2010s

Virginia Woolf’s Garden

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For one of my Christmas presents, my brother made a very impressive sacrifice – by buying me a book about an author he is, ahem, not fond of. Sadly, he does not love our Virginia, but that is not a unique perspective. (More on Colin’s reading, or lack thereof, another time perhaps… if I can bring myself to admit that my twin brother hasn’t finished reading a book in over six months…) (Sorry Colin!)
Anyway, this was one of my favourite Christmas presents, and will probably appear on my end of year favourite books – mostly because of how sumptuous it was to read. And by ‘read’, I mean ‘look at photos’.

 

Which isn’t to say that there is no writing – not by a long chalk. Caroline Zoob, who was tenant of Monk’s House for quite a few years and whose efforts largely helped restore the garden, writes winningly of the process and the Woolfs’ lives. But the beautiful photography by Caroline Arber was certainly my favourite thing about the book. It really is beautiful, and made me (with my complete ignorance of all things gardening) want to take up horticulture. I pretty swiftly shifted to wanting to take up visiting more gardens that other people have put effort into, but never mind.
Using Virginia and Leonard’s diaries and letters, alongside other resources, Caroline recreates what the experience of creating this garden was like for both of them, and traces its development alongside their lives – past Virginia’s death in 1941 and all the way to Leonard’s in 1969. There aren’t all that many contemporary photographs of V and L in the garden,but what resources there are have been wonderfully mined. And it becomes very clear that the garden was Leonard’s passion particularly – with his experimentation with rare bulbs, unusual arrangements, and complex garden design. Virginia’s primary delight was her writing shed, and she jokes about envying the garden for the attention it receives from Leonard.
If one knew nothing about the pair, there is enough biographical detail in Zoob’s writing to make the book completely accessible, but without overdoing it for those of us already very familiar with the Woolfs’ lives (which, after all, is probably a high percentage of those who would want to read a book called Virginia Woolf’s Garden). The area I would have loved more detail is what happened to the house after Leonard died; how it came to the National Trust, and how various residents experienced living there. There are only two or three pages which discuss Zoob’s life there – and, considering this is an almost unique perspective, I would have loved more…

When we arrived at Monk’s House we knew very little about Virginia. To begin with, I found the intensity of some of the visitors disconcerting. On a day when the house was closed, I came home to find a woman weeping at the gate, overcome by the thought that Virginia’s hand had touched that very gate as she left the house on her way to the river. I did not have the heart to tell her that Virginia had left the garden through a different gate at the top of the garden, long since disused. Instead I made soothing noises and offered to make her a cup of tea.

Perhaps Zoob modestly thought people wouldn’t be interested – but, oh, I would certainly have been!
Something I wasn’t quite so interested in was the element of garden design in the book. I certainly recognise that many people would love these sections, but it was like double Dutch to me – or, indeed, like Latin. At least they came with pretty pictures. And I was very impressed by the tapestry garden design, also (I think) by the photographer Caroline Arber, that appeared throughout – for example:

 

Of the making of books about Virginia Woolf there is no end – and I, for one, am delighted about it. This one has to go near the top of Woolfenilia, and I heartily recommend it as a coffee table book (if such things still exist) and as a fascinating, detailed account to read thoroughly too.

The Man Booker longlist

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Thanks so much for all your suggestions on 1990s books – I will reply soon, and there are lots I haven’t read. If you thought that was unusually modern for Stuck-in-a-Book, then brace yourself for this: the Man Booker longlist. Granted it was announced some time ago, but I’m not one for keeping my finger on the pulse…

To Rise Again at a Decent Hour, Joshua Ferris (Viking)
The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Richard Flanagan (Chatto & Windus)
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler (Serpent’s Tail)
The Blazing World, Siri Hustvedt (Sceptre)
J, Howard Jacobson (Jonathan Cape)
The Wake, Paul Kingsnorth (Unbound)
The Bone Clocks, David Mitchell (Sceptre)
The Lives of Others, Neel Mukherjee (Chatto & Windus)
Us, David Nicholls (Hodder & Stoughton)
The Dog, Joseph O’Neill (Fourth Estate)
Orfeo, Richard Powers (Atlantic Books)
How to be Both, Ali Smith (Hamish Hamilton)
History of the Rain, Niall Williams (Bloomsbury)

I usually steer clear of Booker winners. I’ve only read three from the past decade, and all of them were underwhelming (The Sense of an Ending, The Finkler Question, and The Line of Beauty) and in fact I gave up halfway through two of them – but sometimes the shortlists and longlists bring up more intriguing titles.

When the longlist was announced, the editors of Shiny New Books had a fun conversation about it – I think you’ll enjoy reading it, especially if you like my cynical moments – and I hadn’t read any of them (unsurprisingly). I had heard of nearly all of the authors, though, which is a sign of what Shiny New Books has done to me.

After that, though, I did read Karen Joy Fowler’s We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, and reviewed it for SNB. It was good. But it wasn’t any better than good. I don’t understand by what criteria it made this list. Intriguing.

Have any of you read any of these, or want to? I’d like to read the Nicholls, and that might be it…

Shiny New Books: Issue 2a

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Those of you who receive the Shiny New Books newsletter will know that the ‘inbetweeny’ issue is now live – that is, the update between issues, which includes anything published just after or just before Issue 2 went live that we were keen to incorporate. Go and explore!

In my case, it also involves a novel that I hadn’t heard of – Virginia Woolf in Manhattan by Maggie Gee – that I was so intrigued by and had to read. Luckily it turned out to be very good. You can read my review of it here, and (even better) a piece that Maggie Gee wrote for us, answering my questions, here.

I’m determined to set aside some time this week to writing SIAB reviews, as the pile is looming, and there are plenty of treats to come. At least this way they will get posted after the summer lull, when blog views and comments crash down!

Hope you’re all very well, and reading lovely books. I’m currently indulging in Marilynne Robinson’s Home (finally, Susan!) in preparation for reading Lila for Shiny New Books Issue 3.

Glow by Ned Beauman

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I don’t often read new novels… but, when I do, they’re by authors on Granta’s Best Young Authors list. In Issue 1 of Shiny New Books I reviewed and interviewed Helen Oyeyemi; in Issue 2, I have done the same with Ned Beauman.

Following on from loving his first two novels (Boxer, Beetle and The Teleportation Accident), I also really liked his third, Glow; review over at Shiny New Books. As before, you wouldn’t have thought I’d enjoy the book by looking at its ingredients – sex, drugs, and clubbing, basically, but with virtual reality twists – but Beauman is such an imaginative and inventive writer that it works.

He kindly agreed to do a quick Q&A too. Do go and have a look!

Boy, Snow, Bird – Helen Oyeyemi

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One of the nice things about doing Shiny New Books is that I feel I have more of a grasp on what’s happening in publishing at the moment – as you doubtless know by now, modern novels are seldom my go-to.  Having said that, there is a tiny handful of living authors whose careers I follow and whose books I await – and one of those is Helen Oyeyemi (even with a couple of her books unread on my shelf).  Well – and you’ve guessed this by now – I reviewed her latest, Boy, Snow, Bird, for Shiny New Books, and flipping good it was too.  You can read my review here, and (exciting!) the Q&A I did with Helen Oyeyemi too.

The Misinterpretation of Tara Jupp by Eva Rice

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I was lucky enough to be sent a copy of Eva Rice’s The Misinterpretation of Tara Jupp (2013), alongside which was included a lovely note from the author herself, hoping I’d enjoy it.  Well, I did – it is everything that is splendid and lovely and jolly and fun, even while taking you on a trek through the emotions.

My full thoughts are over on Vulpes Libris today, but quickly – if you’ve ever hoped that Nancy Mitford were alive and well and writing 21st-century novels, then this is as close as you’re going to get.

Diana Athill and Susan Hill

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These two books (Midsummer Night in the Workhouse and other stories by Diana Athill and Black Sheep by Susan Hill) have very little in common, other than that (a) the authors have ‘hill’ in their name, and (b) they are the final two books for my Reading Presently project and this is the last day of the year.  So I shall consider them in turn, and only if I’m very lucky will I find anything to link them…

Mum gave me Midsummer Night in the Workhouse as a cheer-up present a few months ago, and a Persephone book is (of course) always very, very welcome.  One of my very favourite reads in 2013 was Diana Athill’s memoir about being an editor, Stet (indeed, I claimed in Kim’s Book Bloggers Advent Calendar that it was my favourite, but while compiling my list I remembered another which beat it – full top ten to be unveiled in January, donchaknow) so I thought it was about time that I read some of her fiction.  Turns out there isn’t that much of it, and she speaks quite disparagingly of the whole process in Somewhere Towards The End (which I’m reading at the moment; spoiler alert, it doesn’t compare to Stet in my mind).

As my usual disclaimer, whenever I write about short stories – they’re very difficult to write about.  But they do seem the perfect medium for the expert editor, depending – as they do, more than any other fiction – upon precision and economy.  And I thought (says he, being very brief) that Athill was very good at it.  My favourite was probably ‘The Return’, about a couple of young women who are taken to an island by local ‘tour guide’ sailors – it was just so brilliantly structured, managing to be tense, witty, and wry at the same time.  But the last line of ‘Desdemona’ was exceptionally good (and you know how I like my last lines to stories…)

My only complaint with the collection is that they are a bit too samey occasionally – which might be explained by the new preface, where Athill explains that she mostly wrote from her own experience.  And her own experience seemed to be observing a fair amount of unsatisfactory marriages, and having a rather casual attitude towards marital fidelity (more on that when I get around to writing about Somewhere Towards The End.)

