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What Are We Reading? 2 Nov 2020
And now I'm on to Haldor Laxness' The Atom Station, translated into Italian by Alessandro Storti. After having read Independent People a few years ago, and being hugely impressed Laxness has been on my radar screen for a while.
Reen mentions Mrs Smiling's 'perpetual search of a perfect brassiere' ...One of the things to be learned from women's fiction of the early and mid 20th century is about the horrible things we gals used to have to wear under our outer dress. Stays in particular come to mind, but in the Molly Keane novel I just finished there's quite a to-do over something called a 'belt', which sounds like a torture device. The Sixties may not have brought about universal peace and justice as its youth foretold, but at least it liberated the female body.
PORTUGESE 19th C NOVEL NEWSFLASHDedalus have published a portugese cl;assic from the 1860s by Julio Dinis "An English Family" set in Porto
i have it on my TBR pile and forgot to mention it yesterday, this is a rare english translation by Margaret Julll Costa, released in Sept
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First I'd like to add my thanks to Lljones and Justine for their work on setting this up.
At the moment I'm reading Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant, which I think was recommended some time ago by PatLux. I've previously enjoyed Dunant's Hannah Wolfe crime novels and The Birth of Venus set in 15th century Florence.
Sacred Hearts is set in a convent in Ferrara in the 16th century. In The Birth of Venus we encounter a girl who has artistic talent. Here we meet Zuana, in charge of the dispensary and infirmary, who had to enter the convent on the death of her doctor father. She had learnt a lot from him and treats the various afflictions of the sisters as well as providing remedies for the Bishop's haemorrhoids and bad breath. Being a woman she was unable to attend the public dissections where doctors/students could learn about anatomy, but the crucifixes in the convent have given her some knowledge of men's bodies (!). A young novice, Serafina, has just entered the convent and is rebelling against it with all her might.
Joy wrote: "I’m not really settling on any books at the moment, what with another lockdown about to commence and both parents having major surgery this month. I’ve picked up various lightweight books to tempt ..."sad to hear that about your parents joy, lockdown wont help with the logsitics of that
Have you tried short story collections to get past the "nothing finished" issue. with short stories you can dip in and out, not much investment of time needed and it can be refreshing?
AB76 wrote: "Joy wrote: "I’m not really settling on any books at the moment, what with another lockdown about to commence and both parents having major surgery this month. I’ve picked up various lightweight boo..."That's a really worthwhile suggestion. I've had Covid brain for months and I've been reading a lot more short short stories. Still reading novels, but not long ones.
Just had a notice through my email from Sam Jordison at Galley Beggar Press. Someone here mentioned being turned away from the GB 'Buddies' subscriber scheme,. Now they have set up a 'Buddies Unlimited' option, slightly less expensive, but still offering a lot. Please have a look:https://www.galleybeggar.co.uk/buddie...
The Offing by Benjamin Myers I’ll start with a warning: what follows is not an eulogy. I am one of a small minority who wasn’t bowled over by this book, unlike the 85% or so who gave it 4 and 5 star ratings on GR. There were so many things that irritated me, which probably wouldn’t be noticed or minded by the majority of readers. If it is on your TBR pile maybe stop reading now. I would hate to spoil it for you.
I was so sure I would love this book. The story, the place, the time appealed to me. And it came highly recommended by some TLSers.
The best I can say: I didn’t entirely dislike it.
The story was good(ish). I would have wished for a bit more flesh on the protagonists, Robert and Dulcie, but that is a minor complaint.
Ruby Landau, the poet, is the third main character, a catalyst for the better part of the story. A German (Jew?),left Germany in 1933, young, beautiful, extraordinarily talented, extraordinarily successful (very soon after moving to England), champagne lifestyle, candle burning at both ends, darkness inside not redeemed by love, inevitable dramatic end. A perfect stereotype and not much else.
The writing:
There were beautifully written passages, there was humour in the conversations. There were also platitudes, cliches, borderline kitsch.
I can't stand overwrought similes (brambles compared to the barbed wire of Bergen-Belsen...) and pretentious and/or non-sensical adjectives. There were too many of both for my liking.
Then there were the improbabilities:
Robert, a 16yo from a small mining village, doesn’t bat an eyelid when he hears the love story of two women, his only thought is that the age difference between them might have been a problem. Remember: this story is set in 1945/6.
And the impossibilities:
During the harsh winter thousands of chickens starved to death in the poultry farms. Poultry farms in postwar England?
Starting on the first page (Robert goes into the kitchen of his one-room atelier) this book is peppered with improbabilities, impossibilities and inconsistencies. The episode with the bees made me look longingly at a wall, wishing it wasn’t a library book I had in my hands. So did the short paragraph featuring not only the above-mentioned chicken, but also sheep and cows.
The last page provides a fitting ending to this review and, to a degree (imo), to the book:
Robert, now on the eve of his life, having taken stock, watches the sunset (geddit?). As the sea is a major character in this book the sun must, of course, set over the sea. Never mind we are in East Yorkshire....
Gpfr wrote: "Hello everyone! I think I've successfully negotiated the privacy settings and turning off emails :)First I'd like to add my thanks to Lljones and Justine for their work on setting this up.
At the ..."
I managed to race through the chunky, but well written, Sacred Hearts determined to find out the fate of the novice nun, which sort of reflects the events out in the open around the religious house. I'm always drawn to books featuring religious characters, possibly because they are so different to my life & circumstances. I particularly liked the fairly recent The Western Wind by Samantha Harvey about a 15C priest coping with the social change (& suspicious death) in a small village about to be incorporated into the much larger system of a monestry.
Toril wrote: "I don’t know whether this should be posted under ‘sense of place’ or ‘what we’re reading’.... Anyway, I have access to a Norwegian e-book library and have borrowed the last book in the Barrøy quart..."I too am reading the Barroy and beautiful it is too. Such a peaceful sense of place. Near the end of book one and looking forward to the next one in the quartet.
Some comments open on the Guardian book site. I have decided to start a one-woman-campaign:Bring back Tips, Links and Suggestions and the Reading Group!
Call it silly, by all means. It will probably not change anything. It is just something I want to do.
Georg wrote: "Some comments open on the Guardian book site. I have decided to start a one-woman-campaign:Bring back Tips, Links and Suggestions and the Reading Group!
Call it silly, by all means. It will probab..."
Upticked them all!
I do miss upticks on GR, my mouse finger starts trembling then I remember there's nowhere to tick up (?)..
Magrat wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Joy wrote: "I’m not really settling on any books at the moment, what with another lockdown about to commence and both parents having major surgery this month. I’ve picked up various li..."covid brain? did you catch it then? or just another word for "mind-fog"
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Nah, TBoS is her favorite, in fact her all-time favorite novel. Don't you remember she and kmir debating about TBoS?
Georg wrote: "The Offing by Benjamin Myers I’ll start with a warning: what follows is not an eulogy. I am one of a small minority who wasn’t bowled over by this book, unlike the 85% or so who gave it 4 and 5 s..."
It’d be interesting to see what Myers himself says about these points. He is a GR author, and another reader has pointed out some other implausibilities in Reader Q&A..
Fields of Rape were rare until the 1970s Blue rope on a boat? Rope would not be coloured, it was natural rope. Crab-sticks in those days? Again, not until the 1970s. Wood burning stoves?.
If you call something ‘fiction’ does that give you the right to do this? Or is it just poorly researched writing, or lazy editing?
I enjoyed it, but much prefer him with darker stuff.
I was mostly disappointed with The Fine Art of Literary Mayhem: A Lively Account of Famous Writers & Their Feuds (1963) by Myrick Land. Expecting something like blood sport, what I got instead were mostly accounts of intemperate or belligerent public remarks being met with disappointed but calm understanding or temperate rejoinders. It takes two roughly equal and committed parties to produce an entertaining feud, but these accounts tend to be too one sided in terms of the heat expended, the inequality in fame of the participants, or both. Two accounts break the pattern of what I generally consider a literary feud. In Land’s account Turgenev comes across as a reasonable, quiet-living man who becomes entangled with fanatics and madmen in the persons of Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Goncharov. The opposite of a reasonable man, D. H. Lawrence is portrayed as a would-be messiah/prophet frustrated by a lukewarm disciple in the person of John Middleton Murry, who falls considerably short of the total devotion that Lawrence expects of him.
Earlier this year I read Cakes and Ale by Somerset Maugham and afterward, reading the entry for the novel in A Reader's Guide To The Twentieth Century Novel, discovered that one of the characters, a successful but superficial novelist, was based on Hugh Walpole; Land covers that affair here. Rather than going at it with daggers drawn, the two antagonists are both in denial about the whole affair: Maugham disingenuously denying the identity of his model during Walpole’s lifetime, and Walpole deluding himself into accepting Maugham’s reassurances. In the meantime, the informed literary public seems to have accepted the identification with Walpole, a portrayal that is apparently considered to have irreparably damaged his reputation. (I have Portrait of a Man with Red Hair: A Romantic Macabre and The Herries Chronicles by Walpole on my shelves – I’m more inclined toward picking up the former when I think about reading him.)
