In Debris, set in and around Norwich, we meet two brothers, Nick and Patrick. As the book is narrated in the first person we see everything through NiIn Debris, set in and around Norwich, we meet two brothers, Nick and Patrick. As the book is narrated in the first person we see everything through Nick’s eyes. We quickly learn that the brothers are estranged in the present day and that Patrick has recently returned after a long absence. He is living in a rundown cottage in the fens whilst Nick appears to be either living with, or seeing regularly, Hannah, who the reader guesses must be Patrick’s ex-wife. The encounter is tense between the brothers and brief. In just a few pages the reader is quickly plunged into the brothers’ worlds and left with a lot of questions as to what happened between them. In the next few chapters we see more of Nick’s world. He is living with Hannah but they don’t appear to be very happy. We also discover that not only does he gamble but he is not a very honest business partner and that he is having an affair. So not your average nice guy. But there is a mystery here that Humphrey deftly hints at and the reader is compelled to keep reading. Nick has a dry wit and so too his betting agent but my favourite character is Hannah’s sister Jessica. I definitely underestimated her. “Jessica’s expression changes. “You’re jealous, aren’t you?” We had a fling once. A brief one, years before, when Hannah was with Patrick. “Dream on.” “I’ve seen you looking at me.” “I still care about you. You’re Hannah’s sister, after all.” Her face goes wistful. “Hannah,” she says. “It’s her you should be worried about.” In Chapter 9 the narrative goes back to when Patrick meets Hannah and from then on the storyline interweaves past and present. The pacing is skilful and so too the gradual revelation of each character’s past. It reminds me of a novel I heard about where the story of an unhappy marriage is told backwards instead of forwards. Debris is just as masterful with the events of the present contrasting and sometimes echoing the events of the past. I thought I knew where the story of these two brothers was going but I was completely surprised by the ending. A challenging and satisfying read. Highly recommended.
I'm putting five stars as I'm very proud of this small book. The house featured in the Hermitage is inspired by four houses. They have all mingled andI'm putting five stars as I'm very proud of this small book. The house featured in the Hermitage is inspired by four houses. They have all mingled and become one: The Hermitage at Healesville, my grandparents house at Kareela Road, Cremorne, the house in The House that Beckons by Gladys Lister and The Hermitage at Vaucluse. I originally began writing this as a screenplay way back in 2009 but couldn't tie up the ending. A few years ago I managed to finish the ending and cut The Hermitage in length to be eligible for a renowned radio play competition. A bad move. Only a year or two ago I decided to look at The Hermitage again. I restored the deleted passages, added more and turned it into a novella. I hope my readers enjoy it....more
I don’t know how Sara Dobbie weaves her magic but within a few words she can create a character with a recognisable personality moving in a distinct wI don’t know how Sara Dobbie weaves her magic but within a few words she can create a character with a recognisable personality moving in a distinct world. And this is so much harder to do in short fiction. Through five very disparate points of view we encounter these characters who live in the same street, Chelsea Street, during a violent, unseasonal storm. In the first story The End Mr Bishop finds himself in a difficult situation and wonders who he can call for help. He ponders on his neighbour. “Just an hour ago he’d seen her out on the sidewalk setting up a tripod and a camera. Posing in front of it wearing sandals in the wet snow right after the power went out. He wouldn’t trust her to help him any more than an escaped convict.” In the second story, Love in the Void, we step straight into Mitzi’s world. “Mitzi lives here alone, though her mother hounds her to get a roommate. She savours the solitude, it allows her to breathe, to create. And what roommate would be ok with a shared living area filled with enormous half-finished canvases and empty paint cans, fabric swatches and scraps of found metal piled in the corners?” It is only with surprise we realise the nature of her connection with Mr Bishop. In Taking Control we meet Tara another resident of Chelsea Street who is having marital problems and has just received a text. “Tara reads the text, cringes, and returns her phone to her purse without replying. The rain is apparently the freezing kind, which means the boss is sending everyone home early.” And with one paragraph we are a world away from Mitzi. In Shades of Home Leigh returns to her childhood home and with a deft touch Dobbie brings Leigh’s childhood and all that she lost, briefly alive again. In the last story, Séance, Faith is sick of being treated like a kid and is very interested in impressing her brother Noah’s friend Adam. During the séance the threads of the stories overlap like the storm itself, with a beginning and an end, bringing these five flash pieces to a satisfying conclusion. Masterly and highly recommended.
This is another case of a book finding me. Recently I was reading the fascinating Sagan, Paris 1954 and the author quoted the first paragraph of one oThis is another case of a book finding me. Recently I was reading the fascinating Sagan, Paris 1954 and the author quoted the first paragraph of one of Sagan’s later books. But the year the book was set wasn’t mentioned. The book was De guerre lasse. Engagements of the Heart, 1986. “From the month of May, the meadows were already bowing under the weight of summer. The tall grass, limp from the heat, was leaning over, drying out and splitting right down to the earth. Further on, above the pond, hazy wisps of vapour trailed in the evening air. And the house itself, with its wrinkled pink façade - the house with its upstairs shutters closed on some secret and its downstairs French windows staring wide-eyed at some surprise - seemed like an old lady who had nodded off on the brink of succumbing to the pressures of uncertainties.” Immediately I was taken with this entrancing description and managed to buy the book cheaply. I opened it to find that the first sentence seemed to be an add-on. “The seasons, too, were harsh in the year 1942.” 1942? So, unlike most of Sagan’s novels not a contemporary setting and the second world war. A time I find particularly interesting. The novel is really a menage a trois. Charles Sambrat is a wealthy businessman who has a factory, house and land somewhere in southern France away from the Germans. His childhood friend Jerome comes to visit, in actuality to hide out. Jerome brings Alice Fayatt, a woman he is obviously in love with but they appear to have a troubled relationship. He is part of the resistance and she an unwilling accomplice. “He was already starting his investigation, thought Alice wearily. He was already beginning; could he not have waited for one more evening, just one evening away from all that? And a hundred jumpy, badly lit images passed in procession beneath her eyelids: doorways of seedy-looking hotels, dark streets, railway stations, short-stay rooms, scarcely unpacked suitcases - sad, dirty, anonymous images, sordid images, always with sharp angles, the images of the Resistance, in a word; and in this rounded meadow, beneath this vaulted sky, with the curve of the poplars over there, these images were all the more terrifying.” Because of the threat of the Germans and Sagan’s skill as a writer this is a tense read. When finally Alice has her own mission, the result is strange but probably more like such a mission was in real life. Who will Alice decide to stay with? Engagements of the Heart has an unexpected but satisfying ending. My only criticism is that the novel was a little ponderous at times, but that is just this reader’s experience.
Anne Berest opens this wonderful hybrid memoir with an imagined scene. Cocteau has just been dropped off to near his home in the early hours of 1 JanuAnne Berest opens this wonderful hybrid memoir with an imagined scene. Cocteau has just been dropped off to near his home in the early hours of 1 January 1954. He passes a young couple - the boy with the Joan of Arc haircut pulling the girl along. “The man watches the two figures as they scuttle through the cold of that early morning. He notices the way they pull each other along by the arm, like two crabs heading in the direction of the Seine.” Coming back to this book to review it I realised immediately how the writing draws you in. No wonder I finished it in days. I was at first, though, surprised by how much Berest is in this memoir, mentioning on the second page: “My book is to be a journal of the year 1954, telling the story of the few months leading up to publication of Bonjour Tristesse. A few months is not a very long time. But I am going through one of the most painful periods of my life. Since the summer, I have been separated from the father of my daughter. I am weighed down by misery and I feel like a suitcase without a handle. I am going to put an end to my grief through work. Night and day I am going to think about Sagan; day and night she will be my companion.” Irresistible isn’t it? But it works because Berest provides the framework and also provides much needed information regarding Sagan that I feel would read quite differently in a traditional memoir. Berest brings the French perspective. In several scenes the author describes strange coincidences whilst researching this book. In one of my favourite scenes Berest decides to visit a fortune teller, just as Francoise Sagan did when she was young. To Berest’s surprise the fortune teller remarks that she can see Berest is writing a book on someone’s life. She then names Sagan. Berest then details the conversation remarking that it is all true. I feel it is, as a reader but the scene also reveals how Sagan was treated in later life and with the author experiencing this encounter it is doubly moving. Here is part of the conversation with the fortune teller: “I am seeing Francoise Sagan - that correct, isn’t it?” “From beyond the grave, she is wondering why society wished to destroy her. She is asking herself that question, she is asking you that question. Just like a tsunami, just as when the sea comes up and lays waste to everything, so society took everything back from her. Why? ...”She is trying to understand why she went from being an idol to a woman who was hated.” Berest helps the reader understand why and delves deep into the life of the young rebel that was Francoise Sagan in 1954. One of my two favourite books so far of 2023. Highly recommended....more
The Postcard by Anne Berest is a revelation. Quite a few revelations in fact. “January, 2003. Together with the usual holiday cards, an anonymous postThe Postcard by Anne Berest is a revelation. Quite a few revelations in fact. “January, 2003. Together with the usual holiday cards, an anonymous postcard is delivered to the Berest family home in Paris. On the front, a photo of the Opera Garnier. On the back, the names of Anne Berest’s maternal great-grandparents, Ephraim and Emma, and their children, Noemie and Jacques - all killed at Auschwitz.” When I first saw the image on the front cover of the book on my phone, I decided it was a cleverly mocked up image of a young woman, wearing clothes similar to what a young Jewish woman might have worn in the early 1940s. The image is so clear, her face so open and happy that it was definitely a case of photoshop magic. When I picked up the book from the library, the jacket told me Noemie Rabinovitch 1941. I was shocked and depressed and had to steel myself to read the book, hoping that the section on Auschwitz wasn’t too long. What a coward you are thinking but as Berest alludes in the novel, many have gone before her to chronicle the harrowing details. She is looking at the bigger picture. There are, however, harrowing details in this book - the events at Pithiviers and they were another revelation and deeply saddening but what Berest is magnificent at is highlighting the whole sweep of the atrocities committed against the jews by the Germans, the Vichy police and French citizens who aided the Vichy government. The Postcard is divided into four books. Book I - Promised Lands. Book II - Memories of a Jewish Child Without a Synagogue. Book III - First Names. Book IV - Myriam. In Book I we learn about the arrival of the postcard and the family history of the Rabinovitchs beginning in Russia, 1919. How the Jews were persecuted and not just in France. We find out about the people on the postcard and how they ended up being in France prior to and at the beginning of the second world war. This section is interspersed with Anne’s questions to her mother about the family. For me as a reader the insidious and maliciously thorough campaign of the Nazis to eradicate the world of Jews is just unbelievable, making me wonder, how did we ever forgive the Germans as a people? Yes, we can say it wasn’t every German but it was so widespread within Germany that it is hard to take in. It is almost unbelievable - the gradual tightening of the belt around the Jews to firstly isolate them, strip away their rights and eventually deport and kill them. Here is Anne and her mother talking about the campaigns. Earlier Ephraim’s business and property were taken away from him, forcing the family to live on a small farm: “Yes. They forced you to lie, and then they treated you like a liar. They prevented you from working, and then they told you that you were a drain on society.” “On Ephraim’s file, the word ‘farmer’ was replaced with ‘sp’, for ‘sans profession.’ And there you have it - he’d been transformed into an unemployed, stateless parasite, reaping the fruits of a French land he never should have been able to buy in the first place. And that’s not all. He wasn’t even actually listed as ‘stateless’ anymore, but as being of ‘unknown origin’.” “I get it. Being stateless is one thing. Being unknown - that’s suspicious.” In Book II we learn why Berest decides to find out who sent the postcard, sixteen years after its arrival. We learn more about the author’s life as a non-practicing Jew and how she begins to uncover details about the postcard. In this book Berest and her mother visit the village where the Rabinovitchs had a small farm before their deportation. It is my favourite part of the novel. In the very short Book III Anne emails her younger sister Claire, also a writer and discusses her quest to find the author of the postcard. She also writes about their middle names: “I’ve realised that, when we were born, our parents gave us both Hebrew first names as middle names. Hidden first names. I’m Myriam, and you’re Noemie. We’re the Berest sisters, but on the inside, we’re also the Rabinovitch sisters. I’m the one who survived, and you’re the one who doesn’t. I’m the one who escapes. You’re the one who is killed.” In the final book, Book IV, we find out what happened to Myriam after the holocaust; what her life was like as a mother and survivor. We also find out who sent the postcard. This is a magnificent book and I don’t think I’ve ever used that adjective before in any of my reviews. It is also a book that everyone who is interested in history should read.
A new social phenomenon has developed these last ten years or so and that is women (generally) in their fifties and sixties out and about on a regularA new social phenomenon has developed these last ten years or so and that is women (generally) in their fifties and sixties out and about on a regular basis with their very elderly parents, mostly mothers. I am one of these. I’m in my sixties and my mother is 92. Twenty or so years ago not many people lived into their 90s. Now it is more common. So when Susan Johnson decides to live in Greece on the fabled island of Kythera she fell in love with in the 1970s, her mother must, by necessity, come with her. She explains: “But even with a redundancy package and the responsibilities of hands-on mothering soon to fly from my shoulders, other obligations remained. In that bright dream of making fresh footsteps in an untrod direction, an aged mother isn’t usually a resident of the red-spotted sack swinging from the stick on your shoulder. I couldn’t leave my mother, I couldn’t run away, I just couldn’t. It’s hardly news that love is a prison: in a reckless moment I asked Mum if she might consider coming with me to live in Greece. “Why not?” she replied in a blink.“ With a contract to write this book and with editing work that must be done on another, Susan Johnson and her mother set off in 2019, aged respectively 62 and 85. Writing a memoir presents its own problems as Johnson points out early on: “Today, it’s considered suspicious - even furtive - to withhold anything from readers, especially in memoirs which purport to present a version of the truth. But I have, because I am a private person - even an obsessively private one - and because writing that seeks to reflect even a portion of the totality of experience can only be a narrative punctuated by spaces......We set off together, foolish and fearless: here is a version of what happened.” What happened of course is so many things in this fascinating and challenging memoir. Firstly, it turns out to be freezing cold in Greece when they arrive, particularly in the house they have rented at Aroniadika. Susan’s mother Barbara is not happy and becomes quite intractable, making life difficult for Johnson. Secondly there is the worry about how to write the memoir, as mentioned above. Mother and daughter clash and Johnson does a lot of soul searching. “All at once I saw the vanity of my project, as if I had imagined myself a glamorous Margaret Mead inspecting a remote tribe. What else could I ever be within this intricate and ancient society but a blow-in sending a postcard saying, The weather is variable, wish you were here?” Along the way Johnson writes about the island itself, the society that saw so many people leave for other shores; the customs, the completely different way of life on Kythera and also does some research on a famous exile - Rosa Kasimati the mother of Lafcadio Hearn, the Greek-Japanese writer and translator. Even though spring is on its way, Barbara decides she wants to live somewhere else. Things become very strained between the pair and Johnson writes: “I was ready to give away every cent I had to never write another book again. I was over my life, I was over my mother: suddenly I was a character in some Greek myth I had forgotten, locked in a fight to the death, a character who chose to burn in a pit of fire rather than let her mother win.” Finally, a second house is found and the weather becomes milder Johnson’s descriptions are glorious. The island becomes the Kythera she remembers: “Now the earth tilted on its axis. Now Kythera woke up, fields of red poppies bright against the ground, wild yellow crocuses spilling like sunshine down hills. Everything trapped was suddenly free, stretching its limbs, breathing out. What had been asleep was now wide-eyed; trees unfurling, strung with tender new leaves. The natural world lit up: the sky, the wild barren mountains, there was nowhere your eyes turned which wasn’t filled with colour and brightness.” Johnson touches on so many things: the history of the island, the relationship with her mother, the new friendships she makes and the brief moments of happiness. Towards the end when tragedy strikes twice I was in tears. I don’t know any other writer that gets right down to the heart of things and Susan, you haven’t failed as a writer. You have found your readership with me and so many others. Please keep writing. 5 and half stars and highly recommended.
For me, James Walton is like a master butterfly catcher reaching out and pulling from the air the most incandescent words and images. I often find theFor me, James Walton is like a master butterfly catcher reaching out and pulling from the air the most incandescent words and images. I often find they fly away from me until I can catch them on a second reading. I have discovered with Walton’s poetry you must be prepared to let diverse representations appear as in the panther in these lines from Blow your trumpet, Gabriel:
“where the clouds churn for hail prepare to scrape calcium make high cheekbones of panther”
The last lines of this poem are marvellous:
“if you stand into the gale all it takes is breath”
I’m not sure why but this collection strikes me more as one of places rather than people. There are still people. People being thought about, remembered or lost but for me place stands out - the backdrop of the remembrance as in Farewell by Sea. And oh the beautiful cadence of this stanza:
“from hand to hand the burnished soil passes cupped by palms conveyed in fist to finally settle where dry throats breathe and cake the slow bake of hearts here held fast before the afternoon’s conviction”
Several poems feature time (time of day, days and months) almost as place - Kilcunda, in the centre of October. Here is a wonderful stanza:
“the trestle bridge is exposed tide out as far as it goes the bull kelp c0llapsed all rolled dragon pieces.”
And more place/time poems: By a window, mid-fall. Inverloch - Cape Paterson Road, late August. Theatre Road at Dusk. And I love the encounter with the kangaroo in Late Winter Sunday Reflection. So many wonderful lines that I wish I had written. From Twelve megawatts to evening:
“the wind turbines
obelisks in need of a pharaoh sift the sky for a language”
Favourite poems not already mentioned:
I begin to wonder Place in a Landscape S.O.S. Sixty-eights Snail Mail Cursive Three hundred and sixty seconds is all it took
I love it when a book is a whole world that you step into. A map definitely helps which this book provides and there is also a list of characters - inI love it when a book is a whole world that you step into. A map definitely helps which this book provides and there is also a list of characters - inside and outside the shop. The book centres around three very determined women, particularly Vivien Lowry who is the subject of the next novel by Jenner. Here is Grace thinking about her difficult husband Gordon: “After the war ended, Gordon’s sense of victimhood continued. His moods only darkened as the skies above England finally opened back up, and Grace spent most of her energy trying to keep him from exploding at her or the boys. Or the leaky rain barrel. Or the milkman for treading too close to Gordon’s front rose bed. Or the thousand other things that Gordon believed were in conspiracy against him.” The young Evie Stone was in Jenner’s first book The Jane Austen Society and at the start of this one she has turned up for an interview when all hell breaks loose. Evie is on a mission looking for a very valuable but neglected novel she believes is at Bloomsbury Books. “Evie had never spent a minute of her life thinking about the things she could not see......Her subsequent years immersed in books had taught her to fixate on words and their placement as objects and makers of meaning. This was one reason why more esoteric studies such as philosophy and religion left her cold. She had to be able to run her hands over something to believe it was true.” After the collapse of one of the staff at Bloomsbury Books changes are made to several people’s positions at the bookshop. Here is Vivien (often angry and difficult) contemplating the changes: “Vivien not only suddenly felt free - she felt emboldened. She could take the structure and strictures in place, the framed fifty-one rules of the shop, the many pages of notes that Alec was already administering, and turn them in her favour. She wondered if the men fully understood what they had done, in their fervour to elevate Alec.” Soon after Vivien begins highlighting the women’s section and organising book talks. Rallying to her aid, and Evie’s, are some illustrious guests (real people) including Peggy Guggenheim, Lady Browning and Sonia Blair. What I enjoyed the most was the quiet moments in the book - Lord Baskin and Grace sitting outside the shop, chatting over a coffee from the coffee cart. Grace and Vivien talking on the bus. Alec pondering the mystifying behaviour of Vivien and Evie methodically going through all the rare books. What I was disappointed in was a lot of foreshadowing and hooks at the end of some of the chapters. In a book such as this one, with such a particular readership, I believe these devices aren’t necessary and lastly I would have liked to see more of Grace. 4 and a half stars. I will definitely be reading the other two books. ...more
In Devotions Mary Oliver has presented her selection backwards chronologically. And so we begin with poems from Felicity 2015 and end with poems from In Devotions Mary Oliver has presented her selection backwards chronologically. And so we begin with poems from Felicity 2015 and end with poems from No Voyage and Other Poems 1963 and 1965. Although I find a lot of her poems a little too simple for my taste, I also found a lot of them are a solace, reminding us of nature and the beauty around us. Covering such a long period of time there are repetitions - quite a few poems about ponds, about grass, stones, loons. Being from Australia I actually had to look up loons, and meadowlarks and goldenrod. So in a sense Oliver, for me, was a guide through unfamiliar landscapes. Just as I was becoming accustomed to the landscape and her writing, a poem would jump out at me such as Violets with its reference to going truant from school three days a week and the violets near a rumbling creek that were destroyed when houses were built:
“Oh, violets, you did signify, and what shall take your place?”
