Stuck in a Book

Mel, whose little biography dominated yesterday, also brough another website to my attention recently – Six Sentences. Can’t decide whether or not it’s intended to be a pun on sixth sense – if not, then it should be.

Quite a simple idea – what can you say in six sentences? If the short story is too long for you, then this is the website to which to head. Obviously a single sentence could be infinitely long (discuss) but the contributors take it sensibly, and use a small canvas to make a big impact. Some famous people have made their efforts known – Sting, Stephen King, Tom Cruise (think some of these are just six sentences stolen from other places, come to think of it…) and Mel George, of course. Haven’t written anything myself yet, though I probably will when I’ve had time to ponder on’t – but a fascinating little domain of miniature thoughts, experimenting successfully. Worth checking out in an idle moment – got to be better than day-dreaming, anyway.

And, like that website, today’s entry is short. Because my camera is charging, and so I can’t do any of the posts I’ve been thinking about. Will just share an amusing incident from the library today – fresh from tipping a trolley of books over myself yesterday (both librarian and books are in a stable condition) today an oldish man told me cheerfully that “40 years ago what I was doing would be vandalism”. Um, ok, except what I was doing was dealing with his enquiry and typing on a computer… left me with a bit of confusion, but all adds to the rich tapestry of life.

I’ve always assumed there are some books which one knows psychically.

Well, obviously that’s nonsense, but there are all sorts of books which I don’t remember having explained to me, but which I knew about, down to most of the plot twists. I’m not just talking boy-gets-girl, I’m talking Jane-Eyre-Madwoman-in-Attic. It would never have occurred to me to put a *SPOILER* warning in front of that, as I might if I were revealing climactic moments of more obscure literature. Sorry if I’ve spoilt the novel for you… I rather assume that most of my readership know about old Bertha, even if they haven’t waded through Gilbert & Gubar. I didn’t read Jane Eyre until I was 17 or thereabouts – but I knew the whole plot without, as far as I’m aware, having heard or seen any adaptations. So it was fun, but it wasn’t surprising.

Writing yesterday about the Queen’s (fictitious) introduction to literature made me think about my friend Mel. She is a very, very dear friend, and hopefully won’t mind me writing about her (!) Though a bright lass, she’s not as book-obsessed as I am, and some of the classics are still unread for her. That makes it sound like I’ve read the lot, which is incredibly far from being the case, but Mel still had The Big Three to read. The Big Three are not books I consider to be the best in the world, nor to have a huge amount in common, it’s just I’ve never met anyone who liked one of them without loving the others too. What are they, you ask? Jane Eyre, Rebecca and I Capture the Castle. She’s now done all three, and loved them – but the reason I write about it is because she didn’t know what would happen next! I had great fun hearing updates on Jane Eyre, with surmises and surprises along the way – what would be in the attic? A deformed son? And they were getting married but half the book seemed to be left – what could go wrong?? What a treat it must be to have a completely fresh introduction to such a classic.

So, any books you’ve done this with? Shocked to learn that Elizabeth gets over her prejudice? Astounded that Scrooge turned out not too bad? The nearest I’ve got is with Rebecca – I knew most of the plot beforehand, but not one important twist. My biggest gasp-out-loud moment came in To The Lighthouse, but I think a fair percentage of you may not have read TTL yet. YET, I say…

Oh, and as an aside – do you, or anyone you know, break my Big Three declaration?!

Every Saturday morning Our Vicar’s Wife runs The Honeypot from our garage. Not many people can say that sentence, can they now? The Honeypot is about a year old now, and is a church-linked initiative but open to all, where people can drink coffee, buy goods, get involved with crafty activities, generally natter, and… buy books. Donate them too, of course. Now we have shelves of secondhand books adorning the garage wall, which I raid every time I pop home. Sorry to see that my duplicate copies of Woolf and the Brontes remain in place, alongside a stray Iris Murdoch and an AA Milne – but then not everyone can enjoy my esoteric tastes, and who says Virginia Woolf is necessarily better than Virginia Andrews… euch, I need to wash out my mouth with soap.

Anyway. Today was no different to other Saturdays, and whilst saying hello to the visiting villagers, I managed to scoop up a handful of books. Set my back £2 for the lot…

– John Banville, The Sea
This counts for having a finger on the pulse, so far as Stuck-in-a-Book is concerned. Won the Booker in 2005, didn’t it? And has a pretty cover. Bonus.

-E.F. Benson, The Osbornes
Haven’t read any non-Mapp & Lucia books by EFB, so this nice old hardback can slip into the tbr pile.

