2010s

Let Not The Waves of the Sea – Simon Stephenson

StuckinaBook All , 8 Comments

Jackie recently posed an interesting question about whether or not there had been any books published in 2011 which were destined to become modern classics.  I wasn’t much help… because I’ve only read three books published in 2011 (which is two more than I initially thought) – two novels (The Tiny Wife and A Kind Man) and one brilliant work of non-fiction, which I’m going to write about today: Let Not The Waves of the Sea by Simon Stephenson.

Quite of few of you were moved by this article, which I linked to a few months ago.  It’s by Simon Stephenson, about losing his brother in the 2004 tsunami, and acts as a very touching introduction to Let Not The Waves of the Sea.  It made me want to read Stephenson’s book (which John Murray had sent me, and was stashed in a pile somewhere) mostly because so few books, fiction or non-fiction, centralise the fraternal relationship or pay respect to the bond between brothers.

Dominic Stephenson was 27 when he and his girlfriend Eileen were killed while staying on the island of Ko Phi Phi in Thailand.  I’m sure we all remember the images and videos which were shown around the world – so shocking and appalling an event, which killed nearly a quarter of a million people, is difficult to comprehend.  Stephenson notes in the afterword to Let Not The Waves of the Sea that two people died for every word that is in the book, which brings it home a little.  But this enormous tragedy was a million personal tragedies, and Stephenson’s book is the result of just one of these.

This is not the sort of book I usually feature on Stuck-in-a-Book, where I am more likely to mention the casualties of the Second World War than the victims of a 21st century natural disaster.  But even if this sounds like something you would never choose, can I encourage you to read on – Let Not The Waves of the Sea is a truly spectacular book.  I am conscious of the need to write about it carefully and respectfully, and it feels almost offensive to make any sort of value judgement about so personal and painful a book.  But by publishing it, Stephenson obviously invites others to join him on his path – and Let Not The Waves of the Sea widens its scope beyond that of a grieving brother – or, rather, we see the widening path that leads the brother through grief.

Stephenson starts with the events leading of December and January 2004, as the news unfolds and the waiting game begins – his family had to wait some time for Dominic’s body to be identified, as the quotation below explains, and it is a moving exploration of one stage of grief:

It seems impossible that my brother could have left in such a way, even more so that he might have done so without telling me, that I will never now exchange another word with the only soul that was built from the exact same pieces as mine.  It seems impossible, and so at a certain point I once again simply stop believing that he is dead.  In this new world of chaos it seems no more implausible than any other explanation, and each day that passes without a call to say his body has satisfied the identification requirements only reinforces this.  Stories are how I have been earning my living lately and it seems clear to me that fate is playing this one with a twist: the dental records did not match because of any problem with the nomenclature, but because they were being compared to somebody else’s teeth; the body lying in the funeral home in Thailand is not Dominic’s, but that of a thief who stole his wallet shortly before the water arrived.  Dominic is safely marooned on an island or lying in a hospital somewhere with his transient but utterly fixable amnesia.  Soon a passing ship will spot his signal fire.  Soon he will come to and recall everything with a start.  Soon his name will light up on my phone and I will answer it to hear a voice that asks, “Alright, Si?”
But the phone call that arrives in the middle of March is not this one that I have again started to expect.  A fingerprint on a glass the police officers took from the kitchen of their flat has proven a match and the criteria have been satisfied.  Dominic really is dead, and his body is to be flown home overnight.

Let Not The Waves of the Sea is, however, far from being simply a diary of those awful days.  The blurb notes that the book ‘is something more than a book about what it means to lose a brother: it is a book about what it means to have one in the first place.’  The article I linked to at the top explores some of this aspect – Simon was 16 months younger than Dominic, and they seem to have always been close.  Even if tragedy had not darkened the Stephensons’ lives, this book would be a beautiful paean to brotherhood and childhood – in amongst arrangements for funerals and travel, Simon relates anecdotes they shared, from his earliest days to school days to the time they spent together at university.  There are plenty of memoirs which relate romances, many which document parental or filial affections, but very few which show how important siblings can be.  I’m sure Simon and Dominic argued and fought, but – even if Simon laments never having spoken it aloud –  they never doubted their mutual love.

But Let Not The Waves of the Sea adds another dimension to these facets – Simon, understandably, wants to visit Ko Phi Phi.  In the end he stays there for months, and returns for several anniversaries of the event.  His book becomes also the documenting of his travels, getting to know the locals and forming the deep friendships which can exist only between those who have suffered the same pain.  Foremost amongst these is Ben, a Thai man who lost his wife and daughters, and deals with grief in a way entirely different from Simon.  Although (as you know) I don’t usually read travel writing, Simon’s journey was far more than geographical – and the things he does and learns on the island are engrossing – sad, but with that irony of good coming out of bad.  Still, some of his experiences continue to be unsettling in new ways – the everyday can never be quite everyday, in a place still recovering from the extraordinary.  Here, Simon sees a bone which has washed ashore:

It is down on the water’s edge, nestled in seaweed and bleached by the sun, the tapering downstroke of a brilliant white exclamation mark.  I pick it up and turn it over in my hand: three inches by one half inch, S-curved along its long axis and gently bowed across its short one, it is a perfect match for the clavicle of a young child.
I tell myself that there are a hundred other creatures this bone could have come from, and yet when it comes to it find that I can name at most three: a dog, a cow, perhaps a goat, though in truth I have never seen either of the latter on Phi Phi, where even dogs are a rarity.  I run my finger along it, trying to think of reasons why it cannot be human, trying to recall my anatomy lectures from medical school, as if there were some fact that, if I only could remember it, would allow me to discard it.
I wish that I had not noticed it, wish I had not picked it up, wish that I could simply throw it back into the sea, but I cannot.  It might be nothing, but there is a chance that even such a single small bone could yield all the information that a family ever gets.  I wrap it in a tissue and put it in my pocket.

