Happy weekend, everyone. Hope you’ve got something fun planned – I’m off to London later on Saturday to see Sheridan’s The Rivals, with Penelope Keith and Peter Bowles. Something of a To The Manor Born reunion… plus, I’ve never seen a Sheridan play, and this one was fun to read. But, in my absence, enjoy this little miscellany of links and posts.
1.) Three Percent, a resource for international literature at the University of Rochester, have announced the 25 books on the longlist for 2011 Best Translated Book Award. Here’s the list. Do go and check it out – it’s something a little different from the usual literary awards. I’ve only read one of them – being honest, I’ve only heard of one of them – but it is The True Deceiver by Tove Jansson (oddly, for it was translated in 2009). If the others are up to that novel’s incredible standard, then this is a list worth watching.
2.) Speaking of which, do go and read Danielle’s lovely review of The Summer Book, also by Tove Jansson.
3.) More neat segues (that’s segues, Colin… heehee) – Danielle and Darlene have both agreed to take part in two mini-readalongs this month (that’s one each). Both sprung from Virago Reading Week and surrounding discussions, which is lovely.
Darlene and I will be reading William by E.H. Young – I’ve been meaning to read more Young for a while, and have had William for five years or so.
Danielle and I will be reading Gay Life by E.M. Delafield. You’ll note that my copy is signed! This novel is rather more difficult to get hold of, so participants would have to search hard. Try your library catalogues? And Danielle’s little introductory post will definitely entice you…
Do join in with either or both, if you can. One day I’ll head up a readalong of a book that’s actually in print! Anyway, we’re reading about the middle of February, so over the next couple of weeks.
4.) I give up on being seamless… I found this link to the books which Harold Bloom considered fitted into his study The Western Canon. It covers more or less all time… and is enormous. I have no idea how he managed to read all these books, let alone all the ones which (presumably) didn’t make the cut. Once you’ve got a subsection for modern Catalonian literature, you know you mean business. BUT, it definitely makes for interesting reading.
5.) And, finally, Wikio have released their latest literary blog rankings. Off I slip, down the charts… but I’m clinging on! As usual, silly but fun.
Wikio.co.uk – February Literature Ranking
Ranking made by Wikio.co.uk
You know how I love novellas – the shorter and punchier the better – and might have noticed that I was impressed by Susan Hill’s The Beacon. Indeed, it’s my Bloggers’ Book of the Month choice for February, at the Big Green Bookshop in Wood Green.
That made me pretty excited when Hill announced that her latest novella was coming out – A Kind Man is obviously being marketed in a similar style to The Beacon (although, tut tut Chatto and/or Windus for putting an apostrophe in Howards End is on the Landing on the dustjacket. You win back some of those points for Mark McEvoy’s cover image. And for sending me a review copy – thanks!) If it could be as good as The Beacon, then I was very keen to read it. Also, fact fans, A Kind Man was published fifty years to the day after Hill’s debut novel. Gosh!
A Kind Man is something of a deceptive title, for most of the novella, as we actually see the world through the eyes of that man’s wife, Eve. In fact, the narrative opens with Eve making a solitary trip to an isolated graveyard – as the reader soon suspects, to visit the grave of her daughter, who died at three years old. We then move back to Eve’s family, and her courtship with Tommy – the kind man of the title – is outlined, as is their marriage. Tommy’s kindness is almost his only attribute, and certainly the most distinctive. He is made almost characterless in his ordinariness – rarely do we see anything from his perspective. This, of course, makes it all the more striking when we do; for instance, this excerpt from towards the end of the novel, retelling an event we had already seen from Eve’s perspective very early on:
As he had grown up he had watched the young men around him find girls and make them wives and start families and had naturally felt that he would do so too but not understood how to choose. He had looked at some and they were pretty, at others and they were pert, at the ones with kind faces and the hard ones, the laughing ones, the sad and those old before they had had time to be young, but walking by the canal he had seen Eve and she was different. How she was and why and what made him know it, he had wondered every day since.
I do not want to spoil this novella. Too many reviews give too much away. Plot is not the only reason to read fiction, far from it, but the novella which spins on an axis around a central point should not have that point disclosed from the outset; it tips the story off-balance. Suffice to say that is outside of the ordinary, although Hill wisely does not allow it to change the style or genre of the work. If the event would have performed better in a novel by Barbara Comyns (oh, how I would love to have read Comyns’ take on it!) then that is not Hill’s fault; I can’t think of any novelist who can approach the outlandish in so calm and involving a way as Comyns. Hill, however, finds the moral dilemmas caused by the strange and unusual (a thing Comyns would never do) and these form a central force of this beautifully forceful book.
Although this strange event would dominate most novels, and lingers longest in the mind, I think Hill is actually rather stronger at the more simple depictions of grief and mourning. These are emotions she dealt with brilliantly in In the Springtime of the Year, and in A Kind Man they play central roles, and are again shown convincingly and movingly – although (as is right) with a different slant from that previous novella. Everyday life and the dynamics of Eve being a wife, a sister, a daughter, a villager – these are the bread-and-butter of any work of fiction, and Hill is expert at them. I love Hill’s appreciation of the countryside, which comes through in occasional unusual and evocative phrases.
As she rounded the peak, she looked up and ahead to the far slope where the sheep were with their lambs, dozens of them scattered about the hillside like scraps of paper thrown up in the air and allowed to settle anywhere.If these strengths fade into the background once the twist of the novella arrives, that is to be expected – but we should not forget how rare it is to find a novelist who excels at both unexpected, and more predictable, narrative events. Far too rare.
A Kind Man is sombre and wise; it is almost delicate in its subtlety, but at its depth is a fable as sturdy as they come. Sorry to be vague about it, but you’ll thank me once you’ve read it. No other pen but Susan Hill’s could have written this novella in this way – and I hope there will be more in the same mould.
I couldn’t resist kicking off with a picture of a debutante (source) but that’s actually not got much to do with today’s post. Simon S. wrote a post a little while ago about debut novels – whether we were drawn to them or not. Read it here, if you so wish. He was mostly discussing (I think I’m right in saying) reading choices from among recently published books – the latest Margaret Atwood being his example of a rival to an unknown author’s firts novel. Now, I’d probably choose a great deal of books over Atwood, but that’s by the by.
His post got me thinking, but more about debut novels in general. I buy far, far more second-hand books than new ones, and I can’t remember the last time I bought a new book without having had it recommended – either by a friend or an e-friend! So it’s unlikely that I would buy a debut novel published in 2011, unless someone had told me about it.
But, following on from our discussion the other day about authors’ timelines (thanks again for your fascinating replies – it was so interesting to have responses from people all along the scale on this topic) I’ve been thinking about the debut works of favourite authors.
Some – like A.A. Milne (Lovers in London) and Ivy Compton-Burnett (Dolores) tried to distance themselves from their first novels. Milne even went so far as to buy back the copyright to prevent it being reprinted. (That work I have read, and while it’s not up to his later stuff, it’s still pretty good, and I can’t see why he was so ashamed of it.)
But thinking through some authors I love, I haven’t read their first books. E.M. Delafield (Zella Sees Herself); Rose Macaulay (Abbots Verney); Charles Dickens (Pickwick Papers).
There are some whose first works weren’t up to their later ones (I’d put forward Virginia Woolf with The Voyage Out, and definitely Shakespeare’s early comedies; Katherine Mansfield’s early stories, and Richmal Crompton’s The Innermost Room.)
Others peaked with their first books – Edith Olivier’s other novels aren’t close to as good as The Love Child; my limited experience of Monica Dickens suggests One Pair of Hands is far from her worst (and the best of the three I’ve read); Lynne Reid Banks got off to a brilliant start with The L-Shaped Room.
And some seemed to start off just as well as they continued – for my money, Jane Austen was brilliant from her Juvenilia onwards; Decline and Fall is as good as any of the other Waugh novels I’ve read; Stephen Leacock’s wonderful, recognisable style kicked off in his debut, Literary Lapses – if you discount Elements of Political Science and two similar works, which were actually his first three publications.
All of which goes to show that there appears to be little rhyme or reason to where a debut work fits in an author’s canon. But it’s an interesting topic, and one we’ve already sort of touched upon – but I’d love to hear incidences from you of debut works which are much better, or much worse, than those that followed. And if you disagree with any of my assertions, then let me know!
Thank you for yesterday, you’re all very lovely. The blogosphere really is precious to me – so much more than people who don’t blog or read blogs could imagine.
As a reward for your kindness, I’m going to show you some more books that I bought… yes, more. Last Friday I popped out to a couple of charity shops during my lunch break, and bought eight books. Well, actually I bought nine, but one of them was for a friend. So that’s normal, right? Oh, what the heck, all the money went to charity.
Strange Meeting – Susan Hill
The Bird of Night – Susan Hill
I’m ever more impressed by Hill’s novellas, and have heard great things about Strange Meeting. In my head it was a ghost story; I’m happy to see it isn’t. The blurb for The Bird of Night enticed me, that I remember – what the blurb said, I have completely forgotten.
One Thing Leading to Another – Sylvia Townsend Warner
I think I might have a few of these stories collected elsewhere, but was tempted by this book in case there were some I *didn’t* have… and, I confess it, for that cover.
The Thinking Reed – Rebecca West
I wanted to get a Virago, seeing as it was Virago Reading Week, and this one called out to be. All I know about it is what cropped up in my research a while ago – the Book Society Newsletter said: “However, there is very much besides intellection here. There is that precious quality of making a special vividness and new reality out of familiar scenes; there is feeling, deep, though restrained; there is clever character-drawing; there is satire; there is a central idea and plan in the book; and there is the pleasure for the reader of being taken up into the interior of the book’s world through the medium of Miss West’s lucid and intimate style.”
Voices at Play – Muriel Spark
A collection of plays and stories by Spark for the BBC.
Love of Seven Dolls – Paul Gallico
Somehow I still haven’t read any Gallico, but this one definitely intrigued me. Seems somewhat creepy, but in the way I can cope with, and thus enjoy.
Theatre – W. Somerset Maugham
Another author I feel I ought to have read, and haven’t – since I’m currently enjoying a couple of theatrical autobiographies, this could be a logical next step.
All Quiet on the Orient Express – Magnus Mills
Have read, borrowed from Annabel (Gaskella) – MUST write about soon and, more importantly, return to her!
As always – comments, thoughts? Have you read any of these?
Thanks for all your kind comments on yesterday’s post – you’ve all made me think, and I believe I’ve set some of you off thinking too, so Thoughts are being had! What a shame Virago Reading Week is over, but what fun it was. Plus I have two little joint-reads planned with a couple of bloggers, which will be fun – one for a much-loved author, and one for an author I have been meaning to read more by. All will be revealed in due course…
My Monday was a little glum, truth be told – one of those days where you feel sad but don’t know why. I used my usual tactics to fend this off: hot chocolate; sitting in a park; calling my parents to have a chat. The last of these was lovely, but not too cheery – please join me in wishing Our Vicar’s Wife a speedy recovery from being not-very-well. The hot chocolate, however, was lovely. The park was cold, but I did read a few pages of my book before leaving it – difficult to turn the pages with gloves on.
But this is heading somewhere – I was wondering if you had any books you relied on to cheer you up? Or if you need something new when you’re feeling a bit down? I would say The Provincial Lady for me – almost never fails to make me smile – but at the moment (as I think I mentioned the other day) I’m finding non-fiction much easier to read than fiction. And so I’m continuing with To Tell My Story by Dame Irene Vanbrugh, and really enjoying it. I’ll write more about that when I’ve finished, but I think it’s the best bet for getting a smile back on my face – especially since having hot chocolate in bed is unlikely to go well.
Let me know how reading can help cheer you up – I look forward to your ideas!
I hope you don’t mind a slightly musing-meandering post today, on a topic I’ve thought about quite a lot, but seems to fit with a week of thinking about Virago. I hope I’ve expressed myself properly, and I’d love to hear your thoughts.
One of the things that annoys me a little (other than not being certain whether I should have used ‘that’ or ‘which’ in this sentence) is when, at book group, someone says “Hmm, do you think this is just a book for women?” or “–just a book for men?” and then turns to me, quizzically. I am of the opinion that the ideas of ‘men’s books’ and ‘women’s books’ are mostly marketing tools, and pretty insulting to any individual reader whose subjective reading experience shouldn’t be boxed up like that. And, speaking personally, when I think of the categories ‘men’ and ‘women’, I don’t particularly identify myself with either of them. I’m simply me. Of course I am a man, but I don’t recognise myself in the portrait of men that is held up by those shoving war novels and football sticker books etc. in the corner marked ‘male reading’.
That’s one of the things that comes to light, reading Viragos and Persephones – which, of course, I love. Both describe themselves, to different degrees, as publishing books for women (although I do remember, in an early Persephone Quarterly, a little article about Persephone Men – we apparently made up, at that point, 10% of subscribers). The Women’s Press is even more open about it! Naturally I’m not complaining about this. Virago, especially, have done an astonishing and necessary job of bringing neglected writers and neglected novelistic topics to the fore. Rachel wrote brilliantly and movingly about this last week. I hope she won’t mind if I quote a couple of excerpts from it:
I have always been interested in women’s writing and history, but never to the extent I became interested in it at university. There I learned for the first time how women had been sidelined from literature and history; how they had been allowed to become an unspoken, unmentioned background figure, sewing in the parlour while the men were at war; scribbling away at trivial, unworthy of note novels about their limited domestic sphere; living unrecorded, undervalued, hidden lives, prevented from having a voice.
[…]
So thank goodness for Virago. Thank goodness that I can read something intelligent and witty and thought provoking by a woman, that isn’t a shallow, cliche ridden pastel coloured novel about sparkly rings and mini breaks. The women who invented Virago, and the authors that originated their list, believed that women deserved better than this, and I heartily agree. We are complex, conflicting, passionate, intelligent, political, ambitious individuals who cannot be distilled into one concrete definition or given one path to happiness.
My question is… where does this leave me? Please don’t read anything cross into that; those of you who know my blog probably won’t, I hope. I just always wonder, when I read about the incredible job that feminist presses have done, what sort of literary and social antecedents I can claim as my own. Of course, as a feminist myself I can get on board with the rediscoveries and re-evaluations being performed, and perhaps I can even put myself in a line of those who value the domestic and the topics which had long been erroneously considered inferior to tales of war and politics etc. (really, who could possibly want to read a novel about war over a novel about, say, a family preparing for a wedding? Each to their own, I suppose.) But, as a man, I seem to have only a legacy of the type of people who sidelined these novelists, and caused the problems which Virago and others helped in the direction of resolution. I have little empathy for monarchs and prime ministers (neither, however, exclusively male professions), and none for soldiers or leaders in war – I have sympathy, but not empathy. Where are the histories of quieter, homelier men? Where are narratives of male lives lived unassumingly and with great beauty? This, naturally, is not the fault of the publishing houses which unveiled the issue – nor is it their responsibility. But I do always muse, when wonderful posts like Rachel’s appear, quite what it is that I see when I look over my shoulder.
Kate Walsh is one of my favourite singers, and one I discovered through the free-song-of-the-week on iTunes, but I only just got around to downloading her first album Clocktower Park. This is a lovely song from that album – ‘It’s Never Over’.
For previous Sunday Songs, click here.
(some of my favourite covers)
It has enabled me to count up all the VMCs I’ve read – not the ones I own; that’s probably about twice this number, but out of 553 VMCs published, I have read a respectable 59. Scroll down to the bottom of this post for the list of those I’ve read, if you’re interested – feel free to ask me about any of them, or tell me which ones I *should* have read that aren’t listed. To be honest, quite a few I read in non-VMC editions. I didn’t even know the Brontes and Austen had had the Virago treatment. But there are still a fair few on the list that have found their way to me courtesy of Virago – and it is those I’ll be choosing from for my favourite VMCs. So, Provincial Lady and myriad Jane Austen novels, even though I love you I’m afraid you shan’t be appearing on this list – because I didn’t meet you between those distinctive green borders. Fair’s fair.
Ok, here are five Virago Modern Classics I love, cherish, and adore. I’m afraid the pictures are of varying sizes; if someone can tell me how to get bigger images of the covers on LibraryThing, that would be much appreciated for future use…
The Love Child – Edith Olivier
(VMC #46)
This one will surprise none of you, I suspect… Olivier’s novel, about a lonely spinster who conjures her childhood imaginary friend into life, is short but powerful. Don’t be put off by a slightly fey cover – The Love Child is clever, moving, and one I’ll be re-reading many times. Well do I remember picking it up on a whim, for mere pence, in the charity shop on Little Clarendon Street (Oxford). For some reason I had no other book with me, or had just finished one, for I immediately went round the corner to a public garden (the one, in fact, pictured) and started it. And was blown away by how good it was.
Mother and Son – Ivy Compton-Burnett
(VMC #394)
I was trying to remember which Virago title was the first I read between those distinctive green spines… without my reading diary to hand, I’m not sure, but it might well have been Mother and Son. My mum loathes Ivy Compton-Burnett, but a lady in our village lent me this, telling me to give Ivy a go. I’m ever grateful to Jay for introducing me to this most divisive of authors – you definitely either love or hate – and her dialogue-packed novels of family intrigue and enjoyably futile, highbrow exchanges.
A Very Great Profession – Nicola Beauman
(VMC #406)
The place where Persephone started, Beauman’s very accessible look at many and various middlebrow female authors is bound to have you filling a notebook with ideas for future reads. Chapters are cleverly divided up into topics like ‘Surplus Women’; ‘Sex’; ‘Psychoanalysis’ etc. An invaluable resource for anyone even vaguely interested in the sort of books in the VMC line – and now available from Persephone.
Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead – Barbara Comyns
(VMC #238)
A title I don’t shut up about, this Comyns novel is surreal and domestic at the same time, and takes pride of place amongst my slightly quirker taste in novels. But nobody is quite like Comyns – and while I want to thank Virago for bringing her novels to a wider audience, I also want to ask why they’ve let almost all of them drop off the VMC list? (Ditto The Love Child!)
The Return of the Soldier – Rebecca West
(VMC #32)
Probably the best novel I have read associated with war – in this case, as the title suggests, the return of a soldier, and the messy familial and romantic tangles which ensue. Also incredibly sensitive about shell shock and bereavement – all packed into one slim volume.
Hope that has given you some tips for further VMC reading! Do ask about any of those below, should you want to know my opinions.
Viragos I have read:
(in order of VMC-publication)
1. Mr Fortune’s Maggot : Sylvia Townsend Warner
2. The Life and Death of Harriett Frean : May Sinclair
3. The Return of the Soldier : Rebecca West
4. The Third Miss Symons : F.M. Mayor
5. The Vet’s Daughter : Barbara Comyns
6. The Love Child : Edith Olivier
7. The Yellow Wallpaper : Charlotte Perkins Gilman
8. The Professor’s House : Willa Cather
9. Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont : Elizabeth Taylor
10. The Little Ottleys : Ada Leverson
11. The Tortoise and the Hare : Elizabeth Jenkins
12. Keynotes and Discords : George Egerton
13. Our Spoons Came from Woolworths : Barbara Comyns
14. All Passion Spent : Vita Sackville-West
15. Angel : Elizabeth Taylor
16. Miss Mole : E.H. Young
17. Diary of a Provincial Lady : E.M. Delafield
18. Sisters by a River : Barbara Comyns
19. No Signposts in the Sea : Vita Sackville-West
20. The Lifted Veil : George Eliot
21. Two Days in Aragon : Molly Keane
22. One Fine Day : Mollie Panter-Downes
23. A Game of Hide and Seek : Elizabeth Taylor
24. The Enchanted April : Elizabeth von Arnim
25. The Skin Chairs : Barbara Comyns
26. Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead : Barbara Comyns
27. The Stone Angel : Margaret Laurence
28. The New House : Lettice Cooper
29. Olivia : Dorothy Strachey
30. Seducers in Ecuador and the Heir : Vita Sackville-West
31. The Brontës Went to Woolworths : Rachel Ferguson
32. The Way Things Are : E.M. Delafield
33. Thank Heaven Fasting : E.M. Delafield
34. The Story of an African Farm : Olive Schreiner
35. Mrs Miniver : Jan Struther
36. Emma : Jane Austen
37. Pride and Prejudice : Jane Austen
38. Sense and Sensibility : Jane Austen
39. Persuasion : Jane Austen
40. Mansfield Park : Jane Austen
41. Northanger Abbey : Jane Austen
42. Villette : Charlotte Bronte
43. Wuthering Heights : Emily Bronte
44. Agnes Grey : Anne Bronte
45. Try Anything Twice : Jan Struther
46. Jane Eyre : Charlotte Bronte
47. Ethan Frome : Edith Wharton
48. Crewe Train : Rose Macaulay
49. Lolly Willowes or the Loving Huntsman : Sylvia Townsend Warner
50. Mother and Son : Ivy Compton-Burnett
51. A Very Great Profession : Nicola Beauman
52. I Capture the Castle : Dodie Smith
53. Provincial Daughter : R.M. Dashwood
54. 84 Charing Cross Road : Helene Hanff
55. Rebecca : Daphne du Maurier
56. My Cousin Rachel : Daphne du Maurier
57. The Flight of the Falcon : Daphne du Maurier
58. Loitering with Intent : Muriel Spark
59. Excellent Women : Barbara Pym
I think, sadly, I’ve read all the VMCs I’ll manage this week (total: one) so I’ll talk about Virago in general instead! A few bloggers have written about how they discovered the world of Virago, and I thought I’d join in. And tomorrow I’ll muse on some of my favourites, time permitting…
I had quite an odd journey to Virago, which started with a little Everyman book called Modern Humour. Putting ‘modern’ in the title of anything is a risky business, and this volume was published in 1940. I bought it because it featured something by AA Milne that wasn’t collected elsewhere, and AAM was my first grown-up literary love (that sounds odd, given his status as a children’s writer, but he was also the first writer-for-adults whom I really loved.)
Anyway – included in this volume were two pieces by E.M. Delafield (which, incidentally, you can read here). I’d never heard of Delafield – I didn’t even know if ‘E.M’ was a woman or a man, although the tone of the piece led me correctly to suspect the former – but I loved these pieces. They’re actually from As Others Hear Us, which is one of my very favourite books, but at the time I only had Delafield’s name – and took myself to Worcestershire’s library catalogue. All they had in Pershore Library was a large print edition of The Provincial Lady Goes Further – so that was my induction to the world of Delafield.
Ok, that – and the 4-in-1 Provincial Lady book I subsequently bought – wasn’t actually in a Virago edition. The first Virago Modern Classic I read was about six months later: Provincial Daughter by EMD’s own daughter, R.M. Dashwood. But it was the Provincial Lady books which gave me a taste for Virago Modern Classics, even before I knew what they were…
Fast-forward about 18 months, and I was a member of an online reading group that, seven years later, I am still a proud member of. They love all things Persephone, but they also enthuse about Virago like nobody’s business – which led to me buying those green spines wherever I spotted them at a reasonable price. Elizabeth Taylors flocked to my house. Elizabeth von Arnims gathered on my shelves (and I’ve still only read one of them.) Many more than I have read have arrived. And aren’t the matching green spines something to behold? I will always choose one of those over the latest VMC – whoever chose to get rid of the green spines made one of the worst marketing decisions in the world. (By the by, for the background workings of Virago and their takeover by Little Brown, from being an independent press, is detailed fascinatingly in Simone Murray’s Mixed Media: Feminist Presses and Publishing Politics).
Thankfully, however, old VMCs turn up in a lot of charity shops, and my collection has grown steadily over the years. Some seem impossible to find; some proliferate. They have provided me with some of my favourite reads – they have also included some I thought dreadful, but the good outweight the bad. Virago don’t seem to embody a reading taste in quite the way they used to – perhaps because, when they were an independent press, all VMCs had to pass the taste level of a small group of people – but, looking at those 1980s reprints, all of which were originally published before I was born, and many of which were reprinted before I was born too – I can be confident that I’ll find something that will at least intrigue me. Check back tomorrow to see which titles I’ve loved most over the years… although I suspect you can already guess some of them.
If you’ve blogged about your introduction to Virago, do let me know – and if you haven’t, then tell me about it in the comments here!