Her character and voice seem better established in her non-fiction, but this collection is certainly very good – and Persephone should be celebrated for collecting and publishing something which had been largely ignored in Athill’s career.  Hurrah for Persephone!

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Colin (yes, he blogs too, and apparently will be doing so more regularly in 2014) gave me Susan Hill’s latest novella, Black Sheep (which was on my Amazon wishlist) for Christmas, and I read it on Boxing Day while laid up with that cold.  I’m always so grateful that I gave Susan Hill’s writing a second go, after being underwhelmed by the children’s book I read first – and I have a special soft spot for the novellas which have been coming out over the past few years.

Those of you who follow Hill on Twitter, or remember her erstwhile blog, will know that she seems to finish a book in the time it takes most of us to boil a kettle.  Well, more power to her, say I – and I’ve been impressed by The Beacon and A Kind Man.  I hadn’t realised that I read those in 2009 and 2011 – well, time flies, and perhaps Hill does pause for breath between books.  Black Sheep is not only being marketed in a similar way, with equally lovely colours/image/format, but does – whether Hill has done this deliberately or not – belong in the same stable.  The three novellas have definite differences, and possibly started from very different inspirations, but they also share a great deal – all three concern remote, almost isolated communities, the complicated lives of simple folk, and (it must be conceded) a fair dose of misery.  Or perhaps just a dose of hardship, because the three novels all seem to come near to gratuitous misery, and then duck away.

Black Sheep takes place in a mining community in the past… I’m not sure how far in the past, or if we’re told, but definitely an era when people rarely left their village and almost no outside-communication took place.  The village (called ‘Mount of Zeal’) is divided into the pit, Lower Terrace, Middle Terrace, and Upper Terrace (known as Paradise).  We follow the fortunes of one overcrowded family home as the children grow up.  Who to marry, whether or not to get a job in the mine, how to cope with illness and grief – these are the overriding concerns of the different children and their parents – but these topics are less important than the way in which Hill writes about them, and the community they live in.

It is such a brilliant depiction of a village.  Setting the community on the side of this hill, leading from Paradise to the hell of the mine, may seem like a heavy-handed metaphor – but more significant is the claustrophobia of the village from any vantage, whether in the pit or in the fanciest inspector’s house.  We follow perhaps the most important character, the youngest boy Ted, when he emerges from the village into the sheep-filled fields above – a journey seldom made by anybody, for some reason – and there is a palpable sense of narrative and readerly relief.  Even while giving us characters we care about, Hill makes the whole atmosphere suffocating and, yes, claustrophobic.

Of these three novellas, I still think The Beacon is the best – but the setting of Black Sheep is probably the most accomplished.  It lacks quite the brilliance of structure which Hill demonstrates elsewhere, and comes nearest to a Hardyesque piling on of unlikely misery, but that can’t really dent the confident narrative achievement readers have come to expect from Hill.  As a follow-on read from Ten Days of Christmas, it was a bit of a shock – but, if you’re feeling emotionally brave, this triumvirate of novellas is definitely worth seeking out.

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And there you have it.  No noticeable link between the two – but my Reading Presently challenge is finished!  I realise it isn’t as interesting for vicarious readers as A Century of Books, because (presumably) it makes no difference to you whether a reviewed book was a gift or a purchase, but I’ve enjoyed seeing what people have recommended over the years.  At the very least, it has assuaged a fair amount of latent guilt!  I still have at least 30 books people have given me, and I’ll be prioritising a few for ACOB 2014, but I’ll also enjoy indulging my own whims to a greater extent.

Appropriately enough, five of my Top Ten Books were gifts, and five were not – considering this year I read 50 books that were gifts and just over 50 that were not (finishing, because of DPhil, headaches, and new job, rather fewer books than usual).  All will be revealed soon, as promised…

Hyperbole and a Half – Allie Brosh

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I think I’ve mentioned the blog Hyperbole and a Half a few times over the years, and it is certainly very popular – it gets millions of views, even though it has slowed down a great deal over the past couple of years, as its author (Allie Brosh) has dealt with depression.  (She has written movingly and rather brilliantly about depression here.)  But generally it is an extremely light-hearted and irreverent blog, detailing Allie’s life through naive MS Paint pictures and snarky, self-deprecating humour.  I love it.

And its success means that Brosh was asked to write a book – which my brother Colin kindly gave me for my birthday.  It’s about half new content and half things which have appeared on her blog before (including my favourite, the story about trying to train her very stupid dog.)

Brosh’s drawings are deliberately made to look amateur, but I think she must actually be quite talented at drawing – it’s the sort of amateur which needs a professional.

