More Mitfords…

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I couldn’t leave it just at the Mitford letters, now, could I?

Having fallen down before Deborah in a frenzy of adulation, I had to seek out Counting My Chickens… and other home thoughts by Debo, or the Duchess of Devonshire as such as I should call her. It’s a collection of all sorts of writings Deborah has published in newspapers and periodicals over the years (most notably the British Goat Society Yearbook 1972); lots of short articles and thoughts, something to dip in and out of.

Deborah isn’t a natural prose writer, not in the way Nancy was. She frequently claims not to be able to read, let alone write (though Charlotte Mosley notes in The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters ‘Diana believed that unlike most people who pretend to have read books that they have not, Deborah pretended not to have read books that she had’.) Counting My Chickens, accordingly, is no sweeping grand narrative – but in the vignettesque pieces, Deborah demonstrates a gently witty and loveable nature. Who can fail to adore her when, asked to choose her ten books for a Trans Siberian Railway (!), she writes ‘My third book is Patrick Leigh Fermor’s Between the Woods and the Water. I am sorry to say I have not read it…’

Most of Counting My Chickens is little thoughts, connected to Chatsworth or the countryside – her opinions are sometimes applaudable, sometimes baffling (why doesn’t she like female weather forecasters?), but always entertaining or interesting. She has a habit of writing a statement, and simply putting ‘Good.’ as the next sentence. What a flood of ink could be saved if other authors used rhetoric so simple!

To be honest, Deborah Mitford could have written her views concerning the telephone directory, or a list of her favourite three digit numbers, and I’d have lapped it up. She is, after all, more or less like a sister to me now. A somewhat older sister, it must be said, but a sister nonetheless. I wonder what on earth she’d make of that – seeing as I am vegetarian, never milked a cow, and have been known to say ‘talking with’ when I mean ‘talking to’…

My next Mitford read will be Hons and Rebels by Jessica – a few of you rightly said that I should read more by or about Decca before judging her, so I shall give her the benefit of the doubt…!

By the way, I’m keeping a list of the Alphabet Meme as it goes on through the blogs, so if you’ve done one, just let me know…

Mitfordmania

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I am forlorn. There is no other word for it. Having started it in November, I am drawing to the final pages of The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters. Only two sisters are still alive, and I have lived every period of their lives. It is rare, I must confess, that I want a book to continue when I’ve come to the end. Almost always I am happy to finish and move onto the next, even if I’ve really enjoyed reading the book. It is astonishing that an 800+ page book should leave me wanting more.

When I started The Mitfords in November, I had heard of Nancy, Jessica and Diana, though got them a little mixed up, and had no idea about the rest of them. I knew they were fairly posh, and had written some books between them, of which I had only read The Pursuit of Love and letters between Nancy and Heywood Hill. Oh, those early days of reading the letters, when I had constantly to flick to the front, to work out which one Pamela was and whether or not she was older than Diana, and whether or not Jessica was married yet and if Unity was two or twelve or twenty. How far away such ignorance now seems! I can name them all in order of births and deaths, state political leanings; spouses; sororal favourites and antagonisms; every bit of their characters which could be revealed in these letters.

As Jo Rowling says: ‘A novelist would never get away with inventing this: a correspondence spanning eight decades, written from locations including Chatsworth and Holloway Prison, between six original and talented women who numbered among their friends Evelyn Waugh, Maya Angelou, J. F. Kennedy and Adolf Hitler’. As a social document alone, this book would be one of the most important of recent years. Throw in six unique, unmistakable characters, gifted women with affection and great humour – The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters is unquestionably the best book I’ve read thus far in 2008, and I can’t see it being bettered before the year is out.

It is impossible to read about Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica and Deborah without emerging with favourites. Seeing their true selves exposed and shared, I couldn’t help form opinions and imaginary kindred spirits. So, I did warm to – no, strike that, adore – Deborah (indisputably the heroine of the book) for her warmth, lovingness, refusal to adopt a political viewpoint which would damage her sisterly relationships. Witty, too, without the barbs some of her sisters planted. Pamela is adorable too, forever known as Woman for her unfeminine qualities, but she is the least garralous sister. The only sister I couldn’t stand by the end of the collection was Jessica – I think it unacceptable to cut a sister from your life because they have different political leanings. Extreme ones, on both sides, yes – but the ties of siblingship are above such things. And a minor quibble over a scrapbook was being dregged up by Jessica FIFTEEN YEARS after the event happened. For goodness’ sake, woman!

Such are the strong reactions The Mitfords provokes, you see… and anyone else reading it will form different alliances, I daresay. Hopefully anyone staying away from this collection because of the Mitford reputation will be swayed. Yes, they were rich, and sometimes a little eccentric – their sense of humour and catchphrases take some getting used to, but isn’t that true of all families? I long, now, to say “do admit!” when I mean “you must admit that’s funny”, or “screamed” for “was amused”. Their range of nicknames is baffling, but delightfully so – and, once I got the hang of it, it felt rather like I’d been invited into the family group. Not quite into the group, actually, of course – but with the privileged position of benevolent eavesdropping…

Utterly fascinating, endlessly moving (I gasped aloud at a miscarriage one sister suffered) this collection of letters is a treasure chest and a social document; a comedy and a history; unavoidably brilliant without the least pretension to being anything other than the letters between six sisters.

In theory…

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Isn’t it nice when something spreads across the internet?

When I listed my A-Z favourite authors, with accompanying books, I hoped a few people would get puzzling over their response – and, to my gratification, quite a few of you did. So thought I’d point you all in the various directions –

Sibylle (shares a massive seven authors with me…)
Margaret
Danielle
Elaine
Kirsty
Cath
Lizzy
litlove
Norm
Iliana
Joanna
Ted
Tiffany
Nymeth
Pat
Robin
Juxtabook
CallMeMadam

Have I missed anyone?
Was considering compiling a list of authors chosen, but you can go and have a look yourselves. I think George Eliot wins out, by virtue of her unusual ‘E-‘ surname – though I was expecting more Austen. Isn’t it great that there are so many favourite authors out there, in the blogosphere? Lots of names to investigate.

In other news, I passed my Driving Theory Test this morning – hurray! I now have two years to pass my driving test proper, and might need all of that time… But at least I now know that a horse might go in any direction at a roundabout, and that a mobile ‘phone increases the risk of an accident by four times. Goodness knows what calamities a horse on a mobile ‘phone would cause…

Reduced Billybob

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A very fun evening at the theatre, watching The Reduced Shakespeare Company perform The Complete Works of Shakespeare in 97 minutes. Now, if only they’d been around while I was doing my revision.for finals…

This post contains quite a few spoilers, both of Shakespeare and how they used Shakespeare, so read on only with the greatest caution…

Great fun. We saw Hamlet in a few minutes, complete with sock puppetry, shark and Ophelia’s id being acted out by the audience waving their hands rhythmically; the Histories were performed as a game of American Football; the Comedies were rolled into one performance (“Which is the one which starts with a ship wreck, has identical twins, and ends with a wedding?” “All of them.”)

Since the troupe was a three-man-band, all the female parts were (appropriately enough) played by men. Unlike the Renaissance stage, they were taken by one man in a bad wig, who screamed a lot. Actually… ahem. Hamlet’s Ghost held up a sign saying ‘Boo’; one man played the balconey in Romeo & Juliet; Juliet failed to kill herself because her sword was a retractable stage one; Othello had toy boats tied around his neck, as they’d misunderstood the meaning of ‘Moor’…

Oh, it was great. And not the least informative.

The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets

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The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets by Eva Rice was given to me as a Christmas present by my friend Lorna, who’d read and loved it. I passed it on to Our Vicar’s Wife, who also loved it, and has passed it on to a lady in our village in Somerset… isn’t it great when a recommendation goes along a chain like this? It’s only fair that I pass it on to all of you, too.

Please don’t let that fact that it was a Richard & Judy Book Club choice put you off. They choose some fine books. And, more importantly, don’t be discouraged by the cover, which falls firmly into ‘chick lit’ territory. Today’s sketch shows the importance of distrusting cover images…


Right. Now we can consider the book itself. The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets is set in the 1950s. Penelope lives in one of those crumbling old mansions only found in literature, and is (of course) the daughter of a beautiful widow, and has a mildly eccentric brother, obsessed with music. She meets Charlotte at a bus stop, and is invited, out of the blue, to visit Charlotte’s aunt (not, we must note, the same as Charley’s Aunt) who lives in a book-crammed room, and is dictating her own book to Charlotte. Charlotte is the driving force of this novel, though we follow Penelope’s viewpoint – in Charlotte, Rice has enfused such an energy, such a good-natured whirl of sophisticated absurdity and capriciousness. She reminded me of Miss Hargreaves, not in sharing character traits, but in her unique energy; in the unwearying delight it is to read about her.

Penelope and Charlotte dash from socialite parties to the aunt’s flat to the disintegrating mansion – sharing crushes, aspirations, occasionally squabbling – all with a pace and joy that is contagious. Rice includes a couple of significant plot twists, which is all to the good of the novel’s structure, but when she produces characters so brilliant, it scarcely matters what the plot is.

The debts to Nancy Mitford and Dodie Smith are there, and cheerfully confessed to in the blurb, but this novel restored my faith in the modern novel. I’ve read a fair few good modern novels, but all of them were sombre much of the time. The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets is the first unapologetically amusing and incandescently happy novel I’ve come across in ages.

Books – What Books?

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I’ve just come back from visiting The Carbon Copy in Bristol, which was great fun. What is more, I went with the firm resolve to buy nothing. Well, as little as possible. Certainly not 2 DVDS, a CD and 7 books…

Oops.

But, in my defence, Colin did take me to Fopp (an amazing discounted entertainment shop) and Amnesty Books, a bookshop with the sublime combination of cheap and good and charitable. So I didn’t spend much. But indisputably more than nothing. The films were An Affair To Remember (with Cary Grant & Deborah Kerr) and Brief Encounter, as someone borrowed my copy then moved to Japan, chortle.

And the books?

The Brontes Went to Woolworths – Rachel Ferguson : I’ve been keeping an eye out for this one for a few years, actually, and especially since Karen wrote about it, though I can’t find her exact post now. Surreal, amusing, domestic = my kinda thing

The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly – Jean-Dominique Bauby : read the book for Book Group a while ago, saw the film the other day – liked both, and wanted a copy of my own.

Yellow – Janni Visman : this one actually came through the post. I barcoded a copy of it in the Bodleian the other day, was struck by the stark cover, and enticed by the blurb. “Yellow is the colour of gas, of fear, of jealousy”. Domesticity and paranoia…

Private Papers – Margaret Forster : at 20p, this is an author I can afford to explore

The Night Watch – Sarah Waters : enjoyed Affinity when I read it some years ago, and £3 for a new hardback…. it would have been rude to say no.

Bobbin Up – Dorothy Hewitt : all this Virago anniversary hullabaloo has made me look more closely at the old bottle green ones. Anybody heard of this one?

The Dark is Bright Enough – Christopher Fry : a playwright I’ve been meaning to read. At 20p…

Discipline – Mary Brunton : a contemporary of Jane Austen, I read Brunton’s novel a couple of years ago, from the library. Loved it, and been keeping an eye out for a cheap copy.

All in all, a successful splurge!

A-Z Favourites

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You know how sometimes an idea will pop into your head, and you can’t ignore it? I imagine that’s how Einstein and Newton and… and those other science guys… felt. On a similar, potentially less significant, scale, I have been pondering – if I had to pick a favourite author for each letter of the alphabet, and the accompanying novel, how would that go?

Expecting me to tri-sect the angle, were you? (I maintain that this is easily performed with a ruler, but The Carbon Copy and Our Vicar, both holders of Maths degrees, assure me that it’s trickier than that) Sadly not. But this might be fun. And once you’ve read mine, I’m sure you won’t be able to resist making your own…
And I should have included? Some you’re surprised to see? Let me know!

AUSTEN, Jane – Pride and Prejudice
BAKER, Frank – Miss Hargreaves
CROMPTON, Richmal – Frost at Morning
DELAFIELD, E. M. – The Provincial Lady
ELIOT, George – The Mill on the Floss
FADIMAN, Anne – Ex Libris
GIBBONS, Stella – Cold Comfort Farm
HANFF, Helene – 84, Charing Cross Road
I……. haven’t read anything by anyone whose name begins with I… not even Ishiguro.
JANSSON, Tove – A Winter Book
KENDAL, Felicity – White Cargo
LINDSAY, David – The Haunted Woman
MILNE, A. A. – It’s Too Late Now
NOBLE, Barbara – Doreen
OLIVIER, Edith – The Love Child
PARK, Ruth – The Harp in the South
Q……. there must be some ‘Q’ authors out there? Q himself, I suppose.
ROWLING, J. K. – Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
SMITH, Dodie – I Capture the Castle
THWAITE, Ann – A. A. Milne : His Life
U……. guess what?
VOLTAIRE – Candide
WOOLF, Virginia – Mrs. Dalloway
X……. who’d have thought?
YOUNG, Angela – Speaking of Love
Z……. should have seen that coming…

Dear Dictionary

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It’s been a while since I did a Booking Through Thursday, usually because Thursday happens without me noticing… cunning, but true. Today was spent cataloguing auction catalogues (my first Full Level Cataloguing, and very attractive things to flick through, filled with paintings I can’t afford and odd owl figurines I wouldn’t want to) – then I went to a cake party (yum) and finally my Church Small Group had dinner together. The only thing I read today (aside from the auction catalogues) was my driving theory book… oh dear. Will tuck myself up with a good book soon.

Before I do, will turn my attention to this week’s question:
I’ve always wondered what other people do when they come across a word/phrase that they’ve never heard before. I mean, do they jot it down on paper so they can look it up later, or do they stop reading to look it up on the dictionary/google it or do they just continue reading and forget about the word?

Dictionaries! When I did my English Language section of my degree, one of my coursework pieces was on dictionaries – specifically the illustrative quotations which accompany definitions. It sounds dull… but was absolutely fascinating, and really fun. Sadly, when my computer decided that its hard drive was a little blasé and wiped itself, my essays disappeared. And that was one of the ones I hadn’t printed, except to hand in to The Powers That Be, so I shall never again know as much about dictionaries as I did then.

What I do know, however, is that I have a dictionary to hand whenever I’m reading a book. Well, not to hand – but on the shelf, and it is referred to often. Dictionary.com sometimes offers a hand, but there’s nothing quite like skimming through a real live dictionary, and having a sentence make sense.

Oddly, and irritatingly, there are certain words which I read over and over again, and look up over and over again, and which refuse to stick in my mind. Of course, none spring to mind now… but for a long time ‘importunate’ and ‘sedulous’ were two of these. They’d crop up time and again in books I read, and every time I was stumped… now, eventually, I know what they mean. But then there are words like ‘vicariously’, the meaning of which I always *thought* I knew, but turns out I didn’t…

Howsabout you? Do you ignore the words you don’t understand, or immediately scurry away to a dictionary, or note it down for later? Or are you just better than me, and haven’t encountered an unfamiliar word for years?!

Not Just William

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I’ve been meaning to write about Richmal Crompton for absolutely ages, and have finally been propelled into doing so by the Family Roundabout book group I went to last week. You may well know Richmal Crompton as the author of the ‘William’ (or ‘Just William’) stories, written between 1922 and 1969, when she died. I, like many others, devoured these hilarious books as a child (alongside Thomas Henry’s brilliant illustrations – mine very much with apologies to him. Though mine looks rather more like a Chinese woman…) What I didn’t know until 2002 was that Richmal Crompton had written over 40 novels for adults. Scandalously, Family Roundabout is the only one in print (step forward Persephone Books – and it was actually via Crompton that I found this publishing house).

Richmal Crompton’s novels have fans across the internet – notably Elaine, who has joyfully borrowed many of the thirty or so Crompton novels I’ve managed to find, and who wrote about RC here – but she remains famous primarily for the William books she considered ‘potboilers’. These come under the category of “difficult to explain how wonderful they are”, so I can only say that they spark booklust in the unlikeliest candidates, and nothing else can quite satiate the thirst for another Crompton novel. Their scarcity may be frustrating, but hunting down the elusive novels is quite a fun pasttime…

Crompton’s novels are all quite similar, and there is some overlap. Children grow up together; people in a village exist alongside each other; parents are disobeyed or thwarted; beautiful people take advantage of others; wise, older women dispense advice to all and sundry; unhinged authors write dozens of romance novels whilst being wholly unconnected with reality… not all of these appear in every novel, of course, but they represent the mixture of fun and pathos which characterise Crompton’s books. She is perenially the author of William, and cannot avoid that tone forever (one of my favourite quotations concerns an author, in Family Roundabout: ‘Of his own novels there was no trace [in his room]. Their absence impressed his modesty on people, and Mr. Palmer spent a lot of time and thought impressing his modesty on people.’) – but this humour is balanced with characters who experience understated struggles or genuinely touching revelations. I can’t do them justice – the only thing you can do is read one. I can’t encourage you to do so enough.

Shall I pick one for you? Ok. Frost at Morning. Let’s put it in the 50 Books You Must Read But May Not Have Heard About. If you prefer the easy route, or don’t like secondhand books (is this possible?) then go for the one in print, Family Roundabout, but I don’t think it’s the best. It’s in Frost at Morning (1950) that Crompton demonstrates her most subtle understanding of children and their vulnerable position in families; it also has her most amusing of the crazed-authors, in Mrs. Sanders, who dictates several novels at once, and muddles them all. A group of children are gathered as companions for a Vicarage daughter – their personalities shine through the opening section, as they play with modelling clay. Angela, Philip, Monica and Geraldine are all immediately unique personalities, and continue to be so as we witness them separately and together throughout their childhood and into adulthood. Read it, you won’t regret it. Lots available at abebooks here, and Amazon here.

Oh, and special mention to Our Vicar’s Wife, who took these photos from my RC pile in Somerset.

Sketchy Behaviour

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I decided to triple my Bijou Prizette, since there is a little stockpile of previous sketches on my desk, and thus there are three lucky winners of Stuck-in-a-Book doodlings. Glad they’re going to a good home – so, without further ado (drumroll, please)…

Book Reviews Made Easy goes to – Linda!


Karen at Cornflower was next – and I thought this one was particularly appropriate, drawn for the day when I met Karen in Magdalen, almost a year ago:

Catherine at Juxtabook was the third winner – I chose this one for her:


Ladies, if I don’t already have your address, please email it to me at simondavidthomas@yahoo.co.uk. Congratulations!