Random Jottings

The Balance of Guilt - Simon Hall

We have two Waterstones in Colchester about 50 yards apart.  Never can understand why as they both stock identical books, have identical staff (ie - who seem to know very little about books) and have identical three for two offers and now all the usual Christmas sleb biog crap on display.   Check out the crime table and the usual suspects are given due prominence - Harlen Coben, Tess Gerritsen, Martina Coles et al.  Nothing wrong with that I hear you cry and of course you are right.  Nothing wrong with it at all.

But earlier this year I went in and asked for American Devil by Oliver Stark - wasn't there and the staff had not hear of it.  If I mention Simon Hall they have never heard of him as well. Why?  Because only the book names, those with clout and, more importantly, money behind them will get stocked.  We all know the Book of the Week, heavily promoted and heavily discounted is only there because the publishers have paid for it.  We all know this and my ranting is not going to make a blind bit of difference. But it still makes me cross.

Accent Press sent me the first of Simon Hall's books about three years ago now. Never heard of this bloke I thought but hey let's give it a whirl. And I did. And I thoroughly enjoyed it. And I have written reviews on all of his books on Random and will continue to do so as long as Accent is good enough to send me copies. If they didn't I would still read them because I would buy one. But it would be on line because I am sure as hell I would not find it at Waterstones.

Rant over. On with the motley, sorry, review.

The latest in the TV detective series is called The Balance of Guilt.  If you have read any or all of the previous titles in this series, you will know by now that we have the classic pairing that all good detective stories should have.  In this case it is Dan Groves, a television reporter and DCI Adam Breem.   Dan is depressive, lives on his own with his dog, has just split up with Claire, a colleague of Adam and is untidy. Adam is married with a child, is elegant and immaculately dressed and is the complete opposite of Dan. See? Told you it was the perfect partnership.   Adam lets Dan in on the inside track of investigations in return for his somewhat quirky expertise and perceptiveness and Dan gets exclusives that no other reporters are offered so it all works out pretty well.

Previous books have been witty and puzzling full of codes to crack and, while all are excellent examples of the detective genre, the latest The Balance of Guilt, deals with terrorism and a bomb attack.  This has been done numerous times in other books by other authors, but the explosion takes place in a cathedral in Exeter, light years away from the usual high profile targets in the capital and the shock of such an appalling event in a hitherto peaceful city, is immense.   The bomber was caught up in the blast and taken to hospital and his accomplice has been captured but is saying nothing and, much to Adam's anger, the Spooks are called in and take over the entire operation. It is run by two agents who are just known as Oscar and Sierra and who are icy calm and cool and very tight lipped about what is going on.   Adam finds himself blocked at every turn and contacts Dan so that the pair of them can work under the radar.

Now I am not going to say much more because not only is the story full of twists and turns, but I don't want to give anything away.  Just know that Dan's car is vandalised and his beloved dog is poisoned in an attempt to scare him off and to shut him up, but as we know our intrepid hero by now, we know this will only make him more determined.  One thing that the Spooks and everyone else getswrong, is to underestimate Dan's intelligence and cunning and this is amply displayed by the final couple of chapters where I just burst out laughing at what had been going right under the noses of Oscar and Sierra.

Just remember when reading this - do the Spooks know more than they are letting on?  How come they were on the scene of the bombing so quickly?  What do Dan's two computer geeky friends have to do with it all?    Will Dan and Claire get back together?  As Dan is now seeing an extremely glamorous older woman who seems to be after his body and is pretty determined, I am not sure this reunion is going to be an easy ride and fireworks are ahead methinks. 

Simon Hall has written another cracking thriller.  He seems to get better with each book, with a firmer grasp of his characters and dialogue and lots more leading you up the garden path to great effect.  There are twists and turns aplenty and a final revelation from an unexpected source right at the very end of the Balance of Guilt which took me totally by surprise.   If you wish to read my earlier reviews click here and this post will, in turn, link you to my thoughts on his other titles.

His best yet and I read it in one sitting - could not put it down.

A bloody good book and should be on the tables in Waterstones next to the Cobens, Rendalls and all those others. Deserves to be.

Already looking forward to the next one.

 

Wives and Daughters - Mrs Gaskell - BBC dramatisation

This dramatisation was, once again, adapted for the small screen by the ubiquitious Andrew Davies (he of Pride and Prejudice fame) and, once again, he has done his subject proud.  Mrs Gaskell is not so well known as Jane Austen and has not been adapted quite so much but after the success of P&P the BBC cast its net to see what else they could catch and use.   It was odd that for years the BBC refused all requests for more period drama saying it was no longer fashionable and nobody was interested. I received such a letter from a long gone Chairman of the BBC, Marmaduke Hussey, in response to my asking about this subject, a letter so arrogant and rude I consigned it to the bin.   Well, he retired/resigned/left and in 1994 the then Chairman decided he would try a bit of costume drama, we had Middlemarch and, as they say, the rest is history.  Huge ratings, people clamouring for more and so what I call Crinoline Rep was born, a list of actors who seem to turn up in practically every period adaptation made since and there have been plenty.