The book doesn’t always make for the easiest reading.  I cried pretty much every time I picked it up – including when I was reading it on the bus, in a cafe, and in a quiet ten minutes at work.  Partly that’s because my worst nightmare is something happening to my own brother – partly it’s because Simon invites us to join him in his journey.  Horrible expression, much overused by reality TV programmes, but it is fitting – literally and figuratively, the reader goes on Simon’s journey: around the world, through all the stages of grief, into his happy memories – and through two other medical crises he has to face along the way.  Note how I have unconsciously changed from calling the author ‘Stephenson’ to calling him ‘Simon’?  That’s the sort of closeness that develops, without ever feeling mawkish or as though the reader is intruding or rubber-necking.

And the title, Let Not The Waves of the Sea?  It comes from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, a sort of fable composed of essays (it seems) which was beloved by Dominic.  This passage provides the title, and were the words Simon read at his brother’s funeral:

Let not the waves of the sea separate us now, and the years you have spent in our midst become a memory.
You have walked among us a spirit, and your shadow has been a light upon our faces.
Much have we loved you. But speechless was our love, and with veils has it been veiled.
Yet now it cries aloud unto you, and would stand revealed before you.
And ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation. 
It is often said that first-time authors put everything into their book – with novels, this is meant is a criticism.  Every idea is thrown in, to the detriment of the structure and unity required of fiction.  With non-fiction, with Let Not The Waves of the Sea, putting everything in is what makes Stephenson’s book so special.  It is not a memoir, not a travelogue, not a work of philosophy – or, rather, it is all of these things.  Let Not The Waves of the Sea is a response to grief and the outworking of it – this book is as full and varied and complex as the life it commemorates, and I consider it a privilege to have been able to read it.

The Tiny Wife – Andrew Kaufman

StuckinaBook All , 6 Comments

Rebecca at The Friday Project, an imprint of Harper Collins, very kindly sent me a copy of a teeny tiny book called The Tiny Wife, by Andrew Kaufman – who is apparently famous for All My Friends are Superheroes, of which I have to confess ignorance.  It immediately ticked a lot of boxes for me.  (1) it’s short, (2) it’s fantastic-but-not-fantasy, and (3) it has attractive silhouettey pictures which remind me of that wonderful scene in the penultimate Harry Potter film where the story of the Deathly Hallows is told.

The novella kicks off with a bank robbery – of sorts.  As the opening lines say:

The robbery was not without consequences.  The consequences were the point of the robbery.  It was never about money.  The thief didn’t even ask for any.  That it happened in a bank was incidental.  It could have just as easily happened in a train station or a high school or the Musée d’Orsay.
The thief takes, instead, takes the item of the greatest sentimental value to each person – be it a photograph, a watch, a Camus book or even a calculator.  The thief explains that these objects contain some of their possessors’ souls.

“Listen, I’m in a bit of a rush, so let me conclude.  When I leave here, I will be taking 51 percent of your souls with me.  This will have strange and bizarre consequences in your lives.  But more importantly, and I mean this quite literally, learn how to grow them back, or you will die.”
And he’s quite right.  The strange consequences occupy most of the rest of this slim volume.  One woman’s lion tattoo leaps from her ankle and chases her everywhere, a man’s office fills with water, another man’s mother keeps subdiving into smaller versions of herself… and Stacey, the tiny wife of the title, is gradually shrinking.  She and her husband, who occasionally takes the first-person narrative, must discover how to halt the process.

I loved the idea, as I said.  It’s just the kind of off-the-wall thing I like when I’m not curled up with a cosier 1930s novel.  And I did enjoy it – Kaufman obviously has an incredible imagination, and even a touch of sentimentality which is all too often missing from surreal works (the final line of The Tiny Wife is brilliant).  His style is great – deadpan in the way I love.  The more fantastic a story is, the more matter-of-fact the writing should be.  Yet sometimes the story itself all seemed a bit too off-the-wall – as though he were putting down the next zany idea to pop into his head.  The overall concept was great, but the details didn’t seem to wholly cohere – why were certain things happening in relation to certain objects being given?  What role did the thief play?  I don’t need everything to be explained in a book, far from it, but I like to know that the author has everything under control – that his imagination won’t escape his grasp.  Take the ur-text of all fantastic books, for example: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.   It’s totally mad, nothing makes sense or seems to relate to anything else – but somehow Lewis Carroll weaves a distorted internal logic throughout, and is obviously in control.

But it’s a faint criticism of a short, enjoyable (mad) read – I would love to read more of Kaufman’s work, and I can only see him getting better.

