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An Equal Music by Vikram Seth

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I had a credit to use on Audible a while ago, and was looking to fill either 1980 or 1999 in A Century of Books – but couldn’t find anything that appealed. So, naturally, I took to Twitter. Twitter has been a real help with the tricky years, and Gareth kindly stepped forward with a suggestion…

I’d already read William Maxwell’s So Long, See You Tomorrow – and the fact that I really liked it would have made me trust Gareth’s suggestion even if I didn’t already trust his taste (which I did). So I promptly downloaded An Equal Music (1999) by Vikram Seth and listened, without really checking what it was about.

Which is just as well. If I had looked up the plot or theme, I might not have bothered. Because it’s about ardent musicians, and I tend to find that difficult to read about. It’s the sort of novel where people non-ironically say “Oh, I’d love to study that score”, and spend years tracking down the perfect viola. I struggle whenever characters are snobs in any area of the arts, or have the attitude that being brilliant is more important than enjoying yourself. It’s why I really disliked Rebecca West’s The Fountain Overflows earlier this year (because the author seemed to share her characters’ views). And I would have been wary about it in Vikram Seth.

Well, it was certainly there, at least to an extent – and the main character (Michael) isn’t particularly likeable. He is obsessed with reconnecting with Julia, a woman he loved many years ago in Vienna – and has been trying to track her down, unsuccessfully, for some time. At the same time, he and his string quartet are preparing to perform… erm… some arrangement of some piece, I forget which. Or maybe it was something arranged for a quintet that is better known as a piano piece, or something like that. (Again, the problem of listening to an audiobook – I can’t go back and check!) Of course, he does find her – she is married, with a child, and there is a twist in the narrative that I shan’t spoil, but is done very satisfyingly and intelligently.

Lovers of classical music (and, dare I say it, music snobs) will get a lot out of this that I probably didn’t. I do also wonder how much one might miss if you don’t play the piano and violin – I play both, which helped me understand various discussion points and technical moments, though I don’t think any of them were particularly essential and could probably be skated through.

Why did I like it, when it had quite a few ingredients that turn me off? Partly it was the excellent reading by Alan Bates, who never tries to do “voices” (except where accents are needed for, say, the American characters) but manages to convey character entirely through tone. The audiobook also meant they could include sections of music when they were referred to as being played, which was rather lovely. But mostly it was Seth’s quality of writing. He is very good at detailed depictions of changing emotions and relationships, so that one is deeply interested even if not particularly sympathetic.

I don’t know if I’m ready for the doorstopper A Suitable Boy just yet, but I’m very glad Gareth suggested this one. And it’s a useful reminder that good writing can overcome all the prejudices I have in terms of topic and character. I suppose every theme has its variations.

The Silent Twins by Marjorie Wallace

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I was reading The Cross of Christ by John Stott for my 1986 entry in A Century of Books, but it’s a big book and felt too important a read to rush through for the sake of a reading challenge. And so I turned to the other 1986 books waiting on my shelves – it turns out I have a lot, and I was toying with Margaret Forster, Henrietta Garnett, Penelope Fitzgerald, Diana Athill, Quentin Bell, Barbara Pym… but settled, in the end, of The Silent Twins by Marjorie Wallace.

I don’t remember exactly the conversation that led to this, but Kim (of Reading Matters) kindly sent me her copy back in 2012 – I think perhaps the twins were mentioned in an Oliver Sacks book? – and it’s been waiting patiently until then. The edition is a 1998 reprint, including a new chapter, and is clearly marketed to fit into the post-David-Pelzer proliferation of misery memoirs. The tagline – ‘the harrowing true story of sisters locked in a shocking childhood pact’ – is nonsense that does the sensitive book a disservice.

June and Jennifer Gibbons are the twins of the title, born in Yemen and growing up in Haverfordwest in Wales (a pretty miserable town, I have to say, having gone there a few years ago). The Gibbons were a loving family, excited to add to their number – and, having moved to Wales, were dealing well with the tensions that came from being one the few black families in their 1960s community. But as the girls grew older, they were clearly different from their family and from local families. They were more or less elective mutes – speaking to each other in words so fast and curiously stressed that it sounded like another language, but never speaking to their parents or older siblings. Their younger sister was the exception to the rule.

Baffling teachers, June and Jennifer didn’t seem to match any evident diagnosis – and, indeed, Wallace doesn’t attempt to give them a diagnosis. Trapped in a world of their own, spending hours in their bedroom with their dolls and stories as they grew older, they were an enigma to the world at large. Limp and uncommunicative in public, they clearly had a ferociously active sororal relationship. They also wrote prolifically – fiction (which they furtively sent off to publishers, and eventually self-published) but also diaries. Wallace uses these diaries – which they wrote for years, covering enormous quantities of pages in tiny handwriting, to recreate their experiences. Often we see things from their perspective in the narrative, with the diaries silently referenced – most movingly when they deal with how much June and Jennifer love their family, even while never expressing it or communicating with them at all.

In their later teens, things changed. They start stalking some brothers. They lose their virginities with frantic determination. And they go on a spree of ill-concealed burglary and arson that will lead to them going to court – and, ultimately, Broadmoor. On a life sentence (of which they served eleven years), for crimes that usually warranted a few months’ sentence.

It is a fascinating tale, and Wallace does her best to show us the deeply complex relationship between June and Jennifer – drawing from the diaries, because of how little she or anybody else can see of it from the outside. And the power dynamics and repressions behind those silent exteriors were truly extraordinary.

Time and again the twins returned to this theme. They saw themselves as the ultimate unhappy couple, Jennifer as the quirky, irascible husband, June the victim wife, and although they switched roles in most of their other games, in this they remained consistent.

The ‘silent’ of the title isn’t quite true. As they got older, they spoke more – and seemed to have held relatively normal conversations with the teenagers they became involved with, as well as answering Wallace’s questions at least at times. But their twin relationship certainly plays into some of the stereotypes associated with twins in the popular consciousness – that we inhabit a world apart, unknowable to outsiders, and that the relationship might be unhealthy or dangerous. I can’t count the number of times people have asked me if Colin and I have a secret language, or if we can feel each other’s pain, or communicate psychically. Or, more generally, what it’s like to be a twin. Well, as I’ve said before, I can’t imagine what it’s like not to be a twin – but I also can’t imagine what it’s like to be in the closed and claustrophobic world June and Jennifer inhabited. My relationship with Colin is the most special in my life, and I don’t doubt that there are dynamics there that no other relationship could have, but it’s definitely not the curious mix of passionate hatred, obsessive love, and controlling fear that the Gibbons had. Theirs is truly a unique existence.

As for the writing – I think Wallace used the diaries well, and told their story without being unduly melodramatic. Indeed, I found the whole thing curiously sedated. It’s not bad writing by any means, but having discovered Janet Malcolm and Julie Salamon this year, I have new high standards for this variety of non-fiction. Wallace felt a bit unambitious in the way she wrote – though you could also argue that she was letting the extraordinary circumstances tell their own story. And they did do that, but I think I’d have valued the book even more if there was a little more to the writing.

I’m glad to have finally read it – thank you, Kim!

David Sedaris and the female David Sedaris

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One of my books for A Century of Books is David Sedaris’s 1997 collection Naked. One of the other books I’ve read recently, albeit not for A Century of Books because 2016 was already taken, is Miss Fortune by Lauren Weedman – which I read on the strength of seeing her described as being the female David Sedaris. One might think that Amy Sedaris fit the bill there – or, more accurately, that the description was primarily marketing copy – but it convinced me, and I’m glad it did because Miss Fortune was great.

But Naked first. It’s exactly what you expect to get from David Sedaris, if you’ve read anything by him before. Like all his books, it has funny, bizarre, moving, and self-deprecating stories from across his life. I assume everything in all the collections has at least a foot in the truth, and I don’t quite know how one life has fit all of this in.

Then again, perhaps it is just his talent for turning the ordinary into the quirky and unusual. He writes about living with his injured grandmother, about finding a dirty book, about working in a cafeteria. Quite a few are about hitchhiking, at times with a quadriplegic friend. Each has its bizarre moments that Sedaris frames with deadpan sardonicism. Nobody could call him cheerful. His persona is mildly grumpy and cautiously optimistic – only to hit brick walls of people everywhere he goes.

Here’s a good example of how he writes – in this instance, about his experiences while experimenting with mime as a child:

I went home and demonstrated the invisible wall for my two-year-old brother, who pounded on the very real wall beside his playpen, shrieking and wailing in disgust. When my mother asked what I’d done to provoke him, I threw up my hands in mock innocence before lowering them to retrieve the imaginary baby that lay fussing at my feet. I patted the back of my little ghost to induce gas and was investigating its soiled diaper when I noticed my mother’s face assume an expression she reserved for unspeakable horror. I had seen this look only twice before: once when she was caught in the path of a charging, rabid pig and then again when I told her I wanted a peach-coloured velveteen blazer with matching slacks.

I think my favourite Sedaris remains Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, but that is chiefly because it’s the first one I read – and I think there is a lot to say for the first time one discovers his humour. It’s such a joy (without being remotely joyful in tone) that happening upon it is something to treasure. Naked was written a while before Dress Your Family, but the tone and the world are unchanging.

And what about Lauren Weedman? Well, I can certainly see why she is described as the female David Sedaris – she definitely has his way with a pithy sentence (“You know what bothers me about the idea of death? It’s so hard to look forward to, and I love planning”), shrugging at the absurdity of the world and contributing her own heavy doses of ridiculousness. In Miss Fortune (subtitled ‘fresh perspectives on having it all from someone who is not okay’), she focuses mostly on her the past decade of her life, with a few jumps further back in time. And that part of her life is dominated by marrying, gaining a stepson and a biological son, and getting divorced when her husband has an affair with the babysitter.

One of my favourite chapters/stories was about a stranger on Facebook contacting her to say that he’d killed nine people and would she write his life story. She takes this in her stride – getting in touch with their mutual friends to find out how likely he was to murder her, and then engaging in an occasional conversation with him. Like Sedaris, she refuses to sound too surprised.

It has been three days since Scott entered my life, and I can think of nothing else. “What would you do if someone told you that they had killed nine people?” has replaced “How much sand can a kid eat before it becomes a medical emergency?” as my opener in all social situations.

There’s also a lot about being pregnant and having a baby, about struggling as an actress, and about body image. Almost all of these stories – not so much the pregnancy ones – are, indeed, things I could imagine Sedaris writing about. She also writes about being adopted, and having two mums (since she reunited with her birth mother) – there is relatively little about this, and I think it might have been covered more thoroughly in her previous book, A Woman Trapped in a Woman’s Body. I have to say, this snippet about her (adoptive) family makes me want to read much more about them:

My mother and father had decided that instead of leaving us money after they died, like nice parents do, they wanted to spend their money while they were still with us. Our inheritance would be the memories we created together of touring vanilla bean factories and learning how to make a coin purse out of a coconut.

All in all, I think the Sedaris comparison is warranted and isn’t undue praise – indeed, I actually liked Miss Fortune even more than Naked. Her comedic balance of a sentence is exemplary. I guess the book is confessional, though with so much observational humour that you only realise afterwards that it has been confessional. It’s certainly extremely funny, and I hope she writes a lot more.

Desirable Residence by Lettice Cooper

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Most authors write the same sort of book over and over again. And I don’t just mean the Ivy Compton-Burnett type, where each novel is resolutely interchangeable (and yet brilliant). Even those who are able to shift in terms of format, character, genre tend to have the same worldview and sensitivities as they keep going.

That’s why it was so interesting to read Lettice Cooper’s 1980 novel Desirable Residence, published when she was 83. Most of us who know her are probably chiefly familiar with the 1930s novel The New House – one of the few books to have been both a Virago Modern Classic and a Persephone. And it’s great – and very of its time. How would this octogenarian take the 1980s?

The novel is, again, about people moving into a new house – but that’s about the only similarity there is. In this case, it’s a small block of flats – old Hilda Greencroft on the top floor, the Blackstones on the next down – and a young couple have started squatting in the ground floor flat. ‘The first three’ is the ominous title given to the first half of the book – Polly and Dennis Dyson, and their baby Brian. Unable to cope with living with Dennis’s mother any longer, Polly has dictated this move – clinging to the vague strength of ‘squatters’ rights’ and hoping that any media attention given to their eviction will get them a council flat.

The neighbours are surprised but not especially horrified. Hilda is a kind lady who sees the vulnerability beneath Polly’s hardness. The Blackstone parents are chiefly occupied with their own foundering marriage, while their son Simon is obsessed with the well-intentioned cult he intends to join, and their daughter Tasmine thinks this is a perfect opportunity to do some research for a school project.

But things take a turn when other squatters hear about the place, and join Polly and Dennis. ‘The others’ (the second half of the book) shows us as a group of petty criminals move in – unafraid to victimise Polly and Dennis, and distinctly changing the dynamic of the house.

