Random Jottings

Resistance by Agnes Humbert - Prize Draw

I make no apology for returning to this simply wonderful book once more and to draw your attention to it.  I was lucky enough to read a proof copy and review it earlier in the year, but it has now just been published and so I want to refresh everyone's memory on my earlier post so please check it out here. 

Stephanie, at Bloomsbury, who is rapidly turning into my very best friend, kindly send me a link to an article in the Sunday Times about the translator of this book, how she came across it when she and her husband bought a derelict barn in France (as you do) and was so struck with the story she decided to get it published.  Click below and have a read:

http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/overseas/article4673096.ece

And, finally, I have asked Stephanie if I could have a copy or two to put on on Random in a draw and two copies are winging their way to me as I speak.  I so want you all out there to read this magnificent story and to feel, as I did, truly humble in the face of such bravery, determination, laughter and friendship.

I ended my last post wondering how I would react if faced with the danger and hardship that Agnes met with, and if I would be so cheerful and brave.  Not sure that I would.  This is a totally uplifting book and is on Elaine's Book of the Year List (much more interesting than the Booker prize....)

To enter into the draw, just leave your name in the comments in the usual way and I will make the draw at the end of next week to allow plenty of time for visitors and callers to log on.

Re-Reads

Over on Stuck in a Book Simon ponders on books he has re-read and this triggered off my own thoughts on this subject.  I note that one of the comments left on this post is that there are too many books in the world waiting to be read so not to waste time re-reading.  While I can understand this point, and at times it can be overwhelming at the thought of so many books, so little time, I still go back and re-read even when my To be Read pile is falling over.

There are various reasons for this.  There are times when I have read several brand new books one after the other, I have digested, reviewed and posted.  Then a sort of Can I take any More fatigue sets in, you look at what is waiting, you turn them over, you cannot make a choice, you get disgruntled.  All these wonderful books waiting for you and you cannot, just cannot choose what to start next.  Whenever I get to that stage I know that I need a rest, I need to relax with something familiar and loved and I turn to my bookshelves to choose.  All the books that I keep and will keep for ever, are those that I will never give away to anybody, charity shop whatever, these are books I know I will always return to. 

Goes without saying that Jane Austen falls into this category.  Wherever I have lived, travelled, in between houses, whatever situation I have been in, I have one of Jane's books to hand.  I go out and buy a new paperback if my permanent collection cannot be accessed.  In this way of course, I ended up with multiple copies of Pride and Prejudice, Emma and Persuasion, the three  I re-read the most.  When your mind is overstretched with new ideas, new writing, turning to page one and reading 'It is a truth universally acknowledged...' is to feel contentment  and relaxation sweep over you, physically and mentally you sink into the familiar words and emerge refreshed at the other end, ready to take on all newcomers.

If I am ill, then I go to bed and curl up and keep warm and I will turn to a mystery or a light novel or romance. Sometimes, all three.  I have lost count of the number of times I have read Agatha Christie's output, some more than others, Ngaio Marsh I re-read every few years and since I discovered DL Sayers a few years ago, have read Gaudy Night five times, I love it so much. I fully intend to re-read all the rest of the Wimsey books too sometime in the future. 

If it is a cold winter afternoon and I am snug indoors, a loll in the bath, with radio on and a familiar and well loved Georgette Heyer always pleases.  When I first read these I was in my teens and loved the dashing heroes and feisty heroines.  I still do, but my favourite Heyers are now ones that I did not care for much when I was younger but appreciate now I have reached mature years (ahem), such as An Infamous Army and A Civil Contract.

And this raises another point.  Reading a book when one is older means you look at it in a whole new light.  I discovered Jane Eyre at the age of ten.  I loved it, did not understand half of it, and my favourite part was Jane's childhood and her time at Lowood School. I remember weeping buckets when Helen died.  I then read it a few years later and fell in love with Mr Rochester and thrilled to the marrow at the thought of the madwoman in the attic.  Read it again in my late teens and every feminine instinct I had came screaming to the fore after reading Jane's speech to Rochester in which she demands equality with him.  If I had never read this book again after my first foray, then just think what I would have lost.

