A Book Blog 2023 by Books do Furnish a Room

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Whigs and Hunters by E P Thompson

 “We appear to glimpse a declining gentry and yeoman class confronted by incomers with greater command of money and influence, and with a ruthlessness in the use of both”

 

Another offering from one of my favourite historians E P Thompson. This study looks at the origins and effects of The Black Act of 1723, one of the most oppressive pieces of legislation ever passed by the British parliament, massively increasing the number of offences for which the death penalty was prescribed. The background is worth mentioning. Following the death of Queen Anne in 1714, Britain now had a German King from Hanover. There was still strong feeling for the Stuart lineage who had been displaced in 1688 and there had been a Jacobite rebellion in 1715. Jacobite feeling was common, especially in the Catholic community and there were ongoing fears of rebellion. The economic disaster of the South Sea Bubble in 1720 was still close and its effects still being felt. The prime ministerial system was just beginning and Sir Robert Walpole had assumed office in 1721 and was now busily accumulating power and protecting the guilty (his nickname being “Mr Skreenmaster General”) who had benefitted from the collapse. His hold on power was still a little shaky and needed bolstering. Enclosure was proceeding as it had been for many years, removing ancient rights and customs and causing distress and displacement. It was consequently a time of flux.

The Act was a reaction to what was felt to be an increase in lawlessness, mainly in and around the forests. The name Black Act derives from the blacking of the face that poachers used for night time activities to avoid detection. This goes back to the medieval and probably Saxon period so it was not new. The death penalty was now imposable for blacking the face, breaking the heads of fish ponds (to steal the fish), the poaching of deer (especially from Royal parks), the damaging of cattle and horses, the removal of wood from the forests, the damaging of duck ponds, cutting trees, setting fire to hayricks or barns, poaching hares. In fact there were over one hundred new capital offences. The lawlessness that it was meant to counter had complex roots often linked to the removal of previous rights in relation to the land and forest. It involved a number of levels of society from ordinary working folk, to tradespeople to minor members of the gentry and even clergy. For the authorities the fear of Jacobinism was ever present (even when there was no evidence for it). As Thompson points out the legislation was “an astonishing example of legislative overkill” and indicates that crime was now more something done to things rather than people. The use-rights over land were pre-capitalist and had to go to enable the rural economy to “modernise”.

The Act also removed the need for an awkward trial. If someone was accused of offences covered by the Act by sworn statements of credible witnesses, he would become a “proclaimed man”. At that point if he failed to surrender himself after a proclamation was read in two market towns on two market days and affixed on some public place, he could be deemed guilty and sentenced to death without further trial. 

It was a time of change, old manor houses were being replaced by new more stately homes and more formal gardens and Thompson analyses the Act and its working out in some detail going through court and assize records. It’s not an easy read but it’s a proper history book and I found it well worth the effort.

9 out of 10 

Starting Prize for the Fire by Rilla Askew

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The Way of All Flesh by Ambrose Parry

Pastiche Victoriana written by two writers. Chris Brookmyre and his partner Marisa Haetzman. Haetzman has a medical background and there is a fair amount of medical stuff in the novel related to anaesthesia and childbirth. This is set in Edinburgh in 1847 and is a sort of detective (not the police type). Someone is killing young women who want an abortion (which is illegal). It does take about half the book for the two protagonists to work this out, by which time the reader will also have worked out who did it. It’s pretty obvious. The protagonists are Will Raven, an apprentice to James Simpson who is a well-known and respected gynaecologist who specialises in midwifery and Sarah a housemaid in the household. Or as The Guardian puts it a sort of cosplay Mulder and Scully (that made me laugh). There is a good deal about the place of women:

 

‘Sarah occasionally amused herself by dwelling on the notion of herself as a student: what her days would have been like and which subjects she might have liked to study. She had an interest in botany and horticulture, as well as in the traditional healing arts, inherited from her family background. Any time spent in the professor’s study caused her to marvel at all of the myriad disciplines and fields of knowledge one might explore, and the idea of spending whole years doing precisely that seemed heavenly. However, this was a distraction that came at a price, for although it was pleasant to indulge such fantasies, they also forced her to confront the harsh truth. She had not the means to attend university nor any prospect of ever acquiring them. Being female was also an obstacle that she could not easily overcome.’

 

There are lots of red herrings, nicely packaged and fairly obvious, some nicely villainous villains, a fair amount of comment about the place of women and the inequalities, some early photography and a colourful underworld. There are lots of loose ends, but they are all neatly tied up by the end, sometimes in rather unlikely ways. But then this is the first of a series and so things had to be set up.

This is entertaining as far as it goes. The plot revolves around the increasing use of things like ether and chloroform and the means of abortion for the lower orders. I think a good deal of research went into the medical side of things and quite a few of the characters were actual historical persons; Simpson for example and the two photographers. It is certainly formulaic, but seems to be pretty popular. Although it didn’t quite convince me.

6 out of 10

Starting Old Mali and the Boy by D R Sherman

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Old Mali and the boy by D R Sherman

A brief novella, part of a bulk buy of old penguins. This was originally published in 1964. It is set in the India of the Raj, where Sherman was born. It is about a twelve year old boy living with his mother in India and their gardener Mali. Mali is old and meant to be wise. As you may guess it is about the impulsiveness of youth learning from the wisdom of age.

It also reinforces stereotypes and is very masculine. Apparently it was also intended for children to read. I hated this.

