A Book Blog 2024 by Books do Furnish a Room

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Testament of Friendship by Vera Brittain

“From the days of Homer the friendships of men have enjoyed glory and acclamation, but the friendships of women, in spite of Ruth and Naomi, have usually been not merely unsung, but mocked, belittled and falsely interpreted.”

 

This is Vera Brittain’s follow up to Testament of Youth. It is an account of her friendship with the novelist Winifred Holtby. They shared a residence for many years (even after Brittain’s marriage) until Holtby’ premature death in 1935. It is a sort of biography in that it also covers the period of her life before she met Brittain. There are also descriptions of Holtby’s trip to South Africa, one where Brittain was not present. This was written in 1939 and published in 1940, so the shadow of war is again present. Each chapter starts with one of Holtby’s poems. She was a poet and a prolific journalist as well as a novelist. In addition she was a regular public speaker for causes she supported: women’s issues, poverty, , justice and especially pacifism and the League of Nations.

I am a fan of Holtby: I loved South Riding and I’ve also read Anderby Wold. I have some of her others in virago paperback. Holtby is therefore someone I was interested in and I was aware of her feminism and her work for socialist causes. She also became involved in the race question in South Africa, which didn’t make her popular in some circles in that country. She also had the ability to see the link between causes:

 

At camp one night in the Transvaal, she had heard two black servants teaching each other to read from a child’s exercise book. But wherever she went, the white people whom she met talked to her pessimistically about the native question. They told her that higher education was bad for natives and gave them ideas and undermined their loyalty; that political power was unsuited to natives, since they were not ready for it; that segregation and the Colour Bar and the disenfranchisement of the black men in the Cape were necessary for the preservation of white civilization and the safety of white women and the happiness of the home.

“Sometimes, as Winifred meditated on these statements, they seemed to have a familiar ring. Suddenly, one day in Pretoria, she realised why. In her mind she began to substitute the noun “women” for the noun “natives,” and found that these fiercely held, passionately declared sentiments of white South Africa coincided almost word for word with the old arguments in England against women’s enfranchisement, women’s higher education, and women’s entry into skilled employment. She even perceived–as Olive Schreiner had perceived before her–a close relationship between the two forms of subjection . . . .”

 

The first volume in this trilogy is much more well known and for good reason. This isn’t as powerful as Testament of Youth and there is a narrower focus, but Holtby is an interesting character and this is a moving portrait of a friendship. Holtby’s struggles with her health and her political struggles and how she managed to do what she did despite her failing health in the last few years are inspirational.

8 out of 10

Starting The House in Dormer Forest by Mary Webb

 

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The Saints of Salvation by Peter Hamilton

“Human civilization is always regulated, Del. It’s how it maintains itself, the eternal balance between freedom and authority. We all live in the middle, obeying the rules for the common good.”
I’ve actually finished a sci-fi trilogy: I think my first. Many of the characters from the first two are here as well, although inevitably a few are killed off. Hamilton leads a number of loose ends, so I suspect that he may revisit the world at a later date. Hamilton clearly enjoys playing around with ideas and concepts. He has done it with gender and in this one he does it with the nature of time with a number of clever ideas. He manages the two main storylines well and brings them together at the end. Quite a neat trick as they start out several thousand years apart. The whole novel spans twenty thousand years in all.
There is lots of speculative technology and the book is full of passages like this:
“The Signal transmitter vehicles were the best stealth technology Kruse Station could devise, combining human and Neána technology. The development team had utilized the concept employed by the Neána insertion ship to produce spheres four meters in diameter with a matte black body that was totally light absorbent. Internal heat sinks meant they maintained an ambient thermal profile, and their systems were shielded to prevent any electromagnetic emission. Instead of a gravitonic drive, they had an external layer of active molecular blocks, which meant the entire fuselage was a rocket motor with an exhaust of cold neutral atoms, which left only the faintest of traces. In theory, it should be no different from a gust of solar wind particles.”
All perfectly clear! Seriously though, if you don’t like speculative fiction, avoid this.
Hamilton also manages to give the antagonists (the Olyix) all the worst aspects of humanity. Which, of course, gives a good deal away about Hamilton himself as they are essentially religious fundamentalist fascists who are doing what they do for love and the good of everyone else, whether they like it or not.

8 out of 10

Starting Great Uncle Harry by Michael Palin

[poppy]

Sounds a very interesting read. I, too, enjoyed South Riding, although I read it a long time ago now. Have always meant to read Testament of Youth.

 

20 hours ago, Books do furnish a room said:

Testament of Friendship by Vera Brittain

“From the days of Homer the friendships of men have enjoyed glory and acclamation, but the friendships of women, in spite of Ruth and Naomi, have usually been not merely unsung, but mocked, belittled and falsely interpreted.”

 

This is Vera Brittain’s follow up to Testament of Youth. It is an account of her friendship with the novelist Winifred Holtby. They shared a residence for many years (even after Brittain’s marriage) until Holtby’ premature death in 1935. It is a sort of biography in that it also covers the period of her life before she met Brittain. There are also descriptions of Holtby’s trip to South Africa, one where Brittain was not present. This was written in 1939 and published in 1940, so the shadow of war is again present. Each chapter starts with one of Holtby’s poems. She was a poet and a prolific journalist as well as a novelist. In addition she was a regular public speaker for causes she supported: women’s issues, poverty, , justice and especially pacifism and the League of Nations.

I am a fan of Holtby: I loved South Riding and I’ve also read Anderby Wold. I have some of her others in virago paperback. Holtby is therefore someone I was interested in and I was aware of her feminism and her work for socialist causes. She also became involved in the race question in South Africa, which didn’t make her popular in some circles in that country. She also had the ability to see the link between causes:

 

At camp one night in the Transvaal, she had heard two black servants teaching each other to read from a child’s exercise book. But wherever she went, the white people whom she met talked to her pessimistically about the native question. They told her that higher education was bad for natives and gave them ideas and undermined their loyalty; that political power was unsuited to natives, since they were not ready for it; that segregation and the Colour Bar and the disenfranchisement of the black men in the Cape were necessary for the preservation of white civilization and the safety of white women and the happiness of the home.

“Sometimes, as Winifred meditated on these statements, they seemed to have a familiar ring. Suddenly, one day in Pretoria, she realised why. In her mind she began to substitute the noun “women” for the noun “natives,” and found that these fiercely held, passionately declared sentiments of white South Africa coincided almost word for word with the old arguments in England against women’s enfranchisement, women’s higher education, and women’s entry into skilled employment. She even perceived–as Olive Schreiner had perceived before her–a close relationship between the two forms of subjection . . . .”

 

The first volume in this trilogy is much more well known and for good reason. This isn’t as powerful as Testament of Youth and there is a narrower focus, but Holtby is an interesting character and this is a moving portrait of a friendship. Holtby’s struggles with her health and her political struggles and how she managed to do what she did despite her failing health in the last few years are inspirational.

8 out of 10

Starting The House in Dormer Forest by Mary Webb

 

 

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Both books by Brittain are worth reading Poppy

Imperial by William T Vollmann

I feel like I have been reading this behemoth for three years: it’s actually about one year. It has 1127 pages, but with chronology, footnotes, bibliography and acknowledgements my edition reaches 1306 pages. Vollmann likes to be thorough! This is non-fiction and is a close examination of Imperial Valley and Imperial County California with an emphasis on the border. It covers history, geography, economics, industry, farming, entertainment, pollution and it is suffused with stories. The stories of those who live and work there and those who try to cross the border, those who police the border. Vollmann is essentially a journalist (amongst other things) and he does his research meticulously, especially his historical research. He is passionate about what he does: “I write my heart out on everything I do.”

This is multi-layered and mixes myth, history, folklore, fiction and inevitably because it’s Vollmann, reportage. Northside (US) and Southside (Mexico) mythologies are compared. Vollmann also explores the history of the Chinese community and the discrimination it faced. It is an area Vollmann knows well and he writes about it with feeling:

“since this southeast corner of California is so peculiar, enigmatic, sad, beautiful and perfect as it stands, delineation of any sort should be foregone in favor of the recording of ‘pure’ perceptions, for instance by means of a camera alone; or failing that, by reliance on word-pictures: a cityscape of withered palms, white tiles, glaring parking lots, and portico-shaded loungers who watch the boxcars groan by; a cropscape of a rich green basil field, whose fragrance rises up as massively resonant as an organ-chord.”

There is so much in this book and Vollmann goes off on his usual tangents and his writing isn’t to everyone’s taste. This isn’t his longest production (Rising Up and Rising Down at 3326 pages wins that contest up to press). Prior to reading this I knew nothing about Imperial County, but Vollmann also addresses wider issues related to migration, pollution , agriculture and poverty as he goes along.

He talks about the genesis of the project:

“At first, I thought my book was only going to be in Imperial County, and then I realized that there’s a county line that goes right through the Salton Sea, so part of Riverside County is really in this whole area, too. And up there is the Coachella Valley: In Imperial County it’s called the Imperial Valley; across the border it’s called the Mexicali Valley. But it’s all one place and it’s so bizarre to go up and down the border and see on either side of the imaginary line very, very different landscapes. There are places where the US, “Northside,” is just this paradise of hay bales and fields and everything is so green and on the other side it’s just barren, and there are places where the Mexican settlements go right up to the border and on the American side is just dirt. It’s so bizarre, and it makes you think, How can this happen and what does it mean? I decided that there is really some sort of entity that I call Imperial, and I decided to extend it all the way along the California-Mexico border and into Tijuana and then to the Pacific because it all has a similar feeling.”

There is a companion volume which contains all the photographs Vollmann took during the ten years he spent writing this.

Vollmann always documents human misery and despair very well and this is no exception when he documents those who are trying to cross the border and those working for very low wages. Those familiar with Vollmann will be aware of some of his obsessions, but for me despite my occasional irritation it is a great achievement, but I suspect with a limited audience.

8 and a half out of 10

Starting Darconville's Cat by Alexander Theroux

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The Waters of Thirst by Adam Mars-Jones

Coinciding with the start of Pride month this is Adam Mars-Jones’s first novel, published in 1993. It’s about a gay relationship set in the 1980s with the backdrop of AIDS. William does voiceover adverts and his partner Terry works on the airlines. The whole is a monologue by William (no chapters). There are a number of strands to the story. One of them is that William has kidney disease and needs dialysis. We get descriptions of this and the diet and drinking regime, and the wait for a new kidney.

Another strand is William’s obsession with a gay porn star called Peter Hunter (no idea whether he was real or not. He buy everything his obsession is in and stores it in his room (often not even opening it.)

It is set before Retroviral drugs were properly in use and it does capture the spirit of the time rather well. William is a bit of an obsessive and the whole is well observed. The last ten pages are rather odd and feel hallucinatory and they leave a question mark over what you think you know. It also feels rather dated now, a bit of a period piece. It’s also a love story which concludes that love is awkward, sad and banal.

It's an interesting angle writing about a gay man with a chronic illness that isn’t AIDS, especially at the time. It sort of works, but the ending doesn’t because it casts doubt on the veracity of the rest of the novel.

6 out of 10

Starting The Overstory by Richard Powers

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Under the Rock by Benjamin Myers

“There is more rain than there are adjectives to possibly describe it.”

The above is a brief summation of the British weather.

About sixteen years ago Myers moved from London to the Calder Valley in Yorkshire, to Mytholmroyd close to Hebden Bridge and Scout Rock. Scout Rock is a steep rocky outcrop overlooking woods and wild places. There is a description of the book which is quite apt:

“UNDER THE ROCK is about badgers, balsam, history, nettles, mythology, moorlands, mosses, poetry, bats, wild swimming, slugs, recession, floods, logging, peacocks, community, apples, asbestos, quarries, geology, industrial music, owls, stone walls, farming, anxiety, relocation, the North, woodpiles, folklore, landslides, ruins, terriers, woodlands, ravens, dales, valleys, walking, animal skulls, trespassing, crows, factories, maps, rain - lots of rain - and a great big rock.”