Others who got Stuck into it:
“Fun, cute, quirky and well worth a read.” – Boof, The Book Whisperer

“[…]what might have come across as overly whimsical instead becomes real, and carries the dramatic weight of a problem to be solved[…]” – David, Follow the Thread

Our Vicar’s Wife: Mr. Briggs’ Hat

StuckinaBook All , 9 Comments

Back in the spring my Mum/Our Vicar’s Wife/Anne featured in My Life in Books series chez Stuck-in-a-Book. The whole first series can be read if you click on the icon over there somewhere —–> and clicking on the link just above will take you to OVW’s particular one. OVW got a very enthusiastic response that week, and I’ve been hoping since then that she’d pen me a review for the blog. The good people of Little Brown kindly sent a review copy of Mr. Briggs’ Hat by Kate Colquhoun off to OVW and, without further ado, here are her thoughts. (As always, when I’m featuring friends’ and relations’ reviews, I expect my lovely, loyal blog readers to welcome them with open arms. This won’t be difficult with such a familiar figure as OVW, I’m sure).

Mr Briggs’ Hat by Kate Colquhoun: ‘A sensational account of Britain’s first Railway Murder’

From the moment I picked up Mr Briggs’ Hat I knew I was set on a truly Victorian quest. The dust jacket, with its ‘bloodstains’, black and red print, period font and perspective railway track was clearly going to draw the reader back to a time of sensational news reporting, embryonic police detection, circumstantial evidence and the hurly burly of 1864 London.

I settled into an armchair and began to read.

First, my eye was caught by a map of central London as it was in 1862. Smudged and dark, it was dominated by the river Thames, with narrow streets and alleys leading away into unknown territory. Having spent the past year researching into life in the London of this period I knew what I was likely to meet – but nothing prepared me for the matter of fact description of the ‘blood-drenched’ railway carriage on page 12. I read on, intrigued by the mixture of detective novel and historical guide to London. It wasn’t entirely clear to me whether Kate Colquhoun sought to give a factual description of events or whether what she had in mind was something in the line of a ‘Penny Dreadful’.

I read on.

The story is quite simple. Blood is found in a railway carriage. Murder appears to have been done, but no body is to be found. The only tangible clue is a somewhat battered hat. Upon this hat the entire plot pivots. Gradually details emerge about the victim. Against a background of respectable middle class contrasted with working class teetering into abject poverty and vice, the canvas is painted, the crime uncovered and then the race is on to find the murderer – or murderers. Everything hangs upon the circumstantial evidence of the hat – where it was bought, who bought it, who modified it, who left it in the carriage. As the police detective painstakingly works against the clock, a series of red herrings confuse the issue. The reader rises and falls with every new clue, new sighting, new evidence, new revelation or disappointment.

There is a phenomenal amount of detail in the book. Kate Colquhoun cannot be accused of skimping on her research. Perhaps from time to time there is a hint of repetition, a smidgen of ‘overkill’ in her style, but for the main part the author succeeds in maintaining the sense of a whodunit, rather than falling back into a less engaging stylistic form.

Halfway through the book I had a moment of uncertainty: was I reading fact or fiction? I turned to my husband for enlightenment. “Have you read the notes?” he asked.

Some people always flip to the end of a book before going to the front. I am not one of them. Others always look for a Contents page and muse long and hard upon it. Not I. If I had been either of these people it would have been obvious from the start that this was, if not a non-fictional historical account of the murder, at the very least a ‘factional’ one – with the very great quantity of fact made palatable by an excellent understanding of the need for narrative drive.

The notes are extremely helpful. Highlighted words and phrases from numbered pages enable the reader to unpick the finer detail. However, with nothing in the main text to hint at this largesse, it was lost on me during my first reading.

The case itself was of great interest to me as it contributed to significant changes in the law regarding the right of prisoners to speak in their own defence. I was particularly struck by the court scenes and the limitations of evidence at that time. I was also interested to see the prejudices at work at the time. With the rabble almost taking over the city every time there was a public hanging, it could be said that this book chimes with the spirit of summer 2011.

Did the power of public opinion make for a fair trial? Did the press conspire to rouse the feelings of the public against one man? Was nationality or class or level of education to blame for a miscarriage of justice? Did the representative of the Church tell the truth, or did he conspire with the powers that be in order to maintain the wider calm?

Read the book. Make up your own mind. Or not, as the case may be.

Mr Briggs’ Hat is published by Little Brown. They describe it as NON-FICTION.

Do you agree?

You can bring your dog

StuckinaBook All , 27 Comments

Not often that I give posts Tori Amos song titles, but it was the first thing that popped into my head when I put Mr. Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt in front of me. I was lucky enough to meet Rebecca Hunt a couple of weeks ago at a Penguin bloggers/authors event. For a lovely write-up of the day, check out Sakura’s post or Annabel’s or David’s or Hayley’s. All of which makes me think perhaps I should have written something about it myself. Oops. I will say that, for someone who wrote a book about depression, Rebecca was hilarious. I hope the wine I’d drunk on an empty stomach didn’t make me think *I* was too hilarious. Onto Mr. Chartwell…


The man in question is not, in fact, a man – but a dog. Winston Churchill famously referred to his depression as his ‘black dog’ – Hunt imagines what it would be like if Churchill had not been speaking metaphorically; what if there really was a black dog, visible only to those he afflicts? Mr. Chartwell (also known as Black Pat, although neither is his actual name – which is never revealed) is that dog. He also read a guide about the dog behavior training to know more about how dog behaves and how it will helps to cope from depression.

It’s 1964 and Churchill is 89 years old, and about to retire. Not far away, in Battersea, House of Commons librarian Esther Hammerhans has advertised for a lodger to live with her, and is awaiting his arrival. It won’t surprise you to learn that the lodger in question turns out to be… Mr. Chartwell. He is incredibly tall (and stands upright), he speaks English perfectly, and more or less his only canine vice is a propensity to eat anything and everything, usually in a peculiarly disgusting, slobbery manner. Reluctantly, Esther lets him stay.