Wives and Daughters is Mrs Gaskell's last book and was unfinished at her tragic early death, but her notes and drafts were comprehensive enough for readers to see what her plans were for her characters and
this ending has been woven into this adaptation.  

Molly Gibson and her father, the local doctor and a widower, live together in perfect amity until he remarries Mrs Kirkpatrick, a silly, selfish woman with an equally selfish and self centred daughter of her own, Cynthia.  This marriage is undertaken, partly in love of Molly who needs a mother, but it destroys their intimacy and trust and begins to obliterate the memories of her childhood and her dead mother.

Molly spends a great deal of time with Squire Hamley and his ill wife, with whom she is a great favourite and becomes close to his two sons, Roger and Osborne.  We see her grow and mature and the friendship between them becoming closer with a growing affection for Roger which is taken away from her when the mercurial Cynthia, her new sister, arrives and he falls in love with her and they become engaged. Roger is off on an expedition in Africa and Cynthia insists the engagement is kept a secret and as time goes by we can see why - her mother and her are keeping an eye out in case something better comes along as Roger is only the second son and Osborne will inherit.

I am not going to give away any further plot details as (a) the post would be pages long and (b) I really would like you to see this adaptation for yourselves.  Not sure who or where everyone is who is reading this but if you are in the UK, Wives and Daughters is available on Amazon at a very silly price and I do urge you to buy it.  The casting is wonderful:  Francesca Annis as Mrs Gibson, Molly's stepmother, spot on and so infuriating that you want to shake her (as infuriating as Mrs Bennett in many ways); Keely Hawes as Cynthia who has her butterfly mind and attitudes just right; Justine Waddell as Molly - not conventionally beautiful but lovable and if there is anyone who does not love Molly by the end of this series, I will be surprised.

Their are other luminaries of the British stage appearing here in parts both large and small but I simply have to single out Sir Michael Gambon as Squire Hamley.  Warm hearted, loving, prejudiced and irascible, he is a character to treasure.  His grief at his wife's death, his clinging to Molly, his deep affection for her, all beautifully portrayed.   There is one scene and I am not going to tell you which one as it would spoil the plot, is heartbreaking, and it is one where he reduced me to floods of tears.   If you watch this for one reason and one reason only, it would have to be for this portrayal by one of my favourite actors.

But I am going to say no more.   Andrew Davies and the BBC have done Wives and Daughters proud. We have also had North and South and, more recently, the wonderful Cranford so Mrs Gaskell is well and truly back in the public domain.  Would love to see more of her works on television, but am not overly hopeful....

 

An Interview with Oliver Stark - author of American Devil - Part Two

As promised here is the interview - Part Two.  Don't forget to leave your name either here or in yesterday's post in the comments section to take part in a draw for a copy of the paperback edition just published.

I mentioned in my review that on first glance we had the run of the mill characters, a maverick and suspended detective with anger issues, a psychologist who is there to keep him in check before he is allowed back to help solve the murders committed by the American Devil, but was really impressed by the fact that you overcame this hurdle and both Tom and Denise came across as real people, not run of the mill at all.   Difficult, but you managed it – how did you do it?

I think I managed it because I like them both very much! Seriously, though, we're all pretty two dimensional when we meet for the first time or when we are known through our jobs or reputations. We get pigeonholed all the time and pigeon hole others without a thought. It's a human way of categorising the world and dealing with lots of new information. So, archetypes aren't necessarily a bad thing - they are the starting point in our recognition of people. I think you can go one of two ways with a character - try to jump right into the middle of their lives and see their uniqueness, idiosyncrasies, their thoughts and their dreams or get to know them slowly. The former is very nice, but for most of us, it takes us a lifetime to get to know the real person, their unique and special character.

I thought about this quite a lot. I think - for me or for my characters - being a cliché or stock character is a defence mechanism. Tom Harper comes across as a stock character when we first meet him, because that's where he's happiest - where you can see the least of him that's possible. I thought it suited Tom better to hold him at a distance, let him show the side he wanted to - the tough guy with the chip on his shoulder.

Part of the story of Tom and Denise, is the way in which Denise humanises this clichéd cop and doesn't let him play out his male fantasies. So, it was an intriguing challenge to set him up as a routine detective and then try to allow the reader to get to know him more slowly. I hope he reveals himself over time. That way, the relationship lasts - I didn't want any one night stands for Tom and his readers. I want the reader to get to know him more closely and that takes time.

Denise was a stock character too, partly because in that kind of role, she needs to put on a front to cope with the men and women she comes across. She's got to close off her personality and learn to spar with the cops of the NYPD. She is a little easier to know than Tom, because she shows emotion - she has her boyfriend, her dog, good memories of her father. As a reader, we can relate to positive emotions as they seem to allow us to know her. However, I think, again, that there's more to her than is immediately apparent. She's more complex than she allows herself to be, and I think, for me, that's down to her level of confidence. She's got huge potential, but doesn't quite believe in herself.

