July 14, 2021

A forgotten inheritance

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A forgotten inheritance

Recently clearing some of my mother’s books, in a small book-case I discovered a low shelf behind a door, concealing a forgotten inheritance: two-dozen post-war ‘economy’ hardback and paperback ‘English’ mysteries, often written for an American readership.

Instead of my usual habit of immediately stowing them into the car to take to the second-hand shop, something stopped my hand, and I’ve been skimming through them with interest: Daphne du Maurier’s ‘Hungry Hill’ a sepia-toned allegory on the pointlessness of greed; ‘While the Patient Slept’ a 1930’s whodunnit showing its age; a whole variety of unusual, older novels collected and shipped to my mother in France and then finally, one day, finding their way back to Scotland.

Near the bottom of the pile I hit a nugget of gold, Garrison Keillor’s “Lake Wobegon Days” (1985) and feel enormous relief to have discovered something so well written, humorous and engaging. I’ve enjoyed laughing along with his stories, refreshed and enlightened in equal measure.

Rather incongruously, I’ve also found a worn copy of Robert Harris’ ‘Pompeii’ which, though I have read it at least twice previously, is just as exciting to read again. Finally, a first-edition hardback of Edna O’Brien’s ‘Lantern of Slides’ which though as well-written and thoughtful as ever, is not a book to dip into for summery, refreshing escapism: the characters seem to be uniformly gloomy and unlucky: suicide, madness and murder may make good short story fodder, but this volume is one to avoid if one is feeling even a twinge of covid gloom.

I’m so glad to be reading, and in a strange way reassured, to discover among the books I love, those I dislike, and to be confirmed in my reasons for choosing not to spend time with various authors. I love Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters, so my dislike of 1950’s and 1990’s noir is not merely prejudice against what might be slightly out-dated, but based firmly around what I enjoy. Which, I reflect, is also useful for the time when I may get back to writing my own stories again.

Thanks for reading.

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June 28, 2021

‘Miss Carter’s War’ by Sheila Hancock

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‘Miss Carter’s War’ by Sheila Hancock

This novel, and the novel previously reviewed, I found myself reading at much the same time. My eyes drawn to their covers, I’m surprised to notice that both feature images of headless women – what is it with headless women? – both viewed from the side and wearing dresses and red shoes and waiting demurely. Both images do, at least, help to place the action in a certain era – post-war – with all that implies: Feisty women who make it through the war, and what happens next?

I’m intrigued by Sheila Hancock: she seems a woman of many parts, and at the same time nicely elusive and not easy to categorise. Not seeking fame, exactly, but famous because of her abilities to act. And to write. Predictably enough, this novel features a heroine who has won the croix de guerre after her involvement with the resistance in France, coping with all manner of horrors before landing up in England and finding employ as a teacher in a fairly select school for girls. Miss Carter is naturally brilliant, and particularly good at getting overlooked children to engage with their own education.

As with ‘The Railwayman’s Wife’ I feel almost as if the plot is secondary to character study. Miss Carter is interesting, engaging and her portrayal, as a woman trying her best against a difficult system, is sincere. As her own personal education advances through the 1940’s and 1950’s, we meet and also get to know Miss Carter’s supporting cast: the headmistress, severe but with a heart of gold; the only male teacher in the school, who, it turns out, is gay – a big secret to carry at the time; two underachievers in her class whose newly woken academic aspirations slam hard against the social and economic realities they have to endure.

As the novel proceeds through the years, it is an easy and engrossing read, with not a few high-notes of moral indignation. One gets the distinct impression that although Hancock is writing fiction, she writes from bitter experience, which has left her kinder, more tolerant of others, impatient of systems and politics getting in the way of happiness for ordinary folk. Not a bad ambition.

I find myself wanting to use words like ‘obvious’ and ‘a bit naïve’, but there is something in Hancock’s portrayal of the characters that pulls at my heartstrings. For all the plot twists and turns, I do get engrossed with the characters and want the story to end well. It doesn’t, not quite; which causes me to brood and to feel regret, not (in suprising contrast to my previous book review) that the author didn’t give me a ‘happy ending’ but that the characters had to suffer so much.

This story reminds me how precious is our personal dignity, and not to take for granted the freedoms that have been won for the under-represented in society through the years. The gains we now enjoy have often been achieved at great personal cost. If you would like a good read, kindly and thoughtful, Sheila Hancock’s book has a few worthwhile surprises in store.

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May 27, 2021

‘The Railwayman’s Wife’ by Ashley Hay

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‘The Railwayman’s Wife’ by Ashley Hay

My husband bought a copy of ‘The Railwayman’s Wife‘ in an independent bookshop some years ago, and it has languished on our bedroom bookcase, until, in line with my new philosophy of ‘let’s explore what we already own’ my husband chose it for me. Finally, I dipped in.

‘The Railwayman’s Wife’ by Ashley Hay repays close reading: unashamedly literary and reflective, it brims with quiet, beautifully described images that I find very refreshing: I hardly need to visit Australia, I can just absorb the language of this novel and the beauty that Hay conjures so deftly. Though I find I get the best from it when I read slowly, the plot is fairly minimal: man dies, his lovely wife and daughter manage for a while without him somehow, while two possible future mates come into widow’s orbit, one eventually marrying another woman, the other dying a tragic, minimalist death prefigured by unrequited love for the widow.

Sorry, is that a spoiler? You need not regard it as such.

This is a lovely book, one which has opened my eyes afresh to the power of simple words arranged on the page to convey deep and powerful meaning. I do, however, have one major quibble with the way in which the line of the plot unspools. Yes, the book is primarily character-driven, and yes, there is a certain inevitability in the widow at the end of the novel finding herself once more alone, without a man dangling after her who might offer hope of a new life, protection and security. But I’m struggling to take the death of the second man seriously.

Not only does he seemingly almost evaporate somehow in a very artistic fashion that leaves a lot to the imagination, but as anyone with unrequited longings will know, life is not that easily snuffed out. Also, I can’t for the life of me work out why the protagonists are so quiet, why they never actually get round to speaking their minds, daring to tell the truth. Is it the times they live in? The expectations they are hemmed in by? Probably. Yet, for an obviously clever woman, the widow seems remarkably slow on the uptake, and I can’t help just wishing that the plot had unwound with enough fire to keep the key characters alive until the end.

If they had just said what they needed to, found the courage to take the risk of being honest with each other, that would have been enough of a lesson – and dramatic enough – for a satisfying ending. I’m annoyed, somehow, that the plot finishes on a tragic whimper, and in a way that I can hardly credit.

Yes, there is of course the irony of a sad man who has survived so much to arrive home after the Second World War in one piece, only to end his life on a beach… And perhaps we expect too much of our characters to hope that everyone might speak their mind.

But if that was me, and I had survived hell on earth, I would want to run and shout and tell the truth and not waste another minute in quiet, respectful, erroneous introspection. There would have been room, and plenty of credibility, in a conclusion which had gumption in it, smiles and hugs and happy endings.

Just saying.

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May 21, 2021

Black-Eyed Peas on New Year’s Day

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‘Black-Eyed Peas on New Years’ Day: An Anthology of Hope’ Edited by Shannon Page.

Featuring in ‘Black-Eyed Peas on a New Year’s Day’, a new anthology of short stories, I bought two paper copies for my own use, and have been reading the collection carefully over several weeks, as so many of the stories merit closer study and reflection.

Starting the New Year with a dish of black-eyed peas is traditionally good luck. And ‘Black-Eyed Peas on a New Year’s Day‘ is a feel-good collection, mainly of fantasy offerings, carefully and colourfully written, with some real humdingers included to get the pulse racing. It’s very interesting to notice how a collection is put together, and how it, perhaps deliberately, perhaps unconsciously, reflects the genre preferences and tastes of the commissioning editor. That is obvious, but how often have I assumed, just because I like a story, that others will like it too?

We don’t all suit the same colours, wear the same clothes or think about the same things; and in variety is strength, so I have been nicely reminded that taste is very personal, and not to swerve around something unusual just because it hasn’t had much of a place in my usual library: this collection is refreshing, intriguing and very well written, and I do recommend it to anyone who would like to be thoughtfully entertained, or who, perhaps, is used to saying that fantasy holds no appeal for them. We may have been reading in the wrong places. Perhaps now is a good time to stretch our expectations and see how life colours up differently.

I’ve appreciated having this volume at my bedside because I find it cheering, inventive and involving. There are stories that excite and which I find genuinely charming – such rip-roaring imagination! – and which give me a glimpse of how I can write inventively too, when I allow my imagination and sense of humour to fly. Thank you to Shannon for such a warm, heart-felt project, colourful and invigorating in the early days of a cool Springtime. Delicious stories collected together make this a volume to cherish.

Thanks for reading.

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May 17, 2021

More Lessons from lockdown

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More Lessons from lockdown

Have I learned any enduring lessons from lockdown? I have to admit to feelings of puzzlement and slightly desperate nausea when the travel industry and the ‘frequent fliers club’ enthuse about air travel getting ‘back to normal’ soon. Is it ‘normal’ to expect to fly everywhere? And should we be aiming to get back to ‘business before covid’? What about the climate crisis and protecting the environment? If covid has shown me anything, it is the vulnerability of our erstwhile ‘normal’ expectations.

I’ll not fly by plane again, unless it is to visit somewhere like New York – there not being ships available to make the journey, as there used to be in the ‘good old days’ circa 1920…  – but will be looking to travel by Eurotunnel or other scheduled ferry and overland services if the need arises. As my husband often says, “I like to make the journey part of our holiday.”

This year, I’m going to think twice before buying non-consumables, though that is proving to be a challenge. I seem to live a fairly minimal lifestyle as it is, and sometimes I yearn to splurge, but it’s a good discipline first make use of what we have, and to look afresh at all the books already in our bookcases, the cds and other things in the home. Do I need more? Can what I have be recycled? Redeployed?

If I go too far down the minimalist road, I might find all my shelves and rooms empty, except for two changes of clothes in my wardrobe and my computer. I will not, therefore, be ‘getting rid’ of my old clothes, CDs, paper books, and dictionaries, since ‘getting rid’ of these is merely passing their matter sideways. Anyway, in the course of a life, one does find favourites, and these I will keep. So until my ‘legacy’ collection of CDs is rendered entirely obsolete, I shall reinstall my CD drive on my computer whenever the latest updates delete it. A small price to be able to work with music of my choice.

I feel so blessed to live in the world as we have made it now. Freed of the need to go and find firewood and water, and walk twenty miles for healthcare, there is so much I can do to please myself. We have so many chances to be happy. These may be small, but to preserve the ability of others to access that happiness, we must do more to help each other. The world – like the democratic freedoms we have rather taken for granted – is a fragile, complex web, infinitely precious and worth preserving.

Thanks so much for reading.

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May 5, 2021

More lessons learned in lockdown

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More lessons learned in lockdown

We may never get back to the way things used to be: the ‘new normal’ may well be here to stay, and in some ways, the year-long lockdown feels to me like a dress rehearsal for the real business of saving the planet, which means that we all have to urgently redesign our lives around low-impact living: using less, saving more of our stuff, repairing, mending and tidying, instead of taking the line of least resistance and first resort to high-gear newness.

The way things have been running is expensive – I don’t mean financially – careless and extravagant in ways we are finally beginning to appreciate. And too often, it is other people and creatures in distant places that are now paying the cost for our extravagance. So what more lessons have I learned during lockdown this year?

