Random Jottings

My Favourite Jane - Persuasion

I have done a lot of re-reading this year and know that many of you, like me, have found it hard to concentrate under the current circumstances. When we first went into lockdown I thought Oh goody time to read all those books on my shelves, time to write more, time to paint the ceiling, lose a stone, take up painting yada yada yada.  None of which has taken place. My reading this year has mainly been of the 'easy' variety and not many books which require thoughtful analysis and I have turned to old favourites.  I re-read Emma recently which I am liking more and more. I know she is a busy, interfering pain but there is something rather endearing about her and her realisation of her mistakes and the admission of her failings at the end of the story makes me really love her.  But my favourite Jane remains the same and I cannot see that changing any time, and it is Persuasion.

I love all of Austen's writing; Sense and Sensibility, the story of the two contrasting sisters, Eleanor and Marianne; Emma as I have just mentioned; Northanger Abbey with a very silly heroine and a sharp amusing poke at Gothic tales; Mansfield Park, at first a difficult read with an irritatingly priggish heroine Fanny, but perhaps in the end, her greatest work and, of course, Pride and Prejudice about which nothing need be said. 

Persuasion is Jane Austen's last book and it has an autumnal, elegiac, slightly melancholy feel about it.  Anne Elliot is 27 and unmarried and living at home with her vain father Sir Walter Elliot and her proud, snobbish elder sister Elizabeth.  Mary, the middle daughter who is a fussy, hypochondriac suffering from a permanent state of imagined ill usage, is married and away from home.  Anne is totally unappreciated by her family 'it is only Anne' which is a source of sorrow to her great friend Lady Russell who sees Anne's sterling qualities and similarity to her long dead mother.  Lady Russell exerts a strong influence on her and it is she who 'persuaded' Anne to refuse a marriage offer from Frederic Wentworth, then a lowly sailor, who she deemed not good enough for the 19 year old youngest daughter of Sir Walter.

Sir Walter Elliot is deeply in debt and is forced to retrench and move to Bath, letting out Elliot Hall to an Admiral Coft and his wife who turns out to be sister to the long lost and loved Frederick. 

In Bath Anne finds find her father and sister very pleased with their situation and also boasting that Mr Eliot, their father's heir, is in town and very anxious to be reunited with the family that he, purportedly, slighted many years ago.  He is charming, elegant, smooth talking and well bred and begins to pay marked attention to Anne.  It seems that he is the perfect match for her and Lady Russell, once more, tries to 'persuade' Anne that this would be a good marriage and would give her a household of her own.  Anne is not so sure and while visiting an old school friend, living in difficult circumstances in Bath, finds out certain facts that are detrimental to Mr Eliot and show him for what he is, untrustworthy and scheming. 

Frederick is also in Bath and now deemed a much more worthy person than before by her family as he is now a Captain and rich and can thus be admitted to their social circle.  By the time Anne and Frederick see each other in Bath they have met frequently in the company of others and Anne has had to suffer in silence, noting his apparent love for Louisa Musgrove and thinking that she has lost him for ever.  A surprise engagement announcement that Louisa is marrying another gives Anne hope that perhaps all is not lost. 

Anne has a steadfastness and quiet determination, a quality that Jane must have had in abundance and which she has passed on to all her heroines.  Eleanor in Sense and Sensibility shows this quietness and her adherance to what she knows to be the right behaviour no matter what, in total contrast to her sister Marianne who, quite frankly, I find a pain;  Fanny Price in Mansfield Park, despised as she is by all her relatives save Edward, sticks to her principles throughout and is the only protagonist not to be taken in by the Crawfords; Lizzy Bennett, on the surface much wittier and light hearted than other heroines, also has determination and the strength of character to admit she has been blinded by prejudice.  Even Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey, who seems to be the silliest of all the Austen heroines, shows remarkable tenaciousness in clinging onto Guy Tilney after she has spotted him and wins him, despite her seeming idiocy.  These girls have all got staying power......

Charlotte Bronte did not like Jane Austen and rather derided her style of writing, finding her passionless. This is an understandable reaction from the author of  Jane Eyre whose cry of equality to Mr Rochester must surely be one of the greatest moments in English literature, but Austen is not lacking in passion.  It is there alright but is hidden and simmering below the surface which makes the declaration of love all the more potent.

Each time I reach the last few chapters of Persuation I am on tenterhooks and want to read on to know what is happening, even thought I have read it countless times.  Anne is in Bath, in a hotel sitting room with the Musgrove family who have come to town to buy wedding clothes for their two daughters, Louisa and Henrietta. Anne is by the window talking to an old sailor friend of Captain Wentworth, Captain Harville. He is talking to her of the pain a man feels when he says goodbye to his family on setting sail, while wondering if he will ever see them again.   Anne believes that men are capable of 'everything great and good in their married lives'  but then comes the sentence that galvanises Frederick into action 'All the privilege I claim for my own sex..............is that of loving longest when existence or all hope is gone'

Shortly after this Captains Wentworth and Harville depart but before Frederick leaves he gives Anne a letter and places it before her with 'eyes of glowing entreaty'.  She opens it and this is what she finds:

"I can listen no longer in silence.......you pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me that I am not too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own that when you almost broke it eight and a half years ago. Dare not say that a man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you...."

No passion?

Yeh, right.