The book starts with a brutal example of corporal punishment inflicted on the boy by his headmaster. It follows with a prolonged description of a bear slowly dying in a metal trap. It also includes the shooting of a monkey with an arrow: another slow vividly described death and poor old Mali also ends up in a metal trap. That’s all in about one hundred pages, along with “homespun wisdom” about growing up and becoming a man. There are shades of Kipling and Hemingway as well in the subject matter.

Truly awful

1 out of 10

Starting Essex Dogs by Dan Jones

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Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

“time runs only one way.”

 

This is the first novel I have read by Maggie O’Farrell. This has been popular and prize winning. It came out at the beginning of lockdown and I suspect it was a lockdown read for many. It is the story of Shakespeare’s son Hamnet (aka Hamlet, variations on the same name) who died at the age of eleven. Little is known about Shakespeare’s life and those around him. This gives O’Farrell plenty of scope for a fictional account. It is clear that a good deal of research has gone into this. Hamnet’s cause of death is unknown, but O’Farrell makes it a plague death. Interestingly the main character in the novel is Agnes, Shakespeare’s wife (I know it’s recorded as Anne, but O’Farrell likes to flip things around a bit). He says very little and is generally referred to the Latin Tutor, the father or her husband.

Agnes is pretty much what was known as a “wise woman”, having a sort of second sight. This feels like a bit of a plot device to me:

 

“She fears her foresight; she does. She remembers with ice-cold clarity the image she had of two figures at the foot of the bed where she will meet her end. She now knows that it’s possible, more than possible, that one of her children will die, because children do, all the time. But she will not have it. She will not. She will fill this child, these children, with life. She will place herself between them and the door leading out, and she will stand there, teeth bared, blocking the way. She will defend her three babes against all that lies beyond this world. She will not rest, not sleep, until she knows they are safe. She will push back, fight against, undo the foresight she has always had, about having two children. She will. She knows she can.”

 

The novel is written in the present tense. It is a novel about grief and loss (inevitably). It is also very descriptive, and O’Farrell piles on the words. Here is an example, a description of a forest:

 

“a restless, verdant, inconstant sight: the wind caresses, ruffles, disturbs the mass of leaves; each tree answers to the weather’s ministrations at a slightly different tempo from its neighbour, bending and shuddering and tossing its branches, as if trying to get away from the air, from the very soil that nourishes it”.

 

All very lovely, but after a while it begins to grate. The novel does pick up a bit after Hamnet’s demise.

However there are a few irritations. A number of people have pointed this out, O’Farrell uses her adjectives in threes. Once you know this you can’t unknow it. The quote above has three examples and here is another quote:

 

“The smell, the sight, the colour took her back to a bed soaked red and a room of carnage, of violence, of appalling crimson.”

 

Here’s another one:

 

“The hawking, honey-producing, ale-trading priest will marry them early the next day, in a ceremony arranged quickly, furtively, secretively.”

 

There are adjectives every bloody where! The plot device with the flea also irritated me.

I can understand why this is loved, but not by me. However if you ever need an adjective or two there are loads to choose from here.

 5 out of 10

Starting The Others of Edenwell by Verity Holloway

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The Shutter of Snow by Emily Holmes Coleman

“She and Christopher and the baby went into shifts and coils and clouds, round and round in the same spot. There he was, her father, he came in the door and she didn’t know he was coming. She gave a loud cry to him. He was very tall and he breathed the stream where they had made the dam at the Devil’s Hole.”

Another Virago Modern Classic. This is a novel about a woman (Marthe) who has a breakdown following the birth of her child: “post-partum psychosis”. It describes her time in the institution into which she is admitted and her interactions with staff and other internees. Coleman is writing of what she knows. She spent two months in an institution following the birth of her own child.

“The window was closed and the bars went up and down on the outside. She could hear the wind sliding the snow off the roof. An avalanche of snow gathered and fell and buried the sun beneath. There were six bars to the back of her bed.”

Coleman provides a picture of the daily routines and interactions between different sections of the institution and looks at some of the idiosyncrasies of the other inmates. There is a sense of enclosure of being fenced in and of helplessness:

“She stared at the shining room white with sunlight. Can’t I stay here a little while? I’m sorry, said Dr Halloway, but this room is busy all the time. We had an operation for appendicitis here this morning and we’re expecting a delivery tonight.She was wheeled back, past the man, past the billiard table, down the dark hall, past the piano and into the Day Room. Can’t I stay in the Day Room? She begged, just to look at that flower pot? I will be good, O I will be good.”

Coleman wrote a great deal, but this was her only novel. She does document the effects of physical confinement rather well. At the time (1930) it was certainly experimental. It is another exploration of the “madwoman”, but this time not from Victorian literature, rather modernist. As it can be described as a modernist novel, it has an element of experimentation and uses stream of consciousness to some extent. Coleman uses punctuation (or more particularly lack of it) to make the reader feel like they are in Marthe’s head.

Marte’s relationship with her body changes throughout the novel as she becomes more at ease with it. There is an awful lot of bathing in the novel as well and its nature seems to chart the trajectory of the illness:

“Marthe danced lifting her legs and leaning to the spray. Brunmark bent to the turning of her bright nickel spigots, leaned to hold the hose that rushed at Marthe’s spinal column, played it up and down the middle of her back, holding her out and erect like a stone majesty. Brunmark’s cap fell to one side and she shifted her feet to the changing of the waters. Dance dance Brunmark, throw away your cap and dance. Come out from under your stiff legs and float about the spray.”

There is a sort of movement in the nature of the way Marthe moves throughout the novel as well. One of the lessons of the novel is the importance of persistence as a way of being empowered and fighting back.

It’s an interesting novel, the whole is a little disjointed and for me felt a little too short, but it’s worth looking at.

