As promised, and quickly, here is the second episode of Peas in a Podcast! In this episode, we talk Scrabble, biting, and whose friend is more responsive.
Peas in a Podcast #1
So, my brother Colin and I decided to start a podcast together. Mostly because the name ‘peas in a podcast’ was too funny to pass on, since we’re twins. It’s mostly just us chatting and being silly and squabbling, and it’s definitely not as targeted to Stuck in a Book readers as ‘Tea or Books?’ is. But the vagaries of podcast hosting mean I need to put it somewhere to get it accepted by iTunes… so, if you fancy something a bit different, then you might well enjoy this! We’re probably going to do an episode about once a month, but there are a handful ready to go…
Tea or Books? #65: cars vs bicycles, and Hons and Rebels vs Tory Heaven
We are finally back! Apologies for the lengthy break – all is explained in this episode. We’re not back as soon as intended, because we recorded an episode a few days ago that… didn’t record. The podcasters’ nightmare! Nothing daunted, here we are.
In the first half, we look at cars in books and bicycles in books, as I have long threatened to do. Rachel gave in, and it turned into a fun discussion. In the second half, we look at two books that are very different but both a lot about politics – Jessica Mitford’s memoir/autobiography Hons and Rebels and Marghanita Laski’s novel Tory Heaven.
You can find us on iTunes, and now on Spotify too! (Have a search for us there.) You can also support the podcast on Patreon, and there are various rewards available there.
Oh, and the bookshop Rachel raves about has a website too.
Books and authors we mention in this episode are:
Little by Edward Carey
Alva and Irva by Edward Carey
Observatory Mansions by Edward Carey
Larchfield by Polly Clark
This Little Art by Kate Briggs
Vanity Fair by W.M. Thackeray
I Am, I Am, I Am by Maggie O’Farrell
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell
The Love-Child by Edith Olivier
To The North by Elizabeth Bowen
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
London Belongs to Me by Norman Collins
Toad of Toad Hall by Kenneth Grahame
Cider With Rosie by Laurie Lee
Ann Veronica by H.G. Wells
Mapp and Lucia series by E.F. Benson
The Amorous Bicycle by Mary Essex
Tea Is So Intoxicating by Mary Essex
A.A. Milne
Elizabeth Taylor
Miss Read
Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson
Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford
Tory Heaven by Marghanita Laski
Love on the Supertax by Marghanita Laski
The Village by Marghanita Laski
London War Notes by Mollie Panter-Downes
The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford
The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters ed. by Charlotte Mosley
Miss Ranskill Comes Home by Barbara Euphan Todd
The American Way of Death by Jessica Mitford
A Fine Old Conflict by Jessica Mitford
The Devastating Boys by Elizabeth Taylor
The Demon Lover by Elizabeth Bowen
By Auction by Denis Mackail
Denis Mackail’s 1949 novel By Auction is one I’ve been reading on and off for months, but I finally finished it recently. It’s not his best… it was a little bit of a slog to get through at times, sadly. But I wanted to post a little about it, because there are moments I found brilliant.
The novel is about a young man seeing his ancestral home – or the objects therein – be auctioned off to pay debts and such. As he wakes up for his final morning there, and then sees the auction, it brings back a whirlwind of young memories (particularly of his brother, who died at war) and a series of young women who seem more or less interchangeable to me. The dashes between past and present were slightly confusing, and I couldn’t always work out which young women were where. But, anyway, if I didn’t relish these sections – I loved when Mackail was writing just about the auction. That was captivating, and almost always irrelevant to the plot. And I wanted to share this section on the auction, that I thought was brilliant:
“Going – ” said Mr Murcher, once more. Looked round, but only for an instant, for he knew his own congregation by now; and rapped – for at his desk he no longer just jerked – with the butt-end of his pencil-case. He had now achieved almost his maximum speed.
His skilled, photographic mind knew exactly which members were, except as part of the essential background to this production, no use at all. Which kept their heads. Which could be relied on to lose them. Which wanted larger bits of furniture. Which wanted oddments. Which – very important, this – had a weakness for what in a shop would have been quite unsaleable. Which were quick, which were slow; not always the same thing as which were rash and which were cautious. Which were rich, yet perhaps mean. Which were poorer, yet if led on, and personally addressed – for he would remember all names, too, or get them swiftly from his clerk – might be reckless.
He was a conductor. This was a symphony. Unrehearsed, and in a sense with a new score. But he was attuned to it. One symphony, after all, if you have experience, is much like another. The pencil-case was his baton. It started each theme. It singled out strings, brass, woodwind, or percussion; in other words the various characters gathered round him. Occasionally it combined them, in a great, orchestral swell. Then it paused. “Going – ” he said. The theme was over. He began again.
There was ballet, too; of a somewhat simple yet rhythmic nature. For perpetually, as he spoke, cajoled, jeered – Tod sometimes felt that he went a bit far with his jeering, but had to admit that it often gained its effect – or cracked jokes, the four strong men, singly, in pairs, or once or twice as a trio, came gliding up the gangway or in from the wings, with objects and articles of different sizes.
Always, or almost always, as one object or article was being exhibited and appraised, another was being removed, and yet a third was awaiting its turn. The strong men were quite expressionless. They neither led the laughter – not that Mr Murcher was so inexpert as to crack a joke every time – nor joined in it. Nor, again, did they seem aware of the baton.
Yet their steady, relentless coming and going, and the gradual but incessant redistribution of the goods in the tent, was more than rhythmic; it was slightly hypnotic. At one and the same moment you could see what you had lost or won, what you must instantly decide whether to go for or not, and what was on the point of taking its place.
Past, present, and future, as one might say, formed the basis of this choreography; which as calculated to disturb even the steadiest nerves, for who can bear all three together?
We Followed Our Hearts to Hollywood by Emily Kimbrough
This 1943 book is a play on words that I didn’t spot until I’d finished it, embarrassingly. For it is about following Our Hearts to Hollywood – more specifically, the 1942 book Our Hearts Were Young and Gay, in which Emily Kimbrough and Cornelia Otis Skinner hilariously recounted their tour of Europe in the 1920s. It’s a brilliant book, and I think relatively well known in the US – if you find a copy this side of the Atlantic, snap it up and you won’t regret it.
Hollywood moved fast in the 1940s, and almost immediately a film version was in the works – and Kimbrough and Skinner were asked to go to Hollywood to help write the script. (The film was released in 1944 – things really did move fast! – and there was even a sequel in 1946, Our Hearts Were Growing Up, which Skinner and Kimbrough were unable to prevent despite legal action.)
We Followed is pretty slender in terms of plot. It essentially shows how the two women are a bit like fish out of water in the dizzying whirl of Hollywood. Imagine what it would feel like to them now! But it’s good fun to see them get overwhelmed by the grandeur of their hotel, starstruck by various stars they encounter (few of whom meant anything to me now, I’ll confess), and try to get their heads around writing the dialogue. Or, more precisely, holding off writing the dialogue as any number of other meetings take place to determine an outline – once anybody realises that the two have even arrived.
Throughout, Kimbrough documents the sort of affectionate ribaldry and rivalry that only good friends can have – with her own ironic dose of teasing Skinner about her theatrical background (clearly, simultaneously, admiring it). There is no real butt to any of the jokes – everything is very good-natured, and witty in a self-deprecating way rather than anything more malicious.
It’s always interesting to read a book written by two people, and wonder how they did. Having now read quite a lot of Cornelia Otis Skinner’s books and this by Emily Kimbrough, I can make an attempt at piecing together how their different styles cohered so gloriously in Our Hearts Were Young and Gay. And I think it’s fair to say that Skinner provided all the sharpest wit and the funniest lines. Kimbrough is more delicately amusing, and brings the sense of wonderment and almost naivety. Don’t expect any exposés of famous people, or any people – there is no dark side to this Hollywood. There is perhaps an inefficient side, but that’s about as dark as it gets.
I’m having a really good year for books about the film industry, thinking about it. Christopher Isherwood’s Prater Violet, Darcy O’Brien’s A Way of Life Like Any Other, the extraordinary non-fiction The Devil’s Candy by Julia Salamon, and now this. Four very different perspectives on movie making, but somehow working very well together – and all very good.
If Kimbrough is at her best alongside Skinner, this is still a wonderfully enjoyable book to read. (I wonder why it wasn’t written by both of them?) If you’ve loved Our Hearts Were Young and Gay then I think you’ll relish following them to Hollywood with this one – to see a bit about the book’s afterlife, and to enjoy a snapshot of Hollywood in the 1940s.
Stuck in a Book’s Weekend Miscellany
Happy weekend, and my, aren’t the nights drawing in? My little flat doesn’t have central heating, so expect to find me under a pile of duvets and blankets and an artfully placed cat. Still, it’s a good excuse to do very little but read and drink tea. Which is my usual practice, but now with added legitimacy.
Before I go onto the book, blog post, and link – Karen and I wanted to announce the year that we chose for the next club. We were delighted to get really thoughtful suggestions from people, and may well store these up for next October’s club – but for next April, we’re going with a year suggested by Paula: 1965! You’ve got months and months to prepare :)
1.) The link – this is an interesting discussion about working with the elusive Elena Ferrante, for the HBO version of her novel.
2.) The book – another book about reading that I am coveting! This one is by Anne Bogel, called I’d Rather Be Reading. Isn’t that cover lovely?
3.) The blog post – Resh has written a characteristically interesting about Instagram trends in book photography and how people have reacted to it… featured lots of lovely book photography, of course.
My name is Simon, I buy books
I was doing quite well at a month-by-month record of the different books I bought, but it rather fell by the wayside. So, instead, here is the record of a couple of different visits to London over the past few weeks, and the books I bought on my journeys. The photo is of books bought there, various other times, review books, gifts… so not all are mentioned in this post, but do give a yell if you’d like to hear more about any of them!
Firstly, I went up to London on a wet and windy day – to see the excellent productions of The Lover and The Collection as part of the season of Pinter plays at the Harold Pinter theatre. Astonishingly expensive, so I’m glad it was good. While there, I went to visit Rachel (my ‘Tea or Books?’ co-host) in her lovely new flat – and the entire time I was there, her piano was being slowly taken up the stairs. So we couldn’t have our planned lunch together – but it did given me time to dart along to ‘Word on the Water’ – a bookshop on a barge near King’s Cross.
It’s very small, and was lovely and warm when I went. It’s also very low, and I couldn’t stand up fully – but I was crouching to look at books anyway. The selection is necessarily limited, in such a small space, but seems to be well curated – and I came away with a copy of David Sedaris’s diaries.
After the theatre, I popped into Any Amount of Books on Charing Cross Road, which was having a sale in its basement. Dangerous. I bought a few books for other people (I’m so noble) – and, yes, a few for myself. More specifically, The Play Room by Olivia Manning, The Christmas Pudding by Nancy Mitford, and a book by Marghanita Laski about Mrs Ewing, Mrs Molesworth, and Mrs Hodgson Burnett – the first two names are ones I know vaguely, but nothing more. Frances H-B has survived rather better, of course.
On this trip, I was also reading Mrs Gaskell & Me by Nell Stevens – as reviewed the other day – and went off on a hunt to buy her Bleaker House. Easier said than done. Where to look for it?? I went to the enormous and wonderful Waterstones on Piccadilly, and looked through biography and generic literature… they didn’t have it, it turned out, and I went down to Hatchard’s to make the same exploration. (Incidentally – having the queues right in front of the door makes going into Hatchard’s rather an overwhelming process – but, once inside, it’s a lovely building.) No luck – but the man on the desk (once I’d assured him it was definitely Bleaker House that I was after) found it for me – in the creative writing section.
I was back in London this past weekend, meeting up with my dear friend Lucy. She had devised a tour of independent bookshops in East London, which is a part I don’t know very well. It’s also a part that seems to have few secondhand bookshops, so we were only looking at independents selling new books. Since I like to support bookshops by buying at least one, I had to ration myself between the shops…
First up, Libreria. No phones allowed, so I couldn’t check the title of the book I was after – but happily stumbled across it nonetheless: This Little Art by Kate Briggs, all about translation. I read quite a lot of it on the train home, and loved it, so watch this space – indeed, it’s not in the picture above because I’m currently reading it. Libreria is very, very hipster, but (/and) a great shop with a thoughtful selection. Better for browsing than going with a title in mind, I think.
