Books do furnish a room

Unbridled Spirits; Women of the English Revolution 1640-1660 by Stevie Davies This is a very powerful piece of historical research and writing and covers one of my favourite periods of history, the English Civil War. It focuses on women writers and preachers of the period. Davies acknowledges a debt to historians like Christopher Hill. Hill and other radical and Marxist Historians of his ilk developed “history from below”; however she does point out that the male historians have tended to leave out women in their analyses of the period. There was a massive increase in the printed word during the civil war. The Reformation led to the notion that anyone could read the Bible in their own language. It’s then a short step to the point where anyone can interpret it as well. This book covers a wide variety of women who spoke out, wrote, printed, prophesied and preached. There are Quakers (the more radical argued for class and gender equality), Fifth Monarchists (one of the many millenarian groups), Levellers (early socialists), women who were opposed to the war, women who were opposed to tithes, women who had founded their own churches and even women on the opposing side who supported the King. The civil war period produced all sorts of radical movements which harried and upset the established order. These women were certainly a minority as most women were mute through illiteracy or oppression. Davies also outlines what these women went through as a result of their determination to speak out. They were imprisoned in appalling conditions, whipped or flogged (usually semi naked through the streets), fitted with a scold’s bridle, put on a ducking stool, publicly humiliated; some lost their lives. The price of speaking out was great; Katherine Evans and Sarah Cheever, two Quaker women travelling together, were imprisoned by the Inquisition on the island of Malta for three years. The Inquisitors attempted to convert them to Catholicism without success, using a variety of means, some very brutal. They withstood all efforts to undermine them. Davies says she wants to “haunt readers with the revolutionary women’s stories”; she succeeds. The research is meticulous and Davies allows the women to speak for themselves. Much of the writing is, of course, religious, but there is a focus on equality and the pulling down of established authority and some writing feels very modern. If you are interested in the social history of the civil war, this is a must read. If you are interested in the development of women’s voices and want to read about women who were determined to be heard and just would not be quiet then this is also for you. 9 out of 10 Starting A very close conspiracy; Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf by Jane Dunn

Sousa; the poems move from Africa to the Caribbean (Nichols is from Guyana) Sister Kate by Jean Bedford Not being Australian, I haven’t grown up with the mythology of the Kelly gang, although I know the outline of the story. This novella approaches the myth from a different perspective. Jean Bedford has taken the story and told it from a female and feminist perspective. The Sister Kate of the title is Kate Kelly, Ned’s sister and lover of one of the gang (Joe Byrne). The first part of the novel is told in the first person and concerns the history up to the demise of the Kelly gang. The second part tells Kate’s story in the third person and takes the reader from the end of the first part to the end of Kate’s life. The Kelly mythology taps into anti-British, anti-Empire, anti-imperialist themes and into centuries old tensions between the British and Irish. Added to this is the anti-authoritarian element of working class culture. Along with the bushranger mythology it all combines in a sort of romantic/revolutionary way to go into roots of Australian identity. Of course there are also other elements too, which are white male, heterosexual and also misogynist as Bedford shows. Throughout Bedford’s retelling there is a clear focus on the notion of the outsider. This holds for all of the Kelly family male and female and they were aware that the police saw them as little better than vermin. Kate, however is aware of another level of being an outsider as a woman. Constable Fitzpatrick takes every opportunity to sexually harass Kate and to take advantage of his position. Bedford, throughout the novel, looks at the construction of masculinity; through the gang, through the authorities and later through marriage; and looking at the way this construction excludes not only women but those who are non-white (who are even more invisible). The second part of the novel charts Kate’s life after the violent end of the gang and her gradual decline into alcohol and laudanum. There are clear lessons. When Kate is living with two other women she is safer and less mentally unwell. They care for her when she is ill and they create space for each other; the development of women’s space was her only chance of survival. In the institution of marriage she is doomed. This is a clear and convincing retelling from a female perspective. The change from first person to third person is very effective and illustrates Kate’s alienation and marginalisation and her decline. 7 and a half out of 10 Starting The Ghostly Lover by Elizabeth Hardwick

I Is A Long Memoried Woman by Grace Nichols A very powerful set of poems written in the first person; a chronology of slavery from a woman’s perspective. We the women who toil unadorn heads tie with chaep cotton We the women who cut clear fetch dig sing We the women making something from this ache-and-pain-a-me back-o-hardness Yet we the women whose praises go unsung whose voices go unheard whose deaths they sweep aside as easy as dead leaves It tells the tragic story of slavery in short and powerful poems with memories of rape, infanticide, the slave trade, European cruelty and complicity from other Africans. It follows the plantations and psychological abuse. Yet the pomes are sensual and there is a thread of strength and pride femininity and motherhood running through them with a tone of rebellion and reawakening; strength and dignity. I can only continue with a poem; This Kingdom Will Not Live Forever Cool winds blow softly in brilliant sunshine fruits pulse flowers flame mountains shade to purple the great House with its palm and orange groves sturdy and the sea encircling all is a spectrum of blue jewels shimmering and skirting But Beware Soft winds can turn volatile can merge with rains can turn hurricane Mountains can erupt sulphur springs bubbling quick and hot like bile spilling from a witch’s cauldron Swamps can send plagues dysentery, fevers plantations can perish lands turn barren And the white man no longer at ease with the faint drum/ beat no longer indifferent to the sweating sun/ heat can leave exhausted or turn his thoughts to death And we the rage growing like the chiggers in our feet can wait or take our freedom whatever happens This Kingdom Will Not Reign Forever These are great poems which powerfully depict the lives of women slaves with great poignancy. Worth looking out for. 9 out of 10 Starting A Woman Unknown by Lucia Graves

Pointed Roofs by Dorothy Richardson My first dilemma is how to review this. Richardson’s classic has 13 novels. I have the four volume virago edition. Richardson did call the novels chapters. It seems to be a choice between reviewing the whole lot as one novel, reviewing each of the virago volumes or reviewing each novel separately. I have gone for the latter option mainly because it gives me a chance to meander a little and go off on tangents, which I am prone to do. Dorothy Richardson is not as well-known as she should be, even reading the first of this series has shown me that. Pointed Roofs was written in the same year that Proust published Swann’s Way and just before Joyce published Dubliners. That is pertinent because the work of the three has been increasingly compared. One of the reviewers of Pointed Roofs used the term “stream of consciousness”; it was coined to describe Richardson’s work, although it appears that she preferred the term “interior monologue”. The protagonist for all 13 novels is Miriam Henderson; the novels starting in March 1893 and continuing to late 1912. This first one covers a mere 4 months in 1893. Miriam is moving to Germany to take up a position as an English teacher in a small German girl’s school. Interestingly this was partly written and published during the First World War, which may have been the reason for the lack of attention, because it is certainly not anti-German. I think my first thoughts about the book focussed on the overall title. Why pilgrimage? We are familiar with the idea of pilgrimage as a spiritually significant journey to a place a special significance. This is the journey of a life, not a religious pilgrimage, so I suspect it may be all about the journey; time will tell. It is interesting to compare with Joyce and Proust. Proust is looking back over a life and looking at the passage of time. Joyce’s Ulysses, set in one day mirrors the Odyssey. There is a sense of journey in Pointed Roofs as Miriam at 17 fresh from school leaves her home and country at a time when more conventional possibilities would have been available. Even though this is the beginning of a journey, there is also a strong sense of the end of something as well. Richardson perfectly captures something that I recognise from when I first left home. Miriam is thinking about how life will continue without her when she has gone; “That summer, which still seemed near to her, was going to fade and desert her, leaving nothing behind. Tomorrow it would belong to a world which would go on without her, taking no heed. There would still be blissful days. But she would not be in them. There would be no more silent sunny mornings with all the day ahead and nothing to do and no end anywhere to anything; no more sitting at the open window in the dining room, reading.” I remember that feeling that nothing would ever be the same again for me as I prepared to go to university; Richardson captures the feeling very well. This is not an all action novel, it is about everyday life and interrelationships. Miriam is not a particularly sociable protagonist, but she is a sharp observer of those around her and the subtleties of human feelings and jealousies. Although Richardson is not as well-known as she should be, there is a whole industry around her and a journal devoted to studying her. There is no doubt that Richardson was breaking new ground in trying outline and construct a female consciousness. A good start to what, I think, will be a fascinating series of novels. I am also reading The Waves at the moment and it will make an interesting comparison. 8 and a half out of 10 Starting the second novel in the series, Backwater

Never No More by Maura Laverty Another find from my favourite book haven and I can never resist a second hand virago modern classic. It portrays village life in Ireland in the 1920s; set in a village on the edge of the bog of Allen. It is a strongly autobiographical novel. I had barely heard of Maura Laverty before this, but she wrote a number of novels, children’s books and some very popular cookery books. She was also involved in journalism and broadcasting in Ireland in the 1960s. Some of her novels fell foul of the Irish censor and were banned for a while for being a little too open about female sexuality. The novel is the story of teenage Delia Scully, who after the death of her father, having an uneasy relationship with her mother, goes to live with her grandmother on her farm. The novel has great charm, can be rather sentimental, but is a sharp and amusing description of country life in 1920s Ireland. Laverty is a great storyteller and observer of human nature. The countryside and its characters really do come alive, life and death go hand in hand with religion and politics. The political struggles are referenced indirectly as they affect the lives of some of the characters. The Catholic Church is central although the religion of many of the villagers is a mixture of Catholic superstition and what is clearly earlier pagan folk tales, remedies and traditions. The novel most comes alive with the descriptions of food and cookery and you can certainly tell that the author also wrote cookbooks. The whole book revolves around gran’s kitchen and her baking. The descriptions of the breads, hot griddle cakes, ash cakes, freshly picked and cooked mushrooms, fresh blackberries, cream (oceans of cream), pools of butter, potato apple cakes oozing with butter and sugar. As Maeve Binchy says in the introduction to the virago edition, her descriptions of food could cajole the dying to eat. The descriptions of how the pig was turned into such a variety of dishes (the slaughter of a pig was an annual event) is not for the squeamish. The character of gran is a remarkable creation; providing physical and emotional sustenance to all those around her, even the travellers on the edge of society and those on the edge of village life for one reason or another. She is the local wise woman and that covers several meanings of that word. I thoroughly enjoyed this; the writing really is three dimensional and the characters, descriptions of the countryside and especially the food just jump off the page. An inmate of the Arbour Hill Military Prison in Dublin wrote to Laverty to thank her for the book and to say how much he and the other prisoners had enjoyed it. That prisoner was Brendan Behan, no mean writer himself. 9 out of 10 Starting I is a long memoried woman by Grace Nichols (a bit of poetry for a change!)

Nina Balatka by Anthony Trollope This is one of the three novels Trollope published anonymously. As with the other two, it is set on the continent; in Prague to be precise. It is also uncharacteristically brief. Normally Trollope gives all the main characters a chapter each to introduce them; here he manages it in a couple of pages. As is often the case with Trollope, the female characters are stronger and more interesting. What is unusual about this novel is its theme. It is a simple love story of a Romeo and Juliet type. The heroine, Nina, is a Catholic Christian. The man she loves and who loves her is a Jew. This is before Eliot wrote her examination of the same subject in Daniel Deronda. Trollope examines all the prejudices related to Christian/Jewish relations and marriage across cultures. He was particularly attracted to those he felt were outsiders; something he felt himself to be, especially at school. It has been criticised for being a formulaic romance, which it certainly is and it has none of Trollope’s usual comedy. However there are some interesting and slightly unusual aspects to the novel. Towards the end of the novel we are admitted to Nina’s interior monologue as it is in extremis and as her thoughts meander, revolve and disintegrate. It is almost stream of consciousness, although limited to one person. The racial prejudice of the Catholics is much more marked that that of the Jewish community, who whilst still opposing the marriage, were much less condemnatory. One of the stronger and more sympathetic characters is Rebecca who had been brought up to believe she would marry Anton before he falls in love with Nina. The two main characters are at times rather irritating and very traditional and Trollope still does not stray far from conventional boundaries. However it is an interesting and unusual novel for the time despite its limitations. 7 out of 10 Starting A Visit to Don Otavio by Sybille Bedford

I loved it Janet; a real change. The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark Spark at her best; acerbic, bitingly funny, satirical, unsettling, great use of language, numerous interesting and well-crafted characters, layers of meaning and it captures a moment of social history to boot. It captures the brief period of 1945 between VE day and VJ day, a period of three to four months. The novel (well novella really) centres on the May of Teck Club in Kensington. The club is “for the Pecuniary Convenience and Social Protection of Ladies of Slender Means below the age of Thirty Years, who are obliged to reside apart from their Families in order to follow an Occupation in London” It is written from a later perspective (1963) by one of the girls from the club, Jane Wright. She is prompted to look back by the death of Nicholas Farringdon, who in 1945 was an anarchist, but had become a Jesuit priest. He has been martyred in Haiti and now his writings from 1945 are suddenly of interest. Spark introduces him to the reader in her own inimitable way; “We come now to Nicholas Farringdon in his thirty-third year. He was said to be an anarchist. No one at the May of Teck Club took this seriously as he looked quite normal: that is to say, he looked slightly dissipated, like the disappointing son of a good English family that he was.” One of the strengths Spark has is her characterization and this novel is no exception; even the minor characters are well drawn and some of Spark’s descriptions are really sharp. For example the warden of the club who “drove a car as she would have driven a man had she possessed one”. Spark employs the trick of muddling the chronology and she gives away bits of the plot as she goes along, using an omniscient third person. Although on the surface the dialogue and plot can appear shallow and rather inconsequential, there are layers of meaning and there is also an impending sense of threat. It will come as no surprise to regular Spark readers that farce turns into tragedy. The word Slender in the title has a double meaning. As well as meaning financially limited, it refers to the toilet window on one of the upper floors. The slimmer (slender) girls are able to get out of this window onto the roof. The roof was accessible to the building next door which was being rented by the Americans and amorous assignations were open to those slim enough to get through. It also plays a pivotal role at the end of the book. The layers of meaning are also fun. The religious connections are clear (Spark was a Catholic, though not a dogmatic one). One of the pivotal characters is Joanna Childe (her in initials are no coincidence; a female Christ figure!) an elocution teacher. Throughout most of the book you overhear her reciting to her pupils (usually The Wreck of the Deutschland, a poem by a priest, Hopkins, about a group of drowning nuns). There is a Satan figure (not obvious at first); the Paul figure is easier to spot. The role of the Schiaparelli dress is also fun to contemplate; a posh frock owned by one of the girls, but lent out for dates. The tragedy towards the end of the book is surprising, but not unexpected. However, at the very end of the book during the VJ day celebrations there is an act of violence perpetrated by a man on a woman (neither characters in the book) that is so shocking and surprising that it hits the reader almost physically. Spark is saying; ok so we have peace, it’s all over, but is the world a better place? Will things be better? It’s a great novel by in my opinion, one of the better writers of the twentieth century. It’s a snapshot of a bygone time, a spiritual novel with a comic tone that becomes ever bleaker and almost gothic. Spark was admired by her contemporaries. Evelyn Waugh wrote to her and said; “'Most novelists find there is one kind of book they can write (particularly humorous novelists) and go on doing it with variations until death. You seem to have an inexhaustible source” As William Boyd said; “We are in the hands of a great artist: the experience is both unsettling and exhilarating”. I heartily agree. 9 and a half out of 10 Starting Sister Kate by Jean Bedford