Those intrigued by the above will find a little more information on the feuds covered in my GR review.. One of the fiercer feuds I’m aware of, that between Lillian Hellman and Mary McCarthy, is not included in this book.
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Bring back Tips, Links and Suggestions and the Reading Group!
Strange goings-on:
I upticked your comment under the Jenny Erpenbeck review - just now I wanted to look at something in the article again & it's no longer there...
And there's a TLS from September!
Gpfr wrote: "I upticked your comment under the Jenny Erpenbeck review - just now I wanted to look at something in the article again & it's no longer there..."Just passing through but super quickly, yes it is (I think they've just reshuffled things in a silly way as mentioned by MissB): https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...
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Yeah, that doesn't say it's her favorite, though. I've pinged her, asking her to come settle this tiff.
Machenbach wrote: "Did it include duels?" Man, I wish! The most physical any of Land's feuds get is a bit of chest-thumping by Samuel Johnson and some "indecisive" grappling between Hemingway and Max Eastman. It was published too early to include Mailer's knock-down of Gore Vidal. The Russians I mentioned are the only non-Anglophone feudists.
Hello everyone, it is good to see so many of us. Thanks to Lisa and inter for setting this up!Still trying to find my way around here. I just deleted a very long, chatty post by accident when I was trying to insert a html link at the last minute... Silly me, I should have known. Also, I had written the word nipples. Maybe it is jinxed after all this fuss at TL&S about it?
Tonight, I read German Romantic poems, and then this thread inspired me to move on to an exhibition catalogue on the history of underwear, 1700-1960.
As my first attempt disappeared, I will just show you some male corsets, for reasons of equality. https://www.thelingerieaddict.com/wp-... (1893 ad for the "Invicorator Belt," a men's corset marketed as being for back support.)
I can also tell you that I read an English-language novel some years ago in which liberated undergarments.. ah, their wearers, featured quite prominently. Title and details escape me though... That's a helpful hint, isn't ist?
If someone would like to tell me, that would be very kind: Can you click on the link in my earlier post and see the image?
Justine wrote: "Reen mentions Mrs Smiling's 'perpetual search of a perfect brassiere' ...One of the things to be learned from women's fiction of the early and mid 20th century is about the horrible things we gal..."
Sometimes you just want to add an uptick!
@GeorgElser: I upticked your campaign post, too!
Gardendetective wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "Hello everyone! I think I've successfully negotiated the privacy settings and turning off emails :)First I'd like to add my thanks to Lljones and Justine for their work on setting thi..."
Have you tried the novels by S J Parris:
https://www.fantasticfiction.com/p/s-...
Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "If someone would like to tell me, that would be very kind: Can you click on the link in my earlier post and see the image?"The men in corsets? Yes you can
Many thanks, giveusaclue. You do live up to your name!
Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "Many thanks, giveusaclue. You do live up to your name!"Ha, it has been used against me on the nastier threads on our former platform!
Bill wrote: "I was mostly disappointed with The Fine Art of Literary Mayhem: A Lively Account of Famous Writers & Their Feuds (1963) by Myrick Land.That's a shame, the title does sound very interesting! There is a German-language collection titled "Poets dissing poets" (Dichter beschimpfen Dichter). I thought it not only amusing, but also the remarks were revealing about the writers' works.
PaleFires wrote: "I think it's a great idea Georg, and I plan to write more lots more letters."Excellent. Please keep us up to date. I am not averse to writing the odd letter myself, if it might help.
giveusaclue wrote: "Gardendetective wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "Hello everyone! I think I've successfully negotiated the privacy settings and turning off emails :)First I'd like to add my thanks to Lljones and Justine for t..."
No, I've not yet got around to reading SJ Parris, even though I've been intending to for years !! ATM I've been avoiding long book series because I'm finding my concentration wandering & have chosen lighter reads as pure distractions.
giveusaclue wrote: "Gardendetective wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "Hello everyone! I think I've successfully negotiated the privacy settings and turning off emails :)First I'd like to add my thanks to Lljones and Justine for t..."
I notice you are currently reading Ann Swinfen & I have read a few of those.
Do you sometimes get second-hand books with handwritten dedications and try to guess the story behind them?The mentions of Portuguese literature here have led me to the bookshelf, and I picked José Cardoso Pires' "Lisboa Livro de Bordo", which contains excellent snippets on Lisbon. I love this city, and I think a reread of snippets might be just right for me tonight!
About the handwritten dedication: The writer (Peter) congratulates the unknown recipient on we-don't-know-what and promises a journey to Lisbon as "the city of your desire". "Just the two" of them. "Before summer." Dated 2004. The relationship is probably dated as well... an unwritten story.
Unfortunately, "Lisboa Livro de Bordo" is not translated into English (just French and German, from what I gather), but various of his others are.
Do you like this author, Slawkenbergius?
At the moment, I am not sure what to read after that. I would like to finish "A Brief History of Seven Killings", but not just now, I think. I need something lighter which does not remind me of Sam and us being "paused"!
And thus she ends on a low note. Sorry, and sleep (and wake) well.
PaleFires wrote: "Sorry sistah, wearing no bra at all, not even for my job (which requires a cheffy overthing) now THAT'S perfection!Loving the new edit function here."
Stop your boasting! Some of us need greater bolstering.
Gardendetective wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "Gardendetective wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "Hello everyone! I think I've successfully negotiated the privacy settings and turning off emails :)First I'd like to add my thanks to Lljon..."
Yes, I am enjoying it, and glad kindly posted a link to a map of Oxford in 1375 which is nice as I can follow the story round the town.
You may wish to check out Bernard Knight's Crowner John series set in the late 1190s in Exeter, they aren't heavy going:
https://www.fantasticfiction.com/k/be...
Reen wrote: "PaleFires wrote: "Sorry sistah, wearing no bra at all, not even for my job (which requires a cheffy overthing) now THAT'S perfection!Loving the new edit function here."
Stop your boasting! Some ..."
Hey you can have some of mine if you want!!!
giveusaclue wrote: "Reen wrote: "PaleFires wrote: "Sorry sistah, wearing no bra at all, not even for my job (which requires a cheffy overthing) now THAT'S perfection!Loving the new edit function here."
Stop your bo..."
I'm not quite sure whether you're offering upholstery or stuffing, ha.
Reen wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "Reen wrote: "PaleFires wrote: "Sorry sistah, wearing no bra at all, not even for my job (which requires a cheffy overthing) now THAT'S perfection!Loving the new edit function ..."
Take your choice
I must mull that over and ask myself what Mary Smiling would do when her cup runneth over. In the meantime, hoping things don't go tits up for our US friends.
Barbara Noble isn’t a name I’d ever heard mentioned until very recently. Her novel
The House Opposite
, published in 1943, tells of two very ordinary families living across the street from each other in a very ordinary London suburb. Every day, Elizabeth Simpson, a woman in her late twenties, takes the train and tube to her work as a secretary in Soho Square; meanwhile, Owen Cathcart, aged eighteen, goes for maths tutoring and reads Proust while waiting to be called up for military service. At night, the two of them are often together as fire wardens – for it’s wartime, and the Blitz is pouring bombs down on London.In many ways this is an unpretentious novel, not especially ambitious in a literary way, and could have been just another cosy read, evoking the kind of WW2 nostalgia beloved by editors of British magazines for the older reader. But the author takes on some stickier issues. Elizabeth is three years into an affair with her married boss and increasingly realizes that something has changed; Owen is obsessed with anxieties about his sexuality (although the word ‘homosexual’ is never written, the source of his worries is made perfectly clear). And they are not alone in having secrets: each of the characters in the two families has one, past or present – a drinking habit, an illegitimate child, guilt feelings about a friend’s suicide, black market crime.
Whatever we feel about the way Noble resolves the various issues – not always in accordance with twenty-first-century expectations – she explores the lives of these unexceptional people in exceptional times with a clear eye and usually with sympathy. We are made aware of how these lives are changed – the weariness of having to do a day’s work after having been up half the night, shaken by the impact of bombs and the noise of the guns, or having had to put out dangerous fires or just sitting in a cold shed for hours waiting for something to do. We are taken into a hospital to which a large number of casualties have been brought after the explosion of a land mine and see through Elizabeth’s unprepared eyes the horrific injuries suffered by girls and young women along with the inadequacies of the available treatments. We witness the destruction of much of the West End and the nauseating smell of the crowds who’ve taken refuge in the Underground. And we also see how lives are unchanged, how petty everyday concerns reassert themselves almost as soon as the All Clear sounds.
Noble’s central characters are explored in all their weaknesses as well as strengths, but I did find in the novel a reminder that normally unheroic people can often endure terrible things. The young may find war exciting; more mature adults face the unrelenting danger and death with a kind of resigned courage and determination. And when Owen says, ‘People will remember our generation and be proud of us’, we know he isn’t boasting or exaggerating. (How, I wonder, will they remember ours?)
giveusaclue wrote: "Gardendetective wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "Gardendetective wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "Hello everyone! I think I've successfully negotiated the privacy settings and turning off emails :)First I'd like t..."
I did once own a set of the Crowner John series but it's a while since I read them - although I do remember that they have genuine historical context like those of Ann Swinfen :)
Justine wrote: "Barbara Noble isn’t a name I’d ever heard mentioned until very recently. Her novel The House Opposite, published in 1943, tells of two very ordinary families living across the street from each other..."Damn it inter, I was going to write something inane, but no can do right after that great review ending on a very serious note!
Ok, so I'll buffer the future post with still some pretty trivial stuff: @CCCubon, not sure whether you've seen this article on historical maps of old footpaths: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandst...
And just in case people have missed it, Elizabeth Strout did the 'On My Radar' segment... She likes Hélène Grimaud! (We were just talking about wolves the other day with bl/shelflife and jedi/Tam (love the little dragon btw jedi, and the story behind it.) She likes Call My Agent!
And while I'm at it, there will be a showing of The Garden of the Finzi-Continis followed by a Zoom discussion with Dominique Sanda (booking open): https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020...
Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "I will just show you some male corsets, for reasons of equality. https://www.thelingerieaddict.com/wp-... (1893 ad for the "Invicorator Belt," a men's corset marketed as being for back support.)"Ok, so yesterday after I saw Reen's message, I was wondering if brassiere meant the same thing in English as in French (it doesn't), so google imaged it. What I had in mind (the French version) was something like this: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collect...
What I had instead, in the top 5 (top 5!!!), was this (kosher link for woman's bras), and I have to ask: why??!
giveusaclue wrote: "glad kindly posted a link to a map of Oxford in 1375 which is nice as I can follow the story round the town."Saw that on the other thread, happy this has helped!
FrancesBurgundy wrote: "I do miss upticks on GR, my mouse finger starts trembling then I remember there's nowhere to tick up (?)."I do miss them too. They can be weaponised and turned ugly, but they're also fundamentally a way to let people know that you might appreciate a review (even if you have nothing to add), or a joke (especially if you have nothing to add!).
Joy wrote: "I’m not really settling on any books at the moment, what with another lockdown about to commence and both parents having major surgery this month. I’ve picked up various lightweight books to tempt ..."Really sorry to hear that Joy, that'd be tough at any rate, but the timing does little to help.
I would have said short stories too, but that actually didn't appeal to me, and I've been really struggling since March with concentration (I think with short stories you do not really immerse yourself, so the stop/start dynamics makes it even worse). Maybe something not challenging, but comforting, so a re-read of something you liked reading growing up? The Wind in the Willows, or Winnie-the-Pooh, or Anne of Green Gables, or anything by Pratchett?
And don't beat yourself up if you cannot read and instead watch TV, a lot of us have been (and are still) there!
Adina wrote: "It depends on the books, I suppose, at some point I've spent 3 months reading A Brief History of Seven Killings and didn't manage to finish it. Best of luck with it!"Thanks Adina, it does make me feel a bit better! (Loved your post about your two cats, past and present)
Justine wrote: "Reen mentions Mrs Smiling's 'perpetual search of a perfect brassiere' ...One of the things to be learned from women's fiction of the early and mid 20th century is about the horrible things we gal..." From a book which I have just added to my GR collection The History of Underclothes (Dover Fashion and Costumes) by C. Willett Cunnington, PhiIlis Cunnington, here is everything you never wanted to know about:
“7. THE BELT
This was a substitute for the corset, which varied from abdominal supports to light suspender belts with or without bones. Some were made of elastic only, and became known as ‘roll-ons,’ whereas those with a zip fastening were called ‘step-ins.’ In 1932 the two-way stretch material was introduced by Messrs. Warner Brothers. This was made of Las-tex (figure 114), a fine elastic thread which could be woven into a fabric. These two-way stretch belts were hailed with enthusiasm, as they gave the wearer perfect freedom of movement without any ‘riding-up.’”
Well, you had to have something to attach your stockings to, didn't you? Pantyhose came along just in time in the 1960s to save us from all that.
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Ersatz TLS
Books mentioned in this topic
Waiting for the End (other topics)The Quiet American (other topics)
Brighton Rock (other topics)
This Gun for Hire (other topics)
The Quiet American (other topics)
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I'd like to mark moving over to the new TLS with a suggestion for Andrew Wilson's series that has Agatha Christie solving murder mysteries. They are a light but knowing read, with sly references to the real Agatha's life & work. Moreover, they were available as ebooks from the library which I'm trying to support in its attempts to keep providing a lending service despite the current lockdown difficulties.