This might all sound a bit fey. The anthropomorphism of animals is usually rather whimsical, or at least diverting, but in Mr. Chartwell it’s really something that we should come to terms with as quickly as possible, and then carry on. And there is certainly nothing fey about Mr. Chartwell. He is, if anything, menacing – but not aggressive or threatening, rather he is persistent. Whenever Churchill tells him to leave, it is acknowledged between them that Mr. Chartwell leaving is never really a possibility. He is an unwelcome companion, but a companion nevertheless.

Esther thought about Michael in here with this dog, trapped with him, already trapped when they first met. “And you’re going to trap me too.” She recalled the day he moved in, her gullibility. “This is an ambush.”

“No, it’s an affinity. I didn’t initiate it.” From behind the desk Black Pat said, “The magnet that keeps me here is the magnet which brought me here. We are twinned by the same orbit and I’m all yours, Esther, I’m all yours.” He said hopefully, “Don’t you like me even slightly?”Michael, by the way, is Esther’s late husband. His story slowly unwinds through the novel, as pieces are filled in, so I shan’t spoil it for you here.

Such are the bare bones of the narrative, and it is a simple story really – with an innovative central idea which permits simplicity. Indeed, to overcomplicate the novel would have been a big mistake. As it was, I could have done with less of Esther’s colleague Beth and Beth’s husband Big Oliver. They were something of a distraction.

What Hunt has done brilliantly, and originally, is capture the claustrophobia of depression. The idea of a hot, heavy, relentless dog lying across one’s body might not be medically accurate, but it certainly conjures up an idea of what living with depression might be like. And yet, Mr. Chartwell is not a distressing novel. There is a lot of humour flowing through it, especially from Mr. Chartwell himself – who is not a wholly repugnant character by any means. Relentless, yes, but also somehow seductive. Not in a romantic way, of course, but through his dogged (no pun intended) charisma.

I don’t know anything about Churchill, really, beyond what everyone grows up knowing. I don’t know whether or not his character and his dialogue are written convincingly – other people will be able to say, perhaps. I’m not sure it really matters. Churchill is useful as the originator of the ‘black dog’ expression, but his character could have been anyone who experienced both success and depression. Even without the ‘hook’ of Churchill, Hunt has written a strikingly original debut novel, and I’m looking forward to seeing what could possibly come next. And Rebecca, if you’re reading, I still want the chandelier we were arguing over.

Never let it be said, gentle readers, that I do not think of you. There was a free-for-all at Penguin’s table of free books, but (a) I had already asked lovely Lija for a copy of Mr. Chartwell, and (b) there seemed to be lots of spare copies – so I grabbed one to offer up as a giveaway copy. So, as a reward for reading this far, simply pop your name in the comments for a chance to win a copy (open worldwide) – actually, let’s make it a little bit more exciting. I want to know the name (and species) of your first pet – if you’ve never had one, then what would you call one. Get commenting…

A Little More Than Kin

StuckinaBook All , 4 Comments

You know how I love novellas – the shorter and punchier the better – and might have noticed that I was impressed by Susan Hill’s The Beacon. Indeed, it’s my Bloggers’ Book of the Month choice for February, at the Big Green Bookshop in Wood Green.

That made me pretty excited when Hill announced that her latest novella was coming out – A Kind Man is obviously being marketed in a similar style to The Beacon (although, tut tut Chatto and/or Windus for putting an apostrophe in Howards End is on the Landing on the dustjacket. You win back some of those points for Mark McEvoy’s cover image. And for sending me a review copy – thanks!) If it could be as good as The Beacon, then I was very keen to read it. Also, fact fans, A Kind Man was published fifty years to the day after Hill’s debut novel. Gosh!

A Kind Man is something of a deceptive title, for most of the novella, as we actually see the world through the eyes of that man’s wife, Eve. In fact, the narrative opens with Eve making a solitary trip to an isolated graveyard – as the reader soon suspects, to visit the grave of her daughter, who died at three years old. We then move back to Eve’s family, and her courtship with Tommy – the kind man of the title – is outlined, as is their marriage. Tommy’s kindness is almost his only attribute, and certainly the most distinctive. He is made almost characterless in his ordinariness – rarely do we see anything from his perspective. This, of course, makes it all the more striking when we do; for instance, this excerpt from towards the end of the novel, retelling an event we had already seen from Eve’s perspective very early on:

As he had grown up he had watched the young men around him find girls and make them wives and start families and had naturally felt that he would do so too but not understood how to choose. He had looked at some and they were pretty, at others and they were pert, at the ones with kind faces and the hard ones, the laughing ones, the sad and those old before they had had time to be young, but walking by the canal he had seen Eve and she was different. How she was and why and what made him know it, he had wondered every day since.
I do not want to spoil this novella. Too many reviews give too much away. Plot is not the only reason to read fiction, far from it, but the novella which spins on an axis around a central point should not have that point disclosed from the outset; it tips the story off-balance. Suffice to say that is outside of the ordinary, although Hill wisely does not allow it to change the style or genre of the work. If the event would have performed better in a novel by Barbara Comyns (oh, how I would love to have read Comyns’ take on it!) then that is not Hill’s fault; I can’t think of any novelist who can approach the outlandish in so calm and involving a way as Comyns. Hill, however, finds the moral dilemmas caused by the strange and unusual (a thing Comyns would never do) and these form a central force of this beautifully forceful book.

Although this strange event would dominate most novels, and lingers longest in the mind, I think Hill is actually rather stronger at the more simple depictions of grief and mourning. These are emotions she dealt with brilliantly in In the Springtime of the Year, and in A Kind Man they play central roles, and are again shown convincingly and movingly – although (as is right) with a different slant from that previous novella. Everyday life and the dynamics of Eve being a wife, a sister, a daughter, a villager – these are the bread-and-butter of any work of fiction, and Hill is expert at them. I love Hill’s appreciation of the countryside, which comes through in occasional unusual and evocative phrases.

As she rounded the peak, she looked up and ahead to the far slope where the sheep were with their lambs, dozens of them scattered about the hillside like scraps of paper thrown up in the air and allowed to settle anywhere.If these strengths fade into the background once the twist of the novella arrives, that is to be expected – but we should not forget how rare it is to find a novelist who excels at both unexpected, and more predictable, narrative events. Far too rare.

A Kind Man is sombre and wise; it is almost delicate in its subtlety, but at its depth is a fable as sturdy as they come. Sorry to be vague about it, but you’ll thank me once you’ve read it. No other pen but Susan Hill’s could have written this novella in this way – and I hope there will be more in the same mould.

There is nothing like a…

StuckinaBook All , , 4 Comments

I mentioned yesterday that I’d only finished one book in 2011, and that I’d be writing about it soon. Well, I’ve now finished two, and I’m going to write about the one I finished last night – because it’s rather easier to write about than Howards End, which I feel I should Think About Properly.

No insult to Dame Judi Dench, but I don’t feel I need to think so vigilantly about her book And Furthermore. (And, before I forget, thank you Becca for giving it to me for my birthday!) Well, we should be clear from the start – this is John Miller’s book, written after (presumably lengthy) conversation with Dench. He wrote her biography, and has turned Dame J’s anecdotes into book-form here. The brief diary she includes from her own pen, about attending the Oscars, reveals that she is no natural writer – but, then, she doesn’t pretend to be. But she couldn’t have picked a better man to write things down for her. One of the most amusing things about watching Miller and Dench in conversation back in 2004 was that he knew her life so much better than she did. Judi would refer vaguely to doing a play somewhere in the mid ‘sixties, for example, and Miller would know the venue, year, date, cast… bizarre!

And Furthermore is, essentially, a collection of anecdotes. For those of us who have read Judi Dench: with a crack in her voice by John Miller, they aren’t all new – but no matter. It covers Dench’s acting career – primarily in the theatre – and only occasional mention is made of her private life, and her childhood is covered in a handful of pages. As a rule, a biography focuses on the career and an autobiography on the childhood – or so I have found – so it’s nice to have an autobiography which looks mostly at the area which interests me most. Because it is Dench’s decades of theatrical experience which captivate me – each play seems to come with its own amusing or intriguing incidents, and I love the atmosphere conveyed of being part of the company. It’s a little secret of mine, but – were my talents different, and my life headed in a different direction – I’d love to be an actor. I can’t act, and I’m not confident or energised enough, so this is no genuine ambition – but I love reading about repertory companies and imagining being in one. TV and film acting doesn’t have the same appeal, in my eyes – it is the theatre that I love reading about.

And Dench doesn’t hesitate to call theatre her first love. It is through other media that I have mostly seen her – I love or admire As Time Goes By, Cranford, Iris, Mrs. Henderson Presents, Notes on a Scandal, and so on and so forth – but I have had the privilege to see Judi once on stage, in All’s Well That Ends Well. I think being alive while she is performing, and not seeing her, would be an absurd abuse of the possibility that future generations will envy. That’s how I feel about Mrs. Patrick Campell, Margaret Rutherford, Peggy Ashcroft – none of whom, of course, I had the opportunity to see. And I am determined to see Maggie Smith on the stage, if she ever returns to it. Sorry, I’m getting distracted… What I intended to do was segue into this quotation:
I am so often asked, ‘Does the audience make any difference?’ Of course! It is the only reason you bother to be in the theatre, in order that tonight it can be better than last night, that you can crack something that you haven’t yet, that this audience will be quieter, that this audience really will at the end think they have had a marvellous experience, and you have told the author’s story. I always get that very depressed feeling at the end, and then miraculously a night’s sleep somehow prepares you for doing it a step up the next day.With any autobiography, it is the author’s personality that comes across. This is mediated here, of course, by Miller – but I still think the reader can get a little closer to Judi Dench than in a biography. She is perhaps a little sharper than might be expected, a little keener to have control over performances – but what struck me most was her deep sensibilities for writing. The great actors are also, in a way, the great literary critics. True, they work only on the level of character – but what a deep understanding of character they must have. When Dench says that Hermione would think this, or Beatrice speak thus, or Portia behave in this way, I am impressed by the full and thorough life she can breathe into words on a page.

So – sometimes the anecdotes don’t quite work; there are often punchline-statements which seem a little flat, but these are miniscule quibbles in a wonderful collection of stories and a unique set of experiences. Well, perhaps Dench’s is not a unique perspective (except in the way that any would be) but hers is a highly unusual and significant vantage over more than six decades of the theatre. Even if I did not love Judi Dench – and of course I do – this would be an incredible record of the theatre by one who knows it about as intimately and broadly as anybody possibly could.

