What are we reading? 19th January 2022

[[deleted user]]

Hello everyone. Welcome to this fortnight's thread.

Thank you to all for the Penelope Fitzgerald discussion last week. (At Freddie's is my least favourite too, but really I need to reread it to judge properly). The purest pleasure I had all week was from @Gpfr's thoughtful links for PF:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/200...
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...

I never like Julian Barnes so much as when he's talking about PF and that's a great piece by him. I hadn't read the New Yorker piece before (thought I needed a subscription), so thanks, Gpfr. If anyone's interested here's another lovely piece by Hermione Lee which talks about reading PF's books with all her marginalia included (and as a bonus the person who typed the TBoS manuscript pops up below the line):

https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...

Also, kudos to @Slawkenbergius for his awesome memory display in recalling that Scriabin appears in The Beginning of Spring.

Over to all of you.

@Francis began the new year in the best way:

During a recent clear out I found some book vouchers - which were actually still valid, so indulged in some in person shopping to add to the TBR pile. The shop assistant said that I must have had them for a while!
Amongst the purchases were Hamnet; Apeirogon; Exciting Times; No One is Talking About this; and Snow by Banville. I count them as bonus books.

'Bonus books' is a great concept and one, I think, that we can all relate to.

Lots of energetic discussion on this last thread. Crime fiction set in Los Angeles got a good outing, kicked off by @FuzzyWuzz:

I'm halfway through Widespread Panic by James Ellroy. Once you get past the annoying alliterative sentence fillers, there's a half decent story in there. Freddy Otash - the central character is former police/private investigator and now a 'journalist'; the other characters are from the Hollywood acting elite)/police etc.
Most of the characters in this story have zero morals and the police are corrupt and dangerous thugs, which is a running theme in Ellroy's books.

and continued by @AB76 who was reading The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler:

I'm about 100 pages in and a novel of men and tough talk, occasional violence and the curious character of Marlowe. This hard edged PI, is in a pickle over the death of a friend, who is linked to the murder of his wife.(though this "friend" was a paper thin character who seemed more like somebody he had a drink with once or twice)

I can almost smell the musty air of male clothing, sweat and tired faces, streaked with stubble, the stench of spirits and petrol. I'm sure something feminine will arrive sooner or later but there is something quite ugly about this male world, nothing to do with Chandler, who is on fine form

Writing by Walter Mosley and Chester Himes was also thrown into the ring for discussion. And @MK entered the stakes late with the observation that writer Joe Ide has written a new Philip Marlowe novel, The Goodbye Coast, to be published on 1st February. We are all waiting for @MK's review of this, hoping to be convinced that 21st century updatings of classics can succeed, unlike say, Sophie Hannah's tone deaf updating of Poirot. (My opinion, that last.)

There was a more contentious debate about Dickens. Can he hold his own in comparison with the great Russian novels of the 19th century? No, in the opinion of @scarletnoir and @Russell, two people you would never bet against in a debate. Er, unless @SydneyH is participating, that is. I'm looking forward to seeing this debate run again. And again. Meanwhile @Georg was reading Dickens at this very moment. Could she settle the debate? Judge for yourself:

I went for a re-read of Martin Chuzzlewit.
A bit of a mixed bag with Dickens at his best, and at his worst. I thought the first 100+ pages were excellent. Pecksniff must be one of the finest villains he ever created. And hey, there was even a good female character: the lovely Mrs Lupin, a still beautiful youngish widow with a heart and brains, who runs "The Blue Dragon" inn very efficiently without the need of a man.
When I read MC for the first time I skipped almost all of the American interlude (the only other bit of Dicken's I've ever skipped were some paragraphs on cricket in the Pickwick papers) and I will do the same if I ever read it again. I wasn't impressed at all by the parade of coarse caricatures, all so similar in their unpleasantness that I couldn't even remember their names two days later. Altogether these chapters were, I felt, forced into the narrative without purpose.
And then there was the end. Not very good. And before the end there was Ruth Pinch ….
…. A governess who had to make her own living in a hostile environment. Until Dickens turned her into a cute little be-aproned creature, all sugar, no spice, whose only raison d'être is to chirpily flutter around like a brainless canary in some doll's house.
To be fair: the good bits outweighed the bad bits in MC. But there were the makings of a masterpiece and they were squandered imo.

So, nope. Dickens vs 19th century Russians still has all to play for.

Elsewhere, medieval history fan @giveusaclue has been reading historical fiction for a change, Elizabeth Chadwick's A Marriage of Lions, to be precise:

It tells the story of Joanna, granddaughter of William Marshall and her husband William de Valences, a half-brother of Henry III and one of the (usually) hated Lusignan clan. You really had to be sure to end up on the winning side! Simon de Montfort was a right piece of work. The book starts with Joanna as a 9 year old in the court of Henry III with no real prospects because she had an elder brother and a young half brother. It ends after the Battle of Evesham However, when her brother dies in his teens she suddenly becomes and heiress in her own right, inheriting some of the Marshall lands. This does not endear her or her eventual husband to de Montfort as they are in dispute of some of her inheritance due to de Montfort's wife Eleanor being the widow of William Marshall II.
For anyone who liked [Chadwick's} William Marshall series … ….this book is well worth a look

Andy has followed up his reading of The Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories, Volume 1 with a search for more horror stories from other countries in line with his belief that “you can learn a lot about a country from reading about its folklore". His chosen book is Fantasmas: Puerto Rican Tales of the Dead by Charlie Vasquez:

Puerto Rican culture has a long tradition of communicating with the dead. Six of the fourteen stories have been passed down between the generations, and salvaged by the author from his parents and grandparents. The other stories are Vázquez's own invention, and set in modern Puerto Rico, and based around drug use and crime, the island's politics, the Great Depression, and most notably, Hurricane Maria in 2017 (the deadliest US-based natural disaster in 100 years, with over 200,000 Puerto Ricans leaving for the mainland, many temporarily and some permanently. Island residents had no full power for almost a year).
It is no surprise that Poe is a strong influence on Vázquez. Tension builds like a ticking bomb as the characters in the stories interact. Fear and anxiety grow but they remain unaware. The inevitable detonation surprises and pleases immensely.
My favourites - Lure concerning the tapeworm extraction method in rural Puerto Rico in the 1950s, and Perfect Assassin about the hysteria caused by mosquitoes spreading a virus.

Folklore was mentioned again by @Anastasia who was contributing to the discussion about Dune, and specifically about the tediousness or otherwise of reading the world-building content of SF. I found her comment thoughtful:

I got into sci fi quite early, and like Roger Zelazny mentioned once: reading myths was the first step to it. So reading about a world within a world was something I'm used to since my first encounter with Zeus, Theseus and the like. It's curious how Zelazny even joked that his reading habits evolved following the same pattern as the global history of literature: moving from one type of made-up worlds to something more realistic and to another type of made-up worlds, this time round with AI, space travel and spice drugs.

As far as I can establish, @Diana contributed her first review to these pages. (Apologies if I'm wrong Diana; regardless, it's great to see you here. ) I have been waiting to see an ersatz TLS review of Franzen's Crossroads, and here it is:

Jonathan Franzen's "Crossroads", his latest novel set in 1971/72 in suburban Chicago. No modern technology, no mobile phones, no social media here - not even a mention of US TV. The focus is on a self-absorbed white family with a pastor as father, enwrapped by religion, going to church regularly, looking for God (recalls Marilynne Robinson's world to some, perhaps). This family is confronted with relatively common domestic issues (male midlife crisis, infidelity, problematic sibling relationships) and dangers (teenage naivety, drug abuse), which are presented from the perspective of five members, each with their own spiritual crisis. Franzen can tell a good realistic story (if at times long-winded) and the novel lends itself to the audio mode, where not every word has to be savoured (savored). As with Anna Burns' "The Milkman", Lucy Ellmann's "Ducks, Newburyport", and Gail Honeyman's "Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine", listening put me more readily inside the heads of the characters, seeing things from their perspectives, their motives for action.
Franzen takes each character seriously, their individual moral conflicts at a crossroads in each of their lives, leading them or us to contemplate whether when they think they are doing good, it is not simply for their own personal benefit, or realise that this is so.
Contemporary (1970s) issues that play a role in the characters' lives (US military intervention, social justice, racism, feminism, environmental destruction, identity, mental illness), together with the domestic problems, link the novel to the present, but I felt very estranged from the suburban US religious concerns!

Lovely too to see @AlbyBeliever again, who recommended Tim Winton's Breath in words incomprehensible to me, but which I love anyway:

Weird comparison, but it made me think of 'Songs for the Deaf' by Queens of the Stone Age - very accomplished artist(s), with the benefit of a few albums/books behind them, feeling very confident, honed and focused.

Luckily @Paul understands them just fine:

Huh, that's a pretty dang convincing argument.

Finally, a big thank you to @FrancesBurgundy who contributed the standout story of the week with what developed into the thrilling, and I do mean thrilling, discussion about an early edition of a Ford Maddox Ford book. I know the subject has caused you stress and distress, Frances, but I think we all appreciated the opportunity of a real life glimpse into the rare books world. Thank you for sharing it with us, and I hope you are feeling a little easier again. Thank you too to @Machenbach for his marvellous expertise and to @Hushpuppy for terrific detective work.

Finally, finally it's good to see Lisa and her boxes in her new apartment. I'm not exactly sure what she's up to now, but it could be mixing cat litter with tea tree oil and applying it to books which are a little the worse for storage ...

Happy reading, all.

[SydneyH]

Anne wrote: "Hello everyone. Welcome to this fortnight's thread."

Thanks Anne :)

[CCCubbon]

A marathon effort, Anne, thanks.

There is an article about the teaching of reading in the paper today about the emphasis on using phonics as the main method. There is a test at the end of year 1 of a child’s ability to read simple words.
There used to be another test way back in the 60/70/80s which we were required to test each child. I have forgotten it’s name but started. tree. little. egg. book. If my poor old memory is correct which tested the same thing really. The problem was that this would give a reading age and recorded each year. However there were always children who could score high on this test but whose reading comprehension was much lower. We used to call it ‘barking at print’.

This test took ages to administer. Reading ages were tested annually then every year until aged eleven. Class sizes were far greater, usually in the forties, my highest was 51, and the test took several minutes with each child to get through. No teaching assistants then.

It’s a personal view but I found that the best method of teaching reading was a combination of ‘look and say’ and phonics with as much experience of books and reading material in all its forms as possible. I am concerned when I think of so much reliance on technology today that children don’t get enough exposure to actual books. My great grandchildren get regular deliveries!

I wonder how you cope with a new word when meeting it for the first time. Do you sound it out? That will hark back to the way you were taught to read. I would love to know.


https://www.theguardian.com/education...

[AB76]

Love that intro Anne!

Cloudy and cool but no frost this morning in the shires, in reply to Paul from last weeks thread, i agree totally about QoTSA and their jockrock tendencies, probably what put me off them!

Reading is rewarding and going well in the new year so far, no doldrums yet but i sympathise with anyone in that predicament and recommend short stories where you can breath a bit...

For anyone interested in South America, a decade or so after independence, i think Darwins Voyage of the Beagle is a must read. I'm astonished i hadnt read this before considering its almost like the prototype travel book, with a lot of natural history thrown in. Young Chas (in his 20s when it was written), is currently travelling through Southern Argentina heading for BA with Gaucho's as his attendants. He meets the legendary Argentinian hard man General Rosas near Bahia Blanca (Rosas is immortalised in Jose Marmol's Argentinian classic Amalia(1851)).

I am also enjoying Chinua Achebe's acute observations of corruption and populism in mid 1960s Nigeria in A Man of the People which was written on the eve of the Nigerian Civil War

Nam Joo's Kim Jiyoung,Born 1982 is a shocking indictment on the plight of women in South Korea. The tale is fiction but she intersperses the chapters with statistics on the situation of women in the country and the main character's life evolves along the lines of so many micro-aggressions and put downs, as a female.

Lastly the Iniqusition Sources is fascinating but also sobering, collated by Lu Ann Homza, it shines a light into the recesses of the Inqusition and its pursuit of imaginary transgressors among the Converso communities of 15th and 16th century Spain

Oh and lastly...its good to see the Slawkmeister back in here....or visiting!

[Slawkenbergius]

Machenbach wrote:"The Ginger Elvis. I'm sure he's probably an arse, and I don't really follow QOTSA much anymore"

Don't be so mean! Homme's side project - Desert Sessions - is not bad; there's PJ Harvey and Les Claypool in it, and the last album has the participation of Matt Sweeney (Chavez), which can only be a good thing.


Paul wrote: "Ooh, Helmet I did get to see back at the end of high school as I was a big fan of their drummer, John Stannier."

You must be a big fan of Battles then (I know I am!)

[Hushpuppy]

Slawkenbergius wrote: "Machenbach wrote:"The Ginger Elvis. I'm sure he's probably an arse, and I don't really follow QOTSA much anymore"

Don't be so mean! Homme's side project - Desert Sessions - is not bad; there's PJ Harvey..."

Love it when you're all (music) geeking it out 🤗!

[AB76]

Hushpuppy wrote: "Slawkenbergius wrote: "Machenbach wrote:"The Ginger Elvis. I'm sure he's probably an arse, and I don't really follow QOTSA much anymore"

Don't be so mean! Homme's side project - Desert Sessions - ..."

haha, i never expected Josh Homme to be a topic in Ersatz TLS!!

[AB76]

Hushpuppy wrote: "Slawkenbergius wrote: "Machenbach wrote:"The Ginger Elvis. I'm sure he's probably an arse, and I don't really follow QOTSA much anymore"

Don't be so mean! Homme's side project - Desert Sessions - ..."

i see you are reading "Hill of Dreams" by Machen, Slawk, a great novel!

[Hushpuppy]

*A cautious announcement*

The Head of Books at The Guardian, as promised, got back to me yesterday - without any prompt, which makes for a refreshing start of the year - to let me know that they are "launching a new series on the Guardian Books site, which we hope will give you and others the opportunity to discuss books and connect with a literary community".

Sian's replacement, who was copied in, is supposed to fill me in on the details, so watch this space.

[Diana]

Anne wrote: "Hello everyone. Welcome to this fortnight's thread.

Thank you to all for the Penelope Fitzgerald discussion last week. (At Freddie's is my least favourite too, but really I need to reread it to j..."

Thank you, Anne, for including my review. I was "dihuet" in TLS, where I did write the occasional review and loved being part of it all. I have tried to keep up with the Ersatz pages but have found it unsatisfactory on my Samsung phone and Ipad, so often gave up. I'm now using my old laptop - until I solve the problem of finding the desktop versions. giveusaclue kindly tried to help (on the Wordle thread) but I even have a problem with scrolling down to the bottom of the page and looking at the app store to find the version. Perhaps my devices are set up differently - or it's just me!

[Paul]

You must be a big fan of Battles then (I know I am!)"

I've never heard them, so thanks for the recommendation. I knew he was in Tomahawk (which is also pretty decent), but only by accident when I wondered who was drumming in Mike Patton's new band

[AB76]

Hushpuppy wrote: "*A cautious announcement*

The Head of Books at The Guardian, as promised, got back to me yesterday - without any prompt, which makes for a refreshing start of the year - to let me know that they a..."

ooh....interesting....

[Hushpuppy]

Machenbach wrote: "What's the emoji for *cautiously optimistic*?"

🍆?

[AB76]

Machenbach wrote: "Slawkenbergius wrote: Don't be so mean! Homme's side project - Desert Sessions - is not bad; there's PJ Harvey and Les Claypool in it, and the last album has the participation of Matt Sweeney (Chav..."

hahaha. I love Faith No More though, with "Epic" and "Kindergarten" my favourite tracks

[Slawkenbergius]

AB76 wrote: "i see you are reading "Hill of Dreams" by Machen, Slawk, a great novel!"

Ah that's old news; I haven't changed my reading data on GR in months!

I'm currently reading Bellow's The Victim, a novel about antisemitism in post-war America. It predates the language exhuberance Bellow would later develop in Augie March but there are very nice pieces pieces of prose, such as the first paragraph.

On some nights New York is as hot as Bangkok. The whole continent seems to have moved from its place and slid nearer the equator, the bitter gray Atlantic to have become green and tropical, and the people, thronging the streets, barbaric fellahin among the stupendous monuments of their mystery, the lights of which, a dazzling profusion, climb upward endlessly into the heat of the sky.

[giveusaclue]

Machenbach wrote: "Hushpuppy wrote: "*A cautious announcement*

The Head of Books at The Guardian, as promised, got back to me yesterday - without any prompt, which makes for a refreshing start of the year - to let m..."


🤔?
Thanks Anne and Hushpuppy. Nice to see my name "up in lights"

[AB76]

Slawkenbergius wrote: "AB76 wrote: "i see you are reading "Hill of Dreams" by Machen, Slawk, a great novel!"

Ah that's old news; I haven't changed my reading data on GR in months!

I'm currently reading Bellow's [book:T..."

oops....i love "The Victim", was my first Bellow novel about a decade ago!

[Slawkenbergius]

Paul wrote: "You must be a big fan of Battles then (I know I am!)"

I've never heard them, so thanks for the recommendation. I knew he was in Tomahawk (which is also pretty decent), but only by accident when I..."

This is an oldie (they're a duo now), but a very good display of Stanier's mastery.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpGp-2...

[Paul]

Slawkenbergius wrote: "Paul wrote: "This is an oldie (they're a duo now), but a very good display of Stanier's mastery.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpGp-2..."



Oh, i can listen to that all day. Thanks

[Hushpuppy]

giveusaclue wrote: "🤔?
Thanks Anne and Hushpuppy"

You're welcome! Your emoji is definitely a better offer than mine - I was foolishly hoping we could reclaim the poor aubergine from its cesspool of sexual innuendos.

[Lljones]

Thanks for another great intro, Anne! I enjoy reading the posts as they appear, but I enjoy reading your round-up even more. And you know I loved the PF conversation!

Thanks also for the shout-out. Progress has been made; still a long ways to go. Still no bookshelves. Every room is only partially completed. Yesterday I took a stab at setting up the yarn closet. Mario helped, of course.





Today's task list includes purchasing accordion doors for the yarn closet!

[scarletnoir]

I see from the excellent and comprehensive introduction that Andy has been reading some Puerto Rican literature, where:

My favourites - Lure concerning the tapeworm extraction method in rural Puerto Rico in the 1950s...

and I am forced to ask whether the method involved the use of a Mars bar and a mallet? (Don't ask! ;-)

On a more serious note - when I get through my binge-fest of reading Stuart MacBride's Logan McRae series, I'll get into the much-praised Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to Find and Save the World's Largest Owl - I'm really looking forward to that. I also received in the same post Walter Mosley's latest - Blood Grove and Caradog Prichard's Un Nos Ola Leuad, which I felt I ought to read in Welsh even though I may need a refresher course in "Gog" - the version they speak north of the halfway point... it's all Greek to me!

[scarletnoir]

CCCubbon wrote: "It’s a personal view but I found that the best method of teaching reading was a combination of ‘look and say’ and phonics with as much experience of books and reading material in all its forms as possible."

Indeed... it's astonishing to me that in this day and age, when it is well known that different individuals have different 'learning styles', the government absolutely insists that teachers use a single method to teach reading. (I also read the article.)

In teaching science, for example, one uses a mixture of verbal explanation, Q&A, demonstration, the use of videos/YouTube, hands-on experimentation, group work, pupil presentation, models - both visual and mathematical, etc. - it would be nothing short of insane to try to use a purely didactic 'front-of-class' method (say) as it wouldn't work for many kids...

[scarletnoir]

Hushpuppy wrote: "Machenbach wrote: "What's the emoji for *cautiously optimistic*?"

🍆?"

An aubergine?

Well, I suppose you need to be an optimist to cook them - too little and they taste horrible; too much and they turn to mush!

FWIW - I love (well cooked) aubergine dishes...

[Slawkenbergius]

Lljones wrote: "Mario helped, of course."

That second picture reminded me of one of Tom Gauld's cartoons.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/pict...

[CCCubbon]

scarletnoir wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "It’s a personal view but I found that the best method of teaching reading was a combination of ‘look and say’ and phonics with as much experience of books and reading material in a..."

True. We think alike.

No one has owned which tactics they use when confronted by an unknown word. Do you simply look up the meaning and not bother to know how it sounds? Do you sound it out? What do you do?

In that instant you are like the learning to read child except they cannot afford to skim over the strange word. What about a word in a different language? I haven’t forgotten those w sounds scarlet.

[[deleted user]]

CC - "No one has owned which tactics they use when confronted by an unknown word." I sound it out. But this can produce problems. I was an adult before I learned that Xerxes was not pronounced Ex-urr-ex-uss.

Anne - Great intro.

Hushpuppy - If you pull this off you will amaze us all.

[Yoshi]

Hi everybody, this is my first post (more or less), thought I'd let you know what I am reading. I am about halfway through The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky. I am finding it a joy to read so far. Dostoyevsky's reputation isn't necessarily being one of the funniest authors out there, so I was surprised by the amount of laughs I got out of the book so far. Lord Myshkin's (the titular idiot, which of course he is not, or maybe just a bit) arrival in St. Petersburg and his subsequent visits at the Jepantschin's and Ardalionowitsch's play out like a screwball comedy. Of course, Dostoevsky being Dostoevsky, the anxiety levels are ramped up in no time, the stakes are as high as can be. Love, money, power, reputation, freedom - all is on the line.

Dostoevsky has drawn me in, like a fool, with lightheartedness, and then he has brought down the hammer. It is writing of the highest order, I think. He really makes you feel what and how the characters feel and (mostly on a spectrum from quite unpleasant to really bad, with some drunken exhilaration inbetween). An episode where Myshkin wanders through the city, having a nervous breakdown and sensing an oncoming epileptic shock being especially memorable. Nerve-wracking.

What has also enamoured me is the strong cast of female characters. First of all, there is Nastasja Fillipowna, the object of the men's desire/ ambition/ love, who refuses to be anybody's object. F*** you all, she says ( paraphrasing here), I am going out in the way I decide. Generally the women in the novel come across as strong and reasonable, while the men are the usual Dostoevskyan train-wreck. It's highly entertaining so far and I am curious to see how it all plays out, e.g. to which levels of despair Dostoevsky will take it.

[Hushpuppy]

Yoshi wrote: "Hi everybody, this is my first post (more or less), thought I'd let you know what I am reading. I am about halfway through The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky. I am finding it a joy to read so far..."

Fab, Yoshi, you have just pushed Dostoevsky/Dostoïevski even higher on my virtual TBR list.

But: are you sure you're not @scarlet in disguise?! @scarlet was commenting recently about how much humour there is in some (most?) of his books, against all odds.

I have a copy somewhere of Les freres Karamazov, which I abandoned early on when I was 17 - I'll need to find this again!

[giveusaclue]

Yoshi wrote: "Hi everybody, this is my first post (more or less), thought I'd let you know what I am reading. I am about halfway through The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky. I am finding it a joy to read so far. Dost..."

Welcome Yoshi

[giveusaclue]

CCCubbon wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "It’s a personal view but I found that the best method of teaching reading was a combination of ‘look and say’ and phonics with as much experience of books and r..."

RE new words; it is a bit difficult to recall to be honest, I think I do it visually as in have I seen this before. Then vocalising. No sure, will try to remember next time I come across a new one. I confess that for quite a while I thought of picturesque as picturescew and was a few years d l before I pronounced squirrel properly instead of skrirrel!

[AB76]

CCCubbon wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "It’s a personal view but I found that the best method of teaching reading was a combination of ‘look and say’ and phonics with as much experience of books and r..."

well CCC, i always look up an unknown word when i hear it or read it and usually then note it down. I wouldn't say i sound it out but i do like to explore its linguistic origins, which then does lead to phonetic pronunciation. Words that come from latin, or french, or anglo-saxon etc

the sound of words seems to come to me naturally in english , so i dont usually have a problem with sound, i dont need to hear it to pronounce it right. in other languages that skill is weaker, though my grasp of european foreign name pronunciation has always been good

[Andy]

I've just finished another great resissue from Valancourt, Elizabeth by Ken Greenhall.
Ken Greenhall has the knack of being able to write adlosecent narrators well, and a teenage girl at that. Its not rare to pick up a tone of narcissism from a 14 year old, but Elizabeth's personality provokes from the outset, and thereby fascinates, to the extent even when the reader is almost tricked into suspending disbelief, almost without noticing.
Mirrors feature heavily. There is one in every room of the gothic residence that is the novel's setting. Appropriately also, as the theme of the work is reflection; of Elizabeth's apparent development, and of the haunting riddles whose answers cannot be grasped.
Mature for her age, the immodest and overtly sexual Elizabeth's up front narration is often unreliable, but all that more fascinating for it. Her paranoia is evident. She keeps others at a distance. She refuses to see her weaknesses. It is very much Elizabeth against the world.
The narration lends itself well to witchcraft. Is such a personality formed through demonic forces? Or is this the rambling imagination of a disaffected teenage girl?
The only person taken into Elizabeth's confidence is the reader, who wonders whether it is down to bravado with a swagger, or a form of confession.
Either way, from an author who remains little known, this is a fine example of literary horror, intoxicating and disturbing, and enlivened by a healthy dose of humour of youthful overstatement.

[Andy]

repost from end of last week’s thread
The Portico Prize is announced on Thursday, for the book the best invokes the spirit of the North of England.
I’ve read only one of the shortlist, Mayflies, but got eyes on several others, Toto Among the Murderers, Ghosted, and The Outsiders.
List is at https://www.theportico.org.uk/portico....
Has anyone read any of them?

[Andy]

The Portico Prize was featured on Front Row on Monday evening (Radio 4), in the last ten minutes if anyone wants to catch it on iPlayer.
The programme also featured The Alfred Bradley Bursary Award, for short plays. https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/writersro...
These will be featured over the next few weeks. One of the most interesting, Paul Jones’s Patterdale, originally was a short story that is available on the Galley Beggar website, as it was shortlisted for their prize in 2017. https://www.galleybeggar.co.uk/short-...

[Andy]

giveusaclue wrote: "Machenbach wrote: "Hushpuppy wrote: "*A cautious announcement*

The Head of Books at The Guardian, as promised, got back to me yesterday - without any prompt, which makes for a refreshing start of ..."

Echoed..

[Greenfairy]

CCCubbon wrote: "A marathon effort, Anne, thanks.

There is an article about the teaching of reading in the paper today about the emphasis on using phonics as the main method. There is a test at the end of year 1 o..."

I was taught to sound out a word and then encouraged to look it up in a dictionary. I agree with you that without comprehension there can be nothing that can be described as reading -merely being able to say a word is meaningless

[Greenfairy]

Machenbach wrote: "Paul wrote: "Mike Patton's new band.."

Faith No More gave good gig, too."

They did!

[Andy]

scarletnoir wrote: "I see from the excellent and comprehensive introduction that Andy has been reading some Puerto Rican literature, where:

My favourites - Lure concerning the tapeworm extraction method in rural Puer..."

Scarlet... love the post.

Owls was my favourite book of last year, so look forward to hearing how you go with that.
Also with the original version of One Moonlit Night: Novel.
I have on my tbr list another Welsh novel, just published in English a month or so ago, Llyfr Glas Nebo by Manon Steffan Ros (or The Blue Book of Nebo in English..).

[CCCubbon]

giveusaclue wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "It’s a personal view but I found that the best method of teaching reading was a combination of ‘look and say’ and phonics with as much experien..."

I listened to so many children pronounce antique as anti- queue
I almost can’t think of it in any other way! It was one of the words on that reading test that I mentioned earlier. I would hazard a guess that most UK posters have done this test at primary school without realising it was a test, probably now forgotten.

English is such a hotch-potch of languages old and new, silent letters and combinations which make different sounds or, indeed, the same word which sounds different according to the context I marvel that it has become such a universal language.

[Greenfairy]

Lljones wrote: "Thanks for another great intro, Anne! I enjoy reading the posts as they appear, but I enjoy reading your round-up even more. And you know I loved the PF conversation!

Thanks also for the shout-out..."
How did my old tom get in there?😀

[CCCubbon]

Andy wrote about
Puerto Rican tales of Horror

which Anne remarked upon above.

I thought that a dear Puerto Rican friend would be interested and sent it to her and this is her reply which she has said that I could post here

Interesting…I’d never heard we had such a penchant for actual horror stories. For the most part, our horror stems from months-long waits to get power and water restored post-hurricanes, long waits at the CDT (Center for Diagnostic and Treatment -which is the publicly-run clinic every municipality has and that works very poorly), and such other everyday “horrors". The one about the mosquitoes almost sounds funny because every year at least one member of each family catches dengue fever; I have been afflicted with it a few times. I’ll have to look it up.

There was an author (Abelardo Díaz Alfaro) who wrote an anthology called Terrazo in which he illustrated our sense of humor, our customs and our adjustment to life under the -then- still very new influence of US culture. My particular favorite (which -to this day- I cannot read without tears of laughter and sore abdominal muscles from laughing too much) is about a beloved rural school teacher trying to comply with the new curriculum that introduces Santa Claus to the community. It is the funniest thing I’ve ever read in my entire life, and I’ve read a lot of funny things. This is the story where I first had to start thinking of how different onomatopoeia is from one language to the next, even if the sound is somewhat recognizable; while Puerto Rican roosters say “KI ki ri KII”, English-‘speaking’ roosters say “cock-a-doodle-DOO”.

Andy. She gives me the name of another Puerto Rican author/playwright if you are interested.

[MK]

Lljones wrote: "Thanks for another great intro, Anne! I enjoy reading the posts as they appear, but I enjoy reading your round-up even more. And you know I loved the PF conversation!

Thanks also for the shout-out..."

Glad to see THERE WILL BE DOORS! Otherwise Mario might be overtaxed spreading the yarn in unforeseen spots - not to mention tangles.

[MK]

Maps! Thanks to - https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...

I clicked and found - https://www.huntington.org/mapping-fi... which contains a several page pdf, and, if you are an Octavia Butler fan, you must scroll to the end of the page!

[MK]

MK wrote: "Maps! Thanks to - https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...

I clicked and found - https://www.huntington.org/mapping-fi... which contains ..."

Oh dear - there are map-related books for sale, too. Do not click on that link as there is even a Raymond Chandler Mystery Map for sale.

[Diana]

Many thanks to giveusaclue. I found the desktop version once I had deleted the IPad app.

[Shelflife_wasBooklooker]

Another lovely introduction, Anne. Thank you so much. Looking at the time of publication, I hope it has not murdered sleep?

Absolutely delighted by your news, HP. (I find it hard to rein in my optimism sometimes.)
But whatever the outcome, you have done so well. Thank you.

Fathers and Sons definitely passes the "can be read even on the train" test, barring loudmouths. Thanks for the (almost) collective nudge.
I would like to post some follow-up replies from last week, but not now. (Not passing the "can write even after train commute" test!)

As a completely objective observer, I would like to state that English pronunciation is (self-)damningly difficult.

[AB76]

CCCubbon wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "It’s a personal view but I found that the best method of teaching reading was a combination of ‘look and say’ and phonics w..."

i worked with a welsh girl, a lovely bubbly character in london who couldnt pronounce any of the streets near the office right like Grosvenor and Holborn, the english language can be very local. Just like if i was working in the Rhondda i'm sure i'd mis pronounce english names for streets as well, if you have never heard them pronounced correctly before. Magdalen College, Ox, remains one of those bizarre ones...Maudlin...hoho

[Greenfairy]

I remember an American tourist in "Lee Cester" asking me where "Bellvwar street" was..(That's Leicester and Belvoir St.)

[giveusaclue]

Diana wrote: "Many thanks to giveusaclue. I found the desktop version once I had deleted the IPad app."

Good news, and you are welcome. Remember if you log out you will have to click on it again.