In another poem, about one of her dogs, a very nervous dog, there is another hint of a difficult childhood. From “Benjamin, Who Came From Who Knows Where:
“Then I rub his shoulders and kiss his feet and fondle his long hound ears. Benny, I say, don’t worry. I also know the way the old life haunts the new.”
And then on page 131 there is Praying, my favourite of her poems. Here it is in its entirety:
“It doesn’t have to be the blue iris, it could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones; just pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don’t try to make them elaborate, this isn’t a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak.”
It’s not until her third last collection in the book, written third chronologically: Twelve Moons 1979 do I find the poet that really speaks to me. It is a much younger Oliver of course and the reader can feel her finding her way and embracing her life as a poet with very different poems such as The Night Traveller and Beaver Moon - the Suicide of a Friend. The strange and haunting Aunt Leaf:
“scattering the rags of twilight on fluttering moth wings;”
And my second favourite poem of the collection The Lamps.
“You light the lamps because You are alone in your small house
And the wicks sputtering gold Are like two visitors with good stories”
I seem to be drawn to archipelagos. In 2021 I read the first three of the Sandham Murder mysteries set in the Swedish archipelago and I’m watching theI seem to be drawn to archipelagos. In 2021 I read the first three of the Sandham Murder mysteries set in the Swedish archipelago and I’m watching the TV series on SBS for the second time. Now this book set in an archipelago off the Bay of Finland has come my way. After the death of her mother, Sophia lives with her father and grandmother on a small island. It is not clear what sort of work the father does but he seems to be able to do it at the cottage, quietly working away whilst Sophia spends her summer holidays mainly with her very wise grandmother. Sophia is very cheeky and stomps and carries on, but the grandmother gives as good as she gets. Their relationship is a joy to read about and the grandmother isn’t your ordinary grandmother. She smokes and sometimes has to crawl around when her legs are bad and she carves boats and makes animal sculptures. Through each of the chapters we get to know the amazing birds, flora and fauna of the island (theirs and the ones they visit): the long-tailed ducks, the granite boulders, the rosebush Rosa Rugosa, the bird-cherry, the pine trees and moss. Also all the strange things that wash up on the island. My favourite chapter is The Storm detailing how the family manage when they are caught on another island when the storm hits. “Grandmother had had to be frugal all her life and so she had a weakness for extravagance. She watched the basin and the barrels and every crevice in the granite fill with water and overflow. She looked at the mattresses out being aired and the dishes that were washing themselves. She sighed contentedly and absorbed in thought she filled a coffee cup with precious drinking water and poured it over a daisy.” A lovely, gentle read....more
Earlier in the year I decided I needed a fun read. Maybe with a bit of a mystery and adventure. I thought an early Agatha Christie might just be the tEarlier in the year I decided I needed a fun read. Maybe with a bit of a mystery and adventure. I thought an early Agatha Christie might just be the thing. I wish I had taken a note of the 1940s Agatha Christie I tried to read as I would have put it on my unsuitable list. All I can remember now is a letter and then one after the other the characters were introduced. They all seemed the same - middle class and quite boring. Seemingly at breakfast, lunch and dinner. After about the fifth character I gave up. Luckily, soon after I came across Christie’s second novel The Secret Adversary and found what I was looking for. Tommy and Tuppence do call each other old thing and old bean but mainly in the beginning and it didn’t bother me. To earn some extra money Tommy and Tuppence embark on the hunt for the missing Jane Finn. There’s tea at a Lyons, a stint at the Ritz, the mysterious Mr Carter, a flamboyant American and suddenly there’s a kidnapping or two and the adventure is underway. A fun read. Three and a half stars....more
After scanning through (for research) Ethel Mannin’s Young in the Twenties - a disappointing hotch potch of a book - I was pleasantly surprised by theAfter scanning through (for research) Ethel Mannin’s Young in the Twenties - a disappointing hotch potch of a book - I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the writing in Pilgrims. In Young in the Twenties she mentioned that she drew from her travels to write this novel under review, so I was intrigued. Pilgrims is about a young artist who finds his place in the world and finds a few women along the way but what makes the book interesting is the settings - Amsterdam, The Hague, Bruges and Montparnasse. Mannin goes quite deeply into the psychology of the struggling artist and does appear knowledgeable of artists and their models, the art schools and the fact that many just play at being artists. “The young men felt rather rakish, he perceived, in sitting in cafes in the company of girls whom they had painted in the nude. The girl students, he supposed, felt equally sophisticated in sharing the society of the men. They liked going along hatless and in paint smeared overalls to the cafes, and seeing the tourists regard them with a kind of awed interest, whispering to each other that there went “artists”.” Louis Van Roon however is serious about his art. Here is one of many passages where he contemplates his art in regards to the landscape around him. “The bells of the old Mint House tossed out their gay light over quiet canal, glowing flower-market and teeming Kalverstraat. Louis marvelled that he had not thought of painting the flower-market before. One would not paint it in its obvious aspect, of course, a mere reproduction of flower-laden barges and daubs of colour under trees, but as an impression of colour and activity and balls ringing in the morning; one would paint the morning quality of it all, convey as words could not, the freshness and coolness of that harmony of flowers, water, and bell-song.” Three and a half stars. ...more
Italian Dreams is a beautifully produced book of timeless photographs of Italy. The photographs are done in sepia hues and are quite haunting in fact.Italian Dreams is a beautifully produced book of timeless photographs of Italy. The photographs are done in sepia hues and are quite haunting in fact. Each photo is accompanied by a quote taken from a variety of people; from Goethe, from Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James, Dante, Dickens, D H Lawrence - to name just a few and add a depth to Steven Rothfeld’s photographs. My favourites - Portals Trani, Hilltops Tuscany, Palazzo Vecchio courtyard, Florence, and Good Friday Rome. A treasure of a book with a rather strange introduction from Franco Zeffirelli....more
Boats Against The Current Issue 1 is a diverse yet lyrical collection of poems with landscape and the sea never far away. In its pages I’m sure differBoats Against The Current Issue 1 is a diverse yet lyrical collection of poems with landscape and the sea never far away. In its pages I’m sure different readers will choose different poems to enjoy and read over and over. I actually think in writing this I’ve found different poems than those I selected two months ago, such is the range and style featured in this issue. One poem though, I know I highlighted last time was the haunting ‘shaw’s bridge’ by Jessica Berry:
“Empty space I’ve always known. These days we keep having these clandestine Alliances. Midnight drives, we spy each other through headlight mist.”
