Amanda Brookfield's Blog, page 10

A Swimming Tale

Waterlog: A Swimmer's Journey Through Britain by Roger Deakin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Roger Deakin is clearly an eccentric, but also an endearingly down-to-earth man. He has his own moat in which he swims regularly, with great humility and joy, and it is out of this joy that he hatches the plan to swim his way around the country. He sets off, dipping his way in and out of lidos, lakes, rivers and estuaries in a zig-zagging course that sums up the spontaneity both of the quest and of the person undertaking it.

I kept waiting for the episodes to become repetitious. After all, swimming is just...swimming, isn't it? Context and temperature might vary, but surely there is not a lot else to say. On the contrary, Roger Deakin's odyssey gathers momentum and meaning as it goes. He achieves this partly through glorious and tirelessly fresh descriptions of each experience, but mostly through the way in which he invites the reader into the privacy of his mind, where the real journey is taking place.

The biggest challenge he sets himself is to swim a stretch of treacherous sea between two Scottish islands. But on arriving at the jumping off point he recognises the enormity of the danger in which he is about to place himself and changes his mind. Good sense, the desire to survive, prevail - a fact that made me like Roger Deakin all the more. Instead, he wends his way back southwards, via a dip in his beloved moat, to a stretch of Norfolk coast where he swims as an autumn sun sets, discovering a peace which I found myself sharing, and which lingered long after the book had been closed.



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Beauty In Ugliness

All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


'All My Puny Sorrows' is not for the faint-hearted. A talented, loved, family member bent on suicide and the rest of the family trying to stop it...it is not exactly jolly fodder for a story. And yet part of Miriam Toews' genius as a writer is to make her subject-matter not only bearable to read about, but also enjoyable. If there is a thread of humour in a situation, she will find it. She writes with such integrity too - staring unflinchingly at life's paradoxes and ugly truths - so that one trusts her and can engage deeply with the ups and downs of this most poignant and difficult of stories without feeling depressed or manipulated by it.

(Aside: If there is one thing as a reader that I hate, it is the sense of having my emotions 'manipulated'. If I perceive that the action in a novel is being twisted for the sake of high drama alone, then something in me shuts down. The story has to ring true. This means that the drama has to come from the 'reality' of the characters and the situations they face. When that happens I am in the thick of it with them, feeling every bump of their journey, desperate to find out what happens next.)

Miriam Toews has the knack of making us care very deeply about what happens next. Her characters are so vivid, so realistic, that at times I found myself re-reading paragraphs to try and spot how she does it. (I failed. The joins are seamless). She also writes beautifully, with the natural evocative power of a down-to-earth poet - her feet squarely on the ground but able to view the world through the stars.



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Out Of My Comfort Zone

Amanda Brookfield's Reviews > Sea Room: An Island Life in the Hebrides

Sea Room by Adam Nicolson
Sea Room: An Island Life in the Hebrides
by Adam Nicolson
25327464
Amanda Brookfield's review Jul 24, 14 · edit
5 of 5 stars
Read from June 30 to July 24, 2014



Reading Progress
06/30 marked as: to-read
06/30 marked as: currently-reading
07/24 marked as: read

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message 1: by Amanda (last edited Aug 02, 2014 06:08AM) - rated it 5 stars Aug 02, 2014 06:08AM
Amanda Brookfield

'An Island Life In The Hebrides' is definitely not my usual type of read. Memoirs-style descriptions of remote Scottish islands, the Shiants, populated by puffins,rats and, sometimes sheep, which have to be transported to and from the mainland by boat....nope, not my bag at all. But a friend recommended it to me. A good friend, one of those whose tastes you can trust absolutely.

I was out of my comfort zone a lot of the time. It meant I had to concentrate, a bit like when one is trying a new - and scary - type of food. This was made easy however by Adam Nicolson's mesmeric and powerful narrative style. He writes like a poet, with an extraordinary eye for ordinary detail and a lyrical, natural turn of phrase that draws you in.

I like books that tell stories. In the case of An Island Life the 'story' operates on two levels. First there is the fascinating history of the islands themselves, which Nicolson tracks back over the centuries, deploying the skills of a forensic scientist as well as a poet in the process. Then there is the account of what the islands have meant to his own family, legal owners for a hundred years. Bequeathed to him by his father when he was twenty one, Adam Nicolson is fast approaching the same milestone with his own son. It is a poignant tradition, plainly not about the handing on of an 'asset' so much as granting the next generation privileged access - the opportunity to connect with and learn from a small, beautiful and truly wild part of the world.

I could not envisage managing the journey, let alone the harsh existence on the Shiants islands myself, but thanks to Adam Nicolson I feel I have been there anyway. But that's what a good book does: takes you somewhere other, and then brings you safely home.

Out Of My Comfort Zone

Sea Room: An Island Life in the Hebrides by Adam Nicolson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars






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A Two-Way Street

Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Reading is a two-way street. More importantly it is a PRIVATE two-way street. This is the essence of its power. The author has set down words for public consumption, but the transformation of those words into meaning takes place in the unique and fertile quietness of each and every reader's mind. It is alchemy, magically different every time.

This, (to digress), is of course why films of treasured books are often disappointing. They are another person's version of a story. There may be areas of overlap, but a viewing can feel like being subjected to a different and usually inferior tale. Films are so crudely prescriptive compared to books, too. So much is depicted. So much is 'given'. It squeezes the imagination into a tiny space where it can barely breathe.

Anne Fadiman's wonderful essays in 'Ex Libris' make one think about such matters. She is a lover of books par excellence. As a child, as a wife and mother, as a writer, books lie at the heart of her life. She reveres their power, both as cherished objects and as conduits to joy, information, imagination and comfort. Each essay is bite-sized and packed with wisdom and fun. I enjoyed them so much I had to make a conscious effort to read them slowly, to savour every word. Several, like the one about trying to merge her book collection with her husband's, made me laugh out loud.

Before starting 'Ex Libris' there were several black sacks of old books sitting in my hall, waiting for me to have the courage - and the time - to take them to the Charity shop. Since finishing Anne Fadiman's gem of a book I have removed the sacks and decided to buy more shelves instead. I feel so happy about this, as if I was trying to do the 'sensible' thing instead of listening to my heart.



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The Ingenious W.G.Sebald

Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


W. G. Sebald is an extraordinary writer. He takes his reader - quite literally - on a journey, through memories and speculations and hopes and terrors in a manner that can feel meandering and haphazard, but which in fact is ingeniously structured so as to leave you trembling and enriched with the sense of new insight into the world.

I apologise if that sounds melodramatic. You have to read 'Austerlitz' to understand that it is not remotely so. It is a haunting book, based around a character who at the age of 5 was sent to England on a Kinder-transport to escape Nazi atrocities, but who has blocked every trace of memory of that experience from his mind. The narrative is about the unblocking of this memory and all the confrontation with harrowing knowledge that this entails.

Austerlitz is like a man waking up from a bad dream, only to have to confront a far more terrible reality. All his life he has felt different, blighted, isolated. As his memories push back at him, remorselessly, triggered by places and by the relentless workings of his subconscious, making connections and forcing them to the front of his brain, Austerlitz starts to piece together the fragments of his scattered and tragic past. Understanding brings a sort of peace, but only to the accompaniment of the greatest pain.

The writing itself is mesmeric, at times defying conventions of syntax and grammar. This contributes to the powerful sense for the reader of being lost, with Austerlitz, in the fog of his search and his suffering.

I am getting goosebumps just from remembering it.

'Austerlitz' is not a novel for the faint-hearted. It makes for difficult reading on many levels. It requires a sort of courage and commitment. The rewards however, are on a scale that is hard, even for this wordsmith, to put into words. Writers like Sebald show the power of literature at its highest: they 'entertain' us, yes, but shake us to our boots as they go.



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A Perfect Literary Cocktail

The Road to Middlemarch: My Life with George Eliot by Rebecca Mead

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


There were so many reasons I liked this book I hardly know where to start.

I bought it because I read a review of it. So, before opening the first page, I knew that its author, Rebecca Mead, was, like myself, a devotee of George Eliot's biggest and best novel, 'Middlemarch', and that, like myself, she had found the power of that novel infusing her entire life, both intellectually and emotionally. Unlike me however, she had decided to put all of this together, for public consumption, attempting to extrapolate the reasons behind it, while at the same time offering illuminating facts about both her life and George Eliot's along the way.

The ingredients,in other words, for a perfect literary cocktail.

As we know however, ingredients are one thing, and the cooking up of a delicious end-result quite another. With the promise of so much,the possibility of disappointment runs high, especially where the subject in hand is so personally treasured. I was nineteen when I 'fell in love' with 'Middlemarch'. As with all objects of fierce passion, I have always nursed a certain possessiveness towards it; a certain inclination to shout 'Hands off!' when someone else dares approach with grubby hands and opinions, laying claim to it as their own.

Yes, I know that sounds dramatic, not to say unreasonable. But taking a novel utterly into your heart, being changed by it in ways that follow you through your life and which you know will stay with you until your death, IS dramatic. Luckily, however, this is exactly what Rebecca Mead understands. Indeed, it is because of experiencing precisely this drama for herself that she wrote 'The Road To Middlemarch', an attempt to explain and share the experience with the wider world.

So for me, reading 'The Road To Middlemarch' was a bit like watching a wonderful singer perform a song that is not only great in itself, but which happens to chime exactly with your state of mind as you listen. You relax - you know you are in 'safe hands' - but at the same time you are spellbound. This was how I felt for every one of the book's 278 pages. I had to make myself read it slowly, not gobble it up. I wanted to savour every new nugget of information, every fresh, perceptive observation.

It was as if Rebecca Mead had written the book just for me. The glimpses into George Eliot's inner life, how it affected the formations of the wonderful characters of 'Middlemarch', the glorious, radical, mutual love she found with George Lewes (that's why she chose the writing-name 'George'!)- each sentence felt tailor-made for my sensibilities, my age, my interests, my loves, my hopes... As with reading the best novels, it was quite simply like being in the company of a new and tremendous friend, one who understands you and whom you are loath to let go.



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'The Tortoise and the Hare'

The Tortoise and the Hare by Elizabeth Jenkins

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I love being surprised by books. And by book recommendations. 'The Tortoise and the Hare' was thrown at me as an out-of-the-blue recommendation on Twitter, the trigger being my enthusiastic post about Dorothy Whipple's 'Someone At A Distance'. If you like Whipple you will like Jenkins, my tweeter told me. And how right he was. Thank you Stuart Anderson.

The similarities between the two novelists are indeed striking. Like Whipple, Elizabeth Jenkins sets her story in the still stifling social world of post-war England, delivering acute observations on the undercurrents of human relationships - the frantic paddling below the mill pond - at times funny, but more often piercingly true to the point of pain. Even the plot of 'The Tortoise and the Hare' is similar to Whipple's 'From A Distance', taking the reader through the torturous journey of a 'good' woman gradually losing her husband to another 'predatory' female. Yet Jenkins treatment of the theme could not be more different, or more brilliant.

When I like the way an author has written something I (very discreetly, and quite guiltily)turn down the top corner of the relevant page. My copy of 'The Tortoise and the Hare' has too many corners turned down to count. Here is one small example, on the blindness of falling in love:

"...dazzled by freshness, delicacy and youth..he gave her credit not only for qualities which she did not possess, but for ones which could scarcely have been found in anybody."

And another,describing a sad, timid shrimp of a twelve year old boy:

"...so frail and light, so hesitant and unhappy that his method of getting himself into the room resembled the wind-blown progress of a dead leaf."

Such precision of thought, such succinctness - it made me think of a miniaturist with a finely pointed pen.

Just as crucially, Jenkins' novel works to great effect from a broader perspective too. Like most serious writers, it is clear that she sets out to 'say' something through her tale. The plot, which shows the beautiful, husband-pleasing Imogen having her charismatic, controlling husband, Evelyn, stolen from under her nose by their neighbour,the redoubtable, much older, and interestingly 'masculine' Blanche Silcox, positively reverberates with wider implications and Big Questions. Yet never once does the writing feel manipulative or bullying. Jenkins simply lets the complexities of the situation speak for themselves. Imogen seems powerless. The gradual whittling away of her self-confidence is agonising to witness. She appears to lose so much. Yet as the story unfolds it also becomes clear that she is making gains too - subtle, vital ones, that the reader can recognise long before Imogen herself.

An emotional page-turner. I read it in one gulp and was left wanting more.



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Shades of Disappointment

Last Friends by Jane Gardam

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I have loved all Jane Gardam's books, retaining a special place in my heart for 'Crusoe's Daughter', a pioneering and brilliant use of one story (Robinson Crusoe) to tell another, in this case a deeply moving tale of a lonely child trying to make sense of an inexplicably harsh world. (A must-read novel, in fact!).
I have also enjoyed the Old Filth trilogy of which 'Last Friends' forms the final part...
...Do you feel a BUT coming on?!
You would be correct.
'Last Friends' did not quite work for me. Some bits were wonderful. But other bits felt almost as if they had been written in shorthand, as if we were being nudged to feel something that the writing could not quite evoke. There was also the too-neat tying off of loose ends at the end, which is always a balancing act to pull off, since readers want a satisfying sense of 'closure'. However, if they are demanding readers like me they also want to be able to believe in what they are being told. And somehow I couldn't quite manage to do this.
Still a very good read. Just not a truly outstanding one.



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The best books combine clever ideas with a cracking story

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a wonderful and above all a CLEVER writer. I have read both her previous books, 'Purple Hibiscus' and 'Half A Yellow Sun' and enjoyed them enormously. In 'Americanah' she tackles the even more ambitious grenade of a subject that is race. In fact I am tempted to mix my metaphors (slightly) and call it a minefield. Yet Adichie, equipped with the credentials of being a stunningly beautiful black woman in possession of an enormous and observant brain, is more than up to the task. Indeed, the finely nuanced and sometimes cruelly blunt observations that she makes about attitudes arising from differences in skin colour - from comical misunderstandings to sheer blind prejudice - took my breath away.

She also tells a cracking story. For, as E M Forster so famously put it, through gritted teeth I always feel: 'Yes, oh dear yes, the novel tells a story'. In this regard 'Americanah is a tale of love in the finest tradition, tracking the lives of two people who should be together but who, through a combination of bad luck and bad decisions, get separated.

Does it end happily? You will have to read 'Americanah' to find out. It is a long book, but well worth the effort, not just for its illuminations on a difficult and topical subject, but for the pleasure as a reader of surrendering to a fiction writer at the top of her game.



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