-Doris Lessing, The Sweetest Dream
Now this really is up-to-the-minute stuff. Well, published in 2001, but as you probably all know, Ms. Lessing was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature this week. I read a transcript of her reception of this news, and she sounded ungrateful, but watching it on youtube, she just sounded witty and grounded. Strangely Chick Lit cover for this book, which isn’t quite how I remember Memoirs of a Survivor

– Simone de Beauvoir, Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter
I feel I should own a copy of this… will I want to read it? Any thoughts?

– Mary Lawson, Crow Lake
Just as I was going to buy a copy online… great review by Margaret over at Books Please here, which made the novel seem irresistible.

And I thought I’d have nothing to read on the train home…

Another brief post today – but with a link to a rather longer one. If you just can’t get enough of my library burblings, then you’re in luck – Lisa (Bluestalking Reader to many of us, and also one of the loveliest people I know) asked me, bless her, to be a guest blogger on a library blog she runs, over in the US. We go back a few years now – on the dovegreybooks online reading group – and she has watched me morph from highschooler to Grown-Up, always with kindness and wittiness and general loveliness. Well, I’m still basking in having been labelled charming by her ;-) Before I descend into a, wholly justified, bout of mutual appreciation, here is my contribution to the blog. Some of it is stuff you’ve read before, maybe, but if you want to print off and memorise my first few weeks’ experience, it’s a useful resource. And of course you should have a mosey around the website: lots and lots of interesting things to read about. Her mention of my sketches does, however, make me remember how negligent I’ve been. Could Do Better.

Back in Somerset now for the weekend, Our Vicar and Our Vicar’s Wife and all. Long train journey, on which I finished one book and made good headway through another, and I look forward to seeing the countryside again in the light.

Just a brief ponder today, brought on by talk of L.P. Hartley yesterday – has an author’s name, or appellation thereof, ever caused you confusion? I know it probably shouldn’t make a difference, but when I discover that an author is male when I thought they were female, or vice versa, it alters the way I read or think retrospectively of their work. I didn’t realise, you see, that LPH was a man until a few months ago – in fact, I was sure he was a she… and, do you know, I became more reluctant to read The Go-Between when I discovered this. Perhaps it’s based on the knowledge that I usually prefer books by women, but either way it’s a form of bigotry, I suppose, and thus ought to be stamped out… Is bigotry too strong a word? Well, probably. But it definitely makes a difference. Or is this distinction rational? Do you do the same?

Some other authors where confusion has arisen…
– Who didn’t think Richmal Crompton was a man when they first read the William books? Many of my friends still don’t realise.
– Harper Lee – thought she was a man for years…
– J.K. Rowling – while I always knew Jo was a woman, this is an example of initials being used for deliberate ambiguity, so that boys would be happy to read Harry Potter.
– D.H. Lawrence – another one I got wrong for a few years… but having read a couple of his books, it could never have been a woman could it, really?
– P.L. Travers – another poor woman whose gender was assumed otherwise by my younger self

Then there are those with whom I never had trouble – or perhaps just guessed correctly. P.G. Wodehouse, L.M. Montgomery, L.M. Alcott, C.S. Lewis, A.A. Milne, E.M. Delafield, J.R.R. Tolkein… is there something about these that ties them to their gender, or did I just guess luckily? And which authors do you accidentally gender-realign?!

A few people were having trouble accessing Our Vicar’s Wife’s blog… all should be well now!

Oh dear, it’s crept past midnight again (though I am trying to deceive the computer into thinking it’s still Tuesday… we’ll see if it works). And I’m very sleepy, so you’ll have to prepare yourself for a book review tomorrow – to whet your appetite, I’ll show you a photo of a bit of my bookshelf. The book I’ll be reviewing is one of those in the picture… guess which. Not too tricky, perhaps, but means you get both text, photo and interactivity without me having to use my brain at all.

Patch the Wonder Dog wasn’t feeling quite as athletic as last time, but offered to help this time’s BAFAB in a more adminastratorial position. I pointed out that adminastratorial wasn’t a word, but he assured me that it was – or at least very soon will be. Please try and use it in conversation within the next week.

So, rather than rolling around in sellotaped bits of old paperchains, Patch wielded pen and paper…

And then selected the one winner…

Which is…

Congratulations Karen! We had two Karens entering the draw, but this is the one from verbatim.blogs.com. Just select one of the thirteen-so-far books in my 50 Books You Must Read…, and I’ll pop it in the post to you. My reviews of them are all links in the list, so should help make a decision… Then email me at simondavidthomas@yahoo.co.uk and we’ll sort it out from there…

Thanks for entering BAFAB, everyone – more next time!