Stevenson Under the Palm Trees

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Can you believe we’re still talking about that weekend of novellas? Plenty of material yet! (And I’m already tentatively planning the next one…) Up today is Stevenson Under the Palm Trees by Alberto Manguel. If the name rings a bell, it might be because he earned his spurs in the blogosphere with the book A Reader on Reading – which is on my list of books to think about buying when Project 24 is over.

But before I heard about that, I’d bought Stevenson Under the Palm Trees in Oxford’s £2 shop. It appealed because (a) it was short, and (b) I love novels about writers and playing with their creations, etc. Plus I fancied throwing something a little postmodern and quirky into the mix. This is despite me never having read anything by Robert Louis Stevenson. Not even Treasure Island. Tut tut, Simon. [Edit: I have! I have! I’ve just remembered I’ve read Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde]

Manguel’s novella is about Stevenson’s time in Samoa, amongst intense humidity, bright colours, and a place which captivated him without quite accepting him. He is still the white outsider amongst the close-knit Samoans, and hankers after his native Edinburgh. And then… well, here’s the opening:
Robert Louis Stevenson left the house and walked the long trek down to the beach just as the day was setting. From the verandah the sea was hidden by the trees, six hundred feet below, filling the end of two vales of forest. To enjoy the last plunge of the sun before the clear darkness set in, the best observation-post was among the mangrove roots, in spite (he said bravely to himself) of the mosquitoes and the sand-flies. He did not immediately notice the figure because it appeared to be merely one more crouching shadow among the shadows, but then it turned and seemed for a moment to be watching him. The man was wearing a broad-rimmed hat not unlike Stevenson’s own, and, even though he could see that the skin was white, he could not make out the man’s features.
The man is Mr. Baker, a missionary from Scotland, and he remains a shadowy figure throughout. When a young Samoan woman is raped and murdered, things get all the more mysterious. Don’t worry – it isn’t done in a gory or gratuitous way, more as an interesting catalyst for the rest of the novel – as the reader cannot decide upon Stevenson’s culpability or innocence.

Neither, it seems, can Stevenson – for nothing is quite certain or able to be grasped by the reader. Who is Mr. Baker? Is he a creation of Stevenson’s; is he somehow Stevenson’s double; is he simply the missionary he claims? Identities are complex, dreams and consciousness meld and the Samoan landscape is host to all manner of strange narratives and counter-narratives. Lest this seems completely baffling, I should add that Manguel sensibly keeps the curious and nebulous aspects of the novella to the plot and characters – never spilling over into unnecessarily elaborate style or language. Which is somehow even more disorientating – because, at first glimpse, Stevenson Under the Palm Trees reads as a traditional novella – only gradually does everything get complicated.

As I said, I haven’t read any Stevenson – so I wasn’t able to appreciate the (apparently) ‘playful nod to Stevenson’s life and work’, including the real life Mr. Baker, but that didn’t stop me appreciating Manguel’s novella. As an interesting extra level, the book incorporates – at intervals – woodcuts which Stevenson made in Switzerland in 1881. They are very simple, and obviously not the work of a professional woodcut artist, but still heighten the atmosphere and have their own evocative mystery.

For anybody fancying a quick dabble into the world of quirky, quietly postmodern novels, this could be a really interesting place to start – I hope my thoughts haven’t made this sound inaccessible or difficult, because it isn’t; I’m simply finding it tricky to find the right way to describe this unusual novella. Certainly something different from the rest of my weekend of novellas, and – as much as I enjoyed those – this was a playful, intriguing breath of fresh air.

I’ve replied to your comments now!

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I feel so ashamed of myself – I’ve left comments unanswered for so long. Well, I’ve just spent much of the past four hours replying to the last sixteen posts – so if you were waiting for a reply, you’ve got one now! This is especially directed at Brigitte and her lovely first comment a while ago, which made my day, and I felt so bad that it hadn’t had a reply…

Congratulations…

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Don’t worry, I hadn’t forgotten about the giveaway I promised a while ago – I asked people to recommend blogs they didn’t think I’d know. Well, you were mostly successful – I’d only heard of two of the blogs mentioned. I’ve now gone and explored them – and they are lovely! – and I promised a book giveaway to the person who recommended my favourite new blog, AND to the blogger they recommended.