The reader will discover a number of tender poems on loss; a meditation on weeds, on aging, on things left behind, a New York city coffee shop and winter, as in these lines, ‘winter’ by William G Gillespie:
“when I gather in my arms the cold winter winds
I rock to sleep the promise of spring”
There is an ode to a creek, the quiet life and the condition of love:
From ‘amygdala’ by John Tessitore
“Love plays itself to exhaustion, then plays Itself again. Perpetual beginning. A love song is a melody repeating.”
I really enjoyed the sailing metaphors in ‘the muse’s knot’ by Karla Linn Merrifield. Here’s one of my favourite lines:
“Hardware, as on a sloop, prompts me to taut lines.”
And more of the sea in ‘aromatic, aromatic’ by R Hamilton:
“their’s was a love affair that sundered, the remains of the fray reduced to flotsam and jetsam”
Also featured are snow, dandelions, a red fox and the heartfelt ‘elegy in silence’ by Laura Bonazzolil:
“I set the candle aside, watch the shadows animate the walls, and think
of Plato’s cave and wonder if somehow you could be alive somewhere”
My two favourite other poems are ‘past life lighthouse’ by Megan Gilbert:
“but maybe I’ve always just been drawn to that light circling like loving arms outstretched, the thought of someone there all night to offer guidance”
And ‘stars’ by Kerry Darbishire. It is a poem you need to read in its entirety so I won’t quote it here. Please read this collection and let me know your favourite poems. Highly recommended.
Ruth Cotton’s memoir opens with these lines: “Once, I was strong. A young woman, who rode horses, mustered sheep, and competed in show jumping. CarrieRuth Cotton’s memoir opens with these lines: “Once, I was strong. A young woman, who rode horses, mustered sheep, and competed in show jumping. Carried her toddlers with ease, helped set up the tent on camping holidays. That’s physical strength. I’ve always had the mental kind — an inner confidence and sureness that seemed convincing, from the outside. It is with me today, softened by life.” By the time I finished the short prologue I was in tears. How do people cope in such a situation, when life delivers a particularly harsh blow? In A Fragile Hold Cotton examines mainly the most recent two years of her life when she keeps a blog on living with MS and her husband’s malignant stage 4 melanoma. The memoir also chronicles how Covid 19 has affected their lives and those around them. In 10 chapters, each containing short essays, Ruth details the challenges she faces, starting with the onset of Covid 19, her inability to initially write more than one micro essay, and then her decision to start a private blog to share with a few invited friends. “I couldn’t control the outcomes of my life, but I could influence them. This, I believed, was the way I would rediscover joy.” In her disarmingly astute and level-headed way the author examines not just the challenges she faces regularly as a person with MS but her search for positivity and open-mindedness about life in the 2020s. She discusses the medication she has had over the years, her specialist’s stark prognosis for her, how she now gets around in her mobility scooter, the occasional walks with her husband and simple things like the relief of seeing her grandchildren after a long absence. In other essays Cotton writes about the joy of watching MetOpera’s At Home Gala Concert, her love for her suburb of Hamilton, how she tackles everyday tasks, how she copes when one day, her husband collapses. She reflects on the possibility of losing him: “Last night, when I ventured from my room and found his in darkness, I knew his was a temporary absence. But that knowing could not disguise what my soul felt with a visceral anguish, that one night I would walk out to this small landing gallery and realise that Ken would not be there, ever, again. My soul needed to be awake last night, needed to allow that knowing to possess it. Needed to allow itself to feel scared about what lay ahead, needed to call on all its strength, and needed to keep vigil for a while longer.” There is so much in this memoir that will be a comfort and an aid to those who are coping with a debilitating illness. Cotton’s calm presence and clear thinking will help many who face such challenges. Highly recommended and a privilege to read. ...more
Recently when I discovered the latest Rosamunde Pilcher collection, I also came across this small 32 page book Rosamunde Pilcher’s Cornwall. At first Recently when I discovered the latest Rosamunde Pilcher collection, I also came across this small 32 page book Rosamunde Pilcher’s Cornwall. At first (thinking of a coffee table book) I thought there must be a mistake in regards to the number of pages but then the book was cheap when I purchased It and sure enough it is only 32 pages. But there is a lot packed in. The thin book is the size of a small travel brochure and would fit nicely in the glove compartment of those lucky enough to actually be driving around Cornwall. I’m only able to armchair travel but I enjoyed this concise little book. It is divided into the East, the South, the West and the North. It begins with an introduction to Rosamunde Pilcher and then lists 41 notable towns and places such as the 16th century house Mount Edgcumbe, Whitsand Bay, Polperro, Bodmin and Wenford Railway, Trewithen Estate, Truro Cathedral and so much more. The text mentions what was filmed where, whether it be an English production or German. The Germans absolutely love Rosamunde Pilcher’s work and I think by now their film company FFP New Media must have shot most of the stories. There is a picture of the cast of Sturmische Begegnung which was filmed in Cornwall in 2000. A pleasant read. ...more
Last year in September was the 40th anniversary of when I started keeping a handwritten record of all the books I have read. On that first page was onLast year in September was the 40th anniversary of when I started keeping a handwritten record of all the books I have read. On that first page was one of Anne Weale’s, my favouite romance writer’s book Antigua Kiss. I recently bought a copy to re-read but wasn’t able to finish it. It is one of those longer format romances that for me just don’t work. These days I barely read romances at all but this other title of Weale’s, the Faberge Cat is interesting with her trademark descriptive details, (not just the heroine’s state of mind.) At the heart of this romance is a mystery. Did Adam, as a youngster, really defraud Jane’s distant relation Cousin Hector who runs a knick-knack shop by not paying the correct price for a Faberge cat? The opening of this short novel immediately sets the tone of Jane’s life in London, living in a flat and working at a boring job. Luckily her landlady is a joy and occasionally lends her some of her vintage designer clothes such as the outfit she wears when she meets Adam Fontenay, an antiques dealer. When Hector contacts her to come and stay in the country and help him run his little shop, who does she bump into but Adam who she has mislead with lies about her background. I enjoyed Jane’s resourcefulness at learning about the antiques business and also the appearance of another suitor. Here’s a little about the auction: “Catalogues were on sale at the door. She bought one and began to work her way through it. She had come early and not many people were there yet. In each room an art auctioneers’ porter in a blue overall was keeping an eye on things, sometimes unlocking the glass cases in which small pocketable items had been placed for safe keeping.” A pleasant read. Three and a half stars....more
What I love about Sara Dobbie’s Flight Instinct is that each one of the sixteen stories is either a startling moment in time or conveys a world distinWhat I love about Sara Dobbie’s Flight Instinct is that each one of the sixteen stories is either a startling moment in time or conveys a world distinct and individual. Each character is grappling with something and many, of course, want to escape. But they are also quite different from each other and the achievement of this in relatively short stories is amazing. And because they are all quite different, I found that I had favourites that transcended the artistry of each story. In The Hunters the two main characters are unnamed but the language and the images it creates stays with you: “Someday far in the future she’ll conjure him as a constellation. Orion, the hunter, chasing a reprieve from a spiritual hunger. She’ll imagine that the star map she drew on his skin rose up to reside in the night sky, where she can observe it on clear evenings. She’ll hunt there too, like Artemis, for a mythical cup to drink from that will sate her unquenchable thirst.” The last line of this story is one I wish that I had written. I really love the Joy Ride the unnamed narrator and her friend Cassidy embark on in the story of the same name. I felt I was in the car with them. And then another wonderful line: “Where does that inherent joy we’re born with disappear to, and how on earth do we ever get it back?” The story Naming Phoenix I had read before but this time it really sunk in and it is my favourite of the collection - very powerful and moving. “The faded morning moon draws her like the tide, but she resists. Blurred faces in the scattered windows of beach houses peer out at her, one here, one there. She knows they wonder about her, but she pays them no heed.” In As She Moves Across the Water Dobbie deftly explores how a simple object can throw a whole relationship into disarray. Ritz and Sadie are the envy of their friends. They seem to have everything but when Sadie discovers an old mix tape of songs before she met Ritz “she thinks she may be losing it.” I really enjoyed the setting of the lake and how the setting impacts on what happens in the story. Ditto the beach house and holiday rentals in Seagulls and Other Strange Birds where Evie discovers that her life has changed: “The days she spent here with her mother and aunt every summer were usually filled with trips into town, afternoons lounging in the sun and evening barbecues with whoever was renting the neighboring houses. This August had passed in the same manner, but something was unaccountably different.” And last but not least of my favourites, the last story in Flight Instinct, The Hedge of a Hundred Sparrows. The imagery in this story is particularly strong and pulls us into Paisley’s world and her life with her dreadful uncle Allan. “As she approaches, the songlike twittering elevates to shrill chirping, and Paisley imagines the hundred tiny beaks opening and closing as fast as the hundred tiny hearts must be thumping. As she reaches the midpoint the cacophony rises en masse, wings beating as they spread out in the sky like a living firework.” A wonderful collection and highly recommended. ...more
There is so much movement in Gillian Swain’s “My skin its own sky” that it creates a very original feel to the book, a distinctive rhythm, a push/pullThere is so much movement in Gillian Swain’s “My skin its own sky” that it creates a very original feel to the book, a distinctive rhythm, a push/pull that I haven’t encountered before in a poetry collection. There’s the past back to the present, the need for time to write versus the demands of motherhood, the things that need to be done versus what will actually get done and all through it weaves the most original use of language; in several poems even a stop/start use of words as in “Too many cups”:
...”voices trickle in from the hall. Brisk nurses march past busy work heart swirl the job gets done the t.l.c.
delivered sheets towels flowers pump swivel pump dose I watch one side of your chest rise and fall rise and fall.”
One of my favourite poems is the very first one. Here it is in its entirety:
“Cricket song
for Jean Kent
What language do you dream in?
Light is the reply. She ripples in the rising tide of cricket song morning thaw and heat miraging off the road.”
Another favourite is “Jacaranda child, Bayview street”. Here is the last stanza:
“She’s been there for ages Inhabits timelessness like laughter. Stay on the back step watch from a distance, leave her there in the midline between lime and lilac. Leave her she has the bees.”
Yet another favourite is the elegant poem “She sings to herself tonight”. A lyrical and far-reaching collection. Highly recommended. ...more
Having read all of Rosamunde Pilcher’s novels and short stories during the 80s and 90s I was pleased to discover this new collection published posthumHaving read all of Rosamunde Pilcher’s novels and short stories during the 80s and 90s I was pleased to discover this new collection published posthumously in 2020. The stories are light reading collected from their publication in women’s magazine, “most between 1976 and 1984”, the years that I was approximately the age of the heroines, funnily enough. Here was the simpler time of my youth with Cornwall thrown in. Overseas travel is not possible for me at the moment so I have been spending quite a bit of time in Cornwall between the pages of several books. And you know that with Rosamunde Pilcher at the helm you will feel like you are there. Straight away what I noticed is that all the meetings between possible lovers, and I say possible, Pilcher often leaves her hero and heroine at the early stages of their romance, (something I had forgotten) is that the meetings are, of course, face to face. I really believe we have lost our way with dating in the 21st century but sadly there are not so many parties and get-togethers as their used to be and that’s why online dating has flourished. So in A Place Like Home there are unexpected meetings and chance encounters - the stuff of fairy tales these days. The strength in these 15 stories is the way Pilcher quickly throws us into the main character’s world. In Someone to Trust (set in Devon) the story opens with the breakup of a relationship: “When it was all over, when she had turned her back on him and walked away, leaving him standing on the pavement staring after her, she had gone back to the office, stumbled through an afternoon’s work, somehow got herself back to the flat, and then rung Sally.” I love the little details that take you by surprise. Here is the heroine thinking of the man she broke up with: “His good looks, the smell of his aftershave, the expression in his eyes as he watched her across some candlelit table. Her physical longing for his presence made her tremble. To and fro went the windscreen wipers. Never again they said. Never again. Never again.” In the title story A Place Like Home, my favourite in the collection, Joanna Crayshaw is twenty six without any immediate family members and has just had her appendix out. Her boss William Anderson who she calls Mr William organises a little holiday for bedrest. She is to stay with Mr and Mrs Duffy who live on a farm in Scotland. They can take care of her for a week or two. (Can you imagine a 21ast century boss doing this? Definitely not.) But luckily Pilcher draws us in quickly and you find yourself eager (as a reader) to accompany Joanna to Scotland. There is confusion when she is met off the train, though. It is not Mr Duffy but someone else. “She was half-expecting him to introduce himself, but such social niceties appeared to be beyond him.” I really enjoyed the descriptions of the place she stays at: “More adventurous still, she finally walked to the river, swollen to a great estuary two or three miles wide. Here the water was tidal and the mudflats inhabited by a marvellous variety of birds. Peewits nested in the marshy seafields and there were flocks of black and white birds that she could not identify.” The Stone Boy is set on a Mediterranean island (another favourite place of mine to read about, in fact any Mediterranean island will do). “In front of the house ran a terrace crowded with terracotta pots filled with flowers. Julie switched on a light, and all at once everything was floodlit like a stage set, but this brilliance only intensified the surrounding darkness, and it was impossible to imagine what lay beyond.” Liz is staying with the owners of the house, Julie and Harry. Near the pool is a statue of a boy. For me the statue seems to haunt the story and it has stayed with me. In this story Pilcher performs a sleight of hand and there is a surprise ending involving someone who lives in the small house across the road. For me, in regards to several other stories, it is the small details that linger rather than the romance. The stream at the bottom of the main character’s brother-in-law’s property where she is staying and where she goes to escape in the story titled Jonathan. The stone carn on top of a hill that Amelia used to call the top of the world in A Smile for the Bride. And lastly the white dress with embroidery around the neckline and hem that the narrator wears in Magic Might Happen. Recommended for Rosamunde Pilcher fans and those who want to escape the 21st century....more
Just did a stocktake of my little pocket books. I have 13 Penguin 70s, 12 Penguin 60s and this little one is my sixth Phoenix book, the same size as tJust did a stocktake of my little pocket books. I have 13 Penguin 70s, 12 Penguin 60s and this little one is my sixth Phoenix book, the same size as the 60s Penguin books. The title is a little confusing as this is three Rosamunde Pilcher stories not one. The title story is actually included in the new collection of Pilcher's published in 2021 and is a sweet romance. The other two stories however are not your straight boy meets girl romance, which for me makes them more interesting. The other two stories both appear in Pilcher's collection The Blue Bedroom and Other stories. The first is actually about a medical emergency that throws a tightknit family into turmoil. It is entitled The White Birds. In the last story, The Tree, a young couple grapple with an unusual problem in their London flat. A pleasant read....more
In the Nineties my mum and I read all the Rosamunde Pilcher books. I love Cornwall and Devon and every now and then I’m drawn inexplicably back to thaIn the Nineties my mum and I read all the Rosamunde Pilcher books. I love Cornwall and Devon and every now and then I’m drawn inexplicably back to that part of England. I can’t afford a ticket at the moment, so I let Marcia Willett take me there in her wonderful descriptions of the Tamar river. But it wasn’t just the landscape the characters inhabit that I liked. It was the characters themselves. I really enjoyed reading about Kate and Cass. They are both strong women, best friends for forty odd years and now in their sixties (or nearly). There is a fascinating backstory as well involving the sea garden of the title. The strength of the novel is how well the character are intertwined (young and old), how they react to the circumstances they all find themselves in and how smoothly Willett moves from each point of view to the next. And this is the first time I have encountered love at first sight done in a believable way. ‘That was quick work,’ murmurs a voice from behind him, and Oliver swings around to see a fair-headed woman surveying him with amusement. ‘It wasn’t even much of a chat-up line, either. Does he always cut you out like that?’ Oliver is aware of a very odd sensation; as if everything - the world, time, sound - has briefly stopped and now jolts on again but in an entirely different way. Nothing will ever be quite the same again. He shrugs, pretending resignation. ‘Story of my life,’ he says. ‘Are you Sophie?’” An enjoyable read and I’m looking forward to getting my hands on her very first novel. It is about Kate and Cass and published in 1995. ...more
I am definitely in holiday mode at the moment with my reading and Cornwall seems to be the destination, having just finished a second book set in CornI am definitely in holiday mode at the moment with my reading and Cornwall seems to be the destination, having just finished a second book set in Cornwall. In a Cornish Affair an American bride to be, Jude, literally bolts at the altar and finds herself in a crumbling clifftop mansion in Cornwall. She has been hired to catalogue the extensive library of the owner, Petroc Trevillion, a gardening writer in his sixties. There’s a missing treasure lost centuries ago and a riddle that seems to hint at a location. What I liked about this book was the very immediate first person narrative. What I had trouble with was the piecemeal way Jude worked. I can’t help believing an archivist and cataloguer would have been so much more systematic, working slowly and methodically towards the goal of finding the right list for each book. If Jude had worked this way in the novel I’m sure there would have been a sense of her moving ever closer to finding the answer to the riddle (with the tension building) but instead she’s all over the shop, haphazardly skipping from room to room and of course getting way off course when Petroc’s son arrives. A little frustrated with Jude, I kept reading for the Cornish landscape which is beautifully evoked. 3 stars. ...more
If you want facts about the twenties listed like a shopping list this book is for you. Ethel Mannin, a prolific writer, lived a fascinating life and tIf you want facts about the twenties listed like a shopping list this book is for you. Ethel Mannin, a prolific writer, lived a fascinating life and travelled extensively in the Twenties whilst she was in her twenties. She flew to Paris with her young daughter from the new Croydon airport in 1925. It was a time in air travel when most of the passengers were men. She went to parties, the theatre, the ballet. She met so many famous people and they are all written about including Daphne du Maurier, Hugh Walpole and W.B. Yeats (who she is reputed to have had an affair with). This isn’t mentioned. So much in fact, isn’t mentioned. Like for instance who actually looked after her young daughter Jean when she was writing and travelling and clearly not with the child. Her first husband, the father of the child is not mentioned. Presumably Oak Cottage, where she met a lot of famous people including Richard and Allen Lane the founders of Penguin, is his house or theirs. But again the reader is not sure. And where she lived with her second husband and what he was like is not written about either. The book is a dizzying collection of antidotes that I merely scanned for information. Not recommended unless, like me, you are researching the decade....more
Serious Flash Fiction Volume VIII is an ingenious little collection of flash pieces that appeared on twitter and had to adhere to telling a story in aSerious Flash Fiction Volume VIII is an ingenious little collection of flash pieces that appeared on twitter and had to adhere to telling a story in a single tweet, i.e. a maximum of 280 characters since 2018 and before that just 140 characters since the project started in 2013. I commend both Ben Warden and Katie Clark for their marvellous selections of dark, light, mysterious, other-worldly and poignant pieces that make up this collection of 31 pieces by 25 contributors. There is so much to enjoy in this little book. And as Ben has instructed I have followed each of the contributors (listed by twitter handle only). Highly recommended. ...more
Elizabeth Strout’s writing Is unlike anything I’ve read in a long time, except Hemingway. Such clean simple prose that gradually reveals the bleaknessElizabeth Strout’s writing Is unlike anything I’ve read in a long time, except Hemingway. Such clean simple prose that gradually reveals the bleakness of Lucy Barton's childhood. “Lucy is recovering from an operation in a New York hospital when she wakes to find her estranged mother sitting by her bed. They have not seen each other in years. As they talk, Lucy finds herself recalling her troubled rural childhood and how it was she eventually ended up in the big city, got married and had children.” This is not the first time I’ve been moved by the apparent soulless and stultifying poverty in rural America. How it affected so many childhoods. I know it’s tough in the Australian bush but how many Australian children had the childhood Lucy did? I hope not many. I really loved how certain things seem to glow under Strout’s concise prose. The Chrysler building for instance that Lucy stares at from her hospital bed. “I turned my eyes toward the window. The light from the Chrysler Building shone like the beacon it was, of the largest and best hopes for mankind and its aspirations and desire for beauty. That was what I wanted to tell my mother about the building we saw.” There is a lot Lucy wants to say to her mother and a lot she wants to ask in this small masterpiece....more
One of the first novels (if not the first) to be inspired and written while events of WWII were still unfolding is the amazing Suite Francoise by IrenOne of the first novels (if not the first) to be inspired and written while events of WWII were still unfolding is the amazing Suite Francoise by Irene Nemirovsky. The memoir No Place to Lay One’s Head reminded me of this marvellous book, particularly the flight south to evade the invading Nazis. Written in a very immediate first person we are from the beginning plunged into the unnamed narrator’s world as a Jewish bookseller running a French language bookshop in Berlin during the 1920s and 30s. Strangely, although she ran the bookshop with her husband who left for France in 1933, he doesn’t appear in the memoir at all. For most of the book Francoise is just one woman (with help from friends) against the Nazis and I think this is what gives it so much power. Her realisation that she must get out of Berlin and then later Paris are riveting. She is intelligent and resourceful and along the way a lot of people help her in her quest to escape to Switzerland. This book reads like a handbook: How not to get caught by the Nazis and along the way Frenkel chronicles the despair of others who must flee as well, the helplessness of those caught in the net and how bureaucracies trapped them. “The radio was recommending procuring a safe-conduct pass for the journey so I took myself off to the police station in my neighbourhood very early one morning. I was not in the least astonished to find a line of suppliants. After the hours I had spent waiting outside the prefecture of police, I was not about to be put off by anything of that nature. A group of us were led over to a table, where some policemen were sitting. We discovered it would be necessary to get hold of either a medical certificate attesting to the need for a sojourn at the seaside or the countryside, or a personal invitation from the place where one was planning to go, preferably from a close relative or, even better, from a patient requiring care. Some went directly upon leaving the police station to besiege doctors’ consulting rooms, others discovered relatives of varying degrees of proximity; when all was said and done, everybody was trying to extricate themselves as best they could, and a fresh spurt of innovation became evident in their attempts to handle the changing circumstances. My old friend urgently contacted his godson, who promptly sent me a formal invitation as required. Appeals to the population were growing urgent, but, at the same time, safe-conduct passes were increasingly difficult to obtain. I received mine not a moment too soon.” A fascinating memoir and an important historical document....more
The island of Martha’s Vineyard has long fascinated me so when I stumbled across mention of this book, I grabbed it from my library. It’s a great settThe island of Martha’s Vineyard has long fascinated me so when I stumbled across mention of this book, I grabbed it from my library. It’s a great setting for a coming of age novel which is pretty much what Summer Darlings is. Heddy (Hibernia) Winsome is definitely plucky but when she first arrives as a nanny to a wealthy island family, she is in awe of Ted and Jean-Rose, her employees. The early 1960s in the US is skilfully evoked with just the odd mention of movie stars and the Kennedys to keep us anchored in that timeframe. “Heddy sat with her legs crossed on the plush oriental carpet and flipped through the album covers. Ella Fitzgerald, Fabian, Elvis Presley, She slid Little Eva’s “The Loco-Motion out of the cover, balancing the smooth edges of the vinyl in her fingertips, and placed it on the turntable. She lowered the needle down with a steady hand, careful not to make any scratches. The singer’s perky voice sounded out, and Heddy turned up the dial on the record player so it filled the vacant rooms. Ruth bounded down the stairs. “I love this song.”” Soon after arriving Heddy meets two very interesting men. One is a surfer/property developer named Ash Porter and the other is a wealthy young jazz player, Sullivan, who is bucking his rich parents’ control over his life. There is also Ruth from the wrong side of the tracks (island) who also works for Jean-Rose. Gradually Heddy finds her feet in this new stage of her life and soon realises that there is trouble in paradise in the marriage of Ted and Jean-Rose I particularly enjoyed Heddy’s diary entries and would have preferred more of these and less of the endless talks on the beach between her and Ash. Heddy also meets a famous movie star, Gigi McCabe, who takes our protagonist under her wing, giving her clothes and advice on social climbing and how to find a husband (if she wants one that is). Like another reader points out, I found the last part of the book rushed but still an interesting twist. If you want to escape the awfulness of the 2020s then this is the perfect time machine. ...more
Having researched a little about C K Stead, one of New Zealand’s most famous authors, I was expecting a challenging read with The Necessary Angel. InsHaving researched a little about C K Stead, one of New Zealand’s most famous authors, I was expecting a challenging read with The Necessary Angel. Instead, within the book’s pages, I discovered not only extremely readable prose but an interesting storyline. In this contemporary novel, Max Jackson is a lecturer at the Sorbonne and immediately the reader is plunged into the erudite world of that prestigious university, its lecturers and students. Max is married to a rather forthright French woman named Louise, they have two children Jean-Claude and Juliette and for some inexplicable but somehow inevitable reason, Max has been forced to live in the lower floor of the apartment building, away from the rest of the family. He sees the children of course and he is the one who mostly has the family dog Skipper. Early on it is obvious that Max is attracted to his work colleague Sylvie, whose older lover is German. And a young English student, Helen White, who is studying at the Sorbonne, is fascinated by Max. Several other readers have accused Stead of showing off with his knowledge of literature. I didn’t feel that way at all. If one of your characters is writing a book about another writer, then you need to know your stuff to sustain believability. Max is writing about both Doris Lessing and V S Naipaul. He is reading Martin Amis’s novel, The Zone of Interest. Louise is working on an edition of one of Flaubert’s novels. Sylvie lives with a taciturn German who is working on a version of The Ghost Sonata by Strindberg. Sylvie actually doesn’t have much literary interest except her job and her involvement with the conference for the following year - 2015, concerning four English and four French poets who had been killed or died as a result of wounds in the Great War. “It would be a memorialisation of the fallen, but a literary one.” Helen White is fascinated by Edward Thomas’s poem Adlestrop and Gurdjieff, a mentor of Katherine Mansfield’s during her final illness. And then of course there is the painting that has been in Louise’s family for years - reputedly a Cezanne. Here’s Max thinking about Sylvie: “She was the invader who had mysteriously moved in and taken possession of the house of his mind; and for Max the point of going after a new Amis book was to take it back again - part of it anyway.” Here’s Louise poking about Max’s apartment whilst he is away: “She breathed in the faint aroma of Max and felt a brief glow of affection, a sadness that she had, in effect, dismissed him downstairs. But she had been finding his presence, when she was working, distracting - no less so when they were getting on well than when they were not.” “Helen White was frightened of many things, and especially of thunder and lightning. But to be afraid was not altogether a bad thing. Sometimes it could be enjoyed, like a new taste, a piquant flavour, a subtle aroma, a bad smell.” And Sylvie on Max: “He was a ditherer, held in place by that important wife of his, who had banished him downstairs with the dog while she lived upstairs with Flaubert.” French politics feature in the novel and later the events of January 1915. At one stage I kept wondering how it was all going to end. Just the loss of half a star for the last page or so of the novel, which I found was a stretch. Otherwise, an enjoyable book I read very quickly. ...more
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