Random Jottings

Posh 'tecs

There have been many examples in my reading life of discovering books very late. Books which have been staring me in the face for years, books recommended by afficionados, the list is pretty long. Mapp and Lucia are among the many I have missed out on and then in 2006 I picked up and read Gaudy Night by D L Sayers and fell in love.  I don't regret the missed years, au contraire, I am now glad and happy that these were saved up for me when I have all the time in the world to read and can sit for hours and indulge myself.

So it is seven years later and I have now read all of D L Sayers, some titles several times (Gaudy Night I seem to read every six months) and feel it is time to re-read them again despite the teetering pile of new books awaiting my attention.   The reason for this that I have just re-read almost all of my collection of Ngaio Marsh over the last few weeks as the eagle eyed will have spotted on my list of 2013 reading on the blog. September has been family orientated and driving hither and thither and looking after grandchildren and have had no time to concentrate on new books at all.   And as I have always linked Lord Peter and Roderick Alleyn together I thought I would post about them.

I have done this before and have plundered the Random Archives to ponder on my earlier thoughts. Always interesting to see if one's viewpoint has changed in the meantime.

Both are 'gentlemen detectives' though Roderick Alleyn is a real policeman and a member of the CID, while Lord Peter regards it as a hobby.  They are both elegant, wear their clothes well, are interested in the theatre, music and books.   

They both marry strong women with their own careers:  Lord Peter marries Harriet Vane, who writes detective stories and Alleyn's wife, Agatha Troy, is a famous and distinguished artist.  Harriet and Troy also share a similar trait, both have a prickly personality in that they both fought their feelings and, initially, did not wish to marry.  Harriet because she disliked being beholden to Lord Peter who saved her from being convicted of murder, and also did not wish to lose her independence, and Agatha, a very private woman, who disliked her husband's profession very much.  As she was involved with a murder investigation (Artists in Crime) shortly after their initial meeting, this is hardly surprising.

As with all good detective stories, each has his 'side kick', usually of the plebeian order, Lord Peter has Bunter (who, in many ways is a more of a snob than his master) and Alleyn has Inspector Fox, who he calls rather whimsically (if you will forgive the use of the word) Brer Fox.  Both are essentially there to admire and appreciate their superior, usually uncritically.  Readers know that Bunter and Fox are devoted to their masters and would lay down their lives for them.

Both Alleyn and Wimsey moved in high society circles; both had aristocratic mothers, Alleyn had a brother George ( a 'silly ass') who was a diplomat and Wimsey had a brother Gerald (also a 'silly ass') who held the fictional title of the Duke of Denver.  One of my favourite Marsh novels is Death in a White Tie which is set in the Season and where a murder takes place at a grand social occasion.  Beautifully described and written this shows Ngaio Marsh had a very good working knowledge of the aristocracy and its comings and goings at this time.

The 'gentleman detective' has, of course, continued in the books of Elizabeth George and, to some extent, in PD James Inspector Dalgliesh stories (as well as being a policeman he is also a poet).  Elizabeth George is an American writer who has a huge admiration for the English detective novel and has striven to recreate this genre.  The current editions of the Sayers have a foreword written by her in which she makes no secret of her admiration for these books. 

Sadly, her detective, Inspector Lynley (who is a member of the aristocracy and is called 'Tommy' by his friends for heaven's sake) is a pastiche and not really believable.  He is self obsessed, angst ridden and continually doubting himself and his motives.  He also has a 'pleb' side kick, Barbara Havers, very much a member of the working class, no musical tastes, eats junk food, wears trainers and dreadful anoraks, and is a complete contrast to her boss.  Though she will not admit it, she is devoted to the Terrible Tommy and it is her detecting that solves the problem most of the time. Lynley marries an equally self obsessed, ghastly wife called Helen who is, without doubt, the most irritating female I have ever met in fiction (with perhaps the exception of Irene in the Forsyth Saga, who I wanted to shake most of the time.  My sympathies were always with Soames who I felt showed remarkable forbearance towards his wife but that is a blog for another day).   Elizabeth George had the sense to kill her off to my relief which vanished pretty quickly when I realised it merely gave Lynley the chance to wander off and treat us to hundreds of pages of more angst and introspection.    I have read all of the George books and the last two have really driven me barmy, one of them using the James Bulger case as a plot device which I found utterly despicable,  but I have this awful compulsion to carry on reading them to find out what happens.   Masochistic - that is me.