But – I shall let Dame Judi have the last word:
Actors are really remarkable people to be with. I love the company of other people, but I love the company of actors, and to be in a company. My idea of hell would be a one-woman show, I wouldn’t be able to do that, I wouldn’t know who to get ready for. The whole idea of a group of people coming together and working to one end somehow is very appealing to me. It is the thing I have always wanted to do, and I am lucky enough to be doing it. You don’t need to retire as an actor, there are all those parts you can play lying in a bed, or in a wheelchair.

Age Cannot Wither Her

StuckinaBook All , 5 Comments

Whilst we’re talking about unusual narrative structures (as we were with Sarah Waters the other day) some months ago I read Remember Remember by Hazel McHaffie, which she very kindly sent to me as a review copy. I find Alzheimer’s sad, terrifying, and fascinating all at the same time, partly from experience within my own family, and I am drawn to writers who can portray dementia well. Or, indeed, any sort of illness or mental state which requires the author to give a wandering narrative voice.

McHaffie’s novel is split into halves. The first is devoted to Jessica and her attempts to grapple with her mother’s (Doris) dementia. Doris is becoming a danger to herself, and Jessica makes the difficult decision to find a residential home for her. Whilst sorting through Doris’ possessions, she makes unnerving discoveries about her mother’s and her own past. Thrown in amongst this intrigue are the everyday stuff of difficult children, unhelpful siblings, and a love interest in the form of Aaron the lawyer. I did wonder a bit whether Aaron was added at the suggestion of an editor, because he didn’t seem quite to fit with the rest of the novel – does every book need a love interest, really? – but we shan’t squabble over him.

To be perfectly honest, all this felt perfectly serviceable, but perhaps a little uninspiring. Documenting the grief and anguish of caring for a mother with dementia is done well, but other people’s grief can only be documented so many times. And, like love, it is all-consuming when one experiences it oneself, and difficult to find captivating when one is not – with the very honourable exception of Susan Hill’s In the Springtime of the Year.

So I was flicking through, thinking Remember Remember a perfectly good – and perfectly ordinary – novel, when the second half launched itself. Suddenly we move from Jessica’s viewpoint into Doris’:
The board says summer. 29 August. A sun, smiling. I smile.
Yellow. I hate yellow.
“You OK, Doris?” a blue lady says as she stomps past.
Doris? Doris isn’t here. But I know where she is. Hiding. Hiding under the shed in our garden. Hiding from Papa.The reader is swept into Doris’ confused and disorientating perspective on the world – and it is confusing and disorientating. This has been done brilliantly elsewhere – I recommend Eric Melbye’s Tru and Margaret Laurence’s The Stone Angel – but, if not quite at their heights, McHaffie offers a unique twist to the narrative of dementia. Each chapter of Doris’ perspective takes a step back in time. To be honest, I never worked out if the time gaps were sequential or cumulative (i.e. did ‘three years earlier’ mean subtract another three years, or simply three years from the present?) but that doesn’t really matter. What McHaffie cleverly presents is a mind, and thus a prose, that gets gradually more and more coherent – the mirror image of a mind disassembling through dementia.

As with Sarah Waters’ novel, there is much that is revealed through this anti-chronology – and I don’t want to spoil anything for potential readers. What I will say to anybody who does pick up Remember Remember is: persevere. The first half may feel a little ordinary, but I think McHaffie was just readying herself for the second half. That’s when things get interesting – in terms of structure, narrative events, and especially narrative voice.

Thanks for sending me your novel, Hazel – and I’m pleased I finally remembered to write about it! And, because I forgot to mention it earlier, a big gold star to Tom Bee, who provided the design and image for the beautiful cover. Give yourself a pat on the back.

Wait For Me!

StuckinaBook All , 33 Comments

I have been reading Wait For Me! by Deborah Devonshire for (approximately) forever. I started it the day it arrived, back in September, but a combination of it being too heavy for my bag, and not being able to cope with the idea of finishing it – not to mention that somewhere towards the middle of each month I realise that I’ve not read the books for either of my book groups, and have six days to do so – mean I only turned the last page earlier this month.

For those of you who won’t get to the end of this post – and it will involve whatever the written equivalent of squawking is – I shall mention now that I have a copy to give away. Tell me your favourite autobiography, in the comments, for a chance of winning. This is open worldwide, so pop your name in. For many reasons to do so, dear reader, read on…

The Mitfords have been of great interest to many from their childhood onwards. They skirted around the outside of my consciousness, with Nancy taking occasional leaps forward, until I read the collection of their letters, expertly edited by Charlotte Mosley. Now – and I suspect most of you know this – I am rather besotted by some of the sisters. Unity and Jessica remain outside my affection, but I rather love the rest, and am devoted to Debo. So much so, that I am going to be hugely unprofessional and refer to her as ‘Debo’ throughout this review.

So, of course, I was delighted when she published her autobiography. Earlier works include collections of articles and musings (Counting My Chickens and Home to Roost) as well as lots of books about her home, Chatsworth, which I haven’t read. Those collections I have read, whilst entertaining and joyous, did little to suggest that Debo would be able to sustain a full-length autobiography. How wrong I was to worry.

Perhaps there isn’t much that will surprise in Wait For Me! Anybody who has read about the sisters before will find they know many of the anecdotes and stories already. What this book brings to the table is Debo’s perspective, and her wonderfully calm way with words. I hadn’t noted down any quotations to share, but having just flicked the book open at random, I came across a paragraph beginning thus:
Unity was always the odd one out. She arrived in this world in August 1914 to the sound of troops marching to war and departed it thirty-four years later in tragic circumstances. Larger than life in every way, she could have been model for a ship’s figurehead or Boadicea, with her huge navy-blue eyes, perfectly straight nose and fair hair worn in two long plaits. Perhaps because of her teenage diet of mashed potatoes, her teeth were her only bad feature.Debo hasn’t allowed familial closeness to cloud her judgement or provoke over-sentimentality; yet, who but a sister would choose those images and those details? Unity, who later befriended Hitler, and tried to kill herself on the outbreak of WW2, comes alive with these much more prosaic details. It is Debo’s complete unflappability which charms me through the account. Nowhere – except, of course, the title – would Debo dream of using an exclamation mark. It would be poor manners to get over-excited about something.

I was worried that Wait For Me! would pall once Debo had left home, and once the sisters were no longer centre stage – but I was wrong. Some of the most moving pages come when Debo describes her husband’s alcoholism, or their miscarriages and stillborn children. This isn’t done remotely gratuitously, or like those ghastly misery memoirs, but truthfully and unsensationally. And it is evident that Debo is far more interested in the businesslike running of Chatsworth than she in the doings of her sisters in their youths – her enthusiasm is contagious.

Don’t worry for my sanity. I am under no delusion that Debo and I could really be friends. My vegetarianism might put paid to that, for a start, let alone our fairly divergent views on hunting. Debo is occasionally unconsciously hilarious – like when, after a chapter devoted to the joys of hunting parties, she writes that ‘a fox came in daylight and murdered [chickens] for fun, as these serial destroyers do.’ Takes a beetle to know a beetle, Debo, m’dear.

But none of this really seems to matter, and it certainly doesn’t stop me adoring Debo and loving her book. Along with the spectacular collection of letters edited by Charlotte Mosley, Wait For Me! is a unique piece of social history, as well as an honest and entertaining personal memoir. The Mitfords are not everyone’s cup of tea (my own dear brother has a violent prejudice against them, based not on their Fascism or Communism, but rather Nancy’s refusal to use air-mail and their nicknaming of the Queen Mother as ‘Cake’) – but Debo’s book confirms that they are very definitely mine. In a china cup and saucer, naturally, with ginger cake on the side.

Box Clever

StuckinaBook All , , 7 Comments

It’s always exciting when you read something completely out of your comfort zone (if you should have such a thing) and you find that you absolutely love it. This happened to me months and months ago when I read Boxer, Beetle by Ned Beauman. Boxing, beetles, Nazis… none of these are on my hitlist of must-haves for books, and yet Beauman’s novel is one of the most interesting and compelling that I’ve read this year. Sadly I didn’t write my thoughts down at the time, and now that it’s actually been published, I’m having to cast my mind far, far back to remember what I thought… with the help of Claire’s review and Lynne’s review! Sorry if I’ve missed others…

Boxer, Beetle flits back and forth between two time periods – in one, trimethylaminuria sufferer and Nazi-paraphernalia collector Kevin (also known as Fishy) is investigating the work of scientist Philip Erskine. Erskine occupies the other time period, in the 1930s, where he encounters Seth “Sinner” Roach. Sinner is a five foot tall Jewish man who, despite his stature, is incredibly good at boxing. Which catches the attention of a man interested in eugenics. Oh, and beetles. Hence the title – alongside investigating Sinner, and paying for the privilege of examining him over a period of time, Erskine is trying to develop a strain of very resilient beetles. As you do. Oh, before I go further, I have to mention the first line – which really grabbed me into the novel, as well as putting a smile on my face:

In idle moments I sometimes like to close my eyes and imagine Joseph Goebbels’ forty-third birthday party.
Well, don’t we all? I should add hear that Kevin isn’t a Nazi sympathiser – nor, of course, is Ned. Kevin collects the memorabilia without having the slightest fascist leaning. Unlike quite a few of those roaming around 1930s London.

But East End London isn’t the only place we see in the 1930s – Erskine whisks Sinner off to a country house, and the family of his fiance (I think… as I said, I read it a long time ago) Evelyn. Evelyn is a rather fab character, a composer of atonal, avant-garde music. She makes the mistake of asking Sinner whether he likes avant-garde music (remember, this is the working-class lad who likes beating people up, swearing and joining gangs):
“I’m quite sure you would,” said Evelyn, “I can almost invariably tell.” Evelyn was aware that she didn’t compeltely convince when she made knowing remarks like this, especially to someone like Sinner with that gaze of his, but she didn’t see how her repartee was supposed to gain any poise when she had absolutely nobody to practise on at home. If she tried to deliver a satirical barb at dinner her father would just stare at her until she wanted to cry. And Caroline Garlick’s family were lovely but the trouble was they laughed rather too easily, rather than not at all – it wasn’t quite the Algonquin Round Table. She was convinced that if she had been allowed to go to Paris she would have had lots of practice, and of course me lots of people like this boy, but as it was, if she ever met any genuine intellectuals – or any beyond their neighbour Alistair Thurlow – they would probably think she was hopelessly childish. For about a week she’d tried to take up heavy drinking, since heavy drinkers were so often reputed to be terrific conversationalists, but most of the time she just fell asleep.

This isn’t, to be honest, the main tone of the novel. This humour, and this sort of almost Wodeshousian character, are drowned out by violence and antipathies and all sorts of terrifying things. Sinner is a pretty unremittingly horrible person. But Beauman’s writing is so good, the pace so well judged, and the climax so dramatic that I couldn’t help admiring this novel to the hilt.

It is difficult to get across my enjoyment of this, because I can’t point to any of the characters or any aspects of the plot which appealed. If I were just to read a synopsis of Boxer, Beetle, I’d probably steer well clear. That’s why I’m not going a ‘Books to get Stuck into’ feature today – I just can’t think of anything along the same lines. So you’ll just have to take my word for it, until you get your hands on the novel – Ned Beauman is a very talented writer, and if he can make this novel addictive for me, just imagine what he’s capable of!

For more from Ned Beauman, pop back tomorrow – I’ll be posting an interview he was kind enough to do with me… find out what inspired Boxer, Beetle, what Beauman’s doing next, and a little about his famous mother…

Teasing over…

StuckinaBook All , 17 Comments

Well, that was a bit of a tease, wasn’t it? And it feels a bit fraudulent, because the book in question has already appeared on a few others blogs… but I kept thinking of the Guernsey book and I think folk who enjoyed that will also enjoy this… right, enough hinting. Step forward… Mr. Rosenblum’s List by Natasha Solomons!

Sceptre very kindly gave me a copy of this at an authors/bloggers party, but unfortunately I didn’t manage to speak to Natasha Solomons whilst there, and now I wish I had because anybody who could write this novel must be worth knowing.

Mr. Rosenblum’s List – or Mr. Rosenblum Dreams in English if you’re looking for copies in America – has the subtitle Friendly Guidance for the Aspiring Englishman, which should give you a clue as to the book’s contents.

Jakob and Sadie Rosenblum are German Jewish refugees, escaping Nazi rule and coming to England in 1937 for safety – armed only with While you are in England: Helpful Information and Friendly Guidance for every Refugee. Jakob is incredibly keen to assimilate, and starts off by changing his name to Jack. He tries to work out what it means to be English (yes, not British, Dark Puss!) and how to fit in – adding his own bits of advice to the handbook. For example, to the rule that refugees ought always to speak English even if haltingly, he adds ‘And do not talk in a loud voice. (Unless talking to foreigners when it is the done thing to shout.)’ Of course, assimilating isn’t easy – and Solomons very wittily manages to show the Rosenblums’ difficulties without making either them or the English appear foolish. In fact, she is incredibly affectionate in both directions. It takes an intimate and thorough knowledge of the English to show these misunderstandings and misapprehensions, and Solomons (as a Dorset girl) is well able to provide.
When the Rosenblums were waiting anxiously in Berlin for their British visas, Jack had prepared for the trip by reading Byron’s poems and a Polish translation of P.G. Wodehouse. He understood only a little Polish and read the adventures of Mr. Bertie Wooster with the help of a German-Polish dictionary. It all got rather lost in translation, and the novel appeared to him a very peculiar sort of book and had dissuaded him from sampling further the pleasures of English literature.The bulk of the novel takes place eight years after World War Two. The Rosenblums have become wealthy through a carpet factory, and have relocated to Solomons’ own county Dorset (which leads to Somerset-bashing which I’ll tolerantly overlook!) Despite Jacks’s best efforts, they have not fully assimilated. Sadie is content to remember her German roots, but Jack wants them forgotten – and wants to make his daughter Elizabeth, studying at Cambridge, proud. Having almost completed his list of English attributes, there is just one item he can’t achieve: join a golf course. None will have him, once they see his surname. His solution? Why, to build his own, of course. It will be the best in the South West, and it will be in his back garden. Ignoring the unsuitability of the terrain – and the fact that he has never so much as swung a golf club – Jack ploughs all his energy, time, and money into creating this golf course… but the path of golf never did run smooth. And this is what most of Mr. Rosenblum’s List focuses upon.

Although there is a lot of humour in the novel, like Guernsey there are moments which are moving. Perhaps not to the same extent as Guernsey, where tragedy is given its own story arc, but the following section I found poignant: At the side of the house the garden reverted to scrub; the hedgerows crept forward and brambles and bright yellow gorse bushes made it impassable. The stinging nettles were five feet tall. yet butterflies landed on them effortlessly, somehow never getting stung. Sadie neither planted nor weeded; Hitler had declared the Jews weeds and plucked them out wherever he found them. She knew that a plant was only a weed if unwanted by the gardener, so she refused to move a single one, and they sprouted up wherever the wanted.Moving, no?

The Rosenblums persevere with their golf course – or rather, Jack does, as Sadie remembers her past. There is a heart-breaking scene with some photos, which I won’t spoil. Jack encounters resistance from many quarters, but also an unexpected and unusual ally in the most Dorset man in the village…

Although I often got frustrated with Jack for wasting so much money and being inconsiderate to his wife, it’s impossible not to love him. He’s a 5’3” bundle of enthusiasm and determination, unquashable and passionate. Although I could have done without the Dorset Woolly-Pig, which seemed all a bit silly, overall I thought Solomons’ debut novel was really delightful. Perhaps a little more light-hearted than Guernsey, but an interesting angle on post-war life nonetheless – and definitely something you’ll want to be reading this summer. I’m often positive about the novels featured here, so when something really special comes along I don’t know how to say “this is even BETTER than usual!” but, er, hopefully I just did… And word has it, on Solomons’ blog, that she’s been writing a screenplay…

Books to get Stuck into:

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – Mary Ann Shaffer: well, given the build up to today’s review, this one is hardly a surprise, is it?

Watching the English – Kate Fox: although this is pop-anthropology, rather than a novel, it’s the other book I kept being reminded of while reading Solomons’ – because it has a similarly affectionate view of the Englishman’s foibles and eccentricities.