So, in answer, I suppose, I didn't think of it as a hurdle to overcome, but as a routine way in which we meet and get to know people. We flesh them out over time, each incident or event adding to our sense of their character. As with people, certain events and experiences define Tom and Denise, and I wanted the reader to put their characters together as part of the journey.

I am not asking too many questions as I don’t want any answers that could possibly give away any of the plot to any future readers, but I have to ask you how you got the idea of The American Devil, how long it took you to write and just how did you work out the intricate and fiendish plotting?  After reading some thrillers/detective stories I am aware that there is the odd loose end remaining unanswered but there is nothing left unexplained in your book.   How did you keep track of the plot and all the events?

As a first draft I wrote it in three to four weeks. But that was just to get the heart of the story down on paper. I see things quite visually and the idea of the American Devil came from the character of Mo. I was sitting in a pavement cafe and I saw a man in a red turtleneck crossing the street with a suitcase on wheels. He was big and awkward and looked around too often as he walked. I don't know what it was about him - the size, his nervousness, or the suitcase, but that man set off the idea of a killer walking the streets of a city. The plotlines moved off in every direction from that initial image.  But in developing that idea, I read a lot of fiction, I read a lot of true crime, and I tried to think about what it is that is terrifying about the killers I'd read about.

The plotting took some time and many, many packets of those coloured index cards. The wall of half of my living room became a big map of storylines and ideas. It is very hard to keep everything up in the air, but diagrams, maps, index cards and thorough re-reading helped. I was also lucky to have a great agent and a great editor, both of whom pointed out any loose ends. I'm sure that there are things that I missed, but it's kind of you to say that they were, on the whole, all answered.

And finally, when is the next one due to be published and does it feature Tom and Denise again?

Tom Harper and Denise Levene return in April 2011, in '88 Killer'. They are affected deeply by the events of the American Devil, but have to put their personal issues to one side when a new case takes a stranglehold in the city. I hope you enjoy it. More about that book in due course. At the moment, I'm redrafting and redrafting and redrafting...

Good luck to OIiver with the redrafting and I, and I am sure many others, look forward to the next book. My thanks for taking part in this interview and my thanks once again to Headline Books for providing copies for the PRIZE DRAW
.

An Interview with Oliver Stark - author of American Devil -Part One

Earlier this year I read American Devil by Oliver Stark. I thought it was one of the best debut thrillers I have read in years and gave it a five star review both here and on Amazon.  It seems I had the honour of writing the first ever review of this book and the first that Oliver had ever had and was thrilled to bits about this.  I was also thrilled to see when opening the paperback edition that my name and part of my review on Random has been used on the opening page.

I am delighted to say that Oliver kindly agreed to give me an interview for Random Jottings. He told me I could edit it down as he felt he had gone on a bit but I am not going to do that as I found what he had to say totally fascinating.  So I am posting this across two days and part one is here below.

ALSO please note that Headline books have offered three copies of this edition for a prize draw on Random so just leave your name in the comments section, whichever day you read this, and your name will be entered.

Oliver, it was a real surprise to me to discover that you are an English writer as this book is steeped in the feel of New York and it has the grittiness and urban feel that so many US thriller writers have. I understand that you have been fascinated by American detective writing all your life.  Can you tell us why and what it is about this genre that attracts you?

Firstly, I'd like to thank you for reading 'American Devil' and to say how pleased I am that you found much in it to enjoy. Writing a debut book is very exciting but it also comes with its moments of terror. Most of them are about how people will react to the story, the characters and the writing. As a writer, you just never know how anyone else is going to take to your book. So far, I've been delighted that so many readers have responded pretty positively and I take heart from that. You feel very lucky, getting published, but it means very little without readers who are willing to try you out and enjoy what you're producing. So thank you!

As I was starting writing the book, I was unsure of where to set the story. There are earlier versions of this story set in London and San Francisco as well as New York. I tried different places out to see what happened and what they felt like. I suppose I was trying to find the right tone for a story that was only half formed in my head. I knew what I wanted, but couldn't see it very clearly. So I had to try various incarnations until one just seemed right.

The setting of New York acts like a bass note, it sets the mood. As an English writer, it gave me the freedom to write about crime in a way that I'd find hard in an English setting. Perhaps it's something to do with distance. New York is a partly mythical place and I found the cityscape could absorb some of the more horrible aspects of the killings more easily than the more provincial English setting.

New York is also a place of story and stories and I wanted my book to work with multiple perspectives, whether of a narcissistic psycho-therapist, a delusional psychopath or a hard-bitten cop. My enjoyment of American crime fiction first came from television and black and white films. It wasn't just the classic crime writers I liked, I was also hooked by later gritty films like Taxi Driver and Mean Streets. They show a city that is dark, dangerous and exciting. And they show a city where law and order is a battle and moral decisions are never simple or easy.