7 out of 10

Starting The Vanishing Half by Britt Bennett

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The Manningtree Witches by A K Blakemore

“I wish freely to embrace the deliciousness of sin. To sin with abandon is, after all, the only prerogative of the damned.”

“Witch is just their nasty word for anyone who makes things happen, who moves the story along”.

“No-one actually wishes to see a woman hung, her skirts soaking with wee and throat’s blood frothing on sackcloth. It is a horrible thing. Not amusing anymore. Or do they?”

This is a historical novel, based on actual events. It is set in the Essex village of Manningtree during the early 1640s (1643-1647), the time of the Civil War. As a result there are a limited number of men in the village: they are fighting and dying in the Civil War. One man who is there is Matthew Hopkins, remembered by history by his nickname, “Witchfinder General”. The novel focuses on a group of women in and near the village.

The novel also feels remarkably modern. A situation where society is destabilised and women face violence. Those who do not conform are scapegoated and persecuted.

“When women think alone, they think evil”

The characterisation is very good. Hopkins in particular is believable and the place of Puritanism is also central. It reminded me a little of Miller’s The Crucible, which of course was an attack on McCarthyism, but this was written by a woman. Witch hunts have been seen as the end of medieval superstition as the Enlightenment begins, but it has been argued they are actually part of modernisation along with enclosure, the growth of workhouses and so on. There was also a new conception of the role of women which did not fit with the older “wise women” and medieval thought patterns. Again Puritanism was part of this.

Blakemore started as a poet and her prose is very good: her descriptions spot on. Especially in relation to the sight, sounds and smells of everyday life:

“the air is sour with the smack of horse-dung and sweet with the smells of cooking lard and onions.”

Sometimes though the words do carry the author away a little:

“While marching orders and tactical directives deliquesce on the brumal winds, the pyrotechnics of imminent apocalypse shimmer just as rosily on the ice-bound horizon as they ever did.”

Despite the occasional bit of wordiness I think this is one of the better books in this genre. It works as a historical novel and as a piece of gothic. It reiterates the nature of male violence which is showing no signs of going away.

8 and a half out of 10

Starting In Two Minds by Alis Hawkins

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Essex Dogs by Dan Jones

Dan Jones is a historian who writes about the Middle Ages; he’s written a book on the Crusades amongst others. He has also been discovered by TV and has fronted a few history programmes. However to give you an example of his current oeuvre he is currently presently Sex: A bonkers history for SKY with Amanda Holden!! Enough said.

This is set in 1346 during the Hundred Years War and involves an English army landing in Normandy in the weeks prior to the battle of Crecy. The novel follows a group of men from Essex known as the Essex Dogs. There is a great deal of earthy Anglo-Saxon language often interlinked with some rather colourful religious imagery. So not for the easily offended. Jones had the idea for a novel about a group of men at war. The story goes that Jones was having dinner with George R R Martin when the idea took shape. So are there shades of Game of Thrones? Especially as Game of Thrones has also been compared to The Hundred Years War. Well, there are some comparisons, but this doesn’t have complexity or the range.

I struggled with the characterisation. The plot took care of itself as there was a series of historical events to hang it on. Some of the characterisation is over the top. At times it felt a bit like a cross between Blackadder, Robin Hood’s merry man and a bunch of English lads drinking in Ibiza. With plenty of fighting and gore thrown in.

Jones said he wanted to create a medieval Saving Private Ryan; he hasn’t. There is plenty of humour and action., but it wasn’t for me.

4 and a half out of 10

Starting Promethean Horrors: Classic stories of mad science

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The Others of Edenwell by Verity Holloway

I was pleasantly surprised by this one. It doesn’t seem to have had the hype that some others in this genre have had, but on the whole it’s better. It is more a historical novel with a gothic/horror edge to it. It is set in 1917 in Norfolk in the First World War. The setting is what was known as a Hydropathic (water therapy) in the Norfolk Breckland. The main protagonist is Alfred Ferry (Freddie), seventeen year old son of the grounds keeper. He has a heart condition and so cannot be called up. He also is able to communicate with birds, especially the rooks, magpies and jackdaws in the woods around the Hydropathic. There is a presence stalking the woods: that’s the horror part. It’s not obvious and develops slowly over the novel. There is also a mixed selection of staff and residents. Into this comes Eustace Moncrieff, also seventeen, sent by an overprotective mother. Eustace and Freddie develop a relationship. Into the equation come wounded soldiers for recuperation. It’s actually a lot better than I’ve made it sound.

The scene setting and characterisation are very good. There is a bit of unobtrusive romance (M/M), the tension is developed well and builds over the novel. The relationship to the war is complex for all the characters. There is a bit of art, archaeology, poetry as well as a well told story.

9 out of 10

Starting Swastika Nights by Katherine Burdekin

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The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

“She hadn't realized how long it takes to become somebody else, or how lonely it can be living in a world not meant for you.”

I liked this a bit better than I expected, especially given the comparisons to Larsen’s Passing. Even the phrase “multi-generational saga” didn’t entirely put me off. It moves from the 1940s to the 1990s and is centred on twins Stella and Desiree. They are raised in a fictional Louisiana town (Mallard) which was set up after the end of slavery for light skinned blacks. They are both light skinned but that doesn’t stop their father being lynched and their mother cleaning for local white families. At sixteen they run away to New Orleans. They end up separating and Stella lives her life passing as white and loses touch with the rest of her family.

“In New Orleans, Stella split in two. She didn’t notice it at first because she’d been two people her whole life: she was herself and she was Desiree. The twins, beautiful and rare, were never called the girls, only the twins, as if it were a formal title. She’d always thought of herself as part of this pair, but in New Orleans she splintered into a new woman altogether.”

 Desiree does not and eventually returns to her home town. The novel continues to follow the fortunes of their children: each has a daughter.

The novel also addresses issues like domestic abuse, secret keeping, transphobia, racial identity and bigotry as well as the old trope of twins. It’s written in the omniscient voice and moves between the characters. It was also good to have a trans character behaving like a normal human being and just a part of a bigger story.

“The hardest part about becoming someone else was deciding to. The rest was only logistics.”

This has been described as a historical novel and I suppose it is. Despite the fact I have been alive for a large part of the time period of the novel: now I do feel old!! The dialogue flows well and it is well written, with good momentum. A brief summary of this doesn’t do it justice because it’s quite complex in terms of plot and character. It’s really about how people change and how they stay the same. The TV rights have been bought by HBO.

“That was the thrill of youth, the idea that you could be anyone. That was what had captured her in the charm shop, all those years ago. Then adulthood came, your choices solidifying, and you realize that everything you are had been set in motion years before. The rest was aftermath.”

7 out of 10

Starting The Wild Geese by Bridget Boland

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Promethean Horrors: Classic stories of mad science edited by Mike Ashley

This is another in the British Library Tales of the Weird series. This one concerns a particular trope, a favourite of horror and supernatural writers: the scientist who really just doesn’t know when to stop. A key figure in tales of the gothic. Of course this all started with the Faust story, selling one’s soul to the devil for unlimited knowledge.
There’s no Faust here but there are stories from Mary Shelley, E T A Hoffmann, Hawthorne, Poe, Stevenson, L T Meade, Nesbit, Auguste Villiers de L’isle-Adam, Lovecraft and George Langelaan. The oldest story dates back to around 1815 and the most modern is from the 1950s. That is The Fly which has spawned a number of films. Some of these border on alchemy, especially the Shelley, which looks at the search for eternal youth. There are body snatchers, experiments with what happens to a mind immediately after the guillotine, heightened senses, contacting the beyond and more.
Again they are a mixed bunch, but on the whole they are well worth reading and it was good to read The Fly, after having seen the films.

7 out of 10 

Starting From the depths and other strange tales of the sea.

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Swastika Nights by Katharine Burdekin

“Unshakable, impregnable Empire has always been the dream of virile nations, and now at last it's turned into a nightmare reality. A monster that is killing us.”

This is an unusual one. It is a dystopia concerning Germany winning the war. Nothing unusual there. However it was written in 1937 before the war began. Over ten years before 1984. There are also shades of The Handmaids Tale. The author, Katharine Burdekin was a pacifist, lesbian, communist and feminist. She wrote this under the pseudonym of Murray Constantine. It was not until the 1980s that she was reconnected with her work (she died in 1963). It was Daphne Patai who rediscovered her identity:

"Though Burdekin’s feminist critique appears in her realistic fiction and even in her children’s book, she excelled above all in the creation of utopian fiction, and the special vantage point afforded by the imaginative leap into other ‘societies’ resulted in her two most important books: Swastika Night (1937) and Proud Man (1934). When these novels first appeared, contemporary reviewers tended to miss Burdekin’s important critique of what we today call gender ideology and sexual politics, though on occasion they noted her feminist sympathies, which, indeed, led some to guess that ‘Murray Constantine’ was a woman. With this reprint of Swastika Night, Burdekin’s works may finally begin to find their audience.”

The setting is seven hundred years in the future. Germany rules all of Europe and Africa. The Japanese rule Asia, Australia and the Americas. The Jews have been completely eliminated and all other races are subject. There is a sort of feudal system in place, all books have been destroyed, Hitler is now Divine and portrayed as a blonde blue-eyed Aryan with superhuman powers. All pictures and records are destroyed: Nazism is a form of state religion. Christianity survives as the religion of an outcast class. Women are totally subjugated, rape is legal and all hair is shaved off. Homosexuality is the norm between men. Women live together apart from men, except for breeding purposes. They do everything separately and the subjugation is total.

“The human values of this world are masculine. There are no feminine values because there are no women.”

The two main characters are Hermann and Alfred. Hermann is a German Nazi. Alfred is an Englishman and so a subject. He is on a pilgrimage to the German holy places. The other principal character is Von Hess a local Knight, who are the effective rulers of Germany. The only books available are manuals and oddly technology has not advanced. There are problems in the Empire because too many boys are being born. There is a hierarchy:

God the Thunderer, equal with Hitler, who is the son of God and whose birth was miraculous.

The current Führer

An inner ring of ten Knights, descendants of the Knights created by Hitler.

Other Knights

German men

Nazi men of other nationalities

Other foreigners

Women

Christians

 

It is a bleak novel, a complete dystopia. The characters are insubstantial and are used to provide exposition and philosophising. It is misogynist in the extreme and the hope at the end is very small.

There are many holes in this but it is interesting as a dystopia and almost certainly the first “what if Germany won the war?” novel. It is an exploration of the cult of masculinity. Incidentally Burdekin also wrote as a companion piece in 1940, “Venus in Scorpio” which portrays a society where the women are entirely in control and men totally subjugated.

Despite its faults and some interminable philosophising this is an interesting period piece.

7 out of 10

Starting Travellers by Helon Habila

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Independent People by Halldor Laxness

“But he could not help it. No one can help it. One is a realist. One has put up with it all ever since childhood; one has had the courage to look it full in the eye, possibly courage enough to look it in the eye all one's life long. Then one day the distances beckon with their floating possibilities, and in one's hands are the admission tickets, two slips of blue paper. One is a realist no longer. One has finished putting up with it all, one no longer has the courage to look it in the eye, one is in the power of beckoning hospitable distances, floating possibilities, perhaps forever afterwards. Perhaps one's life is over.”