I could add to the above a socialist postman, some seventeenth century radicals, Jimmy Saville, the Yorkshire Ripper, Ted Hughes, Daniel Defoe and Cliff the dog with whom Myers has a number of adventures.

This is a wide-ranging book and certainly not a description of a rural idyll. Myers explores his local area with is dog and describes what he finds. He goes off the beaten path and finds unusual places.

There is some excellent journalism as well, when Myers describes the flooding around Calderdale in 2017.

The book is split up into four sections: Wood, Earth, Water and Rock. Each part ends with a section of poetry written by Myers. It weaves together literature, history, some autobiography, acute observation of the natural world (even in its messiness), folklore and the lives of his neighbours. Myers doesn’t romanticise and doesn’t avoid social problems. There is a bleakness to the area as well:

“toxic soil and bottomless mineshafts and cliff-diving suicides and unexpected landslides in the night”

But he also finds plenty of wild swimming and the highest beach in Britain beside a moorland lake.

It’s a great piece of writing and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

9 out of 10

Starting The Swift and the Harrier by Minette Walters

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Joseph Ashby of Tysoe

This is a biography of Joseph Ashby written by his daughter M K (Kathleen) Ashby. He lived from 1859 to 1919 and spent all but the last five years of his life in the village of Tysoe in Warwickshire.

Joseph Ashby was illegitimate, his mother was an unmarried servant, his father some unnamed member of the gentry. He left school at eleven and worked on farms and in quarries. Although brought up in the Church of England he joined the Methodists and also a trades union. He also joined a Friendly Society. Over time he educated himself and got other types of work, working for Ordnance Survey and writing for local press. He became an advocate for social reform and supported the allotment movement and land reform. He supported the Liberal party, as part of its more radical wing. His writings covered a number of agricultural and village issues and was interested in issues around rural poverty, having experienced it. His methods for surveying local villages were later used by the Ministry of Agriculture to survey farm labour conditions in the First World War. He and his wife Hannah had seven children, one of whom, Kathleen, wrote this. Ashby’s belief in education extended to his daughters as well: Kathleen got a scholarship to Warwick High School and then to Birmingham university.

His daughter Kathleen had a varied career in education with an emphasis on rural education. She was also the Principal of the Residential College for Working Women.

My edition of the book has an introduction by the historian E P Thompson. As Thompson points out this is a reconstruction of a community’s culture as well as being a biography. There are interesting vignettes of rural life and character, but all linked to the movements and changes in rural life.

Kathleen Ashby was a pioneer in women’s education in the early twentieth century. As she said herself, she was one of a group of women who refused to “accept their own lessness”. This is an excellent biography and portrait of late nineteenth century village life in the Midlands.

8 and a half out of 10

Starting The World Turned Upside Down by Christopher Hill

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Great Uncle Harry by Michael Palin

Michael Palin is the member of the Monty Python team who irritates me the least. He has become more widely known for his travelogue TV programmes, starting with his attempt to emulate Phileas Fogg and travel around the world in eighty days. There has been a multiplicity of these since, including a visit to North Korea. He is also a fairly prolific writer, with books to accompany all his travel programmes and several volumes of diaries.

This is a little different as Palin delves into the history of his family: specifically his great-uncle Harry who died in action in September 1916 on the Somme. Henry William Bourne Palin (Harry) was born in 1884, making him 32 when he died. Palin had a limited amount of information to work with, his ancestor wasn’t of any significance and records are scarce. Inevitably there is a great deal of deduction, supposition and guesswork. During the war years (Harry was in the war from the beginning) Harry kept a diary. Again there is limited information as Harry wasn’t a florid or voluminous diarist, his summations of the day were quite sparse. There were also family letters to draw on and more detailed information from his time in New Zealand.

Before the War Harry appears to have been a bit of a drifter. He didn’t really settle anywhere and school (Shrewsbury) was not a success. His family didn’t really know what to do with him. He was packed off to India a couple of times: once to work on the railways and once on a tea plantation. It seems he was effectively sacked from both. Eventually he ended up in New Zealand from 1912 where he worked on a farm. It was from there that he joined up in 1914 and went with the ANZAC forces to Egypt and on to Gallipoli.

Palin clearly had more to work with when it comes to descriptions of the war and conditions facing the ordinary soldiers. Harry was a private through most of his war, becoming a lance corporal not long before his death. The descriptions of trench life are what you would expect and the records from New Zealand soldiers have been preserved (a great deal of information about British soldiers was destroyed during the blitz). Harry does comment sometimes about the stupidity of what they are doing and the incompetence of senior officers, which is pretty much on record when it comes to Gallipoli.

Harry moved to the Western Front where he died on the Somme. His body was never found and so there is no grave; his name is on the memorial wall for fallen new Zealand soldiers.

Palin is a humane and thoughtful narrator, he lets the reader know when there are pieces missing. History isn’t just the history of the great and Palin has told the story of someone whose story would otherwise have been lost. Harry was a minor cog in the imperial machine. If you like this sort of history, you will probably like this.

8 out of 10

Starting The Long Form by Kate Briggs

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A Song from Dead Lips by William Shaw

Here I am sampling another starter in a detective series. I’m a glutton for punishment, but I do like variety. This one is set in London in 1968, the height of swinging London and flower power! Set around a Metropolitan Police squad room which means the inhabitants are racist, homophobic, sexist, misogynist, tribal and probably corrupt. The two protagonists dropped into this loving and caring atmosphere are Cathal Breen and Helen Tozer. Breen is a DS and is Irish: it wasn’t easy being Irish in Britain in the 1960s. Tozer is from Devon and is female, which leads to problems as she wants to work in CID which is a very male domain.

The backdrop to the crime being investigated is the music scene in London, particularly a group of young women who follow the Beatles. There are a few brushes with actual history, like Nobby Pilcher’s arrest of John Lennon and Yoko Ono for drug possession. Another historical aspect to this is the Biafran War. The Nigerian community in London plays a significant part in this. Shaw does manage to highlight the British government role in the very bloody war (as you might guess a rather ignoble one). There’s mention of the fascist coup in Greece and Enoch Powell’s views are noted.