 

I have done a lot of re-reading this year and know that many of you, like me, have found it hard to concentrate under the current circumstances. When we first went into lockdown I thought Oh goody time to read all those books on my shelves, time to write more, time to paint the ceiling, lose a stone, take up painting yada yada yada.  None of which has taken place. My reading this year has mainly been of the 'easy' variety and not many books which require thoughtful analysis and I have turned to old favourites.  I re-read Emma recently which I am liking more and more. I know she is a busy, interfering pain but there is something rather endearing about her and her realisation of her mistakes and the admission of her failings at the end of the story makes me really love her.  But my favourite Jane remains the same and I cannot see that changing any time, and it is Persuasion.

I love all of Austen's writing; Sense and Sensibility, the story of the two contrasting sisters, Eleanor and Marianne; Emma as I have just mentioned; Northanger Abbey with a very silly heroine and a sharp amusing poke at Gothic tales; Mansfield Park, at first a difficult read with an irritatingly priggish heroine Fanny, but perhaps in the end, her greatest work and, of course, Pride and Prejudice about which nothing need be said. 

Persuasion is Jane Austen's last book and it has an autumnal, elegiac, slightly melancholy feel about it.  Anne Elliot is 27 and unmarried and living at home with her vain father Sir Walter Elliot and her proud, snobbish elder sister Elizabeth.  Mary, the middle daughter who is a fussy, hypochondriac suffering from a permanent state of imagined ill usage, is married and away from home.  Anne is totally unappreciated by her family 'it is only Anne' which is a source of sorrow to her great friend Lady Russell who sees Anne's sterling qualities and similarity to her long dead mother.  Lady Russell exerts a strong influence on her and it is she who 'persuaded' Anne to refuse a marriage offer from Frederic Wentworth, then a lowly sailor, who she deemed not good enough for the 19 year old youngest daughter of Sir Walter.

Sir Walter Elliot is deeply in debt and is forced to retrench and move to Bath, letting out Elliot Hall to an Admiral Coft and his wife who turns out to be sister to the long lost and loved Frederick. 

In Bath Anne finds find her father and sister very pleased with their situation and also boasting that Mr Eliot, their father's heir, is in town and very anxious to be reunited with the family that he, purportedly, slighted many years ago.  He is charming, elegant, smooth talking and well bred and begins to pay marked attention to Anne.  It seems that he is the perfect match for her and Lady Russell, once more, tries to 'persuade' Anne that this would be a good marriage and would give her a household of her own.  Anne is not so sure and while visiting an old school friend, living in difficult circumstances in Bath, finds out certain facts that are detrimental to Mr Eliot and show him for what he is, untrustworthy and scheming. 

Frederick is also in Bath and now deemed a much more worthy person than before by her family as he is now a Captain and rich and can thus be admitted to their social circle.  By the time Anne and Frederick see each other in Bath they have met frequently in the company of others and Anne has had to suffer in silence, noting his apparent love for Louisa Musgrove and thinking that she has lost him for ever.  A surprise engagement announcement that Louisa is marrying another gives Anne hope that perhaps all is not lost. 

Anne has a steadfastness and quiet determination, a quality that Jane must have had in abundance and which she has passed on to all her heroines.  Eleanor in Sense and Sensibility shows this quietness and her adherance to what she knows to be the right behaviour no matter what, in total contrast to her sister Marianne who, quite frankly, I find a pain;  Fanny Price in Mansfield Park, despised as she is by all her relatives save Edward, sticks to her principles throughout and is the only protagonist not to be taken in by the Crawfords; Lizzy Bennett, on the surface much wittier and light hearted than other heroines, also has determination and the strength of character to admit she has been blinded by prejudice.  Even Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey, who seems to be the silliest of all the Austen heroines, shows remarkable tenaciousness in clinging onto Guy Tilney after she has spotted him and wins him, despite her seeming idiocy.  These girls have all got staying power......

Charlotte Bronte did not like Jane Austen and rather derided her style of writing, finding her passionless. This is an understandable reaction from the author of  Jane Eyre whose cry of equality to Mr Rochester must surely be one of the greatest moments in English literature, but Austen is not lacking in passion.  It is there alright but is hidden and simmering below the surface which makes the declaration of love all the more potent.

Each time I reach the last few chapters of Persuation I am on tenterhooks and want to read on to know what is happening, even thought I have read it countless times.  Anne is in Bath, in a hotel sitting room with the Musgrove family who have come to town to buy wedding clothes for their two daughters, Louisa and Henrietta. Anne is by the window talking to an old sailor friend of Captain Wentworth, Captain Harville. He is talking to her of the pain a man feels when he says goodbye to his family on setting sail, while wondering if he will ever see them again.   Anne believes that men are capable of 'everything great and good in their married lives'  but then comes the sentence that galvanises Frederick into action 'All the privilege I claim for my own sex..............is that of loving longest when existence or all hope is gone'

Shortly after this Captains Wentworth and Harville depart but before Frederick leaves he gives Anne a letter and places it before her with 'eyes of glowing entreaty'.  She opens it and this is what she finds:

"I can listen no longer in silence.......you pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me that I am not too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own that when you almost broke it eight and a half years ago. Dare not say that a man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you...."

No passion?

Yeh, right.