All completely subjective, of course, but *drum roll* please, the winners are…

Sasha (Sasha & the Silverfish)

for recommending

Carina (Book Report)

Congratulations Carina for your wonderful blog! Thank you Sasha for bringing this fab blog to my attention – I’m sure I’ll be back often.

You can both choose any book you’d like from those listed so far in my 50 Books You Must Read list over in the right-hand column. (Unless they’re somehow unavailable – please note many/most of them are only available secondhand, so I hope that’s ok!) Let me know in the comments or by email which one you’d like, and I’ll arrn

Picture Perfect

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On Friday I was at The Big Green Bookshop in Wood Green (yes, I did pose proudly by my name on the Bloggers’ Book of the Month stand) to hear Kim of Reading Matters interview both Friedrich Christian Delius, author of Peirene’s latest book Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman (2006), and Jamie Bulloch, the translator. Kim did a fantastic job; Herr Delius was very interesting; I confirmed what I already suspected – one year studying German in 1999 did not stand me in good stead when a section was read from the novella.


I’ve been promising a review for a while, and Meike from Peirene more or less threatened to stop sending me books, and start sending hate mail and letter bombs instead, if I didn’t actually make good on my promise. She needn’t have worried, because Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman is my favourite of Peirene’s titles so far, and possibly the most convincing narrative voice I have read for a very long time. I certainly can’t think of a man-writing-a-woman or a woman-writing-a-man which has been more believable or evocative.

I’d better kick off my thoughts by mentioning the ‘gimmick’ behind Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman – that it is all one sentence. All 125pp of it. Perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned that at all, because if you’re anything like me it will make you a bit nervous. Especially if you were forced to read Ulysses in your first year of university, with its 100pp. at the end sans punctuation… and there’s that hint of James Joyce in the title of Delius’ book (in the English, at least) but wait! Somehow the absence of full stops along the way doesn’t hinder the novel or make it difficult to read – rather, it enhances the beautiful flow and, with the structure of paragraphs and clauses, makes it feel a bit like a constant walking pace.

Which is precisely what it is. Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman follows a young pregnant woman as she walks through the streets of Rome in January 1943. Indeed, the first line is “Walk, young lady, walk if you want to walk, the child will like it if you walk” – the advice given to the woman by a doctor. She certainly takes up his advice – in terms of plot, there is very little. Instead we follow her path through Rome, sometimes inside her mind and sometimes panning around her instead. It isn’t really stream of consciousness or even in the first person, but it is still a novella entirely captivated by the woman’s mind and personality. She is kind, perhaps naive, perhaps simply someone with very human and empathetic priorities – ‘she prayed to be allowed to bring her child into the world during a night without sirens and without bombs falling on the world’. She misses her husband Gert who is in Africa; she looks towards the future as a wife and mother; she is interested in everything she passes by, without letting her curiosity hold her in one place for too long. The war is not something she feels keenly as an international affair – only where it crosses her path; where it interrupts her happy images of past, present, and future. Which is, I imagine, the most honest portrait of a young German woman’s experience of war.

Most beautifully, to my mind, is her perspective as a young Christian woman. I don’t know whether or not Delius has Christian faith (I don’t like the word ‘religious’ because it covers so vast a territory, and is a barren, emotionless word) but he certainly knows how to portray the beauty of this woman’s faith in its calmness and simple vitality. Especially moving is the conflict she feels between Christianity and her wartime national identity – complicated further, perhaps, by being in Rome.
the Fuhrer himself who, as her father and Gert sometimes cautiously hinted, made the mistake of placing himself above God, or practically allowing himself to be venerated as a god, and so exaggerated the belief in race and the superiority of the German national community,

You are nothing, your people is everything!, that the racial theories contradicted ever more sharply the obligations of humility and brotherly love, and repeatedly gave rise to fresh inner conflicts in young people like her,

without the Church and her devout parents and several courageous preachers she would not have been able to cope with the daily conflict between the cross of the Church and the crooked cross of the swastika
This woman, by the way, is not simply any mother – but is heavily based on Delius’ mother. I had a bit of a oh-gosh moment at the talk when I realised that the baby she is carrying, thinking so much about, and planning for, is Delius himself.


As an exploration of a woman’s life, this is a beautiful novella – but as an exploration of his mother’s life, it somehow becomes even more beautiful. I feel that this might be a novella I will return to in a few years’ time, and a few years after that – so much to glean from its pages. Jamie Bulloch is to be strongly commended for his translation – I can’t read Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman in its original German, but the English has such a lovely lilt and continual flow to it that I can only assume nothing was lost in translation.

Books to get Stuck into:

Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf: this is the obvious comparison, I think, similarly taking place within one day (though not so short a timescale as Delius’ novella). Her journey through London and this woman’s through Rome are equally striking.

Stone in a Landslide – Maria Barbal: it might see lazy to mention another Peirene title, but I kept thinking about this novella as another moving account of a woman living through momentous times.

Songs for a Sunday

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I’ve been in London for most of the weekend, from Friday afternoon, so no Weekend Miscellany this week – but I thought I would inaugurate Songs for a Sunday. Of course, there is no reason why shared book taste should lead to shared music taste, and I’m sure it won’t for many of you – in which case, ignore the ensuing series! But I thought it would be fun to share a beautiful song on Sundays, being the day I usually don’t post anything.

So, if you like folk-pop-alternative-easy listening mostly by female artists (which is how I’m going to rather nebulously describe the songs I’ll pick) then you might enjoy the Songs for a Sunday. If you don’t like that… then just wait for the next day, when the books come back!

Kicking off is my favourite track from Vienna Teng’s Inland Territory – ‘Antebellum’.

A-Z of Blogging

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I thought the best way to round off a week of appreciating other blogs and neglecting my own (prizes to come, by the way, once I’ve examined all those new-to-me blogs you recommended – still time to join in if you’ve got a great one up your sleeve) is to give you an A-Z of blogging delight. Most of these relate to individual blogs, but not quite all… If you’ve not featured, it’s probably owing to difficulties with the alphabet, rather than deficiencies in your blog! If you have the energy, why not have a go at this yourself, and spread the joy?

The rather awesome alphabet come courtesy of Bygg, for more info click here.

is for Annabel
– whose blog Gaskella is friendly, eclectic and geeky in the best sort of way, also shared my first ever blurb mention. More on that below…
is for Bloomsbury Group
– the wonderful series of reprint novels, many of which were initially recommended to Bloomsbury by bloggers. Case in point, one of my all-time favourite novels, and almost certainly the one which gets mentioned here the most – Miss Hargreaves by Frank Baker.

is for Captive Reader

– amongst the many and manifold Claires of the blogosphere, Claire can claim ‘C’ for her name, her blog‘s name, and her country of residence Canada. Her lovely blog feels like wandering through a meadow in spring, and finding a secondhand bookshop and tearoom serendipitously.

is for Darlene
– and her lovely blog Roses Over A Cottage Door. Darlene chooses her reading wisely, and if there ever was a blogger to award honorary British status to, Darlene is that blogger.
–
is for Elaine
– as I commented yesterday, Elaine’s blog Random Jottings was the first bookish blog I ever read, and my acquaintance with this doyenne of novels and opera has even led to the phrase ‘doing an Elaine’ – when you first encounter an author and immediately devour all their books.

is for Farm Lane Books
– which is Jackie’s blog, and consistently features books I’ve never heard of – always a delight when it comes to blogging, isn’t it?

is for Gatherings
– I love that blogging has spilled over into real life encounters. Whenever I head around the country, I pop in to see various blogging folk – and there’s a second mass meet-up on Saturday 25th September (and still room to join us if you’re interested!)

is for Hayley
– who writes the blog Desperate Reader, and shares my love of sidelined gems, as well as knowing more about whisky than anyone I know (or should that be whiskey, Hayley?)

is for Illustrations
– I love blogs for the books and words, of course, but I especially appreciate bloggers who go the extra mile and throw in beautiful or creative images. Step forward Claire of Kiss A Cloud and Janice of Janice’s Reading Diary (especially if you scroll back to her scrapbook-based entries) – visually at the top of the tree, I’d say.

is for Jodie
– who puts my favourite animal into her blog title, at Geranium Cat’s Bookshelf. Once I stop staring at the cat, and whispering “Here, kitty kitty!” under my breath, I’ll read the excellent posts…

is for Karen
– the sort of blogger who makes you prepare yourself to say “Oh, of course, I knew Karen before she was famous.” Karen – aka Cornflower – writes about a wonderful mix of books, always in a charming, friendly, and generally lovely way – and she is equally lovely in person. AND she hosts a monthly book group on her blog. AND she writes a whole other domestic arts blog – a woman to be admired, indeed.

is for Lyn
– the lady who has most influenced my reading choices, by introducing me to an email discussion list which, in turn, accompanied me through university, and continues to do so. The only Australian blogger I know, you’ll still find few more knowledgable about English fiction. L could equally have been for Librarian, for that is the hat Lyn wears by day.

is for Margaret
– who is the blogger behind Books Please, one of the first blogs I started reading, not least because Margaret started writing hers a mere two days after I started mine. Both still going strong!

is for Novel Insights
– so novel are Polly’s insights that I’ll forgive her for me accidentally pressing Ctrl N, rather than Ctrl B, and having a new window leap out of nowhere… Polly’s reviews are often delightfully enthused, and she is another blogger who is just as nice in person as on the (web)page.

is for Oxfordians
– which is my cunning way of including Becca (Oxford Reaer), Naomi (Bloomsbury Bell), Sophie (Embarrassment of Frivolities), Verity (Cardigan Girl Verity), Kirsty (Other Stories) and Harriet (Harriet Devine) – and me! – under the same heading. Oxfordshire and London seem to be the blogging centres of the UK, which meant I could organise the next meet-up in Oxford and not feel too selfish.

is for Paperback Reader
– since a different Claire had already nabbed ‘C’. Claire’s blog is another of my absolute favourites with a very identifiable cheery tone. Claire’s also one of the bloggers I’ve met most in real life, and it’s always a great pleasure to do so.

is for quilts
– and other similar crafty things… as someone who has two left hands when it comes to crafty activities, I am in constant admiration of the talents which so many bloggers – such as Ruth – bring to the table.

is for Rachel
– known to the world as Book Snob, and one of those blogs I’ve enjoyed watching deservedly escalate in popularity. Rachel’s reviews are always thoughtful and thorough, as well as radiating her warmth and kindness. It doesn’t hurt that we love the same sorts of novels – I can usually expect to either agree or anticipate a new delight. Even if we’ve lost her to New York for the year – look after her, U.S.!

is for Simon
– but in this case, not me! It’s for Simon S. – the arrival to the blogosphere of the very witty and incredibly popular Savidge Reads has meant that I’m Simon T rather than just plain old Simon – and there’s noone more fun and bookish to have as a namessake. (I have to say that, I’m sleeping at his house this weekend!)

is for Thomas
– who, along with Simon, makes up my name… but is also my other favourite male blogger with his erudite and friendly blog My Porch. As well as sharing his favourite reads, Thomas often puts up beautiful paintings – and has given me a chronic case of Shelf Envy.

is for Unknown Bloggers
– which sounds a bit like ‘The Unknown Soldier’, but isn’t meant to. What I mean is – as you’ve all shown me with the post earlier this week – the fun of blogging is that there are always unknown wonderful bloggers to encounter, as well as people joining the blogosphere for the first time.

is for Vintage Reads
– this blog is Nicola’s fairly occasional, but always delightful, journey through exactly the sort of books I love, showing that vintage need never mean dated.

is for Work in Progress
– another one of the first I ever read, this blog is the work of Danielle, and is dizzying in its depth and breadth, as well as boasting the most thorough list of blog links I’ve ever seen.

is for eggs (ahem)
– you try thinking of something for X! This is a celebration of the baking side of bookishness. Here at Stuck-in-a-Book we love a cup of tea and piece of cake while reading, and I love baking – even more than that, I love encouraging non-bakers to give it a go, and reading about other people’s baking exploits (and, most amusingly, disasters – I’m never shy to share mine!)

is for Young, Angela
– the author of Speaking of Love, one of the first books I was sent to review, the first I was quoted on the back of, and one of myvery favourite modern novels – this superb book represents many of the things I love about blogging, and the opportunities it brings about!

is for Zero to pay
– another rather weak link, I’m afraid, and the astute amongst you will notice that this ‘Z’ is in fact just the N turned sideways. Apologies… but I just wanted to finish with a celebration of the fact that all the joy we get from blogging and reading blogs is entirely free! Sure, it takes time, but all this fun and it doesn’t cost a penny…. not directly, of course, but I doubt I’m the only one who’s spent a great deal more on books since he started blogging….

Another blog question

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Thanks for your suggestions on the previous post, do keep them coming – only one suggestion so far that is actually already in my links on this page, so you’re doing well (!)
I’m afraid this week has not had much blogging time so far (I was power-reading Villette more or less every spare moment I got, so more on that another day.) As usual when time is scarce, I’m going to put forward a question for your delectation… (and, before that, a completely irrelevant piccie of some books I bought about a year ago… only one of which I’ve read in that time.)


I’ve asked about favourite blogs and blogs I might not know about, but I’m interested as to the blog you first read – where did you first find out about blogging and, if you keep your own blog, what made you start?

The first one blog I read was my brother’s, but the first specifically bookish blog I read was Elaine’s – Random Jottings. A few of us were in a book discussion email list, which has brought the world a dizzying number of bloggers old and new. After about a year, I decided to take a step into the blogging world myself…

Book Blogger Appreciation Week!

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I spotted over at Shelf Love that it was Book Blogger Appreciation Week – I hear the cry that “Every week is book blogger appreciation week!” Well, yes, I’m sure you’ll agree – we book bloggers are pretty fab people. Stylish, suave, and generally brilliant. (Did I ever tell you about the time I offered to carry a bunch of box lids for a woman with a pram, only to immediately drop them all on the floor? I couldn’t work out whether pity or disdain showed more clearly in her eyes.)

But, that aside, it’s nice to take a step back every now and then and applaud the work that people put into their blogs. So I’m going to be doing some of that this week (and maybe even finishing writing about some more of those novellas I read, you never know.)

To kick things off, please tell me about a book blog you don’t think I’ll know, but think I’ll like. Obviously I know and love so many, but there must be a hundred times more that I don’t know. So… let me know!

And (here’s the clever bit) I’ll be offering a free book to both the person who suggests the new-to-me blog I like best and the blogger they recommend! (But you can’t recommend yourself, I’m afraid, and nab two prizes!!)

Stuck-in-a-Book’s Weekend Miscellany

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Happy Weekend, one and all! Colin is coming to visit this weekend, and will be roped into all manner of baking tomorrow, as we prepare for our housewarming on Sunday. Should be fun – but will not conducive to me finishing Villette by next Wednesday. Oh well, fingers are crossed…

The Weekend Miscellany is a bit more disorganised this week, as there were so many things I wanted to mention, and I thought I’d forget about them if I decided to wait til next week. They’ll all be a bit of a jumble…

1.) Elizabeth Jenkins died this week, aged 104 – she wrote novels and biographies including Cornflower Book Group choice The Tortoise and the Hare. Nicola Beauman (of Persephone Books) wrote her obituary, a link brought to my attention by Lyn.

2.) Hannah Stoneham alerted me to Dorothy, a publishing project. They have a website and a Facebook page, and describe themselves as publishing ‘works of fiction or near fiction or about fiction, mostly by women.’ The reason I’m excited is that one of their first books (in November) will be a reprint of Barbara Comyns’ incredibly good Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead with fantastic cover art by Yelena Bryksenkova. Bad news for me – and good for a lot of you – is that they’re based in the US.


3.) Several people alerted me to an interview with Debo Devonshire on Radio 4 this morning – if you happened to miss it, you can listen to the interview here. It’s rather wonderful, and has me chomping at the bit to read Wait for Me.

4.) A book that sounds fun is Matthew J. Dick’s Pistols for Two – Breakfast for One. Hugo Hammersley is formerly of the HM diplomatic service, and is investgating the murder of a notable British citizen in Italy, and the disappearance of the priceless gold coin he had carried. That’s before the Mafia get involved…


5.) Other people who know me well have alerted me to these videos – the first is the latest Ikea advert; the second is the ‘Making of’ that advert. Ikea and cats are two of my favourite things (along with, of course, brown paper packages tied up with string) so I am naturally besotted.