The details seem to be accurate and I remember most of the technology (or lack of it) and the fact that everyone seemed to smoke. The plotting is pretty good and both of the main characters are suitably flawed. There are twists as you would expect and on the whole it was entertaining.

6 and a half out of 10

Starting Etc Etc Amen by Howard Male

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The House in Dormer Forest by Mary Webb

“Dormer, in its cup at the bases of the hills, was always full of damp air and the sound of water.  Besieged by this grievous music — and what is there in nature sadder than the lament of falling water? — she felt as if she had opened the door not to the night and the stream, but on to a future full of doubt and dread, veiled in mist.”

Mary Webb (like Thomas Hardy) was a writer of place. Her place is Shropshire where most of her novels are set. There may be something about writers linked to place that makes them gloomy (Hardy certainly was) and Webb is no exception. I read Precious Bane over thirty years ago, so this is the second and is published by Virago (inevitably). This is her third novel  and it is centred on Dormer House and its inhabitants: a grandmother, Her daughter (Mrs Darke) and her husband, four children (Amber, Ruby, Philip and Jasper), a cousin to the children (Catherine) and a set of servants (who for once are not there as add-ons and are strong characters in their own right. The children are grown and are late teens into twenties.

This is from a genre which has been christened “countryside misery” (unfortunately a rather apt description), and this was one of the novels which Stella Gibbons parodied in Cold Comfort Farm.

The house is dominated by a dour puritanism and the matriarch figure is the grandmother who is prone to making comments about a situation in the form of Biblical verse. She is at the centre of the household:

““I can’t be thwarted!” grandmother suddenly broke out.  She had a theory that, if crossed, she would die.  She was fond of saying: “I’ve got a weak ‘eart, Rachel!” –dropping her “h” not because she could not aspirate it, but because she did not see why, at her age, any letter of the alphabet should be her master.”

Juxtaposed with the doings in the house are the descriptions of nature and the forest  which are powerful and suffused with a sort of mystical pantheism. Webb’s language can be over the top. Here she is talking about Amber, the daughter who is so plain that no one thinks she will ever find a husband:

“Who would ever seek in Amber Darke, so still, of so sad-coloured an exterior, the creature of fire and tears that could feed a man’s heart with faery food and call him into Paradise with songs wild as those of hawks on the untrodden snow-fields?”

I mean, come on, who talks like that?

Consider Jasper who has lost his faith, which is about the worst thing you can do in the Darke family. Here is a description of Jasper walking up a path in the forest called “the Beast  Walk”:

“To climb this path harrowed his soul, made his face even at ten years look quite wizened.  But now, in his young manhood, the dark spell was infinitely stronger.  He drank here of a charm thick as black honey made from purple poison flowers by bees in hell.”

You have to remember that although there is a vein of humour, most of this is serious. There is some analysis of the place of women (this was published in 1920). The younger women see marriage as an escape and in turn they discover it really isn’t. Even Amber, who actually does seem to marry for love, discovers her beloved is actually a self-centred idealist.

If you like overwrought gothic then this may be for you! The descriptions of the natural world are good and there are some excellent and eccentric minor characters, but it was all a bit too much!

6 out of 10 Starting 10 minutes 38 seconds in this Strange World

 

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The Long Form by Kate Briggs

“I know time. I know time differently now. I know it because I am unlearning it. I know it because the baby is teaching me that the rhythms of the clock and the calendar, and even the most elemental diurnal patterns – they don’t go without saying: they are acquired, if not violently imposed. It is a lived and not an abstract form of knowledge that comes from living alongside a beginner – the way the days can all of a sudden feel like they're undivided, divided by nothing, only water.”

This is another example of a novel set in just one day. It revolves around Helen and her baby Rose (about six weeks old). Their interactions in different parts of the flat in which they live form the centre of the book. There is an Amazon delivery, a second hand copy of the novel of Tom Jones. In the afternoon there is a walk in the park and in the evening Helen’s friend Rebba drops in. There is a bit of food and some breast feeding. In terms of action and events that is pretty much it, in almost five hundred pages.

Briggs breaks up the novel into smaller chunks, paragraphs, sentences, different fonts, spaces, squares, circles, shading, diagrams, indentations, a fair amount of experimenting.

Of course there is much more going on. Briggs is also a translator and has translated Barthes (it shows). There is a fair amount of philosophy, Dewey pops up periodically. There is a detailed bibliography at the end. The title itself is a quote from Barthes, who called the novel “the long form”.

Then there is the novel Tom Jones which Helen starts to read. Tom Jones is also experimental, moving between essay and novel itself, the same as The Long Form. There is also a fair amount of Literary Criticism (including E M Forster amongst others) in relation to Tom Jones and some analysis of the novel. Winnicot also pops up talking about motherhood.

It's a combination of essay, philosophy, reflection, literary criticism, the nature of love and of motherhood and the minutiae of everyday life:

“Some moments, hours, days, last longer for some people than others, depending. Daily life, whatever it may be really, is practically composed of two lives, said Forster: the life in time, ticking, marching by, regular, implacable, and the life by values, slowing or accelerating, shrinking or expanding, condensing or prolonging. The same sixty-second spans experienced as short minutes, as elongated minutes (as thin minutes or thicker minutes). As separated minutes: distinctive pockets, or stand-out portions of detached, delimited time.”

Some people will hate this, but on the whole I did enjoy it and it went in unexpected directions.

8 and a half out of 10

Starting Broken Homes by Ben Aaronovitch

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Capacity and Autonomy by Robert Johns

Part of my day job is to deal with issues of capacity in relation to vulnerable adults. Capacity is a legal term and relates to the ability to make a particular decision and the legal complexities surrounding it.

This brief text book runs through the legal process around making decisions ion this area and is based on the 2005 Mental Capacity Act and how it interacts with the Mental Health Act and the Human Rights Act. It’s a pretty standard run through of the basics and a useful primer.

If you’re interested you can be deemed not to have capacity in the UK in the following circumstances, if you are an adult.

There has to be “an impairment of or a disturbance in the functioning of the mind or brain”.

This might be dementia, brain damage, a long term learning disability, delirium, concussion, physical or medical conditions that cause confusion, drowsiness or loss of consciousness, symptoms of alcohol or drug use (not an exhaustive list).

If that criteria is met then you have to understand the information given to you (concerning the decision), retain it long enough to make a decision, be able to weigh the information to make a decision and be able to communicate re the information.

If you fail one of the second series of tests and meet the first criteria then you can be deemed to lack capacity to make the decision and others act in your best interests.

As you can imagine the law around this is complex. This is a useful introduction.

8 out of 10

Starting The Politics of Paradise by Michael Foot

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Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

“Belief, like fear or love, is a force to be understood as we understand the theory of relativity and principals of uncertainty. Phenomena that determine the course of our lives. Yesterday, my life was headed in one direction. Today, it is headed in another. Yesterday, I believe I would never have done what I did today. These forces that often remake time and space, that can shape and alter who we imagine ourselves to be, begin long before we are born and continue after we perish. Our lives and our choices, like quantum trajectories, are understood moment to moment. That each point of intersection, each encounter, suggest a new potential direction.”

I have had this on my shelves for many years, so I thought it was about time it came of the tbr list. It also seems to have got itself on most of the books you must read before you die lists. There is even a film.

Let me add some of the blurb:

“A postmodern visionary who is also a master of styles of genres, David Mitchell combines flat-out adventure, a Nabokovian lore of puzzles, a keen eye for character, and a taste for mind-bending philosophical and scientific speculation in the tradition of Umberto Eco, Haruki Murakami, and Philip K. Dick. The result is brilliantly original fiction as profound as it is playful. Now in his new novel, David Mitchell explores with daring artistry fundamental questions of reality and identity.”

OMG

I think prose like that is probably what has put me off reading this for so many years.

There are some monumental reviews of this around, works of art in their own right almost.

There are six story strands: five of them occur twice. They are told in historical order from about 1850 to the distant future and then back to the first story again. There are links, often tenuous between each of the stories. Just to make it more fun each of the main characters Mitchell says is a reincarnation of the same soul (apart from one). It also illustrates how people prey on people, groups on groups and nations on nations.

I could go on at length about the storylines, the deeper meanings and so on. However this has been done ad nauseam.

Overblown and pretentious are words that spring to mind, even if a great deal of work went into it.

There was one interesting aspect to it. In the fourth story Timothy Cavendish finds himself admitted to a care home against his wishes. You might think this is unlikely, but sadly it is a fairly regular occurrence, but that’s a whole other story.

“Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future."

5 out of 10

Starting Paradise Rot Jenny Hval

 

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The Swift and the Harrier by Minette Walters

I have always associated Minette Walters with crime novels. I didn’t realise she wrote historical novels as well. This one is set in the Civil War between 1642 and 1649. It is set in Dorset, which was in an awkward position between Royalist Cornwall and Parliamentarian London. Quite a lot happened in Dorset in these years, but Walters focuses on West Dorset and in particular the siege of Lyme Regis in 1644. As well as a historical novel it’s also billed as a love story. Thankfully there isn’t a great deal of that as the two main protagonists spend most of their time apart.

Jayne Swift is a physician, a rare occurrence at this time, who over the period of the novel develops her skills. She is part of the siege of Lyme Regis and so there are plenty of medical descriptions. The other part of the equation, William Harrier is on the Parliamentarian side doing a variety of jobs, some of them secret. Jayne’s family is split between both sides. Walters explores these tensions.

As it happens I am also reading another book about the Civil War, Hill’s The World Turned Upside Down. That is an analysis of all the different groups and beliefs that the war threw up. These groups were countrywide and very common, although they don’t show up here. The Clubmen do though. Towards the end of the war minor landowners and gentry often grouped together to protect themselves from marauding soldiers of both sides.

One of the reasons Walters picked this period was the fallout from the Brexit Referendum which divided the country, as the Civil War did in the 1640s.

This is all fairly anodyne stuff and trundles along fairly easily. It didn’t really make me feel strongly one way or the other.

6 out of 10

Starting Give me your Good Ear by Maureen Brady

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Paradise Rot by Jenny Hval

“I suddenly knew nothing about myself, nothing seemed right in English, nothing was true.”

This is translated from Norwegian and Jenny Hval is a musician as well as a singer. This is rather brief and is actually a novella.

It Concerns Jo who is starting university in a new country and a new city. England and an imaginary south coast city called Aybourne. She is studying Biology, or at least a branch of it. She has to find somewhere to live and ends up in what was an old brewery. The inside conversion is fairly flimsy and she shares her flat with Carral; she is an office temp and slightly older.

This is somewhat surreal. Boundaries are blurred, there is a great deal of damp, mould, fungi, decay, hunger, devouring. Boundaries between people, between real and unreal. Jo, the narrator is very much a watcher, observant. The relationship between Jo and Carral is idiosyncratic and there is a significant queer theme.

There is also an obsession with urine: trust me a couple of years working as a care assistant in a nursing home will cure most such obsessions!

Sounds and textures are important, and some apples, decaying gradually also provide a focus:

 “I'll tell you the fairy tale of the apple. Eve ate the apple, and then Adam came and did so too. Afterwards the apple was forgotten, and it was assumed that it rolled away in the grass while Adam and Eve were chased out of the garden. But that's not true, because secretly the apple rolled in between Eve's legs, scratched open her flesh and burrowed into her crotch. It stayed there with the white bite marks facing out, and after a while the fruit-flesh started to shrivel, and mould threads grew from the edges of the peel. The mould threads became pubic hair and the bite mark became the slit between the labia. Soon all of Eden followed the apple's example and started to decompose and rot, and since then this has happened in all gardens and everything in nature, and honey mushrooms came into existence, and rot and parasites and beetles arose. But the apple was first, and it never stops rotting, it just gets blacker. The apple has no end, just like this fairy tale.”

This novel won’t be for everyone, but there are some interesting observations. It does capture the uncertainty of moving to a new city, starting a new life, a new course and making new friends. There is a blurring of reality of boundaries and it certainly has a fairy tale feel (a rather adult fairy tale, although, of course, many early fairy tales were pretty gruesome).

“The women feast on the poor man’s flesh, And chew each bone whilst it is fresh, So the two women can become one with a kiss.”

6 and a half out of 10

Starting Old God's Time by Sebastian Barry

 

 

[Books do furnish a room]

Broken Homes by Ben Aaronovitch

“Most people don't see half of what's in front of them. Your visual cortex does a shhhhhhh load of imaging processing before the signal even gets to your brain, whose priorities are still checking the ancestral Savannah for dangerous predators, edible berries and climbable trees. That's why a sudden cat in the night can make you jump and some people when distracted, can walk right out in front of a bus. Your brain just isn't interested in those large moving chunks of metal or the static heaps of brightly coloured stuff that piles up in drifts around us. Never mind all that, says your brain, it's those silent fur-covered merchants of death you've got to watch out for.”

This is the fourth outing in the series, a bit of a cross between Harry Potter and a police procedural. The dry laconic humour is still there, which for me makes the series. If that sort of humour then you will probably hate it.

“The Folly had last been refurbished in the 1930s when the British establishment firmly believed that central heating was the work, if not of the devil per se, then definitely evil foreigners bent on weakening the hardy British spirit.”

There are distinct similarities with Pratchett. The plot isn’t important because it follows on from the other three, but there is a twist at the end. It’s still mostly London centric and this time focuses on the Elephant and Castle. As with most series of this type there is a vocabulary to learn, but it isn’t overdone and the world building is effective. There is a twist at the end of this one, which is pretty well hidden (not totally). You can also tell that Aaronovitch has written for Dr Who as well (in the mid-2000s). The series does have a strong sense of place. Aaronovitch leaves Dr Who and Lord of the Rings references around the place as well.

This is pure escapism and as the main character says to his dog:

“F*** me,' I said to Toby. 'We're living in Isengard.”

7 out of 10

Starting The Ashes of London by Andrew Taylor

Edited July 13, 2024 by Books do furnish a room
alteration

[Books do furnish a room]

Etc Etc Amen by Howard Male

This is quite an oddity and a little surreal. It is about an imaginary 1970s British glam rock star named Zachary Bekele (Zachary B). Male works out a complete back catalogue of albums and singles with interviews inn the trendy magazines of the day (NME etc) and some imaginary ones as well. Also complete with adoring fans and a fair amount of rock and roll behaviour. Male charts a rise and fall. But he also adds another element.

The said Zachary B also invents a belief system/religion which takes off somewhat following his demise in the 1980s. The novel moves between Marrakesh in 2007 and the career of Zachary B in the 1970s to the early 1980s.

The religion is known as KUU; the Knowing Unknowing Universe. This is a not easily categorizable novel, but one thing is clear, it is very anti deity specific religion, especially the this is what you must believe parts. The best way to explain the religion is by a few explanations and quotes:

“KUUism shouldn’t propose moral absolutes.”

“The Bible has commandments so the KUU Hypothesis would have non-commandments – written in sand.”

“KUUism should wear its spirituality lightly.”

“KUUism should be incisive yet vague, issuing stray sparks to light the flame of the imagination.”

“ The existing religions have brought about so much pain, suffering, guilt and death that their mirror image would surely be an improvement.”

“Let there be humour!”

“Rejoice in inconsistencies. For just as the inconsistencies in other holy books prove that they were written by man and not God, so the flaws in KUUism would guarantee it was never taken too seriously.”

KUUism can’t be sexist because the other religions have covered sexism so comprehensively. The only this planet has is to let women have a go at the controls for a few centuries. Etc, etc, Amen!”

“Let the mind wander.”

There are eleven non-commandments and it’s all fairly common sense stuff for those of us who are not religious.

As an imaginary rockumentary this works pretty well. The development of the non-religious religion is interesting as are the way it becomes a cult just as it wasn’t intended to.

It does jump around a bit, but on the whole I enjoyed this and it’s approach to life.

8 out of 10

Starting Owen Glendower by John Cowper Powys

[Books do furnish a room]

Old God's Time by Sebastian Barry

“No one minds life as long as they are not trying to leave it. Nor death, as long as they are not dying.”

This is about Tom Kettle, a retired policeman living near Dublin, He lives alone in a flat near the sea with his memories. We are led to believe his wife is deceased and his children elsewhere. Some old colleagues turn up one day to talk about an old case. The case involves a priest who has “misbehaved”, a case Tom was involved in.

To be clear, this is not a crime novel and in reality very little happens in a semi stream of consciousness sort of way. It is quickly established that Tom is an unreliable narrator and has dementia. He tries to piece together his life and his current situation and the reader gradually builds up a picture of what is happening and what has happened. Although most of the reveals come fairly near the end. One of the premises is that Tom is haunted by his past.

The writing is descriptive with a hazy feel to it:

“Between the pick-up spot and the parking spot, the sun abandoned everything for one more day, the sea blackened, and the islands blackened even darker, more black than black, and the sky looked shocked and empty, as if not fully trusting that the moon would rise soon and her cohorts of stars crowd in like figures at a hajj.”

The novel has been generally praised and was longlisted for the Booker. The main criticisms have been that the novel is boring, nothing happens and what does is limited. It does address the ongoing issue of the abuse of children in various settings, often by Catholic priests, although it does this in an indirect way. Tom’s dementia does veil the memory of and descriptions of the abuse.

Here's my problem with this. Tom is an unreliable narrator, he’s an unreliable narrator it seems because of his dementia. This simply is not the case with those who have dementia. Their narration may be sporadic and fragmented, it won’t be unreliable. This sort of misunderstanding of dementia really irritates me and did affect the way I saw the novel. There is obviously a story to be told here, but for me this was not a convincing way of telling it.

5 out of 10

Starting Hillbilly elergy by J D Vance

[Books do furnish a room]

Give me your good ear by Maureen Brady

Maureen Brady is an American writer and teacher. She had problems getting published initially in the 70s. In 1978 she founded Spinsters Ink with Judith McDaniel to enable female writers to be more easily published. It was a feminist publishing house and that is how this novel was published in 1979. I have the UK edition published by the Women’s Press in 198. It has been on my shelves for decades and so it’s about time I read it.

This novel is about Francie: she is trying to extricate herself form an unhappy relationship and start a new life, untying the knots. Linked to this is her relationship with her mother and grandmother as she looks back at her life. The title refers to a hearing impairment which all three women share. Whether that is literal or figurative is not clear. It may be linked to words not spoken and problems unacknowledged.

Alice Walker said of it: "The writing is so good, I heard it all."  

This is an excellent novel which follows the intertwined intergenerational lives of women trying to work out how to live their lives. It does feel very 70s, but in a good way. There is a warmth and humanity to it which I appreciated.

8 out of 10

Starting Owen Glendower by John Cowper Powys

[Books do furnish a room]

The Ashes of London by Andrew Taylor

The Ashes of London

Another historical novel and again in the seventeenth century, this time just after the Civil War. It is the first in a series. Andrew Taylor has written several series of historical novels and this is the latest. This one is set during and just after the Great Fire of London.

There are two main characters. James Marwood is a general dogsbody who works for a civil servant doing a variety of tasks. His father was a printer and a Fifth Monarchist who was jailed following a failed revolt in 1661. James is now looking after him as he is showing signs of dementia.

The other main character is Cat Lovett. She is a sort of heiress living with relatives who don’t always treat her well. Her father Thomas Lovett was one of those who signed the death warrant of Charles the first and so now he is on the run. Cat is to be married off to an aging aristocrat.

They are both sucked into a series of events, intrigues and deaths that eventually mean their paths cross. Marwood’s account is in the first person; Cat’s in the third. That does grate a little after a while. It is a bit of a slow burner, but as a historical novel it is interesting, especially as I am on a bit of a Civil War kick at the moment. The descriptions of the fire and its aftermath all work well. It had some entertainment value last thing at night.

6 out of 10

Starting Erasure by Percival Everrett

 

[Books do furnish a room]

10 minutes and 38 seconds in  this strange world

10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World

“If there was a God up there, He must be laughing His head off at a human race capable of making atomic bombs and building artificial intelligence, but still uncomfortable with their own mortality and unable to sort out what to do with their dead. How pathetic it was to try to relegate death to the periphery of life when death was at the centre of everything.”

This is quite a clever concept. It is thought that in some cases consciousness remains for a few minutes after the death of the body (probably explaining near death experiences). The main character here has just been murdered at the beginning of the novel. That character is a sex worker called Leila (or Tequila Leila as she is known). We see a series of snapshots of Leila’s life from early childhood onwards and the reader is gradually able to put the pieces together and get a picture of her life and choices. It is set in Istanbul.

The snapshots how Leila ended up as a sex worker. It also highlights the relationships with the five people she called friends and this is as much a book about friendship as anything else:

“She had never told her friends this, not in so many words, but they were her safety net. Every time she stumbled or keeled over, they were there for her, supporting her or softening the impact of the fall. On nights when she was mistreated by a client, she would still find the strength to hold herself up, knowing that her friends, with their very presence, would come with ointment for her scrapes and bruises; and on days when she wallowed in self-pity, her chest cracking open, they would gently pull her up and breathe life into her lungs.”

After the reminiscences have finished, the next part of the book involves what happens to the body and how the friends react. Unfortunately this turns into what can only be called a heist movie involving the body. It is somewhat ridiculous. The bit about the soul at the end is faintly nirvanaish and rather annoying.

So, mixed feelings. The first half was ok and the idea was clever. The second half to me lost its way.

6 out of 10

Starting Polar Horrors: Strange Tales form the World's Ends edited by John Miller

[Books do furnish a room]

The Overstory by Richard Powers

“The best arguments in the world won't change a person's mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story.”

This is certainly a good story: it is also a long and complex one with a significant character list (Nine main ones). The story moves between each character over many years. It is a book about the environment and the way humanity is destroying it. More specifically it is about trees.

“This is not our world with trees in it. It's a world of trees, where humans have just arrived.”

The novel is split into four sections: Roots, Trunk, Crown, Seeds.

The first part links some of the main characters to significant trees. We follow the characters over a long period, especially as they all move towards environmental activism, sometimes very direct.

There is certainly an air of melodrama about it and a number of critics were unhappy about the novel’s pessimism. The pessimism is about the human race rather than trees. The trees in the novel are as much characters as the humans. The title itself is even a botanical term for the higher level of vegetation in a forest, the canopy. Powers has a fascination with trees and he is aware of the latest scientific research:

“We found that trees could communicate, over the air and through their roots. Common sense hooted us down. We found that trees take care of each other. Collective science dismissed the idea. Outsiders discovered how seeds remember the seasons of their childhood and set buds accordingly. Outsiders discovered that trees sense the presence of other nearby life. That a tree learns to save water. That trees feed their young and synchronize their masts and bank resources and warn kin and send out signals to wasps to come and save them from attacks. “Here’s a little outsider information, and you can wait for it to be confirmed. A forest knows things. They wire themselves up underground. There are brains down there, ones our own brains aren’t shaped to see. Root plasticity, solving problems and making decisions. Fungal synapses. What else do you want to call it? Link enough trees together, and a forest grows aware.”

This is all well woven together and the narrative illustrates how destructive as a species we are. On the whole it is impressive and Powers writes with passion. The start is captivating, but it does tend to wander towards the end. However the story does illustrate well the issues around deforestation, and, of course, I’m on the side of the trees.

8 and a half out of 10

Starting The Bookseller of Inverness by S G Maclean

[Books do furnish a room]

Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance

Hillbilly Elegy

“People talk about hard work all the time in places like Middletown. You can walk through a town where 30 percent of the young men work fewer than twenty hours a week and find not a single person aware of his own laziness.”

Entering the world of MAGA and right-wing US politics is not something I usually do. We have enough problems with the far right and the rise of fascism in the UK.