I didn't experience that kind of moral uncertainty or that level of visceral grit in the English writing I came across. Englishness comes with a high degree of order and moral certainty and however cruel and terrible a killer in the English school, I always felt that at the end of the day, he or she had to be disposed of, so that life could return to its norms. And that meant that the killer and his or her motives also had to be dealt with in that way. I'm not saying that's what's happening in British crime fiction now, but what I saw in the seventies in film, TV and Agatha Christie had that tone to it.

So it was American fiction that opened that door to some of the interesting questions about law and order, moral certainty and the darkness of the human soul and what people are capable of doing. It was also the nature of the cops. They were hard, cynical, cold and always had great lines. It was hard not to love them and the American pulp style. They are great stylists and some of the most memorable lines in crime fiction still, to me, come from the mouths of men like Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe.

So America gripped my imagination because it didn't try to answer all the difficult questions, but it explored them all the same and left some things unanswered.

I see from your biography on your website that you like to get into the country when you can and this is illustrated by a photograph of flying birds.  We first meet your detective hero, Tom Harper, bird watching and it seems to me that this is the only time he is at peace with himself.    Is this an aspect of your own personality that you used in this characterisation and what do you think drives him and makes him such a good detective?

I have to say that I have always got a lot of pleasure and peace from being alone and being close to nature. At the same time, I'd find it hard not to live in the city.  Everyone has a way to find some kind of peace and balance, that time when your head stops thinking and you just start breathing. Watching birds can do that, but most of all, just being out in the country can switch off the logical or anxious side of your brain.

The birds on my website are Red Kites - one of the most beautiful of our birds of prey. They were nearly hunted to extinction in the UK and only a few pairs survived in rural Mid Wales. They are now breeding and numbers are increasing, but their survival has been down to a few dedicated people and a small number of committed rural communities. They are a symbol of survival and it should make us wonder that something so beautiful should have been hunted as vermin for so many centuries.

Cops like Tom Harper were also near extinction but he's been saved too! There is something that Harper sees in birds that he identifies with. Partly, I think, it's simply their wildness, but they also allow him to show emotion for something. Tom Harper doesn't have too many distractions in his life, he thinks about his cases nonstop and he lives with knowledge of the worst side of human experiences and action. Because of this, he needs a way out and he has tried to avoid the cliché of becoming a drinker, but he so easily could go that way. The bird watching allows him to stop thinking for a while and it shows him as himself.

I think that he's a good detective because although he's got the drive, determination and single-mindedness of the best hunter, he's also a team player and uses the expertise of those around him. It's also not just a job for him, it's more of an expression of who he is. It allows him to use and express his abilities and talents and therefore, it's not just about catching the killer, it's always a question of  engaging at the highest level. Harper likes the difficult cases, because it's where he can get deeply involved in a case. What drives him is also the thought that catching serial killers is often down to one or two moments of luck or insight and he couldn't bear to leave that to anyone else, in case they missed it.

Part two tomorrow - don't forget to enter for the prize draw

The Week coming up

Have mentioned that I will be away this week.  I will be slap bang in the middle of the Exmoor National Park and am not giving away what I am doing just yet as it is something I have never done before and I am a trifle apprehensive about it all.   I am driving there tomorrow - long time since I have driven this length of journey so also bit apprehensive about that as well though my road confidence has increased in the last year.  The picture below will give a clue to one of my activities this week and will blog about it when I return - safely I hope....

I have set some posts to appear while away and hope that they pop up when they should.  On 29 September a series of bloggers, hosted by Austenprose, are posting on the 200th anniversary of the birth of Mrs Gaskell and we have all chosen to write about a book, story or TV adaptation.  I am writing about the BBC adaptation of Wives and Daughters and this will be up at midnight GMT on this date - others will be posted according to the time zones.  Here is a link with all the info and do keep an eye out for it.

I am also posting over two days, an interview with Oliver Stark about his fantastic debut thriller, American Devil which has just been issued in paperback.  Headline books have kindly offered up three copies of this for a prize draw so keep an eye out for that as well.

So packing to do and an early night. Will have a quick check of emails in the morning and then off blog until my return

Au reservoir

Nordic Gloom

Take a look at the picture of all these book titles.  What do they have in common?  First of all, they are all Nordic/Finnish/Icelandic whatever, they are all detective stories  and the book jackets are all black and white and monochrome. Why?

OK we know that most people who live in the Scandinavian countries are gloomy and full angst and never laugh and never smile and all their policemen are guilt ridden/divorced/alcoholic/dreadful parents etc etc but we know that this cannot and is not true.  Yet most books of this genre are marketed as such.

Have been reading and watching Wallander over the last few months and he is indeed a melancholy individual, yet now and then his life is shot with happiness, usually when he and Linda are talking and he realises that he loves his daughter and there is something and someone in his life.   The Swedish TV version is downbeat, but is as nothing compared to the soul bearing and emotion wracked portrayal by Kenneth Branagh who does overdo it just a tad.

The Camilla Lackberg series, three so far and a new one out soon, are not quite so gloomy though there are some miserable souls portrayed in each title.  At least this author has given us Patrik who is young and hopeful and has a partner and a child and seems happy.  I hope it lasts and that something ghastly doesn't happen soon though as his partner's sister is in abusive relationship and seems to have offed her husband at the end of the last book, I don't hold out much hope.