Kaiser Wilhelm II - John C G Rohl

I am feeling that my brain is emerging from its year long fog and that my reading mojo might be creeping back. I do feel under lockdowns 1, 2, 3 or whatever my little grey cells have turned to mush and I have been unable to concentrate on anything that needs, well, concentration.

But now with the sun shining (well today at least) and the daffodils and crocuses beginning to poke through the ground, a sense of hope and anticipation is emerging and this week I have found myself actually looking at some non-fiction. I enjoy non-fiction but I cannot zap through it like I do a novel or detective story and I need to concentrate.

I am a huge fan of Queen Victoria as you probably all know by now and I have read extensively about her, her family etc etc and one person who I have found intriguing and not really explored, is her grandson, Kaiser Wilhelm.   We all know the basic facts about him but I wanted to read more and researched a biography. Several historians I know recommeded the one by John C G Rohl but the only problem with this is its size. It is in three volumes, superbly researched and regarded as the definitive book on Wilhelm.  I have dithered about wondering whether to get it but decided against it until I discovered quite by chance that there is a  'concise life' which has been produced from these volumes and is more accessible. So I ordered it and it arrived last week and I have begun to read it.

I have always felt that Prince Albert sacrificed his daughter, Vicky, to a marriage with the future Emperor of Germany, as he felt that placing her in the court would help bring about a united Germany which was his dream and master plan.   The Queen went along with it as everything her Beloved Albert did was right in her eyes but as the years passed and she witnessed Vicky's unhappy and fraught life I do wonder if she had doubts.

Vicky gave birth to WIlhelm when she was just eighteen. Eighteen! Married and sent away to a foreign and hostile country at seventeen and a year later, a mother. The birth was disastrously handled as the baby was in the breach position and the doctors were incompetent so that when the baby was finally delivered, he had been literally dragged out of his mother and nerves in the neck were damaged which left him with a withered and paralysed arm,

Vicky could not cope with this disability. She had high hopes that with the birth of her son and the accession of her husband Frederick some time in the future would mean a more progressive future for her adopted country.   Instead she felt ashamed that she had a 'crippled' son and she took little pleasure in him.

"the flaw had to be removed and if the measures prescribed by the doctors failed, the physical handicap would have to be corrected through the child's upbringing"

This was her decision and Vicky then embarked on a system of education that made Wilhelm's life a misery. Not only did her undergo the most barbaric efforts to straighten and 'cure' his withered arm, which caused him hours of pain, but the work he was supposed to undertake would flatten anybody.

What I find incomprehensibleis how Vicky could inflict this on her son, when she had witnessed first hand what effect this kind of regime had on her brother Bertie, the Prince of Wales and later Edward VII.   Bertie was the future King and Victoria and Albert wanted him to reflect his father with all his virtues and intellect and they failed. Now Vicky also wanted her son to be like 'Beloved Papa' and repeated the same process with the same result.

She was not exactly encouraging:

"the hand and the spelling are so bad, there was hardly a word without a mistake or a letter left out. I think you should take a little more pain or you will get into such a slovenly way of writing.  Then you begin 'liebe mama' which I think is very cool, don't you think you could find a little word which sounds more affectionate?"

Wilhelm loved his mother and tried so hard to win her love in return and her approval but in vain.  She found him arrogant and smug and it seemed that only one of his tutors realised "no one has the idea that this boy has a soul like other children, that it requires nurturing, purification, sanctification, it is only I who am pursued by this thought as it it were a nightmare. I feel sorry for the poor boy. Where is this person to find love and faith which he will need more than anyone else?"

In time Wilhelm came to hate his parents, but his mother in particular, and while I am not finding excuses for the future Kaiser and his bombastic and warlike behaviour, one can only feel sorrow for this poor neglected child who suffered such an awful childhood.

I always found Vicky rather an unlikeable personality. She rejoiced in her intellect and her closeness to her father and was contemptuous of her brother Bertie.  She seemed to be somewhat lacking in sympathy and empathy as poor Wilhelm found out.

A fascinating and thought provoking start to this book.

Random Watching

Another week in paradise has gone.

I am being sarcastic in case you thought I was being all Pollyannerish. I am not. Getting fed up with everything now but I gather a glimmer is in sight that our Lords and Masters have decreed an end to lockdown in March. Not a total end, natch, but a gentle easing. That is all I want, I have no desire to go sit in a pub, go to a rave (not that I ever did) and dance naked in the snow (not that I ever did that either, at least I don't think so) but just to be able to pop into town and have a wander round the shops and stop for a coffee. It is the small things I miss.

But I have taken the time to catch up on loads of films and tv shows and have watched more tv in the last few months than I have in years so this post is all about that and is not literary in any sense of the word so if you have come here today expecting an erudite piercing analysis of a book you will be disappointed. Not sure you ever got that anyway so perhaps I am refining a tad.

After my last post on the Clancy biography of Cary Grant (please check it out if you have not already read it) which has received lots of comments both on and off blog, I have been watching some of his films. And oh my goodness I had forgotten just how simply gorgeous, charismatic and handsome he was. And so effortlessly elegant.  I mentioned that I had rewatched North by North West and To Catch a Thief - well I have now watched Charade and the other night it was the turn of An Affair to Remember.

Now I saw this at the Saturday Night Pictures which I attended religiously for years with my mum and sister and I wept buckets.  Not sure if it was a good idea to watch it at this particular time but hey ho.   A few weeks ago I watched Sleepless in Seatle, the movie with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, which references the Cary Grant film and reminded me that I had loved it years ago.

Well apart from two excruciatingly nauseating scenes with ghastly singing children, badly acted, it was gorgeous.  Cary and Deborah Kerr sparring with each other on a voyage trying to remembe they were already involved with others but unable to resist. And then promising to meet at the top of the Empire State Building.   Years ago when I actually visited this place and was looking out over New York I heard this scene referenced by loads of people around me. I dislike the use of the word iconic but in this case it is the right one.

 

I ended up a sodden heap of course but oh how I loved it all over again.

Over the last ten years I have watched a French series Spiral about a team of cops in Paris.  It was quite superb and gripping and attracted a huge fan base.   Each series was followed in the Guardian newspaper in the Uk who did a recap of each episode, which I needed at times to comprehand what was going on, and then commented on underneath by devoted fans. This all added to the viewing experience.

The final two episodes were shown a couple of weeks ago and they were just so good. I was on the edge of my seat feeling the tension and the creeping feeling that something awful was going to happen.   If you want something to watch then do get hold of this. Eight series though so a lot to catch up on.

After that I looked for something else and noted that many of the Spiral fans had enjoyed The Bureau another French series about the French Intelligence service. It is on Amazon Prime and the first series about a fiver so I gave it a whirl and soon found myself equally riveted.  I have just purchased series two and there are three more after this so I think I can safely say I have a lot lined up at the moment.

I am still finding it hard to concentrate on reading and know many of my fellow readers and bloggers are feeling the same right now so I am just picking up random books and reading in a very haphazard way. So at the moment I am reading Catherine Aird who I am enjoying thought she does tend to get bogged down in long drawn out conversations which seem to add very little to the mystery, and The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie, have not read it for yonks and she thought it was a poor book so I am going to see what I think of it and I had better stop as this sentence is very long....

I am also doing a bit of knitting. Just a simple cowl which needs no close attention to the pattern which is just as well as I am working on it while watching the cricket which, calloo callay o frabjous day, is back on terrestrial tv for the first time since 2005 and also the Australian Open.  I am spoiled for choice.

I hope all my lovely readers are Keeping Calm and Carrying On.   I feel the end is in sight and having had my first jab (had a nasty reaction to it but no matter) and the second lined up in April, my sense of optimism is rising.

Let us hope it continues do to so.

 

Cary Grant: the Making of a Hollywood Legend - Mark Glancy

When I was a little girl my mother, sister and I used to go to the pictures every Saturday night. Not the cinema, not the movies, but the pictures. It was the highlight of the week for us and we went to a cinema in the Euston Road called The Century. It had hard seats and was pretty utilitarian but for ten years I attended and saw practically every film made from 1956 onwards. And one of the films that I remember as if it were yesterday was North by Northwest starring Cary Grant. I fell in love with him on the spot. Witty, charming and elegant and so good looking, I was dazzled.

The scene in which the crop dusting plane attacks him, when he suddenly realises after standing alone in the middle of a desert, scared the living daylights out of me and still has a powerful resonance years later. I watched it again just a few weeks ago and the tension and the fear was still there.

The reason I rewatched North by Northwest (and To Catch a Thief, Charade and others) was that I had just finished reading an excellent biography of Cary Grant by Mark Glancy.  Most biographies of Hollywood Slebs are usually hagiographies or a collection of salacious stories.  One of the reviews I read wondered if he really did sleep with Randolph Scott - ok I think she was being humorous but it illustrates my point perfectly.

So it was with relief that I found Glancy's book does not fall into this trap but takes time to explore and research Cary Grant as a serious subject for a biographer.

The main thing I knew about Cary in my childhood was that he was British and this, for some unfathomable reason, endeared him to me even more, he came from Bristol and his real name was Archibald Leach. I also knew that he was unerringly superbly dressed and devestatingly good looking and that was that.

Cary invented himself totally when he made it to America, fabricating stories about his childhood and background and then, in later years when he was famous, trying to remember what he has said when being questioned.  It is a cliche to say that a child runs away to join the circus but that is what he did in a bid to escape his unhappy home life. He came home one day to find his mother gone and was told she had died. His father formed a relationship with another woman and seemed to have little time for Archie.

Years later, when Archie was no more and Cary was a star, his father was dying and on his death bed informed his son that his mother was not dead but had been living in a mental institution to which Elias had had her committed.  The shock must have been devestating. When he went to see her she did not recognise him and said he was not her son "You don't even sound like my Archie".  He freed her from the hospital and supported her for the rest of his life but their relationship was always a fragile one.

I hesitate to lay the unhappiness in a person's life to their childhood - I feel as an adult that it is pointless laying blame for one's dissatisfaction completely to your upbringing. After a while one should take charge of one's own destiny and life, but it is almost impossible to read this biography and not realise that Cary Grant's loveless, miserable times as a young boy impacted on him hugely. By running away and leaving the country behind him, going to a new place where nobody knew him and he could reinvent himself, he was making a huge effort to build another life and create a persona which had nothing to do with Archie Leach.

He succeeded but I cannot feel that he ever achieved true happiness. Married five times and each one failing, it is clear he was looking for a security and love that was always missing.   He finally had a child with his last wife and seemed to be happy with the fact that he too had a family.

I so enjoyed reading this book and found it totally absorbing.   Mark Clancy goes into detail about Cary's acting and role in all of his films, leaving nothing out and so the reader can appreciate and follow his film career alongside his personal life.

As I said at the start of this post I fell in love with Cary when I was about 11 years old and retained this adoration all my life.  There is a scene in Charade which on recent watching struck home.

Reggie Lambert (Hepburn) to Peter Joshua (Grant). Do you know what is the matter with you?

Grant: No. What

Hepburn: Nothing.

And she was right.

Recently read and received at Random Towers

I don't know about you dear readers but I am finding it pretty hard at the moment to concentrate on anything but I decided I really must make the effort. So a cup of tea to hand and a bar of chocolate (I am not of the mindset to worry about calories at the moment) and off I go.

Only Happiness Here - Gabrielle Carey. I spotted this biography of Elizabeth von Arnim when the author tweeted about it and contacted her immediately as it did not seem available here in the UK. She promptly replied that it was being published by Queensland University Press in Australia.   As I have read and admired and loved all of this author's output I got in touch with them and ordered it before Christmas. It duly arrived and with a tote bag too. I love getting free tote bags. I have only just started it and it is looking promising. I do hope it will be available more widely but, in the meantime, if you are a fan of EVA then do buy it.  On checking the exchange rate it works out at around £17.50 plus postage.

The Woods in Winter and The Swiss Summer by Stella Gibbons.  These are published by Dean Street Press who are rapidly becoming, if they are not there already, my favourite publishers. Every single book they produce is right up my strasse and I want I want is a well worn email I send to them and they are kind and good and lovely and have sent me these two titles. (I have promised them that I will buy the other two published at the same time. I think it only right to do so as they are so generous)

I used to work at a library in Highgate, opposite the cemetary no less, and Stella Gibbons used to come in regularly. She was a charming, quiet and friendly lady and always so nice to the staff. She came in one day quite cross with herself and told me that she had woken up in the midde of the night and had a brilliant idea for a book, had not written it down, and when she woke up in the morning she had forgotten it. I wonder which book it was and if she every wrote it.

Love Lives - Carol Dyhouse. The sub-title of this book is from Cinderella to Frozen and is the story of how women's lives, loves and dreams have been re-shaped since 1950 the year of Walt Disney's Cinderella when it was the main ambition of most women to be married and meet Mr Right.  I read this in one sitting and thoroughly enjoyed it. I remember a book some years ago called The Cinderella Complex which covers feminism in the 70's and then a book of a TV series Out of the Dolls House, published in the 80's both of which made fascinating reading covering the changing attitues of women to marriage and home.   This is an up to date addition to the canon and well worth reading Published by OUP in February.

Random Commentary - Dorothy Whipple. Published by Persephone and is the collected jottings of the author.  It is called Random because it is but it is none the less enjoyable for that. All of Whipple's books are now in print thanks to Persephone and if you have them, or have yet to discover her, then of course you must have this one.

The Corpse in the Waxworks  - John Dickson Carr. Another published by the Classic Crime series at the British Library. I read one of this particular author and freely admit I was not enamoured of it though it was hailed as a shining example of the Locked Room Mystery. I flag this up here as I know many of you collect these books and would like to know of it. I am going to give it a whirl....I think.

So I think this is enough to be getting on with.  I have discovered my rate of reading has slowed over the last year. Isn't it odd that having spent most of my life wishing I had more time to sit and read, now I have it I find I cannot concentrate?

'sigh'

Random round up or Wot I have Read so Far

Is there anybody out there who likes January?

No, I thought not.   It is such a dreary month and I have always found it so and this year of course it is worse than usual.  It is a dank drear day today and it is a huge effort to make myself go out for a daily walk but I am making myself do so as I think it is vital to shift myself otherwise I would be languishing on my sofa all day.

So what have I been reading?  Not a lot.   Last year the number of books I logged as having read dropped by a third which is most unusual for me. It is odd that when I have more time than usual to read I read less. Circumstances in 2020 turned my reading mojo to mush and I am not sure I have it back yet.   Still here goes...

The Thursday Murder Club - Richard Osman.   Now lest I be in any doubt about this I am told (on the front cover) that this is a "record breaking Number one bestseller".  It is a "beacon of pleasure" "deplorably good" (can something be deplorably good?  mmmm) "diabolically clever" and so on and so on and so on.   Richard Osman is a Sleb and is on tv and has a high profile and so is able to wheel out the litterati to lavish praise.   Being Famous obviously helps if you are writing and have a book to promote.

The premise is that four old biddies get together in a Residential Home to review cold cases (one of them is an ex police detective so has access to the files.Handy) and of course a real life murder happens and they solve it.   OK that sounds promising.

After ploughing through pages of turgid prose I gave up and turned to the last page where I discovered who did it and why and was still none the wiser.   I very rarely give bad reviews because just because I do not like something does not automatically mean that everyone else will agree with me and rightly so. But as I feel my thought are likely to dent sales in any way I have to say that I think it is over written and I get the impression that Mr Osman polished every sentence and honed it to perfection all the while thinking Oh what a clever boy am I.  

Sorry but I thought it was poor stuff. I await the series as I do not think this is a one off and, natch, it is tailor made for a tv adapation.

I mentioned that I had discovered Catherine Aird. Late in the day as she has been writing for yonks but for some reaon unknown to me I have never read any of her books.  I was offered one for 99p for my kindle and thought it sounded fun and it was.  I then tracked down a load more but many of them seem to be out of print and they were rather expensive for a kindle buy. So l logged onto ebay and a second hand book site and ordered several titles all of which arrived this week. One of them is an omnibus with three stories in, a decent paperback for £4.50 which is a bargain.

They feature DI Sloan and his sidekick, a somewhat grey cell challenged sargeant, Crosby.  They are set in the fictional county of Calleshire and so far I am finding them witty, amusing and written with a flow and drive totally lacking in the Osman book.

I rather enjoyed this paragraph which gives you an idea of the author's style:

"Constable Crosby might have fancied his fast driving but it wasn't a patch on that of Dr Dabbe.  The consultant pathologist.....was the fastest driver in the county of Calleshire. Strong men had been known to blench when offered a lift by him. Those who incautiously accepted them were rumoured never to be the same afterwards.  The Dean of Callliford, a blameless man whose faith was seemingly as firm as that of anyone in the dicocese, had once tried to get out of Dr Dabbe's moving car, wishing he had led a better life the while.  The doctor's assistant, Burns, who went with him everywhere, had been shocked into silence by it a long time ago and rarely spoke"

Lovely.

I have also just read the lastest Bill Slider detective story by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles Cruel as the Grave.  There are 22 of these and they are so good featuring Detective Bill Slider and his side kick Atherton who I find impossible not to picture as Lewis and Hathaway as there are similarities.  The plots are excellent, the characters well drawn and they are very funny as well. I really recommend them and, if you do start reading them, try and read in order if possible as the character development and relationships do progress as the series goes on.

I have also read a couple of romances by Catherine George who writes for Mills & Boon and who I think has a fine style and a light touch.  She has not written any for some time and on checking her bibliography I think she must be in her eighties now and has probably laid down her pen.  I have quite a collection of her titles, some of them are now thirty years old, which is a bit scary when I think about it but I really enjoy them. Perfect comfort reading.

Onwards and upwards Dear Readers and I hope you are all Keeping Calm and Carrying on.

 

 

A re-read: Kept in the Dark by AnthonyTrollope

I think everyone is familiar with the Barchester Chronicles and the Palliser series of political novels by this author and those were the titles I read first when I discovered Trollope some years ago.  I then started to read my way through his stand alone titles, and there are plenty to be getting on with, and this particular one was a total mystery to me and I had not heard of it until I came across a copy in a second hand book shop. It was the Folio edition and I though £8 was a good price for such a lovely book.

Trollope wrote Kept in the Dark  pretty quickly in four months and it appeared in serial form in the Magazine Good Words between May and December 1882 and in two volumes in the same year.  It was therefore the last of his novels to be published in his lifetime as he died in the December.

When reading about the author and his works I have found the idea that he writes about strong women mentioned repeatedly, but on the whole (and there are exceptions) I find a lot of his female protagonists a bit "wet" for want of a better word and here we have a prime example.

The heroine of Kept in the Dark, Cecilia Holt, keeps  a secret from her fiance, the fact that she had been engaged before and to a particularly unsavory baronet.  Once she had realised the kind of man she had promised to marry, she terminated the engagement.  Sir Francis Geraldine took this badly and, naturally, preferred to tell the story that it was he who had decided against marrying Cecilia.  When a year or so later, Cecilia meets and falls in love with Mr Western, she keeps this story to herself.  Her new fiance had also been jilted and, as this is a novel and coincidences are allowed, it was by a young lady who then went on to marry a cousin of Sir Francis.  When Cecilia hears this story she finds it somewhat difficult to mention her own connection with this family and, while she decides she will tell her fiance at some time, the right occasion never arises and she marries him while keeping him In the Dark.

This secret weighs heavily with her.  Now we might wonder what all the fuss is about - what is wrong with breaking off an engagement?  But this is not the 21st century, this is Victorian society and soon rumours about this situation arise, encouraged by Sir Francis who wishes to be revenged on the woman who threw him over.  He also takes it upon himself to tell Mr Western of their aborted engagement.  Not only does he wish to hurt Cecilia but he has a reason for disliking Mr Western who accused him of fraud in the past.

Mr Western throws a hissy fit and is unable to forgive this deception and the fact that she has kept him In the Dark, and without listening to his wife or any explanation, flounces off to live abroad. As you do.  Cecilia then finds she is with child, but does this bring him running back - no it does not.  His stubbornness and intransigence is only broken by his strong willed sister who goes to see him in Dresden where he has  fled and who tears a strip or two off him.  He says he will go back only if his wife asks for his forgiveness to which Lady Graham rightly replies she has no reason to and his behaviour has been wrong and unforgivable.  Cheers all round at this stage at Random Towers where I was thoroughly incensed by Mr Western's pig headed attitude.  He decides to go back to his wife and what does she do as soon as she sees him?  She flings herself in his arms and begs his forgiveness....

Words fail.

It all ends well with Mr Western having the grace to admit that he has also been wrong and the couple then, presumably, live happily ever after. I doubt it somehow....

The plot is very similar to He Knew he was Right, another stand alone title featuring a pig headed husband and an equally stupid wife, but the characters in that book are much more fully drawn, Cecilia and Mr Western are lightly sketched.  My feelings on reading both books was much the same in that I felt like banging heads together and telling each couple to Get a Grip.