I prefer her stories when they are stories – quite a few are more general reflections on her personality, or things of that ilk.  My favourites are those which do just narrate something which happened – getting lost in the woods as a child, wanting to go to a party despite being recovering from a general anaesthetic, moving house with two anxious dogs – because these reveal as much about her personality without losing a narrative momentum.

It’s not very similar to all the other books I review on Stuck-in-a-Book – it’s not even similar to the odd graphic novel I occasionally read – but it is very funny, occasionally incredibly insightful (when she chooses to be in that mood), and a brilliant dip-in-and-out-of book.

A Reader on Reading – Alberto Manguel

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It’s been a good year for finishing books about books.  There was the wonderful Phantoms on the Bookshelves by Jacques Bonnet, which is one of my books of the year and which I read over the course of a couple of days – there was Alberto Manguel’s The Library at Night, and there was his A Reader on Reading.  The Manguels I dipped in and out of contentedly for years – my lovely friend Lorna bought me A Reader on Reading back in 2010 – and it was with a happy sigh that I finally closed its pages a month or so ago.

It’s the sort of book that one inevitably reads with a pencil in hand, wanting to make little notes of agreement in the margins – or at least jot down page numbers to read again later.  Manguel’s work is a touch more high-flown than bookish books I adore (like Jacques Bonnet’s, or Susan Hill’s Howards End is on the Landing) but even when he is discoursing on Argentinian highbrows I’ve never read of, I can’t help loving him – because, at heart, he is simply a passionate reader.

I believe that we are, at the core, reading animals and that the art of reading, in its broadest sense, defines our species.
I had to give up making notes quite early on, because I knew that I’d essentially want to write down every page.  There are literary truths known only to the ardent reader on almost every page.  My head nodded in happy agreement so often that I’ve probably got whiplash (NB, I probably haven’t).  Check out these two:

Like so many other readers, I have always felt that the edition in which I read a book for the first time remains, for the rest of my life, the original one.
(That’s how I feel about I Capture the Castle and the curious 1970s edition I read.)

The experience may come first and, many years later, the reader will find the name to call it in the pages of King Lear.  Or it may come at the end, and a glimmer of memory will throw up a page we had thought forgotten in a battered copy of Treasure Island.  
Of course, having read it over so long a period, I can’t remember all that much apart from the things I jotted down… I know that I ended up skimming some of the stuff on Borges, and was surprised by how interesting I found a political section towards the end.  When he wrote about individual authors and books, I tended only to be riveted when I knew the books myself (and I love that he uses Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland for the source of every chapter’s epigraph) but I was most delighted when he wrote about reading or writing in general.

I realised that if reading is a contented, sensuous occupation whose intensity and rhythm are agreed upon between the reader and the chosen book, writing instead is a strict, plodding, physically demanding task in which the pleasures of inspiration are all well and good, but are only what hunger and taste are to a cook: a starting point and a measuring rod, not the main occupation.  Long hours, stiff joints, sore feet, cramped hands, the heat or cold of the workplace, the anguish of missing ingredients and the humiliation owing to the lack of knowhow, onions that make you cry, and sharp knives that slice your fingers are what is in store for anyone who wants to prepare a good meal or write a good book.

Yes, this post is fast becoming simply a list of quotations, rather than a review, but I think that’s the best way to entice you to read Manguel.  (Plus, I’ve just come off the stage for the village’s Christmas show, and this is the best you can get out of me…!)  And with that in mind, I’ll end with the longest quotation yet – about anonymous authors.

The history of writing, of which the history of reading is its first and last chapter, has among its many fantastical creations one that seems to me peculiar among all: that of the authorless text for which an author must be invented.  Anonymity has its attraction, and Anonymous is one of the major figures of every one of our literatures.  But sometimes, perhaps when the depth and reverberations of a text seem almost too universal to belong on an individual reader’s bookshelf, we have tried to imagine for that text a poet of flesh and blood, capable of being Everyman.  It is as if, in recognizing in a work the expression in words of a private, wordless experience hidden deep within us, we wished to satisfy ourselves in the belief that this too was the creation of human hands and a human mind, that a man or woman like us was once able to tell for us that which we, younger siblings, merely glimpse or intuit.  In order to achieve this, the critical sciences come to our aid and do their detective work to rescue from discretion the nebulous author behind the Epic of Gilgamesh or La Vie devant soi, but their laborus are merely confirmation.  In the minds of their readers, the secret authors have already acquired a congenial familiarity, an almost physical presence, lacking nothing except a name.
Thankfully Manguel isn’t anonymous, so I can go out and buy other books by him – and the hardback editions of his essays are simply beautiful.  Despite being a die-hard fiction lover, I think my dream books are non-fiction literary essays – which are essentially what blogs are, of course.  My little shelf of books-about-books may not be as extensive or as personal as the wide (and widening) blogosphere, but it holds almost as special place in my heart, and I long to find well-crafted examples to add to it.