I could go on for hours in this vein, but you will be pleased to know that I won't.  Just to mention that at my junior school I read a children's version of David Copperfield which ended when he went to live with Aunt Betsy Trotwood.  Imagine how thrilled to bits I was to discover that there was lots more to come and my love of Dickens was born.  Imagine only reading Bleak House once or Middlemarch or Little Women or Anne of Green Gables or Diary of a Provincial Lady or Age of Innocence or Barchester Towers or or Phineas Finn and so on and so on.  I have recently discovered the Mapp and Lucia books and have gobbled them up as I loved them, but know that in the next year I shall read them again, and this time I will savour them and take my time.

Just looking at my shelves while writing this post I feel a sense of great warmth and contentment that I have so many loved books all waiting for me to re-read them.  It may not be soon, it may be years but they are happy to wait and I am happy knowing they are there.

Computer Saga - printer

No I am not going to repeat ad nauseam all the problems I had earlier in the year - you all know about these, so don't run shrieking from the room.  This will be brief.  I hope.

I have to get a new printer.  I have tried every which way and cannot get my current model to work.  It scans beautifully but does not know it is a printer and goes on scanning forever.  Went into PC World yesterday.  I like to pop in every now and then and say hello to the Tech Guys who are now my second family.  I told them of my difficulty 'Ah, how old is your printer?'  say they stroking their chins 'Two years' say I.  Then I get the usual response: shaking of head, sucking of teeth and then the inevitable.  'Ah well, it is probably not compatible with Vista'

Of course, at this stage I feel like lying on the floor, drumming my heels and throwing hysterics, pulling down every curse I can think of on Microsoft.  I am told that though I have downloaded the drivers correctly 'with Vista you have to do it the other way round and force Vista to accept the software'.  Taking one look at my face The Tech Guy asks me if I would like him to write down instructions on how to do this.  He does. I leave.

Spend two hours wrestling with problem at home.  Call up The Tech Guys on their, I hope, free line. After mutually abusing Bill Gates, Vista, and all its works quite happily and sharing a cyberspace cup of tea, I throw in the towel, tell them not to bother.  I have wasted money on my new laptop, but more importantly to me, have wasted hours of my time since this trail of disaster which started back in March with the downloading of Norton (NEVER again) and it was downhill all the way after that.   

I read a profile of Bill Gates recently.  He has now stepped back from hands on work with his company, probably wise after the debacle that has been Vista, and is devoting more time to his charity work which is considerable.  I know that this man has given away billions, I know he is doing good in the world with his money and I applaud this.  Trouble is, I can't help but think that the reason he has got all this money to give away is because he is making it out of people like me who get caught up in his systems, upgrades etc etc.  While I have no objection to giving to charity, I would rather like to choose one of my own, and not be forced to donate to Mr G's pet projects through profits he has gained out of my frustration and irritation.

Still, just carry on giving the money away Bill and I will forgive you.

Now, off to buy a new printer....

LATER: I have a new printer. I downloaded the drivers, the files, etc etc and sent up a prayer to the Computer God and o joy o rapture, it works.  I have now printed off two pages, and scanned two photos and also done some photocopying.

I really hope that this is an end of it all.  I am not sure I can take much more....

America, America

Picked this up and put it down a couple of times before I really got into this book by Ethan Canin.  It needs a bit of time so that you can come to grips with it as it is one of those novels with different views at different times, leaping backwards and forwards over 30 years and sometimes can be a bit confusing.

Corey Sifter, the young son of working class parents is befriended by the Metarey family who more or less own most of the town in which he lives.  Very Victorian style benevolent dictatorship with the family looking after its employees, building houses for them to live in and generally keeping them happy. The head of the family, Liam Metarey, is a king maker in the world of New York State politics and throws his weight and influence behind Senator Henry Bonwiller as he bids to run for President.  Corey, who works on the estate during the school holidays and at weekends, has a ring side seat on all the comings and goings and through  the sponsorship of the Meterays, who take him under their wing, he becomes a student at a private boarding school followed by college.