There is an amusing sub-plot to set against the Cecila/Mr Western situation and that is of Sir Frances Geraldine being drawn into an engagement with an erstwhile friend of Cecilia, Miss Altifiorla, a single lady in her mid-thirties, very strong on women's rights and very much against marriage, until of course an opportunity comes along.  The reader cannot help but feel that these two ghastly people deserve each other but in the end Sir Francis panics and runs away to America.  At the end of the story we hear that Miss Altifiorla is intending to undertake a lecture tour on Women's Rights in America, so I do not think that Sir Francis will get off scot free.

Definitely not one of Trollope's best but, quite frankly, a second tier Trollope is still streets ahead of most writers and, as always, when I start reading one of his books I find myself getting more and more drawn into the lives and thoughts of the characters and then reach a stage when I literally cannot put the book down until I have finished it.

Some years ago I read Diane Setterfield's the Thirteenth Tale and I was struck by the following observation in this particular book which sums up perfectly my feelings about Victorian literature and why I love it so much:

".....I prefer proper endings.  Marriages and deaths, noble sacrifices and miraculous restorations, tragic separations and unhoped for reunions, great falls and dreams fulfilled; these, in my view, constitute an ending worth the wait.  They should come after adventures, perils, dangers and dilemmas, and wind everything up nicely and neatly..."

Any Trollope novel fulfills the above criteria and leaves the reader closing the book feeling happy and satisfied.  Well, this reader certainly feels that way and as I look at my Trollope collection on my shelves I feel that I may continue with more re-reading.

Let's face it, what else have I got to do at the moment?

The Wisting Books - John Lier Horst

Finally getting going with the reviews for 2021.  As you will have seen from my last post, New Year's Day was a bit of a downer, but now that lockdown has been confirmed, again, it is just a case of Getting on With It.  So here we go.

A few months ago I was sent a recommendation by Amazon, one of those "if you liked that you might like this" thingys and they suggested the Wisting series of detective novels by John Lier Horst.  Their computer system has obviously logged I read a fair bit of so called Scandi-Noir and recommended these. The taster was a title at 99p which is always a temptation because even if you find you do not like the book much you have hardly bankrupted yourself.

As it turned out I really enjoyed the first one I read. So, naturally, I then went online and one by one bought the rest. Well you know I would.

William Wisting is a Chief Inspector in the CID at Larvik, Norway.  He is in his fifties at the start of the series and has two children, Thomas and Line. He is a widower and though he does have a new relationship throughout the stories it is fairly tepid, or so it seems to me, as he still mourns his wife Ingrid.   His son Thomas, who is in the army and away most of the time, features so little in these books that I wonder why the author bothered with him to be honest, but perhaps he will feature more in the future.   The main character alongiside Wisting is his daughter Line who is an investigative journalist based in Oslo and, of course, quite a few of the cases she chases intersect with her father. She has the knack, which can infuriate the reader or make them laugh, depending on your viewpoint, of getting in the way, getting too involved and then having to be rescued by her father and the Larvik police force.  I would find her a bit of a pain to be honest and I did when I started reading.  Later, I warmed to her a bit more.

Alison Graham, who is the editor of the rather quaintly named Radio Times, though the days of just radio are long gone, writes amusing articles each week and her latest one if called "Get in Here Now" and subtitled "If your're a maverick cop beware the Jobsworth Boss" and goes on to cite various police series where this relationship exists.  She is spot on because such a Jobsworth Boss, who is also ambitious and craves promotion, features in the Wisting books as well - Auden Vetti - with whom Wisting clashes.   You can take it as read that he gets his comeuppance in due course.  

Wisting also has his friends and colleagues who he has worked with for years and the books have a very satisfying feel about them.  I read them out of order, because of the 99p offer which set me off on the trail, but I am not sure that this is a real problem though if you do start them then it would probably be better to not take my route and start at number one.

Here is a link to the author's page on Amazon so you can see all the titles. I have now read all the Wisting ones and note that he has written a couple of others with another person so may give those a whirl.

As I said these are satisfying books to read. They are good, solid, well written and I really like them very much. They are not gung ho with mad shoot outs and grisly details (though Horst does not finch from this when a serial killer is involved) and there are chase sequences etc but the main emphasis is on the detecting and the solving of each case and the inner thoughts of Wisting who is a Good Man and a Good Policeman.   I honestly think that writers make their detectives and cops difficult and maverick (yes that word again) because it is more exciting but I do not think this is necessarily the case.   Certainly not if you look back at the Golden Age of crime writing where the solving and resolving was the main focus.

Wisting reminds me very much of Inspector French in the crime novels of Freeman Wills Croft. Painstaking, concentrating on the clues, the minutiae and the gradually unravelling of the puzzle.   Some people say they find this tedious and do not like his books, but police work is most of the time - it is plodding along, hence the somewhat derogatory usage of the word Plod to describe the foot soldiers who just get on with it.

I fear I may have made these books by Horst sound boring and dull which is not my intention. I can recommend them for a thoroughly satisfying read.   There was a BBC4 production last year which is what led me to this author and was very well done.

Well the problem now is what series to read next? I do like to have one lined up and then along comes Amazon and sends me a 99p offer for a book by Catherine Aird who I had heard of but never read. So I  bought it, loved it, well written, great puzzle and also funny and then checked her out and found that I have another 26 to go.

So guess what I am going to do next....

First Post of the Year

I woke up this morning feeling rather gloomy. I have been on my own since Boxing Day and, try as I might, I do find it hard to be cheerful in the face of all the doom laden predictions that are abounding. I have reached the stage where I cannot tell what is true and what is not so I have abandoned all news on the television and only skim the papers. I may be being blinkered but I have honestly had enough at the moment.

Every year I watch the New Year's Day concert from Vienna and wondered how they would manage it this year. Well they did. I gather the orchestra were tested twice daily before and after rehearsals as they were determined to perform. Muti conducted and it seems he is alone in a hotel where it and the entire city is deserted. He is reported to have said it was like being in a horror movie....The Shining comes to mind.

My first glimpse of the concert hall. Totally empty and I burst into tears. I found it incredibly upsetting and as my mood was not good it affected me quite badly.  The orchestra played simply beautifully. I suppose it is because of the lack of audience that the acoustics and sound seemed clearer and brighter but I also felt the Vienna Phil were playing their socks off for us and it was simply stunning.

At the interval, we heard applause. Apparently people all round the world signed up to be the "audience and I found it quite moving and it cheered me up - a bit anyway.

Before the encores Muti came out to address his world wide audience and said that yes, we were worred about our health and that was the first thing but "the health of the mind is so important and this is what music is for". And, oh dear I was off again.

In the end I got up and clapped and marched around my flat when the Radetsky March was played and then we heard the worldwide applause again.  My congratulations and thanks to the Vienna Phil and Muti for going that extra mile to help us all.  It was glorious

I wish you all a Happy New Year and, once again, my thanks to you all for reading, commenting and visiting. Many of you have been loyal supporters for years and it is such a comfort and a joy.  Bless you.

2020 Reading - Part 2

I have just realised the days are moving quickly and I will soon be in 2021 before I talk about my reading this year. So here goes with the second lot.

The Crown in Crisis; the Countdown to the Abdication by Alexander Larman.   This is one of the best, if not the best, of all the books I have read about the Abdication and believe me, I have read the lot.   I reviewed it here

Lady in Waiting - Anne Glenconner.   A brilliantly witty book. Lady Glenconner sounds a redoubtable personalilty, the kind of lady you would find running the WI, opening village Fetes, chivvying you along in the kindest way. I found myself warming to her.  A close friend of Princess Margaret who I always felt got a vicious press. I am sure she was not the easiest person around but the acts of kindness and the support she gave her friend Anne showed another side to her.  Lady Glenconner had two children die and one gravely injured in a car crash and she spent months by his side helping him recover.  She also seemed to be married to a total lunatic.  Great read.

Agatha Christie's Poirot - Mark Aldridge.   I have reviewed this here and it is a book that every Christie lover should have on their shelves.  Brilliant.

Double Lives - Helen McCarthy. Of course this is going to make my list because the author as well as producing a brilliant book, is my daughter. Four years hard slog and lockdown stymied everything.   It has garnered excellent reviews and I am so proud of her.

I have had a canter through my reading list and have to mention the following authors whose books I always read with great enjoyment:

Jane Casey - her Maeve Kerrigan books are excellent. Gripping police work and the relationship between Maeve and the gorgeously sexy Josh is tantalising. So looking forward to the next one.

Linda Castillo - her crime novels are set in Amish country and I have read them all.  I cannot help but feel that there is a similarity to Midsomer Murders in that there is an enormous amount of death and destruction in a small area. Anne Cleve stopped writing her books set in Shetland as she felt she could not bump off any more of the inhabitants....but the Castillo books are well worth a read.

Jane Thynne - her Clara Vine books are simply wonderful and I gather a new one is on the horizon but in the meantime may I urge you to read The Words I Never Wrote.   I raved about it earlier this year but it had only been published in the US.  Now it is due in the UK and worth every penny. Here is my review

Moray Dalton - a Golden Age detective writer and a new discovery for me. Published by Dean Street Press I can highly recommend them. I gather there are more in the offing.

E C R Lorac and Carol Carnac - yes they are the same person and the detective novels are published by British Library publishing in their Classic Crime series.   I have discovered many new unknown writers through this series and Lorac is one of my favourite of these - the other being Freeman Wills Croft.

Peter Lovesey - the Peter Diamond detective series set in Bath. I forgot to mention them in my first post. A re-read and simply terrific.

Elizabeth von Arnim - I am going to embark on a re-read in 2021 but would mention here that the British Library, yes those great peeps again, published Father, one of her relatively unfamiliar works this year and has more in the pipeline. Keep an eye out for them.

So I think that is that. I have read far less this year or rather I have not noted down all the titles I read, as I usually do, because I have read such casual stuff that half the time I have forgotten it as soon as it is closed.   My brain went walk about in 2020 and I am pretty sure that I am not alone in that.

I have a few interesting books lined up for the next few weeks. One, a biography of Cary Grant which was fascinating, is due to be published in 2021 so will leave reviewing until we have left this year behind.

I am not sure 2021 is shaping up to be any better at the moment, but thank heavens for books and reading. I simply cannot fathom how those who do not read survive, I really don't.

Looking forward to a good reading year and lots of lovely comments from you all which I really appreciate. Thank you.