BOOK BOOK by Fiona Farrell
Read a brief biography of the author and you will find a most versatile writer who has written novels, short stories, plays and poetry. She has received a number of literary awards and held a number of residences. Fiona Farrell is one of NZ's most prolific and successful writers, and it all started in Oamaru, home of the more famous Janet Frame. I don't know from reading this book how much is fact and how much is fiction. But it is clear that much of this book is autobiographical. And at the centre of it all is her love of books and reading, and how they are closely associated with events in her life as they unfold.
The story is told in the third person being Kate, a child growing up in Oamaru with her family, her school days, teen years, going to university in Dunedin, falling in love, marrying, travelling to and living in Oxford, then Canada, having babies and rearing children, returning to New Zealand and onto middle age. Which is where the story opens. Kate is sitting reading books from her father's bookshelves, a book about ancient wars in Persia, while a modern day war is also happening in the same part of the world. There are parallels of course between the ancient war and the modern war.
The book then reverts to Kate's childhood and all sorts of books, fact and fiction, from all eras form the backbone to Kate's life. Kate/the author has a very deep love and almost spiritual bond with the books that have shaped her life, and this shines through. What also comes through very strongly is the post-war 1950s childhood and growing up in small town New Zealand, at a time when New Zealand is finding its own identity in the big world, and dealing with the aftermath of WWII. A number of other themes emerge as Kate grows up - university education for women, rise of feminism, mothers and daughters, career vs babies. The one that stayed with me the most was Kate's search for her own identity, particularly when she is in Oxford with her husband, as a 'colonial' in the 'home' country.
I found this whole book very moving. Reading about many of the books in the novel was like meeting old friends, and I can more than relate to Kate's love of and need for reading to keep her grounded and able to deal with the world around her.
A WEEK IN DECEMBER by Sebastian Faulkes
Two weeks before Christmas in 2007 in London the wife of a newly-elected MP is organising a large dinner party for those who are wealthy, or influential, or up-and-coming, or just simply different enough to be important to her husband's career. The husband never actually features in the novel, and the wife exists solely as the mechanism to bring these people together. In fact the invitation list has a very disparate bunch of people, the novel centering on several of them in this particular week. It seems as if the list has been devised to show the MP's wide and varied interests because it is difficult to see how this group of people would really have anything in common!
Anyway the dinner party is due to happen at the end of the week. Meantime there is seven days to get through. Amongst others there is a young man, Scottish by birth of Pakistani Muslim parents who have been invited to the dinner. The parents are the immigrant success story having made their fortune with lime pickles. The son, however seems to be spending far too much time exploring his Islam roots. Then there is Gabriel, a young not-so-successful lawyer, and his latest client, Jenni, who is a tube train driver with a rather fractured life history. There is also R Tranter who is a very successful if embittered and disillusioned book reviewer; John Veale, a most unlikeable character who has made millions and millions from hedge funding, and is in the middle of the deal of his life. Then there is the recent import to the local premier league soccer club, all the way from the hard life in Poland.
So what do all these people have in common? Very little if anything, except they are simply all living their lives in London this particular week. So what ia the novel about then? What ties all these people together? It is everything that makes up the First World, materialistic, consumer-oriented society we live in. From social networking, to religious fanaticism, to obsession with celebrity, mental illness, social isolation, family dysfunction, the list goes on. It is, therefore, a novel of social commentary, and Faulkes does not have very nice things to say about the type of society we have become. This message comes through loud and clear, but not so cleverly that Faulkes is still able to give us a great story, with complicated characters and lots of interlinking threads. I must say though that I was getting a bit glassy-eyed reading the intricacies and details of hedge funding and making money out of nothing.
THE ELEPHANT WHISPERER by Lawrence Anthony
I have never really been big on reading animal related books. I remember reading 'My Family and Other Animals' by Gerald Durell many years ago (when I was 12) because we had to do a book review of an 'adult' book. I was mildly amused by it, but never really felt 'engaged' with it. I have always had a cat or two or three in my life, plus we had a dog at one stage, but it has really only been since we have fostering motherless kittens over the past couple of years that I understand the 'art' of communicating with animals. It took a while but it has surprised me how little kittens of 6-8 weeks old have such very individual personalities and how, as a family, we have become 'cat whisperers'. For each pair of kittens the 'socialisation' challenge is get them to purr! Once they purr when we touch them then we know we are on the right track to having potentially gorgeous pets.
Anyway I digress, but all this has made me much more interested in animal type books. So when Sarah at book club raved about a book that her niece had given her about a man who had saved a herd of elephants I was, surprisingly, interested. Having been exposed to elephants in India also piqued my interest.
Elephants are truly incredible animals. I won't say anymore about the wonder of elephants because you need to discover it for yourself by reading this book so you too can be amazed. Lawrence Anthony has spent his whole life in South Africa and its surrounding countries, living mostly in the rural hinterland where he has built up a close and empathetic relationship with the land, the animals and the native Africans. He owns and runs the Thula Thula wildlife reserve in South Africa and finds himself landed with the monumental task of taking on a herd of wild elephants that are under threat of being shot. The enormity of this task is seen in the first 76 pages of the book which focus on getting the elephants safely corralled on the reserve behind 8000 volt fences. From then on Anthony's relationship with the elephants slowly develops and the reader learns a lot about the majesty of these animals. As well as life on a wildlife reserve - the other animals, gaining the trust and confidence of the native Africans, the development of the reserve as a tourist destination. It is all a most enticing mix. And I now want to visit a wildlife reserve in Africa!
As an aside the author was involved in rescuing the animals in the Baghdad Zoo after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. And that is another book in itself. He was gone from Thula Thula for six months, and not once during that time did the elephants come to the Lodge where Anthony and his wife lived. But on the day he returned to the reserve the elephants were waiting at the main entrance gates for him. How did they know? That is the magic...
THE SPELLMAN FILES by Lisa Lutz
On the surface the Spellmans are a very dysfunctional family. 30 year old David, the perfect child, who has 'escaped' by becoming a lawyer; 28 year old Isabel, the lead narrator who is desperately trying to find herself away from her family while she works for the family; and 14 year old Rae, really just a typical teenager trying to find her own place in the big complex world she lives in. Heading the family are Albert and Olivia, the parents, who run a successful private investigation business in San Francisco. Then there is Uncle Ray, ex-cop and health freak who after a cancer scare transforms the way he lives. All these people, in the daily management of their lives and each others as does happen in any family, do the wrong thing for the right reasons. That is, they all love each other desperately, but have mighty peculiar ways of showing it!
Isabel is the narrator. She really is a mess, desperately wanting out of the family firm, but not knowing how to do anything else. Her life is controlled by her over-zealous parents, each with their own peculiarities! The novel jumps around a bit at the beginning as the various characters and their backgrounds are introduced and I found it took a short while to get the drift of what was going on and who was connected with who. But once it got going, this is a rollicking good read, full of witty dialogue, funny happenings, unexpected twists and turns, and full of surprises. Extremely easy and quick to read, and highly entertaining, I look forward to reading the two sequels on my bookshelf. Apparently a movie is being made...I can only hope that it is as witty and sharp as the book!
NED AND KATINA - A TRUE LOVE STORY by Patricia Grace
A few years ago, after the death of Katina, Patricia Grace was approached by Ned and Katina's family to write the story of their love and life together. The result is not only a story of love, but also a story of two ancient cultures coming together, of urbanisation, of war, of families, of the best and worst of humankind, personal courage and above all hope.
Ned came from rural Northland, from a hard-working, self-sufficient Maori family. Katina came from rural Crete, also from a hard-working and self-sufficient family. In 1939, Ned was 20, and he immediately signed up to go to war. He joined the Maori Battalion and before he knew it, he was on his way to Europe with the rest of the Battalion. His war did not last long as he was injured during the assault on Crete. Along with a large number of other New Zealanders and Australians who were left on Crete after the evacuation, he roamed around the island, hiding in caves, trying to stay alive, and one step ahead of the Germans. He (and all the other soldiers) was aided by a number of families on Crete who risked their lives to feed and protect as best as they were able the fugitives. One of the families looking after Ned was Katina's family and very slowly love developed between the two. Ned was captured and spent the latter part of the war as a POW, but he never gave up hope of returning to Crete and marrying Katina. Which of course he did.
The couple sailed back to New Zealand, initially settled in Northland, had three children, moved to the Wellington area where they ran a number of successful businesses, before returning back to the extended family when they were elderly. This can't have been the easiest of marriages especially for Katina who left her roots, travelled to the other side of the world to a country she knew nothing about, alien food, language, culture and so on. This, I think, is the remarkable story, and one that I would like to have learnt more about.
An enormous amount of research has gone into this book and as a result it is extremely interesting, informative, and with plenty of history. There are lots of photos, copies of letters, documents and so on. The author has done a great job of documenting a crucial time in the history of two countries and peoples. And for me, herein lies the problem with this being a 'love story'. I didn't feel like I was reading about 'love'. I felt like I was reading a historical narrative, a report, an account of events. I felt detached from Ned and Katina, I didn't feel involved in their 'love'. There is plenty of courage, bravery, determination, tenacity and hope in this book, but as a reader, I didn't feel involved in it. It goes without saying that Ned and Katina were amazing people, of exceptionally high character and moral courage, and their story is very inspiring to anyone. I just wish I could have felt more involved with them rather than just simply reading about them! Hard to explain...
