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Willoyd's Reading 2014


willoyd

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The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver *****
 
This was a rather substantial reading group choice which I have to say that, having read the blurb and some reviews, I wasn't particularly looking forward to tackling. In the event, it proved a much more rewarding read than anticipated. Indeed, having somewhat stumbled through the first hundred pages or so, the next 500-odd succumbed quite easily in barely two sittings - this was a book that definitely grew on me.

That's not to say it was faultless. Set in the Congo of the very eary sixties, the novel focuses in on Nathan Price and his family's sojourn as a missionary's family in a country on the cusp of independence, a country that has been horribly exploited by the white colonists, and one where the fledgling leadership was hardly given a chance before being toppled by a US-backed coup that led to one of the most repressive and exploitative black African governments in the twentieth century. Initially, however, this is merely background: what matters are the experiences of the Price family in an environment and amongst a people of whom they (particularly the fundamentally evangelical father) have little if any understanding. The story is told as seen through the eyes of the mother, Orleanna, and her four daughters, who each respond in very different ways.

This is a big book, and one of its faults is just that: I don't think it needed to be so big, or, at least, parts of it didn't. The novel did grow on me, and the descriptions and story-telling were involving, but there was a somewhat unnecessarily 'flabby' feel in the earlier stages, a feeling of almost being a bit repetitious: there was no doubt in my mind that some judicious editing would have made the first half at least go a lot further. On the other hand, having spent a good 300+ pages describing the events of the year or so the family stayed in the fictitious village of Kilanga, the next 200 or so pages attempted to cover the diaspora of the family over the next 30 or so years! Almost inevitably, after the lingering, almost lovingly, detailed narration, this all seemed a bit rushed and more of a postcript than part of a previously closely knitted story.

However, the women's characters had been well-established in that first half; their voices were particularly well distinguished, and this strength carried over into the rather more piecemeal latter stages, helping to keep it all together. Even so, its nature fundamentally changed, with Kingsolver taking a broader viewpoint, using it to expound her political views rather more overtly.

Having said that, the author doesn't limit herself to this one theme. The book is full of them: the role of women in a very patriarchal society (both that of the family themselves, and of the country), different approaches to religion, the effect of imperialism/colonialism, the use of language, guilt and blame, issues of cultural differences, the relationship of mankind with the natural world... I could go on and on - this book is nothing if not meaty! Little wonder it's been voted as one of the top reading group reads: whatever one's views, there's plenty to talk about!

It's also very easy to see why The Poisonwood Bible has garnered so many positive, indeed rave, reviews. I certainly enjoyed it, all the more so as I read it, particularly as it approached the end of the section set in Kilanga. Changes in balance, more judicious editing and a sustaining of the intensity and drive of the first half could well have seen this challenge as a favourite, but even so, it proved an almost unputdownable and affecting read. Definitely worth a try!

Edited by willoyd
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I read The Poisonwood Bible some years ago & felt like you that it did drag in places but despite that i enjoyed it & it is a story that has stayed with me. I haven't read any of her other books yet but i do have The Lacuna on my TBR pile.

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  • 2 weeks later...

A Very Long Engagement by Sebastien Japrisot ******
This was a reread for the Reading Circle of a previous favourite. I may update this with a fuller review at a later date - too much work now and want to leave this anyway for RC discussion, but in very quick summary, suffice to say it lived up to all expectations: a brilliant, involving read, which I read in a couple of days, staying up (very!) late as I didn't want to put it down. The plot is intricate, so much so that I went back at the end and skim read substantial chunks to make sure I picked up all the threads. Whilst the original incident that triggers everything off takes place during the war, in January 1917, the focus is very much on those left behind, trying to piece together precisely what did happen, and reacting in widely different ways.

Recent acquisitions (well it was the Easter holidays!):
Local second-hand:
Virginia Woolf by Anthony Curtis (I can't resist anything on Woolf)
Elizabeth Gaskell by Jenny Uglow (one of my favourite biographers in one of my favourite writers; the hardback is massive!)
The Peregrine, The Hill of Summer & Diaries by JA Baker (The Peregrine is a book I've intended to read for ages, and a nice hardback at a fiver....)

Local independent (for once in a while they had a 4 for 3 on books I've actually got on my wishlist):
Silt Road by Charles Rangley-Wilson
Confronting the Classics by Mary Beard
Stoner by John Williams
The Golden Egg by Donna Leon (reviews suggest this may not be her best Brunetti, but I've got the full set!).