Another Nobel laureate and my first foray into Icelandic fiction. It is set in the early twentieth century before during and after the First World War. Laxness has created one of the most irritating and annoying protagonists in literature Bjartur of Summerhouses. Yet you can find yourself rooting for him and his and hoping he will be less stubborn. He is a practical and impoverished, yet independent sheep farmer. Living in a farmhouse with a turf roof: animals on the ground floor and a common room above. Bjartur wants to be independent and beholden to no one.

Laxness is a keen observer of human nature with a dry and rather sardonic sense of humour.

“The life of man is so short that ordinary people simply cannot afford to be born”

During the novel Bjartur marries and loses two wives and several children. There are the challenges of disease, poverty, the weather, the landscape, the lure of America and death. Bjartur remains unbending and cantankerous through it all.

There’s interesting stuff about workers cooperatives and rather sinister bankers and capitalists as well. Laxness managed to get a reputation as a socialist author as well: so much so that he was “blacklisted” by the US in the 1950s. Laxness also has a reputation for being a naturalist author in the vein of Zola or Steinbeck. He can certainly write well about the landscape and the world around his characters:

“And when the spring breezes blow up the valley; when the spring sun shines on last year’s withered grass on the river banks; and on the lake; and on the lake’s two white swans; and coaxes the new grass out of the spongy soil in the marshes – who could believe on such a day that this peaceful, grassy valley brooded over the story of our past; and over its spectres?”

There are plenty of references to Icelandic folklore and mythology’

It is also a critique of the sort of rugged individualism that is much prized these days. This is a great novel: although it is a twentieth century novel, it does almost feel like a Victorian novel with a central character, that, whatever you think of him, can’t be ignored.

“Size isn’t everything by any means,” he said aloud to the dog, as if suspecting her of entertaining high ideas. “Take my word for it, freedom is of more account than the height of a roof beam. I ought to know; mine cost me eighteen years’ slavery. The man who lives on his own land is an independent man. He is his own master. If I can keep my sheep alive through the winter and can pay what has been stipulated from year to year–then I pay what has been stipulated; and I have kept my sheep alive. No, it is freedom that we are all after, Titla. He who pays his way is a king. He who keeps his sheep alive through the winter lives in a palace.” 

9 out of 10

Starting Party Wall by Stevie Davies

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Prize for the Fire by Rilla Askew

This is a historical novel about Anne Askew, a Protestant martyr burnt at the stake for her faith in 1546 at the age of 25. She is one of only two women known to have been tortured in the Tower of London. Askew was born in Lincolnshire and was married at fifteen. It was an unhappy marriage. Her husband was a Catholic and at one point he threw her out because of her faith. She reverted back to her own name whilst in London. She was prominent among the more radical Protestant reformers for her knowledge of the scriptures and as a preacher: most unusual for a woman. Inevitably all this got her into trouble as Henry was at that time rowing back on reform in order to try and work out a treaty with the Emperor. Askew is also one of the earliest known female poets who wrote in English. Her own account of her examinations by prominent clerics is renowned for the way in which she wound them in knots verbally. Those who compiled lists of prominent Protestant martyrs (Bale and Foxe) toned down her responses in their accounts as they felt it wouldn’t do to portray a woman as so forward.

The novel itself builds on the historical account and it is interesting to see some of those who appear in Mantel’s novels (Richard Rich, Gardiner and Wriothesley for example) popping up here a few years later. There is a local interest for me as it is set in parts in Lincolnshire: the fens and North and South Kelsey. There are sections in Lincoln itself on streets that I know.

Askew has played this novel about her namesake fairly safely. She has built on the bare bones, added a few characters (particularly Beatrice the maid), but it seems to be a faithful account. Given the subject matter it may well be taken up by faith groups, as indeed Askew has been over the centuries.

It’s an interesting account, certainly not up to Mantel’s standards, but it sheds light on a lesser character in the Tudor backdrop.

6 and a half out of 10

Starting Captain Swing by Thompson and Rude

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From the depths and other strange tales of the sea edited by Mike Ashley

"...the sea is another world and one of which we should be wary."

Another collection from the British Library Tales of the Weird, this time based on the seas and oceans and those who sail on them. There are fifteen in all and the focus is on lesser known writers. The only ones I was aware of were William Hope Hodgson and Elinor Morduant. The editor took these stories mainly from magazines of the period. The settings are mainly late Victorian and early to mid twentieth century. There are some of the usual tropes: abandoned ships, ships seeking revenge, a couple based around the Sargasso Sea, one with a sea monster, haunted ships, more revenge and some that are variously bizarre and inexplicable.

The standard does vary. There is one about spiritualism which is truly awful. There are three which do stand out. Devereux’s last smoke is a classic ghost story written by Izola Forrester, allegedly the grand-daughter of John Wilkes Booth. No Ships Pass by Eleanor Smith is a variant on an afterlife story which is quite interesting. It is also quite striking that this story has a very similar plot to the TV series Lost (although written in the 1930s). The best story in the book is the oddest: The Soul Saver by Morgan Burke and that one is bizarre. Watch out for the psychotic parrot in the first story! 

