the clash of their melodramatic sayings and Flora’s unflustered sense which gave me the moments of greatest mirth. For example, this exchange between Flora and Cousin Judith:

…
Judith had sunk into a reverie.
‘Curtains?’ she asked, vacantly, lifting her magnificent head. ‘Child, child, it is many years since such trifles broke across the web of my solitude.’
‘I’m sure it is; but do you think I might have them washed, all the same?’

Flora’s tidy dismissal of the rural histrionics would be callous and arrogant in real life, but real life is not something which impinges on Cold Comfort Farm. Self-confidence propels Flora through solving all the Starkadder dilemmas, even the domineering matriach Ada Doom, whose only defence tactics are thwacking people with Cowkeepers’ Weekly Bulletin and Milk Producers’ Guide.

I find Cold Comfort Farm a hilarious romp from beginning to end, as well as an example of brilliantly measured and controlled writing, but I can quite see it’s a novel which is either hit or miss. Those who haven’t read it, do give it a go – if, after 40 pages, you don’t love it then you never will. If you do, you always will.

The Book Quiz

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Back from a lovely time in Snowdonia, where it snowed and was unutterably beautiful. Reminded me of Psalm 95 – specifically: “In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. Come let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker.”

Consequently I am rather sleepy – walking and playing and praying and travelling have taken it out of me. So I shall just point you in the direction of a great BBC quiz, and shall duck when those of you who aren’t from the UK realise that you can’t watch The Book Quiz. In an age when mass media is accused of dumbing down, often quite rightly, it is nice to see a literary quiz – and, what’s more, a very tricky one. See this week’s episode here, if you’re in the UK, and see if you can do better than me.

The rounds involve identifying opening lines of novels; poet’s reading their own poetry; picture clues for a book; quickfire questions, each interlinking; thirty seconds or so to name as many examples as possible of, say, George Eliot novels. The team got one for that – Middlemarch. Go on, how many can you get in thirty seconds? Shamefully, I managed three – and none of them were the one I’ve read. Pressure!

Good fun, very challenging, and covers an enormous range of literature. Well done, BBC.

In other culture news, I spent this evening pretending to be Doctor Who for a Social Sciences Library introductory video…

Thrown To The Woolfs

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Today’s Woolf-pun wasn’t my own invention, though a trawl through past posts on Woolf will reveal quite a medley of ’em – as does today’s sketch, which is once more recycled. What can I say, I’m fond of it. And I’m also fond of Virginia Woolf, always on the look out for other things to read by and about her.

Can’t remember where I first saw Thrown To The Woolfs by John Lehnmann, but I have a feeling it was mentioned in Hermione Lee’s exhaustive biography Virginia Woolf – it appealed immediately; an account by Lehmann of being manager and later partner of Hogarth Press. He worked there between 1931 and 1946, with a sizeable gap in the middle – both chunks of time there, totalling almost eight years, ended in a rift with Leonard Woolf.

Although it is Woolf, V. who sold this title to me, Woolf, L. takes more central stage. Not in Lehmann’s opinion, certainly, but rather in the length of time spent together and consequent impact on Lehmann’s life. Like almost everyone else who has documented meeting Virginia, Lehmann was entirely bewitched by her, both as a person and a writer. He describes reading her final novel, Between The Acts, in manuscript: ‘It was a thrilling experience, and I was deeply moved. It seemed to me to have an unparalleled imaginative power, to be filled with a poetry more disturbing than anything she had written before, reaching at times the extreme limits of the communicable’. She herself died believing it to be “too silly and trivial”, but in her mental state also called To The Lighthouse ‘inconceivably bad’. It is a further tragedy that one of the century’s greatest writers died believing her work to be awful.

So, though Virginia was undoubtedly Lehmann’s preferred Woolf, it was Leonard who dominated the running of the Hogarth Press. The Press was important to both Woolfs – Lehmann describes it being treated ‘as if it were the child their marriage had never produced’ – but Leonard was far more concerned with the managerial side. He was notoriously parsimonious, going into a rage if a halfpenny could not be accounted for in, er, accounts. Thrown To The Woolfs, as the title suggests, does not tell a wholly happy tale, and it was (Lehmann suggests) Leonard’s over-bearing attitude, especially regards vetoing authors Lehmann wished to publish, which led to the eventual break up of their partnership. Much of the third section of this book is taken up with settling scores – quoting from Leonard’s autobiography and then refuting and repudiating. Though the final paragraph begins ‘it is absurd, and deleterious, in one’s later ages, to harbour enduring resentments about the struggles and tribulations of one’s younger career’ – but this feels a little like lip service to good nature. The tone becomes a trifle bitter, with light coming only in references to Virginia and other authors about whom he is passionate.

Despite these unresolved squabbles, Thrown To The Woolfs is a well-written and interesting account of a unique viewpoint on the Woolfs, and as such is well worth seeking out. Just don’t expect Happy Families all round.

By the by, I’m off to Snowdonia for a few days – see you when I get back!

Reading Daphne Backwards

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You may have noticed a few days ago on Karen’s blog that we have a little project planned together: Reading Daphne Backwards. Twyla Tharp, apparently, recommends reading an author’s work from their final offering, backwards to their first. I commented on Karen’s blog to say how interesting that sounded, and that I hadn’t read much Daphne du Maurier (just the exemplary Rebecca under my belt). Karen was also thinking du Maurier territory, and thus a project was born. I hesitate to say Challenge, because those always make me want to hide under the covers and read something else… so Reading Daphne Backwards is a lengthy project, which we aim to have finished by the end of 2008.

The idea is to see how a novelist progressed, but in reverse. What themes become stronger; which weaker? What were their basics of writing, to which the reverse read will draw? It may reveal nothing at all, but it should be fun nonetheless…


First thing to do, buy the books. Bless the The Book People – they had a boxset of ten Daphne novels for £9.99. Fancy a link to it? Here you are then. I don’t know how they do it, but I’m glad they do – and the boxset arrived this morning. It doesn’t include all the novels and stories, but I think I’m going to stick to the ones they do have there, for now. The Scapegoat is at home in Somerset somewhere… but I don’t think I’ll run out of Daphnes for a while.

The running order, then, is:

The Flight of the Falcon
Castle Dor
My Cousin Rachel
The Parasites
Frenchman’s Creek
Rebecca
Jamaica Inn
Julius
I’ll Never Be Young Again
and The Rendevous and Other Stories will have to slot in somewhere…

Do feel free to join in, or just watch as Karen and I compare notes on our blogs.

The Yellow Wallpaper

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Two of the least successful advertising campaigns imaginable, there…

Sorry, starting in a frivolous mood. It shan’t persist, promise.
I’ve got this bug that’s going round (isn’t there always one going round?) and spent much of the day in bed – what better, thought I, than The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman? When I mentioned it the other day, there was quite a response from you guys telling me to drop everything and read it (including Angela, who writes about the book here). I’m nothing if not obedient…

Wow. I don’t know whether to call The Yellow Wallpaper a novel or a short story, probably the latter, but whatever it is: wow. What an effect, and what writing.

Sorry, I appear to be dissolving into cheerleaderdom – but sometimes a work is written so excellently that no other response is possible.

An unnamed woman is suffering from a nervous complaint (“nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression”) and sent to rest in a rented house, while her own (and her physician husband’s) is being repaired. She is given the large old nursery, at the top of the house, which has windows on all sides and is covered in patterned, yellow wallpaper. Her reaction to this wallpaper is measured and aesthetically based, at first:
‘I never saw a worse paper in my life. One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin. It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide – plunge off at outrageous angles, destory themselves in unheard of contractions. The color is repellent, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight.’

There are already hints of extremity – the suicide metaphor; the intense description of the colour. As the story continues, the heroine becomes increasingly obsessed by the wallpaper – trying to understand the pattern, and whatever may be secreted behind it.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman subtly portrays the woman’s plight through a naive and confused first person voice, and sublimation of her depression into obsession with the wallpaper. Many now think the story depicts post-natal depression (‘Such a dear baby! And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous.’) and it does so extremely sensitively. Deservedly a classic, The Yellow Wallpaper makes subtle mastery seem easy – but was almost certainly far from it.

It’s great to have this story in one of those beautiful Virago Modern Classics editions, but sadly it comes with an appalling afterword by Elaine R. Hedges. Hedges takes what is a poignant and deep example of sensitive feminist writing, and tries to turn it into the most militant variety. The sort which throws around terms like “marriage institution” and claims that no woman has ever voluntarily entered marriage, and all men seek to control and destroy women. She crushes all the beauty of Perkins Gilman’s story, and I found the whole Afterword belittled post-natal depression and insulted those who suffer from it, as though it were not significant enough an issue to which to devote a narrative. Tsk.

But – to end on a positive note – what a story. Thank you for pushing it to the top of tbr pile, folks.

What day is it, again?

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Got something rather fun in my inbox today… took me a while to… well, you’ll see:

Dear Mr Thomas,

My name is Alexander Garner, and I am the chief submissions editor for
Woo Hoo Magazine. A recent survey of our readers indicated that, and I
quote, “they only read it for the articles”, and as we always listen
carefully to our consumers we are always on the lookout for new and
exciting writing talent. To this end, I was gratified to recently find your
blog, “Stuck in a Book”. Literary material is always of interest to our
distinguished customers, and I am therefore writing to ask whether you
would be interested in syndicating your blog in the pages of our
publication.

I appreciate that Woo Hoo may not be quite the target market that you
had considered when you began writing, but rest assured that it is
entirely possible for work such as yours to sit comfortably alongside all of
the other articles currently published by our magazine (these include
the famous “Aunty Morticia’s Lingerie Advice” and “Cor What A Scorcher”
columns). Of course, we would require some minor editing to your
material.

This editing would consist of purely cosmetic changes, with perhaps
some slight alterations in tone. For example, I note that your blog is
currently very light on swearing. I fully appreciate that you may be
uncomfortable with too much swearing, but the odd burst of profanity tends
to reassure our customers. Similarly, your tendency not to include any
car chases or explosions in your work detracts from the overall ethos of
our publication, and we would, of course, insist on such elements
being introduced.

Although the sketches that periodically appear on your blog are well
executed, I fear that their content may be slightly too highbrow for some
of our readers. We would prefer it, therefore, if you could have your
sketch characters make more use of words like “boobs” and “busty”, and
include fewer literary allusions, as most of these are likely to simply
confuse our readers. Likewise, if the photography that appears could
be replaced with pictures of cars, fighter jets and football players, we
would be considerably happier.

Lastly, as most of our customers have yet to read a book that they
could not roll up and use to swat a fly, I would be more comfortable about
syndicating your work if it contained fewer references to books
entirely. Perhaps replacing this element of your content with references to
the latest bands, TV shows (I hear that Skins produces particularly good
material) and Die Hard movies would increase your work’s appeal.

I am sure that you will jump at the chance to see your name in print in
our distinguished publication, and as such I look forward eagerly to
hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

Alexander Garner

Chief submissions editor, Woo Hoo Magazine

I tracked down which ‘friend’ was ‘Alex’… you can track him down here….

Blogging the Classics…

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…is the title of the Oxford Literary Festival talk I’ve just attended, at which friend of SiaB, Lynne Hatwell (aka dovegreyreader) spoke. That wasn’t a very good sentence, was it, and doubtless it would be frowned upon by Serious Critics and Professional Academics.

Oops. Mustn’t get this off on the wrong foot – these terms are still whirling around my mind – as the talk was about literary critics vs. bloggers. I’ve already trotted out my thoughts on this topic here, and they are nice, gentle thoughts. I’d just like to get rid of the ‘vs.’ and recognise that the two things are very different kettles of fish.

Luckily Lynne, alongside fellow blogger Mark Thwaite and critics John Carey and John Mullan, had wiser and more profound words to say. The discussion was fun, didn’t descend into fisticuffs, and left me feeling very proud of ‘our’ Lynne (and also feeling rather lowbrow, as both Mullan’s criticism and Thwaite’s blog sounded like they’d go rather over my head – but a blog for everything and everything in its blog, as they may or may not say). Lynne definitely stole the show – as my friend Mary (also the kind person who drove me home) said, until Lynne said her bit, the word ‘reader’ had been mentioned once. And, whatever the arguments are in theory, it is the reader for whom Lynne writes – and she also makes a witty, friendly and generally brilliant Event Speaker. I look forward to our lunch tomorrow. And maybe, if I heap all this praise on her, she’ll consider me for the list of blogs she links to!… nothing without a price, me ;-)

But she was wonderful. And I wanted to share a little anecdote about the nice lady who sat next to me, and whom I hope has found her way here. We got chatting before the event started, and she (foolishly I didn’t either ask her name or forward mine…) hadn’t come across many blogs, though was eager for pointers. At the end we turned to each other, to say how good it was – and she was so excited about blogging, it was lovely. “I can’t wait to get to my computer – it feels like there’s a whole new world out there!” Well, I hope you’ve made it here, so I can introduce myself properly. I’m Simon, very nice to meet you! That, to sum things up in a hazy but happy manner, is what blogging is all about.

Shorter Than Fiction

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It’s always difficult to review collections of short stories, or even consider them in one’s mind effectively. Should they be treated as ten or twenty separate works, or as one work? Sometimes there is an obvious linking style – as with Katherine Mansfield, say – which makes every narrative unmistakably by the same author, even if you can’t put your finger on the reason why. Other writers, like Clare Wigfall (whose The Loudest Sound and Nothing I talked about last August) have a huge variety and range in their style. I don’t think either approach is intrinsically superior, but the former is lot easier to make generalisations about!

Two short story writers have sent me their debut collections recently, both of whom are rather prolific and much-published in various publications. Balancing on the Edge of the World by Elizabeth Baines, and Words from a Glass Bubble by Vanessa Gebbie. I think the best way to chat about these books is to pick the story from each which I most enjoyed, and which is fairly representative, and use that as a starting point.

The blurb to Baines’ Balancing on the Edge of the Worlds says the stories are all about power – the keeping, losing, grasping or relinquishing of it. That’s probably as unifying a theme as any, but it’s probably easier to suggest a unifying style. Baines’ writing has a soothing softness to it, but somehow each story feels haunted and uneasy, until a turn (nothing so histrionic as a ‘twist’, if you can see the difference) justifies this foreboding. But even with uneasiness, and occasional tragedy, that softness remains.

The story I wanted to pick out is ‘Compass and Torch’ – in the third person, an uncertain boy on a trip with his Dad, whom he doesn’t often see. ‘The boy is intent. Watching Dad. Watching what Dad is. Drinking it in: the essence of Dad.’ The awkwardness of their relationship – with its latent closeness, and surface of discomfort – is portrayed so exactly. We see it first in relation to the torch, of which the boy is so anxiously proud:

The boy is chattering: ‘Have you brought one too, have you brought a torch?’ ‘Oh, yes!’ Is this a problem? the boy suddenly wonders. Does this make one of the torches redundant? For a brief moment he is uncertain, potentially dismayed, a mood which the man, for all his distraction, catches. ‘We can use both of them, can’t we, Dad?’ ‘Oh yes! Yes, of couse!’ Then a swoop of delight: ‘We can light up more with both, can’t we?’ ‘Oh yes, certainly!’ The man too is gratefully caught on a wave of triumph. ‘Oh, yes, two are definitely better! Back-up, for a start.’
I shouldn’t dream of telling you the end of this story, except that it is done calmly in a couple of sentences, and won’t leave your mind for some time. Baines’ stories are executed with a subtle smoothness, and a precise portrayal of human relationships – both the surface of them, and what goes on underneath. A great debut.

Words from a Glass Bubble by Vanessa Gebbie has an equally varied group of scenarios, narrators and themes – but her voice is rather harsher, more concerned with the gritty and the earthy. Occasionally a quieter voice creeps through, which leaves one staring at the page at the sheer pathos Gebbie can create. ‘The Kettle on the Boat’, for instance, where parents quietly take their Inuit daughter away on a boat; she narrates the journey, and leave her for adoption: “If I am not there to help, how will Mama know when the fish are ready?”

The one I wanted to point to, though, is ‘Cactus Man’. ‘The Kettle on the Boat’ was my favourite, but ‘Cactus Man’ is perhaps more representative. ‘Spike’, an enthusiast and collector of cacti , wants to discover his real name because he is getting married. He visits a social worker who can look through his files and tell him.

‘I was saying how unusual your case is.’ ‘Can’t be doing with too much usual.’ ‘Sorry?’ ‘We feed off being unusual, us lot.’ ‘Oh, I see’.

The story is one of muted disappointment, understated grief and an eventual path of hope for Spike. Gebbie is at her most subtle here, and manages to evoke the lives of her central characters completely, visualised through the stilted attempts of Spike to gain a firmer grasp on his identity. There is nothing so saccharine as a ‘love conquers all’ message here (however true that may be) but a sense that hope can be found amongst fragility and discouragement.

Both collections are published by Salt Publishing.