I have always found American elections totally fascinating, much more so than what can be dreary and boring campaigns in the UK.  The current race for the White House is a case in point:  McCain, the old school type Republican, fought in Vietnam and now with a All American Calamity Jane style woman as his vice-president; Obama the first black candidate for the Presidency with his back story of a poor upbringing and fighting against prejudice - let's face it, it has all the glamour of a Hollywood movie.  We have Dave and Gordon. No contest.

The fact that this story is set in the 1970's makes it even more interesting to me as we are on the verge of Watergate, All the President's Men, Nixon's 'there will be no whitewash at the White House' broadcast complete with family and dog, all the chicanery and deceit slowly uncovered - it had me riveted at the time and I followed the slow unraveling of the Nixon Presidency over two years and its eventual outcome of resignation and disgrace.  Canin's Senator Henry Bonwiller's campaign is set in the run up to Nixon's second term, when all this was going on but the world had yet to hear of it, and the background and the events are those I remember well.  Muskie, crying on TV at the attacks on his wife's integrity, the immediate reaction of the voting public and his withdrawal from the race (back then crying was seen as a sign of weakness - now in the days of Oprah he would probably win the nomination).  My own personal view is that he was not only crying for the attack on his wife, but more because he realised these smears emanated from his own party, not the opposition.  It was a shameful episode.

Not sure if Ethan Canin based his Senator Bonwiller on Ted Kennedy, but this was the first thought that came into my mind.  Sounded very much like him and later on in the story when the body of a young campaign supporter is found and we learn that she was with Bonwiller that night and he abandoned her and the car, the thought of Edward Kennedy and Chappaquiddick is impossible to ignore.

This book is very filmic.  We have all the key characters: charismatic contender for the White House, a Man of the People running his campaign, small town, homespun philosophy from the townsfolk, a young student sponsored by aforementioned benevolent Man of the People, romance, tragedy, scandal and a cover up.  I could almost see each scene in front of me and mentally began to cast the roles as I went along.

I thoroughly enjoyed it.  The blurb is a bit over the top 'a magnificent novel about ambition and family, politics and crime, sex and love, small town life and big time power and ultimately, how vanity, greatness and tragedy combine to change history and fate' but blurbs tend to do that.

Great stuff and though I feel a little less apple pie homilies by the author would be welcome, and  that the book could lose about 30 pages at the end without much trouble, I can thoroughly recommend America America as a real page turner and a good read.

First week at home

• First morning at leisure leapt out of bed palpitating with horror that alarm clock had not gone off and I was going to be late.  Realised I did not have to get on train that morning so slid back into bed and went back to sleep.  Bliss
• Second morning - set alarm purely for the pleasure of switching it off and going back to sleep
• Third and all other mornings thereafter - ditto
• Attended two job interviews in London and used up remaining days on my season ticket
• Cleaned out my hell hole of a storage cupboard which resulted in three bags of rubbish, assorted cardboard boxes and old wood. Took it down to the Tip Civic Amenity Centre where I was shouted at by man in overalls for putting cardboard in wrong container. I responded in a suitable manner
• Defrosted freezer and fridge followed by scrubbing the kitchen floor to use up the water that always ensues with these chores no matter how hard one tries to a void it
• Have drunk a lot of tea and PG Tips shares have shot up on the FTSE
• Ditto McVities biscuits
• Visited my mother in the middle of the week to take her shopping and oh the bliss of taking her around Tesco while it was quiet and no seething crowds (I am aware that the words 'bliss' and 'Tesco' should never be used in the same sentence but we are talking comparative here)
• Listened to a lot of Classic FM
• Played a lot of computer games
• Written several reviews for other websites
• Read Six books

And am now showered, clean and off to have lunch with a friend.  I have never been a Lady who Lunches in my life so am looking forward to this.

Oh and have just had a recall for a second interview at one of the firms I visited last week so everyone in the Blogsphere please cross your fingers NOW..

Au reservoir...

Deja vu

Apropos my post on Lost in Austen - a parcel of books from Amazon arrived the other day and inside it was a a paperback published in the USA, which I had totally forgotten ordering some time ago called Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler.  I can only assume the title struck a chord as I know nothing else about it.

I open it up and what do I find?  Courtney goes to sleep one night and wakes up to find she is inhabiting another body - one Jane Mansfield and has been transported back in time.  In Lost in Austen the time travelling heroine is Amanda Price - distressing lack or originality with the names;  perhaps we could have had Emma Wentworth or Marianne Fairfax, or have Fanny and add the name of one of the maids at Longbourn - Hill.  Fanny Hill, er perhaps not....

So which came first I ask myself, this book or the TV series or did reading this book give somebody the idea?  The heroine here lives in Los Angeles, in Lost in Austen in Hammersmith.  Only thing they have in common is that they both come from a big, sprawling, noisy, urban background and are transported back into Austen land, the land of country houses, embroidery and walking in the shrubbery.

The whole book is a bit of a hoot and enormous fun and I took it back to bed with me this morning, once I had made myself a cup of tea and grabbed a biccy (Mem: must stop this weight is piling on frighteningly quickly during this week of sloth) and read it straight through.  Not going to set the world alight I can tell you that now, but it is hugely entertaining and I can recommend it as a relaxing read and it will not upset Jane purists (I consider myself one but after reading this and watching and liking Lost in Austen, I fear I have been guilty of presumption).  An American paperback so lovely and floppy and opens nicely without having to bend the spine back to see what is written and having the pages pop out, also able to prop it up on pillow while scoffing biscuits and drinking tea without it bounding shut.

The heroine, Courtney, is a bit of a loser when it comes to men back in her own time and Los Angeles, having discovered her fiance playing away just before they are due to marry (he rather fancies the lady making their cake and is caught displaying more interest than is healthy in her royal icing) and is suffering from low self esteem and locked in the Bridget Jones Why Can't I find a Man syndrome?  Seems to me that this kind of heroine seems to turn to Jane Austen and yearns after Darcy and Courtney is no different. 

At first totally amazed and frightened to find there is no waking up from her dream she decides to make the best of it.  Her father, a Mr Bennett figure married to a Mrs Bennett figure (only she is ghastly and malevolent, not just silly) is fond of her and as Courtney has never known her father, she begins to feel affection and love for him.  She is being pursued by Mr Edgworth (no relation to Maria we are informed) but hears that he is a bit of a libertine and is frightened to become involved in another dead end relationship.

 

What I found rather endearing about this book is the chance that Courtney grabs to visit Bath and London, places she has only read about in Jane Austen but has never visited, and she is overawed and thrilled to bits to find herself attending a ball at the Assembly Rooms:

"We enter through the wood and glass doors and make our way down a carpeted entrance hallway flanked by marble pillars and illuminated by crystal chandeliers......I look around at the grandeur of the vast columned space, the soft candlelight glowing golden on the gowned and waistcoated dancers......"

There is an amusing episode in the book when she hears a 'Miss Austen' being served in a shop in Milsom Street and races after her to tell her 'I love your books and am a big fan' and starts to chat to her about Mansfield Park which has yet to be published.  Courtney then goes on to tell her that in 200 years time here books will be universally popular, scholars will discuss her plots and style and that there will be film and TV adaptations of her books and so on.  Of course, Jane Austen thinks she is dealing with a mad woman and hastens away as quickly as possible.  A conceit, but very funny.

It all ends happily, if improbably, with Courtney deciding to stop being a wimp and to take control of her life and marry the man of her choice.  But where does she find her happiness?  Longbourn or LA?

You will have to read the book to find out.

Lost in Austen

A completely dotty but fun new TV show about Amanda Price, obsessed with her favourite novel Pride and Prejudice, who finds Lizzy Bennett in her bathroom one night having entered into the 21st century through the door at the back of the shower (as you do).  Convinced she is hallucinating, Amanda goes through the door and finds herself at Longbourn slap bang in the middle of the Bennett family who assume she is a friend of Elizabeth and on a visit.  The door shuts behind her and she is stuck.

