Slammerkin by Emma Donaghue

The "heroine" (I use the term loosely) of this book is Mary Saunders, a teenage prostitute living in the slums of London, circa 18th century. Mary's defining characteristics are a fierce will to survive, a burning resentment of the miserable deadening poverty she was born to, and an unquenchable thirst for color and fine fabrics. While reading the book I was reminded of a cross between Moll Flanders and Sarah Waters' Fingersmith. Encountering a rough life on the streets, she becomes educated in how to survive, but the knowledge twists her in numerous ways, and her moral compass goes haywire. This is a compelling book, especially the first half; the descriptions are vivid and the plot pulls you in. It's well-written. At first you find yourself rooting for Mary, but eventually you feel pity for her and not much else. By the end I was simply hoping that somebody would stop her from victimizing others.

Miss Marjoribanks by Margaret Oliphant

"Miss Marjoribanks" is a big, thick, hilarious book about middle-class Victorian society. Margaret Oliphant is often compared to Jane Austen but her humor is more subversive and ironic. Lucilla Marjoribanks is only 18 when she returns home from boarding school, determined to forego marriage in order to devote her life to "being a comfort" to her widowed papa and a "leader" of her very tiny provincial community.  Lucilla is described as a  physically large and imposing young woman, possessed of singleminded will and formidable energy, and she is quite a comic marvel as she sets about making over Carlingford society in her image. She does this by redecorating the drawing room, hosting Thursday evening get-togethers, doing a bit of matchmaking, a smidgeon of charity, and "setting an example for the young people".  She's a legend in her own mind, a Napolean, a genius at micromanaging the lives of others, who figures that she has ten years to accomplish her goals before she "starts to go off", like an old piece of cheese. She never goes up against the stultifying social conventions of the time. Oh no, she embraces them wholeheartedly, because Lucilla is nothing if not conventional. She expects marriage proposals to come her way regularly, and sees them as as her just due, but at the same time she's careful to keep her emotions "unengaged". She "respects" religion and the clergy, but never actually believes in anything, because that would be so Low Church. She bosses and patronizes people so charmingly that she engenders only admiration, not resentment. Friends and neighbors get a tear in their eye, and think "dear girl", while she's walking all over them. Her strategizing and plotting are so complex that it sometimes was a challenge just keeping up with her... but never fear, Lucilla has it all figured out. Yet there is an underlying sadness and a threat, which becomes apparent  2/3 of the way through the book, when there is a sudden reversal of fortunes. And it is brought home that the position of an unmarried middle-class woman in Victorian society was precarious indeed, and there really is a gaping chasm below Lucilla's feet. The conclusion of the book is not as triumphant as you might wish, because the reality is not as rosy as Lucilla's determination to see it.

Hilary Mantel - Bring Up the Bodies

It was with a sigh of satisfaction that I finished the last pages of “Bring Up the Bodies”, the sequel to “Wolf Hall”, Hilary Mantel’s version of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. How anyone could breathe new life into this hoary old saga is a miracle, but Mantel (May I call you Hilary?) does it so powerfully and brilliantly that I want to kiss the hem of her gown.

To me, the difference between a good writer and a great writer is that a great writer makes you want to slowly reread whole sections again and again, so you can soak up the experience and make it last longer. She not only portrays the political and sexual intrigues of Henry’s court, the monstrous egos, subtle manipulations, and dangerous traps, but she does it in a way that makes it all seem as relevant as today’s headlines.

Like this:

“But Parliament cannot see how it is the state’s job to create work. Are not these matters in God’s hands, and is not poverty and dereliction part of His eternal order?...It is an outrage to the rich and enterprising to suggest that they should pay an income tax, only to put bread in the mouths of the work shy.”

Mantel’s insights in to the human condition are timeless, and that’s what she brings to life in this book. The historical details are there; in fact every page is steeped in them. But the inner monologue, the feelings and the thoughts are as familiar as the inside of your own brain. What do five hundred years signify when it comes to the real core of human motivation?

And how does she take Thomas Cromwell, one of the most feared and demonic figures of history, and turn him into the most sympathetic and decent one in the book, whose principles are no worse than they should be, given the bloodthirsty times he is living in? At the same time she gives us a sense of the terror he strikes in the hearts of those who are unlucky enough to come up before him in his role as agent and prosecutor on behalf of the King.  Mantel keeps the two sides of him in balance. He is a grief-stricken father mourning his wife and two little daughters, who died from the sweating sickness. He keeps a lockbox with their necklaces and Latin exercise books, and he remembers a Christmas costume made of peacock feathers that his daughter wore for a parish play. He misses his wife: “She is a blur now in his mind, a whisk of skirts around a corner. That last morning of her life, as he left the house he thought he saw her following him, caught a flash of her white cap….By the time he came home that night her jaw was bound and there candles at her head and feet.”

The other side of him is the ruthless pragmatist who knows what must be done: “Would Norris understand if he spelled it out? He needs guilty men. So he has found men who are guilty. Though perhaps not guilty as charged.” As he patiently, and wearily explains to his nephew, “Once you have exhausted the process of negotiation and compromise, once you have fixed on the destruction of an enemy, that destruction must be swift and it must be perfect. Before you even glance in his direction, you should have his name on a warrant, the ports blocked, his wife and friends bought, his heir under your protection, his money in your strong room and his dog running to your whistle. Before he wakes in the morning, you should have the axe in your hand.”

In “Wolf Hall” there is a scene where Thomas first sees the finished portrait of himself done by Hans Holbein, and he says, startled, “Christ, I look like a murderer”, and his son Gregory says to him, "Didn't you know?"

He’s a complex character and Mantel makes him a fascinating one.

Anya Seton

"Green Darkness" by Anya Seton: This is the fourth of Seton's books I've read and I had very mixed feelings about it. I really loved her other books, "Katherine" and "The Winthrop Woman", which were true historical novels. The historical detail and the behavior and interior life of the characters seemed faithful to the era they lived in. The novels were "all of a piece" and nothing rang false. Whereas "Green Darkness" and "Dragonwyck" fall more into the category of the English or American Gothic romance/thriller, centered around a beautiful, seductively innocent heroine who is enraptured with a dark & glamorous "hero" who later turns out to be psychotic.  You know, a bit of a bodice-ripper. "Green Darkness" is actually a hybrid creature that combines elements of both styles--gothic romance and historical fiction. The book is divided into three parts, with a time travel / reincarnation plot device that allows the characters to simultaneously inhabit the 16th century Tudor era and the 20th century.

Nope, just didn't work for me.

So many of the reviews I read (later on, after I'd finished the book) mentioned that they'd first encountered this book as a teenager. That explains a lot. I can definitely see how this book would thrill an adolescent with a romantic turn of mind.  I will never forget discovering "Wuthering Heights" as a 15-year old and being absolutely blown away... I'd never encountered anything so romantic as poor Cathy and her mad Heathcliff on the moors. But being 57 and a little jaded, it's not quite my thing.

I'm looking forward to reading "Bring Up the Bodies", the sequel to Hilary Mantel's "Wolf Hall". Now there is a writer who can capture the past and interpret the mindsets of people who lived five centuries ago, so skillfully that you feel as if they are whispering their story directly into your ear. I can't wait.

Gaskell, Maugham, and The Time Traveler's Wife

Finished reading Elizabeth Gaskell's "North and South" and W. Somerset Maugham's "The Painted Veil".  Promptly followed that up by viewing the 2004 BBC mini-series of "North and South", which Netflix tagged as "dark and romantic". Indeed it is, what with Richard Armitage casting dark, smoldering looks at Daniela Denby-Ashe, who at first responds by acting snippy and offended, letting her prejudiced attitudes toward brash Northerners and men of trade overtake her well-bred British manners. The early sparks between them lead to mutual misunderstandings and later, to longing and unrequited passions. I make it sound drippier than it is; actually, I think, the developing romance between them is actually handled quite nicely, with both of them moving gradually and subtly from their initially disastrous first impressions to a deeper understanding and appreciation for one another. I loved the way the older generation is portrayed in this series, which is due to sensitive directing and great acting. Tim Pigott-Smith and Lesley Manville as Margaret's parents are lovely and warm-hearted, and not the rigid and limited characters of the novel.  Sinead Cusack as Mrs. Thornton adds tremendous layers of depth to her character, making her much more complex and appealing than she comes across in Gaskell's book. Overall, a good example of how the filmed version can sometimes be an improvement on the original source material.
I'm waiting for my DVD of "The Painted Veil" (2006, with Naomi Watts and Edward Norton) to arrive in the mail. If nothing else, it should be a feast for the eyes in its depiction of 1920's colonial China.

In the meantime I am in the middle of "The Time Traveler's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger, a best-seller, apparently, although I don't quite get why. It starts out with a science fiction premise which is promising...Henry, the main character has a "chrono-displacement disorder" that causes him to time travel unexpectedly and without warning. Despite this malady he falls in love with and eventually marries Clare, who he first meets when they are both in their 20's. She is able to stick with him and to accept the fact that he's liable to drop out of her life at any given moment and vanish into another time and place, because she remembers meeting him at various stages of her childhood & adolescence, when he time-traveled back to her past. Never mind-- it isn't supposed to make sense. It's a good premise that it entirely wasted in my opinion. The love story just isn't that interesting, and neither are Clare and Henry. Much is made of her long, red hair, and his interest in punk rock bands of the 70's. They have a lot of sex, to indicate how strong their bond is.  They have trouble making their relationship work because of Henry's tendency to  disappear at critical moments, but you're meant to believe that their love is strong enough to withstand the stress. Please. This was also made into a movie version in 2009 but I don't think I can bear to watch it. The reviews were uniformly devastating. On to better material, hopefully.

Time slips

Don't know what happened to my blogging. February went by in a rush of making travel plans to go to Israel, and travel is what we did. Then spring seemed to seep into everyone's bones and people woke up and started calling me to do garden work. So that took up all of March and April. I did do some reading during this time but very little writing (other than emails and Facebook posts!) and no blogging.
Books I read: Toni Morrison, "A Mercy"; Sylvia Townsend Warner, "The Flint Anchor"; F.M. Mayor, "The Rector's Daughter" and "The Third Miss Symons"; Julian Gloag, "Our Mother's House". My book club is reading "Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China" by Jung Chang, and I'm trying so damn hard to finish it but it's long and repetitive, and although it's inherently a gripping story, it is recounted in the driest possible manner.  Of everything that I've read, only the Toni Morrison stands out as a brilliant piece of literature. I'm going to finish Eliz. Gaskell's "North and South" and move on from there to Maugham's "The Painted Veil" and maybe next to Elizabeth Bowen. I'm curious about Bowen, don't know how I'll like her.
I've decided to only keep the books I love and give away the ones I feel lukewarm or ambivalent about. That should thin out the bookshelves. I got rid of so much when I moved, creating loads of space at the time. But that was two years ago, and by this point I've accumulated as much as I ever had, if not more.
I need to exert some willpower and be ruthless about weeding out the chaff.

Time, Seasons, and the Making of Lists

Yesterday the winds were so fierce; they tore off the last remaining dead foliage clinging to the sycamores and liquidambers. I no longer have those spiky little balls carpeting my lawn, and I'm grateful for that because I kept stepping on them. The birches, crape myrtles and valley oaks have been stripped bare for weeks, and even the koelreuterias have dropped their beautiful seed pods.  It's Jan 22 and the landscape finally has that wintery look. Except that at this very moment the pear trees are bursting into full blossom, o I suppose that means spring is on the way. The seasons in SoCal sure are weird. Are we coming or going? I'm never quite sure.

I'm going to keep track of my reading this year, not just the books I post about, but all of it. Even the embarrassing stuff. Here's the list for 2012 so far:  The Sisters by Mary Lovell (see post); Neil Gaiman's The Sandman; Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes; Fruit of the Tree by Edith Wharton (also posted); Jo Walton--Farthing and also Ha'Penny; Mark Vonnegut--Just Like Mental Illness Only More So.

The Sisters:Saga of the Mitford Family by Mary S. Lovell

The Sisters: Saga of the Mitford Family – Mary S. Lovell

I rarely read biographies. I find myself getting so bogged down in extraneous detail that my eyes glaze over. That’s why “The Sisters” is so unusual.  It’s certainly the first time I’ve come across a biography that I had to read compulsively without stopping. In the midst of a Downton Abbey binge, I picked this up because of the topic of British aristocratic families between the wars adjusting to upheaval of the early 20^th century, etcetera. Being American, I didn’t know much about the Mitford sisters when I started, although I’d heard of Nancy Mitford’s novels “Pursuit of Love” and “Love in a Cold Climate”. And I was vaguely familiar with Jessica Mitford, and knew she had written “The American Way of Death”.  But this was merely the tip of the iceberg. Once I discovered the entire family—six sisters, one brother, and their parents, cousins, spouses, etc. –well, it was too, too fascinating, as the Bright Young Things would have said.  While reading the book I was continually thinking, “What? I-don’t-believe-it-this-can’t-be-for-real!” as the bizarre eccentricities and absurdities piled up. There is enough material here for at least two or three mini-series on the BBC.  How is it possible that no one has yet done a biopic or even a spoof of a biopic? Maybe it’s because the last of the sisters, Deborah, is still alive.

I have no way of knowing how closely she adheres to the factual record, but Mary Lovell has a good reputation, having written other fine biographies (Amelia Earhart, Richard Burton, Beryl Markham) before this. My understanding is that she built upon the work of others, but she also made ample use of her access to Diana and Deborah, who both granted extensive interviews.

The Mitford girls were the ultimate in tabloid fodder in Britain during the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s. The public couldn’t get enough of them, and it’s not hard to see why. They were famous for being aristocratic, good-looking, fashionable, witty, charming, etc. In addition they were also wildly eccentric, outrageous, naïve, impolitic and controversial. They inspired admiration as well as hatred.

I will try to quickly run through the highlights. The family consisted of Farve -- David Freeman-Mitford, the 2^nd Baron Redesdale -- and Muv -- Sydney Bowles, whose grandfather “Tap” Bowles founded two successful magazines, “Vanity Fair” and “The Lady”-- and their offspring. The seven children were raised in a highly protected, isolated, rural atmosphere of genteel poverty. They were sheltered if not exactly cosseted. Forbidden to go to school, they were taught at home (at least the girls were) so their education was spotty, but the necessities were not neglected: riding, French, the concept of noblesse oblige, and of course, manners and deportment. The children relied on one another for company, and they were a very close and loving family that also quarreled violently and existed for years on what they referred to as “non-speakers” with one another.

Nancy was the eldest. She dabbled in socialism, and authored several witty books based on fictionalized accounts of her family and friends, but she mainly dressed beautifully, partied lavishly, and hung out with the right crowd of funny, glittering people –the ones who were immortalized by Evelyn Waugh in “Vile Bodies” and “Brideshead Revisited”. Later in life she moved to Paris and carried on a long-term affair with Charles de Gaulle’s right hand man, Col. Gaston Palewski.

Pam, the second-born, was apparently the most domesticated and the least outrageous of the sisters. She did not care about politics or parties, but was content to be a gentlewoman farmer and breeder of animals. She married Derek Jackson, a world-renowned physicist who was one of a set of identical twins. On the day of their wedding (or the day after, I’m not sure), Derek's twin brother was killed in a motoring accident and he never got over the loss. After they divorced she entered into a lesbian relationship that lasted for the remainder of her life.

Diana was the most stunningly gorgeous of the sisters, although they were all unbelievably beautiful. Married at a young age to Bryan Guinness (heir to the Guinness brewing fortune) she left her husband to embark upon a scandalous affair with Sir Oswald Mosley, principally known as founder of the BUF, i.e., British Union of Fascists.  Mosley was perhaps the most reviled man in Britain during WW2 and the post-war years.  Diana and Mosley eventually married, but the marriage was kept secret for over a year so as not to upset his other mistress, who was his first wife’s sister. Diana herself was an ardent supporter of Fascism and a great admirer of Adolph Hitler, as was her mother and several of her siblings. She attended rallies at Nuremberg, as well as the 1936 Olympics, as Hitler’s personal guest. Her close connection to him as well as to Winston Churchill (who was a cousin) made her a person of interest to the British secret police, who regularly tapped her phone and monitored her whereabouts. Diana and Oswald both spent three years interned in a British prison as enemy sympathizers under the infamous Regulation 18B, which suspended habeas corpus during wartime. Her sister Nancy was one of those who informed on her. There were protest demonstrations in the streets upon the Mosley’s release from prison in 1943.

Next in line was Unity, who also became obsessed with Hitler when she was a teenager, and worshipped him as if he were a god or a rock star. Unity took this hero worship to extremes that nobody could have anticipated. She became part of Hitler’s inner circle, and moved to Germany to be near him. It was long suspected that they had an affair but this was never proven. Unity was vilified in the British press as a rabid Fascist and anti-Semite. Wherever she went in England, crowds gathered and sometimes erupted in violence. She came to believe that it was her destiny to broker an alliance between Britain and Germany in order to prevent war between the two countries. When despite her best efforts, war was declared, her reaction was to take a pistol and shoot herself in the head. She survived, with significant brain damage, but was never the same. Hitler paid her hospital bills in full.

Whew, I need to catch my breath. Okay, onward we go…

The next youngest sister was Jessica (Decca) who rebelled against the rest of the family by became a noted Communist. She quarreled endlessly with her family over politics and it ultimately led to a schism. As a youngster Decca kept a bust of Lenin in the room she shared with her sister, while Unity decorated her side of the room with Nazi flags and swastikas on the wall. At age 18 Decca ran away from home and eloped to Spain with her second cousin Esmond, a nephew of Winston Churchill. (Decca was also related to Winston through her aunt Clementine.) The young couple dreamed of fighting with the Loyalists against Franco, but they later moved to America, which caused a total breach with the family. When WW2 broke out Edmond enlisted in the Canadian RAF and was shot down over the North Sea. Decca subsequently married a Jewish lawyer from Oakland, CA, joined the American Communist Party, and became a civil right activist.

The youngest sister, Deborah (Debo) married Lord Andrew Cavendish, later Duke of Devonshire. Lord Andrew’s brother, Billy Hartington, married Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy (yes, those Kennedy’s). They had to marry against their families’ wishes, (particularly those of Rose Kennedy. Her objection was due to the time-honored quarrel between Catholics and Protestants.)  This couple’s happiness was doomed from the start. As soon as they returned from their honeymoon, Kathleen received word that her brother Joe Jr.’s fighter plane had been shot down. One month later they got the news that Hartington had also been killed in action. It was as a result of Billy’s death that Debo’s husband Andrew inherited the dukedom.  Debo is still alive and breeds fancy chickens on the ancestral Chatsworth estate.

Somewhere in the middle there was Tom, the only brother, who went to Eton, served with distinction in the war, and was killed in a skirmish with Japanese forces in Burma in 1945. Tom also had a fling with British Fascism, and was an admirer of Hitler, but he later fought on England’s side against Germany.  He never married but had male and female lovers.

Have you followed me so far? And this is all one family!  It’s not only mind-boggling to consider what they themselves did to attract attention, but also to contemplate the others they either knew intimately or rubbed elbows with. Which turned out to be everybody of importance in the 20^th century on both sides of the Atlantic, and I do mean everybody. This included their relations, the Winston Churchills, as well as their friends and close acquaintances, including Evelyn Waugh, Aldous Huxley, Kay Graham, Cecil Beaton, the Kennedy’s (Jack, Ted, Bobby, etc.), Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson (who Muv amusingly tried to look up in the Peerage and was puzzled at not finding her there), Lucien Freud, Harold Macmillan, and various Queens of the Realm.

How fascinating can you get? I mean, really!

Edith Wharton - Fruit of the Tree

I really do love Edith Wharton; I’ve read a lot of her fiction over the years, ever since I first fell in love with House of Mirth. Not everything is flawless, but she certainly comes close to perfection most of the time. Just got around to reading this lesser-known novel, published in 1907. For some reason it has been largely out of print for years. Not considered one of her best efforts, some people find it heavy-handed, a little preachy and melodramatic. I don’t care to quibble; in my opinion, a “lesser” Wharton fiction is still better than many contemporary works, even some that achieve best-seller status.

“Fruit of the Tree” has all of what many consider the hallmarks of her better known work. These are 1) detailed, biting depiction of American upper-class society in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries; 2) deep understanding and empathy for her characters as they struggle to reconcile individual happiness and well-being with the implacably cruel moral judgments and requirements of society; 3) examination of the insufficiencies of communication between people, of how difficult it is for two people to truly understand one another.

Wharton is great as usual in her skewering of the wealthier class--that privileged 1% who’ve always been with us, the ones whose luxuries and comfort are purchased at great cost to others. There are three main characters—Bessy Langhope, a pampered young widow who has inherited a bustling, profitable textile mill; John Amherst, who is himself a gentleman to the manor born, but has thrown aside convention and taken a job as an assistant manager in the mill; and Justine Brent, a sensitive and intelligent young nurse who befriends them both.  Bessy is a tender-hearted young woman who has always taken her wealth for granted. She’s given very little thought to the fact that her dresses and vacations would not be possible if not for the sweat and toil of the underfed and uneducated mill workers who must accept dangerous substandard working conditions if they want to feed their families.

Upon meeting Bessy for the first time, John sees an opening, a glimmer of hope, and he seizes his opportunity to awaken Bessy’s social conscience and possibly enlist her help in reforming the deplorable conditions at the mill. She in turn is equally drawn by his personal magnetism and his compassionate ideals. This quickly leads to their falling in love and marrying. While Bessy starts out enthusiastically supportive of John’s plans, she soon begins to feel unhappy and neglected. Their marriage starts to founder, and Justine steps in as go-between and peacemaker. It gets much more complicated than this, as the novel draws on other themes and subplots, including euthanasia, industrialization, worker’s rights, modern medicine, drug addiction, blackmail, capitalism run amok, conspicuous consumption, and income redistribution.  That’s a lot of meat to cram into one book, especially when the majority of the plot centers on a romantic love triangle.

I can see how Wharton could be accused of heavy-handedness in places. The millworkers come across as caricatures, like the twin waifs in Dickens’ “Christmas Carol”, intended to convey the abstract concepts of ignorance and want. They are unimportant except as they illustrate the larger problem of income inequality and social justice. Of course, this attitude exactly mirrors that of John Amherst, and constitutes his primary failing as a human being and a husband—he, too, is blinded by his zeal for the larger moral question, and doesn’t see how his behavior causes harm every bit as great as that which he’s trying to alleviate.

Every novel by Wharton focuses on the way people often suffer from the moral tangles they get themselves into, and the terrible choices they are forced to make.  Few authors have her ability to delve as deeply and to portray the human cost in such heartbreaking terms.

Little, Big - John Crowley

I'm going to try to review Little, Big, and I hope I don't get tangled up, but it may be unavoidable because it's that kind of book.  I really liked this book but I can see that I'm going to have a difficult time explaining why others would enjoy it. It's a modern fantasy but it's also a sad and moving saga about several generations of the Drinkwater clan, whose members have always had a rather unique connection to the realm of Faerie.  They are not of Faerie themselves, but they believe themselves to be of special interest--both "protected", as well as privy to certain knowledge that ordinary people lack. 

The book jumps back and forth chronologically across space and time, and it is sometimes useful to refer to the family tree in the front of the book, especially since characters of different generations sometimes share the same name. There are certain constants that anchor the story, one of these being the family home--Edgewood-- a spectacular but now-crumbling edifice that was built around the turn of the century by architect and family patriarch, John Drinkwater. Edgewood is an amalgam of many houses, or several houses that overlap each other. Think of a drawing by M.C. Escher...corridors with odd turnings that don't follow the laws of physics, staircases leading nowhere, etc. Edgewood is a character in its own right, from its lintels to its floorboards, including the mice nesting inside its walls. It is set in a bucolic landscape on the outskirts of a large city, which is referred to as The City, or sometimes the Apple, but it's not really the NYC that we all know; instead it's some dystopian version of it.

The book opens with Smoky Barnable setting out on a journey that will culminate in his marriage to Daily Alice, his beloved. However, his mode of travel has to meet certain conditions: he has to walk rather than ride, and must beg or find a place to sleep, but not pay for it with money. Smoky goes along willingly with this, because he's been told that that he is part of the Tale, as is everyone in the Drinkwater clan. But what the Tale is, nobody knows. 

There is no use trying to summarize the plot, since plot seems to be the least of the author's concerns, and is almost incidental to the fun to be had from reading this 500+ page tome. It's the opposite of a page-turner; it meanders along in a leisurely way, and wanders off on tangents about religion, philosophy, and the weather. The atmosphere is dream-like and a lot of the action actually occurs while people are asleep or dreaming. 

The characters are interesting and memorable. First, I love their names, like Nora Cloud, George Mouse, and Violet Bramble. While their lives contain the same ratio of joy to disappointment as other people's, theirs have an added layer of tragedy due to the baleful influence of Faerie, which exerts control in ways both great and small. People fall in love at first sight without knowing why, and feel themselves being pulled in various directions according to some overarching Destiny. If they think they have any idea what or why, eventually they realize they are mistaken.

The writing and the imagery are beautiful and, what would be a good word?-- enchanting. In fact, a comment made by someone about Edgewood, the house, is an equally apt description of what reading the book is like: "You can get lost for days in there. For days."   

There is an ancient Wild Wood, an enchanted fish that dimly remembers having once been a man, and a kingfisher who grants wishes and strikes bargains (bargains in which the humans inevitably come out on short end of the stick). If hearing about all these talking animals puts you in mind of Narnia, please know that it's nothing like that at all. Because there is also frank and sensual descriptions of sex, experiments with hallucinogenic drugs, filth, poverty, and death. 

Things remind you of other things...there are many subtle allusions to Lewis Carroll, both his writings and his photographs. I've never before read a novel that deals with the well-documented Edwardian craze for spirit photography, or the taking of photographs that, once developed, revealed ghostly images that were invisible to the naked eye.

The nature of Faerie is that it is elusive; it can't be nailed down, but can only be experienced like a dream, a half-forgotten memory, or something glimpsed out of the corner of your eye. The elusiveness of "Little, Big" will either charm and delight you, or it'll annoy the heck out of you. Depends upon your nature.

Post Apocalypse SCI FI

Dear Gentle Reader,

I went 6 months without blogging at all; the reasons why are too numerous to mention. But during that time my reading hardly slackened and I even took notes for future posts. So I have lots of material at the ready. I dusted off the following from my summer reading:

If you are a devoted reader of books, you probably harbor somewhere deep inside your heart  a soft spot for science fiction. Maybe you don't confess it openly. I know I don't. Doesn't seem very elegant, or, I don't know, seemly. Especially for a dignified person of a certain age. But there it is...a life-long jones for sci-fi and fantasy. So I've been on a binge lately and meaning to post an appreciation of post-apocalypse novels. Why specifically appreciate post-apocalypse novels? This may sound strange, but despite the fact that thematically they explore my worst nightmare—AKA the end of the world--I find them oddly comforting. Since we seem hell bent on destroying ourselves anyhow, it can be kind of uplifting to imagine what kind of new world we could create out of the ashes. Of course when I embarked on my binge...er, research... into this genre, I went online and checked out other people’s lists. Whoa. I realized just how many of these books exist that I haven’t yet read yet . Now I’m left with another pile of TBRs…

On to the ones I did read...

“Alas, Babylon” by Pat Frank, published 1959. I can now understand why this classic had such a large influence on a whole generation of post-nuclear holocaust books. There is something very all-American & apple pie about this tale. I can envision the movie starring a young Tom Hanks, with George Clooney in the small but important role as the doomed older brother. Set in a small town in Florida after a nuclear attack by USSR devastates most of the US of A, the story concentrates on the survivors and their fierce determination in coping with the aftermath.

The book was written just before the Cuban missile crisis in1962, at the height of our national anti-Soviet paranoia. In the tiny town of Fort Repose, in central Florida, we meet our protagonist, a Korean War veteran named Randy Bragg. The opening scene has Randy receiving a disturbing and cryptic message from his brother Mark, an Air Force colonel who is on assignment in the “Hole”. The Hole is the SAC (Strategic Air Command) headquarters, a supposedly indestructible bunker, four stories underground, where the government is directing US military response to any potential enemy attack. Mark warns Randy that the unthinkable—a nuclear attack by the USSR-- is imminent, and asks Randy to look after his wife and two kids in case anything happens to him, a likelihood on which you can bet your bottom dollar. (What? You wanted subtlety?)

The story is told from a strictly 1950’s male perspective, which can get truly annoying at times, with the author showing off his knowledge of military and technical jargon, and waxing poetical about atomic submarines and fighter planes. Gender roles are pretty rigid: the heroes are tough, manly men who keep their heads in a crisis, and the women are sexy, competent, good at taking the children firmly in hand, yet still prone to breaking down and weeping on the men’s shoulders.

The book’s greatest strength is in the thoughtful way it examines what life would be like in the aftermath. When the major population centers of the world have been vaporized, any semblance of functioning government or infrastructure is non-existent, all power and communication has been cut off, and money is rendered worthless, how do ordinary people cope? Eschewing any maniacal back-to-the-Stone-Age, Mad Max type of scenario, Frank rationally, calmly considers what polite, civilized people actually might do when they are left without food, cars, electricity, antibiotics, and running water. This is for me where it gets interesting.

Our previously held assumptions and priorities are turned upside down. Divisions between rich and poor are erased overnight (there's no need for money, folks!). Racial and class prejudice hang on a bit more stubbornly, but those differences quickly go by the wayside. What matters most is physical strength and mental stability, and the all-important access to fuel, batteries, gasoline, kerosene, uncontaminated food and water, medicine, guns and ammunition.

Frank has some interesting ideas about what happens to different personalities when faced with a crisis. Why do some people grow in stature and become leaders, while others succumb to savagery, superstition, or magical thinking? Some can’t face reality and keep clinging to the hope that any day now, power and services will restored and things will return to normal. Some are spared by the immediate holocaust but end up dying anyway because they can't make the necessary mental adjustment. Survival of the fittest.

For a more current take on this theme, try “A World Made By Hand” by James Kunstler.  (Also, “Into the Forest” by Jean Hegland.)

Kunstler’s version is based on the premise that contained in his nonfiction book, “The Long Emergency” where he lays out his argument that as the earth depletes the supply of oil, our global infrastructure will collapse and we will need to go back in time and back to the land, returning to a way of life where people were self-sufficient and neighbors relied upon one another to survive. In “A World Made By Hand” we skip over the horrific details of the apocalypse and its immediate aftermath, and we go straight to a time about 20 years after the collapse, when the survivors have come out fitter and stronger and are in process of forging a new world. 

As Kunstler envisions this potential new society, it almost sounds kind of appealing. We’ve traded in a national highway system, power grid, and computer chips for a primitive (but sustainable!) water system powered by gravity, and medicines made from plants grown in the backyard. It’s kind of like Little House on the Prairie. People have to re-learn the practical trades of yesteryear: carpenters, blacksmiths, weavers, and shoemakers. Everyone needs to grow their own food, make their own clothing, and slaughter their own livestock. We are all locavores in the new post-industrial world. One fortunate by-product of the collapse of oil, coal, and fossil fuels, is that the formerly polluted rivers, streams, and air have returned to a state of pristine cleanliness. Horses have taken the place of automobiles and currency has been replaced by a barter system. A semi-feudal system of government seems to be cropping up in places where law and order is brutally enforced, but there are also pockets where something resembling democracy is slowly starting to re-establish, albeit on a small scale. The surrounding country is a dangerous place –there is an outlaw community composed of bikers and lowlifes who spend their time looting and pillaging, and enforcing their own brand of rough justice. There is violence and death, but it is also hopeful and humanistic. Women are subjugated, relying totally on men for sustenance and protection, and functioning as housekeepers and bedmates. And there are some confusing supernatural elements that add little of entertainment value but do much to distract.

***************************

“Lucifer’s Hammer” by Larry Niven and Jerry Pourcelle. Won both the Hugo and the Nebula award. I’m not sure why I read it except that a lot of folks loved it, and it was touted as classic of the genre. (In retrospect I wish I had read Stephen King’s “The Stand” instead.)  The book details the end of civilization as brought about by a massive comet striking the earth’s surface. The comet collides and sets off a chain of consequences, including earthquake, tidal waves, fires, flooding—the whole nine yards-- which wipe out most of mankind and plunge us into another ice age. It’s like a speeded-up version of global warming.

The novel was published in 1977 and it feels dated, and not in a good way. I usually enjoy the experience of being immersed in the politics and culture of another time, but I find the ethos of these particular times a bit unpleasant-- maybe because I lived through them the first time around.

The book divided into thirds, dealing with the Before, During and After the Impact (as the runaway comet strikes the planet-- which the characters refer to as “Hammerfall”). The first third of the book is spent introducing the large cast of characters and unfortunately it reads like a formulaic disaster-thriller. This is not good writing. You know how some people dislike books that have too much description in them? Well, this book has too much dialogue--page after page of hokey repartee, and dreary, repetitive interior monologue.  

Reading the book feels like watching a 1970's disaster movie where they did a hack job on the screenplay and blew the budget on special effects. The good guys are the science nerds: the techies, astronomers, astronauts and nuclear plant technicians, who know how to save the world but are prevented from doing so by the craven shortsightedness of…drum roll for the villains, if you please… politicians and whoever controls the purse strings. You know, those goddam bastards who cut the NASA budget and ruined the space program.

The heroes are macho survivalists who work out, know how to use firearms, drink whiskey and smoke cigars, and one sexy woman, everyone else is so weak or ethically challenged they deserved to have perished in the initial conflagration. One of the good guys is a techie nerd who is in charge of a nuclear energy plant that is so well constructed that it’s basically the only structure left standing after the asteroid strike; It suffers no loss of cooling, no radiation leakage, nuthin’! Why?  Because it’s just built so damn well… If ONLY we hadn’t listened to Al Gore and his army of gutless environmental freaks, and had built us a ton more of these, we wouldn’t have a global warming problem today!

It takes us half to two-thirds of the way through the book until we finally get to the interesting part, which is the speculative part of science fiction: just how would society remake itself after every aspect of government and industry and technology and civilization as we know it is smashed to bits, and what form would it take?

There is a definite political message here; the author must have had envisioned a society that was a cross between Ayn Rand style libertarianism and techno-survivalism-- a right wing mish-mash where the rugged individualists with a deep respect for the latest technology are morally superior to the low life scum. Here the bad guys are environmentalists, religious fanatics, urban ghetto street hoodlums, “women’s libbers”, hippies, commune dwellers, trade unionists, and Russians who still believe in communism. Feminists don't fare too well either, even though there is a token female on the space shuttle, as well as a token black astronaut. Stereotypes abound, from biker gangs to ghetto hustlers to sexy women with courageous hearts and great legs. One of the characters muses that the silver lining to Hammerfall is that it effectively puts an end to “women’s lib”. And in the scenario that’s being portrayed here, the status of women immediately devolves to that of property, a prize given to the strongest and manliest men. All power is transferred to the men with the biggest guns.

There are a couple of good points, like the media blitz that crops up around the early news reports of the comets, the excitement among people who wanted something crazy out of the ordinary to happen, something to spice up their routine, the religious fanatics who sprang up, to pray the comet away, the end of the world preachers who were making a fortune by soaking the gullible and the frightened. Also the people who see the end of the world as a way out of their own personal financial difficulties, legal troubles, unhappy marriages, or in one case, the perfect excuse for a demented rapist to commit murder and mayhem without having to worry about doing jail time.

The fact that this novel was written years before our 24-hour infotainment cycle had taken over the culture, makes it surprising in that it is so prescient. The book gets more interesting from page 200 on, which is the point of Hammerfall (as they call the moment of impact). The story is told from multiple viewpoints, as different people experience the asteroid strike and its aftermath…scarier than your-worst nightmare...fireballs in the sky, earthquakes, tidal waves, terrible electrical storms, seas boiling, Keeps dwelling on images smashing cars, collapsing bridges, bursting dams, and breaking glass, people screaming. You can just picture the TV movie that will be made from this book. Except that it never did get made into a movie. The film “Deep Impact” came closest to it. There are some memorable images, such as two archaeologists witnessing the second eruption of The Greek volcanic island Thera; a surfer riding the tsunami, (to him its just a very big wave), while knowing his death is imminent. Then there are the images that are completely -woops! - over the top: a couple throw a dead baby out of a car window, Four astronauts, two Soviet and two American, make their reentry into earth’s orbit, parachute into a cornfield, and as they emerge from the space capsule they are met by a band of hostile men with machine guns and rifles pointing at them

Apparently the authors didn’t know where to draw the line between shivery fun and creepy-disgusting.

 ***************

Now I need to read Stephen King’s “The Stand”, but it’s over a thousand pages so I guess I should wait for the right time, like maybe when I am in bed for a week with the flu.

****************

“Canticle for Liebowitz” by Walter Miller is in a class by itself. It was published in novel form in 1959, and as such it won the Hugo award in 1961. But it originated as three novellas that were published earlier in sci-fi magazines. Except for the plot device of nuclear war, fallout, mutants, and in the third part, space travel—the book is more philosophical than speculative. It poses questions rather than answers. It is ironic allegory--sardonic, ridiculous, tragic, humanistic, eloquent, darkly cynical, yet ultimately hopeful. Its topic is humankind, specifically our propensity for self-destruction and self-deception. It’s a view of Mankind from a distance, as we might be seen by our Maker: stubborn and ignorant but containing the spark of divine genius.

This is a fairly well known book so I won’t summarize the plot. The book is steeped in the rituals and traditions of the Catholic church, and most of major characters are clergy. One of the main characters is a comic fool or wandering Jew that would feel right at home in an I.B. Singer tale. Gimpel the Fool becomes a wandering holy man in the end. It posits the argument that as civilization crumbles and we are thrown back to another dark age, the church is the only organization that is capable of protecting and preserving all the knowledge of the world throughout the millenia. Eventually (a few thousand years later), we pull ourselves up out of ignorance, superstition, and barbarism, to the dawn of a new enlightened age. The gears of industrialization get humming again; we reinvent the light bulb but we can’t change our essential nature and are driven by hubris right back to the brink of destruction again. When will we ever learn? Apparently there is a God, but what does he want from us? Why does He allow suffering? What is the meaning of human suffering (see Camus--The Plague)?

Scientists and all educated people are seen as being to blame for nuclear destruction, so in the new world they burn all the books and kill all the literate people. People proudly wear the title of Simpleton (badge of ignorance) as a badge of honor. This mirrors the galloping anti-intellectualism of today.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from “LIebowitz”:

"From a distance one's adversaries seemed fiends, but with a closer view, one saw the sincerity and it was as great as one's own. Perhaps Satan was the sincerest of the lot."

"Where's the truth? What's to be believed? Or does it matter at all? When mass murder's been answered with mass murder, rape with rape, hate with hate, there's no longer much meaning in asking whose ax is the bloodier."

"Is the species congenitally insane, Brother? If we're born mad, where's the hope of Heaven?"

"It will come to pass by violence and upheaval, by flame and by fury, for no change comes calmly over the world."

"To Brother Librarian, whose task in life was the preservation of books, the principal reason for the existence of books was that they might be preserved perpetually. Usage was secondary, and to be avoided if it threatened longevity."

More of my favorite Canticles (this book is craaazy!):

His supreme Unctuousness

Albertian Order of Liebowitz

Age of Simplification

Poet-sirrah!

Memorabilia

Mrs. Grales, the bicephalous tomato woman

Note: There was a fair bit of Hebrew and quite a lot of Latin in the book. (For some reason, large chunks of the Catholic Mass were quoted verbatim.) I found it helpful but not necessary to read with a Wikipedia list of Latin phrases open at my side.  

**************

TBRead:

The Stand-  Stephen King

Philip K. Dick

The Female Man- Joanna Russ

Joan Vinge

Vonda McIntyre- Dreamsnake

C.J. Cherryh

TBReviewed:

The Dispossessed- Le Guin

Left Hand of Darkness- Le Guin

Lathe of Heaven- Le Guin

Octavia Butler

James Tiptree

Thomas Disch

Kelly Link

Tanith Lee (not sci fi but fantasy)

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

Colum McCann is not a native New Yorker. He’s an Irishman wearing an “I heart NY” shirt. And not just any New York but the filthy, broke, careening-out-of-control New York of the 1970’s, before Rudi Giuliani cleaned everything up. I remember that NYC—I lived there. Tribeca was still a slum, Central Park was too dangerous to walk in at night, CBGB’s, Sid Vicious, and “Son of Sam”. A hard place to love, but some glorify it.  This is another one of those novels (it's getting to be a cliché, this structure) made up of interlocking vignettes about disparate characters, whose lives, unbeknownst to them, are in some mysterious way connected.  The book opens with a description of a seminal event— the high-wire walk between the twin towers by Philippe Petit in 1974, which was later documented in the film “Man on Wire”.  It was a really cool and crazy stunt at the time, but post 9/11, from a distance of almost three decades, Petit’s walk has taken on a deeper, allegorical meaning. Set against the grim despair of the lives being lived down below, it is a life-affirming counterpoint: the acrobat dances on air as the angels watch, while back on earth we are a lot closer to hell than to heaven. One of the main characters is Corrigan, an Irish Catholic lay brother who is too good for this world. He befriends the prostitutes outside his Bronx walkup and lives a monastic existence.  I found him very unbelievable and somewhat pretentious. Corrigan’s brother, Ciaran, is more down-to-earth but also a cliché of sorts, as are the foul-mouthed prostitutes-- Jazzlyn and her mother, Tillie, who turn tricks together. Tillie’s character has some tragic weight to it, at least. So does Claire, a Park Ave. matron whose son has died, and she is trying very hard to make a connection with some other women in a group for grieving mothers, but they think she is a wealthy snob.

The writing was lyrical and the images poetic, but the characters were a bit cardboard-y and one-dimensional. There was a falseness to it. I just didn’t get this book. 

Sarah Waters and Margaret Atwood

“Fingersmith”; “Night Watch”; “Alias Grace”

I’m back! What a lot to catch up on.  Follow me down a winding path as one thought/ one book leads to another.

I have been reading Sarah Waters and so far I’ve plowed through 3 of her 5 books; however I’m only going to review “Night Watch” and “Fingersmith”, which are number 3 and 4, respectively, and were both short-listed for the Man Booker and the Orange Prize.  Waters’ bio says she was born in Wales in 1966, and is an associate lecturer with the Open University. But possibly this is just a sideline because I can’t see where she finds the time to teach while also writing compulsively readable books that win prizes and get made into films by the BBC. She should be better known than she is because she’s a hell of a writer. One reason why her work isn’t more widely known may be that she is categorized as a LGBT author, and I think this pigeonholes her and perhaps limits her appeal. But it’s a false distinction.

Her books are populated with gay and lesbian characters who fall in love and make each other happy or miserable as is usually the case. As a straight person I didn’t find anything about her writing that was unsettling or disturbing, or outside of my experience. On the contrary, Waters is sensitive and skilled in evoking the mysterious ways and reasons, both physical and emotional, that cause people to be drawn to one another.

Anyhow…”Night Watch” is a fast, absorbing read. I don’t usually feel drawn to World War 2 era stories, it’s just not my favorite historical period. But I was fascinated by the vivid portrayal of life in London during wartime-- the rationing, the food shortages, the bombed-out streets and buildings, the wailing sirens, blackout curtains and air raid shelters. Given the fact that incendiaries are dropping from the sky and as one person says,  “we might all be dead tomorrow”, people are driven to recklessness.  They’re ready to throw away caution and convention in exchange for honesty and the pursuit of a life-affirming passion. The story is told in reverse chronological sequence, starting in 1947 and working backwards to 1941, and the characters are explained through the gradual reveal of their history. They seem tangentially connected to one another at first, but they are linked in ways that become clearer as the plot unfolds. I grew to sympathize the most with Kay, who after the war spends her time wandering around the streets of London, dressed like a man, and searching for something indefinable. She felt most alive during wartime when driving an ambulance and pulling people out of burning buildings (an opportunity that came about due to the shortage of men). Another character, Viv, meets for secret trysts with her married boyfriend, while wondering what she can do to sort out her damaged brother, Duncan, who spent time in prison for reasons that aren’t clear until later. A fourth major character, Helen, is analytical and introspective. Even though consumed with jealousy and self-loathing, she is the narrator whose consciousness is most awake and observant.

“Fingersmith” is a tour de force, in my opinion. It’s a contemporary version of the Victorian sensational novel, ala Wilkie Collins, and it has more than a whiff of Dickens and George Elliot.  Brimming with Gothic atmosphere, it left me turning pages at 3 AM because I couldn’t stand the suspense. For such a convoluted storyline, I never had any difficulty in following it. I was totally drawn in by the multiple twists and double-crosses, the complex characters (NO one is as they seem),  and by the sheer depth of human cruelty and kindness.  As in “Night Watch”, the story is told from more than one viewpoint; events are first recounted by one character, and later retold by a different one, with missing information filled in. There are details galore to get lost in…so much research went into this book! Research about the state of the field of psychiatry and Victorian ideas about curing the insane; about ladies’ clothing—the silks and taffetas, petticoats and stays--and what a lady’s maid’s duties are; about the resentments of the servant class and the power plays among the maids and footmen in charge of running those large country estates; about the petty thieves and grifters who live in the underbelly of London.  Careful thought has gone into naming the characters: Maud is the name of a white-gloved lady, while Sue is a common servant’s name. There is an elegant but coldhearted scam artist known to all as Gentleman, and a criminal couple who run a sort of orphanage/boarding school for fencers of stolen goods and pickpockets, and go by the Dickensian monikers of Mrs. Sucksby and Mr. Ibbs.  I won’t go into any further detail because the less said the greater the fun, and this one is a treat.

Reading about the travails of the madhouse in “Fingersmith” made me want to segue right into “Alias Grace” by Margaret Atwood, which is, I believe, her first foray into historical fiction, rather than her usual contemporary realistic or futuristic speculative novels. “Alias Grace” takes as its starting point the true story of Grace Marks, a notorious Canadian woman who in 1843 was convicted of murdering her employer and his mistress. Because of her gender and her tender age (she was 16 at the time of the murders) she wasn’t hung for the crime but sentenced instead to life in prison and she spent some years in a mental asylum. She always maintained her innocence, and in fact she claimed to have total amnesia regarding the murders. Atwood tells the story through Grace’s words and memories, and also through the letters and notes of a young doctor, Simon Jordan (who I think is a fictional character). Dr. Jordan attempts to help Grace while at the same time making his own reputation as a practitioner of the brand new field of psychotherapy.  He has Grace tell him her dreams and he employs the technique of free association to try to help her remember.  If he is successful at proving her innocence, she may be able to get a pardon, so they both have something invested in the relationship.

Grace has had a lot of time to think about her situation and she has developed a strong will and some good survival skills. She isn’t a victim but she may in fact be innocent of any crime. Whether she is evil, insane, a heroine or a dupe, is something we never can quite decide. She’s an unreliable narrator at best, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to believe in her innocence. The story is beautifully written and really gives a flavor of mid-nineteenth century North America. I totally enjoyed it.

Reading for a Summer Afternoon While Lying in a Hammock Drinking a Glass of Iced Tea

Elizabeth von Arnim- The Enchanted April (published 1922)

"For those who appreciate wisteria and sunshine"--

This book is a confection-- light-hearted, romantic in the best sense, and very witty. If this appeals to you, you may find that it becomes one of those comfort books, to be indulged in when you are under the weather and need an ice cream soda for a pick-me-up. In answer to those picky people who object that the plot is too unrealistic, and the ending overly sweet…well, IMO that is the point. It’s a comfort book, after all. Four English women, each of them unhappy in her own way, meet as strangers and chip in together on a month's stay at an Italian villa. The women have precious little in common with one another other than a vague dissatisfaction with their lives. A vacation like this should have disastrous results, one would think. But San Salvadore, in this case, functions like a mythical Forest of Arden—a magical realm where everyday matters recede, people are thrown together, comical little misunderstandings occur, visitors come and go, and the unexpected happens. The forced intimacy and the inefficiencies of the Italian postal system combine with the sensual Mediterranean climate to create a hothouse atmosphere, where friendship, healing, and romance can blossom.  The book is funny, too, in that wry, ironic British style.  I especially loved the interior monologues of repressed and lovelorn Rose Arbuthnot: “It was just possible that she ought to go straight into the category Hysteria, which was often only the antechamber to Lunacy, but Mrs. Arbuthnot had learned not to hurry people into their final categories, having on more than one occasion discovered with dismay that she had made a mistake; and how difficult it had been to get them out again, and how crushed she had been with the most terrible remorse.”

Mike Newell directed a film version of this book in 1991, but in my opinion the movie falls a teensy bit short. Despite richly rewarding performances from a veteran British cast—Miranda Richardson, Alfred Molina, Jim Broadbent, and Joan Plowright (who was nominated for an Oscar for her role as Mrs. Fisher), the tone of the movie is just a tad uneven. But it’s still fun to watch on a rainy afternoon.

Winifred Watson - Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

Written in 1938, this lighter-than-air piece of puff pastry makes for an afternoon snack, not a substantial meal. Miss Pettigrew is a frowsy spinster governess who serendipitously stumbles right smack into the center of a glittering, high fashion, hard-drinking party scene, and suddenly she finds herself having the best time of her life. The story takes place over a 24 hour time period and chapters are organized into time segments, like “12:18 AM to 2:37 AM”. Miss Pettigrew, with a couple of drinks in her, realizes she has a heretofore hidden talent when it comes to meddling in other people’s affairs and helpfully smoothing the often rocky path to true love.  The book is like a glass of champagne—happy, sparkling, delicious. I have one quibble: There are a couple of anti-Semitic references that constitute the single jarring note in an otherwise close-to-perfect experience. I’ve experienced similar feelings of shock and dismay when reading Trollope, particularly “The Way We Live Now”. Obviously, we must consider such bigotry within the context of the times,. But for me it was still a fly in the ointment.

Booth Tarkington and Stella Gibbons

Woops, how did so much time go by? The book blog is long overdue for an update...

Booth Tarkington- The Magnificent Ambersons (published 1919)

A family epic that takes place in the early 1900’s, just as the country is undergoing vast changes resulting from the growth of industry, the automobile, and urban sprawl. Tarkington takes his time in telling the story and he spends the entire first chapter discussing the history of the town, its social structure, the fashions of the day, and how the privileged Amberson family dominates and runs the town with their money and influence. By the time he is finished, you feel like you know what it’s like to live there, too. Only then does he introduce us to George-- the spoiled, arrogant only son who runs roughshod over everyone, including his own family. George is impossibly bratty. He treats others with a rude sense of entitlement that he justifies out of a misplaced sense of pride in his family’s name; and he lives according to his conviction that there is something degrading in the notion of a gentleman “doing” rather than “being”. George is due to have his “comeuppance” one of these days, and like the townspeople, we only hope that we’re around to see it happen. What George is too blind to see is that the world is changing around him, and that his money and family position will not be enough to save him in the new world order.

This, of course, is the novel that was the basis for the classic Orson Welles film. Reading the book for me was like watching a very leisurely version of the film…I couldn’t help visualizing Agnes Moorehead as Fanny and Joseph Cotton as Eugene. The book goes into more detail about some worthwhile secondary characters, and the financial misfortunes that lead to the Amberson family’s ruin are more fully explained. George is also less of a villain in the book, his redeeming qualities being more apparent. The farewell scene between George and Lucy that takes place outside the drugstore, as he is leaving for Europe, affected me much more deeply in the book, whereas in the movie it left me cold. “The Magnificent Ambersons” was actually the second book in a trilogy by Tarkington (the other two were “The Turmoil” and “The Midlander”) that dealt with social and economic changes in America from the mid-19^th century until World War 1.

**********************************************

Stella Gibbons - Cold Comfort Farm

Published in 1932, this fits into the category of oddball British satiric humor, in the vein of P.G. Wodehouse, but on a completely different plane of battiness

from that of Jeeves and Wooster.  Gibbons is skewering a lot of prototypes here. In these pages we make the acquaintance of witless polo-playing gentry, cigar-chomping Hollywood moguls, and sex-obsessed London intellectuals. Flora Poste, our plucky heroine, is a sophisticated London girl of the strictly modern type, who quite suddenly fins herself orphaned. She is not terribly bereaved, never having been all that close to her parents. Still, she needs a roof over her head, so she decides to move in with her hardscrabble rural relations, the Starkadder clan. Cold Comfort farm is the name of the gloomy, dilapidated ancestral home in Sussex, and Flora is told repeatedly that “There have always been Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm”, as if that explains everything. No matter. Our girl senses that this situation has intriguing possibilities.

One by one we meet the relatives: Aunt Ada Doom who once “saw something nasty in the woodshed” and has refused to come out of her room for 20 years; Amos, the paterfamilias, who loves to preach hellfire-and-brimstone sermons designed to make you feel the flames of hell licking at your feet; Cousin Judith, who desires to be left alone in her “web of solitude”, as she devotes herself to atoning for some unspecified long-ago offense; waifish Elfine who flits around the Downs in rags, spouting poetry and communing with the trees and squirrels; Seth, of the smoldering good looks and outsized sexual appetite, who secretly yearns to be in “talkies”; and Urk, who was betrothed to Elfine in infancy and calls her “my little water-vole”.  This oddball bunch are unwashed, inbred, and speak in an impenetrable Old Sussex dialect, but they are innocents for all that.  Flora feels it’s her duty to drag her unwilling relatives into the 20^th century and she’s certainly not one to shy away from a challenge. She gets to work at once making “improvements” on the farm and its inhabitants, and you will find yourself looking for a good perch from which you can watch what’s going to happen, as our Flora sweetly turns everyone’s lives upside down and lets in the light.

Gibbons was a journalist and a poet, and claimed to be “not always sure whether a sentence is Literature or whether it is just sheer flapdoodle”. She has some fun in this book satirizing the style of literature exemplified by D. H. Lawrence, Thomas Hardy, and Emily Bronte—and their somewhat tortured descriptive passages. “Something earthy, something dark and rooty as the barran that thrust its tenacious way through the yeasty soil had crept into the old man’s voice with the words. He was moved. Old tides lapped his loins.”

I found myself laughing out loud at the way the Starkadders continually address Flora as “Robert Poste’s child”, in place of her name; and at Adam Lambsbreath, the 90-year old man of all work, who “cletters the dishes” with a thorny branch. When Flora buys him a dish mop and suggests he might make a better job of the washing-up if he were to use it instead, Adam is unaccountably moved, so much so that that he fetishizes the object. “I mun hang it up by its liddle red string above the dishwashin’ bowl…Aye, ‘tis prettier nor apple-blooth, my liddle mop.”  What delicious nonsense.

Something about this novel kept reminding me of Jane Austen’s “Emma” as I was reading it. Several things actually. There is the fact that the movie version of Cold Comfort Farm starred a young Kate Beckinsale, who later starred in the movie version of “Emma”. But there’s also the central theme: a bossy young girl loves to meddle in other people’s affairs and indulges in her favorite pastime as if people were playing pieces on a chessboard. Sounds like our Flora, doesn’t it? The difference is that Emma interferes where she isn’t wanted and makes a mess of things, where Flora succeeds magnificently in her meddling. Not to mention the number of marriages that occur in consequence.

It’s all kind of heartwarming and endearingly loopy. I recommend it.