I was amazed that Cooper wrote this novel. It has the same storytelling talent of her earlier novel, but there is nothing false or jarring about the sharp modernity of it. She throws around expletives, and I found it genuinely scary at times – her violent characters are chillingly real. Here is a writer who changed with the times, equally convincing as the 14 year old as she is when writing old Hilda.

The one fault I found, in fact, is offspring of this talent – we are taken into every character’s mind, even if they only appear for a few pages. This means the narrative force gets a bit diluted – and I think the novel would have felt a bit more focused if there had been one dominant character to act as the lens for the events.

Still, a very surprising – and surprisingly good – novel. Luckily I have a few more of hers on the shelf, waiting.

Snowflake by Mike Bartlett

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I’m a volunteer at the Old Fire Station in Oxford – no, I’m not sliding down poles and putting out blazes, I’m an usher for their shows. That basically means turning up early and pointing out the loos, tearing tickets as people go in, and washing up some glasses afterwards. All in all, a great way to see some free theatre, comedy etc and support a worthwhile cause.

Usually I pick the things I’m particularly interested in seeing, but I signed up for Snowflake by Mike Bartlett chiefly because there were a lot of performances (for the OFS – usually there’s only one or two) and all hands were needed on deck. As I sat in my reserved seat, tickets torn and loos pointed out, I realised I didn’t know at all what the play was about. But I’m so glad I went because it was very good indeed. And the first press night I’ve ushered for!

Snowflake starts with a man, Andy (Elliot Levey) sitting in a village hall with ‘Welcome Home’ hung up behind him. There is a Christmas tree and a model house – and, if you were sat in my corner, you’d have spotted a picture of Queen Elizabeth II hung up (as seemingly requisite at village halls up and down the land). It’s a lovely, homespun set – as, indeed, all the sets at OFS tend to be.

Andy is practising how to say hello. Should he say it while standing up? Should he read a book, so as not to seem like he’s waiting? It is the first taste of the very funny observational comedy that Bartlett writes, and Levey acts, so well. The first 35 minutes, indeed, are a monologue – which Andy addresses, hypothetically, to the person he is waiting for. We gradually realise that it is his daughter Maya, who left two years ago and hasn’t been in touch – or responded to his 47 text messages.

The monologue is perhaps five or ten minutes too long, but it’s impressive that it sustains our interest for at least 25 minutes – due to Levey, yes, but also Bartlett’s exceptional ability to balance funny lines and genuine heartache, as well as the mystery about why Maya left. Details of their background are dropped in naturally, alongside amusing sidetracks about an old lady called Esther who looks like Esther Rantzen (but isn’t), how best to greet someone in a cafe, how this reunion might be like a storyline in Neighbours, and all sorts of other things.

In the closing moments of the first half, a surprise arrival, Natalie (played by Racheal Ofori) shows up. I shan’t tell you more about how she fits in, but what a joy Ofori is to watch. I’m excited to see where her career will lead. The second half picks up with Andy trying to get rid of her, and Natalie insisting on slowly wrapping plates in bubblewrap. She is lively, bright, witty, and presses all of Andy’s buttons – they make an excellent sparring pair, and the second half is as funny and moving as the first. It’s great to see wonderful actors given wonderful lines, and directed so ably. The tone is judged perfectly by both of them, and we never feel like we’re lurching between moods even while we cover the whole gamut. And I haven’t even mentioned the significance of Brexit in it – the discussions around it are even-handed, and even wise – rather a balm at the moment.

And I shan’t spoil more, but I would encourage anybody in Oxford to get tickets while they can. The OFS gets a lot of good stuff, but it’s not often that it sees the premiere of play written by someone of Bartlett’s caliber, with an Olivier-winning director in the shape of Clare Lizzimore. I assume this will tour or appear elsewhere – but, for now, Oxfordians you’ve got until 22 December to see it!

The Chronicles of Clovis by Saki

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I recently read The Chronicles of Clovis (1911) by Saki for Shiny New Books, recently reprinted by Michael Walmer – you can read the whole review over there, but here’s the beginning of it to tempt you in:

Saki is one of those writers a lot of people have heard of but haven’t read – and, as A.A. Milne’s introduction in this reprint (itself a reprint from a much earlier edition) notes, his fans are cautious of sharing so wonderful a gem with those who might not be appreciative. Well, I shall take that risk – I whole-heartedly recommend that the uninitiated try out some Saki.

Stuck in a Book’s Weekend Miscellany

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I’ll be winding down for Christmas soon, but it seems to be full-speed ahead for the next week or so – including heading off on two fun jaunts today and tomorrow. Today’s involves a train journey, at least, so I can put some time towards finishing off A Century of Books. (I thought I’d be sauntering towards the finish line, but it might be a bit tighter than I’d anticipated…) Anyway, here’s a book, a blog post, and a link to entertain you this weekend…

1.) The link – is a vlogger, Kazen at Always Doing, who talks about some of her favourite book podcasters. I was delighted that Rachel and I are included with ‘Tea or Books?’ – but it’s also great for some other bookish recommendations I hadn’t come across before.

2.) The book – Claire Harman has written several interesting books before, including some about Jane Austen, and I’m intrigued by her latest – Murder By the Book. It seems to be in the line of The Suspicions of Mr Whicher and others that look at historic murders. Plus, the cover is beautiful. Find out more over at Penguin.

3.) The blog post – Hayley is doing another advent of pairing books with drinks – the first in this year’s series is here. Tbh I pair pretty much every book with a cup of tea, but for the more adventurously minded, go and enjoy!

What should Donald Trump read?

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Every year my book group goes for a Christmas meal – this year we went for Lebanese food, which is my favourite cuisine and from an appropriately Bethlehem-adjacent country. Every year we also do a Secret Santa book swap – everybody puts a wrapped-up book into a bag, and everybody takes one out. I forget all the books I’ve got through this method previously, but I do remember that it’s how I discovered David Sedaris.

This year, incidentally, I got Jeanette Winterson’s retelling of A Winter’s Tale – called The Gap of Time. I’ve never read her, and have meant to for a while – this seems like a fun place to start.

Each parcel (and here I’m getting to my point) includes a bookish question to get the table chatting – whether that be favourite holiday-themed read, best book title, or whatever. And the one I wrote on my Secret Santa parcel was: which novel would you get Donald Trump to read? (I added an asterisk that, in this hypothetical scenario, we can assume that he can read.)

I’m listening to Michelle Obama’s autobiography at the moment, and the more I hear about the Obamas’ ascent to the White House, the more dispirited I feel about the man currently in charge of the free world. To go from someone intelligent, thoughtful, compassionate, wise, and kind to this deceitful, racist, sexist, childish, sociopathic monster – well, I’m not saying anything new here. (I do wonder if even Trump’s most ardent fans would call him ‘kind’?)

We all know that readers are more empathetic people, and that novels can make a big difference. What could Trump read that would help make him a better person?

We came up with a couple – To Kill A Mockingbird and A Christmas Carol, both of which are probably for self-explanatory reasons.

What about you – what would you have Donald Trump read?

Some recent reads

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Another mini round-up of some recent reads, partly to tick off books on Century of Books – to make it clear that my task is a little more achievable than it might currently appear! The theme here is “books that weren’t quite as good as I’d hoped, but were still very much enjoyable”.

The High Path (1982) by Ted Walker

One of the beautiful Slightly Foxed Editions – I read it on and off for many months, and it was the sort of warm, leisurely experience that I was always happy to go back to. It’s not my favourite of their books, and many of its details have already faded from my mind, but it was dependably enjoyable nonetheless.

Awkward Black Girl (2015) by Issa Rae

I really like the TV show Insecure, starring and created by Issa Rae, and so I used one my audiobook credits to download Rae’s… autobiography? Comedy? Guidebook? Fans of Rae will enjoy this, and recognise her tone, but because she wrote it before she became famous, there’s very little about her career. I wanted behind the scenes stuff on Insecure, essentially.

The Curtain (2005) by Milan Kundera

Translated by Linda Asher, this is an essay about literature in seven parts. I did enjoy some of the ideas in it, but I find Kundera’s fragmentary and aleatory style more rewarding in fiction than in non-fiction, I think.

The Swish of the Curtain (1941) by Pamela Brown

A children’s book about a group of children who set up their own acting company, I quite enjoyed reading this (and was grateful for the review copy). But I think it might be best to read it first when you are under 14 – and then with nostalgia forever. Coming to it for the first time at 32, I couldn’t warm to it as much.

So, neither hits nor misses – the sorts of books I might normally not write about on here, but will for the sake of #ACenturyOfBooks!