Next, we came to Brick Lane Bookshop – not quite the same brilliance in their selection, but I did enjoy the essays shelves. I hadn’t heard of Difficult Women by David Plante, but it sounds wonderful – as well as looking wonderful, being an NYRB Classics edition. It features portraits of Jean Rhys, Sonia Orwell, and Germaine Greer. Yes please!
When we got to our third planned bookshop, Broadway Books, we discovered that it was closing in three minutes… we had a quick rush around and were asked to leave, so they didn’t get the sale I was contemplating of a Stefan Zweig. But somewhere to try again one day!
While I’m writing about books that have come into the house recently – I have to mention the C.S. Lewis books that Karen/Kaggsy very kindly sent to me recently, while she was having a clear out! I’ve read a few of his non-fiction titles on Christianity and Christian life, and really like them, so am chuffed to get these. Even better, the rest went to my aunt and her church – as my aunt lives a few streets away from Karen!
I’m going to cut back on book buying again next year, one way or another, so I’m making the most of these little treats while I can!
Mrs Gaskell & Me by Nell Stevens
I love a book about reading, and I love a biography where the biographer’s experience is part of the story. And so I was really pleased when Picador sent me a review copy of Nell Stevens’ new book Mrs Gaskell & Me. I’d heard of her book Bleaker House but not read it yet – still, this sounded so up my street that I couldn’t resist starting it almost immediately, Century of Books be hanged.
The book is in two parallel timelines. In one timeline, Elizabeth Gaskell has written a controversial biography of her friend Charlotte Bronte, and is heading off to Rome at the time of publication. In the other timeline, Nell Stevens is writing her PhD thesis about Gaskell. Both of them have romantic entanglements of some variety – Gaskell is charmed by the, indeed, charming Charles Eliot Norton; Stevens gets up the courage to tell her friend Max that she’s in love with him, and they start a slightly complex, often long-distance relationship. The parallels are clearly brought to the fore, but they are there nonetheless.
I deliberately didn’t look up anything about Gaskell’s life, because I didn’t want to know how much was documented and how much Stevens imagined. Much like ‘Nell Stevens’ herself in this book, it is a fictionalised version – or, rather, a selective and edited version. Every biography or autobiography is that, naturally, but I suspect Stevens had to edit a little more than most to make parts cohere.
While she writes well about Gaskell’s adventures, and imaginatively makes us feel like we are watching these tense moments of her life, I have to admit that I was drawn a lot more to the sections about Stevens’ own life. Perhaps any dual narrative will inevitably lead us enjoying one more than the other – I do find, in a novel, that the balance is more easily struck with three. In the strand that follows Stevens’ life, she writes with striking vividness about her romance – sometimes awkward, sometimes secure, sometimes fraught – and juggling it alongside writing her PhD thesis. Normally I find fiction or non-fiction about romance a bit tedious (unless it’s a romcom movie, then I’m right in) – but Stevens manages to write about her emotional experiences without being too vague or claiming too much worldwide significance for them – the two pitfalls people often fall into. By contrast, when she writes about Gaskell’s emotional life, the guesswork shows through. It’s all quite plausible, but inevitably loses some of the vitality that makes her sections so engaging. (I did like what she wrote about the reception to Gaskell’s life of Charlotte Bronte, though – I hadn’t known it was such a scandal.)
And then there is all that she writes about the academic student life. Perhaps I enjoyed this mostly because it reminds me my own doctorate, and the highs and lows of academic research – dealing with expectations, wondering about the future, revelling in the highs when research unearths gems, and panicking because nothing seems to cohere. Though Stevens’ course had a lot of expectations – she seemed to have substantial work and a strong idea of where she was going almost immediately. I didn’t really know where my thesis was going for at least 18 months.