Last week I was sent The Draining Lake by Arnuld Indridason and oh my goodness.  Detective Erlundur is not only divorced, overweight and lives on his own, but his ex-wife hates him, his son is an alcoholic and his daughter is a drug addict totally out of control and who attacked one of his colleagues in the previous title in this series.   I tell you this guy makes Wallander sound like a barrel of laughs.  Anyway, I ploughed through it but rapidly lost the will to live and I will tell you why. It was the chat, the talk, the way everyone addressed each other.  You think War and Peace is bad?  'Hello Alexi Alexovitch (or whatever) how are you today?  This is my friend Pavlov Pavlovitch and his sister Anna Pavlovitskaya and their friends Ivan Ivanovich and Sergei Sergeivitch'.  You get the drift.

Well The Drowning Lake is set in Iceland and a body is discovered in a lake and Erlunder Sveinsson is sent for from Jafnarfjordur. He arrives with his colleague, Elinborg (who is a woman and as well as being a detective has written a cookery book so we are told she is a cookery book writing detective...). They are then joined by Sigurdur Oli (this is the guy who was attacked by Erlunder Sveinsson's drug addict daughter by the way which all adds to the gaiety of the nation) and they don't call each other Fred or Jo or Lisa it is Hello Sirgurdur Oli - oh Hallo Erlunder Sveinsson and so forth.

Later on in the investigation Erlunder goes to interview a man called Haruldur who complains about a friend call Thordur. We are told that Haruldur likes to read poetry by Einar Benediktasson and so it goes on and on.   I was awaiting the arrival of Gandalf, Gollum and Boromir any second.

Now please don't think I am poking fun at names and places of other countries, well suppose I am really, but am not doing it to be sarcastic or unpleasant in any way, but it just makes reading Nordic books slightly difficult.  Once you get into them and you have sorted out the Isuldurs from the Egladurs then it is ok but for the first 50 pages of this book I hadn't the faintest idea what was going on.  In fact, the book is so incredibly boring and badly written, IMHO anyway, that I skipped great chunks and read the last few chapters which had an ending which defied belief and I threw the book across the room.

So just to repeat, the nomenclature of these books is up to the reader to sort out and I have done this with no difficulty at all until I read the Icelandic title and came to a grinding halt. I think this is because it was dire more than anything else, if I had really been taken with it I would probably have found it easier.  

My question is, no matter whether the detectives are English, American, Nordic, whatever, why are they such a miserable bunch of sods?  The only two I can think of who marry and are happy, eventually, are Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane and Roderick Alleyn and Agatha Troy, though both of them took years to persuade their wives to marry them. Probably knew the misery that was in store...

I long to read a series, or watch a series, where we have a detective who is not (a) a maverick (b) embittered (c) an alcholic (d) divorced (e) a bad parent (f) unshaven and (g) rude and bad tempered which is not unexpected if you are suffering from (a) to (f).  

A happy cheerful happily married contented run of the mill detective who solves crime with a smile on his lips and a song in his heart.  Good idea?

No you 're right, it wouldn't work.

Henry IV Part 2

Was in London yesterday looking after the Divine Florence who is now standing up clutching onto things, at 7.5 months!  She shows no interest in crawling so looks as if she will just go straight to walking.  Her mother was the same, my other daughter not walking for some time as she could crawl at such a speed she saw no need to walk but did finally much to my relief.

But today back up to see the second part of Henry IV at the Globe following on from Part I in August and really looking forward to it.  I find the whole Globe experience quite wonderful and we have good weather and the sun is shining so should be a good day.

10 pm - well about to hie me off to bed as really tired but oh it has been a lovely day.  Arrived in London and it was raining in stair rods but had brought a brolly so set off to walk to the Globe from Liverpool Street station.  Took me about 25 minutes and I was pretty sodden by the time I arrived. Had arranged to meet my friend in a coffee shop opposite and we had lunch there before entering the Globe.  The reception area was simply HEAVING with packs of students and school children all coming for talks and being taken round the permanent Shakespeare exhibition. I had forgotten just how noisy teenagers could be and the sound was deafening and I found myself being jostled about by children who seemed to have no care or manners at all and was getting really annoyed with one gang of Italian students when their teacher spotted I was being pinned to the wall and let rip with a stream of what sounded like vituperative Italain upon which they parted like the Red Sea let me through.

Henry IV Part 11 is a more sombre play than Part 1 and there is less of the high jinks between falstaff and Hal as they are apart for most of the play. It was quite brilliantly done, as are all productions at this wonderful theatre, a closeness of communication between the actors and the audience, and the feeling that we are all sharing in this wonderful experience together.  The scene between the dying Henry IV and 
Hal was marvellous and moving and of course the final rejection of Falstaff heartbreaking. When I saw it at the National a few years ago, the new Henry V dismissed Falstaff without a qualm and was icy cold which made it quite gut wrenching for Sir John, but in this production you could see that though Henry knew he had to do it, it hurt him to abandon his faithful friend.  Even if Falstaff was ont he make, was a drunken, lying womaniser, there is no doubt in my mind anyway, that he loved Hal as a son. 

The Falstaff I saw at the National was Sir Michael Gambon and he was, needless to say, sublime but Roger Allam, who has twice won the Olivier award for actor of the year, was just as stunning as Falstaff. Plenty of reviews if you want to give them a Google and all agree that this is the performance of the year.

A marvellous afternoon. The evening play was The Merry Wives of Windsor and for a moment I thought of staying on but realised I was too tired and as I fell asleep on the train home, so it proved.   The journey home with the commuters was awful - I had a seat and was perfectly comfortable, but just being back on the train at this time brought home to me just how much I loathed it and how grateful and thankful I am that I can sink into my bed tonight knowing I don't have to do this any more. 

So a restful weekend and then I am off on my adventure on Monday....

 

VicLit

A few years back I was asked by an early visitor to Random, who noted that I love Victorian Literature, if I could name my favourite books from that genre.  I have recently been asked the same question and so I have had a rethink and while I was jotting notes checked my earlier post and found that not much has changed but there have been a few additions. 

The book which started me off was Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and this is pretty near the top of my list. We have a plain heroine who has nothing going for her but is full of determination and spunk.  There are times in my later readings of this novel when Jane's determination to be a martyr has grated at times, not least when Mr Rochester wants to buy her new clothes for her wedding and she is determined to stick to her governess grey, though of course I do realise this shows her determination to be true to herself.  Her declaration of equality with Mr Rochester and the right to feel love as he does never fails to make my hair stand on end every time I read it.  The impact on Victorian women when it was published must have been stunning.  Lots of mothers would not allow their daughters to read it in case it gave them ideas.  First read when I was 11 and of course did not understand half of it, further repeated readings make me love it more and more each time.  Various film and TV versions of this book, yet to find one that I think is perfect - loved the one with Toby Stephens a couple of years ago, the sexual tension between him and his Jane leaped off the screen, but the script - too modern - rather let it down.

 

Middle March by George Eliot is one of the greatest Victorian novels ever written.  Set in the Midlands town of Middlemarch we come to know the lives, thoughts and loves of its inhabitants from the new idealistic Dr Lydgate who thinks he is going to change the world, marries a flighty beauty and gradually watches his idealism fall away, to Dorothea Brooke who marries the Reverend Causabon years older than her and then also has to see her youthful hope and idealism blighted.  I could go on for hours about the cast of characters in this superb novel but then this blog would run over into the week.  A masterpiece.  The BBC did a wonderful adaptation of it back in 1994.  I read Adam Bede for the first time just a couple of years ago and it has come very close to replacing Middlemarch as my favourite Eliot.  A trifle hard going at first, mainly because of the local dialect, but gradually this story got a hold of me and I was  unable to put it down.  The story of Adam and his love for the silly empty headed Hetty Sorrell and the ultimate terrible fate that awaits her is gripping and I sat up one night till 2 am to finish it. 

My first Mrs Gaskell, who was a contemporary and great friend of Charlotte Bronte and one of those prolific women Victorian writers and who seem to have the knack of running a home, having children and writing in their spare time, wrote many novels and hte first one I read was Cranford, the story of a  village largely populated by women and maiden aunts and this book is a delightful portrayal of their daily lives and is full of small things and minutiae. The BBC dramatisation of this a couple of years ago was a smash hit and justly so as the acting was of a stratospheric standard.  With Dame Judi Dench, Dame Eileen Atkins, Sir Michael Gambon and other luminaries such as Imelda Staunton and Julia McKenzie, to mention just a few, it could hardly fail.  It is a good starter book for Mrs Gaskell but in no way reflects her grasp of the bigger issues which are portrayed in her larger, greater works such as North and South (a family move from the South to an industrial town in the north and the daughter Margaret finds it difficult to come to terms with the different way of life) until of course a dark, brooding mill owner comes along.  Wives and Daughters is a portrayal of  the search for happiness and different marriages (I think this one might be my favourite Mrs Gaskell).  She has written many others but these will keep you going.    Sir Michael Gambon produced another stunning performance as the Squire in Wives and Daughters and it was North and South which introduced us all, via the TV series, to the utter delight which is Richard Armitage. He seems to be popping up a lot on Random recently so will say no more....

We categorise Victorian literature because of the Queen on the throne when these superb books were written but of course there are wonderful American writers of the period who also fall into this category and high on my personal list is Louisa May Alcott.When I was a young girl I adored Little Women and all the other books about the March family.  Her writing can seem somewhat moralistic in tone at times, but we have to remember when she was writing and who her audience was and there is a warmth about them which is impossible to resist.  I still weep buckets when Beth dies.

Frances Hodgson Burnett is one of my favourite American/English authors of this period.  I have raved on about The Shuttle and The Making of a Marchioness until I am sure you are bored stiff, but make no apology for this as they are both wonderful.  She may be famous for The Little Princess and the Secret Garden but she had written many adult books and Through One Administration and T Tembaron are really great fun and immensely readable.

I am including EF Benson in my list of Victorian Literature now as his first book Dodo was written in 1893 and  am slipping him in here as I cannot let an opportunity pass to urge anyone who has not ead the Mapp and Lucia books to do so.  Some of his other stand alone works such as Michael, Mrs Ames and an Autumn Sowing show that he is not just a comedy writer. These three books show him at his best. Some of his others though are not so good but as he wrote about 90 I think he is allowed a few dodgy ones.

Now we come to Anthony Trollope who I simply love.  There is something so reassuring about his novels. Some of them are big, fat, comfortable books which will keep you going for days, others are slimmer and lighter in content. He has also written shed loads of short stories, some of which are sooo funny. I discovered Trollope only ten years ago and am so glad that I left it late to find this author as it now means I have years of happy reading ahead of me.   The Barchester Chronicles are, of course, simply wonderful.  Barchester Towers is the one that most people remember and enjoy the most and I am not about to disagree, but by the time you reach the Last Chronicle of Barset you realise you are in the presence of a master writer.  I think it is one of his finest books telling the story of a poor and proud vicar who is accused of stealing and cashing a cheque which was not his and the events which follow. Mrs Proudie makes her presence felt and the tragedy of her marriage to the Archbishop is quite heartbreaking.    Then the Palliser novels - quite magnificent, my favourite being Phineas Finn. I am absolutely staggered at just how many books AT turned out and I have all of them on my shelves, 50+ and they will keep me going for many a year yet as I have only read about 29.

But the man who towers over everyone is Charles Dickens. Worthy scholars and writers have lavished millions of words on this phenomenon so I am going to make no attempt to do so save to say that I first discovered the glory of Dickens when I was about 11 (in fact about the same time I discovered Jane Eyre so that was a good age for me).  We had a junior version of David Copperfield at school which dealt with his childhood only and finished with him finding a happy home with his aunt.  I thought that was an end to the story and was overjoyed when my English teacher told me that there was more.  I got hold of the complete book, read it, loved it and it has been one of my favourites every since.  I have to admit to problems sometimes with Dicken's so called 'funny' characters who I can find irritating, and this put me off reading Pickwick Papers for a long long time as I was not drawn to the likes of Sam Weller. My mistake. I only read it recently for the first time and I absolutely loved it and found myself sniggering away to myself as I read all the scrapes Mr Pickwick fell into.

My favourite out of all his books, and it is pretty difficult to separate them out, is Bleak House,which I had to read for my A levels at school many moons ago.  Tells story of Jarndyce v Jarndyce, a case in Chancery which has been dragging on for years  and which ruins the lives of everyone it touches.  It is a work of stunning brilliance with one of the most memorable opening paragraphs in all English literature.

The great thing about literature of this period is that there is so much out there still awaiting my attention.  In the last few years I re-read Cousin Bette by Balzac, Madame Bovary by Flaubert and discovered Zola for the first time when I read Ladies Delight in which I utterly wallowed which I suppose is FrenchVIcLit.  The American novels of this period still await me, Wharton just slips into this period by the skin of her teeth (have read everything she has written but always welcome to re-read), and then we slide effortlessly into the 1900s and 1920s onwards which also hold a fascination for me, bolstered by the publications of Persephone and the earlier Virago green editions. Then I have not even mentioned Dostoevsky or any of the Russian mob - SovietVicLit??

So many books and so little time.   I read and read and read and I know that when I am trying tothink of some final words of wisdom to impart to my relatives when I am about to go to the library in the sky, all I will think of is Oh bugger it I never did get round to reading War and Peace (well actually I did but I was just plucking a title out the air).

This year I have been engulfed in murder, death, detection and spy thrillers and have had a great reading time, at the moment I am reading Gerritsen and Mankell, but in between all this mayhem, blood and gore, I have a little break and turn to my favourite books - last week Diary of a Nobody by Grossmith. Witty, wonderful and hilarious.

Off to London tomorrow to see Florence and in my box of books which I will be delivering in a week or two when the family move into their new house and Florence has her bedroom all ready, are copies of Wind in the Willows and the Secret Garden.  She is not ready for them yet but they will be waiting for her when she is and I hope it will be me who sits down and reads them to her....

Quiet Monday

This is going to be a quick post for Monday as I have just been watching Spooks.  As usual, over acted, lots of elliptical comments through tight lips and crap dialogue:

"Not sure I can do this much longer Ruth. Stop one disaster and another comes along"

"It's what we do"

Close up of protagonists looking at each other meaningfully in silence.  Honestly it is so BAD and so CORNY I am surprised the actors can say the lines without corprsing.  Tonight submersibles heading towards the Houses of Parliament were stopped at the very last minute. The question here is Why?  Surely blowing up Parliament would be a good idea.....

Anyway, the reason for watching this bilge which I freely admit I simply loved is that the unutterablygorgeoussexydelicious and eminently fanciable Richard Armitage is in it and I could sit and watch him quite happily reading the telephone book.  He charged around emoting danger and sexiness in equal measure, dressed in black mostly (oh be still  my beating heart...) and has left me with the need to go and lie down in a darkened room with a wet cloth on my head.

But before I do that just a quick catch up. Kathryn telephoned from Sydney this morning, her evening, and we had a great chat. She is doing brilliantly and has just won an award for being the best Business Manager in the whole of New South Wales and she has only been there for three months.  So proud of her. We discussed my visit and have decided that after taking me to the Opera House for my birthday YAY we are then going to go to the Great Barrier Reef for five days and then will come back to Sydney as Kathryn obviously has to go to work, and I will explore Sydney and reacquaint myself with that wonderful city and go on trips and we will be together in the evenings and weekends.  I think I have found a flat to stay in only ten mins from where she lives which is near Bondhi and the train station.  I am so excited I think I may spontaneously combust before I get there.

Am packing at the moment for a week away next week. I am going on a 'holiday' if that is the right way to describe it and doing something totally out of my comfort zone and yes I hate using that phrase, but cannot think of a better one.  I will be taking a complete blog break for that week so there will be seven days of Randomless Jottings so will try and get lots of stuff in before I go.  I am keeping the 'holiday' a secret till I get back and tell you all about it then.

In the meantime, bed calleth, tea calleth and Tess Gerritsen calleth. So off I go and back tomorrow.

PS - am putting a pic of Richard Armitage in the post just in case you have forgotten what he looks like.......

The Charming Quirks of Others: An Isabel Dalhousie Novel

Alexander McCall Smith is prolific. No other word to describe him.  He seems to write an endless stream of books that seem to hit the bookshops with alarming regularity, turn your back and Oh my goodness me, there is another one.   I will admit last year to feeling swamped and overwhelmed and began to consider whether it was obligatory that I bought and/or read each one.  When I worked and threw a lot of money at books I did, but I am less profligate these days (well, slightly.....) and so something had to go.

The first books I read by this author were the No 1 Ladies Detective Series which I avoided for some considerable time as I just didn't fancy reading them. Don't know why, presumably the thought of a detective series set in Botswana did not appeal but in the end gave in, read the first one and then, as is my usual wont, rushed out and bought the other four which were then in print.  Adored them, fell in love with Precious Ramotswe - who cannot love a woman of traditional build'? - and since then have bought and read each one as they came out.  I usually pick these up in (Shhhhhhhhh don't tell anyone) Tesco, as they sell them in hardback cheaper than the paperback and when a new one is published, in it goes with the frozen peas and the sausages.  

Next up I read the 44 Scotland Street series with the poor little boy Bertie with his ghastly overachieving mother who teaches him Italian and makes him play the bassoon, when all he wants to do is be a normal child.  Other myriad characters abound and I enjoyed the first one, then less so the second but carried on because I had become reeled in by then.  However, after Love Over Scotland I came to a grinding halt as I began to find them really tedious and I was skipping paragraphs and pages and so decided that was that.

Then the Corduroy Mansions series started in the Telegraph and a chapter a day was emailed to me.  After a couple of weeks I began to find them as tiresome as Scotland Street but when it was published in book form decided to give it a go as perhaps just reading it in these short bursts was doing it a disservice.  So I read it and decided, no it was not for me.

And so we come to my favourites of all his books.  The Sunday Philosophy Club Series, the story of Isabel Dalhousie, a philosopher who lives in Edinburgh. She is the owner and editor of the Review of Applied Ethics, she is wealthy, lives in a lovely house, has a housekeeper called Grace and a niece called Cat who has a delicatessen in the city. And that is it.  In each book Isabel solves a problem, one which affects herself or one she has been asked to deal with by a friend or acquaintance.  There are seven books in the series, The Charming Quirks of Others, being the latest and these I do buy, without hesitation and keep on my shelves, all the others have been passed on to friends or given to the charity shop.

Difficult to explain why I love these books.  As with the Ladies Detective Agency, nothing much seems to happen, but it is precisely because of this that I love the Dalhousie books so much.  Over the eight books she has met somebody, fallen in love, had a baby and it has unfolded slowly and gently over a period of time, no huge peaks or troughs, just a progression interspersed with every day problems and mundane irritations.   When I read about Isabel and her life I feel it is true and real and I get a huge satisfaction just sitting quietly and turning the pages and am always sorry when I come to the end. I hope he continues to write many more of these as I cannot see me ever tiring of them as I have some of the others.

Finally, I love the description of Edinburgh. I have never visited and every time I read one of the Sunday Philosophy Books I am determined to go and wander round the streets described in these and other AMS books myself.  I am going ot try and see if I can make it in 2011 and will have to make a list of all the names of places and buildings mentioned so I can Do a Dalhousie.   Everyone I know who has been to this city comes back and says just how beautiful it is and it is downright silly not to go.  So look out Edinburgh, brace yourself - I Will be Arriving.

Don't worry, I will give you plenty of warning....word of a Sassenach.