On the face of it, this is a fairly straightforward memoir of a childhood and upbringing of someone with Hillbilly roots. Vance had roots in Jackson Kentucky and born and raised in Middletown Ohio. Vance joined the Marines and eventually went to Yale Law School. There are plenty of slips and trips on the way. The main focus though is Vance’s family and its dysfunctional nature, particularly his mother. He was mainly brought up by his grandmother and grandfather (mamaw and papaw). Vance attempts to delineate what he sees as Hillbilly culture; there’s a lot about family and a good deal about revenge and sticking up for family. When it came out it was seen by many as a clue to why the white working classes were voting in numbers for Trump. Vance was initially hostile to Trump, obviously that has changed.

Vance identifies the issues that poor rural and rustbelt communities have with addiction, unemployment, crime and abuse. He also has the occasional rant about those on welfare playing the system to get booze, drugs and mobile phones:

“This was my world: a world of truly irrational behavior. We spend our way into the poorhouse. We buy giant TVs and iPads. Our children wear nice clothes thanks to high-interest credit cards and payday loans. We purchase homes we don’t need, refinance them for more spending money, and declare bankruptcy.”

What could have been a simple memoir that doesn’t stand out of a young man overcoming difficult circumstances becomes a rant against the idle and feckless poor. It’s not the memoir it’s the conclusions drawn.

“I have known many welfare queens; some were neighbors, and all were white.”

3 out of 10

Starting Unruly by David Mitchell

[Books do furnish a room]

The World Turned Upside Down by Christopher Hill

“There had been moments when it seemed as though from the ferment of radical ideas a culture might emerge which might be different both from the traditional aristocratic culture and from the bourgeois culture of the protestant ethic which replaced it. We can discern shadows of what this counter culture might have been like. rejecting private property for communism, religion for rationalistic and materialistic pantheism, the mechanical philosophy for dialectical science, asceticism for unashamed enjoyment of the good things of the flesh, it might have achieved unity through a federation of communities, each based on the fullest respect for the individual. Its ideal would have been economic self-sufficiency, not world trade or world domination. The economic significant consequence of the Puritan emphasis on sin was the compulsion on labour, to save, to accumulate, which contributed so much to making the Industrial Revolution possible in England. Ranters simply rejected this; Quakers ultimately came to accept it. Only Winstanley put forward an alternative....... ...It came nearest to realisation in the Digger communities, which might have given the counter-culture some economic base.”

Christopher Hill was one of the doyens of Marxist historiography in the twentieth century. His specialism was the English Civil War. I have been reading a fair amount of historical novels set in the seventeenth century and so this complements them well. This is a remarkable piece of historical writing, not without its flaws, but opening a window into the many and diverse groups that were given the opportunity to develop and grow in the vacuum that the Civil War created.

Hill does speculate where all these ideas came from, and there were many of them. He makes the case they were always there, underground and unrecorded. The sudden removal of authority (ecclesiastical and royal) and the availability of the means to print pamphlets and tracts provided the impetus for these ideas to surface.

The list of groups is impressive: Levellers, Familists, Ranters, Gridletonians, Diggers, Quakers, Muggletonians, Seekers, Fifth Monarchists, Anabaptists and many more. For a brief time these ideas were freely expressed until the ruling classes got themselves organised and the new elite was in place.

What about these ideas. Free healthcare for all was one as was education for all up to the age of eighteen. Divorce on an equal basis for all. Free love was also part of equation, although as Hill points out, as there was no effective birth control it tended to be freedom for men only. There was also a questioning of marriage.

Religious views were also challenged, particularly the Divinity of Christ and the resurrection. If you think Nietzsche was the first to talk about the Death of God, think again. Joseph Salmon and Richard Coppin both wrote about the Death of God. There were lots of political ideas relating to democracy and equality as well. There was even criticism of the trade with India because of its effects on those in India. There was a common call “All lanlords are thieves”.

For me the most impressive group were the Diggers and Gerrard Winstanley. They reoccupied land that had been enclosed and turning it common land again. They planted crops on it, hence the name Diggers. Inevitably it didn’t last, but the ideas remained.

Historical thinking has moved on and the work has been much criticized and debated, but it is an excellent introduction to the ideas that were thrown up by the Civil War and is well worth reading.

9 out of 10

Starting Rare Singles by Ben Myers

[Books do furnish a room]

Excellent Women by Barbara Pym

“Perhaps there can be too much making of cups of tea, I thought, as I watched Miss Statham filling the heavy teapot. Did we really need a cup of tea? I even said as much to Miss Statham and she looked at me with a hurt, almost angry look, 'Do we need tea? she echoed. 'But Miss Lathbury...' She sounded puzzled and distressed and I began to realise that my question had struck at something deep and fundamental. It was the kind of question that starts a landslide in the mind. I mumbled something about making a joke and that of course one needed tea always, at every hour of the day or night.”

This is Pym’s second novel, published in 1952 and set in post-war London in the suburbs. It is a first person narrative and the story is told by Mildred Lathbury, who is single and just thirty years old. There is a good deal of humour which is dry and self-deprecating. Mildred is the daughter of a clergyman and moves in Church circles, the local church is Anglican, Anglo_Catholic in fact and much of Mildred’s life revolves around it. She works part time for the Society for Aged Gentlewomen (I kid you not). It is a world of shortages and a rather genteel drabness: not to mention genteel poverty (not real poverty). There is a good deal of exploring human foibles within a limited setting. Comparisons have been made with Austen (nope, definitely not) and E F Benson (more like it). Mildred lives in a flat with a shared bathroom. At the start of the novel a slightly racy couple move in and provide entertainment throughout. The local vicar and his sister also feature along with a number of other women who populate the Church and its bazaars and jumble sales.

Pym does focus on the relationships between men and women as well and on Mildred’s single state, which bothers others more than it bothers her.

“Surely many a romance must have been nipped in the bud by sitting opposite somebody eating spaghetti?”

Today it is certainly a period piece, a portrait of a certain way of life, now long gone. Pym does scatter some humour and some of it does work:

“My thoughts went round and round and it occurred to me that if I ever wrote a novel it would be of the 'stream of consciousness' type and deal with an hour in the life of a woman at the sink.”

7 and a half out of 10

Starting The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton