A trip to Scotland [the books I bought]

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I spent much of this week in a castle in Scotland, which was a rather wonderful way to escape the coronavirus headlines – this castle, to be precise. There’s a group of us who try to get to a Landmark Trust property at least once a year, and this location was chosen because it’s not far from Wigtown. That’s the Scottish equivalent of Hay-on-Wye, and the book town made famous by Shaun Bythell’s Diary of a Bookseller. Many of the group love his books and were keen to meet him – as well as a little nervous, in case we said anything stupid and ended up in a sequel.

On the way up, we stopped in Carlisle and went to the extraordinarily good Bookcase bookshop. I hadn’t been for quite a few years and had forgotten how enormous it is. Not the cheapest, but a real Aladdin’s cave.

Anyway, between the Wigtown bookshops and Bookcase, I came away with quite a haul. Here we go…

Three Things You Need To Know About Rockets by Jessica Fox
If you’ve read Bythell’s book, you’ll know about his on/off American girlfriend Anna. Well, turns out Anna is Jessica and she wrote a book about moving to Scotland and helping run a bookshop.

The Finishing Touch by Brigid Brophy
I’ve still only read one book by Brophy, but… now I can read more.

Middle Class by Sarah Gertrude Millin
I’ve never heard of Millin, but I’m increasingly on the look-out for books that could be contenders for the British Library Women Writers series. Which means I’m buying a lot of obscure books and not reading very many of them…

Rose Under Glass by Elizabeth Berridge
And the only Berridge book I’ve read is her short stories published by Persephone, but I’ll add another to the shelf.

Sapphira and the Slave Girl by Willa Cather
I thought I already had this, but when I was looking for a copy for the next episode of Tea or Books? I realised I did not. Well, too late now for that episode, but good to have on the shelves nonetheless.

The White Riband by F. Tennyson Jesse
All I know about FTJ is the two books Virago published by her – of which I’ve read only the brilliant A Pin To See The Peepshow – so it was fun to find another.

I’m Not Complaining by Ruth Adam
Speaking of Virago, I’ve seen a lot of love for this Virago Modern Classic over the years, so thought it was worth nabbing a copy.

The Cheval Glass by Ursula Bloom
I’ve only read Bloom under her Mary Essex pseudonym – and I’m delighted that Tea Is So Intoxicating will be one of the BL Women Writers reprints in the autumn. This one has a fantastical premise and you KNOW I love a fantastic premise.

Calypso by David Sedaris
I also love Sedaris! Always happy to add another of his hilarious and observant essay collections to my shelves, though it’s been too long since I read one.

Twenty-Five by Beverley Nichols
Some would argue that 25 is too young to write an autobiography, but Nichols alleges it’s the oldest age that one should. It’s a tongue-in-cheek statement, of course, and this looks like it’s more about the period. His book about the 20s written from a distance, The Sweet and Twenties, was my favourite the year I read it – this one is more up close.

Raspberry Reich by Wolf Mankowitz
I really like the offbeat charm of A Kid For Two Farthings and Make Me An Offer. This one looks heavier on the offbeat than the charm, but I’m keen to give it a go.

Turnabout by Thorne Smith
Thorne Smith is one of those names I’ve seen around for many years and never really explored. Bookcase had a big and inviting pile of his books, and I was quite tempted just to buy them all, but I thought I should exercise restraint and try just one. Smith usually does comic, fantastic books, and this one is a body-swap comedy. What’s not to like?

Business as Usual by Jane Oliver and Ann Stafford

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When I read Business As Usual (1933) in January, it was difficult not to write about it immediately. But there are few things more irritating than reading about a delightful book and then finding that it’s not yet available to buy – and while there are doubtless 1933 editions of Business As Usual out there somewhere, you can now buy the lovely Handheld Press reprint of it. At https://taxfyle.com/blog/can-i-deduct-my-medical-expenses/ you will find purposes of the medical expenses deduction. And if Handheld Press never achieve or achieved anything else, the rediscovery of this novel would secure my eternal gratitude.

I was pretty sure I’d love it when I heard the barest outlines: it is a novel in letters from the 1930s about working in the book department of a department store. I might as well stop my review there, and some of you are probably ordering a copy as we speak. But it’s even better than it sounds.

All the letters are by Hilary Fane, and we must imagine the replies (and are easily able to do so from her replies). She has just finished university and is engaged to a pleasant young man called Basil. Being the 1930s, she is preparing to prioritise the doctor’s role of wife once she is married, and Edinburgh society is ready to receive her in this role. It (and her parents) are rather more surprised when she decides she wants to wait a year, get a job, and see something of the world. Off she goes to London.

Here, she manages to find an overpriced, unlovely flat (plus ca change!), and begins to realise that life alone and on the job market isn’t quite as simple as she’d hoped. But she takes it in good part. Hilary is such a delightful character – it’s so hard to create an optimist who isn’t annoying, but Oliver and Stafford have done it. She refuses to be crushed down, but does allow the odd acerbic moment to sneak into her letters – not least when she begins to prove people wrong:

Basil Dear

I meant to write to you last night, but I waited, because I thought there might be a letter. And there was – a very sweet one. Bless you! But I don’t think one enjoys: ‘I told you so’ however beautifully it’s put. It isn’t true either I’VE GOT A JOB. So I won’t be coming to heel just yet.

It’s always fun to read about people being out of their depth, and Hilary’s first job in Everyman’s (a department store clearly based on Selfridges) is as a typist in the books department. If you’ve enjoyed Monica Dickens’ hilarious One Pair of Hands or Betty Macdonald’s Anybody Can Do Anything, then you’ll know what to expect. She is initially enthusiastic and confused and inept – and later just confused and inept. This clearly isn’t her forte. Oliver and Stafford don’t diminish those who are good at this sort of routine-work, and Hilary admires them with an open heart – but it is not where she should be.

As she comes to the attention of the manager, Mr Grant, when dealing with a difficult situation, she is given the more responsible task of improving the organisation of the department. Her rise through the ranks is a trifle unrealistic, but we’ll forgive it because it gives such a fascinating insight behind the scenes of this lending library feature of a bookshop that has long disappeared.

Her life begins to shift in interesting ways, and not always the ways I anticipated when I started reading it. What remains consistent is how funny, joyous, and addictive Business As Usual is.

I often write here that I’m looking forward to rereading a book, and it’s relatively seldom that I actually do end up rereading. But I’m going to say with confidence that Business As Usual will join the pantheon of those books I return to when I want to read something that will put a broad smile on my face.

Tea or Books? #82: Australia vs New Zealand and two Adrian Bell books

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Australia, New Zealand, and Adrian Bell – welcome to episode 82!

In the first half, we do a topic suggested by Lindsay – books by Australians and books by people from New Zealand. And my GOODNESS we don’t know anywhere near enough to be discussing it. But we plough on!

In the second half, we look at two non-fiction books by Adrian Bell: Corduroy and A Suffolk Harvest.

If you’d like to get bonus mini episodes, and a whole bunch of other things, you can find us at Patreon. And you can listen via Apple Podcasts or your podcast app of choice. Do get in touch at teaorbooks[at]gmail.com if you have topic suggestions or just want to say hi!

The books and authors we mention in this episode are:

Rose Macaulay: A Writer’s Life by Jane Emery
Rose Macaulay by Constance Babington Smith
Rose Macaulay: A Biography by Sarah LeFanu
Aunt Mame by Patrick Dennis
Shadows on the Rock by Willa Cather
Circe by Madeline Miller
‘The Garden Party’ by Katherine Mansfield
Janet Frame
Opening Night by Ngaio Marsh
My Katherine Mansfield Project by Kirsty Gunn
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
Emma by Jane Austen
My Place by Sally Morgan
The Middle of Nowhere by Geraldine McCaughrean
The Secret River by Kate Grenville
The Harp in the South by Ruth Park
Poor Man’s Orange by Ruth Park
Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay
The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas
Breathe by Tim Winton
The Spare Room by Helen Garner
My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin
My Career Goes Bung by Miles Franklin
Elizabeth von Arnim
Barbara Comyns
Sylvia Townsend Warner
A.A. Milne
Corduroy by Adrian Bell
A Suffolk Harvest by Adrian Bell
The Balcony by Adrian Bell
A Lost Lady by Willa Cather
Lucy Gayheart by Willa Cather

Notes on Suicide by Simon Critchley

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For my second book for Lizzy and Karen’s Fitzcarraldo Fortnight, I read Notes on Suicide by Simon Critchley – a very, very short 2015 book. It’s 92 pages in total, but the last fifteen or so of those reprint a David Hume essay on suicide. So Critchley is covering an astonishingly complex subject in very few pages. So this will be an equally brief review!

Not only that, he says he wants to do it from personal, philosophical, literary, religious, and moral angles.

It’s a tall order and, of course, he only scratches the surface. And I think it was best when he nudged towards the personal – not necessarily his own life (though the book opens ‘this is not a suicide note’) but other individuals, famous or not. He looks through the common themes of suicide notes, and considers them almost as art. They appear in the narrative to illustrate Critchley’s point, or to divert the paragraph into a different direction, even though we seldom know from where or how they’ve been selected. For instance, Critchley described this as one of the most poignant suicide notes he’s read:

Dear Betty,

I hate you.

Love, George.

I found the sections on moral philosophy a little less interesting, because they are rather cursory and abstract – and have obviously been considered in rather more detail elsewhere. He can hardly hope to plumb the depths of the topic in a handful of pages. But even a moment like his question ‘Why do we find suicide sad?’ can lead to all sorts of other questions in the reader’s mind, to contemplate in their own time.

And somehow the mix of the intimate and the global, the detailed and the distant, make Notes on Suicide a brief but captivating book. It barely touches the surface of what could be said about it, but it still made me think more deeply about this difficult and curious topic. And that’s probably one of the best things you can ask of an essay.

In The Dark Room by Brian Dillon – #FitzcarraldoFortnight

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When Karen and Lizzy announced that they’d be doing a Fitzcarraldo Fortnight, I thought it would be a great opportunity to read some of the Fitzcarraldo Editions I’ve been bulk buying since I read the brilliant The Little Art by Kate Briggs. And I decided to start with one that’s been on my shelf for a year or so – In the Dark Room by Brian Dillon, originally published in 2005 and published as a Fitzcarraldo Edition thirteen years later.

The book is about memory and about grief. Dillon is looking back on the death of his parents – his mother, from a long and horrible illness that affected every part of her body, slowly killing her; his father, from a sudden heart attack. And he starts in the house that he is packing up, a few years after his father has died and after disputes with his brothers. The starting point is the memory that is held in objects, in houses, in the things that surround us – and the mixed blessing this can be for a family that has always had an anxious undercurrent, with things unsaid and other things too hastily said.

The first section is on houses, and the book opens as though we were being directed to the house. It’s impossible to write about houses and memory without quoting Gaston Bachelard, and perhaps without feeling that Bachelard already did it all perfectly in The Poetics of Space – but Bachelard wasn’t anywhere near as personal as Dillon. His writing is raw and doesn’t shy away from difficult emotions. It is also filled with brilliant, pithy moments like this:

A house changes after somebody has died: there is suddenly too much space.

In the Dark Room is constantly on the fine line between beautiful, observational style and being overwritten. I’ll admit: every time I picked it up, the sentences seemed over-wrought, always using the longest words where shorter ones would have done the same…

I have gradually surrounded myself with objects which trace the most random pathways into the past I am now trying to map. I feel myself dispersed, fragmented among these relics, quite unable to fit them into a logical sequence. I can dimly imagine such a story; a whole narrative, properly autobiographical, a propulsion towards the sort of self-knowledge that can conceive of itself as some kind of culmination.

Here’s the thing, though. After a paragraph or two, I always found that I had adjusted my mind accordingly. I lifted it to his register. And, perhaps because it is so consistent, it very quickly didn’t jar at all. My colleague John came up with the perfect analogy – it’s like swimming in the sea, that the cold only hurts for the first few minutes.

The title of the book is, of course, a reference to the place where photographs are developed. And this isn’t just a metaphor for the way in which memories gradually gain or lose clarity – there is a lot in the book about the few photographs that Dillon has of his parents. He cannot relate to the families who have albums full of them – he has a mere handful from their lives, and uses these to describe their lives, their relationship, their milestones. He makes the best of his paltry research materials, using their very insufficiency as inspiration.

I say ‘he cannot relate’ to them – there are quite a few times Dillon seems almost cartoonishly unable to relate to other people’s experiences. One that stuck out bizarrely to me is his mother’s Bible – she has highlighted a passage from 2 Corinthians that is a beautiful, wonderful passage about God’s grace and His ability to work through imperfect humans, and Dillon can’t comprehend that it could bring her joy. He is unable to see past his own prejudices. Similarly, we know that he has a fraught relationship with his brothers – but we never really learn why, or what they might think, or what led to it. They are his parents’ children too.

On the other hand, he is mesmerically good at writing about illness. The slow revelation of the illness his mother had, and the way in which he enables the reader to understand the frustration, agony, hopelessness that she must have felt, is done brilliant,y – and illness is notoriously difficult to convey, let alone at one remove.

So, In the Dark Room is perhaps a book of paradoxes. A deeply personal book that retains unexpected hiding places; an insightful book that can be oddly closed-minded; a beautiful book that takes time to adjust to. Overall – yes – a triumph that is as flawed as any individual, and both as patchy and as affecting as memory.

Another Trip to Astley Book Farm

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I spent years wondering why I hadn’t been to Astley Book Farm, and now I seem to go at least once a year. And I’m certainly not complaining! The other day I went for the third time and I didn’t come away empty-handed. Or empty-stomached, because the cake there is incredible and the toasties and soup are also incredible. Seriously, even if you hate books, you should go for the food. But also why are you reading this book blog.

I bought four books – and a couple for other people. It’s not an enormous number, partly because the turnover isn’t massive, but I’m really pleased with them all. Here goes…

Banvard’s Folly by Paul Collins

Paul Collins’ book about Shakespeare’s First Folio was my favourite read of last year – and I also read his book about Hay-on-Wye, Sixpence House. In that book, he talks quite a lot about the writing and editing of Banvard’s Folly – which is a book about ‘renowned obscurity, famous anonymity, and rotten luck’. Or, to cite its working title, Losers. But apparently it was thought that wouldn’t fly in the US market.

A Letter to Elizabeth by Bettina Linn

Since I got asked to come up with suggestions for the British Library Women Writers series, I’ve been keeping an eye out for more obscure titles that could be promising. I hadn’t heard of Linn or this novel, but I was drawn by the cover – which you can see here. The description of it sounds quite complicated, involving the illegitimate child of an anthropologist, polio, and affairs that might be renewed.

Father Malachy’s Miracle by Bruce Marshall

You know I love a novel with a fantastical premise – and this one is about a feud over the possibility of a miracle, which leads to a ‘rowdy dance-hall’ being transported to the Bass Rock in the Firth or Forth. And then the band manager decides to sue. I am always here for a novel that uses supernatural things in a wry way.

The Birds of the Innocent Wood by Deirdre Madden

OK, Simon, you loved Molly Fox’s Birthday but you should stop buying so many books by her without reading any more of them. This is the last you can buy without reading more. Be STRONG.

Incidentally, the other book I got this week was from my friend Leen – Menfreya by Victoria Holt, with a garish schlocky cover, that is apparently good fun. Aaaand let’s try to have a whole week without buying a book, Si.

Tea or Books? #81: Style vs Plot and Living vs Loving by Henry Green

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Henry Green, style over substance, and some listener questions – here’s episode 81!

In the first half of this episode, we discuss style vs substance – or, to put it another way, writing style vs the plot of the novel. Which is more important to us? In the second half, we compare two novels by Henry Green – Loving and Living. One of us finished the book. Won’t say which one.

If you’d like to support us on Patreon and get the new mini bonus episodes, it’s here. We’re on iTunes and any podcast app of your choice. And do get in touch at teaorbooks[at]gmail.com if you’d like to ask us questions, suggest topics, or anything else. We love hearing from you!

