Lazin' on a Sunny Afternoon
Originally uploaded by Mags.
Settling down in the garden, with all the key requirements for a reading session (garden chair, sunglasses, fresh hot tea).
August 13, 2005
August 09, 2005
The Rotter's Club
The Rotter's Club
Jonathan Coe
(2001)
catagories: fiction | C21st
I'm never really sure how to tag a book like this. Coe uses a framing device of the story being told not by two of the protagonists reminising over shared experiences but two of their descendents, trying to imagine life in the world before they were born: the modern nostalgia not for real memories but for the idea of them. Yet the book is truly nostalgic in recalling not the rosy idealised past but the real brown and orange, mushrooms-as-exotic, 1970s. Despite the framing device, the narrative is left open but with the promise of a follow-up, The Closed Circle. I was assuming this was a little pomo joke - a promise of closure for those who require it - until I checked and it turns out the book does exist. I find that vaguely disappointing.
Jonathan Coe
(2001)
catagories: fiction | C21st
I'm never really sure how to tag a book like this. Coe uses a framing device of the story being told not by two of the protagonists reminising over shared experiences but two of their descendents, trying to imagine life in the world before they were born: the modern nostalgia not for real memories but for the idea of them. Yet the book is truly nostalgic in recalling not the rosy idealised past but the real brown and orange, mushrooms-as-exotic, 1970s. Despite the framing device, the narrative is left open but with the promise of a follow-up, The Closed Circle. I was assuming this was a little pomo joke - a promise of closure for those who require it - until I checked and it turns out the book does exist. I find that vaguely disappointing.
August 07, 2005
The Vampire Blood Trilogy!!!!
The Vampire Blood Trilogy
Darren Shan
catagory: kid.lit
I've been reading some recommended teen fiction this year. This is partially because I don't want my knowledge to become outmoded. It's easy for me to point out that Ursula Le Guin did a boy heading off to wizard school to face a shadowy evil back in the 70s with the seminal A Wizard of Earthsea with a startlingly sparse style which leaves me in awe of it. It's probably also not surprising that I grew up avidly reading Susan Cooper and Alan Garner with their heady worlds of raillings that becomes a spear, willow green witches sacrificed to the sea, patterns repeating through time and lost Welsh lands. I'm not bad on earlier stuff like E.S. Nesbit either. But, aside from a glance through the first Potter and the obligatory reading of His Dark Materials, I'm not sure what the books are now. The books which kids want to read rather than the ones they ought to read.
I started with Witchchild a few months back, which I found a very effective and engaging historical built around a voyage to the New World and religious fervour/persecution. It comes with a handy framing device and a refusal to provide a final answer to what becomes of the narrator. This is very much a book which would have appealed to me as a teenager, and I can see how it carefully sets up the historical setting to mimic twentieth century social interaction. The way the daughters of the leaders form a clique which excludes the narrator is clearly meant to resonate. One thing I've often noticed with teen fiction is that the main character will be a bookish girl i.e. one who appeals to, er, bookish girls. I'm not sure how I feel about that: at its worse it's simple manipulation to make the reader continue but then you couldn't have made me part with DragonsongDragonsinger back when I was a teenager.
The Vampire Blood Trilogy is a collection of the sort of books I hated in school. Not like Persuasion (which an English teacher unwisely suggested to my 14 year old self to stop me reading SF) but like anything by Stephen King or James Herbert. Fat books with black covers and dire promises of gore on the back. Again, not like the post-apocalpyse horror I liked such as Z for Zachariah, but junk like The Fog. In short, boys' fiction. Once I got past the deeply irritating use of exclamation marks in every paragraph I found these quite fun! I'd told boys love exclamation marks! There's good set up and follow through of events but the style means I'm unlikely to get the next three in the set.
Darren Shan
catagory: kid.lit
I've been reading some recommended teen fiction this year. This is partially because I don't want my knowledge to become outmoded. It's easy for me to point out that Ursula Le Guin did a boy heading off to wizard school to face a shadowy evil back in the 70s with the seminal A Wizard of Earthsea with a startlingly sparse style which leaves me in awe of it. It's probably also not surprising that I grew up avidly reading Susan Cooper and Alan Garner with their heady worlds of raillings that becomes a spear, willow green witches sacrificed to the sea, patterns repeating through time and lost Welsh lands. I'm not bad on earlier stuff like E.S. Nesbit either. But, aside from a glance through the first Potter and the obligatory reading of His Dark Materials, I'm not sure what the books are now. The books which kids want to read rather than the ones they ought to read.
I started with Witchchild a few months back, which I found a very effective and engaging historical built around a voyage to the New World and religious fervour/persecution. It comes with a handy framing device and a refusal to provide a final answer to what becomes of the narrator. This is very much a book which would have appealed to me as a teenager, and I can see how it carefully sets up the historical setting to mimic twentieth century social interaction. The way the daughters of the leaders form a clique which excludes the narrator is clearly meant to resonate. One thing I've often noticed with teen fiction is that the main character will be a bookish girl i.e. one who appeals to, er, bookish girls. I'm not sure how I feel about that: at its worse it's simple manipulation to make the reader continue but then you couldn't have made me part with DragonsongDragonsinger back when I was a teenager.
The Vampire Blood Trilogy is a collection of the sort of books I hated in school. Not like Persuasion (which an English teacher unwisely suggested to my 14 year old self to stop me reading SF) but like anything by Stephen King or James Herbert. Fat books with black covers and dire promises of gore on the back. Again, not like the post-apocalpyse horror I liked such as Z for Zachariah, but junk like The Fog. In short, boys' fiction. Once I got past the deeply irritating use of exclamation marks in every paragraph I found these quite fun! I'd told boys love exclamation marks! There's good set up and follow through of events but the style means I'm unlikely to get the next three in the set.
July 24, 2005
Wide Sargasso Sea
Wide Sargasso Sea
Jean Rhys
Continuing in my quest for fiction which emerges from other fiction, I finally filled a gap in my knowledge and read Wide Sargasso Sea the other week.
This is the story of Antionette, a Creole girl who finds herself marrying a man newly arrived from England in the 1830s. Her background, rejected by an insane mother, and his fear of her culture turns the relationship sour and causes her to go mad. Eventually, he takes her back to his home in England and locks her in the attic. The man is never named, but it is obvious who it is: Mr Rochester, the hero of Jane Eyre.
Rhys admitted when working on the novel that she had become fascinated by 'Bertha' from Jane Eyre and wanted to tell the other side of the story. Rhys came from a Jamacian background but had settled in London: in short, she wanted to see what had sent 'Bertha' mad. What, then, makes a novel such as this - or such as Pemberley - acceptable yet fanfic unacceptable to so many? Rhys's motivation was to fill in a story from her own perspective, to expand a character who was just a cipher in the original work. And she didn't have permission to use all these Bronte characters. Yet, as if the act of publication is alchemical, this is considered real fiction and not fan fiction. Strange.
What of the novel? I can see why someone was surprised I'd not read it. It plays with different points of view, it gives us conflicting narrators and cultures, with the voices of Antoinette and [Rochester] clearly expressed. Those are things which always tick my boxes - or push my buttons. It is rather sexy - the seductions of [Rochester] hum with night heat - and rather disturbing - the fractured voice in the final third is so far removed from the girl at the start. It also toys with imagery from Jane Eyre - storms and trees being split apart - which add to the knowingness: there can be no happy resolution to this gothic romance because as readers we already know the happy ending will go to Jane instead.
One difficulty I have in trying to describe the novel is resisting the urge to call it "the story of the first Mrs Rochester". Why resist? It's a neat phrase which immediately gives an idea of the story etc. Yet the novel is about reclaiming "the first Mrs Rochester" as a person in her own right, and about how Rochester forces her to sublimate her own identity under that of his idea of what a wife should be. It therefore seems to go against the theme of the novel to describe it with the neat phrase.
Fianlly, I always enjoy a novel which causes Orson Welles' voice to purr in my head.
Jean Rhys
Continuing in my quest for fiction which emerges from other fiction, I finally filled a gap in my knowledge and read Wide Sargasso Sea the other week.
This is the story of Antionette, a Creole girl who finds herself marrying a man newly arrived from England in the 1830s. Her background, rejected by an insane mother, and his fear of her culture turns the relationship sour and causes her to go mad. Eventually, he takes her back to his home in England and locks her in the attic. The man is never named, but it is obvious who it is: Mr Rochester, the hero of Jane Eyre.
Rhys admitted when working on the novel that she had become fascinated by 'Bertha' from Jane Eyre and wanted to tell the other side of the story. Rhys came from a Jamacian background but had settled in London: in short, she wanted to see what had sent 'Bertha' mad. What, then, makes a novel such as this - or such as Pemberley - acceptable yet fanfic unacceptable to so many? Rhys's motivation was to fill in a story from her own perspective, to expand a character who was just a cipher in the original work. And she didn't have permission to use all these Bronte characters. Yet, as if the act of publication is alchemical, this is considered real fiction and not fan fiction. Strange.
What of the novel? I can see why someone was surprised I'd not read it. It plays with different points of view, it gives us conflicting narrators and cultures, with the voices of Antoinette and [Rochester] clearly expressed. Those are things which always tick my boxes - or push my buttons. It is rather sexy - the seductions of [Rochester] hum with night heat - and rather disturbing - the fractured voice in the final third is so far removed from the girl at the start. It also toys with imagery from Jane Eyre - storms and trees being split apart - which add to the knowingness: there can be no happy resolution to this gothic romance because as readers we already know the happy ending will go to Jane instead.
One difficulty I have in trying to describe the novel is resisting the urge to call it "the story of the first Mrs Rochester". Why resist? It's a neat phrase which immediately gives an idea of the story etc. Yet the novel is about reclaiming "the first Mrs Rochester" as a person in her own right, and about how Rochester forces her to sublimate her own identity under that of his idea of what a wife should be. It therefore seems to go against the theme of the novel to describe it with the neat phrase.
Fianlly, I always enjoy a novel which causes Orson Welles' voice to purr in my head.
July 02, 2005
decimation
This morning, I decided to try tidying the shelves of the study/attic. So far I've managed to literally decimate them and have twenty books stacked up waiting to go to the charity shop. They're mostly:
The main problem is that even with these books taken out, I still don't have room for the Warring States research books. I want to keep them together. I need more shelves.
Note: I have no idea if my CSS and HTML is OK under bloggers new code. If it isn't, I'm afriad I won't be fixing it straight away...
- UFOlogy
A subject I lost interest in quite a while ago. I did keep the small section of 70s "gods are aliens" paperbacks. I should maybe call that "von Daniken's corner". As a child I was fascinated by his books: the text is not particularly readable, although you can argue charitably that its the translation which is at fault, but I loved the images and ideas. On the other hand, a lot of Fortean mass market books tend to have a particular style. I've been reading The Case of the Cottingley Fairies and have been stuck by its failings. I'm not going to review it here as I'm going to try for the Fortean 'classics' review slot with my opinion. - Cat care manuals
I used to worry about things like "why is the cat eating grass?", "are they supposed to walk backwards as they puke?" etc. but I think my basic cat maintainence skills are now sufficient for me to ignore the manuals. Although I've kept Dr Xargles Book of Earth Tiggers, obviously. - The Da Vinci Code
I was going to pass it around for others to enjoy my marginalia ("that's wrong!") but I think it's better off in the charity shop. The novel was always going to have a hard time with me: I work in internationally reknown museums, I've read a lot of articles over the years on Rosslyn and the Templars, and I've got an art history degree. But even if I allow that most readers will not know the backrooms of museums, the Temple in London or that Leonardo Da Vinci's name should be shortened to 'Leonardo' not 'Da Vinci', I still didn't find the novel enjoyable. Highly readable, of course, but my airport thriller choice will remain Robert Harris.
The main problem is that even with these books taken out, I still don't have room for the Warring States research books. I want to keep them together. I need more shelves.
Note: I have no idea if my CSS and HTML is OK under bloggers new code. If it isn't, I'm afriad I won't be fixing it straight away...
June 11, 2005
The guilty pile
I always feel vaguely guilty when I fail to finish a book, as if the fault must lie with my application, concentration or (lack of) brains and cannot possibly be the fault of the writer and/or their prose, theme etc. One thing maintaining this blog is making clear to me, though, is that I must become more ruthless. If I'm not getting anywhere with a book, if it sits in my bag or by my bed (or next to the bath) for months and the bookmark never shifts, I should acknowledge my abandonment of it. My to.be.read pile is nearly at 50 books so I must accept that some times I can't read a book.
Often I buy a book, get a few pages in and promptly abandon it for something else. I just read Silverfin, for example, which languished at the bottom of my bag for the entire London/Paris holiday whilst I read a copy of The West End Horror found in a flea market. I eventually picked Silvefin back up and read it on a trip to Bournemouth. It was great fun and rather enjoyable but it just clearly wasn't right for my mood in Paris ("Silverfin is a great novel for reading in Bournemouth" isn't really a selling review, is it?). The Gabriel Garcia Marquez Collected Stories has been lurking first in my bag then on my coffee table for upwards of three months, however, so I think the time has come to admit it has been abandoned. I might pick it back up again in a few years, I might not.
Right now I'm reading Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell. An Eng. Lit. friend called her "b-list" in terms of the classics of Victorian literature and I'm not sure I'd disagree. What struck me about Cranford, however, was that it was a mid-Victorian version of Desperate Housewives. Obviously, there is rather less sex with gardeners/plumbers/hookers and so far no one has murdered anyone, but it did come out serially and it does involve a group of middle-class wives and the gossipy microcosm they inhabit.
Often I buy a book, get a few pages in and promptly abandon it for something else. I just read Silverfin, for example, which languished at the bottom of my bag for the entire London/Paris holiday whilst I read a copy of The West End Horror found in a flea market. I eventually picked Silvefin back up and read it on a trip to Bournemouth. It was great fun and rather enjoyable but it just clearly wasn't right for my mood in Paris ("Silverfin is a great novel for reading in Bournemouth" isn't really a selling review, is it?). The Gabriel Garcia Marquez Collected Stories has been lurking first in my bag then on my coffee table for upwards of three months, however, so I think the time has come to admit it has been abandoned. I might pick it back up again in a few years, I might not.
Right now I'm reading Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell. An Eng. Lit. friend called her "b-list" in terms of the classics of Victorian literature and I'm not sure I'd disagree. What struck me about Cranford, however, was that it was a mid-Victorian version of Desperate Housewives. Obviously, there is rather less sex with gardeners/plumbers/hookers and so far no one has murdered anyone, but it did come out serially and it does involve a group of middle-class wives and the gossipy microcosm they inhabit.
If a married couple come to settle in the town, somehow the gentleman disappears; he is either fairly frightened to death by being the only man in the Cranford evening parties, or he is accounted for by being with his regiment, his ship, or closely engaged in business all the week in the great neighbouring commercial town of Drumble.The book may yet become abandoned, as a trawl around the local charity shops today produced another five books for the to.be.read pile.
May 31, 2005
May 20, 2005
Girl With a Pearl Earring
Girl With a Pearl Earring
Tracy Chevalier
Wow. Short, clear and ravishing. The descriptive style is very beautiful and the scene with the earrings made me catch my breath. This is one of those novels which make me sit afterwards, the finished novel in my hands, and wonder both why I write and if I could ever write anything as evocative and subtle as this. I love works which make me reassess what I want to achieve, make me think about how to write cleanly yet sumptuously. And this makes Vemeer paintings glow in prose - a doubly impressive feat given that a) it is very hard to describe paintings in prose and b) I'm not a fan of Dutch painting in general.
Tracy Chevalier
Wow. Short, clear and ravishing. The descriptive style is very beautiful and the scene with the earrings made me catch my breath. This is one of those novels which make me sit afterwards, the finished novel in my hands, and wonder both why I write and if I could ever write anything as evocative and subtle as this. I love works which make me reassess what I want to achieve, make me think about how to write cleanly yet sumptuously. And this makes Vemeer paintings glow in prose - a doubly impressive feat given that a) it is very hard to describe paintings in prose and b) I'm not a fan of Dutch painting in general.
May 12, 2005
reading.victoriana
Despite no longer being required to read Victoriana, as my own venture into the genre is off to bed, I have added reading.victoriana as a del.icio.us genre tag. I seem to have read three in the last few weeks alone...
Victoriana is, obviously, distinct from reading.C19th which is genuine Victorian fiction.
Victoriana is, obviously, distinct from reading.C19th which is genuine Victorian fiction.
May 10, 2005
Universally Acknowledged Truths
Pemberley: Or Pride And Prejudice Continued
by Emma Tennant
(1993)
It is a truth universally acknowlegded that all Pride & Prejudice pastishes, spoofs or reviews must be in want of an opening line which mimics the opening line of P&P. Right, that's that over with.
I'm pro-fanfic. My Microcon talk a couple of years back was on the history of forms of fanfiction and the idea that, once a story is 'out there' a sign of its universality is if becomes reworked, rewritten and generally posessed by the audience. You can argue that the myth cycles (Arthur, Norse, Indian) etc are such stories: they capture your imagination to such an extent that you want more about the characters and situation. It is only in the industrial age that the notion of copyright, and the related idea of idea theft, comes into its own (I could disgress here about the commercialisation of the printed word but this isn't the review for that). There's notions of 'canon' and 'fanon' etc etc. It's a fun world of shifting ownership of ideas.
Pride and Prejudice (1813) is one of the first novels to gain a fan following, way before Dickens was packing them into the theatres or queues were forming outside the Strand magazine for the next Holmes installment[1]. P&P echoes through English culture: Gaskell's North & South (185?) suggests the Mancunian novelist was utterly smitten by Elizabeth and Darcy's sparky romance whilst Bridget Jones' Diary reworks it as a modern chicklit novel. Obviously Lizzy & Darcy are not unsimilar to earlier romances (Beatrix and Benedict spring obviously to mind[2]) but they are the ur-romance of the last two centuries. Women still fall for Darcy.
Which is where Pemberley, Or Pride & Prejudice Continued comes in. Austen herself continued to consider her heroines' lives but she had no knowledge of the intimacies of marriage. Indeed, there's an argument that we never see happily married couples in Austen (Mr & Mrs Bennett being the most extreme example but Maria and Mr Collins is clearly only a sanguine relationship due to Maria's diligence in avoiding her husband's company). Tennant picks up the story of Lizzy Bennett a year into her marriage to Mr Darcy and, as one might expect, things are not perfect in this 'happy ever after'.
Tennant, as far as I can tell from having read about half of The Bad Sister, writes about the interior lives of women and Pemberley, naturally, focuses on Elizabeth's reaction to her new life. Jane is married to Bingley and about to produce a second child. Lydia has a whole passel of brats with Wickham. Mr Bennent has been summarily despatched to the great beyond and Mrs Bennent is concerned to secure a future for her two as-yet unmarried daughters, bookish Mary and impressionable Kitty. Elizabeth has yet to have a child and Lady de Burgh is preparing to ship in a distant cousin to take over should no heir arrive. And it's going to be a family Christmas at Pemberley.
As with P&P, the differences between exterior and interior life - both mental and physical - are played with: the extended families go on a shooting party to the Yorkshire moors and Lizzy chided for wandering about the countryside. Confusions abound, causing Lizzy and Darcy to seperate. One major element is Lizzy's belief that Darcy has had a child with "the Frenchwoman" who has now died. Combined with the Yorkshire moors and Lizzy's running off to become a governess there are moments where this seems to be borrowing as heavily from Jane Eyre as from P&P (I must get around to Wide Sargasso Sea).
This could be a great sequel but for one key element: I didn't find Tennant's authorical voice convincing enough. We'll slide over the fact she gives Mrs Bennent a narrative point-of-view (unlike the almost entirely Lizzy-based narrative of P&P) because really it's the lack of a wickedly sly authorical voice which meant the novella left me cold. A Lizzy who lacks her spark is not terribly interesting, and Darcy's absence makes this into a rather lacklustre sequel. Obviously, some of the point is to show the banality and new worries and fears of an older woman who is now married into social and familial responsibilies but it doesn't put any relish into the authorial commentary on Lizzie's behaviour.
Having been searching for this book for a while, as it helps me move into a more literary discussion of the story-reclaiming urge, I was pleased to find it in a charity shop. Having read it I'm vaguely disappointed that it does not make me want to believe it is 'canon'.
[1] Although the Doctor's "I'm your biggest fan!" scene with Dickens in the new Who made me roar with delight.
[2] "I do love nothing in the world so much as you, is that not strange?" Benedict remarks - a sentiment Darcy shares with his "I have struggled against my reason..." proposal.
by Emma Tennant
(1993)
It is a truth universally acknowlegded that all Pride & Prejudice pastishes, spoofs or reviews must be in want of an opening line which mimics the opening line of P&P. Right, that's that over with.
I'm pro-fanfic. My Microcon talk a couple of years back was on the history of forms of fanfiction and the idea that, once a story is 'out there' a sign of its universality is if becomes reworked, rewritten and generally posessed by the audience. You can argue that the myth cycles (Arthur, Norse, Indian) etc are such stories: they capture your imagination to such an extent that you want more about the characters and situation. It is only in the industrial age that the notion of copyright, and the related idea of idea theft, comes into its own (I could disgress here about the commercialisation of the printed word but this isn't the review for that). There's notions of 'canon' and 'fanon' etc etc. It's a fun world of shifting ownership of ideas.
Pride and Prejudice (1813) is one of the first novels to gain a fan following, way before Dickens was packing them into the theatres or queues were forming outside the Strand magazine for the next Holmes installment[1]. P&P echoes through English culture: Gaskell's North & South (185?) suggests the Mancunian novelist was utterly smitten by Elizabeth and Darcy's sparky romance whilst Bridget Jones' Diary reworks it as a modern chicklit novel. Obviously Lizzy & Darcy are not unsimilar to earlier romances (Beatrix and Benedict spring obviously to mind[2]) but they are the ur-romance of the last two centuries. Women still fall for Darcy.
Which is where Pemberley, Or Pride & Prejudice Continued comes in. Austen herself continued to consider her heroines' lives but she had no knowledge of the intimacies of marriage. Indeed, there's an argument that we never see happily married couples in Austen (Mr & Mrs Bennett being the most extreme example but Maria and Mr Collins is clearly only a sanguine relationship due to Maria's diligence in avoiding her husband's company). Tennant picks up the story of Lizzy Bennett a year into her marriage to Mr Darcy and, as one might expect, things are not perfect in this 'happy ever after'.
Tennant, as far as I can tell from having read about half of The Bad Sister, writes about the interior lives of women and Pemberley, naturally, focuses on Elizabeth's reaction to her new life. Jane is married to Bingley and about to produce a second child. Lydia has a whole passel of brats with Wickham. Mr Bennent has been summarily despatched to the great beyond and Mrs Bennent is concerned to secure a future for her two as-yet unmarried daughters, bookish Mary and impressionable Kitty. Elizabeth has yet to have a child and Lady de Burgh is preparing to ship in a distant cousin to take over should no heir arrive. And it's going to be a family Christmas at Pemberley.
As with P&P, the differences between exterior and interior life - both mental and physical - are played with: the extended families go on a shooting party to the Yorkshire moors and Lizzy chided for wandering about the countryside. Confusions abound, causing Lizzy and Darcy to seperate. One major element is Lizzy's belief that Darcy has had a child with "the Frenchwoman" who has now died. Combined with the Yorkshire moors and Lizzy's running off to become a governess there are moments where this seems to be borrowing as heavily from Jane Eyre as from P&P (I must get around to Wide Sargasso Sea).
This could be a great sequel but for one key element: I didn't find Tennant's authorical voice convincing enough. We'll slide over the fact she gives Mrs Bennent a narrative point-of-view (unlike the almost entirely Lizzy-based narrative of P&P) because really it's the lack of a wickedly sly authorical voice which meant the novella left me cold. A Lizzy who lacks her spark is not terribly interesting, and Darcy's absence makes this into a rather lacklustre sequel. Obviously, some of the point is to show the banality and new worries and fears of an older woman who is now married into social and familial responsibilies but it doesn't put any relish into the authorial commentary on Lizzie's behaviour.
Having been searching for this book for a while, as it helps me move into a more literary discussion of the story-reclaiming urge, I was pleased to find it in a charity shop. Having read it I'm vaguely disappointed that it does not make me want to believe it is 'canon'.
[1] Although the Doctor's "I'm your biggest fan!" scene with Dickens in the new Who made me roar with delight.
[2] "I do love nothing in the world so much as you, is that not strange?" Benedict remarks - a sentiment Darcy shares with his "I have struggled against my reason..." proposal.
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