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Mr Pye by Mervyn Peake

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My friend Clare bought me Mr Pye (1953) by Mervyn Peake, and I added it to my wishlist after I saw it being compared to my beloved Miss Hargreaves – a comparison I will look into more thoroughly later in this post. Project Names seemed like a good opportunity to pick it up – and what an intriguing world and character Peake creates

I only really knew Peake’s name in connection with the Titus Groan books, which I have not read, and had assumed he was exclusively a fantasy writer. While this novel incorporates elements of the fantastic, it is set firmly in the real world – specifically Sark, one of the Channel Islands. Here’s the opening of the novel:

“Sark.”

“Yes, sir,” said the man in the little quayside hut. “A return fare. Six shillings.”

“A single, my friend,” said Mr Harold Pye.

The man in the little hut looked up and frowned at the unfamiliar face.

“Did you say a ‘single‘, sir?”

“I believe so.”

The man in the hut frowned again as though he were still not satisfied. Why should this fat little stranger be so sure he wanted a ‘single’? He was obviously only a visitor. A return ticket would last him for three months and would save him two shillings. Some people, he reflected, were beyond hope.

“Very well,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

“And very well to you, my friend,” said Mr Pye. “Very well indeed -” and with a smile both dazzling and abstracted at the same time he placed some silver coins upon the table and with a small, plump, and beautifully manicured forefinger he jockey’d them into a straight line.

Mr Pye is extremely warm and friendly with everyone, almost disconcertingly so. He doesn’t seem to quite understand the rules governing social interaction, as his slightly uptight landlady Miss Dredger soon discovers. He bustles into her life, keen to improve her through cheerfulness and advice from God – whom he refers to as the ‘Great Pal’. It’s rather endearing, and yet we understand how Miss Dredger might feel rather unsettled by the whole thing.

A mainstay in Miss Dredger’s life is her enmity with another local – Miss George. There is a very funny scene when they squabble over who will use the island’s transport to get down the steep hill – where Mr Pye’s luggage is waiting to be collected. His attempts to find a compromise do not go down well, but his personality is so forceful that they find themselves doing as he says. And then he invites Miss George to move in with them…

But while Mr Pye is having a dramatic effect on the island, there is also an effect happening to him. I shan’t say what it is, but a physical metamorphosis starts to cause him great alarm – and fans of Miss Hargreaves will notice a definite similarity at this point. Birds of a feather, and all that.

And are they birds of a feather? I can see many things they novels have in common – chiefly that an extraordinary being appears and disrupts a community, unaware that they are quite as unusual as they are. But the tone feels quite different at times, and I really liked Mr Pye where I love Miss Hargreaves.

Peake does have a great way of creating a strange dynamic and seeing what will happen next. His illustrations are also delightful, enhancing the novel’s quirkiness and charm. I can’t quite put my finger on what stopped this being an absolutely-loved-it read, because all the ingredients are certainly there. While it probably won’t be on my Best Books of 2019 list, it’s certainly a great example of imaginative character creation, a Bensonian community of genteel feuders, and exactly the right splash of the fantastic.

Candlestick Press

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I’ve been meaning to write about Candlestick Press for ages, ever since they sent me a selection of their poetry collections. And then I moved house and it didn’t happen, and here we are a whole bunch of months later. Luckily my friend Lorna gave me a copy of Ten Poem About Tea for my birthday a while go, and I’ve finally gotten around to mentioning them. (And no, she didn’t give this to me during Lent – that would be too cruel during my tea fast.)

Candlestick Press market their little collections as being ‘instead of a card’, and I think that’s a great idea. Cards have become so bizarrely expensive, considering they’re just a piece of card folded in two – and I suspect the designers and illustrators (who do deserve to be rewarded for their work) are not the ones seeing the bulk of the profits. Sending something like a Candlestick Press poetry book gets the greeting message across and won’t end up in the recycling after a few days.

They’ve done a nice job in selecting poems. I didn’t know most of the names in this one, but that is offset by Thomas Hardy and John Betjeman. I don’t know if any poems are written specially for this collection, but I love the idea of all the poems being inspired by Britain’s favourite drink. Some are funny, some are philosophical – and Hardy’s is a moving and cleverly simple snapshot of a love lost.

They do any number of topics, from bicycles to birds and breakfast to brothers. And even some things that don’t begin with ‘b’. Have a look for yourself, and see if your bookshop stocks them – I think they’re a great alternative to a card, and useful for a poetry novice like me to have a low-stakes way of reading some poems.

Some new British Library Crime Classics

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I love the British Library Crime Classics, but haven’t read one for a while – though three recently arrived through my door, and I wanted to highlight them! They all look really intriguing, and I think I might go for Death Has Deep Roots on the strength of that intriguing title…

Below is what the British Library have to say about them. And, while you’re here, you can enjoy also looking at some of my Richmal Crompton and EM Delafield novels forming a backdrop for the photo!

Death in Captivity

A man is found dead in an escape tunnel in an Italian prisoner of war camp. Did he die in an accidental collapse – or was this murder? Captain Henry ‘Cuckoo’ Goyles, master tunneller and amateur detective, takes up the case.

This classic locked-room mystery with a closed circle of suspects is woven together with a thrilling story of escape from the camp, as the Second World War nears its endgame and the British prisoners prepare to flee into the Italian countryside.

Death Has Deep Roots

At the Central Criminal Court, an eager crowd awaits the trial of Victoria Lamartine, an active participant in the Resistance during the war. She is now employed at the Family Hotel in Soho, where Major Eric Thoseby has been found murdered. The cause of death? A stabbing reminiscent of techniques developed by the Maquisards.

While the crime is committed in England, its roots are buried in a vividly depicted wartime France. Thoseby is believed to have fathered Lamartine’s child, and the prosecution insist that his death is revenge for his abandonment of Lamartine and her arrest by the Gestapo.

A last-minute change in Lamartine’s defence counsel grants solicitor Nap Rumbold just eight days to prove her innocence, with the highest of stakes should he fail. The proceedings of the courtroom are interspersed with Rumbold’s perilous quest for evidence, which is aided by his old wartime comrades.

Smallbone Deceased

Horniman, Birley and Craine is a highly respected legal firm with clients reaching to the highest in the land. When a deed box in the office is opened to reveal a corpse, the threat of scandal promises to wreak havoc on the firm’s reputation – especially as the murder looks like an inside job. The partners and staff of the firm keep a watchful and suspicious eye on their colleagues, as Inspector Hazlerigg sets out to solve the mystery of who Mr Smallbone was – and why he had to die.

Written with style, pace and wit, this is a masterpiece by one of the finest writers of traditional British crimenovels since the Second World War.

Which one most appeals to you?

Stuck in a Book’s Weekend Miscellany

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Is it spring? Is it not? I guess maybe? The weather as been very up and down recently, and it’s pouring with rain as I write. Hail, the other day! Oh well, books will never let us down, even if we have to heap ourselves with blankets and cats while reading. You know what else won’t let you down? The weekend miscellany. Here’s the usual trio of things to enjoy!

1.) The blog post – is Ali’s announcement of the upcoming Daphne du Maurier Reading Week, 13-19 May. Judging by the number of comments on that post, it should be very popular. I have lots of unread Daphnes on my shelf and, because of #ProjectNames, might go for Julius. Though I am a bit chary of reading it because of its reported anti-Semitism…

2.) The link – is a great article at Vulture about trying to live like Virginia Woolf, which also discusses Katharine Smyth’s brilliant All The Lives We Ever Lived (currently high in the running for my book of the year).

3.) The book – is Limbo by Dan Fox. I don’t know much about it, but I do know that I covet all of Fitzcarraldo’s non-fiction. I’ve only read one (Kate Briggs’ This Little Art, which was one of the best books I read last year) but I know I want to read more – and this one starts with a description of the Headington shark. If you don’t know what the Headington shark is, have a google – I used to live a few streets from it.

1965 Club: reminder!

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Hope you’re getting ready to pull those 1965 titles off the shelf! Karen and I will be running the #1965Club from 22-28 April – feel free to use the badge below.

For the uninitiated – every six months, Karen and I get readers across the internet to read books published in the same year, and we put together all the reviews to create an idea of what the scope of the literary year was. Post your reviews on your blog, LibraryThing, GoodReads, Instagram, wherever – in the comments of our blog posts, if you don’t have anywhere else – and put the link on our announcement posts. Once the week is over, I’ll do a round up here (and Karen is usually better than me at keeping track of all the reviews!)

If you’re in need of ideas, the Wiki page is a useful starting point – or take a look at the books I own from 1965! I’ve got three lined up that all have names in the title, killing two birds with one stone by incorporating #ProjectNames.

Happy selecting, and join us in a few weeks when the club starts properly!

Noah’s Ark by Barbara Trapido

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Ten years ago, Bloomsbury sent me a set of Barbara Trapido books for review. Ten years ago! And, yes, I read and reviewed (and really liked) Brother of the More Famous Jack back then, but it has taken me a decade to read my second Trapido – Noah’s Ark (1984). And I’m still rather unsure what I thought about it.

My first thought, as I read the opening, was how good the writing was. Here is most of the first paragraph, which I’m going to quote at length because I think she does such a good job of throwing you into an intriguing and unconventional world:

Ali Glazer was stitching up her husband’s trouser hems, but had paused to glance up at the kitchen pin board in some fascination. The photograph of a man, bearing a disconcerting resemblance to Thomas Adderley, had been torn from a Sunday magazine advertisement and pinned there by Ali’s older daughter Camilla. The girl herself had had no awareness of that resemblance which now so forcibly struck her mother and had fixed the picture there merely because she liked the man’s collarless Edwardian shirt. The man – in keeping with the clichés of capitalist realism – was manoeuvring a white stallion through a dappled glade of redwood trees and was advertising cigarettes. Ali noticed that Camilla had fixed him rather high on the pin board where he beamed out, as from a higher plane, above the two postcards pinned side by side below him. This hierarchical arrangement struck her as altogether suitable given that she had always elevated and revered Thomas, while the postcards had come from people to whom she felt predominantly antipathetic. 

I say ‘unconventional’, but I suppose Ali’s world is rigorously conventional. It is only her outlook, or the perspective that Trapido gives us, that makes it feel quirky and unusual. I was completely beguiled by that writing, and keen to immerse myself in whatever came after the first few pages – would Ali reconnect with Thomas? What would this mean for her marriage to the benevolently controlling Noah, who obviously doesn’t think that Ali is capable of very much, and mistakes her imaginative eccentricity for something inferior to his rational good sense?

Then Trapido did the thing that so many novelists do, and which always puts me off. We go back into the past. That was one scene in the present, to set a stage that we will work our way too. I never know why this is such a common trope, as I always find it deadens a novel. Oh well, I suppose I’ll put up with it.

We skate back to Ali’s past – between marriages. She has split up with her obnoxious ex-husband Mervyn, and is trying to work out how best to live life as a single mother – when Noah walks into her life, besotted and determined to sort out the disordered way in which Ali has allowed herself to become a doormat. Having seen how Noah treats her in the present day, we do get some benefit of hindsight, as it were, but it also removes some of the tension of wondering what will happen.

And the novel continues to be eccentric. We jump forward in time, or across continents, with very little warning. Trapido’s own eccentric authorial gaze refuses to let us get settled. Her writing style is never unduly odd, and certainly never breaks with the conventions of grammar etc., but the things she chooses to highlight often keep the reader on his/her toes. We spend more time being shown how different characters react to the prospect of head lice than we do to major life events. Everything is slightly off kilter. And I think that’s good?

I have to admit that I was a bit thrown by the novel. That started when one adult character starts lusting after an 11 year old Camilla, openly and in front of others, and nobody says anything. The hints of paedophilia are infrequent and never followed up in any way, but elsewhere, Trapido writes about sex in a jarring way, with sudden and momentary explicitness. And then I found the disconcerting way she puts together sentences and scenes was building together into something I couldn’t quite grasp. Much of the time I really admired it, but it made it difficult to identify the centre of the novel – to have anything concrete to hold onto.

Perhaps it’s a case of needing to be in the right mood for Trapido. I was definitely in that mood when I started the novel, and was loving it. The writing was really wonderful. By the time I finished it, the mood was faltering. Had I read it at a different time, I suspect I’d be writing an unadulteratedly glowing review of Noah’s Ark. I still think she is a richly inventive and unusual writer, but I’m going to be selective about when I start reading her again.

Madame Claire by Susan Ertz

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I first heard about Susan Ertz from one of the Persephone Quarterlies, when they put a list of titles they were vaguely considering publishing. (I should dig out that PQ for further reading suggestions, thinking about it.) I can’t remember which book they recommended, but the name was distinctive enough that I’ve kept an eye out for her over the years – and have three on my shelves. Madame Claire (1923) is the first one I’ve read.

Who is Madame Claire, you ask? She is the matriarch of a several-generation family, 78 years old and living in a hotel. As the novel opens, she has reconnected with a close friend – Stephen – whom she has not seen for nearly two decades, as he disappeared from her life when she (as a recent widow) turned down his proposal for marriage. They have begun writing again. And it is an elegant conceit for her to bring him up to speed on her extended family…

These cover some favoured tropes of 1920s domestic novels. One of her children, Eric, is in a loveless marriage (or, rather, one where the love has become buried beneath resentment and bitterness); another, Connie, has abandoned her husband and is living with a man who doesn’t truly care for her. Her grandchildren (from yet another children) are young and feckless – and the granddaughter Judy is in danger (!) of settling into a spinster lifestyle. Luckily, she hits an affable young man with her car, and they can get to know each other over his sickbed. And Claire and Stephen continue to write back and forth; her letters are a delight.

This sort of novel from this sort of time is so good at combining high emotion with high comedy, expecting the reader to feel sad on behalf of a tortured marriage while simultaneously laughing affectionately at witty, foolish young things falling in love. It is expected of the reader, and we deliver – or at least I did. A bit like soap operas today, we can adjust our emotions and responses to the scene in question. It helps, of course, that Ertz writes very well – only occasionally letting the melodrama get to her head with a few overwritten passages.

Above the fray, and helping everybody in the right direction, is Madame Claire herself. She is something of a benevolent dictator, loved by all and cloaking her dictatorship beneath good advice and expectant patience. Scott wrote an interesting blog post that is partly about manipulation in this novel, but I think I’m fine with it in a novel like this – which uses metonymy but never quite has the stakes of real life.

If you are a fan of Richmal Crompton, EM Delafield, or any number of Persephone authors – this will be up your street. Relaxing and fun, even when the characters are in high peril – but I think my favourite story was Judy and her hit-and-not-run victim. Maybe I’m a romantic at heart after all.

Mrs Christopher by Elizabeth Myers

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I first stumbled across Elizabeth Myers at a book fair in Sherborne. Mum and I had gone on a day out there, travelling by train, just to enjoy a mosey around. While there, we spotted a sign to a book fair – and, naturally, went to have a look. It turned out to be one of those places for book dealers and rich folk, rather than the ordinary reader. I’m not particularly interested in whether or not the book I want to read is a first edition, and I’m definitely not interested in valuable books of topography – which seemed to make up quite a chunk of the stock. After a bit of browsing, I came away with The Letters of Elizabeth Myers – which ended up being my favourite book I read that year. Though admittedly it was while I was at university as an undergraduate, and the amount of non-course reading I managed to do that year was extremely low.

I later realised that the book was probably stocked there because Myers was an author of local interest – she lived in Sherborne. In, it turned out, the house next door to a friend we visited in Sherborne (albeit many decades earlier). She was married to Littleton Powys, one of the Powys brothers – including T.F. Powys and John Cowper Powys. They share with me the honour of having been the son of the vicar of Montacute.

Myers died very young, aged only 34, but did have three novels published during her life. I’ve read the most well-known of those, A Well Full of Leaves, and I don’t remember anything about it except that I wasn’t super impressed. But #ProjectNames encouraged me to get Mrs Christopher (1946) off the shelves. The copy I have is a presentation copy signed by Myers and her husband – to somebody who was apparently trying to dramatise the novel, though I don’t think that ever happened. (I’m assuming this Nora Nicholson is not the same as the actress, but who knows.)

That’s a long build up to telling you about this book. It opens somewhat dramatically – Mrs Christopher shoots a man named Sine through the temple. He has been blackmailing her, and she has had enough. At the end of her tether, she reaches into her purse – which for some reason has a loaded pistol in it – and does the deed. But she is not alone: three other people are also in the room, all of whom have been blackmailed by Sine.

Mrs Christopher is not your typical murderess. She is a quiet and conscientious widow in her 60s, and she is keen that nobody else gets the blame for her actions – and so gives her name and address to the three strangers in the room. And then off they separately go. But Mrs Christopher knows that she will confess – and, opportunely, her son is at Scotland Yard. She goes to him and tells him what she has done.

In an effort to test the resolve of human nature (or, let’s be honest, to engineer the plot), she offers up £1500 that she has in savings to see if the three others in the room will inform against her, if a reward is offered. She thinks they won’t; her cynical son thinks they will. Either way, she has confessed and looks likely to hang – which she takes in her stride.

The remainder of the novel is divided into three distinct sections. In each one, we follow another of the blackmailed people as they leave the scene of the crime – back to their lives. Myers does an impressive job at creating each of these worlds, so that they feel complete and well developed for the 50 or so pages in which they appear. There is Edmund, determined to rescue a woman he knows from life as a prostitute; Veronica, who has run away from her husband and desperately wants a baby with the man she is living with; Giles, a doctor who does illegal abortions and has only ever been fond of his studious younger brother. Each is fully realised, with positive attributes being constantly offset by their weaknesses and hubrises. Each section leads towards the question: will they betray Mrs Christopher for the sake of £500 – which was, of course, a fortune in the 1940s.

One of the things I appreciated about it was how faith is woven in. Myers was a Christian herself, and many of the characters in Mrs Christopher are either people of faith or people seeking God. I see sympathetic or accurate depictions of faith so seldom in novels that it is always a welcome feature!

And this novel is certainly thoughtful. The writing is occasionally a like workmanlike, and there are moments that it leans towards the melodramatic, but a whole lot less than you’d imagine from a description of the opening scene. Indeed, Myers uses the premise pretty elegantly – and it’s impressive to have such distinct sections to a novel, almost a series of linked stories, without it feeling disjointed. All in all, I thought Mrs Christopher was a pretty good contribution to my names-in-titles reading project.

Stuck in a Book’s Weekend Miscellany

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Happy Saturday, y’all. It’s another busy weekend for me – I’ll be in London today, seeing Betrayal, and potentially joining in the People’s Vote march if we can manage the timings. I’ll also be reading a great book on the train; more of that anon (or right now if you follow my Instagram). Hope you’re having a good one, and here’s a book, blog post, and link:

1.) The book – came up in the recent episode of ‘Tea or Books?’, where Rachel gave me a tour of her shelves. When I spotted Happily Ever After by Susannah Fullerton, I was rather baffled that I hadn’t heard of it before – or, more likely, heard about it and forgot. It’s a celebration of Pride and Prejudice, looking at the characters and story – but also the history of the novel’s popularity and various metamorphoses. Irresistible, no?

2.) The blog post – speaking of that episode, if you enjoyed hearing Rachel take me through her bookshelves then dive back into the Book Snob archive and see her flat for yourself. It really is lovely. If Rachel ever gives in the teaching, she could be an interior designer – bold and clever choices are all over the place, and she is rightly proud of it.

3.) The link – is a New Yorker article about a stack of books that the author’s father piled up over the decades – but it is, of course, about much more than that.

 

 

Books from Astley

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As mentioned in my Weekend Miscellany, I spent some of Saturday at Astley Book Farm – with some friends from university and their three children. It was super fun (and, let me tell you, Astley does not skimp on their cake slices). The turnover of books didn’t seem to be huge in the six months since I’d been there, and the children’s section might have been more restricted than I’d imagined (having not ventured into that section before). It was definitely still a joy to go back, and I bought four books – maybe the last books I’ll buy this year?? (But also probably not, let’s be honest.)

My Friend Says It’s Bullet-Proof by Penelope Mortimer

I’ve been meaning to buy this distinctively titled Mortimer novel for so long, and just waiting until the moment came. And the moment was here! I do have one or two books I’ve yet to read by her on my shelves, but another can’t hurt.

The Best Books of Our Time by Asa Don Dickinson

This is an annotated list of the best books published between 1900 and 1925. I have only dipped in so far, but the list will hopefully bring loads of suggestions into my life. It is based on the votes of many people, and is just the sort of book I couldn’t leave behind. Who was Asa D D? No idea…

The Dress Doctor by Edith Head

Ms Head might be a big name I hadn’t heard about, but this non-fic book about costume design in 1940s/50s Hollywood sounded fascinating. I flicked through and saw Our Hearts Were Young and Gay mentioned, and I had to have it.

Last Boat to Folly Bridge by Eric Hiscock

I used to leave near Folly Bridge (in south Oxford) and walked across it more or less every day for two years – so the title caught my eye. It’s a memoir about publishing, so even better.