The books and authors we mention in this episode are:

The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen
Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez
Her Son’s Wife by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
A Bite of the Apple by Lennie Goodings
Margaret Atwood
Ethel Wilson
Stephen Leacock
My Husband Simon by Mollie Panter-Downes
Bad Girl by Vena Delmar
The Tree of Heaven by May Sinclair
Chatterton Square by E.H. Young
Jack by Marilynne Robinson
Hilary Mantel
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Lila by Marilynne Robinson
Home by Marilynne Robinson
Grief is a Thing with Feathers by Max Porter
Lanny by Max Porter
Elizabeth Bowen
Virginia Woolf
George Orwell
Chess by Stefan Zweig
Charles Dickens
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Emma by Jane Austen
Business as Usual by Jane Oliver and Ann Stafford
Dorothy Whipple
Mary Webb
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
The Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt
Nine Coaches Waiting by Mary Stewart
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Thornyhold by Mary Stewart
All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West
The Heir by Vita Sackville-West
The Edwardians by Vita Sackville-West
The Death of Noble Godavary by Vita Sackville-West
Grand Canyon by Vita Sackville-West
Caught by Henry Green
Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
Ivy Compton-Burnett
Blindness by Henry Green
The Waves by Virginia Woolf
The Years by Virginia Woolf
Between the Acts by Virginia Woolf
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
Ulysses by James Joyce
Party Going by Henry Green
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
John Braine
Of Love and Hunger by Julian McLaren-Ross
Rosamond Lehmann
Corduroy by Adrian Bell
A Suffolk Harvest by Adrian Bell

A Chess Story by Stefan Zweig

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Stefan Zweig is rather brilliant, isn’t he? A Chess Story [also published as Chess and A Royal Game], from 1941, is the third Zweig novella I’ve read and the best so far – a really astonishing achievement in so few pages. Translated by Alexander Starritt, I should say – someone at my book group had a very different translation, based on our comparison of the first few lines, but it hurts my head to think too much about the variations that are possible with different translators at work.

I didn’t know anything about A Chess Story when I started it, and I was very glad about that. It made the whole experience so much more surprising and revelatory – so part of me wants to tell you to stop reading this review and just get a copy. Preferably the gorgeous Pushkin Press edition I have. But I’ll keep going anyway.

The large steamship leaving New York for Buenos Aires at midnight was caught up in the usual bustle and commotion of the hour before sailing. Visitors from shore pressed past one another to take leave of their friends, telegraph boys in skew-whiff caps shot names through the lounges, cases and flowers were brought and inquisitive children ran up and down flights of stairs while the orchestra played imperturbably on deck. I was standing in conversation with a friend on the promenade deck, slightly apart from this turmoil, when flash-bulbs popped starkly two or three times beside us – it seemed that a few reporters had managed to hastily interview and photograph some celebrity just before our departure.

The narrator is an interested and friendly man, but we don’t learn all that much more about him. Rather, he is there to introduce us to other people – to be the intrigued onlooker, always ready to give backstory when necessary. Zweig breaks all sorts of narrative ‘best practice’ rules, or what we would now consider rules, and somehow gets away with it. For example, he jumps from this present moment into a full history of the celebrity in question: Mirko Czentovic, chess prodigy.

We learn that Czentovic came from poverty and was considered unusually stupid. He barely communicates, and doesn’t seem to take an interest in anything. Except one day he reveals himself to have a preternatural ability for chess. One thing leads to another – Zweig tells it very well – and Czentovic is now a big deal. He’s also a mercenary, and will only play chess if it’s monetarily worth his while.

A competitive man on board the ship, and the narrator, manage to get together a group who are willing to put together the price. And it looks like the hubris of the amateur and the arrogance of the professional will be the story here. It would have been a good story. But, in the middle of the second match, someone joins the crowd of spectators. And, diffidently, he calls through an instruction. It quickly becomes clear that he is brilliant at chess himself – but once the match is over, he doesn’t want to play again.

Dr B is his name – and the second half of the novella becomes about something completely different. I won’t say what, though it’s easy enough to discover online if you want to. It’s about how he became so talented at chess – and why he doesn’t want to play again. Frankly, it’s astonishing.

All the more astonishing is how vividly Zweig creates two worlds – the ship and this other world that I won’t say too much about – in only a hundred or so pages. He could have made it a novel of three times the length, but there is a great power in his brevity. It says more about its time than novels ten times as long; I suspect it will stay in my mind for a long time. I’ve seldom read a better portrayal of mental illness, and the final chess match in A Chess Story is one of only two times that a sport has held any interest for me – the other being the cricket match in The Go Between.

If you’ve never read Zweig before, this is a great place to start. And I’m keen to get as many more as I can.

Patience by John Coates

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A couple of weeks ago, Jessie at Dwell in Possibility organised a mini Persephone readathon. Basically, an excuse to get a Persephone book off the shelf and dig in – and I had a quick mosey through the ones I have unread on my shelves, and opted for Patience by John Coates, originally published in 1953.

Coates is one of those rare[ish] creatures – a male Persephone author – but his main character is a woman. ‘Patience’ is there as a theme throughout the novel, but it is also the name of the main character. She is a devoted mother to her children, and thinks she might be on the way to another. Here’s the rather wonderful opening line:

It was odd, thought Patience, that surprises never came singly, and that the day she asked herself whether she was going to have another baby, poor Lionel should have asked himself to tea.

Lionel is Patience’s brother and something of a hassle. His wife has recently left him to join a retreat, permanently, and he is busying himself with interfering in Patience’s life and her marriage. He’s always quite interfering, but he has particular reason this time: because he’s discovered that Patience’s husband, Edward, is having an affair.

That might be rather a devastating discovery for many wives, but Patience isn’t unduly perturbed. Her relationship with Edward is one of thoughtless acceptance. She has been taught to be submissive and so she lets him sleep with her, and she is proud of the offspring of that marriage, but it seems never to have crossed her mind that one might love one’s husband, or want to spend time with them.

An awful lot of things have never crossed Patience’s mind. Coates has created something rather extraordinary in her – because she is clueless and naive, taking things on surface level, kind to everyone and absolutely predisposed to like them. But she is never, never the butt of the joke in the narrative. Patience would be a slightly absurd comic character in the background of most novels. Here she is a heroine, and I loved her. She is fundamentally good, even if the way she understands the world and its morals is a mixture of pragmatic, idiosyncratic, and Catholic.

I’ve buried the lede, but Catholicism is one of the big themes of this very funny novel. Importantly, Coates isn’t mocking Catholicism – I have zero time for novels that mock people’s faith – but he is funny about people who twist scripture and the tenets of the church for their own ends, or who are half-hearted in it. This early sentence amused me, and gives a good sense of Coates’ tone – it’s about why Patience is married to a non-Catholic:

For darling Mummy had been unable to find any eligible Catholics for her daughters, what with the war being on and perhaps not trying very hard.

Because of her firmly-held faith, Patience can’t get a divorce. Even when things get more complicated, as she falls instantly in love with a man called Philip… and that’s just the beginning of the complications that follow.

I have only two qualms about this novel. One is the love-at-first-sight thing. Maybe it does happen sometimes, but it just feels a bit silly in a novel. The other is that Patience thinks a lot more about the church than about God, which is a little at odds with the genuine nature of her faith.

Besides those details, I loved Patience. Coates is really good at putting together this bizarre twist on a moral dilemma, in a novel that could easily have been a miserable tale about unhappy marriage in a different author’s hands. Instead, Coates sustains the humour and lightness of the novel, and keeps the reader – well, this reader at least – fully empathetic with Patience, and really liking her. But then again I never find unworldliness offputting in someone, real or fictional, unless it means that other people have to deal with the mess they leave behind them. And that’s never the case with Patience.

Such an unusual topic for a novel, handled perfectly, and a delight from start to finish.

Others who got Stuck into it:

“The tone of the novel is a deceptively simple one; Patience’s voice is perfectly delightful, childlike whimsy. Despite its few flaws I really thoroughly enjoyed this surprising little novel” – HeavenAli

“While it is, in many ways, quintessentially ‘Persephone’, it is also quite strikingly different, and fills a gap in the Persephone canon that I hadn’t realised was there before.” – Book Snob

“It’s a rare occurrence but sometimes a Perephone title just doesn’t suit me and this was one of those times which was mildly disappointing as it’s the one I’d had the highest expectations for.” – Desperate Reader