So here you have a modern girl with long straight hair, leggings, boots and a tunic with a mobile in her pocket and a packet of fags in the other, and how is she going to cope with finding herself a character in one of the most famous books on the planet?  Well, she does and is taken in hand by Jane Bennett, who surely must be one of the sweetest, nicest characters ever.  Mr Bennett also confides in her, he is played wonderfully well by Hugh Bonneville (Notting Hill, Daniel Deronda and many others), but Mrs Bennett is not so happy with this unexpected arrival and when Mr Bingley appears and starts giving Amanda the eye, is furious and warns her off in no uncertain terms.

When attending the ball at Netherfield, she meets Darcy and while she admits he is no Colin Firth, he is certainly pretty smouldering.  However, it becomes increasingly clear that it is her Bingley fancies not Jane and she is distraught at the thought that she is changing the plot and outcome of P&P.

It outrageous and silly and I loved every single moment of it.  But the thought that crossed my mind towards the end of the first episode was - how  is Lizzy Bennett getting on in Amanda's world?  She had slipped a letter to her father under the bathroom door and seems content to stay where she is.  As Amanda left behind her burping, farting boyfriend watching football on the sofa, one does wonder what he makes of Elizabeth's arrival.  I suspect she can probably deal with him with one hand tied behind her back.  I do hope we find out.

This programme has been trailed to high heaven and I have already seen bits of next week's episode so many times that it renders actually watching it almost unnecessary (just why DO TV companies insist on doing this), but as Amanda knees Mr Collins in a tender place in the second episode and I am reliably informed impresses her host with an after dinner rendition of Downtown, I daresay I shall tune in to find out.

I am thoroughly enjoying it, though the critics have had a field day.  But oh dear just how much longer can this book be milked for dramatisation?  I think we are P&P'd out by now.   

Good Neighbours

I have lived in my apartment for eight years now and have good neighbours and no complaints (OK the young man upstairs has flooded me out three times - see previous posts if interested - and he has a small yappy dog which seems to be very vocal) but on the whole no problems and all is gemutlich.

So slightly surprised earlier this week to hear a loud and peremptory knock on my front door and when I opened it to be faced with an irate faced individual, totally unknown to me, who told me without any preliminary courtesies that I was in his parking space.  'You are the owner of that blue Nissan aren't you?"

I admitted to the ownership and then he told me once more I was in his parking space and at first he thought the blue car was owned by a lady down the road and he was going to have a go at her for parking in a private car park and IN HIS SPACE.  Blinking slightly, I asked why on earth the lady down the road would want to park her car here when she had a perfectly good car port at the front of her house but he was in full flow.

"Did you know that there are individual car park spaces allotted to each person in this block?" (I didn't actually and have not known all the time I have been here) and where I had apparently parked was his own personal fiefdom and I was IN HIS SPACE.

This gentleman was keeping himself upright by two sticks and was obviously not a limber person so if my car had been parked close to his entry into the block I would have understood his crossness and moved my car further away.  But no.  Where I park my car is about as far from his front door as possible so I could not understand his hostile attitude.  I told him that if the allocated parking was correct and I would get in touch with the management company to check, then of course I would move my car but there was no need to be so rude.

At this point he launched into what was obviously a well worn tirade of his 'rights' (he had just moved into the block but had obviously studied his lease well) and that he paid his rates and he was entitled to a parking space blah blah blah.  By the time the words 'rights' and 'rates' were aired my temper, which I had kept well under control all this time, began to rise and I pointed out that these two applied to me as well and I was perfectly entitled to park in the car park but of course if I was in his space then I would move my car and I was going out in half an hour and he could move his car in then and where was it?

"Oh" came the answer "I don't have a car but you are IN MY SPACE"

You couldn't make it up....