JULY READING - Trespass; The Night Book; The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest; The Bugatti Queen
THE BUGATTI QUEEN by Miranda Seymour
I know nothing about motor racing, nothing about Bugatti cars, nothing about the racing car drivers of the day and the racing car world, and very little about the lives of the rich and famous in France between the wars. Helene Delange, known publicly as Helle Nice, was one of the most famous, most successful and undoubtedly the most glamorous of them all. From a young age it seems she was destined for great things, born in 1903, just south of Paris, with a determination to escape the small town life that she was born into. She moved to Paris when she was 16 to become a dancer, and quickly found success in the music halls that were so popular. She quickly found a taste too for the glamorous life, with her bright, exhibitionist and risque personality, her beauty and insatiable desire for wealth,fame and men. Her dancing earned her enough money and attention to enter motor racing, cars still being very much the preserve of the very wealthy. She had many suitors and affairs, and one can't help wondering while reading of her numerous lovers,if she really only saw them as a means to an end, ie more fame and money. Her success as a woman racing car driver, of whom there were very, very few, took her to America where her fearlessness and wins turned her into an overnight sensation. By now very famous in the motor racing world, she returned to Europe, and became a regular driver on the Grand Prix circuit. Although she never won a Grand Prix race, she continued to excel with her competitiveness in this male dominated world, at the same time exploiting her femininity for all it was worth. This hedonistic life was brought to a sudden halt with a serious crash in Brazil in 1936, that left her seriously injured and a number of people dead. Although she was cleared of any responsibility for the accident, it weighed heavily on her and she never really got over it. Of course shortly after this, war intervened and effectively her racing career was over. She was by this time very wealthy, but had gotten involved with a much younger man to whom she spent lavishly on in order to retain his affections. Naturally he left and by the time the war was over she had nothing left. She remained in France throughout the war, and found herself accused of collaborating with the German occupiers, although this was never proved. Her final years were spent in poverty, at the mercy of a Paris based charity. By the time she died in the 1980s, she had been forgotten about, estranged from her family who couldn't deal with her notoriety, and buried as a pauper.
Although not a huge book by the standards of a biography, Miranda Seymour has written a very detailed account of a legend in motor racing circles. There is no doubt she was a pioneer, glamorous and beautiful to boot, which always helps, despite what the feminists would say! There is a lot in the book about motor vehicles and racing cars and engines and comparisons between one model over another and so on - petrol head stuff. But if this is not quite your cup of tea, do evere as the story itself is worth reading and very absorbing. Helle Nice was not in the same league perhaps as Jean Batten, but she is definitely the same type of woman.
THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST by Stieg Larsson
This is the third and final story in the Millennium trilogy that began with 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo'. As readers of the previous two would expect, this is also a suspenseful, multi-stranded and complex thriller. I felt like I was reading an octopus with Lisbeth Salander as the body of the octopus, and all the strands and facets of what has become her very complicated life being the tentacles. Unlike the other two parts of the trilogy, she spends most of this story in a hospital bed, maybe that is where I get the idea she is the 'head' around which all the action happens. And boy does it happen. Goodies and baddies abound of course and all weave their complicated threads, the former wanting justice for Lisbeth and to uncover the dark secrets within the Swedish Secret Police; the latter wanting to ensure that Lisbeth remains locked up for the rest of her days. Even though she is bedridden, Lisbeth's unique computer skills once again come to the fore.
I keep trying to think about what has made this trilogy such compelling reading all over the world. There are the classic themes of good vs evil of course, the David and Goliath nature of Mikael/Lisbeth taking on the justice system in the 2nd book and the government in this 3rd book, the large number of strong, smart, positive female characters ranging from Lisbeth to the editor Erika Berger, to the various police officers and detectives and to Mikael's sister who more than delivers when she has her day in court. Plus you just can't get away from the fact that these books are purely and simply superb story telling. And who doesn't like a jolly good story, just like fairy tales when we were children, the goodies won, and the baddies didn't.
THE NIGHT BOOK by Charlotte Grimshaw
I read the author's short story collection 'Opportunity', which won the fiction prize at the NZ Montana Book Awards in 2007, and fell in love with it. Most of my experiences of short stories, especially New Zealand ones, have not been very good, but Ms Grimshaw's stories were, to me, works of art. I loved her observations of human behaviour, I can imagine her quietly watching those around her, visualizing their lives and then weaving her stories which seem to reflect so uncannily the little dramas that make up everyday life. I also enjoyed her follow up 'Singularity', all in the same vein, but just a little more sinister and unsettling.
The author has taken one of the stories in this latter collection, 'The Night Book', and made it the first chapter of the novel of the same name. This short story is the foundation of the novel from which the story unfolds, and is also the cornerstone for both the beginning and ending of the novel.
Simon Lampton is a gynecologist/obstetrician, married to Karen. They are parents of two children, when they foster, then adopt Elke who joins the family when she is about eight years old. Simon comes across as very close to his children, very empathetic to them, and develops a close bond with Elke who like him, is a bit of an insomniac and often sits up with him while he is doing work related stuff, hence the title. By the by, much of the action in the book takes place at night. His wife Karen is not a character who endears herself to the reader, being a bit of a flake, sycophantic, and far too consumed by the material world she lives in. It appears that Simon is not 100% happy with his very fortunate life, is mildly unsettled, and probably sitting on the tip of a mid-life crisis. Karen's best friend and her husband are heavily involved in the political campaign that wants to see the election of a new right-of-center prime minister after some years of left-of-center government. Simon, reluctantly, and Karen, enthusiastically, find themselves slowly pulled into the inner circle of the about to be PM David and his very beautiful, enigmatic wife Roza. The plot unfolds from the initial meeting of Simon and Roza. Simon is immediately attracted to Roza, but is not sure why, and this uncertainty and increasing dissatisfaction with his life takes him on a bit of downward spiral. Roza meanwhile, finds herself spiraling down even further with the pressure on her to be the perfect PM-to-be's wife.
The novel is based in Auckland, mainly in the wealthy eastern suburbs, but also in the poorer suburbs of South Auckland where Simon deals with his own demons. It could of course be any big city in any country in the world, but if you live in Auckland, or know the city well, it is very obvious where it is set. There are a number of events and people in the novel based very closely on real recent events, and I couldn't help comparing her writing of them with the real thing! As usual her writing of human behaviour and interactions is spot on, she writes beautifully of the human condition, the reasons and motivations people have for doing things.
But despite the writing, the book as a complete package just did not fully gel for me. Some days after finishing I still can't put my finger on it, it is almost as if there is too much going on, as if she has tried too hard to make something bigger and deeper than the short stories. And I really did have some trouble with Simon being the deep thinking, totally empathetic, in touch with his feelings kind of guy that the author has created! I just don't seem to know any men like that! Most of the characters are stereotypes of the wealthy eastern suburbs type, social and political climbers, and I really wonder if the author likes the type of people she is writing about. Apart from the one character from the wrong side of the tracks, I didn't actually like any of her characters. Perhaps that is what she set out to do - how too much money, too much time can corrupt the soul.
TRESPASS by Rose Tremain
Trespass - of land by foreigners and by one's own family members; of one's own personal body and personal space; of intruders into one's relationships. Trespass is the underlying theme of this novel. How this violation is dealt with by the various characters makes up the story line and the inevitable conflict that is at the core of any good story.
In the south of France is the mountainous region of the Cevennes. This is not a pretty postcard area of France, but one of rugged, mountains, full of valleys, rivers and forests with tortuous roads made famous by a journey Robert Louis Stevenson took on a donkey over 12 days and 220 kms. This sinister and dark environment is captured perfectly as the backdrop for the sinister and dark goings-on in this novel which centres on two sets of brother and sister, one set French, born and bred in the Cevennes; and the other English, relatively new arrivals to the area.
Aramon and Audrun are, I guess, in their late fifties or early sixties. They live on a family property, the brother in the dilapidated large house, the sister in a new bungalow on her portion of the land. The brother, like the house, is falling apart through personal neglect and the sister is biding her time until he completely falls apart. He is desperate to sell the property to the numerous English, Dutch and Germans eager to buy in the area, but the presence of his sister's house on what he considers is his land has prevented any sales to date.
Meanwhile not far away, Veronica Verey, a successful garden designer and aspiring writer, who is of a similar age, lives with her lover Kitty, a very average artist. Into this mix arrives Anthony Verey, an extremely successful antique dealer from London, who is beginning to find he is a bit of a has-been, and is looking for fresh pastures. His arrival sets in place a chain of events that result in death and destruction.
The writing is marvellous: suspenseful, descriptive, dramatic, all the while taking place in the dangerous and rugged terrain of the area, its secret forests, valleys and glades. The characters are fabulously vivid, I can picture exactly how they look, what they wear, how they move, their little behaviours and idiosyncrasies. Like peeling the proverbial onion, very gradually the author uncovers the background and secrets to the relationships between the two sets of brothers and sisters which sets the scene for how events unfold.
A first rate story, that is just a little bit scary and so remains with you for quite some after. And it is not the characters and the events which are scary but the fabulous landscape and scenery which stays with the reader! Next trip to France...
