Random Jottings

HRH The Duke Of Edinburgh

My mother died when she was 98.  A great age and yet it came as a shock to me. I thought she would go on for ever.   When the Queen Mother died Prince Charles was interviewed and he said the same thing.  Logically it makes no sense but the truth is we have had a parent/father/mother with you for so long it is unimaginable to think what life would be without them and I know that though it was clear my mother was slowly failing, I thought she would be fine. So when I heard the news of the Duke's death this morning I was shocked and deeply upset.

The Queen and Prince Phillip have been with me all my life.  Just like those who knew only the reign of Queen Victoria and had never known anybody else on the throne and it is as though a part of one's life is taken away now they are no longer there.  It has been clear for some months that the Duke of Edinburgh was likely to leave us sooner rather than later, but somehow I thought he would get better. He has done it so often...

I had a small personal experience of meeting with Prince Phillip. It was in Malta. My father was in the army and we were stationed there and it was before she ascended to the throne and Princess Elizabeth was living on the island. I am a bit hazy about the exact date - I think I have it right but I admit I am not totally sure, I only know I was very young.

The Prince was there playing a polo match with Lord Mountbatten and it was all very exciting though as a small child I did not really understand much of it. There was a break during the match and I pushed and shoved my way through to the front and stood near the ropes and there was Prince Phillip about a yard away. He turned and took a drink from somebody and looked around as he wanted to get something out of his pocket and said "here hold my horse's reins will you for a moment" and handed them to me. I took them and after half a minute he took them back, smiled at me and said "thankyou".   I fell in love on the spot and have had an affection for him ever since.   He was spectacularly handsome and even at that young age I responded to it. 

A newsreader tonight referred to Her Majesty as the Widow of WIndsor just as Queen Victoria was and the saddest thing about this is that when Albert died the Queen said "there is nobody to call me Victoria now" which always gave me a lump in my throat.

Being a Queen is a lonely job and now there is nobody to call her Lilibet any more....

How will she manage? But she will and she knows that we all admire and love her and wish her strength.

With respect and affection

Elaine

British Library Women Writers - E M Delafield

As well as bringing us the joy that is the Classic Crime novels, the British Library is now producing a wonderful list of books in their Women Writers series. Many of these women I discovered years ago and am now delighted that some more of them are becoming available. I have spent many happy hours in second hand books shops rummaging through the shelves to track down titles which are now back in the public domain.

One of the writers featured by the British Library is E M Delafield. Some twenty years ago there was a mention of her Diary of a Provincial Lady in the corner of the book page in Good Housekeeping magazine and it piqued my interest.  I bought a copy, the Virago edition which contains the four Lady novels in one volume, and read and read and read and simply loved them.

So off I went on a hunt and I have about twenty battered old copies of her books on my shelves. They were difficult to find and a few of them were a bit costly but when you are on the charge you do tend to pay a bit more than you should.

One of these is Tension and this is now being published in the British Library series in May so keep an eye out for it. My copy is grubby and tatty and though I will get the new edition I now full well that I will not throw this one out. Some people I know cannot understand this but others will know exactly why I have several editions of various titles....

A few years ago I discovered on Amazon the Kessinger Publishing Legacy Reprints.  They had a pretty interesting catalogue and I noted that they had a few EM Delafield titles on their list.  It would appear that they reproduce the original text as it stands, and I purchased the War Workers which came complete with a New York Public Library stamp on the front page which, for me anyway, added a little something extra.

The War Workers was written in 1918 and when the story opens at the Hostel for Voluntary Workers 'Miss Vivian, Director of the Midland Supply Depot was under discussion'.   By the time you have read a few pages I am sure you will immediately be struck with a deep loathing for this woman. I know I was.  She appears to be tireless, hard working, noble, dashing and smart.  She seems to have cast a spell over all the voluntary workers who regard her as akin to a saint, in particular her secretary Miss Delmege who constantly flaunts her position and her supposed inner knowledge of this Paragon.

"'She's most awfully human you know really.  That's what I like about Miss Vivian. She's so frightfully human'

'Yes she is' said Miss Marsh 'Awfully human'

'Of course' said Miss Delmege with quiet emphasis 'working in her room, as I do, I suppose I see quite another side of her - the human side you know'

There was a silence. Nobody felt disposed to encourage Miss Vivian's secretary in her all too frequent recapitulations of the privileges which she enjoyed".

Within five minutes of starting this book, I spotted the similarities between Miss Vivian and the Commander of the Canteen which features in the Provincial Lady goes to War, my favorite of all the Provincial Lady books, and clear to me that she used the same characteristics.   Miss Vivian, Charmian, is actually a rather unpleasant and selfish person who has swept all the local charities and hospitals under her wing and, despite her much vaunted protestations that she is doing it for the country, not for herself, it is pretty clear that she thoroughly enjoys the worship and admiration she receives.

A new secretary, Grace Jones,  arrives to assist Miss Delmege and she does not seem to be quite so overcome with Miss Vivian's charms and fails to join in the admiring chorus when Miss Vivian refuses to eat lunch and says she is far too busy.

'The work comes before everything with Miss Vivian. I mean it really does' said Miss Plumtree solemnly.

Grace gave a little laugh and said 'Really I'm not so sure.  I don't feel certain Miss Vivian would work quite so hard or keep such strenuous hours if she lived on a desert island for instance.  My idea is that perhaps Miss Vivian does work so very hard because there are so many people looking on.  If she was on a desert island she might - find time for luncheon'

Pretty clear that Grace has Miss Vivian summed up in no time at all and it goes without saying that a mutual dislike builds up between the two of them, particularly when Charmian's mother, Lady Vivian takes a liking to Grace and makes her a friend.   Lady Vivian is a particularly interesting and likeable character, has no illusions about her daughter at all and has an ironic and witty sense of humour that Charmian cannot understand.   Her father is taken seriously ill and Miss Vivian is marooned at Plessings,  their house, bored and fussing about the Depot and determined to go back to work despite her parents wishing her to remain as it is unlikely that her father will live much longer.   In the end the decision whether she is needed or not is handed over to the local doctor, not a fan of Charmian at all and in the most masterly speech he puts her well and truly in her place:

'It's not the work you want to get back to, it's the excitement and the official position and the right it gives you to interfere with people who knew how to run a hospital some twenty years or so before you came into the world.  That's what you want.  I can't tell you that your return will bring on a second stroke if you vex and disappoint your good father by monkeying about in a becoming uniform and a bit of gold braid on an office stool while he desires you to stay at home, but I can and do tell you that you're playing as heartless a trick as I ever saw, making patriotism the excuse for bullying a lot of women who work themselves to death for you because you're of a better class and have more personality then they, and pretending to yourself that it's the work you are after, when it's just because you want to get somewhere where you will be in the limelight all the time'

When I read this put down, I nearly cheered but of course this barely impinges on Charmian's egotistical personality and she goes back to the Depot, though her mother forbids her to come backwards and forwards and she has to stay in the Hostel with the rest of the War Workers.  Here reality sets in and when her selfish behavior becomes known after her father dies, she finds that she is not accorded the fulsome admiration she used to enjoy.

I find EM Delafield's writing just so spot on and incisive.   Alongside Dorothy Whipple, Richmal Cormpton and other writers of this period, she has an unerring eye for the foibles and weaknesses of human nature.  It is wonderful that they are now more easily available.

Incidentally the Women Writers series has a foreword by Simon Thomas who has a blog, Stuck in a Book and who I have known for years. He has an enormous interest in this genre and it was good to see his name when I opened up a previous title republished,  Father by Elizabeth von Arnim.

Lots of goodies ahead from the British LIbrary publishing.  Check them out here

Random - A Day in the Life..

The sun is shining. The birds are singing and the sky is blue. OK it may not last long, let's face it in this country it never does, but oh how lovely it is when it happens and how the heart lifts in the warmth. I have just been sitting outside in our little communal gardens and about half a dozen neighbours have passed by and we have all had a chat and it is amazing how much more cheerful we all are.

I was going to call this post a Random Ramble but really these days it is more a Random Meander as I have become adept at doing things slowly and easily and thinking What is the Rush?  I have disliked lockdown intensely, but one good thing is that it has made me realise that charging around shopping or getting hassled about things, is really not important. I am not bothered about the larger stores not being open and have no desire to visit the High Street, but I appreciate that this is selfish when livelihoods are at stake and so many businesses failing.

Like many over the last year I have found that shopping online is so much easier and quicker and the thought of going clothes shopping fills me with horror.  The seismic shift in shopping patterns this year of Lockdown has escalated an already ongoing process and, along with many other things, will ensure that life is never the same again.

My main upset throughout all this is that a longed for three month visit by Kathryn who was coming over from Australia last year, had to be cancelled.  This caused me more tears and upset than anything else and it is not looking hopeful for this year. By the time she finally makes it four years will have passed and if I think about it too much I get very weepy.  But then I tell myself how much worse it would be if my grandchildren were also far away instead of being just an hour away and it balances it out a bit.

I have mentioned in previous posts that my reading seems to have fallen off a cliff in the last twelve months and my scrambled brain was unable to take anything new or challenging into consideration and I did a lot of re-reading which was familiar and comforting. But slowly the interest is returning.  You will see that I recently read the Diaries of Chips Channon which took some doing (nearly 600 pages and weighing in at 3lb) but it had the advantage that when I had read a certain number of entries I could put it to one side which I had to do on a regular basis.

I read a recently published title by E C R Lorac who is one of the discovered Golden Age writers that I love thanks to the British Library (will review soon), and also a few titles by William Shaw featuring a DS Cupidi which I have also quite liked even if it is a tad annoying that she is divorced, has a difficult relationship with her mother and her daughter. Oh how I long for a well balanced policewoman or man, but then I suppose if you are in this profession it would be rather difficult.

I have also been busy in the last month or two with the website for the Felixstowe Book Festival which, calloo callay oh frabjus day, is taking place in June. It is a mixture of online events and live speakers (all socially distanced natch) and so many lovely authors who had to be cancelled last year, not literally I hasten to add, are back and it is a really good programme. I will give further information later.

So I am now contemplating my supper and feel very virtuous as I went for my walk today. I also weeded the garden and I washed and polished my car.   The sun does weird things to ones psyche so now I think I am going to have a gin and tonic and relax.

Happy Easter everyone.

 

Dawn Wind and the Roman novels - Rosemary Sutcliff

Last year I read for the first time, yes the first time, The Eagle of the Ninth, and I wondered why I had taken so long to read this superb story.  My predeliction had always been for Rosemary Sutcliff's books set in later times, my favourite being The Armourer's House and I felt no inclination to read her Roman stories at all.

Well more fool you I hear you cry and you would be right but, as I have said in my earlier post, I do not really regret it as I have now discovered these books when I have the time and leisure to read them and they are simply glorious. I cannot think of another word to describe them. It is difficult to say why I love them so much but it is just the joy of the writing. It is total perfection and that is all there is to it.  From the minute I opened Dawn Wind I was caught up and breathing and feeling the life and sorrow of Owain until the end when one hopes he has finally found happiness.

At the start of the book Owain is injured after a battle against the invading Saxons and his family are killed.  He stumbles across an old couple Priscilla and Priscus who take him in and nurse him back to health. They become fond of him and would like him to make their home with him on their farm as they have no children but Owain feels compelled to leave and seek his people.  On the way he meets Regina, a begger girl, all alone in the world and they join forces.  When she falls ill and Owain realises he has to find somewhere for her he leaves her with a family who will care for her and offers to become a thrall/Slave if they will look after her. But the family do not need another such and Owain has to leave her and instead joins the household of Beornwulf

"The master of this house says that he does not want another thrall, but the Gods have been good to me; there is a small son in my house and because of that I shall add to the Intake land when home from this wayfaring and because of that there is room in my house for another thrall. Therefore, I have told him I will take you off his hands, for a gold piece, you and the dog together and he will keep his side of the bargain and care for the woman-child"

And thus begins Owain's servitude.   As the years pass he becomes a trusted and valued slave and after saving his master from drowning in a wreck which comes ashore, he is given his freedom and he knows he can finally leave and seek Regina.   But his plans are thwarted once again when Beornwulf is killed in battle and before dying asks that he stays and looks after his son until he passes his fifteenth year when Owain will be finally free to go.   And so he stays.

"he had hardly thought of Regina for years. Long ago it had seemed to him that she must have died and even his memory of her had grown thin and pale so that he could see through it as one sees through a curl of wood smoke.  Now, suddenly, he was remembering more vividly that he had ever remembered in his life before, Regina coming towards him, her thin face sparkling with a kind of grave delight, holding out her hands to him with the blue tit cupped between them; the jewel blue of its cap, the blue flash and the whirr of wings as she set it free......from that moment he knew with absolute certainty that even if he never saw her again, Regina was alive and because of that he could go on"

There have been moments in all of the books I have read by Rosemary Sutcliff  where she has reduced me to tears and this is no different and the fact that I feel such sorrow at a certain happening in Dawn Wind is proof of the power of her writing.

Slightly Foxed are reprinting the Roman novels and the final two, Sword Song and The Shield Ring are due this coming September and my order is already in.  Do take a look at them here. Apart from being such wonderful books and such wonderful editions, the original illustrations are retained. In the Eagle of the Ninth the illustrator was C Walter Hodges, one of my favourite childhood reading illustrators, and in this title it is Charles Keeping.

I said in my review of Eagle of the Ninth that it was a glorious book. So is this one. 

The Diaries of Chips Channon - edited by Simon Heffer

Being a diarist is a dangerous thing to be. If a  novelist you can hide behind your characters and assume ideas and thoughts that are purely fictitious. But when you write a diary no matter how hard you try the real you creeps into the narrative. There is no getting away with it.

To be fair I do not think that Chips Channon makes any attempt to deceive or hide, in fact there were occasions, many of them, when I wished he would be less open and revealing.  I am referring mainly to his sexual encounters, of which there were many, and his descriptions of his erotic dreams about his various men friends which pepper these pages.  Too much information.  I have recently read a review of these Diaries when he was described as a “gay” MP but it is clear he is bisexual with perhaps a leaning towards loving men more.

(Incidentally, the word “gay” is used a lot by Chips and in the original meaning. Simon Heffer, the editor has to point this out to the reader so entrenched has the alternative use of this word become).

When the diaries start in 1918 Chips is living in Paris, at the Ritz naturally, and volunteering for the Red Cross though he seems to spend most of his time going to Deauville for the weekend and mixing with high society, the higher the better.  In Paris he meets Proust “venomous, predatory and a slob”. Like I said, Chips does not hold back.

What palled after a while with these diaries is the endless list of parties, lunches, dinners, banquets and balls that he seemed to have spent most of his adult life attending. Just reading about them wearied me and filled me with awe at his stamina and the total emptiness of it all.

“Lunched with Paul of Greece and his sister in law, Marina who is a large, voluptuous girl with one leg shorter than the other. She would be good in bed”

“Dinner at the Obolenskys. I fell asleep during the Russian ballet. Onto the Spanish embassy… all the world in tiaras and diamonds”

“… the Sutherland’s ball.  The Prince of Wales and his brother disguised at Eton boys, rather grubby ones. Lady Portia Stanley was dressed as a letter box”

“I had a row with the smelly slimy Duchess of Athol who looks like an under stuffed crocodile and has the manners of a downtrodden governess”

And so on and so on.  There were many occasions when I wanted to hurl this book across the room but as it is over 900 pages long and weighs 3lb this was a trifle difficult to do so I ended up dumping it while I chuntered into the kitchen to make tea.   I have got through a lot of tea bags…..

BUT and here is the BUT – he can write. Boy can he write. I gather he attempted a novel or two which were not particularly good but as a diarist he is simply superb - whether you like him or not is irrelevant. I have to admire the sheer stamina of the pages he has written through the years and the discipline required to do this day after day. There are the odd gaps but the entries are nearly continuous.

Of course the part of these diaries that attract the most interest, for me anyway, is his take on the Abdication and here he is clear sighted and to the point.  He admires and likes Mrs Simpson who he thinks has had a good influence on the Prince of Wales before he ascended to the throne and there are mentions of nice, charming and thoughtful gestures from the King that were instigated by Mrs Simpson.  It is made very clear that she did her best to stop him from abdicating, pleading and begging with him not to do it and her offer of withdrawing from the situation was very real.  She was petrified of the consequences but as we all know the King refused to listen so obsessed was he.

(Of course being Chips he was worried that the new Court would ostracise him and that he would lose his place in society as he had made his admiration of Mrs Simpson clear). 

There are two appendices at the end of the diaries – Channon’s memorandum on the Abdication written in January 1937 and these are a masterly summing up of the event and its protagonists which is worth the entire diaries alone.

So what to make of him?

I found him snobbish “I am only really happy with royalty” and a contempt for what he called the hoi polloi which really sticks in the gullet “one so sympathises with the poor people until they say something to stupid, so tactless and so ill informed that one suddenly hates them”

And then I come to the section of the diaries when he talks about his son Paul who he clearly adores. “I stole up to Paul’s room, he was asleep. After I had tiptoed out he called ‘Find daddy’. I crept in again and he threw his little arms around me. ‘Darling daddy’ and hugged me and I kissed his soft scone smelling cheeks. Then I left him and went to my room and cried like a child. I was so happy to have him with me again and he is so adorable”

So there you have it. I found myself veering wildly from loathing him and to then feeling rather sorry for him as his wife Honor was unfaithful and this clearly hurt deeply.  She was an uninvolved mother and cut off conjugal relations with Chips which also hurt as he would have liked more children.  He understands her fragile mental state and takes care of her with a tenderness that I did not expect. I gather that the marriage failed ultimately because of his infidelity, but his entries regarding Honor are thoughtful and kind, and as I have mentioned his love for his son was deep and real.

In the end, warts and all, I found these diaries totally fascinating, intriguing and irritating all at the same time.  His entries when he entered the House of Commons are the best written, probably because he was concentrating on serious matters and did not fully adopt the vicious tone of earlier entries though he still likes to put the knife in when he feels like it. At one stage while reading I thought that enough was enough and that I would not read any more of the diaries when they are published, but on reflection I think that I will as the next volume will cover the second World War.

When I was a little girl I kept a diary. It was pink and fluffy with a lock and a key, easily broken if anybody had wished to read my entries.  Probably not as they mainly consisted of “got up. Got dressed. Went to school. I hate the teachers. Came home. Had tea, bath and then went to bed”

I think I can safely say that Chips is a darn sight more interesting…..

Diaries of Chips Channon - Simon Heffer, editor

I have finished these and now need to sit down and process my thoughts, of which there are many, in some form of coherent shape for review. This is proving difficult as I veer wildly between thinking how ghastly Chips was and then reading of his love for his son and thinking perhaps he wasn't such a bad chap after all.

But I have to mention here the mammoth task that Simon Heffer has undertaken in his editing of the millions of words that he has had to plough through.  I am pretty sure he did not do it single handledly but the responsibility for producing this volume, with more to come,must have been a heavy one.

So my short post today is to record my admiration for the end result.  I have recently been re-reading George Eliot's Middlemarch and the thought came into my mind while reading Chips that this is how Mr Causabon must have felt when trying to edit and finalise his Key to All Mythologies which he had been working on all his life......

Mr Heffer - I salute you.

Dropping by

I am sitting here looking out the window and it is pouring with rain and we have a howling gale and I am beginning to wonder if life will ever get back to normal again. Well, the answer is, it won't. Not the normal we were used to and took for granted, but just some kind of "normal".

My normal would be going out for a potter around the shops (I very rarely do this but would like to now!), and when I have finished pottering going and finding a nice caff to sit and have a coffee and watch the world go by.  The best shopping of course would be in a bookshop or two and if they have a tea room attached then even better.

I have fretted over the lockdown and want it to end but, and I am surprised at this, I agree with the Government over the snail's pace in which it is being done.  While we are getting fed up with being over cautious, we simply cannot rush it and risk another huge outbreak as another lockdown is out of the question.  Not sure anybody would survive quite frankly.

We will get there.

So what have I been doing?  I had a week last week I would rather forget where the main excitement was being chased by a debt recovery company for money I had no idea I owed and, in fact, I didn't. It turned out that this mighty sum - £57.50 - was due to an insurance company who I no longer use.  I managed to track down my correspondence with them in which they apologised and said this was all a mistake blah blah. This email from them was dated July 2016 and nearly five years later they start all over again.

I spent three days on the phone and trying to get someone to help and finally found an incredibly helpful lady who sorted it all out and actually called me back which is a first for most companies.

I can cope, I always do but last week when this was finally done I sat down and cried. Then I got really angry and tracked down the CEO of the company and fired off an Elaine Special (sent by recorded delivery) telling her what I thought of the whole kit and caboodle. I have yet to hear back....

Reading wise I am wading through the diaries of Henry 'Chips' Channon which are rousing me to fury, so unpleasant and snobbish and vile is he and if I could throw the book across the room I would. However, it is nearly 900 pages and weighs heavy so I am unable to do do.  I will be reviewing in due course.

One aspect that I dislike is his atttitude to his parents. Loathes them, despises them, and yet complains when his dad does not send him money.   Mmmm where have I heard that this week.....

I have also discovered some books by an author called William Shaw featuring DS Alexandra Cupidi and set in Kent.   These were recommended by a fellow blogger and I am enjoying them very much.

And in between I am wading through a biog of the Kaiser which I mentioned earlier. It is a condensed edition as the original runs to three volumes and pretty sure I would never have got through that.

I have also watched the cricket England v India test match series which was very good exercise wise as I spent most of my time leaping out of my chair and hurling insults at the screen. I will leave you to make an educated guess which team I was cursing.

TV - On recommendation from various sources I have been watching The Bureau. A series, in French and made by the same production team which gave us Spiral, it tells the story of the members of the French Intelligance - spooks if you will - and is totally riveting. I bought the first two series on Amazon Prime, not madly expensive and way cheaper than DVDs, but then found that in order to watch the final three series I had to take out a subscription to Sundance TV whatever that is. I was quite annoyed but then noticed that I could have a SEVEN DAY FREE TRIAL.   Yes gentle reader, you are correct in your surmise. I did so and spent the week lapping up the 30 hours left and finished just in time to cancel my sub.

I have to say that The Bureau is, without doubt, the best series I have watched on TV. And I am a veteran of eight series of Spiral, three seasons of the Bridge, two seasons of The Killing, all of The Wire, and various other superbly made Nordic/French tv productions. The Bureau is Simply the Best.

Now this week England play India in a series of T20 matches which I like watching and are fun, but not to be taken seriously.  They are on Sky and I have cancelled my sports sub as I barely use it any more but I would rather like to see these so I have done a bit of googling and have discovered that Now TV is showing them. Once again I really do not want to take out yet another sub but guess what? Yes, they have a SEVEN DAY FREE TRIAL so if I time it right I can watch all the matches and then cancel the sub.

I am sure that somewhere in the bowels of the Deep Internet I am being flagged up.....

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.