Photo of the Day

Triumphal Scene from Aida - Arena de Verona 

The Private Patient - PD James

As many of you know I am at home for a few weeks with a long list of chores to be done, domestic jobs to catch up on and a feeling of virtue knowing that soon my flat will be tidy, my cupboards spotless, all ironing done and Christmas cards written (well I know the last one on the list ain't gonna happen any time soon but I throw it in for verisimilitude)...

So what did I do yesterday afternoon?  I sat down and read solidly for three hours and the book which had me gripped was the latest PD James, Adam Dalgleish story, The Private Patient. I like PD James' style of writing, no fuss, no histrionics and as I had a sneaky feeling I had said this in an earlier post and did not want to repeat myself, I pulled it up and sure enough, I had made these same comments.  Therefore, please read this Random post here so that I will not bore you all again.

Rhoda Gradwyn is an investigative journalist, who has booked into a private clinic for the removal of a disfiguring scar on her face, inflicted upon her by a drunken father during her unhappy childhood. She has kept this scar as a badge of her determination not to let life defeat her, but now feels it is time to rid herself of this unsightly mark and to face up to her past.  She is looking forward to a successful operation and a convalescence at the beautiful manor house in Dorset which is the clinic's headquarters. 

Her operation takes place, all is well and she settles down to sleep in her bedroom.  In the middle of the night she awakes, she knows somebody is in the room and looking up she sees a dark masked figure coming towards her....

Dalgliesh and his team are called in and there follows the usual complex, beautifully plotted narrative which leads us to a denouement which is not quite the end of the story, as there is an added twist in the final chapter which is not totally cleared up, leaving the reader to wonder.

When I reviewed A Certain Justice in the post linked above, I quoted a paragraph containing a description of London which, for me anyhow, showed just how much PD James loves this city.   This is demonstrated once more in a paragraph very near the beginning of the story when  Rhoda comes home one evening:

"Eight years ago she had taken a lease on a house in the City, part of a narrow terrace in a small courtyard at the end of Absolution Alley near Cheapside, and knew as soon as she moved in that this was the part of London in which she would always choose to live........many generations had lived in it, born and died there leaving behind nothing but their names on browning and archaic leases.........although the lower rooms with their mullioned windows were dark, those in her study and sitting room on the top storey were open to the sky, giving a view of the towers and steeples of the City....an iron staircase led from a narrow balcony to secluded roof which held a row of terracotta pots and where on fine Sunday mornings she would sit with her books or newspapers as the Sabbath calm lengthened into midday and the early peace was broken only by the familiar peals of the City bells"

I find this quite lovely and could empathise with Rhoda revelling in her quiet Sunday mornings.  I found myself liking her, probably because I too find it essential to find time to myself and to be on my own.  We are given the background to Rhoda's life and how she was scarred; her friends, not many, she was essentially solitary person, her desire to finally come to terms with her disfigurement.  Not necessarily an immediately lovable character but PD James tells us enough about her that we feel sadness that her life came to a sudden end and, what is worse, knowing in her last few minutes, that this was it, this was death coming towards her....

Impossible for me to convey just how much I enjoyed this book, just how much I admire PD James' writing, just how damned GOOD she is at creating a cast of characters that are all intriguing and interesting, and make it impossible to put this book down until it is finished.  There is a sense of deep satisfaction when the last page is reached, as well as disappointment, but the wonderful thing about her books, all of which I keep, is that they can be revisited and re-read some time later, with huge enjoyment and satisfaction all over again. This surely is a mark of a great writer, and great is a word I do not hesitate to use in this context.

I visited my mother today and mentioned that I had the new PD James and her eyes lit up and I will be taking it over to her this weekend.  My mum has always loved detective fiction and in the last few years has read all of the Dalgleish books, Susan Hill's Serrailer stories, the Donna Leon series and was also delighted when I gave her my copy of The Franchise Affair which, like me, she read years ago and cannot wait to look at again.

Last year when I loaned her my copy of The Lighthouse by PD James she read it straight through and when I asked her what she thought the reply came 'What a marvellous book'

I am pretty sure I will get the same reaction when she has read The Private Patient...