I know nothing about motor racing, nothing about Bugatti cars, nothing about the racing car drivers of the day and the racing car world, and very little about the lives of the rich and famous in France between the wars. Helene Delange, known publicly as Helle Nice, was one of the most famous, most successful and undoubtedly the most glamorous of them all. From a young age it seems she was destined for great things, born in 1903, just south of Paris, with a determination to escape the small town life that she was born into. She moved to Paris when she was 16 to become a dancer, and quickly found success in the music halls that were so popular. She quickly found a taste too for the glamorous life, with her bright, exhibitionist and risque personality, her beauty and insatiable desire for wealth,fame and men. Her dancing earned her enough money and attention to enter motor racing, cars still being very much the preserve of the very wealthy. She had many suitors and affairs, and one can't help wondering while reading of her numerous lovers,if she really only saw them as a means to an end, ie more fame and money. Her success as a woman racing car driver, of whom there were very, very few, took her to America where her fearlessness and wins turned her into an overnight sensation. By now very famous in the motor racing world, she returned to Europe, and became a regular driver on the Grand Prix circuit. Although she never won a Grand Prix race, she continued to excel with her competitiveness in this male dominated world, at the same time exploiting her femininity for all it was worth. This hedonistic life was brought to a sudden halt with a serious crash in Brazil in 1936, that left her seriously injured and a number of people dead. Although she was cleared of any responsibility for the accident, it weighed heavily on her and she never really got over it. Of course shortly after this, war intervened and effectively her racing career was over. She was by this time very wealthy, but had gotten involved with a much younger man to whom she spent lavishly on in order to retain his affections. Naturally he left and by the time the war was over she had nothing left. She remained in France throughout the war, and found herself accused of collaborating with the German occupiers, although this was never proved. Her final years were spent in poverty, at the mercy of a Paris based charity. By the time she died in the 1980s, she had been forgotten about, estranged from her family who couldn't deal with her notoriety, and buried as a pauper.
Although not a huge book by the standards of a biography, Miranda Seymour has written a very detailed account of a legend in motor racing circles. There is no doubt she was a pioneer, glamorous and beautiful to boot, which always helps, despite what the feminists would say! There is a lot in the book about motor vehicles and racing cars and engines and comparisons between one model over another and so on - petrol head stuff. But if this is not quite your cup of tea, do evere as the story itself is worth reading and very absorbing. Helle Nice was not in the same league perhaps as Jean Batten, but she is definitely the same type of woman.
THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST by Stieg Larsson
This is the third and final story in the Millennium trilogy that began with 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo'. As readers of the previous two would expect, this is also a suspenseful, multi-stranded and complex thriller. I felt like I was reading an octopus with Lisbeth Salander as the body of the octopus, and all the strands and facets of what has become her very complicated life being the tentacles. Unlike the other two parts of the trilogy, she spends most of this story in a hospital bed, maybe that is where I get the idea she is the 'head' around which all the action happens. And boy does it happen. Goodies and baddies abound of course and all weave their complicated threads, the former wanting justice for Lisbeth and to uncover the dark secrets within the Swedish Secret Police; the latter wanting to ensure that Lisbeth remains locked up for the rest of her days. Even though she is bedridden, Lisbeth's unique computer skills once again come to the fore.
I keep trying to think about what has made this trilogy such compelling reading all over the world. There are the classic themes of good vs evil of course, the David and Goliath nature of Mikael/Lisbeth taking on the justice system in the 2nd book and the government in this 3rd book, the large number of strong, smart, positive female characters ranging from Lisbeth to the editor Erika Berger, to the various police officers and detectives and to Mikael's sister who more than delivers when she has her day in court. Plus you just can't get away from the fact that these books are purely and simply superb story telling. And who doesn't like a jolly good story, just like fairy tales when we were children, the goodies won, and the baddies didn't.
THE NIGHT BOOK by Charlotte Grimshaw
I read the author's short story collection 'Opportunity', which won the fiction prize at the NZ Montana Book Awards in 2007, and fell in love with it. Most of my experiences of short stories, especially New Zealand ones, have not been very good, but Ms Grimshaw's stories were, to me, works of art. I loved her observations of human behaviour, I can imagine her quietly watching those around her, visualizing their lives and then weaving her stories which seem to reflect so uncannily the little dramas that make up everyday life. I also enjoyed her follow up 'Singularity', all in the same vein, but just a little more sinister and unsettling.
The author has taken one of the stories in this latter collection, 'The Night Book', and made it the first chapter of the novel of the same name. This short story is the foundation of the novel from which the story unfolds, and is also the cornerstone for both the beginning and ending of the novel.
Simon Lampton is a gynecologist/obstetrician, married to Karen. They are parents of two children, when they foster, then adopt Elke who joins the family when she is about eight years old. Simon comes across as very close to his children, very empathetic to them, and develops a close bond with Elke who like him, is a bit of an insomniac and often sits up with him while he is doing work related stuff, hence the title. By the by, much of the action in the book takes place at night. His wife Karen is not a character who endears herself to the reader, being a bit of a flake, sycophantic, and far too consumed by the material world she lives in. It appears that Simon is not 100% happy with his very fortunate life, is mildly unsettled, and probably sitting on the tip of a mid-life crisis. Karen's best friend and her husband are heavily involved in the political campaign that wants to see the election of a new right-of-center prime minister after some years of left-of-center government. Simon, reluctantly, and Karen, enthusiastically, find themselves slowly pulled into the inner circle of the about to be PM David and his very beautiful, enigmatic wife Roza. The plot unfolds from the initial meeting of Simon and Roza. Simon is immediately attracted to Roza, but is not sure why, and this uncertainty and increasing dissatisfaction with his life takes him on a bit of downward spiral. Roza meanwhile, finds herself spiraling down even further with the pressure on her to be the perfect PM-to-be's wife.
The novel is based in Auckland, mainly in the wealthy eastern suburbs, but also in the poorer suburbs of South Auckland where Simon deals with his own demons. It could of course be any big city in any country in the world, but if you live in Auckland, or know the city well, it is very obvious where it is set. There are a number of events and people in the novel based very closely on real recent events, and I couldn't help comparing her writing of them with the real thing! As usual her writing of human behaviour and interactions is spot on, she writes beautifully of the human condition, the reasons and motivations people have for doing things.
But despite the writing, the book as a complete package just did not fully gel for me. Some days after finishing I still can't put my finger on it, it is almost as if there is too much going on, as if she has tried too hard to make something bigger and deeper than the short stories. And I really did have some trouble with Simon being the deep thinking, totally empathetic, in touch with his feelings kind of guy that the author has created! I just don't seem to know any men like that! Most of the characters are stereotypes of the wealthy eastern suburbs type, social and political climbers, and I really wonder if the author likes the type of people she is writing about. Apart from the one character from the wrong side of the tracks, I didn't actually like any of her characters. Perhaps that is what she set out to do - how too much money, too much time can corrupt the soul.
TRESPASS by Rose Tremain
Trespass - of land by foreigners and by one's own family members; of one's own personal body and personal space; of intruders into one's relationships. Trespass is the underlying theme of this novel. How this violation is dealt with by the various characters makes up the story line and the inevitable conflict that is at the core of any good story.
In the south of France is the mountainous region of the Cevennes. This is not a pretty postcard area of France, but one of rugged, mountains, full of valleys, rivers and forests with tortuous roads made famous by a journey Robert Louis Stevenson took on a donkey over 12 days and 220 kms. This sinister and dark environment is captured perfectly as the backdrop for the sinister and dark goings-on in this novel which centres on two sets of brother and sister, one set French, born and bred in the Cevennes; and the other English, relatively new arrivals to the area.
Aramon and Audrun are, I guess, in their late fifties or early sixties. They live on a family property, the brother in the dilapidated large house, the sister in a new bungalow on her portion of the land. The brother, like the house, is falling apart through personal neglect and the sister is biding her time until he completely falls apart. He is desperate to sell the property to the numerous English, Dutch and Germans eager to buy in the area, but the presence of his sister's house on what he considers is his land has prevented any sales to date.
Meanwhile not far away, Veronica Verey, a successful garden designer and aspiring writer, who is of a similar age, lives with her lover Kitty, a very average artist. Into this mix arrives Anthony Verey, an extremely successful antique dealer from London, who is beginning to find he is a bit of a has-been, and is looking for fresh pastures. His arrival sets in place a chain of events that result in death and destruction.
The writing is marvellous: suspenseful, descriptive, dramatic, all the while taking place in the dangerous and rugged terrain of the area, its secret forests, valleys and glades. The characters are fabulously vivid, I can picture exactly how they look, what they wear, how they move, their little behaviours and idiosyncrasies. Like peeling the proverbial onion, very gradually the author uncovers the background and secrets to the relationships between the two sets of brothers and sisters which sets the scene for how events unfold.
A first rate story, that is just a little bit scary and so remains with you for quite some after. And it is not the characters and the events which are scary but the fabulous landscape and scenery which stays with the reader! Next trip to France...
READING IN JUNE - Where Underpants Come From; The Ginger Tree; Between the Assassinations
BETWEEN THE ASSASSINATIONS by Aravind Adiga
The assassination of Indira Ghandi occurred in 1984 and that of her son in 1991. The series of stories that make up this book are set during this time period. In many other parts of the world social and economic happenings were happening apace, but in India, nothing much changes. The more it changes, the more it stays the same. Aravind Adiga has followed up his Man Booker prize winning 'The White Tiger' with an equally hard hitting collection of stories detailing the wretchedness and hopelessness of the lives of the average Indian in an urban setting.
Adiga has made up a small city, Kittur, somewhere on the south-western coast of India, north of Calicut and south of Goa, in the state of Karnataka. Having lived in a south Indian city much bigger than this one, the city of Kittur is very true to life I felt like I had been transported back to the city that I had lived in - the traffic, the markets, the squalor, the dirt, the desperation of the lives the vast majority of people live. The south of India being very Hindu, the caste system and its role in directing the lives of the minions who are born into it, dominates the stories and characters that Adiga has created. He is not a fan of the caste system and the appalling injustices that result from it, and neither does he come up with any solutions to fix it. Having lived there, some twenty years after this book is set, I also don't think there is any way to fix it. And this of course is the tragedy of the life of the average Indian.
Adiga transforms the reader into a tourist, treated to a guided tour of the city. At the beginning of each of the fourteen chapters the reader learns a bit about that particular part of the city, and then Adiga launches into the wretched life of yet another impoverished person. The stories are not interlinked by characters, but by the awfulness of their existences. It is compelling reading, the characters are beautifully drawn, their lives written with love and compassion, but also utter hopelessness.
THE GINGER TREE by Oswald Wynd
This novel was first published way back in 1977, and has been reprinted several times so must be a popular story! This book was given to me to read by an elderly couple, her Japanese and he European. They were married in Japan some 47 years ago, such a mixed marriage being unusual for those days. They suggested I read this because it gives a lot of insight into Japanese society from around 1900 to WWII. Things of course started to change in Japan after the war, but prior to that very little had changed for hundreds of years.
The story is narrated by way of a diary and letters by a young Scottish woman, Mary Mackenzie, who is sailing out to China to marry an army man. She has decided to marry to get away from Scotland and the unexciting life she has there. The marriage of course is a disaster, despite a daughter being born, and Mary has a very brief affair with a Japanese career soldier, gets pregnant, is ostracised from the expat community in Shanghai and flees to Japan. She remains in Japan until 1942 when the book ends. Over the years Mary experiences all sorts of traumas and trials and ends up making a very good life for herself in Japan, becoming financially independent, which I imagine was a most unusual accomplishment for any woman of that time, let alone a European one in pre-war Japan.
So the story is relatively trite, and the characters are fairly predictable, but the best thing about the book is the insight we get into pre-war Chinese and Japan society and how Europeans fitted in or didn't. I found it difficult to completely engage with this story, mainly due to its style of narration. Mary sends letters to her mother in Scotland and to a French woman whom she met when living in China. The rest of the story is via diary entries. So we have a very personal and intimate narration style, but I felt very detached from Mary and how her life was unfolding. I almost felt like an observer rather than a confidante of her. Nevertheless a good read which gives a good insight into a society and time most people would know little about.
WHERE UNDERPANTS COME FROM by Joe Bennett
Who would have thought that the story of a pair of underpants bought from that icon of New Zealand retail, The Warehouse, could be so interesting. Underpants are an article that we, in 1st World countries regard as essentials. Virtually all our clothing purchases are discretionary, but underpants are things that we ALL wear, it is the universal garment, the one garment of necessity that we all wear. Sure you can buy at The Warehouse or you can buy at a top end lingerie shop. But I expect that almost all of them are Made in China. Let's not get too picky with the likes of La Perla and so on! So Joe has an epiphany and decides to find out exactly where his special Warehouse purchased undies come from.
And what unfolds is a fascinating journey giving us an insight into modern day, China. He travels firstly to Shanghai, where amongst other sights and sites he visits, he goes to the world's largest, and it is very very large, container terminal. The authorities casted around for a suitable site close to Shanghai. An island offshore was deemed suitable, the long standing residents were sent somewhere else in China, a 30km bridge was built from the mainland to the island, and this massive, huge container terminal was built. On it are HUGE warehouses stocked full of every single item that the Western world uses in its daily lives. It is absolutely mind boggling. Joe travel throughout China to find out where and how the elastic in his pants is made, and where the cotton is grown, harvested and spun. Throughout his travels his observant and keen eye documents everything going on around him, the lives of the people, the massive upheaval taking place with the millions migrating from the rural areas to the urban areas for the dreadful manufacturing jobs they feel they need to have. He has plenty to say about the far reaching, overwhelming power and influence the government has over the lives of the common man, as well as the indomitable, uncrushable spirit of the common man to better himself and maintain his personal dignity in the process.
After reading this I begin to understand the powerhouse that is the Chinese economy in our capitalist and materialistic world. They own us, and every other Western country too. I expect that one day China will own the world. It really makes me wonder that we are so far out of touch with our world and immediate environment that we have resorted to even importing frozen veges from China. Read this and it may help you rethink your shopping habits.
The assassination of Indira Ghandi occurred in 1984 and that of her son in 1991. The series of stories that make up this book are set during this time period. In many other parts of the world social and economic happenings were happening apace, but in India, nothing much changes. The more it changes, the more it stays the same. Aravind Adiga has followed up his Man Booker prize winning 'The White Tiger' with an equally hard hitting collection of stories detailing the wretchedness and hopelessness of the lives of the average Indian in an urban setting.
Adiga has made up a small city, Kittur, somewhere on the south-western coast of India, north of Calicut and south of Goa, in the state of Karnataka. Having lived in a south Indian city much bigger than this one, the city of Kittur is very true to life I felt like I had been transported back to the city that I had lived in - the traffic, the markets, the squalor, the dirt, the desperation of the lives the vast majority of people live. The south of India being very Hindu, the caste system and its role in directing the lives of the minions who are born into it, dominates the stories and characters that Adiga has created. He is not a fan of the caste system and the appalling injustices that result from it, and neither does he come up with any solutions to fix it. Having lived there, some twenty years after this book is set, I also don't think there is any way to fix it. And this of course is the tragedy of the life of the average Indian.
Adiga transforms the reader into a tourist, treated to a guided tour of the city. At the beginning of each of the fourteen chapters the reader learns a bit about that particular part of the city, and then Adiga launches into the wretched life of yet another impoverished person. The stories are not interlinked by characters, but by the awfulness of their existences. It is compelling reading, the characters are beautifully drawn, their lives written with love and compassion, but also utter hopelessness.
THE GINGER TREE by Oswald Wynd
This novel was first published way back in 1977, and has been reprinted several times so must be a popular story! This book was given to me to read by an elderly couple, her Japanese and he European. They were married in Japan some 47 years ago, such a mixed marriage being unusual for those days. They suggested I read this because it gives a lot of insight into Japanese society from around 1900 to WWII. Things of course started to change in Japan after the war, but prior to that very little had changed for hundreds of years.
The story is narrated by way of a diary and letters by a young Scottish woman, Mary Mackenzie, who is sailing out to China to marry an army man. She has decided to marry to get away from Scotland and the unexciting life she has there. The marriage of course is a disaster, despite a daughter being born, and Mary has a very brief affair with a Japanese career soldier, gets pregnant, is ostracised from the expat community in Shanghai and flees to Japan. She remains in Japan until 1942 when the book ends. Over the years Mary experiences all sorts of traumas and trials and ends up making a very good life for herself in Japan, becoming financially independent, which I imagine was a most unusual accomplishment for any woman of that time, let alone a European one in pre-war Japan.
So the story is relatively trite, and the characters are fairly predictable, but the best thing about the book is the insight we get into pre-war Chinese and Japan society and how Europeans fitted in or didn't. I found it difficult to completely engage with this story, mainly due to its style of narration. Mary sends letters to her mother in Scotland and to a French woman whom she met when living in China. The rest of the story is via diary entries. So we have a very personal and intimate narration style, but I felt very detached from Mary and how her life was unfolding. I almost felt like an observer rather than a confidante of her. Nevertheless a good read which gives a good insight into a society and time most people would know little about.
WHERE UNDERPANTS COME FROM by Joe Bennett
Who would have thought that the story of a pair of underpants bought from that icon of New Zealand retail, The Warehouse, could be so interesting. Underpants are an article that we, in 1st World countries regard as essentials. Virtually all our clothing purchases are discretionary, but underpants are things that we ALL wear, it is the universal garment, the one garment of necessity that we all wear. Sure you can buy at The Warehouse or you can buy at a top end lingerie shop. But I expect that almost all of them are Made in China. Let's not get too picky with the likes of La Perla and so on! So Joe has an epiphany and decides to find out exactly where his special Warehouse purchased undies come from.
And what unfolds is a fascinating journey giving us an insight into modern day, China. He travels firstly to Shanghai, where amongst other sights and sites he visits, he goes to the world's largest, and it is very very large, container terminal. The authorities casted around for a suitable site close to Shanghai. An island offshore was deemed suitable, the long standing residents were sent somewhere else in China, a 30km bridge was built from the mainland to the island, and this massive, huge container terminal was built. On it are HUGE warehouses stocked full of every single item that the Western world uses in its daily lives. It is absolutely mind boggling. Joe travel throughout China to find out where and how the elastic in his pants is made, and where the cotton is grown, harvested and spun. Throughout his travels his observant and keen eye documents everything going on around him, the lives of the people, the massive upheaval taking place with the millions migrating from the rural areas to the urban areas for the dreadful manufacturing jobs they feel they need to have. He has plenty to say about the far reaching, overwhelming power and influence the government has over the lives of the common man, as well as the indomitable, uncrushable spirit of the common man to better himself and maintain his personal dignity in the process.
After reading this I begin to understand the powerhouse that is the Chinese economy in our capitalist and materialistic world. They own us, and every other Western country too. I expect that one day China will own the world. It really makes me wonder that we are so far out of touch with our world and immediate environment that we have resorted to even importing frozen veges from China. Read this and it may help you rethink your shopping habits.
READING FOR MAY - Major Pettigrew's Last Stand; Dissolution; Ordinary Thunderstorms
ORDINARY THUNDERSTORMS by William Boyd
I finished reading this latest William Boyd novel about a week ago and just have not been able to figure out what to write about it. And I can't figure out why that is!! There is no deny it is an excellent read; I think the problem is that is so hard to define what type of novel it is. Is it a murder mystery, or a Bourne Identity theft type of thriller, or a modern day fable parable type thing? Whatever it is, it is a damn fine story, an action-packed, intricate plot with just enough rope to keep the reader dangling and wondering who will get who first.
In one of those being-in-the-wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time moments, Adam Kendrick, in London from the US for a job interview, finds himself on the run, wanted by the police for murder, and a shady bunch for the information he may possess. Living on his wits and on the streets, he has to stay one step ahead of those who are looking for him.
Great plot, small number of well drawn characters, and tightly held together, this is compelling reading. All of William Boyd's books that I have read - 4 or 5 now - have fantastically complex and human characters, full of baggage and consequently very realistic and life like.
This would be a great book for a holiday or a curl up on a wet, winterly afternoon. Be grateful you have a cosy warm room to read in, and you are not sleeping under a hedge in London town with nasty people after you!
DISSOLUTION by C.J. Sansom
We just cannot seem to get enough of murder mysteries, especially from English writers, who are devilish experts at whipping up unlikely victims, and not just one at a time. These stories take place in slightly sinister, gloomy and ever so slightly scary settings. There are very odd people with very imaginative motives, any of whom could be the murderer, and red herrings galore, pouring out of every ancient crevice or thatched cottage or porcelain teapot. And best of all, superbly well written, edge of the seat stuff. And this book is another in that genre, replete with all of the above except the porcelain teapot.
Set in 1537, in Henry VIII's England, shortly after Anne Boleyn loses her head, Thomas Cromwell is Henry's right hand man. His major responsibility, at least as far as this story is concerned, is to bring the monasteries to their knees, close them down, strip them of all their wealth and consequently all the power of the Catholic Church. No easy task as we know from the fabulous The Tudors series on TV. Cromwell has a number of commissioners whose jobs it is to travel to the monasteries to achieve these tasks. One, Robin Singleton, is sent to a Benedictine monastery in Sussex, where he promptly loses his head. Matthew Shardlake, a hunchback lawyer, with his young assistant Mark Poer, are sent to the monastery to solve the murder and continue with the dissolution of the monastery. Sharldlake is a die-hard supporter of the reforms taking place but as events unfold finds himself questioning what is going on. But this is bye the bye.
In their quest to solve the murder, further deaths occur; corruption and avarice and lust run amok; not one single person appears to be innocent, and our two intrepid sleuths have a big task on their hands.
As you can imagine rural England in 1537 is not a pleasant place to be. The author evokes how ghastly, and cold, and damp and revolting it all is fabulously. His descriptions of the monastery buildings, the beautiful church, the misty and dangerous moors all contribute to the atmosphere of danger and fear that are part of every good murder mystery. Plus of course the mostly unsavoury and unappealing characters that make up the story.
Added to all of this is the historical factor. I don't know much about this period in English history, but I learnt an awful lot, even such things as the logistics of travel between Sussex and London. The all pervading influence of both Cromwell and Henry VIII is terrifying, even in the far reaches of the countryside. Both these people hang like a dark threatening cloud over the whole story.
This is very compelling reading, a great story extremely well told. Very measured in its pace, it does pick up towards the end as the element of danger increases. Highly recommended.
MAJOR PETTIGREW'S LAST STAND by Helen Simonson
Major Pettigrew is 68 years old, a very proper, buttoned up widower who lives in a picture perfect English village. The book opens with him in the shock of grief on hearing the sudden death of his brother Bertie who lives nearby with his wife and daughter. He has a chance meeting with Mrs Ali, a Pakistani lady, coincidentally a widow, who runs a small convenience store in the village owned by her late husband's family. For them both it is love at first sight, although of course this realisation takes a while to occur! As their friendship develops they both have to deal with the prejudices that inevitably arise as the result of such a relationship in such a small conservative English rural community! And the behaviour is not pretty. But as the title says, Major Pettigrew makes his last stand, and he and Mrs Ali live happily ever after. I have given the ending away, but it is fairly obvious, like all good tales, that they will end up together!
This is a gentle story, that strolls along in a very controlled fashion as befitting Major Pettigrew and the fine, upstanding man he is. Bit by bit the prejudices and stereotypes of the community unfold. It is predictable in so many ways, but also very engaging, wryly humorous in that very English way. Even though I enjoyed it, I didn't quite feel that I am the target audience, perhaps being a bit young, not yet of the age of 50! But I could see my mother and her friends reading it and relating more to the characters than I did.
I finished reading this latest William Boyd novel about a week ago and just have not been able to figure out what to write about it. And I can't figure out why that is!! There is no deny it is an excellent read; I think the problem is that is so hard to define what type of novel it is. Is it a murder mystery, or a Bourne Identity theft type of thriller, or a modern day fable parable type thing? Whatever it is, it is a damn fine story, an action-packed, intricate plot with just enough rope to keep the reader dangling and wondering who will get who first.
In one of those being-in-the-wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time moments, Adam Kendrick, in London from the US for a job interview, finds himself on the run, wanted by the police for murder, and a shady bunch for the information he may possess. Living on his wits and on the streets, he has to stay one step ahead of those who are looking for him.
Great plot, small number of well drawn characters, and tightly held together, this is compelling reading. All of William Boyd's books that I have read - 4 or 5 now - have fantastically complex and human characters, full of baggage and consequently very realistic and life like.
This would be a great book for a holiday or a curl up on a wet, winterly afternoon. Be grateful you have a cosy warm room to read in, and you are not sleeping under a hedge in London town with nasty people after you!
DISSOLUTION by C.J. Sansom
We just cannot seem to get enough of murder mysteries, especially from English writers, who are devilish experts at whipping up unlikely victims, and not just one at a time. These stories take place in slightly sinister, gloomy and ever so slightly scary settings. There are very odd people with very imaginative motives, any of whom could be the murderer, and red herrings galore, pouring out of every ancient crevice or thatched cottage or porcelain teapot. And best of all, superbly well written, edge of the seat stuff. And this book is another in that genre, replete with all of the above except the porcelain teapot.
Set in 1537, in Henry VIII's England, shortly after Anne Boleyn loses her head, Thomas Cromwell is Henry's right hand man. His major responsibility, at least as far as this story is concerned, is to bring the monasteries to their knees, close them down, strip them of all their wealth and consequently all the power of the Catholic Church. No easy task as we know from the fabulous The Tudors series on TV. Cromwell has a number of commissioners whose jobs it is to travel to the monasteries to achieve these tasks. One, Robin Singleton, is sent to a Benedictine monastery in Sussex, where he promptly loses his head. Matthew Shardlake, a hunchback lawyer, with his young assistant Mark Poer, are sent to the monastery to solve the murder and continue with the dissolution of the monastery. Sharldlake is a die-hard supporter of the reforms taking place but as events unfold finds himself questioning what is going on. But this is bye the bye.
In their quest to solve the murder, further deaths occur; corruption and avarice and lust run amok; not one single person appears to be innocent, and our two intrepid sleuths have a big task on their hands.
As you can imagine rural England in 1537 is not a pleasant place to be. The author evokes how ghastly, and cold, and damp and revolting it all is fabulously. His descriptions of the monastery buildings, the beautiful church, the misty and dangerous moors all contribute to the atmosphere of danger and fear that are part of every good murder mystery. Plus of course the mostly unsavoury and unappealing characters that make up the story.
Added to all of this is the historical factor. I don't know much about this period in English history, but I learnt an awful lot, even such things as the logistics of travel between Sussex and London. The all pervading influence of both Cromwell and Henry VIII is terrifying, even in the far reaches of the countryside. Both these people hang like a dark threatening cloud over the whole story.
This is very compelling reading, a great story extremely well told. Very measured in its pace, it does pick up towards the end as the element of danger increases. Highly recommended.
MAJOR PETTIGREW'S LAST STAND by Helen Simonson
Major Pettigrew is 68 years old, a very proper, buttoned up widower who lives in a picture perfect English village. The book opens with him in the shock of grief on hearing the sudden death of his brother Bertie who lives nearby with his wife and daughter. He has a chance meeting with Mrs Ali, a Pakistani lady, coincidentally a widow, who runs a small convenience store in the village owned by her late husband's family. For them both it is love at first sight, although of course this realisation takes a while to occur! As their friendship develops they both have to deal with the prejudices that inevitably arise as the result of such a relationship in such a small conservative English rural community! And the behaviour is not pretty. But as the title says, Major Pettigrew makes his last stand, and he and Mrs Ali live happily ever after. I have given the ending away, but it is fairly obvious, like all good tales, that they will end up together!
This is a gentle story, that strolls along in a very controlled fashion as befitting Major Pettigrew and the fine, upstanding man he is. Bit by bit the prejudices and stereotypes of the community unfold. It is predictable in so many ways, but also very engaging, wryly humorous in that very English way. Even though I enjoyed it, I didn't quite feel that I am the target audience, perhaps being a bit young, not yet of the age of 50! But I could see my mother and her friends reading it and relating more to the characters than I did.
APRIL READING - The Girl Who Played With Fire; Year of Wonders;
YEAR OF WONDERS by Geraldine Brooks
Also known as 'annus mirabilis', the year 1666 was the subject of a poem with this title by Johm Dyrden about the events of that year in England, namely the Great Fire of London and the Great Plague, plus war with the Dutch. The author also refers to the phrase in her Afterword at the end of her novel, with God telling Moses to 'do my wonders', which included the first plague in recorded history visited upon the Egyptians.
Ms Brooks has based her novel upon the actual events that took place in the village of Eym in Derbyshire which was struck by a plague in 1665-1666. The village chose to quarantine itself from the rest of the local area in the hope the illness might outrun itself and thus restrict its spread.
The narrator of this fictionalised account is 18 year old Anna Frith, recently widowed with two young sons. She takes in a boarder who unwittingly appears to have been the carrier of the illness to the village. The illness is horrible in how it attacks the victims and Ms Brookes' descriptions are not attractive! The disease quickly takes hold in the community of approximately 350 people. The Rector, typically of the times, has a very powerful influence in the community of largely illiterate, superstitious agricultural families. His decision to isolate the village from the community at large comes at a huge cost over the course of a 12 month period.
Fear grips the villagers, with the local medicine woman/midwife and her daughter being early victims of the mob violence and climate of fear. Anna and the rector's wife, Elinor, take it upon themselves to continue to care for the people with herbal remedies and tonics and so on. Little good it does! But it enables Anna, as the narrator, to be out in the community and so able to report on what is happening to the villagers and their daily lives. Not pleasant, and I am so glad I live in the time period I do! Eventually, over the 12 month period the disease does run its course but the population is reduced by two thirds as a result.
Throughout it all Anna just manages to retain her sanity despite enormous personal loss and emerges like a phoenix from the ashes into a strong and extremely capable young woman. Her life subsequent to this story would make a further wonderful novel if ever Ms Brooks decided to write about her again.
If you are looking for a pleasant bed time read, this is not it. The subject matter is harrowing, the style of writing is very correct, formal and beautifully descriptive. Not modern at all. As the novel evolves, Anna begins to question what God is all about, that despite all the worship etc of Him, He still thinks it is ok to deliver this plague. At the core of all this is how human beings behave when their very lives and survival are threatened by something they have no control over.
I can't say I really enjoyed reading this, and I would not put it in my top 10 or 20. But such is its power that it has stayed with me, and I continue to think about it nearly a week after finishing reading it. Ms Brooks is a fabulous writer, I don't know how people can write such amazing things that continue to haunt us and make us think more deeply.
THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE by Stieg Larsson
Google this title and pages and pages of stuff come up. This writer and his books are a phenomenon in the thriller genre. Totally gripping, intricate plot and plot development, very well drawn and unusual characters, and of course plenty of token violence just to keep us breathlessly turning the pages.
Lisbeth Salander returns, naturally, as one of the main protagonists. This time she takes centre place in the story as she attempts to stay one step ahead of being arrested for murder, 3 murders in fact. Assisting her is Mikael Blomkvist, journalist extraordinaire, and a number of characters from the first book who are also convinced of her innocence. Sex trafficking and prostitution of young women is the underlying theme of this book, which runs a parallel with the lack of control Lisbeth had over her early life.
Some reviews say the first book is better, some say this is one better. They are both equally good. I still don't want to see the movie as I don't see how they can cram all the stuff in the book into 2-3 hours. Riveting reading though.
Also known as 'annus mirabilis', the year 1666 was the subject of a poem with this title by Johm Dyrden about the events of that year in England, namely the Great Fire of London and the Great Plague, plus war with the Dutch. The author also refers to the phrase in her Afterword at the end of her novel, with God telling Moses to 'do my wonders', which included the first plague in recorded history visited upon the Egyptians.
Ms Brooks has based her novel upon the actual events that took place in the village of Eym in Derbyshire which was struck by a plague in 1665-1666. The village chose to quarantine itself from the rest of the local area in the hope the illness might outrun itself and thus restrict its spread.
The narrator of this fictionalised account is 18 year old Anna Frith, recently widowed with two young sons. She takes in a boarder who unwittingly appears to have been the carrier of the illness to the village. The illness is horrible in how it attacks the victims and Ms Brookes' descriptions are not attractive! The disease quickly takes hold in the community of approximately 350 people. The Rector, typically of the times, has a very powerful influence in the community of largely illiterate, superstitious agricultural families. His decision to isolate the village from the community at large comes at a huge cost over the course of a 12 month period.
Fear grips the villagers, with the local medicine woman/midwife and her daughter being early victims of the mob violence and climate of fear. Anna and the rector's wife, Elinor, take it upon themselves to continue to care for the people with herbal remedies and tonics and so on. Little good it does! But it enables Anna, as the narrator, to be out in the community and so able to report on what is happening to the villagers and their daily lives. Not pleasant, and I am so glad I live in the time period I do! Eventually, over the 12 month period the disease does run its course but the population is reduced by two thirds as a result.
Throughout it all Anna just manages to retain her sanity despite enormous personal loss and emerges like a phoenix from the ashes into a strong and extremely capable young woman. Her life subsequent to this story would make a further wonderful novel if ever Ms Brooks decided to write about her again.
If you are looking for a pleasant bed time read, this is not it. The subject matter is harrowing, the style of writing is very correct, formal and beautifully descriptive. Not modern at all. As the novel evolves, Anna begins to question what God is all about, that despite all the worship etc of Him, He still thinks it is ok to deliver this plague. At the core of all this is how human beings behave when their very lives and survival are threatened by something they have no control over.
I can't say I really enjoyed reading this, and I would not put it in my top 10 or 20. But such is its power that it has stayed with me, and I continue to think about it nearly a week after finishing reading it. Ms Brooks is a fabulous writer, I don't know how people can write such amazing things that continue to haunt us and make us think more deeply.
THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE by Stieg Larsson
Google this title and pages and pages of stuff come up. This writer and his books are a phenomenon in the thriller genre. Totally gripping, intricate plot and plot development, very well drawn and unusual characters, and of course plenty of token violence just to keep us breathlessly turning the pages.
Lisbeth Salander returns, naturally, as one of the main protagonists. This time she takes centre place in the story as she attempts to stay one step ahead of being arrested for murder, 3 murders in fact. Assisting her is Mikael Blomkvist, journalist extraordinaire, and a number of characters from the first book who are also convinced of her innocence. Sex trafficking and prostitution of young women is the underlying theme of this book, which runs a parallel with the lack of control Lisbeth had over her early life.
Some reviews say the first book is better, some say this is one better. They are both equally good. I still don't want to see the movie as I don't see how they can cram all the stuff in the book into 2-3 hours. Riveting reading though.
MARCH BOOK CLUB
A lot of reading was done in March. In fact we had almost everyone present at the meeting so lots of talk too.
Being read this past month and brief comments of :
Confessions of Edward Day by Valerie Martin: A number of us have read and very much enjoyed Property by the same author which won the Orange Prize. This relatively short but exceptionally well written novel is narrated by the wife of a plantation owner who is a brutal master to his slaves and a pretty awful husband too. From all accounts Edward Day would appear to be a much easier read, a romp and entertaining. Perhaps it is good Property was read first!
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Stroud: this year's Pulitzer Prize winner. Bleak but a very good book.
Return to Paris by Colette Rossant: the second book in a memoir series, the first being Apricots on the Nile and the third being The World in My Kitchen. We read the first one some years ago and very much enjoyed it. This one takes us to Paris where Colette was taken by her mother at the conclusion of Apricots. Just as enjoyable and interesting as the first one, with delicious sounding recipes.
Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd: this is another author we have read a lot of over the years and this is his latest novel. Very credible, totally compelling and riveting says the first reader of this.
An Equal Stillness by Francesca Kay: Beautifully written emotional tragedy
The Life and Death of Laura Friday by David Murphy: After I gave this a great review (see blog) someone else finally read it and also loved it. Very funny with good movie potential she said!
The Journal of Dora Damage by Belinda Starling: Very weird, strangely attractive and compelling, vivid portrayal of life in 1850s London.
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger: This is the woman who wrote The Time Traveller's Wife which had mixed reviews in our group. This latest does not appear to be popular at all!
The Blue Notebook by James Irvine: This was mentioned in November book club notes. Slowly more people in the group are reading it, same excellent reviews, because it is such harrowing subject matter, it is hard to read and really enjoy!
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel: Last year's Man Booker prize winner. All about Thomas Cromwell who served Henry VIII until his head got chopped off. By all accounts heavy going.
A Week in December by Sebastian Faulkes: This author's latest novel, great story and very relevant.
Being read this past month and brief comments of :
Confessions of Edward Day by Valerie Martin: A number of us have read and very much enjoyed Property by the same author which won the Orange Prize. This relatively short but exceptionally well written novel is narrated by the wife of a plantation owner who is a brutal master to his slaves and a pretty awful husband too. From all accounts Edward Day would appear to be a much easier read, a romp and entertaining. Perhaps it is good Property was read first!
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Stroud: this year's Pulitzer Prize winner. Bleak but a very good book.
Return to Paris by Colette Rossant: the second book in a memoir series, the first being Apricots on the Nile and the third being The World in My Kitchen. We read the first one some years ago and very much enjoyed it. This one takes us to Paris where Colette was taken by her mother at the conclusion of Apricots. Just as enjoyable and interesting as the first one, with delicious sounding recipes.
Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd: this is another author we have read a lot of over the years and this is his latest novel. Very credible, totally compelling and riveting says the first reader of this.
An Equal Stillness by Francesca Kay: Beautifully written emotional tragedy
The Life and Death of Laura Friday by David Murphy: After I gave this a great review (see blog) someone else finally read it and also loved it. Very funny with good movie potential she said!
The Journal of Dora Damage by Belinda Starling: Very weird, strangely attractive and compelling, vivid portrayal of life in 1850s London.
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger: This is the woman who wrote The Time Traveller's Wife which had mixed reviews in our group. This latest does not appear to be popular at all!
The Blue Notebook by James Irvine: This was mentioned in November book club notes. Slowly more people in the group are reading it, same excellent reviews, because it is such harrowing subject matter, it is hard to read and really enjoy!
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel: Last year's Man Booker prize winner. All about Thomas Cromwell who served Henry VIII until his head got chopped off. By all accounts heavy going.
A Week in December by Sebastian Faulkes: This author's latest novel, great story and very relevant.
MARCH READING
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO by Stieg Larsson
The hype surrounding this book, and any book for that matter that people start raving about, made me nervous about starting this. SO many people I know have read this, the reviews have all been very praise worthy and now of course it is out at the movies. I wasn't nervous about reading this just because of all the hype though. The few books I have read by Scandanavian authors have always been gloomy, dark, set in the middle of winter, matter of fact and generally hard work to get through. With the exception of Pippi Longstocking of course.
This book however has it all, apart from all the murder and blood and gore of course that seems to pepper any decent blockbuster nowadays! It has a great plot line that goes back and forth over fifty years or so, exceptionally well drawn characters, all of them, not just the major characters. The main half dozen characters are all incredibly interesting and complex people, and yet very realistic, even the girl of the title. Their relationships with each other, even the ones that are not healthy or good, are well portrayed and again very realistic in the way they relate to each other.
Plenty has been written about this book and the others in the series so I will say little about the plot other than an investigative journalist is commissioned to solve a long standing disappearance and finds himself more and more drawn into the complexities of the family he is investigating. His assistant is the girl of the title, damaged but brilliant and together the mystery is solved.
The book is written as a classic whodunnit, with the odd red herring thrown in. The story does travel quite a bit around Sweden and the reader gets a wonderful travelogue of the country and the climate as the story unfolds. After a gently paced beginning, the story picks up and becomes an absolute page turner, right to the last page. Can't wait to start the second one in the series.
THE OUTCAST by Sadie Jones
What a depressing, sad and sorry bag of bones this book is. I understand it was originally conceived as a screenplay, maybe that should have told everyone something that it didn't get further than that. But I also see that it is to become a movie directed by the guy who directed Shakespeare in Love. I really can't visualise how that will turn out, although movies have been made of much less. And that reminds me, even though the blurb on the back sounded a bit suspect, I took it to read because I knew it was being made into a movie. Big mistake.
Because, really not a lot happens in this novel. It has a busy sounding plot, with young Lewis Aldridge, growing up in post-war England in a suffocating satellite/commuter town of London where appearances count for everything. At the age of ten Lewis's lively, attractive and loving mother drowns in a river - the perils of drinking and swimming - and this changes his life quite dramatically. His emotionally retarded father, Gilbert, swamped by grief, cannot deal with his own grief, let alone that of his son. He quickly remarries, and life returns to 'normal' as Gilbert knows it, but of course not for Lewis. From this point on the downward spiral of Lewis's life takes off. Increasingly alienated from the people in his closed, insular community who quite simply don't understand him and don't want to, he becomes more isolated, takes to drinking, self harming, visiting a prostitute, ends up committing arson and goes to prison for two years, where by all accounts he was actually quite happy.
The second half of the novel focuses on his return to the town and to his father's and stepmother's house. Nothing has changed of course, and it is as if he has never been away. Nothing has changed in the neighbourhood either. The other main character in the book is Kit, a girl a few years younger than Lewis who comes from an equally dysfunctional family headed by a man who is a master in domestic violence but hides behind the enormous respectability of being the richest man around. There are some truly lovely people that live in this small community! Kit has always been desperately in love with Lewis, probably because she recognises a similarly damaged soul. Now that Lewis is 19, and Kit 15, they begin to notice each other, surprise surprise, and this is the main focus of the last third as they deal with the chaos of their lives.
But the whole thing is so depressing and monotonous and grey and gloomy. Perhaps Ms Jones is trying to depict life in the straightened and controlled times of the 1950s, which she does actually succeed in doing. Her writing is quite descriptive and very visual but it has so many 'ands' in every single sentence. I read another review of this book and the reviewer also commented on the excessive use of 'and'; apparently it is intentional to illustrate the monotony of everything. She succeeds here too. Reading it reminded me very much of Atonement by Ian McEwan, but way way more happens in the latter, plus being a better story, better characters, and you can see it becoming a movie, sad ending notwithstanding. I have no idea how this story will be turned into 90 minutes minimum of entertainment. I won't be going! The only reason I finished this book is because I have to review it for book club.
THE GLASS ROOM by Simon Mawer
Fifteen years ago the author visited the Tugendhat house in Czechoslovakia which is the house upon which this novel is based on. Designed by Ludwig Miles van der Rohe it is considered an icon of modern architecture. So highly regarded is it that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. From the information available the house in this book would appear to be a replica of the real house and is the one centre piece constant throughout the novel in a world of chaos and disintegration.
Despite the historical backdrop which encompasses the Nazis, war, communism and all the rest it, the house remains, a symbol perhaps of the indestructibility of the human spirit and hope for the future. This is primarily a story of optimism. Throughout the story all the characters are looking to improve themselves and their lives, always looking forwards. And it follows, for once, that for a story about war and destruction it does actually have a happy ending.
Liesel and Viktor (who is Jewish) Landauer commission the house to be built in 1929. Its construction coincides with the pregnancy and birth of the couple's first child, symbolic of the new life as a family within the walls of the house. The plot follows the well known history of the time with the taking over of Austria and then Czechoslovakia by the Germans, the refugees who arrive in the locality, anti- semitism and how it all affects this family, their friends and associates. The family escape to Switzerland in 1938, leaving the house to its fate, and after a hurried journey across Europe in around 1942, finally finish up in the USA.
The house meantime lives through and survives to the modern day, and at the end of the story becomes the focus for the conclusion. The glass room is the main living room of the house, and encompasses the whole front expanse of the building with huge window panes of glass and an onyx wall. So much of the critical elements and events of the story take place in this room.
This is a fabulous piece of story telling, giving a slightly different take on the thousands of novels that have come out of the horror of the WWII, the Nazis, the holocaust, Communist rule, and subsequent breakdown. All that stuff happens in the background, the focus in this story is the people to whom it is happening to. There is some beautiful writing, without being overly sentimental, just a little mind you! I did find some of the characters a bit flat though, not enough depth or roundness to them. With the exception perhaps of Hana who is Liesl's best friend. Although she is not one of the main characters of the story, she certainly comes across as the most complex and interesting.
A most worthwhile book, that does take a little while to get going - till about page 75 from memory, but then the switch for me suddenly came on and I was away with it.
LOVE IN A COLD CLIMATE by Nancy Mitford
A few years ago in the book club we read a fabulous biography of the famous Mitford sisters. Aristocratically born early in the 20th century, the five sisters came to adulthood between the wars where they literally took the world by storm. Nancy, the oldest, became a writer of biting satire towards her class, Unity and Diana were fascists - Unity in cahoots with Hitler and Goebbels, and Diana marrying the very well known fascist Sir Oswald Mosley who ended up going to prison for his troubles; Jessica became a journalist and went off to report on the Spanish Civil War not on the side of the fascists; and extraordinarily the youngest, Deborah, became the Duchess of Devonshire! And what is more they were all incredibly beautiful, rich, opinionated and famous.
So any writings that come out of this mix are bound to be interesting if nothing else. Along with The Pursuit of Love, Love in a Cold Climate takes a satirical view of upper class society at a certain point between the wars - before the stock market crash of 1929 and after. The story is narrated by Fanny Logan, an 18 year old girl who lives with relatives due to her parents either being incapable or unable to care for her. Money however is no object! In this particularly wealthy area of England the Lord and Lady Montdore and their daughter Polly, also 18 live. Recently returned from being Viceroy in India, they are totally full of themselves and their position so high up the food chain. Except for Polly who really could not care less, and certainly does not want to be married off to the first available suitor as her mother wishes. Until Polly takes control of her own life of course, seriously threatening her mother's esteemed position in society, and forcing Lord Montdore to disown his only child. This results in the arrival of the male heir, Cedric, from the colonies of Nova Soctia and the upheaval he so delightfully foists on this small corner of English landed gentry.
As one expects the plot dances along, with sparkling and witty dialogue and gorgeous characters. The stereotypes abound - Lady Montdore is a monster, Polly is the beautiful, angelic, dumb blonde, there are mad and lecherous uncles and dotty aunts, absent minded professors, and of course the completely foppish and outrageous Cedric.
A lot of fun and easy to read. But I don't feel I need to read another of her books.
THE HELP by Kathryn Stockett
This recently published book has taken the US by storm. Ms Stockett is an excellent story teller but in taking on a tricky subject such as the social structure of 1960s Mississippi, just as the civil rights movement is getting started she is setting herself up for all sorts of fallout and retribution. I almost always read the Acknowledgments/background notes pages written by the author before I start reading a book and this book has superb background information to her novel. Ms Stockett grew up in a house that had a black maid, and like the white children in this story, she had the same maid looking after her for most of her childhood. These maids would either stay with the family until retirement or death, or would move onto another family with young children. As you can imagine the bond that develops between the white families and the black staff is extremely strong, as is the huge variation in the way the staff are treated by their white employers. In this novel the relationship focus is on the white women employers and the black maids.
The main characters are a young white woman, Skeeter Phelan, who has recently returned to her home town of Jackson, Mississippi after being at college with dreams of becoming a writer and getting out of Jackson. She has to deal with her mother's determination to get a ring on her finger. Aibileen is a black woman who I guess is in her 50s, now onto being nanny to her seventeenth white child and giving this child all the love and self esteem that the mother seems unable or unwilling to do. Then there is Minny, a younger black maid with a drunk abusive husband and five children, and a mouth on her that gets her into all sorts of trouble. Skeeter begins to write a book anonymously documenting the stories of the black maids in the town, and thus begins to walk a very fine line between the white-lady-expected-behaviour-line and giving a dignified voice to the not very dignified lives of the maids. Naturally the two collide in spectacular fashion!
So beneath the very serious message there is humour and love and graciousness. But at the core of this book is the tragic legacy left by slavery in the American South and the enormous rifts that arose between human beings of simply different skin colour. Not confined just to 1960s America either.
The hype surrounding this book, and any book for that matter that people start raving about, made me nervous about starting this. SO many people I know have read this, the reviews have all been very praise worthy and now of course it is out at the movies. I wasn't nervous about reading this just because of all the hype though. The few books I have read by Scandanavian authors have always been gloomy, dark, set in the middle of winter, matter of fact and generally hard work to get through. With the exception of Pippi Longstocking of course.
This book however has it all, apart from all the murder and blood and gore of course that seems to pepper any decent blockbuster nowadays! It has a great plot line that goes back and forth over fifty years or so, exceptionally well drawn characters, all of them, not just the major characters. The main half dozen characters are all incredibly interesting and complex people, and yet very realistic, even the girl of the title. Their relationships with each other, even the ones that are not healthy or good, are well portrayed and again very realistic in the way they relate to each other.
Plenty has been written about this book and the others in the series so I will say little about the plot other than an investigative journalist is commissioned to solve a long standing disappearance and finds himself more and more drawn into the complexities of the family he is investigating. His assistant is the girl of the title, damaged but brilliant and together the mystery is solved.
The book is written as a classic whodunnit, with the odd red herring thrown in. The story does travel quite a bit around Sweden and the reader gets a wonderful travelogue of the country and the climate as the story unfolds. After a gently paced beginning, the story picks up and becomes an absolute page turner, right to the last page. Can't wait to start the second one in the series.
THE OUTCAST by Sadie Jones
What a depressing, sad and sorry bag of bones this book is. I understand it was originally conceived as a screenplay, maybe that should have told everyone something that it didn't get further than that. But I also see that it is to become a movie directed by the guy who directed Shakespeare in Love. I really can't visualise how that will turn out, although movies have been made of much less. And that reminds me, even though the blurb on the back sounded a bit suspect, I took it to read because I knew it was being made into a movie. Big mistake.
Because, really not a lot happens in this novel. It has a busy sounding plot, with young Lewis Aldridge, growing up in post-war England in a suffocating satellite/commuter town of London where appearances count for everything. At the age of ten Lewis's lively, attractive and loving mother drowns in a river - the perils of drinking and swimming - and this changes his life quite dramatically. His emotionally retarded father, Gilbert, swamped by grief, cannot deal with his own grief, let alone that of his son. He quickly remarries, and life returns to 'normal' as Gilbert knows it, but of course not for Lewis. From this point on the downward spiral of Lewis's life takes off. Increasingly alienated from the people in his closed, insular community who quite simply don't understand him and don't want to, he becomes more isolated, takes to drinking, self harming, visiting a prostitute, ends up committing arson and goes to prison for two years, where by all accounts he was actually quite happy.
The second half of the novel focuses on his return to the town and to his father's and stepmother's house. Nothing has changed of course, and it is as if he has never been away. Nothing has changed in the neighbourhood either. The other main character in the book is Kit, a girl a few years younger than Lewis who comes from an equally dysfunctional family headed by a man who is a master in domestic violence but hides behind the enormous respectability of being the richest man around. There are some truly lovely people that live in this small community! Kit has always been desperately in love with Lewis, probably because she recognises a similarly damaged soul. Now that Lewis is 19, and Kit 15, they begin to notice each other, surprise surprise, and this is the main focus of the last third as they deal with the chaos of their lives.
But the whole thing is so depressing and monotonous and grey and gloomy. Perhaps Ms Jones is trying to depict life in the straightened and controlled times of the 1950s, which she does actually succeed in doing. Her writing is quite descriptive and very visual but it has so many 'ands' in every single sentence. I read another review of this book and the reviewer also commented on the excessive use of 'and'; apparently it is intentional to illustrate the monotony of everything. She succeeds here too. Reading it reminded me very much of Atonement by Ian McEwan, but way way more happens in the latter, plus being a better story, better characters, and you can see it becoming a movie, sad ending notwithstanding. I have no idea how this story will be turned into 90 minutes minimum of entertainment. I won't be going! The only reason I finished this book is because I have to review it for book club.
THE GLASS ROOM by Simon Mawer
Fifteen years ago the author visited the Tugendhat house in Czechoslovakia which is the house upon which this novel is based on. Designed by Ludwig Miles van der Rohe it is considered an icon of modern architecture. So highly regarded is it that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. From the information available the house in this book would appear to be a replica of the real house and is the one centre piece constant throughout the novel in a world of chaos and disintegration.
Despite the historical backdrop which encompasses the Nazis, war, communism and all the rest it, the house remains, a symbol perhaps of the indestructibility of the human spirit and hope for the future. This is primarily a story of optimism. Throughout the story all the characters are looking to improve themselves and their lives, always looking forwards. And it follows, for once, that for a story about war and destruction it does actually have a happy ending.
Liesel and Viktor (who is Jewish) Landauer commission the house to be built in 1929. Its construction coincides with the pregnancy and birth of the couple's first child, symbolic of the new life as a family within the walls of the house. The plot follows the well known history of the time with the taking over of Austria and then Czechoslovakia by the Germans, the refugees who arrive in the locality, anti- semitism and how it all affects this family, their friends and associates. The family escape to Switzerland in 1938, leaving the house to its fate, and after a hurried journey across Europe in around 1942, finally finish up in the USA.
The house meantime lives through and survives to the modern day, and at the end of the story becomes the focus for the conclusion. The glass room is the main living room of the house, and encompasses the whole front expanse of the building with huge window panes of glass and an onyx wall. So much of the critical elements and events of the story take place in this room.
This is a fabulous piece of story telling, giving a slightly different take on the thousands of novels that have come out of the horror of the WWII, the Nazis, the holocaust, Communist rule, and subsequent breakdown. All that stuff happens in the background, the focus in this story is the people to whom it is happening to. There is some beautiful writing, without being overly sentimental, just a little mind you! I did find some of the characters a bit flat though, not enough depth or roundness to them. With the exception perhaps of Hana who is Liesl's best friend. Although she is not one of the main characters of the story, she certainly comes across as the most complex and interesting.
A most worthwhile book, that does take a little while to get going - till about page 75 from memory, but then the switch for me suddenly came on and I was away with it.
LOVE IN A COLD CLIMATE by Nancy Mitford
A few years ago in the book club we read a fabulous biography of the famous Mitford sisters. Aristocratically born early in the 20th century, the five sisters came to adulthood between the wars where they literally took the world by storm. Nancy, the oldest, became a writer of biting satire towards her class, Unity and Diana were fascists - Unity in cahoots with Hitler and Goebbels, and Diana marrying the very well known fascist Sir Oswald Mosley who ended up going to prison for his troubles; Jessica became a journalist and went off to report on the Spanish Civil War not on the side of the fascists; and extraordinarily the youngest, Deborah, became the Duchess of Devonshire! And what is more they were all incredibly beautiful, rich, opinionated and famous.
So any writings that come out of this mix are bound to be interesting if nothing else. Along with The Pursuit of Love, Love in a Cold Climate takes a satirical view of upper class society at a certain point between the wars - before the stock market crash of 1929 and after. The story is narrated by Fanny Logan, an 18 year old girl who lives with relatives due to her parents either being incapable or unable to care for her. Money however is no object! In this particularly wealthy area of England the Lord and Lady Montdore and their daughter Polly, also 18 live. Recently returned from being Viceroy in India, they are totally full of themselves and their position so high up the food chain. Except for Polly who really could not care less, and certainly does not want to be married off to the first available suitor as her mother wishes. Until Polly takes control of her own life of course, seriously threatening her mother's esteemed position in society, and forcing Lord Montdore to disown his only child. This results in the arrival of the male heir, Cedric, from the colonies of Nova Soctia and the upheaval he so delightfully foists on this small corner of English landed gentry.
As one expects the plot dances along, with sparkling and witty dialogue and gorgeous characters. The stereotypes abound - Lady Montdore is a monster, Polly is the beautiful, angelic, dumb blonde, there are mad and lecherous uncles and dotty aunts, absent minded professors, and of course the completely foppish and outrageous Cedric.
A lot of fun and easy to read. But I don't feel I need to read another of her books.
THE HELP by Kathryn Stockett
This recently published book has taken the US by storm. Ms Stockett is an excellent story teller but in taking on a tricky subject such as the social structure of 1960s Mississippi, just as the civil rights movement is getting started she is setting herself up for all sorts of fallout and retribution. I almost always read the Acknowledgments/background notes pages written by the author before I start reading a book and this book has superb background information to her novel. Ms Stockett grew up in a house that had a black maid, and like the white children in this story, she had the same maid looking after her for most of her childhood. These maids would either stay with the family until retirement or death, or would move onto another family with young children. As you can imagine the bond that develops between the white families and the black staff is extremely strong, as is the huge variation in the way the staff are treated by their white employers. In this novel the relationship focus is on the white women employers and the black maids.
The main characters are a young white woman, Skeeter Phelan, who has recently returned to her home town of Jackson, Mississippi after being at college with dreams of becoming a writer and getting out of Jackson. She has to deal with her mother's determination to get a ring on her finger. Aibileen is a black woman who I guess is in her 50s, now onto being nanny to her seventeenth white child and giving this child all the love and self esteem that the mother seems unable or unwilling to do. Then there is Minny, a younger black maid with a drunk abusive husband and five children, and a mouth on her that gets her into all sorts of trouble. Skeeter begins to write a book anonymously documenting the stories of the black maids in the town, and thus begins to walk a very fine line between the white-lady-expected-behaviour-line and giving a dignified voice to the not very dignified lives of the maids. Naturally the two collide in spectacular fashion!
So beneath the very serious message there is humour and love and graciousness. But at the core of this book is the tragic legacy left by slavery in the American South and the enormous rifts that arose between human beings of simply different skin colour. Not confined just to 1960s America either.
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