1950s

Back!

StuckinaBook All , 5 Comments

I am back from a lovely long weekend in Northern Ireland, and have so many blogs to catch up with… give me a few days. Today was taken up with work and a driving lesson, in which I was ‘introduced’ to roundabouts and dual carriageways. All the fun of the fair.

The wedding I attended was beautiful and wonderful, a great time had by all – my much-loved friend Emily has now become Mrs. Sam, and is off enjoying a honeymoon in a place I only managed to establish began with M. Whilst in Northern Ireland, I and a group of other college friends took the opportunity to wander around, including a trip to Giant’s Causeway. Amazing. I’ve stolen this picture from a friend, since I didn’t take my camera.

Somehow, I also found time to read three and a half books. I’ll start by telling you about The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, and will move onto the others as and when.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson was one of my favourite books on 2006, currently a hmm-maybe for the 50 Books You Must Read But May Not Have Heard About – so I was surprised and pleased when Clare-the-Archivist was reading a Shirley Jackson at work. She did do English at The Other Place, but I suppose that needn’t completely bar her from a good taste in books. The Haunting of Hill House was duly borrowed…

I am quite a difficult creature. There is a very fine line between Gothic-y novels (which I love) and horror novels (which I hate) and perhaps it’s impossible for the naked eye to identify which books would fall into which category. Shirley Jackson is definitely the former. The Haunting of Hill House wasn’t as good as We Have Always Lived in the Castle, but was still very impressive. Dr. Montague wishes to investigate the paranormal reputation of Hill House, and invites Luke (the larcenous heir), Eleanor (downtrodden, lonely girl) and Theo (lighthearted, witty woman) to stay there with him. Everything about the house is off-putting – for example, every angle in it is a degree or two off, to confuse the mind into expecting windows to look out where they won’t, and cause imbalance. Objects are moved around; doors are knocked on in the middle of the night, but only heard by some. But the house exacts a more powerful effect on one of the four…

Outside of fiction, I find this sort of paranormal stuff nonsense at best, and damaging at worst, but in the hands of Jackson it becomes more like a Gothic detective novel – answers need to be sought; characters explored and undercurrents plumbed. Start with We Have Always Lived in the Castle, but check out The Haunting of Hill House for a tale which is chilling without sacrificing character or panache.

Not Just William

StuckinaBook All , 13 Comments

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.

Year In, Year Out

StuckinaBook All , 8 Comments


There are two authors whom I often talk about and get little response. Not on here, specifically, but in all the bookish circles (both internet and face-to-face). They are Virginia Woolf and AA Milne. I think that’s to do with preconceptions: Woolf is “that difficult feminist writer who killed herself” and Milne just wrote that children’s book/Disney film. Neither are true, of course, and it would be a shame to leave them unexamined. Not that I can blame anyone – though The Carbon Copy never tires of exhorting me to read Lord of the Rings, my preconceptions (aided by the film) persist, and I resist and desist and subsist and all other sorts of similar words.

But today we shall turn our attention to Milne. I may well repeat bits of a letter I recently wrote to my friend Barbara-from-Ludlow, but I’m sure she’ll forgive me for that. I’ve just finished a re-read of Year In, Year Out which, according to my notebook, I first read in early 2001, in the brief period before I kept more accurate records that year. It was Milne’s last book, published in 1952 (Milne died in January 1956) and Our Vicar will be pleased to know it is non-fiction. How to describe this book? It is a miscellany of musings, some whimsical, some political, some incidental. The sorts of things which couldn’t really be developed into anything more than a thought or an anecdote, and are thus collected together, divided fairly arbitrarily into twelve months. He points out how frequently trains would have to run in The Importance of Being Earnest; he also discusses the history of his pacifism. He covers The Art of Saying Thank You (‘The schoolboy’s “Oo, I say, thanks frightfully” sets the standard. It is difficult to better this, though you may throw in an awed “Coo!” if you feel that it comes naturally to you’); he berates the food subsidies and supertax. My favourite sections are anecdotes concerning his earlier work – never Pooh et al, but his plays or his poetry.

It is improbable that such a book could ever be published now; it is indeed improbable it would have been published then, had it not been for the debt Methuen felt they owed Milne. Pooh had raised them rather a lot of money, and they felt prepared to indulge the whims of an aging author. That’s what lends Year In, Year Out its pathos – though often cheery and witty, it is also unconsciously nostalgic, not in the sense of thinking in the past, but in thinking the present can be turned into the past. His best days, authorially and in every other way, have happened – and Milne perseveres with his wonderful, inimitable, light-but-serious tone.

Year In, Year Out probably isn’t the best place to start reading non-children’s Milne, but I encourage you to give something a whirl. He did it all – plays, poetry, sketches, essays, detective novel, literary fiction, autobiography, non-fiction work on pacifism. Something for everyone.

Something special about Year In, Year Out, though, is that it is the last collaborative work of A. A. Milne and E. H. Shepard – in fact, Pooh and the gang appear (with some assorted others) in the little illustrations for January and December. Somehow that seems a fitting, and wonderful, culmination of Milne’s writing career.

Tom’s Midnight Garden

StuckinaBook All , 7 Comments


I’m very bad – despite a teetering pile of books to be reviewed, a nostalgic conversation with a friend led me to take a break and read Tom’s Midnight Garden. What is more astounding is that this is the first time I’ve read the book. Astounding because I know every word, more or less, already…

I have very vague recollections of watching Tom’s Midnight Garden the first time it was shown on the BBC, but since I was 3 or 4, I’m not sure how genuine those memories are – but Our Vicar and Our Vicar’s Wife wisely taped the programmes, six in all, and they joined a small filmography of videos to be Watched When Ill. Alongside the Chronicles of Narnia and Pride and Prejudice, this drama was akin to medication, and no day of lying convalescent was complete without one of them. Because I’ve seen it so often, it came as quite a shock the other day when I realised that I haven’t seen Tom’s Midnight Garden for about a decade – but it didn’t take long before every detail came swarming back. My friend Clare and I had a conversation littered with squeals and ‘oh yes’s while each bit of the drama slotted back into place. They just don’t make kids’ shows like that anymore…

Anyway, before this becomes a 1990s nostalgia (or 1989, to be precise) I should probably fill people in. Some of you may not have heard of Tom and his Midnight Garden, and be wondering what on earth I’m talking about. Philippa Pearce’s 1958 children’s book, now a classic, is about a boy called Tom who must spend the summer with his Uncle Alan and Aunt Gwen to avoid his brother’s measles. They live in a flat within a large, old house, one which, to Tom’s disappointment, has no garden. He is bored, and cannot sleep – but his strict uncle ensures he’s in bed for ten hours a night. The house has an old grandfather clock in the hall, which strikes loudly and inaccurately throughout the building. At night, Tom hears the clock strike thirteen (like the beginning of 1984, isn’t that?) and reasons that he has been granted an extra hour to the day – and thus can spend ten hours in bed and get up now. When downstairs, he can’t read the clock face, and so opens the door to get the moonlight… and reveals an enormous and beautiful garden.

The book takes us through Tom’s adventures in the garden over the course of several months, and his friendship with Hatty, a little girl in the garden who can see him although the others can’t. Some wonderful twists and events, and gradual comprehension, but I shan’t spoil any of that for people yet to encounter Tom.

Having now read the delightful book, I am amazed at how accurate the BBC version was – my memory of it is not sharp enough to know whether or not they added things, but there was scarcely a line in the book which didn’t make it onto screen. Impressive. If anyone’s not read the book, do so now. If anyone’s not seen the BBC version, I’m afraid you’ll have to have deep pockets – the video goes for about £50, secondhand…

50 Books…

StuckinaBook All , , 22 Comments


15. Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead – Barbara Comyns

The early stream of books to include in my 50 Books You Must Read But May Not Have Heard About has slowed to a gradual flow, and that was sort of deliberate. I suppose I didn’t want to overwhelm people. This site mentions a lot of books – as you might expect on a literary blog – and also suggest a great deal as being worth reading. I suppose I want to say “Even if you ignore everything else I mention, pay attention to this list.” Of course, you’re perfectly welcome to ignore the list too, but I’d like you to pay special attention to them if you so wish(!) They’re all there for a reason – because they’re touching or hilarious or brilliantly written or just very indicative of my taste, and I know that you’re unlikely to hear about them unless I mention them.

So, after that little preamble, step forward no. 15 on the list – Barbara Comyns’ Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead. Those of you who are more knowledgeable than I will have spotted that the title is from The Fire of Drift-Wood by Longfellow.

We spake of many a vanished scene,
Of what we once had thought and said,
Of what had been, and might have been,
And who was changed, and who was dead;

The only other Comyns I’ve read was Our Spoons Came From Woolworths, so she certainly has a way with titles. I bought Who Was Changed… a few years ago, partly because I’d quite enjoyed Our Spoons Came From Woolworths, partly because the mix of a Virago paperback and an interesting cover piqued my interest. Had I turned to the first sentence, I daresay I’d have read the novel much sooner: ‘The ducks swan through the drawing-room windows.’ How can you not want to read on?

The novel opens with a flood, and things get stranger and stranger. If I were to choose one word to describe this novel it would be “surreal” – but surreal in a very grounded manner. Exactly like the cover illustration, actually; part of ‘Christ Preaching at Cookham Regatta: Dinner on the Hotel Lawn’ by Stanley Spencer. Throughout the events (which I don’t want to spoil for you) Comyns weaves a very real, earthy, witty portrait of a village – especially the Willoweed family. A cantankerous old lady who won’t step on land she doesn’t own, Grandmother Willoweed, rules over her docile son, Ebin, and his young children Emma, Hattie and Dennis. Grandmother W is a truly brilliant creation – without the slightest feeling for anybody around her, she is still amusing rather than demonic. For some reason this novel was banned in Ireland upon publication in 1954 – perhaps for the occasional unblenching descriptions, but these are easily skipped if you, like me, can be a bit squeamish.

Though quite a slim novel – my copy is 146 pages of large type – Comyns writes a book which lingers in the mind, one that is vivid and funny and absurd and a must read for anyone interested in off-the-wall literature with human nature at its heart.

And it’s cheap on Amazon.co.uk…

(please do go and read a rather better review on John Self’s Asylum blog here.)

The Answer Is…

StuckinaBook All , 6 Comments

Well, I sort of cheated, because I’ve already talked about this book this week – but not a I’ve-finished-it review yet. The book was…


The Go-Between. It was rather hiding on the shelf too, wasn’t it. This split posting gives me a chance to answer some of the questions you lovely people put earlier! The anonymouses are confusing me rather, as I try and work out which is whom… would help if anonymous people signed their name, though of course they may prefer the intrigue and mystery… your prerogative! So, anonymous numero uno, yes I do shelve my tbr (to be read) books and my read books together… well, since most of my books are in Somerset I’ve brought tbrs, favourites, and books I want to blog about. I know it’s methodical to shelve them separately, but I like the idea of them mingling – the books I’ve encountered jumbled up with ones which are yet foreign countries.

Which leads me nicely to the opening line of The Go-Between: ‘The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there’. As I read somewhere else this week, what makes this sentence so memorable and evocative is the present tense for the past – ‘they do’, not ‘they did’. Clever, LP Hartley.

And from the first line onwards, this novel was a delight. Hartley breaks all sorts of rules – don’t have the main action of your novel take place after a huge preamble; don’t have it all as flashback etc. etc… and he still produces a wonderful novel. The prologue begins with a man finding his old diary, and reminiscing from there, remembering more and more of what happened decades ago. I knew vaguely what the plot was, so I knew that the schooldays bit couldn’t last for very long – from the picture of Julie Christie on the front, if nothing else. And soon enough Leo heads off to Marcus’ for the holidays, in a very upper class house and family to which he feels foreign and inferior. Gradually he finds his role in the web – as the go-between, taking notes between Marian and her two love interests; Hugh (think Mr. Bingley) and Ted (think Mellors without the accent).

Shan’t spoil the ending of the main novel for those who don’t want to know, but will just say that it manages to be a big surprise without sacrificing emotion to sensation. Ditto the epilogue. Throughout Hartley writes so well – that quality which I can’t put my finger on, but can only describe as thick, treacley, substantial… Oh, and there is documenting of a cricket match which Ian McEwan should have read before he wrote the interminable squash match in Saturday.

Carole askes why I love this sort of novel so much – well, the 1900-1950ish domestic novel, I suppose. Ermm… Good question. The period was the first when ordinary lives and ordinary incidents became fodder for novels, and good domestic novels tread the line between whimsy and common sense perfectly, and often very wittily. Ideal.