7 out of 10

Starting Holy Ghosts: Classic Tales of the Ecclesiastical Uncanny edited by Fiona Snailham

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In Two Minds by Alis Hawkins

This is the second in Hawkin’s Teifi Valley Coroner series, set in Wales in the mid nineteenth century. The setting is around Pembrokeshire, Cardiganshire and Carmarthenshire. The main protagonists continue in this novel. Harry is the young lawyer who is going blind and has had to return to his father’s estate in Wales and decide what to do with his life. Following the first novel he is appointed acting coroner until there can be an election. John is still the trusty sidekick, literally Harry’s eyes. He is acting coroner’s assistant, although still officially a solicitor’s clerk. He is concerned about his future and whether he will have one working for Harry.

There is a good combination of history and detective mystery. There were emigration schemes for people to move to the US like the fictitious one in the novel. The author is a Welsh speaker and so the people and place names are accurate and authentic. The author has also done her research into anatomy, physiology and autopsy.  

I felt this was definitely better than the first in the series. The relationship between Harry and John is developing and the minor characters were all well developed. There were sufficient red herrings and clues to satisfy those into detective novels.

7 and a half out of 10

Starting The Children of Gods and Fighting Men by Shauna Lawless

[Books do furnish a room]

The Wild Geese by Bridget Boland

Another find from Virago. This is an epistolary novel set in Ireland, running from 1733 to 1746. Bridget Boland was an Irish playwright, screenwriter and occasional novelist. She was a screenwriter on such films as Gaslight, War and Peace and Anne of a Thousand Days. This novel was written in 1938 when she was twenty-five. She reflected on her life in the 1980s:

"Although I hold a British passport I am in fact Irish, and the daughter of an Irish politician at that, which may account for a certain contrariness in my work. Many playwrights have become screenwriters; so I was a screenwriter and became a playwright. Most women writers excel on human stories in domestic settings: so I am bored by domestic problems, and allergic to domestic settings. I succeed best with heavy drama.”

The novel follows the fortunes of the Kinross family: brothers Brendan and Maurice and sister Catherine. They are a Catholic family and are therefore not allowed to own their own land because of the Penal Laws. The land is held for them by their Protestant cousins (the Ahearne family). The background to the novel is the ongoing struggle of the Jacobites against the British throne. The title refers to the flow of young men from Ireland who went to France to school and to join continental regiments. Boland portrays the tensions and stresses put upon Irish Catholics. This is pre famine, although there are still years when there is a dearth. There is exploration of the political situation. There is also a deal of young men being young men. The epistolary structure of the novel makes it interesting, but it also limits the focus as well. It’s an easy read which I enjoyed despite some limitations.

6 and a half out of 10

Starting Diary of a Provincial Lady by E M Delafield

[Books do furnish a room]

Travellers by Helon Habila

“Not all of us have that luxury, of a past. My history doesn't offer me much in that respect.”

““Are you traveling in Europe?” he asked. I caught the odd phrasing. Of course I was traveling in Europe, but I understood he meant something else; he wanted to know the nature of my relationship to Europe, if I was passing through or if I had a more permanent and legal claim to Europe. A black person’s relationship with Europe would always need qualification—he or she couldn’t simply be native European, there had to be an origin explanation.”

This is a novel split into six interlinked stories. It is about refugees in Europe and those migrating to Europe. The first part is “One Year in Berlin”. It concerns a Nigerian student completing his PhD (not named). He   becomes friendly with a group of protesters, one of whom is Mark from Malawi, a trans man, who is “out of status” and in danger of being deported. He also meets Manu, a Libyan doctor working as a bouncer. He is looking for his wife and child who may have been lost in a boat crossing the Mediterranean. The second part, “Checkpoint Charlie” follows Manu as he goes to Checkpoint Charlie each Sunday, the appointed meeting place with his wife and child. Part three is entitled “Basel”. Here Portia, a Zambian student, daughter of a dissident poet, sets off with the narrator in part one to visit and speak to the woman who married and then killed her brother. In “The Interpreters” (4), Karim narrates his flight through Yemen, Syria and Turkey, into a Bulgarian jail whilst trying to protect his sons. Part five, “The Sea” tells the story of a woman crossing the Mediterranean in a small boat which sinks: she ends up on the island of Lampedusa with amnesia. In the final part (Hunger) the narrator from part one and Portia are in London. They meet Juma, an asylum seeker on hunger strike who is on the run from immigration officials.

Habila is a great story teller and this is a good book. It tells stories about the human flotsam and jetsam who move around and through Europe. We see migrants as strangers excluded from belonging (“Even in Berlin I miss Berlin”). In the novel the Med is a liquid frontier, but it is porous and permeable and a place where many nationalities intersect and interrelate. There are a number of borders: Checkpoint Charlie is another. It is no longer the dividing line between East and West, more a tourist attraction. However, it represents possibility and Habila plays with Derrida’s notion of “democracy to come” whilst narrating an awful present.

There are literary references everywhere, plenty of Shakespeare. Milton’s plea not to leave Lycidas “unwept” (unmourned) is now a plea not to leave unmourned all those lost in the Mediterranean. Arnold’s “On Dover Beach” is reimagined from The Jungle in Calais. Flaubert, Dostoyevsky and Eliot’s Wasteland are also referenced.

“As far as they were concerned, all of Africa was one huge Gulag archipelago, and every African poet or writer living outside Africa has to be in exile from dictatorship.”

Great storytellers can tell heart-rending stories and at the same time make their point in a way that even good journalism cannot.

9 out of 10

Starting The House at Sea's End by Elly Griffiths

[Books do furnish a room]

Diary of a Provincial Lady by E M Delafield

“January 22nd.—Customary painful situation between Bank and myself necessitates expedient, also customary, of pawning great-aunt's diamond ring, which I do, under usual conditions, and am greeted as old friend by Plymouth pawnbroker, who says facetiously, And what name will it be this time?"”

I’ve been aware of this for years, probably decades and I have a virago edition (inevitably}, with a rather gushing introduction by Jilly Cooper. Delafield was a minor novelist who was asked by the editor of Time and Tide to produce a regular column, something slightly comic that could be described as “light middles”. Delafield remains a minor novelist, but this has never been out of print. It is in diary form and is narrated by a women in her mid-30s with a husband and two children. The family are middle to upper middle class with servants and periodic slight financial embarrassment. It is a mildly sarcastic internal monologue. And so it begins:

 

“November 7th. Plant the indoor bulbs. Just as I am in the middle of them, Lady Boxe calls. I say, untruthfully, how nice to see her, and beg her to sit down while I just finish the bulbs. Lady B makes determined attempt to sit down in armchair where I have already placed two bulb-bowls and the bag of charcoal, is headed off just in time, and takes the sofa.

Do I know, she asks, how very late it is for indoor bulbs?”

 

It is all pretty domestic and sedentary with concerns that will not relate to most people. Managing servants and a French Nanny being one example. There is also a monosyllabic husband, who never listens to his wife, a selection of village worthies who constitute a social circle, two boisterous children and a variety of friends. There are occasional trips to London and one to the South of France. It’s all set in Devon:

 

“Tea is brought in – superior temporary’s afternoon out, and Cook has, as usual, carried out favourite labour-saving device of three sponge-cakes and one bun jostling one another on the same plate – and we talk about Barbara and Crosbie Carruthers, bee-keeping, modern youth, and difficulty of removing oil stains from carpets. Have I, asks Our Vicar’s Wife, read A Brass Hat in No Man’s Land? No, I have not. Then, she says, don’t, on any account. There are so many sad and shocking things in life as it is, that writers should confine themselves to the bright, the happy, and the beautiful. This the author of A Brass Hat has entirely failed to do. It subsequently turns out that Our Vicar’s Wife has not read the book herself, but that Our Vicar has skimmed it, and declared it to be very painful and unnecessary. (Memo.: Put Brass Hat down for Times Book Club list, if not already there.)”

 

It was and is much loved and was a sort of Bridget Jones Diary of its day. There are four books in all. It portrays a particular lifestyle that has disappeared. There are periodic references to popular books of the day and everyone is rude about Woolf and Proust.

 

“Am asked what I think of Harriet Hume but am unable to say, as I have not read it. Have a depressed feeling that this is going to be another case of Orlando about which was perfectly able to talk most intelligently until I read it, and found myself unfortunately unable to understand any of it.”

 

Generally I don’t mind books with little plot where not a great deal happens. It’s a poorer (fiscally) version of Downton Abbey without the drama and with mild sarcasm. It’s all pretty shallow and insubstantial: and did I mention that a number of kittens are drowned in the course of the book (by the husband). I didn’t really enjoy or appreciate this.

5 out of 10

Starting Letters from Constance by Mary Hocking

 

[poppy]

I really enjoyed her books, found them humorous and quite witty. Certainly not high-brow stuff but an entertaining read 😊

[France]

8 hours ago, poppy said:

I really enjoyed her books, found them humorous and quite witty. Certainly not high-brow stuff but an entertaining read 😊

I agree. I think that why they are still in print and gather new readers continually is that the world she describes may have changed radically but the type of person she describes has not. Lady Boxe may belong to the past but her modern equivalent of the wealthy personage who assumes they have a  right to dominate is alive and kicking. And the comments about books are timeless!

 

[Books do furnish a room]

Holy Ghosts: Tales of the Ecclesiastical Uncanny

“The past seems so close here …”

Another in the British Library Tales of the Weird series. These stories were published between 1851 and 1935. The authors are Sheridan Le Fanu, Mrs Henry Wood, Elizabeth Gaskell (contributing a novella), E. Nesbit, Amelia Edwards, Ada Buisson, Robert Hichens, Edith Wharton, Margeurite Merington, M R James (inevitably) and John Wyndham.

The stories vary in type and quality. There are ghost stories, some that are just plain weird, some that are sinister with evil clerics and one novella. I had read one or two before and the M R James tale is one of his better known ones. In a number of these the Church is not the place of sanctuary it often is, but is a place of danger. There are plenty of twists and scares with the evil sometimes getting their comeuppance, but sometimes not. The stories are variable. The briefest and last by Wyndham is one of the most effective and the M R James is a classic. The one by Merington is much weaker. The novella by Gaskell is rather fragmented, but the open ending helps.

A good selection of Victorian classic ghost/supernatural stories.

7 out of 10

Starting The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson

[Books do furnish a room]

The Party Wall by Stevie Davies

‘You can never tell people what happened. What happened is locked up inside, there is no way in and no way out.’

This is a brilliant exposition of how coercive control can work by one of my favourite authors, Stevie Davies. The Party Wall in question is the dividing wall between two homes. There are two principal characters Mark Heyward and Freya Fox. At the beginning of the book Freya’s partner Keir is dying of cancer. He is an artist. Mark is their next door neighbour on one side. He is a museum curator, very intelligent and erudite, living alone. We spend half the time in Mark’s head and half in Freya’s.

The reader, fairly early on, begins to gradually realise that Mark is not all he seems. He is helpful and supportive to Freya following Keir’s death. He even speaks eloquently at the funeral:

‘Our neighbour, Keir,’ Mark said, with expressive feeling. ‘We speak a name, don’t we?’  he paused.  ‘And a person answers.  From now on, when we name Keir nobody will respond. But souls live on – and here I am quoting the great George Eliot – souls live on in perpetual echoes.’’

Mark has secrets which become clearer as the book goes on. What happened to his first wife, Viola player Lily? Why is he living where he is rather than his real home Ty Hafan (this is set in Wales)? Who is the woman living in Ty Hafan? Mark very quickly sees Freya as his future, a central part of his life. Freya trusts him and he has a spare key to her house. This enables him to go in when she isn’t there and collect small mementoes. Freya only very slowly begins to realise what Mark’s real intentions are. It’s a difficult read as the reader does see what is going on in Mark’s head and the delusional nature of it. There are flashbacks to his childhood and his earlier relationships and the pieces are put slowly together. There is an element of psychological thriller about this.

Up to now Stevie Davies has never disappointed and this is another great novel. If you want a non-theoretical exposition of coercive control, then look at this novel and the character Davies has created.  

9 and a half out of 10

Starting A Hero of Our Time by Lermontov

[Books do furnish a room]

Letters from Constance by Mary Hocking

First time reading Mary Hocking: thanks again to Virago. This is an epistolary novel. Hocking was in the WRNS during the war, eventually becoming a full time writer. The letters in this novel are one sided, between Constance and her friend Sheila. The reader only sees the letters from Constance to Sheila, the letters stretch from 1939 until the mid-1980s. Constance and Sheila meet in the 1930s at school and so the novel covers most of their lives.

They are very different women and their lives take different courses: we see loves, children, grandchildren, jobs, marriages, happiness and sorrow. There is periodic comment on the times from the 1945 general election through, Suez, the 1960s and into the 1980s. As Constance is married to an Irishman the Troubles play a significant part as well. The changing role of women can be observed over the years:

“This was your day. My mother had come to see old Addiscombe. I never can persuade her to give up hoping for academic success for me. She feels she owes it to Daddy’s memory to squeeze every opportunity dry. According to her, she said – I squirm as I write this – ‘If Sheila Douglas can get into Cambridge, I can’t understand why Constance shouldn’t be accepted. After all her father was a doctor.’
The reply, which I hope pleases you, was ‘Sheila Douglas is a quite exceptionally gifted girl for whom we have great hopes. One of her poems has been commended by Walter de la Mare, who is a friend of the chairman of the Governors.’ Later in the conversation she said, and one can imagine the glacial smile which accompanied the words, ‘Constance is amusing, but she has no mind. She will get married.’

That snippet was from the 1930s!

The lives contrast. Constance has seven children whilst Sheila becomes an acclaimed poet. There are the usual ups and downs of life: a certain level of humour and also some poignancy.

On the whole I did enjoy this. The one-sidedness was a bit of an issue and the frequent gaps were noticeable. I was a little reminded of the novelist Elizabeth Taylor. There is a certain amount of charm to this, a portrait of a friendship. The pace is slow and there is lots about the children. I may read more, but not too soon.

7 out of 10

Starting Anderby Wold by Winifred Holtby

[Books do furnish a room]

The Children of Gods and Fighting Men by Shauna Lawless

A debut novel: a historical/fantasy novel based on the history and myths of tenth century Ireland, the first in a series. This was a time of great flux and tension. Viking raids were still occurring. Christianity and paganism were still battling it out, with Christianity in the ascendant. As always there was rivalry and contention between the various kings in Ireland: Dublin, Leinster, Munster to name a few and kings vie to be the high king. The various significant players are all historical figures. So there is a built in plot structure. Lawless also makes use of two mythical races; the Fomorians and the Tuatha De Danann. They are known as immortals, although in this case their life span is several hundred years. The Fomorians use fire magic and the Tuatha De Danaan are sworn to destroy them. They have a variety of gifts.

The novel follows two characters. Gormflaith, a Fomorian, widow of the king of Dublin trying to ensure future power for her son. Fodla a Tuatha de Danann and a healer, sent on a mission to get close to Brian Boru, then King of Munster. The storyline alternates between the two. There’s plenty of plotting, tension, double-crossing, match-making and what you would expect of a decent historical novel.

It is well written and well-paced with plenty of loose threads for follow on novels. The fantasy and historical elements seem to be well intertwined and so it reads well too. It was interesting to learn about a part of Irish history I knew only a little about.

7 out of 10

Starting The Shape of Darkness by Laura Purcell

[lunababymoonchild]

2 hours ago, Books do furnish a room said:

The Children of Gods and Fighting Men by Shauna Lawless

A debut novel: a historical/fantasy novel based on the history and myths of tenth century Ireland, the first in a series. This was a time of great flux and tension. Viking raids were still occurring. Christianity and paganism were still battling it out, with Christianity in the ascendant. As always there was rivalry and contention between the various kings in Ireland: Dublin, Leinster, Munster to name a few and kings vie to be the high king. The various significant players are all historical figures. So there is a built in plot structure. Lawless also makes use of two mythical races; the Fomorians and the Tuatha De Danann. They are known as immortals, although in this case their life span is several hundred years. The Fomorians use fire magic and the Tuatha De Danaan are sworn to destroy them. They have a variety of gifts.

The novel follows two characters. Gormflaith, a Fomorian, widow of the king of Dublin trying to ensure future power for her son. Fodla a Tuatha de Danann and a healer, sent on a mission to get close to Brian Boru, then King of Munster. The storyline alternates between the two. There’s plenty of plotting, tension, double-crossing, match-making and what you would expect of a decent historical novel.

It is well written and well-paced with plenty of loose threads for follow on novels. The fantasy and historical elements seem to be well intertwined and so it reads well too. It was interesting to learn about a part of Irish history I knew only a little about.

7 out of 10

Starting The Shape of Darkness by Laura Purcell

Just bought this, right up my street!