The main divider in whether or not you’ll enjoy this is: do you like the fourth wall broken? This is all meta – all about the author, and doing the research, and breaking that wall. I love it and, if anything, would have welcomed more. The Gaskell bits held my attention, but it was the “and me” that made me really love this book. And, indeed, I’d bought a copy of Bleaker House before I got to the end.
Silence in October by Jens Christian Grøndahl
I bought Silence in October by Jens Christian Grøndahl in 2011, and have been intending to read it pretty much every October since. Finally I managed to schedule it in! It needn’t be read in October, of course, but it felt too apposite to miss.
The novel was published in Danish in 1996, and translated by Anne Born four years later. Grøndahl has a long and prolific career in Holland, but only a handful of his novels have been translated into English – including the excellent Virginia, which I read not long before I bought Silence in October. That slim novel is all about regret caused by a childhood decision in wartime. Silence in October is rather a different kettle of fish.
As the novel opens, the narrator’s wife, Astrid, has just left him. He doesn’t know exactly where she is, but can trace where she has been by the credit card receipts that trail behind her. They’ve been together for more than eighteen years – ever since he was her taxi driver, as she fled her abusive husband with their young son.
This premise is almost all the action that happens in the novel. For almost 300 pages, what we witness is the unnamed (I think!) narrator’s thoughts, recollections, philosophising. We move back and forth in time, often with little warning – but equally often the memories are not dramatic, but lend a layer to the profundities that the narrator is compiling. Whether you find them profound or not may depend a lot on the mood you’re in while you read it.
It’s difficult to write about Silence in October, because it really did depend on my mood. The writing is beautiful, and Born translates in such a way that no awkwardness is ever apparent. It deserves – it requires – slow and patient reading, letting the unusual images and stumbling thoughts wash over the reader. Grøndahl is excellent at the minutiae, and bringing small moments and reflections to new, vivid life. To pick something at random from early in the book, here is when Astrid says she is leaving:
She had announced her decision in such a run-of-the-mill and offhand way in front of the mirror, as if it had been a matter of going to the cinema or visiting a woman friend, and I had allowed myself to be seduced by the naturalness of her tone. And later, in bed, when I thought she was asleep,there had been a distance in her voice as if she had already gone and was calling from a town on the other side of the world.
So, yes, I read much of Silence in October in patient appreciation, recognising Grøndahl’s ability as a prose stylist. And then there were other times – when, sensibly, I usually put the book down and picked something else up – where I had less patience. I don’t need a book to have a lot of action, but this amount of introspection is a little low in momentum. Pacy, it was not. Also – my tolerance for the self-absorption of the middle-aged, middle-class, white, male narrator wore thin at times. He is obsessed with his own thoughts, awarding them significance, whatever they are. His mindset is a bit like one you see on Twitter a great deal. I rolled my eyes when we got to the inevitable women-don’t-realise-they’re-prettier-without-make-up moment. He writes about women’s bodies a lot.
Could I really not meet a woman who thought and talked on the same frequency as myself without immediately getting ideas from the sight of her thighs just because they were lovely, and because she unwittingly exposed them to my ferocious gaze?
Of course, the author need not be the narrator. Indeed, I know from Virginia that Grøndahl can take his writing talents to a far worthier topic than the self-importance of an adulterous art critic.
I always say that the writing is more important than what is being written about. There are exceptions, of course – and you know that I will read more or less any novel about people opening a cafe – but Silence in October is a good instance where I enjoyed it despite its premise and its ‘plot’. Grøndahl is a fine writer and Born is clearly a very good translator. I look forward to read more of his novels, and hope that they’re about people I’m readier to spend time with.
Buried Alive by Arnold Bennett
Another audiobook I’ve been listening to is Arnold Bennett’s 1908 novel Buried Alive, courtesy of Librivox (the free audiobook site). Each work is read by one or more volunteers, so the quality of the reader is pretty variable, but I will now be listening to more or less anything Simon Evers reads. He’s extraordinarily good – and I really enjoyed listening to Buried Alive.
If the title is bringing up your worst nightmare, then don’t worry – nobody is literally buried alive in the book. But it almost happens to the noted artist (and recluse) Priam Farll. His work is known and loved throughout the nation, but he has kept his face out of the press and doesn’t interact with the public. Not because he is obstreperous – he is simply very shy. And this is the sort of premise that leads almost inevitably to mistaken identity, isn’t it? When his valet, Henry Leek, suddenly dies – having taken ill to Farll’s own bed – it is natural that the policeman might believe that Farll has died. Partly out of awkwardness, partly seeing an opportunity to avoid the public glare, Farll goes along with it.
Things get more complicated when he has to leave his own home quickly, as it (and all his wealth) has been distributed in his will – some to a distant relative, but a large chunk to build a picture gallery in his honour. Which all feels a bit of a poor decision when he discovers he only has a few pounds to his name (and those few pounds are more than he was expecting Mr Leek to possess… he turns out to have been a bit of a ne’erdowell). The buried bit? Well, ‘Farll’ – actually Leek – is buried in Westminster Abbey.
We watch Farll try to live an ordinary life, having never been unwealthy – and witness the nation’s apparent response to his death. Bennett is very funny about this, even while we recognise the tumult of emotions that come with such an unusual experience.
Special large type! Titles stretching across two columns! Black borders round the pages! “Death of England’s greatest painter.” “Sudden death of Priam Farll.” “Sad death of a great genius.” “Puzzling career prematurely closed.” “Europe in mourning.” “Irreparable loss to the world’s art.” “It is with the most profound regret.” “Our readers will be shocked.” “The news will come as a personal blow to every lover of great painting.” So the papers went on, outvying each other in enthusiastic grief.
He ceased to be careless and condescending to them. The skin crept along his spine. There he lay, solitary, under the crimson glow, locked in his castle, human, with the outward semblance of a man like other men, and yet the cities of Europe were weeping for him. He heard them weeping. Every lover of great painting was under a sense of personal bereavement. The very voice of the world was hushed. After all, it was something to have done your best; after all, good stuff was appreciated by the mass of the race. The phenomena presented by the evening papers was certainly prodigious, and prodigiously affecting. Mankind was unpleasantly stunned by the report of his decease. He forgot that Mrs. Challice, for instance, had perfectly succeeded in hiding her grief for the irreparable loss, and that her questions about Priam Farll had been almost perfunctory. He forgot that he had witnessed absolutely no sign of overwhelming sorrow, or of any degree of sorrow, in the thoroughfares of the teeming capital, and that the hotels did not resound to sobbing. He knew only that all Europe was in mourning!
Isn’t that great? It’s passages like that, where Bennett shows his firm hold of irony, dry humour, and an underlying poignancy that show how Virginia Woolf was too sweeping in her condemnation of him. He is not a pompous writer at all, at least not in Buried Alive – it’s delicious stuff.
Wonderful in rather a different way is Alice. By a series of unlikely coincidences, which we will allow him, Farll ends up meeting Alice – whom Leek had arranged to marry. And, by a further series of unlikely steps, they do end up married. I shan’t spoil any more of the plot, but I had to talk about Alice. She is extremely fond of Farll, but completely no-nonsense. The world can no longer surprise her, and she takes everything in her stride – while also being kind and affectionate, and tolerant of her husband’s shyness and eccentricities. She’s a brilliant character, entirely lovable and mildly intimidating. Simon Evers voices her dialogue perfectly, but I think I’d have loved her even without that. Here she is on Farll’s legacy going towards a picture gallery:
“I call it just silly. It isn’t as if there wasn’t enough picture-galleries already. When what there are are so full that you can’t get in–then it will be time enough to think about fresh ones. I’ve been to the National Gallery twice, and upon my word I was almost the only person there! And it’s free too! People don’t want picture-galleries. If they did they’d go. Who ever saw a public-house empty, or Peter Robinson’s? And you have to pay there! Silly, I call it! Why couldn’t he have left his money to you, or at any rate to the hospitals or something of that? No, it isn’t silly. It’s scandalous! It ought to be stopped!”
This is the fourth book I’ve read by Bennett, and the second novel. Since Evers has narrated quite a few of his novels, I think I’ll be listening to quite a few more – hopefully they’re all as fun as this one was.