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The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West ***
 

Very short, but intensely powerful, there is no doubting the quality of writing in this short novella. It's amazing to think this was the author's first book, written in her early twenties. Supremely assured, West, in particular, seems to be able to pick exactly the right phrase for the moment. She is also razor sharp in her observation of the four main characters: Chris the officer who returns from the front suffering from an amnesia that has completely blocked out the previous fifteen years of his life; Kitty, his rather brittle, emotionally shallow, wife, of whom Chris has no memory; Jenny, the narrator and his rather more down to earth cousin, and Margaret, his love from those fifteen years previously, whom he lost through a series of misunderstandings. Intertwined with all the obvious issues of this tangle a trois is the fact that Margaret is also distinctly lower class, in an age when this was of massive importance. The snobbery (as we would see it today) that Jenny and Kitty turn towards Margaret, and which Kitty never quite sees past, is quite excruciating (Kitty also suffers from another snobbery, based on looks - she can't see the worth of someone who is anything but attractive).

However, much as I appreciated the quality, I can't say that I particularly liked the book. It's probably not one that is meant to be liked, but all the same, there was a brittleness about it that I found marginally irritating. Nor could I shake off the, admittedly vague and probably totally inaccurate, impression that West wasn't altogether unsympathetic to Jenny's attitude to Margaret (Kitty was different), whilst there was always a lingering doubt in my mind about the basic premise: I never fully believed in the way the plot ran, right down to the very last line, however powerful it was (and it was powerful!).  Certainly, there was something about it all that I couldn't quite square with, although it may simply be that it wasn't sufficiently long enough to settle me down - I'm rarely a friend of short stories, and this didn't feel much longer than one (Although it's not a dissimilar length to my favourite book, A Month in the Country, it felt a lot shorter).

Whatever my doubts this is, no doubt, a book that deserves to be read. For many it will be a very highly rated book, as it largely is in the Amazon reviews. I am certainly glad I read it and, in time, may begin to regard it more affectionately. In the meantime, however, it'll remain one which I can appreciate, but will stick with three stars.

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Great review, though it's a shame you didn't enjoy it as much as some reviewers on Amazon. It sounds like book that could be interesting.

It would be a boring world if (a) we all agreed and (b) every book was perfect. No I didn't enjoy it as much as some, but still garnered a lot of pleasure. Certainly want to try more of Rebecca West at some stage.

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I'm stuck in RC limbo - still waiting for the Japrisot from the library and it could be another 2 weeks, so not sure when to start the West - which your review has made me more determined to read! :D

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Reading update

Much as it's a really good read, I've been stuttering a bit with Robert Twigger's Red Nile over the last couple of weeks, mainly because having started it as a bit of a follow-up to a couple of other African books read, I realised I needed to get a few books read for various reading groups. At the moment, it's been put aside in favour of Sarah Winman's When God was a Rabbit, which I'm about half way through. Entertaining, but waiting to see quite where it's going.

 

All the good intentions on book acquisitions went out the window weeks ago! I've had a gift card burning a hole in my wallet for a while now. A visit to Waterstones suggested that there were enough books on the Buy One Get One Half Price tables also on my wish list that it might be worth using up (including two that I've been waiting to come out in paperback), so I did earlier this week, along with a discounted copy of my current top wish hardback. The temptations were all too great, so have added to the acquisition list. Problem is that acquisitions are far outstripping reading speed, so I really must show a bit of spine! In the meantime, the books acquired this week are....

 

Sea and Civilisation by Lincoln Paine

1913, The World Before the Great War by Charles Emmerson

Alphabetical by Michael Rosen

Perilous Question by Antonia Fraser

The Greek Myths by Robin and Kathryn Waterfield.

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When God was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman ****

I've heard plenty about this book, and it has a humungous number of reviews on Amazon (getting on for 500), but it's not one that has ever really appealed. However, it was chosen for my book group's read for next month, so time to give it a go.

Overall, I surprised myself by enjoying it enormously. Some faults aside I found her writing easily readable, the characters engaging and sympathetic, and the seventies seen through the eyes of a child eminently recognisable. Things turned a bit darker in the second half, to where the author jumps some 20 years into part two, but for me the characters were sufficiently firmly established that I wanted to see them through to the end.

