Jewish Book Week

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I haven’t been to many literary festivals, but next week I’ll be adding another one to the small tally – Jewish Book Week, taking place in London 27th February – 7th March. I’m not Jewish myself, but I find so much of Jewish cultural history fascinating. And, of course, we share a Testament.. The people behind JBW very kindly got in touch with me and asked if there were any talks I fancied attending, and suggested the one on vegetarianism – sadly I can’t make that, but I had a look at the wonderful variety of events (which you can see here) and put my name down for a couple…

So, on Wednesday I’ll be attending Save The Children, in which Ruth Barnett, Susan Soyinka, and Karen Pollock will be talking about the evacuation of children during World War Two. I thought it would tie in interestingly with Terence Frisby’s excellent memoir Kisses on a Postcard, which I wrote about a while ago.

And on Sunday, I’ll be at Celebrating Irene Nemirovsky. I loved the powerful and compassionate Suite Francaise (as you’ll see if you click here) and am looking forward to hearing more about her – an event at which her daughter will be speaking.

Do go and have a look at the list of events, and the blog Bagels and Books which they’ve set up, and maybe I’ll even see you at one of those events… I’ll be reporting back on them when I’ve been, of course – looking forward to it!

Miss Mole

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It is nice to have someone in my book group who has very similar reading tastes to me. It means I needn’t harp on about my choices all the time, I can sit back and let Miss Mole (1930) by EH Young be selected, without even having to suggest it myself. Thanks Ruth! This was my first EH Young (of the three or four which have found their way to my bookshelves) but it definitely won’t be my last. AND Miss Mole won the James Tait Black Award, which is generally a better guide for good books than any of the other major book awards.

Miss Mole is a fairly mischievous forty-something who seeks work as a housekeeper. She embarrasses her cousin Lilla, who is from the ‘better’ side of the family, into finding her a position with a nonconformist minister Robert Corder, his daughters Ethel and Ruth, and their cousin Wilfred. Miss Mole’s defence against the potential boredom of her life is concealing her lively and humorous character behind a facade of the dutiful, unintelligent housekeeper which is expected of her.

She could see herself clearly enough with other people’s eyes: she was drab, she was nearing, if she had not reached, middle-age, she bore the stamp of a woman who had always worked against the grain[…] Who would suspect her of a sense of fun and irony, of a passionate love for beauty and the power to drag it from its hidden places?
This is the sort of family-orientated novel which Richmal Crompton sometimes does better, and sometimes rather worse. Young never falls into the pitfalls to which Crompton is occasionally prone – preciousness or being ever so slightly saccharine. Miss Mole is a fairy-tale, but without sentimentality. That is not to say the novel is remotely cynical or disillusioned – but rather that there is nothing which would be more appropriate in a book called Tales For Disconcerted Infants. But it is definitely in the fairy-tale mold – Miss Mole deals with the various dilemmas and quandaries facing the members of the Corder family, who all grow to depend upon her. And she has a few problems of her own, which are gradually revealed, though the family around her remains oblivious.

They were all too young or too self-absorbed to understand that her life was as important to her as theirs to them and had the same possibilities of adventure and romance; that, with her, to accept the present as the pattern of the future would have been to die.
But it is as impossible to pity her as it is to envy her position, because she is so irrepressible. Though she teases everyone, especially her cousin Lilla (and all while pretending to be respectful, and subtle enough to evade retaliation) there is no malice in Miss Mole. There were a few bits which made me laugh out loud, and plenty which made me smile:
“This is a fine old city, Miss Mole,” he said, “full of historic associations, and we have one of the finest parish churches in the country – if you are interested in architecture,” he added, with a subtle suggestion that this was not likely.

Hannah longed to ask what effect her indifference would have on the building, but Mr. Corder did not wait for reassurance about its safety.

EH Young’s strength is in dialogue – when Miss Mole is wittily dissecting other people’s words, but in the guise of guileless innocence, Young crafts the exchanges so finely. The prose narrative is good, but sometimes drags a bit, and doesn’t have the liveliness which Miss Mole injects into the dialogue. Perhaps this is why EH Young is a very good, but not a great, novelist – however, when it comes to drawing characters, she is really rather brilliant. Miss Mole is a creation of whom Jane Austen would be proud, and I think I’ll remember her for some time.

As I said – my first EH Young, but not my last. Thank you, books, for being sturdy enough to last 80 years and allow me the enjoyment of all the wonderful novelists who are neglected by most of the publishing world today! EH Young is surely due a reprint from someone…

 

Through the Years…

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Ok, I’ll admit, I got halfway through a review of the latest book I read, and didn’t find the energy to finish it… so I thought I’d try a little thing ‘Through the Years’, which could be fun to try if you’ve been blogging for a little while.

I’ve done a ‘what was I reading on this date’ meme before a few times, but I thought I’d bring blogging into it as well.

I’m going to look back at the posts I’ve done for a certain date over the past few years. Obviously this will work better post-May, as I started blogging in April 2007, but (to get the ball rolling) here’s what February 22nd looked like in the past…

– in 2009, I was reading Making History by Brian Friel, and blogging about the idea of getting recommendations from other bloggers

– in 2008, I was reading Yes Man by Danny Wallace, and blogging about families of writers

– in 2007, I was reading The Philosophy of the Short Story by Brander Matthews

– in 2006, I was reading… nothing, it appears! Gosh, I only read one book in Feburary 2006, and that was a play by Aphra Behn.

– in 2005, I was reading The Collection by Harold Pinter

– in 2004, I was reading The Young Visiters [sic] by Daisy Ashford

– in 2003, I was reading David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

– in 2002, I was reading The Moody Man by John Milne

Have a go yourself!

White is for Witching

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You may remember that I was feeling all smug and public-service-using the other day, when I got White is for Witching out of the public library – my first public library book for about six years, I’d imagine. I *had* asked for it from Picador, but not heard from them for a few weeks, so off to the library I went… and, when I was halfway through the book, guess what came through the postbox? Thank you, Picador, I now own my very own copy. Sorry, library. But I did go and get another one out – Identity by Milan Kundera. Having decided not to read another Kundera for a while, I realised I was missing his writing, and that he’d written something nice and short…

Anyway. I was very impressed by The Icarus Girl – my first encounter with Helen Oyeyemi – back in August 2008. I was also a little sickened that she wrote it during her A Levels, got another novel out during her time studying at Cambridge, and now seems unstoppable. And then I read Eva’s lovely review of White is for Witching, which (a) was very enthusiastic, and (b) mentioned Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle as a point of comparison. Yes, the very same novel which is in my 50 Books You Must Read list. I couldn’t not read it, could I?

The novel follows Miranda, from her sixth-form to Cambridge – she has a twin brother [twinlit – check], has pica and thus eats chalk [quirky and original – check], and seems to be in tune with her dead ancestors and her very human house [weird houses – check]. All very Gothic and haunting. I’d love to explain more about the plot, and the characters, but I don’t think I can… despite all those ‘checks’, I was disappointed by White is for Witching. Mostly because I hadn’t got a clue what was going on.

I was a bit confused by the ending of The Icarus Girl, but I liked the ambiguity – the climax of Jessamy battling her double – but this seemed to seep through all of White is for Witching. Was this just me? Was it just because I was reading it while a bit tired, and later when I had a headache? Or did the novel give me a headache?

There are various narrators – Eliot, Miranda’s twin brother; Ore, her friend and sometime-lover at Cambridge; a third-person narrator; the house; maybe her dead mother? But they were never announced. I was usually halfway through a narrative chunk before I’d identified the person who was speaking. It didn’t help that I thought Eliot was a girl and Ore was a boy, when in fact it’s the other way round. What I did like was that narratives would blur into each other, connected over a word that they both use, for example:

‘I can only explain it in comparison to something mundane – my adjustment to Lily’s ghost was sort of like when you’re insanely thirsty, but for some reason you can’t get the cap on your water bottle to open properly so you tussle at it with your teeth and hands until you can get a trickle of water to come through. A little water at a time, and you’re trying to be less thirsty and more patient so that the water can be enough. The thing with having seen Lilly was just like that, a practical inner adjustment to meet a need. At least she is there, I’d thought, even if she is just a ghost and doesn’t speak, at least she is

there

was a bird on the windowsill later in the afternoon. I looked up from Thus Spake Zarathustra and saw it sitting motionless. [etc.]’

But there was a little too much structural experiment for my liking – I love experimental writing, but doing it with the way words are laid out on the page always seems, somehow, like the laziest method.

And there are all sorts of unexplained things – or, at least, things I didn’t find explained. The novel opens with Miranda disappearing completely, and tracks back to find out why – which is deliberately not resolved. But what was the bizarre stabbing incident? Why does she not look like her old photographs? Why does she think she is dead? What was that bit about someone being kept in a walk-in closet for years? SO CONFUSED HEAD EXPLODING EYES POPPING OUT OF MY HEAD. Ahem.

I haven’t read Oyeyemi’s second novel yet, The Opposite House, but I’d be interested to see the progression. For me, White is for Witching took all the elements I really liked in The Icarus Girl, and then went too far with them.

I really wanted to like this novel, and so I’m waiting to be convinced… did I just read it in the wrong frame of mind? Or has Oyeyemi got too experimental for her boots?

Stuck-in-a-Book’s Weekend Miscellany

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I’m off for the weekend, to give a talk on Barbara Comyns to the Bidford History Society (argh! nervous!) and visit my brother in Bristol (not nervous…) so I’m typing out a couple of posts to appear whilst I’m away. First off, the Weekend Miscellany – which has a little bit extra this week. Don’t worry, we’ll still be looking at a book, a blog post, and a link – but before that…

UK Book Bloggers Meet-Up
I wrote about this quite a while ago, when it was in its very early stages of organisation – it’s now a little nearer being organised which, let’s face it, is as near as I’m likely to get, not being one of nature’s organised people. Just ask my family, in whom hope springs eternal.

I don’t want to put all the details up here, Just In Case (we don’t want the wrong sort of internet-lurker turning up!) but I have booked a venue. We’ll be meeting in the function room of a lovely, traditional English pub in London (which comes recommended by Kim) on Saturday May 8th at 5.30pm. To get involved, give me an email at simondavidthomas [at] yahoo.co.uk . I think everyone who got in touch before has had an email from me – let me know if I’ve missed you! The room dooes have a restriction of 35 – I shouldn’t think we’ll have more than that, but just in case, it’s first-come first-served… so get emailing!

1.) The book – Thought I’d mention something which came through the postbox this week – Croc Attack! by Assaf Gavron. Sounds like an edgier David Attenborough, doesn’t it, but no – the novel is about Eitan Enoch, known as Croc, and his survival of various terrorist attacks in Tel Aviv. He inadvertently becomes a national celebrity, but thus also becomes a target… To be honest, it sounds more violent than my usual choice of book, but is also apparently ‘blackly funny’ and might appeal to the more politically minded amongst you? In fact, let me know if you fancy reviewing it for this blog and (if you live in the UK), I’ll pop it in the post to you…

2.) The blog post – it’s always great when bloggers come fresh to my favourite books, so I was delighted to see Thomas at My Porch review EM Delafield’s The Diary of a Provincial Lady; Lisa at BlueStalking Reader write about The Love Child by Edith Olivier, and that Miss Hargreaves has paid a visit to Nicola at Back-to-Books. All are books on my 50 Books list, and though not all the blog posts are from this week, I’ll confess, they’re recent… that’s good enough, isn’t it? OH, and see Jenny’s review of Lucia in London too. So many great posts!

3.) The link – If you’re like me, then the words ‘free’ and ‘book’ in the same sentence won’t go amiss. That’s just what train company First Capital Connect are intending to do, with their own book club – more info here, please excuse the ad agency’s rather bizarre logo.

(by the by, anyone who used to use the ‘Home…’ link in the left-hand column, I’ve now deleted it – but clicking on the picture in the top left-hand corner will take you back to the main page)

Keeping Up Appearances by Rose Macaulay

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It’s always nice to feel oneself in like-minded company, so I was pleased (and not entirely surprised) to see that a lot of you felt the same way that I do about Catcher in the Rye. I rather think today’s book will be more up your street…

Although I read Keeping Up Appearances (1928) by Rose Macaulay back in December (around the time I reviewed Crewe Train) I’ve recently been using it as part of an essay, so hopefully it’ll be fresh in my mind… Those of you familiar with a certain BBC sitcom of the same name may recognise the reference in today’s subject title – but while Hyacinth doesn’t make an appearance, Macaulay’s novel has similar ideas of class and how pretending to be above one’s station will only end in complications…

The central characters of the novel are half-sisters Daisy and Daphne, who are worlds apart in character. Daphne is 25, a cultured intellectual who is never put-off by any situations, and moves through high society with ease and grace. Daisy, 30, is plagued by self-doubt and comes from rather commoner stock. Though she tries to engage in the same social circles as Daphne, and is far more snobbish and class-conscious, she has none of Daphne’s confidence, bravery, and charm. She also lives in constant fear that her secret life as popular novelist Marjorie Wynne will be unearthed by the highbrows and intellectuals amongst whom she moves. But she realises that this isn’t likely, as (when she tests the water) they seem completely unaware of Marjorie Wynne’s existence. Macaulay uses these bits to satirise her own position as popular novelist (though one read by middlebrow and highbrow alike, I believe). In fact, throughout Macaulay’s writings (including the novel of hers I’ve recently started, Staying With Relations) she is very teasing of novelists, and quite amusingly so. This, for instance, is in a collection of her essays called A Casual Commentary:

Novels are among the queerest things in a queer world. Chunks out of the imagined life of a set of imagined persons, set down for others to read. For this is what you have to produce if you are a novelist. You will find it quite easy. Anyone can write novels, and most people, at one time or another, do so. One novel is much like another, so you need not worry very much about what kind of novel to write.[…] The great advantage of writing novels is that some people read novels. They are not, on the whole, very clever people, so yours need not be clever novels, and, indeed, had better not be.

I read the Keeping Up Appearances as part of my research about the development of the concept of ‘middlebrow’, and it is a very interesting look at the interaction of different social strata, especially when it comes to literary circles and their inability to understand each other. It’s also a lot about perspective – for example, Daisy considers her role from two different vantages:

Mother’s clever girl, earning her living by writing for the London papers, writing such bright, clever pieces, that people always liked to read. One of those vulgar little journalists who write popular feminine chit-chat in that kind of paper that caters for mob taste. Oh, what matter? She was either, according to her environment. Go to East Sheen, be Mother’s clever girl, petted and admired; go to the newspaper office, be one of the smart young women journalists, writing good live articles; move along Folyots and highbrows, and be as one not realised by nice highbrows, and only recognised by less nice highbrows as a target for unkindly jests.

Though Keeping Up Appearances isn’t as funny as Crewe Train, nor quite as memorable, it does present a clever idea. Because, dear reader, I haven’t told you the central concept which surprises the reader and twists the interpretation completely, which comes about halfway through the novel. And I’m not going to, you’ll have to read it yourself (carefully avoiding reading the blurb on the inside, if you have my edition – which is that pictured above. I don’t know about you, but it reminded me of Picasso’s The Three Dancers).

Without giving that away, I can say little more – except that Rose Macaulay deserves a wider audience. Capuchin Classics have recently republished one of her novels, I believe, and perhaps other publishers will take up the baton. But there are plenty of secondhand copies available of Keeping Up Appearances and Crewe Train, and I daresay that libraries will have them – for a funny, clever, and well-written view of 1920s class issues and literary society, you can do no better.

 

X is the new Y

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My book group has just discussed The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky (thanks for lending it to me, Becca) – I don’t have enough to say about it to make a whole blog post. Basically it’s trying to be Catcher in the Rye for the late’90s – and it more or less succeeds, but is rather less annoying than Catcher in the Rye (does ANYBODY here actually like the book, or did you have to be a disaffected youth in the 1950s? Or stoned?). I’d love to hear from anyone who has read The Perks of Being a Wallflower…

Anyway, the point of this post was my strong feeling that TPoBaW was trying to be an updating of CitR. I do think it’s lazy criticism to just compare novels or writers, but I felt that Chbosky was deliberately trying to take on this mantle… do you ever feel like about a book? Other than obvious sequels, of course. Examples, please! Lots to give your feedback to there… c’mon, someone, defend the Great Disaffected American Novel.

No.5

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Project 24 – #5

I’m really running through them like wildfire now… halfway through March’s allowance and we’re only just halfway through February. Perhaps the naysayers were right… anyway, enough self-flagellation, you’ll want to know what the book is.

My favourite shop in Oxford, Arcadia, is a lovely little place which is great for gifty things. I always buy my greetings cards and wrapping paper there, and to top it all they sell secondhand books. They specialise in Penguin paperbacks, and when I walked past today, they seemed to have even more than usual. Inside there were rows and rows of them, each individually wrapped in cellophane. But it was outside that I spotted Strange Glory by L H Myers. I can’t remember where I heard of it, but it was in connection with my research, and I wanted to track down a copy… so when I walked past one, I couldn’t leave it there – right?

I should point out how close I came to buying Love by Elizabeth von Arnim yesterday – and I resisted. I’m doing well, honest…

So there it is, no.5. I’ve not read any of the first four yet, I must confess. Maybe I should see how many of the 24 I’ve read by the end of the year… but this week I’m going to immerse myself in Rose Macaulay novels.

Anybody heard of/read any L H Myers? And how are fellow Project 24-ers going? (Project Zero people, keep quiet! You’ll just make me feel worse.)

So Good They Named It Twice

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A bit of fun to kick off the week, but something which might also have you banging your head against the wall…

The idea is simple. Think of books with titles which repeat the same word, or set of words, exactly. A made up example – Stuck, Stuck by Ina Book. There can be commas or exclamation marks or dashes, but no other words. No ‘and’, ‘with’, ‘The’ – unless, of course, they’re repeated as well. I had to strike O, These Men, These Men by Angela Thirkell off my list, once I remembered about that ‘O’ at the beginning…

I daresay this would be quite easy to cheat at, but that’s no fun – see which ones you can remember without having recourse to the internet or your bookshelves (checking suspicions is fine). I’ve been pondering it for a couple of days, and have come up with ten… In order to allow you to play along, I’ve put my answers in white text – so you can highlight them and have a look, but only when you’ve put your answers in the comment box…!

Enjoy, and don’t blame me if it drives you a little bit crazy…

Faster! Faster! – EM Delafield
Author, Author – David Lodge
The Sea, The Sea – Iris Murdoch
Lucia, Lucia – Adriana Trigiani
Kiss Kiss – Roald Dahl
Absalom, Absalom! – William Faulkner
Speech! Speech! – Geoffrey Hill
Guards! Guards! – Terry Pratchett
Red Dog, Red Dog – Patrick Lane
Promises Promises – Adam Phillips

Highlight the text above to see which ones I came up with!