Thanks Alexi and Kylie Journal of a Solitude by May Sarton This is the journal of a year in May Sarton’s life; 1972-3 when she was 58. Sarton is known as a poet and novelist, but also as a writer of journals periodically and this is one of those. These journals are very honest accounts of her life and cover relationships, lesbianism, her periods of depression and melancholy, solitariness (hence the title), emotions of all types and most especially nature. My prior knowledge of May Sarton was limited and picked up on her via a book called 500 great books by women. One of the things I really enjoyed about the journal were her descriptions of the natural world, most especially of her garden and the flowers and creatures in it. Flowers and their scent were clearly very important to Sarton; "The garden is growth and change and that means loss as well as constant new treasures to make up for a few disasters." “A gray day . . . but, strangely enough, a gray day makes the bunches of daffodils in the house have a particular radiance, a kind of white light. From my bed this morning I could look through at a bunch in the big room, in that old Dutch blue-and-white drug jar, and they glowed. I went out before seven in my pajamas, because it looked like rain, and picked a sampler of twenty-five different varieties. It was worth getting up early, because the first thing I saw was a scarlet tanager a few feet away on a lilac bush–stupendous sight! There is no scarlet so vivid, no black so black.” “When I am alone the flowers are really seen; I can pay attention to them. They are felt as presences. Without them I would die. Why do I say that? Partly because they change before my eyes. They live and die in a few days; they keep me closely in touch with process, with growth, and also with dying. I am floated on their moments.” She also writes with great compassion about the wild creatures who inhabit her world and the stories about the feral cat who makes a home nearby are heart rending. Sarton writes her prose as only a poet can and with great honesty and vulnerability and pulls no punches about her own faults and frailties, her worries about her work and its reception and her love affairs. She also periodically makes comments about current affairs (like the death of De Gaulle) and will then drop in a sentence or two about meeting Virginia Woolf! It reads very easily, despite feeling fragmented at times. Sarton is engaging and thoughtful. It was a real pleasure to read. 8 and a half out of 10 Starting The Waves by Virginia Woolf

The Passion of New Eve It’s been too long since I’ve read any Carter and after this rollercoaster ride, it won’t be too long before I read more. As always Carter is difficult to pin down and this novel is science fiction, fairy tale, dystopia and much more. It’s crammed full of ideas, challenges, satire and plays a great deal with notions of identity and gender. There will be minor spoilers; necessary to have any meaningful discussion of the novel; however in many ways the plot isn’t the point, the ideas are. The focus of the novel is Evelyn, an Englishman starting a university job in New York. His travels across the US are Odyssey like and he experiences strange, fabulous and bizarre things. During the journey he becomes Eve, losing more than just the lyn at the end of his name; but learning and becoming, a metamorphosis by surgery. Having been abusive towards a woman in New York called Leilah, Eve now experiences a male world. The gender change was without choice and so implies no change in awareness; consequently there is a male identity in a female body. The experiences that follow result in comprehension rather than integration. Carter’s America is a dystopia, dividing into factions. There are vigilante groups based on race, an all-female underground city, California has left the Union and is riven by Civil War and there are a variety of groupings in the desert where Eve has a series of traumatic experiences. The urban landscape of New York (where the novel starts) is grim and decaying, illustrated by the language Carter uses; especially the colours (acid yellow, mineral green). As always Carter’s language is rich and detailed, bawdy and vivid. The ideas follow each other with rapidity and Plato’s cave pops up at the end with a good twist. Carter satirises and critiques certain types of matriarchy. Hope Jennings makes an interesting point when she argues; “Carter’s texts force us to think through the problems that arise when women attempt to assert a specifically feminine/sexual subject while continuing to define themselves according to male representations or symbols of femininity. She reminds us of the risks that accompany a female imaginary when it fails to remain self-conscious or critical of the position and/or premises from which it speaks; when contesting the myths of patriarchy, a feminist discourse must avoid the trap of falling for its own myths that it appropriates or sets up” The whole is a great ride and the relationship with Hollywood film star Tristessa and the way Carter plays with the Tiresias myth is wonderfully inventive. The plot and narrative are secondary, but Carter manages to startle and amuse at the same time as making the reader think and question; quite an achievement. 8 out of 10 Starting The Waves by Virginia Woolf

Thank you Janet; Mackay is certainly worth a look. Those without Shadows by Francoise Sagan This is Francoise Sagan’s third novel. It is brief and focuses on the lives of a group of Parisians. It is well written and stylish and has a certain insightfulness about it; even if at times it seems a little slight and self-indulgent. It follows a group of people, mostly young (some married, some not) over about a year. They fall in and out of love with each other, betray each other and lie to each other. The rule of thumb is that if you fall in love with someone, they will inevitably fall in love with someone else; if you are a married woman your spouse will also love someone else and be miserable because they don’t return his feelings. There is a general pointlessness to it all, but Sagan does capture a time and place with some effective and stylish writing; “They sat on a bench in the rain, which never ceased. They were dead tired. She told him she did not love him and he replied that it did not matter, and the poverty of their words brought tears to their eyes.” There is an emptiness, superficiality and pointlessness at the heart of it all which even the characters recognize; “The damp cigarette that Bernard tried unsuccessfully to light was symbolic of their lives, for they would never know real happiness and were aware of it, but they also felt that it was not at all important.” There was also a worrying assumption that any attractive young female was the property (not sure if that is precisely the correct word) of any middle-aged and sophisticated male who took a fancy to her. There is certainly a variety of characters, many of them are amoral, but you have the tortured artist types, those arrived from the provinces who are intensely naïve and predators of both sexes. I don’t think I’m selling this very well, but it is an interesting period piece and has a certain style and polish and can easily be read in one sitting. 6 and a half out of 10 Starting Nina Balatka by Anthony Trollope

Thank you Pontalba Here is another female author who should be much better known. Those slightly older than me who were aware of novelists in the 60s will know that Mackay started writing then; her first work being published when she was 16. She mixed in artistic circles and produced a body of work that was regarded as somewhat avant-garde. After a gap in the 1970s she began writing again in the 80s. This novel was short listed for the Booker Prize in 1996. Don’t let that put you off, it’s very good. Very good indeed; in fact in the late 1990s Julie Burchill referred to Mackay as “the best writer in the world today”. It is an evocation of childhood in the 1950s in Kent. Evocations of childhood can be variable in quality and I’ve read a few that have been pretty bad. What Mackay manages to do is to combine the innocence of childhood with schoolroom trials and tribulations, eccentric small town characters, falling in and out with friends with a distinctly sinister undertone. Percy and Betty Harlency leave London to run the Copper Kettle tearoom in Kent. The story is told by their daughter April looking back forty years later. It focuses on April and her best friend Ruby and the childhood difficulties they get into. There is humour in the novel and the writing is poetic and very powerful. What really makes the novel so gripping are the underlying themes of child abuse. April’s family situation is a happy one, but Ruby’s parents can be violent and abusive, especially her father and especially when drunk. April, however, has troubles of her own in the form of an elderly man who is a regular at the café and who is well liked and respected by all. His stalking of her (seemingly innocent meetings, requests to visit for tea (groping’s in the kitchen whilst his wife is ill in another room) and more serious attentions whilst his wife as away all build up gradually and underlie what is otherwise quite an idyllic setting. The avuncular, cardigan wearing and seemingly jolly old man being a sinister predator is much more commonplace now, but Mackay draws and characterises Greenidge very well. April’s reactions, her feelings of shame and confusion, her inability to tell her parents, her wondering if it’s her fault is exceptionally well written. The supporting cast of characters are also very good; the cruel schoolteacher, Miss Fay, rigs very true. The lesbian couple Bobs and Dittany are engagingly eccentric and April’s London relatives provide some excellent comic turns when April’s brother arrives. It all adds up to a very good whole and has persuaded me that I must read more of Mackay’s work. 8 and a half out of 10 Starting The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark

Thank you Frankie, Kylie, Bobblybear and Devi. I'm glad she is getting more attention, she certainly deserves it. The Dark Jester by Wilson Harris Another tour de force by one of my favourite novelists, Wilson Harris. I still don’t understand why he isn’t better known. He is difficult and magic realism isn’t to everyone’s taste, but for me he is one of the great South American/Caribbean novelists. This novel reflects on a small but significant episode in South American history. The meeting between Pizarro the Spanish conquistador and the king of the Incas Atahualpa. The king is to be burnt at the stake (spreading the Christian Gospel was a robust affair), but avoids death by converting to Christianity and promising a room of gold to Pizarro for his freedom. Atahualpa is betrayed and killed. Harris draws on myth and wisdom from a variety of sources; primarily South American, but also Buddhist and classical Greek; Plato’s cave even makes an appearance. The narrator is dreaming the events and is known as the Dreamer. The Dreamer periodically transforms as he is occupied by different players in the drama and sees different perspectives. But we are looking at the Incan civilisation meeting European materialism. The Dreamer is accompanied throughout by the Jester of the title. Harris’s way of writing is intense and it has a certain sensuality; for example, the Jester’s soundless laughing is described as “like a gathering storm on a Butterfly’s wing”. Harris recreates myth with the fusion of the various myths he brings to the novel; a reimagining of the horrific effect of meeting of two entirely different cultures. The Jester figure appears in other work by Harris and represents “the submerged authority of dispossessed peoples”. History and Cartesian logic have their limitations as the entry of the Greeks into Troy is contrasted with the fall of the Incas. Dreaming has significance in Harris’s fiction being often an epistemological way into secrets and the unconscious and to the centre of creativity. The questions “What is History/Art/Prophecy/Truth?” are asked. It is a rich and multi-layered exploration of the destruction of a civilisation. If you like magic realism and complex structured novels this may be for you. 8 out of 10 Starting Journal of a Solitude by May Sarton

Thank you Chrissy and Kylie Love among the Butterflies; Margaret Fountaine I picked this up at my favourite junk/antique/rummage shop, noting that I had never heard of Margaret Fountaine and perhaps I should have. She lived from 1862 to 1940 and was the daughter of a Norfolk clergyman. She kept detailed dairies from the age of 16; keeping notes and usually writing them up once a year. They run to twelve hefty volumes. Her will indicated that they should be sealed until 15 April 1978 in case they should shock (100 years after she begun them). They were duly unsealed and edited for publication. This volume covers 1878 to about 1913 and there is a follow on volume. Margaret Fountaine was someone who clearly needed a purpose to her life. She started by drawing and spent some time travelling Britain sketching the inside of cathedrals. However her real passion became collecting and displaying butterflies. She is renowned amateur entomologist and lepidopterist and also an accomplished natural history illustrator. She travelled the world collecting specimens. Her development as a collector is interesting. She realised that taking specimens out of the wild was not always the best thing to do and so she began to take a female with eggs and raise her own. Many of the specimens in her collections were raised by her out in a variety of wild and dangerous places. Her butterfly collection is in a museum in Norwich and her illustrations are in the Natural History Museum Fountaine had much to battle with; her upbringing was a very traditional Victorian one and she was given a strong sense of her own social standing and how she should relate to others and what was proper and improper. The diaries illustrate how she battled for years with her upbringing, sometimes constrained by it, often breaking free from it. Her relationships with men are fascinating. She is at times quite conventional, thinking she ought to get married to an appropriate man and be conventional (even getting engaged a couple of times. However instinctively she did not really wish to marry. She had an early passion for a chorister at Norwich Cathedral (much to the horror of her family) and even followed him to Ireland when he was dismissed for drunkenness. She did however have one long term relationship; with a man she hired as a dragoman (guide and interpreter), Kahlil Neimy, a Syrian born of Greek parents. They travelled together for 27 years until his death in 1928 (he was 15 years her junior). At various times they were engaged, they were certainly lovers, though not initially. He was devoted to her and travelled together all over the world; nursing each other through malaria. At times Fountaine was scandalised by her own behaviour, at other times not. She struggled with how to explain his presence to more conventional society. This was one of the most interesting aspects of the diaries; the internal conflict which she explains very well. At times Fountaine is very modern, unconventional and pioneering and at other times she feels she is betraying her upbringing and the standards she was brought up with. At times she can appear racist and imperialist and of her time and then she breezes through convention with unexpected verve and takes the breath away with her warmth and acceptance of others. She was an early user of the bicycle, finding very useful for travelling to difficult places. She travelled all over the world, initially in Europe, then the Middle East, Africa, India, Australia, the US, into the Himalayas and Tibet. She died while collecting butterflies in Trinidad in 1940; still on the road (alone). She was a truly independent woman, a keen supporter of women’s suffrage (although never in England long enough to do much about it). Included in her adventures were close encounters with Corsican bandits, malaria, numerous men intent on taking her virtue or worse (she rarely backed away from them, preferring to face and challenge them), she enjoyed aeroplanes and cars once they were available, jumped off a crashing train in the bush, got lost in the jungle (volume 2), slept in all sorts of unlikely places (becoming an expert in insects that bite in the night. I found Margaret Fountaine in equal parts wonderful and irritating; but she was a remarkable and independent woman who deserves more recognition. Her sheer force of character shines through and her sense of adventure and sheer bravery are remarkable. 7 and a half out of 10 Starting Dorothy Richardson's 13 novel epic Pilgrimage. The first novel in the series is Pointed Roofs

Thank you Frankie, Bobbly and Kylie. Athena; these days I seem to live in a permanent state of confusion! I have three books by my bedside and four elsewhere, so there is a semblance of order. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Rather funny and biting satire on religion, politics and the possibility of humanity managing to destroy the world; written at about the time of the Cuban missile crisis. It is narrated by John, who is also the main protagonist. There is a Moby Dick reference right at the beginning when John says “Call me Jonah”. John is writing a book about what famous Americans did on the day the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. He is interested in Dr Felix Hoenikker who had been involved in the development of the bomb. As he is deceased John contacts his three rather odd children. The journey moves to a Caribbean island with a dictator. The whole encompasses a substance called ice nine, which makes water solidify at room temperature. It was invented by Hoenikker and his children appropriated it after his death. By various nefarious means the Americans and Soviets have it, as does the dictator of the Caribbean island of San Lorenzo (loosely based on Haiti). San Lorenzo also has its own religion Bokononism. This has been outlawed at the suggestion of its founder; thus making it more attractive. As does the fact that, as its founder says, it’s all “shameful lies” anyway. The plot is about as far-fetched as it can be; but it is funny. The title of the novel refers of course to the children’s game of the same name and sums up Vonnegut’s approach to religion and politics (as expressed by one of the characters) “No wonder kids grow up crazy. A cat's cradle is nothing but a bunch of X's between somebody's hands, and little kids look and look and look at all those X's . . . No damn cat, no damn cradle.” Vonnegut seems to think the whole world is a bit of a mess and that fact in itself is actually rather funny. The whole is a bit disjointed, but there are some wonderful quotes and comments on modern life, Vonnegut never forgets he is an entertainer and there is none of the wordiness and complexity of some of his contemporaries. It’s great fun and very readable with some satisfying pokes at the pomposity of religion, science and politics and we continue to need to be reminded how vital that is. 8 and a half out of 10 Starting Those Without Shadows by Francoise Sagan

At present I am reading The Tunnel by William Gass The Dark Jester by Wilson Harris Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Love among the Butterflies by Margaret Fountaine Unbridled Spirits; Women of the English Revolution by Stevie Davies The Passion of the New Eve by Angela Carter The Orchard on Fire by Shena Mackay

I posted a couple of reviews on the 31st so I will cut and paste them here as a starter; Sherston's Progress by Siegfried Sassoon This is the third of Sassoon’s wartime trilogy. It takes the reader from Sassoon’s admission to Craiglockhart for shell shock to the end of the war. After Craiglockhart Sassoon spends some time recuperating in Ireland before being posted to Palestine. From there he is sent back to France, to the trenches. His war ends in July 1918 when he is shot in the head returning from patrol by an overzealous member of his own side. I felt that this was somewhat weaker than the other two parts of the trilogy. Sassoon feels lost and taken along with events in this volume. He spends time with Dr Rivers talking about his protest and ends up deciding to return to the front line. He still feels the same about the war, but it is as though he is drawn back despite himself and Sassoon periodically examines his motives and seems as puzzled as the reader in explaining them. The use of the word Progress in the title is obviously reminiscent of Bunyan and Pilgrim’s Progress, although I think in this case the Celestial City which is longed for is in the past; an England of cricket and country pursuits which has gone forever (and probably never really existed). This makes the destination in this novel rather hazy and there is an aimlessness about it. The war has taken over Sassoon and he can conceive of doing nothing else. Once in France Sassoon reverts to his previous recklessness and seems to court death on a number of occasions. I felt that towards the end of the book that Sassoon’s mental health really was rather fragile at this time; hardly a surprise given his experiences. I think this is a good illustration of the way the machine of war ground down those who were caught up in it, no matter how much they fought it. 7 and a half out of 10 Starting Unbridled Spirits; Women of the English Revolution 1640-1660 by Stevie Davies And In Parenthesis by David Jones This is another one of the reads related to the First World War and one of the better ones. It is also one of the most difficult to define. Its author, David Jones was a painter, poet, designer and wood engraver. His father was Welsh and he was strongly influenced by the Welsh literary tradition. It is effectively a prose poem, using both mediums following Private John Ball (In this work there are many layers of meaning, John Ball was a Lollard priest and one of the leaders of the Peasant’s Revolt) over a period of seven months from England to France and finally to the Battle of the Somme, more specifically Mametz Wood. There are copious notes and these are necessary as the references to other works are numerous and I think very few would come close to getting them all. There are numerous Shakespearean references, especially Henry V, Lewis Carroll, Coleridge’s poems, The Song of Roland, Malory (especially Morte D’Arthur). The Bible (especially Revelation) and two Welsh texts in particular. The Gododdin, the Mabinogion and the sixth century poem Preiddeu Annwn (The Harrowing of Hell). There are also lots of references to popular songs from the music hall and Jones makes good use of soldiers’ slang. Jones was influenced by Eliot, Pound and Joyce and they are his starting points. This was published in 1937 to immediate critical acclaim. Eliot, in his introduction called it a “work of genius”. W H Auden went further; he also felt it was a masterpiece and was the “greatest book about the First World War”. Auden went further and felt in terms of greatness and quality it was comparable to Homer and Dante’s Divine Comedy. Jones also includes an archetype of the universal soldier; here a Welshman called Dai Greatcoat who has fought in all wars: “This Dai Adjusts his slipping shoulder-straps, wraps close his misfit outsize greatcoat – he articulates his English with alien care. My fathers were with the Black Prince of Wales At the passion of the blind Bohemian king. They served in these fields, It is in the histories that you can read it, Corporal – boys Gower, they were – it is writ down – yes. Wot about Methuselem Taffy? I was with Abel when his brother found him, Under the green tree.” Some critics have argued that Jones romanticises war; however that is really only a surface interpretation. He parallels and compares the Somme with Camlan and Catraeth (both actual battles suffused with legend where the Celtic/Briton cause was defeated by the invading Angles and Saxons). Fussell has argued there is a deep conservatism here; however I think what Jones is doing is trying to ennoble those who have been lost. This is best illustrated by a remarkable passage from near the end of the book where most of John Ball’s comrades have fallen in Mametz Wood; men we have been with throughout the book. The Queen of the Woods is acknowledging the fallen: “The Queen of the Woods has cut bright boughs of various flowering. These knew her influential eyes. Her awarding hands can pluck for each their fragile prize. She speaks to them according to precedence. She knows what’s due to this elect society. She can chose twelve gentle-men. She knows who is most lord between the high trees and on the open down. Some she gives white berries some she gives brown Emil has a curious crown it’s made of golden saxifrage Fatty wears sweet briar, he will reign with her for a thousand years. For Balder she reaches high to fetch his. Ulrich smiles for his myrtle wand. That swine Lillywhite has daises to his chain – you’d hardly credit it She plaits torques of equal splendour for Mr Jenkins and Billy Crower. Hansel with Gronwy share dog-violets for a palm, where they lie in serious embrace beneath the twisted tripod. Sion gets St. John’s Wort – that’s fair enough. Dai Greatcoat, she can’t find him anywhere – she calls both high and low, she had a very special one for him. Among this July noblesse she is mindful of December wood – when the trees of the forest beat against each other because of him. She carries to Aneirin-in-the-nullah a rowan sprig, for the glory of Guenedota. You couldn’t hear what she said to him, because she was careful for the Disciplines of the Wars. “ The reference at the end relates to a Welsh Bard and is also a direct reference to Henry V and the Welsh officer Fluellen. The language is sublime but you cannot get aware from the senselessness of the slaughter as friends and comrades “sink limply to a heap”. Jones adds to the feel and sense of his work with illustration and painting. It is easy to forget he was primarily a painter and illustrator. The frontispiece of the original edition (painted by Jones) has been reproduced in the Folio edition that I have. The best description of it is one I found by a blogger called Alex Preston and I can’t better it, so won’t try. “The soldier, staring out of blank eyes, hangs crucified against the background of broken trees. Rats scuttle through the barbed wire that trains up his body towards his shrunken genitals – symbols of his emasculation in his final moments. Tiny figures reminiscent of C. R. W. Nevinson or Wyndham Lewis struggle with enormous guns in the background as the night sky smudges into a riot of stars. “ This is not a work that is sentimental or romantic about war. Jones has taken on board the lessons of Eliot and Pound about the presence of the past and the whole work weaves the past and the present together. It is important to stress the Welshness of the work. The lead character is John Ball, not John Bull. Ball and his comrades are portrayed throughout as being done unto by those in power and authority. They were ordinary men and Jones as I argued earlier ennobles them to mythical levels. Jones portrays the realities and brutalities of the Battle of the Somme and warfare in general in a way that we are not used to, and with a modernist twist. It may be that one of the reasons this work is not as well-known as it should be is that is not so easily accessible as other works and poetry. The description of Lt. Jenkins dying as a result of gassing is every bit as powerful as Wilfred Owen’s description in “Dulce et Decorum est”. The most interesting critical account I came across was written by Joseph Cohen in a magazine called Poetry Wales where he makes use of the term simultaneity (simultaneous action) to describe Jones’s work. It is a term he borrows from relativity theory and he argues that it is the key to understanding In Parenthesis. Jones juxtaposes various events and Cohen argues that this is justified by drawing together the commonality of military experience with the commonality of “the futility of sacrifice and the suffering in combat”. Cohen goes on to say that simultaneous occurrences and simultaneity make these juxtapositions explicable. This means, he argues the bare structure of In Parenthesis is very similar to Lowry’s Under the Volcano and Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. Cohen sums up the argument as follows; “Simultaneous occurrence is the key to structural coherence. The relativity theory, as literary people employ it, concentrates on the principles of simultaneity and uncertainty, and the invalidation of the principle of causality. Modern combat, where simultaneous action closes in on the participant, provides us, microcosmically, with one of our most convincing demonstrations of multiplicity, or clutter, in the universe; of the futility of planning actions based upon previously acquired temporal and spatial measurements; and of the breakdown between cause and effect. Causes are generated and set into motion, only to collide with one another, modifying effects. This was the nature of the Western Front though we have been slow to recognize it. In Parenthesis is authentic in its reflection of Jones' distillation of that experience.” The task of the poet here is to bring order out of chaos and Jones does that. It is a remarkable work which should be one of the standard works. It is challenging and not easy to read and is well worth the effort. I think it is one of the greatest works ever written about war. 10 out of 10 Starting Love among the butterflies by Margaret Fountaine

Sherston's Progress by Siegfried Sassoon This is the third of Sassoon’s wartime trilogy. It takes the reader from Sassoon’s admission to Craiglockhart for shell shock to the end of the war. After Craiglockhart Sassoon spends some time recuperating in Ireland before being posted to Palestine. From there he is sent back to France, to the trenches. His war ends in July 1918 when he is shot in the head returning from patrol by an overzealous member of his own side. I felt that this was somewhat weaker than the other two parts of the trilogy. Sassoon feels lost and taken along with events in this volume. He spends time with Dr Rivers talking about his protest and ends up deciding to return to the front line. He still feels the same about the war, but it is as though he is drawn back despite himself and Sassoon periodically examines his motives and seems as puzzled as the reader in explaining them. The use of the word Progress in the title is obviously reminiscent of Bunyan and Pilgrim’s Progress, although I think in this case the Celestial City which is longed for is in the past; an England of cricket and country pursuits which has gone forever (and probably never really existed). This makes the destination in this novel rather hazy and there is an aimlessness about it. The war has taken over Sassoon and he can conceive of doing nothing else. Once in France Sassoon reverts to his previous recklessness and seems to court death on a number of occasions. I felt that towards the end of the book that Sassoon’s mental health really was rather fragile at this time; hardly a surprise given his experiences. I think this is a good illustration of the way the machine of war ground down those who were caught up in it, no matter how much they fought it. 7 and a half out of 10 Starting Unbridled Spirits; Women of the English Revolution 1640-1660 by Stevie Davies

In Parenthesis by David Jones This is another one of the reads related to the First World War and one of the better ones. It is also one of the most difficult to define. Its author, David Jones was a painter, poet, designer and wood engraver. His father was Welsh and he was strongly influenced by the Welsh literary tradition. It is effectively a prose poem, using both mediums following Private John Ball (In this work there are many layers of meaning, John Ball was a Lollard priest and one of the leaders of the Peasant’s Revolt) over a period of seven months from England to France and finally to the Battle of the Somme, more specifically Mametz Wood. There are copious notes and these are necessary as the references to other works are numerous and I think very few would come close to getting them all. There are numerous Shakespearean references, especially Henry V, Lewis Carroll, Coleridge’s poems, The Song of Roland, Malory (especially Morte D’Arthur). The Bible (especially Revelation) and two Welsh texts in particular. The Gododdin, the Mabinogion and the sixth century poem Preiddeu Annwn (The Harrowing of Hell). There are also lots of references to popular songs from the music hall and Jones makes good use of soldiers’ slang. Jones was influenced by Eliot, Pound and Joyce and they are his starting points. This was published in 1937 to immediate critical acclaim. Eliot, in his introduction called it a “work of genius”. W H Auden went further; he also felt it was a masterpiece and was the “greatest book about the First World War”. Auden went further and felt in terms of greatness and quality it was comparable to Homer and Dante’s Divine Comedy. Jones also includes an archetype of the universal soldier; here a Welshman called Dai Greatcoat who has fought in all wars: “This Dai Adjusts his slipping shoulder-straps, wraps close his misfit outsize greatcoat – he articulates his English with alien care. My fathers were with the Black Prince of Wales At the passion of the blind Bohemian king. They served in these fields, It is in the histories that you can read it, Corporal – boys Gower, they were – it is writ down – yes. Wot about Methuselem Taffy? I was with Abel when his brother found him, Under the green tree.” Some critics have argued that Jones romanticises war; however that is really only a surface interpretation. He parallels and compares the Somme with Camlan and Catraeth (both actual battles suffused with legend where the Celtic/Briton cause was defeated by the invading Angles and Saxons). Fussell has argued there is a deep conservatism here; however I think what Jones is doing is trying to ennoble those who have been lost. This is best illustrated by a remarkable passage from near the end of the book where most of John Ball’s comrades have fallen in Mametz Wood; men we have been with throughout the book. The Queen of the Woods is acknowledging the fallen: “The Queen of the Woods has cut bright boughs of various flowering. These knew her influential eyes. Her awarding hands can pluck for each their fragile prize. She speaks to them according to precedence. She knows what’s due to this elect society. She can chose twelve gentle-men. She knows who is most lord between the high trees and on the open down. Some she gives white berries some she gives brown Emil has a curious crown it’s made of golden saxifrage Fatty wears sweet briar, he will reign with her for a thousand years. For Balder she reaches high to fetch his. Ulrich smiles for his myrtle wand. That swine Lillywhite has daises to his chain – you’d hardly credit it She plaits torques of equal splendour for Mr Jenkins and Billy Crower. Hansel with Gronwy share dog-violets for a palm, where they lie in serious embrace beneath the twisted tripod. Sion gets St. John’s Wort – that’s fair enough. Dai Greatcoat, she can’t find him anywhere – she calls both high and low, she had a very special one for him. Among this July noblesse she is mindful of December wood – when the trees of the forest beat against each other because of him. She carries to Aneirin-in-the-nullah a rowan sprig, for the glory of Guenedota. You couldn’t hear what she said to him, because she was careful for the Disciplines of the Wars. “ The reference at the end relates to a Welsh Bard and is also a direct reference to Henry V and the Welsh officer Fluellen. The language is sublime but you cannot get aware from the senselessness of the slaughter as friends and comrades “sink limply to a heap”. Jones adds to the feel and sense of his work with illustration and painting. It is easy to forget he was primarily a painter and illustrator. The frontispiece of the original edition (painted by Jones) has been reproduced in the Folio edition that I have. The best description of it is one I found by a blogger called Alex Preston and I can’t better it, so won’t try. “The soldier, staring out of blank eyes, hangs crucified against the background of broken trees. Rats scuttle through the barbed wire that trains up his body towards his shrunken genitals – symbols of his emasculation in his final moments. Tiny figures reminiscent of C. R. W. Nevinson or Wyndham Lewis struggle with enormous guns in the background as the night sky smudges into a riot of stars. “ This is not a work that is sentimental or romantic about war. Jones has taken on board the lessons of Eliot and Pound about the presence of the past and the whole work weaves the past and the present together. It is important to stress the Welshness of the work. The lead character is John Ball, not John Bull. Ball and his comrades are portrayed throughout as being done unto by those in power and authority. They were ordinary men and Jones as I argued earlier ennobles them to mythical levels. Jones portrays the realities and brutalities of the Battle of the Somme and warfare in general in a way that we are not used to, and with a modernist twist. It may be that one of the reasons this work is not as well-known as it should be is that is not so easily accessible as other works and poetry. The description of Lt. Jenkins dying as a result of gassing is every bit as powerful as Wilfred Owen’s description in “Dulce et Decorum est”. The most interesting critical account I came across was written by Joseph Cohen in a magazine called Poetry Wales where he makes use of the term simultaneity (simultaneous action) to describe Jones’s work. It is a term he borrows from relativity theory and he argues that it is the key to understanding In Parenthesis. Jones juxtaposes various events and Cohen argues that this is justified by drawing together the commonality of military experience with the commonality of “the futility of sacrifice and the suffering in combat”. Cohen goes on to say that simultaneous occurrences and simultaneity make these juxtapositions explicable. This means, he argues the bare structure of In Parenthesis is very similar to Lowry’s Under the Volcano and Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. Cohen sums up the argument as follows; “Simultaneous occurrence is the key to structural coherence. The relativity theory, as literary people employ it, concentrates on the principles of simultaneity and uncertainty, and the invalidation of the principle of causality. Modern combat, where simultaneous action closes in on the participant, provides us, microcosmically, with one of our most convincing demonstrations of multiplicity, or clutter, in the universe; of the futility of planning actions based upon previously acquired temporal and spatial measurements; and of the breakdown between cause and effect. Causes are generated and set into motion, only to collide with one another, modifying effects. This was the nature of the Western Front though we have been slow to recognize it. In Parenthesis is authentic in its reflection of Jones' distillation of that experience.” The task of the poet here is to bring order out of chaos and Jones does that. It is a remarkable work which should be one of the standard works. It is challenging and not easy to read and is well worth the effort. I think it is one of the greatest works ever written about war. 10 out of 10 Starting Love among the butterflies by Margaret Fountaine

Printer's Devil Court by Susan Hill I like to read a good ghost story at Christmas. Unfortunately this wasn’t really it. It is a novella, almost a short story and easily readable in one sitting. It revolves around four medical students who share digs. The story is written my one of them and is found by his family after he dies many years later. Two of the group are interested in experimentation with the end of life and bringing back the dead. They have the truly daft idea of capturing the last breath, which they think has potency, and using it to bring someone else back to life. It takes a while to get going, isn’t really scary as a good story in this genre should be and the ending is truly silly. Not up to Hill’s usual standard. Back to M R James I suppose. There were also a couple of silly typos. 4 out of 10 Starting The Orchard on Fire by Shena Mackay

Thank you Willoyd; hope you enjoy Life and Fate! The Sandcastle by Iris Murdoch This is Iris Murdoch’s third novel. It revolves around Bill Mor, a middle-aged teacher in a minor public school. He has a wife (Nan) and two children (Donald and Felicity). He also has some political ambitions; to stand as a Labour Candidate in a local parliamentary seat. He hasn’t yet had the courage to tell his wife as she will be opposed to this and generally gets her own way. Into this situation comes Rain Carter; a talented painter almost half Bill’s age. She is there to paint a portrait of the former headmaster. Rain and Bill fall in love with each other and Bill is then torn between his family and the prospect of happiness and a different life with Rain. There are twists, turns and workings out. There are elements of tragedy and comedy in fairly equal measure and Murdoch rather expertly makes it difficult for the reader to see where one ends and the other starts. There are a number of oddities in this; I am no expert in the nature of human attraction, but it was not immediately obvious why Rain fell for Mor. He was indecisive and rather lacking in personal charisma; both are also quite unworldly and Mor seeks to avoid confrontations (mostly with his wife). Murdoch uses a number of literary devices to move the story along and to provoke thought; letters being read by those not meant to read them, accidental encounters and the mysterious tramp/gypsy whose appearance seems to be a precursor to trouble. The characterisation is good and although the plot may be slow, it is never dull. The sandcastle of the title may be symbolic of the impermanence of hopes and dreams. All of the characters have lost something by the end, had some hope or other dashed. Murdoch does a very good job of illuminating the everyday hopes and despairs of ordinary people in a subtle and understated way. A good novel which reminds me that I must read more Murdoch. 8 and a half out of 10 Starting Printers Devil Court by Susan Hill

Four Dreamers and Emily by Stevie Davies It’s always a pleasure and surprise to discover an author you didn’t know, who turns out to be rather good. I also feel a little guilty because Stevie Davies had not crossed my horizons before. She is a novelist, historian and Bronte scholar. Here she combines two of the above because this is a comic novel about Bronte enthusiasts. It focuses on a conference about Emily Bronte meeting in Haworth and four characters in particular. Marianne is the conference organiser, a struggling academic with three rowdy young children and a useless husband; Timothy is an elderly widower with a serious heart condition who is sustained by his correspondence with Marianne and nocturnal visits from Emily Bronte’s ghost; Eileen, an obsessive amateur Bronte enthusiast and finally Sharon, a waitress who is there somewhat accidentally. The novel follows them through the conference with various other assorted Bronte types (deconstructionists, semi-colonists and uterine feminists amongst others). There are a number of comedic highlights, with two characters getting locked in the parsonage overnight being one of them. It is wickedly funny and satirical, but there is affection rather than malice and it is rather well written; which helps a great deal. There is also wisdom in the comedy and there is a marked contrast between the inner lives and hopes of the characters and their rather messy real lives; much of the comedy lies in their attempts to bring the two together. Wuthering Heights is the backdrop and there are lots of jokes for Bronte enthusiasts; some of which I spotted, I suspect I missed most of them. The ending follows those at the conference a year later and is rather touching; hope of change and resolution. I bought this in a local shop stuffed full of books and various antiques/junk. When I got home I made a rather serendipitous discovery; it is inscribed by the author to the former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion. Not sure why he gave it away; I wouldn’t have! I have had a look at some of Davies’s other works and want to read more. I have already ordered Unbridled Spirits: Women of the English Revolution, 1640-1660 as it looks very good. 8 and a half out of 10 Starting The Passion of New Eve by Angela Carter.

Thanks Pontalba and Ethan Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman A monumental novel in the Great Russian tradition which has been rightly compared with War and Peace. It focuses on the Battle of Stalingrad, but covers a Science Institute, various prison camps and a concentration camp. The list of characters is vast and the dramatis personae in my edition was well used. Grossman was a journalist who covered the Battle of Stalingrad from the front line and his experience shows. However this is, like War and Peace, very much not just a war novel. Its scope is broad and it provides a penetrating analysis of the Soviet system and Stalinism in particular. As you would expect the plot is interwoven with numerous themes. Grossman was a Jew and Jewish identity is explored through one of the main characters, the scientist Victor Shtrum. The description of the gas chamber is a very powerful piece of writing, focussing as it does on a child and an unrelated woman who provides comfort. “Her eyes—which have read Homer, Izvestia, Huckleberry Finn and Mayne Reid, that had looked at good people and bad people, that had seen the geese in the green meadows of Kursk, the stars above the observatory at Pulkovo, the glitter of surgical steel, the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, tomatoes and turnips in the bins at market, the blue water of Issyk-Kul—her eyes were no longer of any use to her. If someone had blinded her, she would have felt no sense of loss. …Sofya Levinton felt the boy’s body subside in her arms. …This boy, with his slight, bird-like body, has left before her. “I’ve become a mother,” she thought. That was her last thought. Her heart, however, still had life in it: it contracted, ached, and felt pity for all of you, both living and dead; Sofya Osipovna felt a wave of nausea. She pressed David, now a doll, to herself; she became dead, a doll.” Grossman, despite the horrors he describes, clearly still believes in the fundamental goodness of humanity. One of the main focuses of the book is the criticism of Stalinism, the sheer pointless stupidity of a totalitarian regime. A number of the characters in the novel are old Bolsheviks who are struggling to come to terms with Stalin’s regime and especially with the mass arrests of 1937. We see a number of them in camps and prisons trying to create some meaning in their situation. The comparisons with War and Peace have some limitations. Tolstoy was looking back; Grossman was actually there and his journalistic training shines through. He is able to compare the regimes of Hitler and Stalin and note the similarities. This is a great novel which takes you along with its sheer power and the magnificence of the writing. The canvas may sometimes be like a Breughel but Grossman’s writing is suffused with optimism about humanity despite it all. 9 out of 10 Starting The Tunnel by William Gass

The Pumpkin Eater by Penelope Mortimer I must admit I haven’t read anything by Mortimer before and on the evidence of this book I should have. It is about a woman in a downward spiral and is an acerbic and humorous (in a very bleak way) comment on marriage, gender relations and being a woman being controlled by men (husbands and assorted professionals, mainly medical). Mortimer writes in rather a sparse way leaving the reader to do some of the work, making one feel much more involved in the main character’s disintegration. The protagonist is known only by her married name, Mrs Armitage. She is on her fourth marriage and has numerous children (eight I think) and would like another one (her husband doesn’t). Her husband Jake is a successful screenwriter and they have been married for over ten years. Jake has a temper and is serially unfaithful. They are building a glass tower in the country as a rural retreat. The couple are rich enough to employ servants to do everything. There may be an element of autobiography here as Mortimer was married three times and had six children. Her relationship with her third husband, the barrister John Mortimer, was notoriously turbulent. The description of disintegration, depression, a pretty much enforced abortion and sterilisation, a complete loss of role and reason to exist are powerfully written. All of the male characters are deeply unlikeable and manipulative. It was written in 1962 and there has been some debate about whether it can be classed as a feminist novel. I think that misses the point; the whole description of depression and breakdown leading to a sort of acceptance is the author asking the question: Is this it? Is this all there is? Does it have to be this way? There are no answers provided, you are just left to feel the raw pain of a woman who society feels has everything, but who is utterly lost. It’s a powerful book which is still worth looking out for. There are a couple of examples of lazy writing about race, but apart from that it held my attention and made me ask questions about my attitudes. I also would now like to see the film which came out in 1964. The script is by Pinter and it stars Anne Bancroft and Peter Finch, so it ought to be good! 8 and a half out of 10 Starting The Dark Jester by Wilson Harris

Thank you Willoyd and pontalba Memoirs of an Infantry Officer This is the second of Siegfried Sassoon’s trilogy of autobiographical war novels. It covers the period from 1915 to 1917; Sassoon’s time on the front line, the Battle of the Somme, his time recuperating from wounds, his protest about the war and ends with him being sent to Craiglockart, the psychiatric hospital for those with shellshock. Sassoon continues to be self-deprecating and tries to capture his feelings throughout, which were often contradictory. Other characters pop up thinly disguised. David Cromlech is Robert Graves, who plays a significant role which Sassoon clearly has mixed feelings about. In real life Sassoon wrote to The Times denouncing the aims and conduct of the war. In the novel he does it slightly differently, but to similar effect. There was a period of time when Sassoon thought he was going to be court-martialled and shot and this was a serious possibility. He details his worries about whether he has done the right thing and whether his views are correct and how ambivalent he feels. This is a long way from the rather foolish young man of three years earlier who only really wanted to hunt and ride horses and had very little political thought in his head. He also describes throwing his Military Cross into a river; another thing that indicated how much he had changed. Cromlech (Graves) went to the military board that was hearing the case to persuade them that Sassoon was suffering from shellshock and needed help not punishment (without Sassoon’s knowledge). It isn’t clear from this book whether Sassoon believed he had shellshock; he may not have been sure himself. He was certainly having nightmares and he describes alternating feelings of despair and elation. His stay in hospital is described in the last of the trilogy. Sassoon is very good at describing the ordinary life of a platoon, most of which was very boring and uncomfortable. The actual action was interspersed between these periods of boredom. Sassoon does not preach or bully he just tells the tale and explains how he underwent change. One example is his anger when he sees people in London eating at expensive restaurants and hotels and remembers what he and the troops have been eating for the last months. Sassoon has been criticised by some reviewers for pulling his punches and not being as realistic as people like Graves and others. I wonder whether I was reading the same book. Here are a couple of examples; “As I stepped over one of the Germans an impulse made me lift him up from the miserable ditch. Propped against the bank, his blond face was undisfigured, except by the mud which I wiped from his eyes and mouth with my coat sleeve. He'd evidently been killed while digging, for his tunic was knotted loosely about his shoulders. He didn't look to be more than 18. Hoisting him a little higher, I thought what a gentle face he had, and remembered that this was the first time I'd ever touched one of our enemies with my hands. Perhaps I had some dim sense of the futility which had put an end to this good-looking youth. Anyway I hadn't expected the battle of the Somme to be quite like this.” And at the height of the Battle of the Somme “I can remember a pair of hands (nationality unknown) which protruded from the soaked ashen soil like the roots of a tree turned upside down; one hand seemed to be pointing at the sky with an accusing gesture. Each time I passed that place the protest of those fingers became more expressive of an appeal to God in defiance of those who made the War. Who made the War? I laughed hysterically as the thought passed through my mud-stained mind. But I only laughed mentally, for my box of Stokes gun ammunition left me no breath to spare for an angry guffaw. And the dead were the dead; this was no time to be pitying them or asking silly questions about their outraged lives. Such sights must be taken for granted, I thought, as I gasped and slithered and stumbled with my disconsolate crew. Floating on the surface of the flooded trench was the mask of a human face which had detached itself from the skull.” It speaks volumes that Sassoon ends the chapter there with no further comment and he clearly did go on to ask the “silly questions”. For me this was better than the first in the trilogy as it deals with the contradictory feelings within one person at the front and what it took for him to make one of the most potent anti-war statements of the period, even though he wasn’t sure of himself and what he was doing. Again there is humour in the descriptions of the futility and I suspect that the writers of Blackadder had read this. One of the better war memoirs and I found Sassoon a good deal more engaging than Graves in “Goodbye to All That”. 9 out of 10 Starting the last in the trilogy Sherston's Progress

I loved them both Athena So I am Glad by A L Kennedy This is a difficult one to review and to categorise. It could be described as a fairy tale/fable, it is certainly satire; there is a love story thrown in (of sorts) and a touch of magical realism. The issues explored are serious ones, including child sexual abuse and its later life consequences for the protagonist Jennifer Wilson. It is set in Glasgow, with a brief foray to Paris. Kennedy writes well and her prose is lyrical and sharp with some very amusing asides relating to the political backdrop (written in the mid-1990s). Jennifer is something of a lost soul whose body and emotions are missing any real link between them. Jennifer avoids emotions. Her much quoted description of the casual sex she finds herself having is illuminating; “Like an inadvertent Irish dancer tied up in a hot canvas sack, like a mad traffic policeman tangoing through ink, like a killer whale fighting to open an envelope.” Life begins to change when she and her housemates take in a man who has forgotten his name. Over time her remembers, he is Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac (yes that Cyrano). You are left to decide for yourself who Savinien is; ghost (he seems real enough and relates to all the other housemates and even manages to fight a duel in a Glasgow Park!), imposter or the real thing. Jennifer and Cyrano begin to have feelings for each other and there appears to be a healing process and working through going on. But, of course Kennedy is not so straightforward as to make this a redemptive novel and the ending emphasizes this. There were some odd notes, especially the violent BDSM session with the ex-boyfriend; although for once the male partner was on the receiving end and it did fit with the response pattern that Jennifer had developed. There is a deep vein of humour, some of which ought not to be funny. The style is distinctive and I can understand why some people just don’t get along with it. I did find it insightful, although it took a while to engage my attention. 7 out of 10 Starting Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut