Random Jottings

Miss Silver - Patricia Wentworth

A quick glance down the left hand column of Random will illustrate most clearly that I have been reading the Miss Silver books of Patricia Wentworth.  I discovered these several years ago at a book sale when I found a couple of the new editions lurking in a corner and thought I would give them a go as I love detective novels, particularly those set in the 1930s and 1940s.  I also noted that there were 34 books featuring this character so that if I liked them I would be ok for a while.

I binged on them but then I took a break from reading all the Miss Silver books but I have now returned as I still have about 20 to go. She has also written some 34 other books so these will be logged for future reading.

The first book featuring this ex-governess turned private detective was published in 1928, The Grey Mask and the final story, The Girl in the Cellar in 1961, the year of Patricia Wentworth's death.  It is a shame that the last in the series was so poor and very loosely plotted and even when I read the last page I had no idea of what or why or how.   However, the author was 83 when she died and this should be borne in mind by me when judging and I well remember Agatha Christie's later books being incredibly rambling and disjointed.

Anyway, back to Miss Silver who really is a simply delightful character.  She is timeless and changeless. She has to be as the books are written over a 33 year period and as she is obviously in her 60s when the books start she must be close to 90 near the end.  I remember Agatha Christie and Ngaio Marsh being interviewed about their two detectives, Poirot and Alleyn and Dame A working out that Hercule P with his little grey cells must have been over 100 by the time she finished with him with Alleyn not far behind. Still suspension of disbelief is all.

There is always a description of Miss Silver in each book and it is always the same which is most reassuring to us, the reader, and to whomever consults her:

"With her neat curled fringe, her dated dress - olive green cashmere - the bog oak brooch in the shape of a rose with a pearl at its heart, the black thread stockings and the glace shoes, too small for the modern foot, she might have stepped out of any old fashioned photograph album"

She also manages to express displeasure or disapproval in the most subtle way:

"Mrs Smith said with energy 'I wouldn't want it to go about that I'd been seeing a detective'.  There seemed suddenly to be a considerable distance between herself and Miss Silver.  Without word or movement, this small governessy looking person seemed to have receded.....the astonishing thing is that Mrs Smith discovered that she didn't want her to go. Before she knew what she was going to do she found that she way saying 'Oh well of course, I know that anything I tell you would be in confidence and perfectly safe"

Miss Silver is hugely admired by Detective Inspector Frank Abbot who calls her his revered preceptress, also by Randall March, the Chief Constable of Ledbury, who she taught as a young boy and while Chief Inspector Lamb is not so keen, even he admits:

"The fact is people don't like talking to the police.  This is where Miss Silver comes in. The only thing that stops people talking is being afraid.  Well, no one's afraid of Miss Silver....sits there with her knitting and makes herself pleasant and mind you it isn't put on either... she likes people and takes an interest in them and they fairly tumble over themselves to tell her things"

These are hugely enjoyable detective stories.  They do fall into a pattern and the drawback of reading them all one after the other is that this is noticeable.  The young lovers are always totally innocent. If a couple fall in love you can knock them off the list of suspects straight away (mark you the same can be said of Ngaio Marsh - a handsome young man and a pretty young woman attracted to each other are incapable of murder it seems; Agatha Christie is much more hard hearted, I can think of a couple of books where the young lovers are nor exempt.

I have found in detective novels of this period that there is always a second murder and, again, it is usually the death of somebody who has witnessed the ghastly deed or who knows something about the first killing and tries a spot of blackmail instead of telling the police.  Inevitably, they end up as a corpse.  This ploy is used in nearly every single one of Patricia Wentworth's books and is the one aspect of them that I can criticise as it became pretty predictable after a while.  But, as I said this is probably because I did my usual binge read, if I had spaced them out a bit I would not have noticed it so much.

You cannot read these books without thinking of Miss Marple with whom of course Miss Silver has great similarity.  Both unmarried, elderly ladies, both very sharp and wise, both have a way with maids and what is designated as 'the lower classes' in the books featuring these two Misses, both with nieces and nephews and both happy to sit in a corner and knit, but between each plain and purl stitch they are watching and weighing evidence.  It is a pity that Miss Marple has rather cornered the market in the TV and film stakes; Miss Silver seems to be largely unheard of nowadays, I certainly knew nothing of her until my discovery at a book sale last year, and it is highly unlikely that any TV studio would make a series as the similarity to Miss Marple is too marked.

A shame as Miss Silver got there first.  The Grey Mask was published in 1928 and Miss Marple made her first appearance in The Murder at the Vicarage in 1930.  I wonder if Dame Agatha was influenced by a reading of a Patricia Wentworth story?  Makes you wonder.

Digg This

 

A quick glance down the left hand column of Random will illustrate most clearly that I have been reading the Miss Silver books of Patricia Wentworth.  I discovered these several years ago at a book sale when I found a couple of the new editions lurking in a corner and thought I would give them a go as I love detective novels, particularly those set in the 1930s and 1940s.  I also noted that there were 34 books featuring this character so that if I liked them I would be ok for a while.

I binged on them but then I took a break from reading all the Miss Silver books but I have now returned as I still have about 20 to go. She has also written some 34 other books so these will be logged for future reading.

The first book featuring this ex-governess turned private detective was published in 1928, The Grey Mask and the final story, The Girl in the Cellar in 1961, the year of Patricia Wentworth's death.  It is a shame that the last in the series was so poor and very loosely plotted and even when I read the last page I had no idea of what or why or how.   However, the author was 83 when she died and this should be borne in mind by me when judging and I well remember Agatha Christie's later books being incredibly rambling and disjointed.

Anyway, back to Miss Silver who really is a simply delightful character.  She is timeless and changeless. She has to be as the books are written over a 33 year period and as she is obviously in her 60s when the books start she must be close to 90 near the end.  I remember Agatha Christie and Ngaio Marsh being interviewed about their two detectives, Poirot and Alleyn and Dame A working out that Hercule P with his little grey cells must have been over 100 by the time she finished with him with Alleyn not far behind. Still suspension of disbelief is all.

There is always a description of Miss Silver in each book and it is always the same which is most reassuring to us, the reader, and to whomever consults her:

"With her neat curled fringe, her dated dress - olive green cashmere - the bog oak brooch in the shape of a rose with a pearl at its heart, the black thread stockings and the glace shoes, too small for the modern foot, she might have stepped out of any old fashioned photograph album"

She also manages to express displeasure or disapproval in the most subtle way:

"Mrs Smith said with energy 'I wouldn't want it to go about that I'd been seeing a detective'.  There seemed suddenly to be a considerable distance between herself and Miss Silver.  Without word or movement, this small governessy looking person seemed to have receded.....the astonishing thing is that Mrs Smith discovered that she didn't want her to go. Before she knew what she was going to do she found that she way saying 'Oh well of course, I know that anything I tell you would be in confidence and perfectly safe"

Miss Silver is hugely admired by Detective Inspector Frank Abbot who calls her his revered preceptress, also by Randall March, the Chief Constable of Ledbury, who she taught as a young boy and while Chief Inspector Lamb is not so keen, even he admits:

"The fact is people don't like talking to the police.  This is where Miss Silver comes in. The only thing that stops people talking is being afraid.  Well, no one's afraid of Miss Silver....sits there with her knitting and makes herself pleasant and mind you it isn't put on either... she likes people and takes an interest in them and they fairly tumble over themselves to tell her things"

These are hugely enjoyable detective stories.  They do fall into a pattern and the drawback of reading them all one after the other is that this is noticeable.  The young lovers are always totally innocent. If a couple fall in love you can knock them off the list of suspects straight away (mark you the same can be said of Ngaio Marsh - a handsome young man and a pretty young woman attracted to each other are incapable of murder it seems; Agatha Christie is much more hard hearted, I can think of a couple of books where the young lovers are nor exempt.

I have found in detective novels of this period that there is always a second murder and, again, it is usually the death of somebody who has witnessed the ghastly deed or who knows something about the first killing and tries a spot of blackmail instead of telling the police.  Inevitably, they end up as a corpse.  This ploy is used in nearly every single one of Patricia Wentworth's books and is the one aspect of them that I can criticise as it became pretty predictable after a while.  But, as I said this is probably because I did my usual binge read, if I had spaced them out a bit I would not have noticed it so much.

You cannot read these books without thinking of Miss Marple with whom of course Miss Silver has great similarity.  Both unmarried, elderly ladies, both very sharp and wise, both have a way with maids and what is designated as 'the lower classes' in the books featuring these two Misses, both with nieces and nephews and both happy to sit in a corner and knit, but between each plain and purl stitch they are watching and weighing evidence.  It is a pity that Miss Marple has rather cornered the market in the TV and film stakes; Miss Silver seems to be largely unheard of nowadays, I certainly knew nothing of her until my discovery at a book sale last year, and it is highly unlikely that any TV studio would make a series as the similarity to Miss Marple is too marked.

A shame as Miss Silver got there first.  The Grey Mask was published in 1928 and Miss Marple made her first appearance in The Murder at the Vicarage in 1930.  I wonder if Dame Agatha was influenced by a reading of a Patricia Wentworth story?  Makes you wonder.

A quick glance down the left hand column of Random will illustrate most clearly that I have been reading the Miss Silver books of Patricia Wentworth.  I discovered these several years ago at a book sale when I found a couple of the new editions lurking in a corner and thought I would give them a go as I love detective novels, particularly those set in the 1930s and 1940s.  I also noted that there were 34 books featuring this character so that if I liked them I would be ok for a while.

I binged on them but then I took a break from reading all the Miss Silver books but I have now returned as I still have about 20 to go. She has also written some 34 other books so these will be logged for future reading.

The first book featuring this ex-governess turned private detective was published in 1928, The Grey Mask and the final story, The Girl in the Cellar in 1961, the year of Patricia Wentworth's death.  It is a shame that the last in the series was so poor and very loosely plotted and even when I read the last page I had no idea of what or why or how.   However, the author was 83 when she died and this should be borne in mind by me when judging and I well remember Agatha Christie's later books being incredibly rambling and disjointed.

Anyway, back to Miss Silver who really is a simply delightful character.  She is timeless and changeless. She has to be as the books are written over a 33 year period and as she is obviously in her 60s when the books start she must be close to 90 near the end.  I remember Agatha Christie and Ngaio Marsh being interviewed about their two detectives, Poirot and Alleyn and Dame A working out that Hercule P with his little grey cells must have been over 100 by the time she finished with him with Alleyn not far behind. Still suspension of disbelief is all.

There is always a description of Miss Silver in each book and it is always the same which is most reassuring to us, the reader, and to whomever consults her:

"With her neat curled fringe, her dated dress - olive green cashmere - the bog oak brooch in the shape of a rose with a pearl at its heart, the black thread stockings and the glace shoes, too small for the modern foot, she might have stepped out of any old fashioned photograph album"

She also manages to express displeasure or disapproval in the most subtle way:

"Mrs Smith said with energy 'I wouldn't want it to go about that I'd been seeing a detective'.  There seemed suddenly to be a considerable distance between herself and Miss Silver.  Without word or movement, this small governessy looking person seemed to have receded.....the astonishing thing is that Mrs Smith discovered that she didn't want her to go. Before she knew what she was going to do she found that she way saying 'Oh well of course, I know that anything I tell you would be in confidence and perfectly safe"

Miss Silver is hugely admired by Detective Inspector Frank Abbot who calls her his revered preceptress, also by Randall March, the Chief Constable of Ledbury, who she taught as a young boy and while Chief Inspector Lamb is not so keen, even he admits:

"The fact is people don't like talking to the police.  This is where Miss Silver comes in. The only thing that stops people talking is being afraid.  Well, no one's afraid of Miss Silver....sits there with her knitting and makes herself pleasant and mind you it isn't put on either... she likes people and takes an interest in them and they fairly tumble over themselves to tell her things"

These are hugely enjoyable detective stories.  They do fall into a pattern and the drawback of reading them all one after the other is that this is noticeable.  The young lovers are always totally innocent. If a couple fall in love you can knock them off the list of suspects straight away (mark you the same can be said of Ngaio Marsh - a handsome young man and a pretty young woman attracted to each other are incapable of murder it seems; Agatha Christie is much more hard hearted, I can think of a couple of books where the young lovers are nor exempt.

I have found in detective novels of this period that there is always a second murder and, again, it is usually the death of somebody who has witnessed the ghastly deed or who knows something about the first killing and tries a spot of blackmail instead of telling the police.  Inevitably, they end up as a corpse.  This ploy is used in nearly every single one of Patricia Wentworth's books and is the one aspect of them that I can criticise as it became pretty predictable after a while.  But, as I said this is probably because I did my usual binge read, if I had spaced them out a bit I would not have noticed it so much.

You cannot read these books without thinking of Miss Marple with whom of course Miss Silver has great similarity.  Both unmarried, elderly ladies, both very sharp and wise, both have a way with maids and what is designated as 'the lower classes' in the books featuring these two Misses, both with nieces and nephews and both happy to sit in a corner and knit, but between each plain and purl stitch they are watching and weighing evidence.  It is a pity that Miss Marple has rather cornered the market in the TV and film stakes; Miss Silver seems to be largely unheard of nowadays, I certainly knew nothing of her until my discovery at a book sale last year, and it is highly unlikely that any TV studio would make a series as the similarity to Miss Marple is too marked.

A shame as Miss Silver got there first.  The Grey Mask was published in 1928 and Miss Marple made her first appearance in The Murder at the Vicarage in 1930.  I wonder if Dame Agatha was influenced by a reading of a Patricia Wentworth story?  Makes you wonder.

Queens Tennis - a pre Wimbledon Rant

At this time of the year the grass court season starts in the UK and it is a sign for the die hard tennis fans to come out of hibernation (I am one such) and also the Hooray it is the Season for drifting around the courts drinking Pimms and eating strawberries kind.

Went to Queens for the first time in a couple of years and nothing changes with the audience. The total inability of British tennis fans to sit and watch more than two games without having to charge out and tank up on wine/Pimms and champagne never fails to amaze me.  This year Felicity AKA the Other Grandma and I were sitting in slightly different seats from our last visit and it was not long before we realised they were not the right choice. We had a gangway in front of us for the aforementioned fans to exit in pursuit of liquid refreshment so every change of ends the hordes descended...and ascended.   There was a huge log jam and I find it slightly worrying as the seating is built for the week and then dismantled. While I am certain it is safe, having a jam up three flights of stairs surrounded by scaffolding and you can see the ground thirty feet below is not a reassuring feeling.

I spoke to the stewards who are always young students and always polite and helpful and they spent the rest of the day acting like traffic cops and directing people.

But it was so wearing. One woman was standing in front of me blocking my view and I asked her to move. She got very snarky so I told her that, oddly enough, I was here to see tennis and all I could see at present was her backside. She moved.   This went on all day - one match Berretini was playing and was serving for the match, final game, and half the audience left.  Three people sitting across the gangway from us came in, watched two games, disappeared, came back with bottles and food, sat and stuffed their faces and then left. Now those seats are at least £100 each. Very expensive picnic.

We managed to enjoy it though and had some lovey peeps sitting near us - real tennis fans who did not move for hours and we chatted and gossiped with them and so it was not all bad.

Tennis in the UK is still mired in Poshness.  I have always refuted this in the past but now I have changed my mind. You see the crowds at Queens, Eastbourne and Wimbledon and most of them are there to be seen.   The question is often asked why we rarely produce as many tennis players as, say, those from Bulgaria, Rumania, Croatia etc and the answer is they have had it hard and being good at tennis and working at it brings results. Many of our young players are soft.   Having said that Jack Draper and Cameron Norrie are doing well and this week we had one of those wonderful moments when an unheard of Brit put out the top seed and managed to survive three rounds.  He had a great time and the crowd did too.

I have pulled up a post which I wrote about three years ago at one of my visits to Queens and it illustrates perfectly that nothing has changed:

So a great time but, once again, the attendees amaze me. There are a hard core of tennis fans who go there for the game but there are a huge amount of people who come tarted up to the nines in the latest designer stuff and swan in and out clutching a glass of Champers or Pimms. They never watch more than a game or two.  Felicity and I, apart from the odd loo and tea break, sat and watched nine hours of tennis and loved every minute.

One couple behind us, he such a Hooray Henry with a Panama hat and she in floating skinny dress totally unsuited to the elements drifted in an out all afternoon and the amount of alcohol they consumed would have floored me. They were possessed of these loud braying voices that only the Brits have and in the afternoon vanished and did not appear for four hours. By this time, we thought they had left and spotting a bag and a jacket on the floor, called a steward and told him this had been left behind. He got onto his walkie talkie and five minutes later a burly man in a high vis jacket appeared with a sniffer dog!! At first we all thought this was overkill but then I realised I was sitting in front of this bag so greeted him with joy. Dog had a sniff all ok and the stuff was carted off to Lost Property.

An hour letter the couple swayed in and the following conversation ensued:

She: OOh my god where is my bag and jacket

Me: they were reported as we thought you had gone home and left them behind

He: (clutching a glass of champers) Oh but we were only having a drink

Me: that was four hours ago and we all thought you had left. the sniffer dog was called out

Her: OMG why?

Me: it was being treated as a suspicious object

He (swaying) well honestly really I mean..bit over the top what? (At this point the image of Wooster floated through my mind. I wonder why)

Me: well as the bag was behind my seat I was quite glad to have it cleared up

He: well ok but what a pain. Where has it gorn (and yes he did say gorn)

Me: they said the coat and bag would be taken to lost property

He: well where on earth is that?

Me: (getting tired of it all) I have not the faintest idea

She (sarkily): well you seem to know everything..

Me:(going into full Lady Bracknell mode) I probably do but in this instance I have no idea where Lost Property is but if you ask a steward they will tell you. In the meantime I would like to watch the tennis so could you please move (what I really wanted to say was piss off you stupid woman and let me watch the f*****g game but I refrained)

Still, it was fun.

I think.

Recent Reading

Well the Jubilee weekend is now over and it was all huge fun and also rather wonderful. Highlight for me was the video of the Queen having tea with Paddington Bear which ranks alongside her James Bond skit at the Olympics in 2012.

So back to normal and I managed to get some reading done. 

I was in a charity shop a week or so ago and picked up a book Murder at the Brightwell by Ashley Weaver.  It had a delightful and stylish cover and I read the first page and thought oh this sounds fun.

"It is an impossibly great trial to be married to a man one loves and hates in equal proportions. It was late June and I was dining alone in the breakfast room when Milo blew in from the south.

'Hello darling' he said brushing a light kiss across my cheek. He dropped into the seat beside me and begain buttering a piece of toast as though it had been two hours since I had last seen him last rather than two months.

I took a sip of coffee. 'Hello Milo. How good of you to drop in'"

The setting is Kent, England and it is 1932.  I really enjoyed this book. Witty and amusing and though there are rather too many descriptions of clothes and jewellery, it is all great fun. Amery is married to Milo who seems to do what he likes and spends a great deal of time on the Riviera.  When Amory's ex fiance turns up asking for her help regarding his sister who is contemplating marriage to a rather unsatisfactory character, she decides to go to the Brightwell Hotel where they are all staying and help him out.   Naturally, the rather unpleasant fiance turns up dead at the bottom of a cliff and Amory finds herself at the heart of the mystery.   She manages to solve the mystery and it is all light and silly and written in great style.

This book had cost me the princely sum of £1 and I then went on line and discovered there were six others in the series.  Needless to say, I downloaded them all and read them one after the other and derived great pleasure from them.

I then received an alert that a pre-order had been sent to my Kindle, the latest in the Bruno series by Martin Walker. I read these all last year when I initially discovered them and enjoyed them, but I have now rather changed my mind as they are becoming increasingly tedious.

To Kill a Troubadour deals with a terrorist threat to a free concert featuring a local group Les Troubadours who will be performing their latest hit 'A Song for Catalonia'. The song goes viral when the Spanish government ban its performance on the grounds that it is encouraging the Catalonian bid for independence.

Now this is all very exciting and the scene is set but then we go off piste to an alarming extent. It becomes clear that there is a sniper in the area following a car crash and the discovery of a bullet.   We are treated to at least four pages of a lecture on the history of military rifles from Bruno (who is an expert).  Later on we have pages on Catalonia and the Arabic influence on medieval culture.  While the security services are involved and the big cheeses arrive from Paris, Bruno manages to play tennis, cook meals for everyone with copious descriptions of his recipes and methods including the preparation of a wild boar and then at the end of course he saves the day.

And, as I assume the author is an ex-pat, we get the predictable dig at Brexit.

I found myself skipping great chunks of this book. I reckon 30% of the book was germane to the plot, the rest was padding. I doubt I will waste my money on purchasing any more in this series.

I will wait and see if they turn up in a charity shop instead.

Jubilee Ramble

I have spent the morning watching the Trooping of the Colour which marks the start of the Jubilee Celebrations this weekend. It is always a wonderful spectacle and this year, for which thank heaven fasting, the BBC gave us a red button option which means the whole thing could be watched with NO COMMENTARY. Total bliss.   I gather from comments already abounding on Twitter that the Beeb spent a lot of time to so called Slebs instead of concentrating on the actual event.  I gave up watching BBC cover big events some time ago as they have really lost their way - once they were the only ones who were considered capable enough for this kind of thing, but no more.  

Everyone was having a wonderful time and just look a these crowds..

What with one thing and another I have been a bit  busy this week - nothing exciting, domestic stuff etc and have also been glued to the TV watching the French Open tennis from Paris.  I watch as much tennis as I can and over the years have found the crowd who attend in New York pretty ghastly, but am now coming to the conclusion that the Paris lot are the worst ever. Partisan, one can understand this and I have no problem with that at all, but apparently being abusive and vile to some players when they go to get their towel or get near the front row, cheering double faults and mistakes of the poor sod they have taken agin for some unknown reason and the other night booing Djokovic as he came on court. I am no lover of Djokovic but he is a great champion and to behave like that is appalling. McEnroe was in the commentary box and he was furious.

(It goes without saying that most of the Brits exited stage right in a couple of days)

So what else have I been doing? You will be delighted to hear dear Reader that I had a Man come in to Clean my Carpets. Such excietment.  They were looking grubby and stained and flat and horrid and so decided to do something.   In came Chris from a company called Powerdean, who had done a brilliant job on my armchair last year, and he came in and got cracking and left the carpets looking pristine and spotless  (I saw the water being poured down the loo and could not believe the colour. Mud I think would describe the shade) . Also they feel almost new as the pile had been brought up.  I keep looking at my lovely clean floors and beaming.   He also helped me put furniture back. 

Mem: noticed on his business card that he also cleans ovens.   What ho!

I have, believe it or not done a bit of reading. Yes I have but don't get excited, it was nothing toweringly intellectual. After wading through Wuthering Heights my mind needed something a little less fraught. I re-read a couple of Agatha Christies, always a pleasure and then a book The Queen: 70 years of Majestic Style by Bethan Holt which charted her clothes throughout the years.   I had forgotten just how stunning she was when young. She looks wonderful now of course, but if you look at early photos of her she looks amazing.

I have been reading the books of Mick Herron which I may have mentioned earlier featuring the Slow Horses, rejects from MI6 who have cocked up in some way and banished to Slough House to moulder away. There has recently been a TV series based on the first novel with Gary Oldman, which was brilliant, and this set me off on my usual binge read and devoured them all in a month.   Luckily, a new one was due, Bad Actors. Again, brilliant. But now I have to wait for the next one...

D S Butler - What she Said. A series recommended to me by Amazon so I thought I would give it a go, featuring Detective Karen Hart.  Enjoyable and well written, nothing spectacular but pacey and enjoyable. Once more, read the lot in a week or two and this was the latest.  So now I have to wait for the next one.......

However, the book I have most enjoyed in the last week is an old favourite - Diary of a Provincial Lady which never fails to bring me huge enjoyment.  I will be posting at length in due course.

Last week my granddaughter, Florence, played Meditation from Thais at a farewell concert for her granddad (my ex) who is retiring from conducting as his eyesight is failing.  The entire family turned out and it was lovely to see everyone and, without exception, we were all reduced to blubbing wrecks.   Words are difficult to find to describe how I felt on listening to her. She has also won a place for weekend tutoring at the Guildhall School of Music. My daughter is due soon from Australia and so a lot to look forward to.

Back soon.

Wuthering Heights - a re-read

You may recall I was trying to reread Wuthering Heights a few weeks ago when I was laid low with a bad reaction to my Covid jab and a brain fog descended. So the fog has now lifted but then I was stricken with severe back pain and have been staggering around like Quasimodo.  As I lay prone I decided I would return to WH and finish it.

Now I am making a solemn promise and it is one I will be able to keep with no problem. I am NEVER going to read this book again. NEVER.

Way back in my teens I discovered the Brontes, ok well it was Jane Eyre, but that fascinated me and set me off on an interest that has never waned. Over the years I have read practically every biog, crit or article I could find re this family. I have visited Haworth several times, I have walked on the moors and the love of all things Bronte has never left me.

But there is an exception and this exception is called Emily.   Charlotte seemed to hold her in awe and admiration and reverence and I could never understand why.  This sister seemed to dominate and hold a position in the family that was all encompassing. She and Anne seemed to be very close (but bear in mind that against all opposition Anne went out to work and stayed at work for years, more than any of the others managed to do. Getting away? Just a thought).  It always struck me that the sisters were afraid of her and after reading Wuthering I can understand why.

Pretty sure that other scholars with finer minds than mine (not hard) have come to the conclusion that Catherine Earnshaw is Emily.  She has all the characteristics: wanting her own way in everything, seemingly terrorising weaker characters than herself, selfish, yes selfish, and caring for nobody.   This sister has been portrayed as this wonderfully strong character, the heart of the family who stayed at home looking after her father and sistsers. My feeling is that this is precisely what she always wanted. Safe and powerful in her own domain. She ventured forth to Brussels with Charlotte where she disliked and was disliked and soon came home again.  In the school run by the Hegers she was relatively unimportant. 

People have queried where did Wuthering Heights come from? A spinster virgin living in a remote Yorkshire village.  If, as I do, you view Catherine as Emily as I have already mentioned above, then it seems she is consumed all the time by anger and fury and wishes to hurt as many people as she can. And boy does she do it in spades in WH.  Heathcliff may arrive as a surly boy but the reason he grows into this brutal vicious man is down to the way he is treated, not just by Hindley but by Catherine who rejects him "it would degrade me to marry Heathcliff".  The heart of all the troubles and anger and brutality emanates from Catherine and trying to fathom out just how and why she does it remains an eternal mystery.

My first reading of this was when I was a teenager and probably did not understand it and so I re-read it some years later. I still found it repulsive. So I left it for a long long time and then tried again, feeling perhaps I could bring a more mature focus to a work that is regarded as a masterpiece.  No well I still loathe it.  Every single character is venal, brutal (sorry to keep using this word cannot think of another) weak, stupid and deeply unpleasant.

And yet there are those who view Wuthering Heights as a towering love story.  Why? The film with Olivier and Merle Oberon is of its time and Olivier speaking incredibly posh English is clearly totally wrong, but this vision of the running across moors calling "Cathy" "Heathcliff" seems to have given their love a charm that is singularly lacking.

I went online to find out what others thought of WH and was quite astonished at the various comments but the one that made me laugh and with which I totally agree came from the author Anne Tyler in an interview with the Guardian:

"I somehow made it to adulthood without reading Wuthering Heights but then I found out that several of my women friends considered Heathcliff their all time favourite romantic hero. So I read about three quarters of it as a grown-up and immediately developed some serious concerns about the mental health of my friends"

I could not have put it better.

And I didn't...

The Palace Papers - Tina Brown

Well I am back and thankyou to everyone who has left me kind comments and also emails. I really appreciate your thoughtfulness.

A brain fog descended as well and I found I could not concentrate on any serious reading so I was pleased when The Palace Papers arrived.  Totally engrossing, gossipy and unputdownable. I read it in bed with a cup of tea, cosy and comfortable and thoroughtly enjoyed every page.

It is odd how you remember things and all the time I was reading this quote kept coming into my mind. I tracked it down and it turned out to be Kipling “For the Colonel’s lady and Judy O’Grady are sisters under the skin”.

The reason for this is that I am always puzzled at the way in which we still expect the Royal Family to be better behaved and better all round human beings that us – because we do.   I am a grandmother, been married and divorced twice, had relationships with people I should not have done, and done stupid things in my youth. But I have never been held to account or my follies plastered all over the pages of the tabloids.

In the Palace Papers, Tina Brown has shown us quite clearly that the House of Windsor is not so different from us in behaviour and folly.   Feuds, adultery, inter sibling rivalry, jealousy – it is all there.  The Prince of Wales when asked how he thought the public viewed them answered “as a non-stop soap opera” and few could argue with this. 

The author is the former editor in chief of Tatler, Vanity Fair and the New Yorker and a Commander of the British Empire awarded for her services to journalism.  She has obviously done her research and with her media contacts has been the recipient of many confidences and information from those within the Palace.   The family dynamics are laid bare and while I have always been fond of Prince Charles and admired him, after reading this, I feel increasingly sympathetic towards him though he does tend to go on a bit and feel sorry for himself. A trait inherited in spades by his younger son.   

In his interview with Jonathan Dimbleby who wrote his biography, the Prince accused his mother of being distant and his father being a bit of a bully.   We are told that the Queen was deeply hurt by this and the author has no hesitation is saying because Her Majesty probably realised it was true. She also made the point that in a tv programme about the Duke of Edinburgh shortly after he died, Charles was reminiscing abut his father and the main thrust was that his father was always “showing him how to do things” and “exhorting him to get on with it”. It was said with a smile but it had obviously not been forgotten.

I have never been a member of the Cult of St Diana and the more I read about her the more I feel for Charles. If ever a disaster was in the making it was their marriage.   Diana was damaged by her childhood as was Charles and neither of them could help each other and the more Diana lashed out the more Charles retreated and the worse it got. 

(Funnily enough I came across her earlier book the Diana Chronicles in a charity shop the other day and picked it up and after reading that my reaction was to feel for Charles even more. He was not without blame of course, but he just could not cope with somebody like Diana)

The two children suffered as we all know by now but I find it hard to forgive Diana for her Bashir interview in which she traduced her father to millions of viewers with no thought as to the feelings of William and Harry.   We now know Bashir deceived her and we are also meant to believe she regretted the interview.  Tina Brown makes it clear that Diana felt nothing of the sort and was gleeful that she had done it.

The author is pretty dismissive of the behaviour of Harry and Megan or Ginge and Winge as they are known in some tabloid quarters, but at the same time tries to be fair to Megan aware that an American actress coming to join the Royal Family and live in the UK would find it a difficult.   She makes the point, however, that Megan did not even bother to try.

And so it continues. It is a never ending family saga which will  be eternally intriguing and fascinating to most of us.  I have to make the point that compared to previous Kings and Queens, the current members of the House of Windsor compare quite well to the lives of earlier occupants of  the throne. 

We should be grateful that at least George V did not have six wives………..

Random Jab

Just dropping by to say I will be absent for a few days.  I had my booster jab at the weekend. I have had mild reactions to earlier ones but this has laid me low. Feeling nauseous, shivering and shaking, headache. Yuk. A brain fog seems to have descended as well. I have written this post three times and each time it has vanished into the ether and I am sitting her saying Get a Grip.

I have abandoned my current book which is a reread of Wuthering Heights which I have not looked at for over thirty years. Why am I doing this? Answer comes there none and I just cannot cope with Heathcliff and Cathy at the moment. Kindest thing I can say about them is they are a pair of crashing bores.  Reading the papers and the trial of Johnny Depp and his ghastly ex, the similarities struck me straight away…

so back to D E Stevenson.

that’s better…

back soon

Easter Ramble

As I write this the sun is shining, the sky is blue and, finally, the feel of Spring is in the air. Mind you, I thought that some weeks ago and we then had snow so fingers crossed.

I have had a busy couple of weeks.  Oh this is a ramble by the way and probably not of any literary merit whatsoever so if you want to nip off and scoff your Easter eggs then please feel free. 

I live in a small flat with no storage whatsoever, and I mean none. What I did have was a space filled with a water tank and a huge old fashioned water heater - bit like the old coppers washing used to be done in years ago - and every time I looked at it I thought what a waste of space. So I bit the bullet and have had them taken out and a small electric wall heater installed.  It was a three day job and I made copious use of local coffee shops and wifi while it was going on. Shelves added and flooring laid down and then I tackled it with a pot of white paint as it had not been touched for years.  I was up a ladder dealing with all of this and, bearing in mind my limited mobililty these days, made sure I had my phone nearby just in case I toppled over backwards. I tucked it in my bra to be on the safe side. I also tiled the shelves.   Here are a couple of pics, before and after for your delectation and delight - actually it is after and before as the photos have swapped...

All in all a productive day and all well. I then sat down and dozed off in my armchair to be woken by my landline ringing. Got up to answer it. My left foot had gone to sleep while I napped and collapsed under me, my ankle wrenched sideways and I crashed to the floor. Dear Readers, it hurt. Boy did it hurt.  I decided not to move and wait for the pain to subside and then sat up gingerly and checked that I had not broken anything.  Long story short I ended up with a pack of frozen peas on my ankle which had assumed alarming proportions and had turned the most hideous shade of black/blue.

A week later and it is more or less back to normal but I found it shook me up and hurt my back, where I have arthritis, and my walking has been painful. Had a chat with my daughter who urged me to use a stick and realised that this was sensible. I don't like it. Purely my pride and the realisation that I am no longer a lively young thing made me feel pretty low this week and I freely admit I had a little weep. BUT, onwards and upwards and I have been online checking out walking sticks and am amazed at the variety on offer. I already have one which I bought several years ago when I had ripped a tendon in my left leg and needed it, but I have decided that if I am going to use a stick then I am going to Do it With Style. I am looking at leopard print ones and striped ones but this one caught my eye. Out of stock at the moment so I have asked to be told when it is back. 

And, believe it or not, I have managed to read a bit as well though I have found it hard to concentrate.   For some time I have been receiving recommendations from Amazon on the strength of You read this so you might Like this and the name Mark Herron kept popping up. Seemed to have a huge following on Amazon and a lot of fans.  Then a new series called Slow Horses, based on his first book, appeared on Apple TV.  Slough House is a place where old, burnt out and useless spies and spooks are sent to while away their days.  Gary Oldman plays the head of this group, Jackson Lamb, and it was this casting that made me decide to take a look.   With impeccable timing Apple TV offered me a three month free trial which I grabbed straight away and will use to watch this. It is very downbeat with a mordaunt wit and I am thoroughly enjoying it.

Needless to say I have started reading the books and there is one character, a member of Parliament, who is obviously based on Boris, our Beloved Prime Minister, though this has been toned down a bit for the TV series.....

Not sure these books are for everyone, the language is a bit fruity at times, but so witty and funny at others that it balances it out. There are eight of them and I am now on No. 4.  I am doing my usual motor through a series and then will have to be patient for the next one.

OK so a ramble and I am off to Cambridge tomorrow but thought I would drop in and wish all of you a lovely Easter and, as always, my thanks for visiting and commenting. I don't blog as much as I used to but I am determined to keep going as I enjoy doing it so much, so do bear with me if you will.

Queen of our Times - Robert Hardman

Another busy week, this time on the domestic front with new boiler and water tank and the ensuing disruption, and I have been reading this in between the work being undertaken, and enjoying it very much indeed.

There have been so many books written about Her Maj and, I daresay, there will be more in the future, and striking the right note is always tricky. Royal biographies written back in my younger days were mere hagiographies and the impression given was that the subject was a perfect human being, a saint and we should grovel at their feet.  On the other hand you can find some which are quite unpleasant and take delight in showing the feet of clay. One in particular, is a book written by Craig Brown about Princess Margaret which was a total hatchet job and totally and unneccessarily vicious and which gave away more of the character of the author than the Princess.

Robert Hardman has written an admirable book.  It is refreshingly lacking in hyperbole and he has a journalistic style which makes for easy reading.  I think most of us here in the UK are aware that the Queen is not going to be with us much longer and it will be difficult to imagine her not being there. She has been on the throne longer than Queen Victoria and for generations she has been an immovable figure - we just accept that she is around somewhere and I, for one, find it very reassuring to have a stable figure in society.  Having a King rather than a Queen is going to take some getting used to.

I do not think there is any need for me to go into detail of the book's content as it has all been in the public eye for so long but one thing that struck me when reading is the non-stop, never ending daily duties to be done.   Living in a palace and having all the comforts and wealth you could possibly need sounds wonderful but it is not a life that I would find appealing. Always in the public eye, having to smile and be welcoming when your feet might be aching and you have a splitting headache, being constantly criticised and never ever being able to answer back, it would drive me mad.

One of my favourite moments of the Queen's entire reign is when she took part in a James Bond sketch for the opening of the Olympics in 2012.  When Daniel Craig as James Bond walked into the palace I, and everyone else, was expecting a look alike and then when Her Maj turned round, smiled and said "Good evening Mr Bond" I let out a shriek along with millions of others. I remember Twitter crashed. Here is the video:

 

I am an unashamed royalist and I admire the Queen enormously. Watching her at this week's memorial service for the Duke of Edinburgh and seeing her on the verge of tears, one has to remember she can feel grief just like everyone else.

An excellent biography and well worth reading in this her Platinum Jubilee Year.

British Library Crime - Lorac, Lorac and Bernard J Farmer

I seem to have fallen into a pattern of one post a week and I keep feeling this will not do but I have had another of "those weeks" with loads on and a few irritants. Next week is looking a bit dubious as well as I am having a boiler and hot water tank ripped out tomorrow and it is all going to be a bit chaotic.

So I am taking the chance now of sitting down with a cuppa and telling you of my latest crime reads.  I can assure you that I read quite a lot of thrillers that are NOT published by the British Library, but this week the ones I have perused have all, coincidentally, been from their Classic Crime List.

Two were by E C R Lorac, who I really enjoy and so glad that the BritLib discovered this writer. However, this particular title left me feeling really disappointed. These Names Make Clues got me totally bogged down.

Chief Inspector Macdonald was invited to a treasure hunt party at the house of a publisher.  He has misgivings but is persuaded to accept and joins in along with other guests who are all thriller writers disguised on the night under literary pseudonyms.   Naturally, there is a murder and the victim, who was there under the name of 'Samuel Pepys' is found seemingly dead of a heart attack. Well we know it was not.  

The blurb on the back of this title states 'amid the confusion of too many fake names, clues, ciphers,and convoluted alibis, Macdonald must unravel a truly tangled case'.

I can honestly say that at the end after another murder or two (and I still have no idea why they were killed) I felt totally discombobulated and, which is worse, bored.  A shame. This is the first Lorac I have not enjoyed.

It was with some relief, therefore, that I turned to another by this author, Post after Post Mortem which was so much better and so much more interesting. "The Surrays and their five children form a prolific writing machine, with scores of treatises, reviews and crime thrillers published under their family name"

Ruth Surray is found dead after an evening at the Surray's house.   A suicide note is left and it is clear that she was deeply unhappy and depressed and the coroner reaches a verdict that she took her own life.  But then a few days after her death, her brother Richard receives a letter from his deceased sister which had been delayed in the post, and this casts doubt on the verdict.

Much more concisely written and held together and, though I guessed who the murderer was, it was not obvious and the reader was led astray on the way.

Death of a Bookseller by Bernard Farmer was the third I finished this week. This is the hundredth title in this series so it is fitting that a book about rare books is published by one of the great Libraries.  I had never heard of the author, as with so many of these rediscoveries, and though some have left me cold, I rather enjoyed this one. The main reason is not the fact that it is about a bookseller and crammed with details of the internecine rivalry between booksellers and buyers, fascinating though that is, but the wonderful character of Sergeant Jack Wigan.  The sergent strikes up a friendship with a bookman, Michael Fisk, who he escorts home when he meets him having had too much to drink.   Fisk had been celebrating the acquisition of a rare book, Keat's own personally inscribed copy of Endymion.  Wigan develops a keen interest in book collecting and later, when Fisk is found stabbed to death and the Keats book missing, he aids the CID in their investigation.

Wigan is a kindly, dogged and honest policeman who is convinced that the wrong man has been arrested for the murder and enlisting the help of others in the book trade sets out trying to save the accused from the hangman.

I found the book slightly fantastical in places, there is mention of the occult and raising demons, but on the whole it is well written and intriguing.  But it is Wigan who makes this well worth reading. A character one can warm to.  I gather there are other titles awaiting republication so I do hope the British Library will let us have these as well.

I was pleased to see that Martin Edwards who writes the introduction, had likened this well crafted book to those written by George Bellairs, another discovery for me. I had had exactly the same thought...

Honest.