I’m now as much of a vegetarian as I can be, which is to say I avoid meat and fish, though when I feel the need to eat a portion of chicken curry that everyone else is having, I will do so, and I will eat sardines occasionally. I’m not a meat reducer and not a vegan, since although I avoid milk and cheese products, I do reserve the right to eat eggs. Vegetarianism feels like a release from the old tired expectations of ‘meat and two veg’ as I finally give myself permission to extend my usual range and eat the things I really do prefer: grapefruit and soya yogurt with breakfast, almond and cashew butter as well as peanut butter; more vegetables and greens, more home-made soup…It’s such a relief to enjoy my food more, and to enjoy cooking. Conversely, it is astonishing to see how quickly I turn away from meat. So there is, in me, no sense of hardship, nor any need to buy ‘fake’ bacon to fill some perceived longing or lack.  

I’m using bamboo products more, instead of traditional paper options so often sourced from wood-pulp and paper; and sustainable and natural fibre clothing wherever possible. There is of course a place for using recycled paper products, and those often made from rags and such like. But once I started looking at what can be made from bamboo – food to eat, clothes, cups, utensils – I had to ask myself what took me so long to clock on.

(To be continued.) Thanks for reading.

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April 29, 2021

Life as I know it

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Life as I know it

It seems that my life as I know it is about to change, though I have no idea when. My mother, who for several years has ‘enjoyed indifferent health’ – the kind of health that Georgette Heyer gifts to the hypochondriacal mothers of her feisty heroines, so my mother would appreciate the joke: she doesn’t enjoy her indifferent health at all – is on a steady decline. Another one, following several previous occasions when her life hung in the balance. It is testament to her strength of character that she has come so far, so often pulling herself back from the brink by sheer willpower and refusal to concede defeat.

And I’m grateful for the time we have had together, time which, I reflect, we didn’t have while my siblings and I were growing up. Sent off to boarding schools – two apiece, my eldest sister and brother to one, my twin sister and I to a different one – as unlike Mallory Towers as it is possible to imagine, we grew up apart, finding solace, I suspect, in learning, reading and books, much as my mother has always done.

The times when Mum was at home with us – school holidays, mostly – I remember her working hard at her typewriter / computer, in her own thoughts, in her workspace. Determined not to follow that particular example of absenting oneself from the rest of life, I have made a very conscious effort to set my work aside whenever I have company, and so far, the effort has paid dividends. I am not as work obsessed as my mother was, nor as I used to be, since I appreciate with fresh urgency how precious is time spent with other people. A realisation that has become crystal clear during lockdown.

Being in my mother’s company has taught me to be patient, and that there is always room for cheerfulness and optimism; being cheerful and optimistic is often the best thing we can gift to any situation. That is a lesson that will stand me in good stead, and for which I am immensely grateful. Why things are as they are, is often unknown to us; but we can appreciate the progress we make in each day, being kinder and gentler with one another. In being so, there is less to regret, less to worry about. A wonderful lesson to have collected from being with Mum.

Thanks for reading.

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April 26, 2021

‘Snap’ by Belinda Bauer

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‘Snap’ by Belinda Bauer

Where can you buy good books at the moment? Almost no-where is available for the impulse purchase. So the box of books at our local post-office is very welcome. Come and browse, take what you want and leave a donation. There is something about the handling of actual books that also makes it easier to find reading outside one’s usual range, and ‘Snap’ is the first book I have read by Belinda Bauer.

‘Snap‘ starts out as standard thriller fare: Three children waiting in a car on a motorway hard shoulder, pregnant mother having gone to phone for help. She never comes back. An interesting set-up – and every driver’s nightmare – easily gets even a fairly seasoned reader like me hooked. The children grow up fast, and after their dad also walks out, basically spend the next three years fending for themselves, at home and guarded with surprising maturity by the eldest son, Jack. He takes to a life of petty crime, but has his own standards: He never burgles a house if anyone is at home, and he has no taste for junk food. The house is a mess, but the garden is always kept immaculate, since Jack knows that a tidy lawn will shield his household from closer scrutiny. Clever boy.

The other side of the narrative, featuring another pregnant woman and her husband, at first proceeds along fairly predictable lines, but gradually it dawns on this reader, that this story in two parts is part parable, part fable, unfolding with a gentle inevitability that one almost never finds in standard, gruesome thriller fare: Jack is helped by another petty crim whose specialism is knives and who has a baby son; Jack’s new neighbour is the mother of one of the investigating policemen; the homeless man whom Jack passes most days on his rounds, is his father, who cracked up after his wife was killed and went AWOL.

I’d guess that it’s intended to be humorous, which tells me that there is a larger message at play here: that “ordinary” life is full of quirks, we may unexpectedly run out of time any time, so it’s a good idea to be kind to each other.

I’m not entirely convinced that the two – thriller and parable – threads marry very well: Standard thriller fare is blood and guts, and we never actually know for sure what happened to Jack’s mother: there are no descriptively frightening passages that are otherwise such a gift to a thriller writer. The remainder of the book is liberally strewn with the kind of gentle improbabilities that tell me, before I’m very far into the story, that all will be well. And it’s this I ultimately warm to, and through which I notice the humour and enjoy the story and the writing.

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April 23, 2021

‘Harbour Ways’ by Valerie Poore

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‘Harbour Ways’ by Valerie Poore

‘Harbour Ways‘ is the second book I’ve read by Valerie Poore, (this is the first) and I’m in awe at her industry: how she has managed to move around the world, raise a family, maintain full-time employment and write such lovely books is a wonder. She reminds me in many ways of my sisters: multi-talented, able to put her hand to most things and energetic, yet modest withal.

Poore writes with an immediacy and warmth that I wish I could manage in my own work. ‘Harbour Ways’, one of several instalments of her memoirs, tells us all about her struggles to buy, mend and furnish a historic but much neglected barge which she still lives on today, in Rotterdam, Holland. Courage and the ability to make friends are two more of Val’s strengths, as she negotiates many hurdles and a language barrier in order to repair and furnish her new home with the help of the community of like-minded souls around her. 

It’s interesting to watch the author’s transformation from relative novice to experienced water traveller, and enjoyable to muse on the possibilities of travel for oneself. It may be that lock-down has made me nostalgic, but I’m also heartened to see how one’s life can be transformed through the discipline of a long, long series of challenges, mastered one step at a time. There are times when Val’s courage in the face of her challenges is humbling and inspiring in equal measure.

The book itself is interesting, well-written and engaging, and I wish I could listen to Val’s story-telling long after the narrative closes. Which is doubtless the only encouragement I need to read another in the series. Thank you for writing with heart, and giving one hope that rises above the confines of usual, normal life.

Many thanks for reading.

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April 20, 2021

‘Grown Ups’ by Marian Keyes – Concluded

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‘Grown Ups’ by Marian Keyes – Concluded

You can find the first part of this review here

‘Grown Ups’ feels like the first volume in a longer series. I would love Keyes to write a follow up as I’m keen to know what happens next to all the characters, chancers and sweet souls that people this novel. To see how Keyes brings each character to life and keeps them distinct and relevant is impressive, as the story weaves and comes to its conclusion. It’s a good, long read, with no wasted words and it’s obvious that a great deal of thought has been invested in crafting the narrative.

In common with most authors writing this year, Keyes has faced a dilemma: the story is firmly set in 2020 and so Keyes has opted to assume that the pandemic is not happening. To that extent, all writers face a choice: to write a story within a pandemic backdrop – because that is what this year has been – or to assume, as Marian has done – hey, it’s fiction – that the pandemic exists in another kind of reality that has no bearing on the Casey’s family story. And, though I have swithered on this point, it is refreshing to read a story that is up-to-date but which proceeds blissfully outside the common reality of closed theatres, empty festival venues and shut shops. It’s nice to get simple, vicarious thrills from a novel.

All credit to Keyes for a generous, vibrant and heart-felt tale, beautifully written as always and thoughtful. There are some very sobering threads of narrative – middle wife does well to come out of her traumatic experiences with her life intact – mostly about the importance of communication, honesty and trusting. I always feel I learn a lot about life from reading a Keyes novel; and this offering continues the trend in my – very willing – education about life, the universe and everything else besides.

Thanks for reading.

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