Which, as I said, really surprised me, because there were so many elements that just didn't work, and would normally really turn me off a book. For a starter, Elly's life is just, almost incredibly, jam packed full of sensational incident: implied child abuse, covertly observed sex, kidnapping, pools win, bomb blasts, 9/11, manslaughter and so on. It's not as if this was all part of the progression of one character, sliding into some sort of whirlpool of cause and effect, these were all fairly random involvements for Elly and/or those she's close to. It was all a little bit the life too sensational, or perhaps my life has been too sheltered!

The sex didn't work for me as well! It seemed that virtually every main character was either gay (brother, aunt, mother, lodger) or had been subject to some sort of abuse (Elly herself, Jenny Penny her best friend, along with JP's mother). Even Elly's father's life had been affected by his experience as a lawyer in a sexual abuse/rape case. Elly, on the other hand, appears to have, or have had, no relationships at all, other than a graphically described night's sex with a complete stranger.

Even the writing, whilst easily readable, contained elements that would normally drive me mad: for instance, her descriptions were on occasions way over the top, and, for me, totally silly. Oh, and surely the author knows that CPR simply does not have that effect, in spite of what you see in the films!

I should have disliked this a lot. Certainly, the genre, the writing, the characterisation all contained the elements of a book that I shouldn't have got on with. But, in spite of all that, I DID enjoy it, and found myself reading avidly to the finish. I'm still not quite sure why, but suspect that it was simply the right book at the right time, because, in spite of everything that happens to Elly, there is a strong feelgood factor here, and laid up with a stonking dose of lurg with work bearing down hard, that was what I really wanted, and maybe even needed!

[

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  • 2 weeks later...

Red Nile by Robert Twigger ****

Red Nile covers a huge amount of ground, ranging far beyond just the history of the world's longest river (it is subtitled as 'a biography' of the Nile), on a subject that the author obviously has a deep and abiding fascination with. Her is also very good at his craft; for once the cover 'puff' ("Hugely entertaining" - Sunday Times) is absolutely true.

Why Red Nile? Twigger cites the colour of the churned up silt at the point where the in-flood Blue Nile meets the White Nile, backing upstream and turning the river blood red. He also cites the 'fact' that it's a river of blood - of life and of death. it does seem an apposite label, a label that gains credence as one reads through the 400 plus densely packed pages, culminating in a detailed exposition of the assassination of Anwar Sadat and eye-witness testimony of the Arab Spring - both 'red' events.

There are also moments of illumination. One such occurred for me during Twigger's discussion of the building of the Aswan High Dam, a project designed to control the waters of the Nile, with far reaching and highly controversial outcomes. Control cuts off understanding because it is action before we have full understanding. The more we understand, the greater our paralysis. And this is a good thing....Understanding leads to paralysis - of that which is destructive How often do people seek to control something before they fully understand it?

However, readable and as interesting as it was, I also find it somewhat frustrating in places. There are many, many stories to be told. Some of these stories, or at least their constituent characters and equipment, need some sort of explanation or back story. Instead, rather too often than I liked, characters or features were introduced without a word of explanation - presumably the reader is expected to be familiar with them already, but whatever the reason, there were some distinct holes in the narrative which I would have preferred having had filled in. As a result, the narrative did get a wee bit disjointed in places. I was, for instance, glad to have read Tim Jeal's book, Explorers of the Nile, beforehand. Without this, I'm not sure I'd have come through some of Red Nile's sections on the relevant history with much comprehension of what was actually going on. Elsewhere, I didn't have that sort of backup, and did wonder as to precisely why certain things were happening at certain times or who or what was actually involved.

Overall though, and these issues aside, this was a highly addictive read that, whilst it was relatively easy to put down given the short chapter structure, was one that I kept wanting to come back to. It'll also be one that I can see myself referring to again (and again) in the future.


 

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North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell *****(*)

Margaret Hale, comfortably ensconced in her rural idyll of a vicarage, is abruptly uprooted along with the rest of ther family and transported to the dark and murky industrial landscape of Milton North (i.e. Manchester) when her father has a crisis of conscience and feels obliged to resign his living to become a private tutor. Here she meets factory owner and her father's pupil John Thornton, with a drastically different view of the world....

Elizabeth Gaskell has long been regarded as one of the second tier nineteenth century authors, good, but not quite in the same league as the likes of Dickens, Eliot, Trollope, the Brontes., Austen and a few others, and purely objectively one can see why: the plotting has some weaknesses, it's perhaps rather overloaded with social issues, there are some issues with balance (it has one of the most abrupt endings I've ever come across) and so I could go on, but objectivity is not what the reading experience is about. Subjectively, I absolutely loved it, hated putting it down, and really didn't want it to finish - all the hallmarks of a great!

 

For me, characters are the number one priority in a novel, and here they came absolutely to life, jumping out of the pages, full of contradictions, feelings and opinions. Margaret herself may be somewhat put upon at times, and be all to ready to conform to family pressures and social mores. She is certainly prejudiced in her views on people, at least initially, but she has the inner strength and moral stature of a true heroine, and she learns and changes. Others I found equally vividly drawn, not least Mrs Thornton - a truly formidable grande dame!  These are people who, aren't all good or all bad, but like all of us have strengths and weaknesses, aspects which we like and dislike. Real people in other words.

I also loved the plot and the way it wove its way from one misunderstanding to another, minor issues assuming great importance in the eyes and minds of the protagonists, even when genuinely 'big' issues needed tackling. That's life after all! Critics may comment on structural weaknesses and infelicities, but life itself is not perfectly structured, and what for me gave this book its strength was how real it felt.

What also surprised me was the language: Gaskell's writing, although as substantial as any of the serialised Victorian writers filling paid-for space, had a suprisingly modern feel to it, something that she shares with only one other nineteenth century writer I've read, Jane Austen. But then, the whole novel had a real taste of Pride and Prejudice about it,albeit with a grittiness that would never have been allowed to intrude!

This was my third Gaskell novel and whilst Cranford is perhaps her widest known, and maybe even most loved, especially given the recent TV series, this for me is by far and away the best to date, standing comfortably alongside the other nineteenth century Premiership players. Time will tell whether it achieves the full 6/6 rating.

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The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde ****

Although I like to ring the changes in reading, this was perhaps rather too much of a jump to make from a Victorian social-issue classic, and as a result it took some getting into. However, once achieved (after round about 80 pages), The Fourth Bear rapidly became as addictive as any of the Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series or, indeed, The Big Over Easy, the first in this, his Nursery Crimes Divison series. I say 'series', but sadly this one is still limited to just two novels, and I've now read both!

Anyone familiar with any of these other books will be all too familiar with the central conceit: fictional characters set in real-life, fictional plot devices that are in fact reality. It's off-beat, original (well, I can't think of anybody else who has done this!) and, even after all those novels, still highly entertaining. Some people find his books funny; I don't, at least not in a laugh-out loud way, but they ARE fun.

You do have to enjoy plot driven books though: the characters are about as three dimensional as in the original nursery rhymes (in other words, they are barely 2-D!). The entertainment comes almost entirely through the twists and turns of the plotting and how it all relates to literary forms which form so much of our reading fabric - the fun of spotting the links and derivations. The plots themselves are completely left-field too: here we're talking about possibly thermo-nuclear cucumbers, First World War theme parks, and aliens who talk in binary code, without even getting onto porridge as a class 2 drug and self-repairing Allegros (the car)! It's completely wacko, but in the hands of Fforde it all seems to fit together in a completely reasonable way. That's the real skill of the writer - for that time you're immersed in the book, you really feel this could happen (well, at least, I do!), and it's only when you finally emerge that you realise quite how barmy the whole idea is.

It's not great literature, but it's wonderful escapism. I just wish there were more in this series.

Edited by willoyd
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I remember when I went to an author event at Waterstone's for the release of First Among Sequels (which I've just looked up was six years ago  :o ), he said he didn't think he'd write another, then a few years ago, I'm sure I read on his website that he was planning on continuing the series, but I can't find that anywhere now!  I think it was about the time the first Dragonslayer book was coming out, so perhaps that's taken over for the moment.
 
I struggled with The Big Over Easy initially, and put it down after the first couple of chapters, but when I picked it up again, I must have been in the right frame of mind, as I whizzed through it then.  I did enjoy both of the books in the series, you're absolutely right in that they're great fun, and I hope that one day, he does pick them up again.

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Don Fernando by W Somerset Maugham *

 

A short piece of non-fiction by a great story writer, this, a slim discourse on various aspects of Spanish culture, was apparently rated by Graham Greene as Maugham's best work. Hmmmn. Personally, I found it to be one of the most tedious pieces of writing I can ever recall trying to read. I said 'trying' beause I barely survived half way. Unlike most other books I've rated one star, I don't think it was actually 'bad'. Indeed, I'm sure that technically it was excellent. I was just utterly bored within a few pages, and nothing changed.

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Oh dear :D I have it on the shelf bought as a job lot with some other Maugham's. I wasn't that taken with the only book I've read of his so far so I definitely won't be picking up Don Fernando next .. I'll give him a sporting chance and go with one of the others :D 

 

Love your review of The Fourth Bear :) I haven't read either of the Nursery Crimes books yet but want to put that right soon. I am one of those people who ... at the very least .. smile out loud at his books :D I'm in constant awe at their cleverness too .. or his cleverness at devising the plots.

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Oh dear :D I have it on the shelf bought as a job lot with some other Maugham's.

Same here - it wouldn't have been the set of 10 from The Book People by any chance?

 

 

I wasn't that taken with the only book I've read of his so far so I definitely won't be picking up Don Fernando next .. I'll give him a sporting chance and go with one of the others :D

I've been a bit more taken with him - Liza of Lambeth was only fair, but i really enjoyed Cakes and Ale, Ashenden not far behind. A bit patchy, but on the whole favourable, so please don't let Don Fernando, a completely different type of book, put you off.

 

Love your review of The Fourth Bear :) I haven't read either of the Nursery Crimes books yet but want to put that right soon. I am one of those people who ... at the very least .. smile out loud at his books :D I'm in constant awe at their cleverness too .. or his cleverness at devising the plots.

Thanky you!  And, yes, smile out loud describes my response exactly!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Reading Update

 

I haven't posted for a while, so finding that I've got a wee bit of a breather today, though I'd post a reading update. It's been a pretty frantic past couple of weeks, as it's at the heart of report writing season, and this year our week-long residential with my class had to be put back to June from it's normal time in April, adding to the annual chaos that is called the secon half of the summer term (I was aske by someone with very limited knowledge of primary schools the other day how 'winding down' for the summer 'holidays' was going - more like winding 'up' as our head suggested! Got in from school at almost midnight last night!) However, have manage some, very enjoyable, reading in the gaps.

 

First and foremost, I've decided that dealing with at least one of my non-fiction doorstoppers was long overdue. Maybe not the best time to start one, but then, who cares?! As a result, I took Tim Blanning's The Pursuit of Glory with me on residential, not least because I can usually (and did) get a good 3 hours reading each way on the coach under my belt. It's a history of Europe from the end of the Thirty Years War to the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Whilst that may sound dry, it's anything but, being a lively and highly readable tome. It's not a straightforward chronology, each chapter dealing with different themes, but I knew I was on to a good one as I'd already read the first, outstanding, chapter on transport and communications a couple of years ago. I've now reached about a third of the way through (page 230), and it's everything it promised to be. My one sadness is that no way am I going to retain even a fairly small fraction of all the fascinating material covered - my reading just doesn't seem to cope with that - but some of it will stick, and I'm enjoying simply reading about that period!

 

I've also been dipping in an out of Alec le Sueur's Bottoms Up in Belgium, looking at Belgium and Belgian lifestyle. It's OK, not as silly as the title or blurb suggests, but it still seems to fall into the trap that so many modern day travel books in 'known' countries suffer from - a writer who insists on trying to be humorous ('funny' would be a hopeless exaggeration). It's nowhere near as bad as the likes of Tim Moore, Roger Boyes or Ben Donald (as prime examples) who are simply awful (IMO), but the efforts are rather strained, and unnecessary, obscuring some potentially interesting material.

 

Acquisition-wise, I raided Ebay to add two excellent Folio Society sets to the collection - the complete novels of EM Forster, and The Forsyte Saga - as well as the single volume of Jane Austen's letters, whilst for immediate reading, I couldn't resist the reviews of Jordan Ellenberg's How Not To Be Wrong: The Hidden Maths of Everyday Life Otherwise, review reading and book browsing have had to take a bit of break this past fortnight. However, reports are all in, the first big show has been put to bed, and open water is starting, just starting, to appear on the horizon!

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