I do wonder who had influenced who in the Peter/Roderick output and if either of these authors had read the other and, on checking bibliographies, can see that the first D L Sayers novel was published in 1923 and Ngaio Marsh had her first, A Man Lay Dead, published in 1934 so she would have had ample time to read, and be influenced by, Lord Peter Wimsey. I have been hunting out some references on Ngaio's thoughts on DL Sayers and have found this:

"She had cordial relations with Christie and Allingham but loathed Sayers, and was one of the most vehement proponents of the cruel rumour that Sayers was a pathetic, dried-up old biddy who created Harriet Vane as an author avatar because she had fallen in love with Lord Peter Wimsey".   This is rather horrid and I find it a bit upsetting that she had this view of DLS, a biography of whom I recently read which shows that this is rather wide of the mark.

and then this: "Miss Idris Campanula and Miss Eleanor Prentice in Overture to Death are both vicious caricatures of Dorothy L. Sayers. Eleanor Prentice is a passive-aggressive, sex-hating, shrewish, bitter harpy who literally cannot control herself when she hears the ringing of church bells and is driven to madness by the possibility that she might miss Sunday service. Idris Campanula is a vicious, screeching tartar who tries to control people with money. Even their names are allusions: "Campanula" means "bell ringer" and is an allusion to Sayers The Nine Taylors, while Miss Prentice of the Hall is a reference to Prentice-Hall, Sayers's publisher"

NOT very nice and yet, despite this, her creation owes a lot to Wimsey.   Perhaps she was a tad miffed that she had not come up with a 'gentleman detective' first.

I have discovered two marvellous illustrations by Robert Fawcett (1903-1967) who achieved fame as a book and magazine illustrator.  "As he was slightly colour blind, Fawcett did not excel as a painter, but he was an excellent draftsman and designer, with a strong eye for detail. He produced story illustrations and full-page ads that appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's Weekly, Holiday, Cosmopolitan and numerous other magazines".

They are both from Final Curtain in which Troy is persuaded by Thomas Ancred to paint his father, Sir Henry Ancred, a retired actor and Knight of the Realm.

"The man who stood before the unkindled hearth was tall and stooped a little. His hair, which had the appearance of floss, stood up thinly like a child’s. He wore glasses and blinked behind them at Troy.

“Good afternoon,” he said. “I’m Thomas Ancred."

  

The second shows Troy at work painting Sir Henry, who is in costume as Macbeth, one of his greatest parts.

I love both these illustrations and if you Google Robert Fawcett and check him out, his catalogue of work and illustrations is simply fascinating.

I adore the Golden Age of crime writing and part of its charm is the manners and speech of the time. Marsh is stuck in this time warp in all of her books, even the later ones written in the 60s and 70s, which makes them sound rather dated to say the least. She has a slightly mannered and camp style which appeals to me enormously and after an extended run of Marsh I find the words insufferable, impertinent and tedious start to litter my conversation....

Of course after reading D L Sayers I find myself saying 'Don't cha know' and pronouncing dropping as droppin' and getting a bit high and mighty.    I then remember Lord Peter saying to his faithful Bunter to whom he gives an enormous amount of leeway 'borderin' Bunter borderin' just to remind him not to overstep the mark.

After a tough crime novel set in the US or an enigmatic and dark one set in Scandinavia or a glut of serial killers, there is something soothing about returning to this era of 'teckery' (and that is a Marshism!)

Who do you prefer - Alleyn or Sir Peter? Or, like me, do you love them both...

Great British Bake off - getting serious now

It seems that Ruby who I dubbed the Winsome Weeper at the start of this series, has had a spat on Twitter with somebody who got fed up with her doe like eyes and puppy dog demeanour, and it all got rather vicious. Why do people to this on Twitter? Of course we all know that this series was filmed in the summer and the winner has been chosen else Ruby would probably not have taken to the twitwaves if the competition was still going on as it would have spoiled her image.    As this series progresses I am finding her more acutely irritating than the Oh So Clever Frances. More of all this later.

This week it seemed as if most people underperformed in one of the challenges and some in all of them and it was clear who were in danger of being ejected from The Tent.   Lots of yeasty things this week which means the result is dependent on how the proving process takes place and as I bake bread and have suffered a dreadful loaf with underpoving I knew exactly how dangerous this process can be. My secret is to stand it near a radiator if it is winter and it is on and then I get a lovely rise but this is not always possible. Last night lots of bakers hovering and watching and prodding and going Oooh do you think it is ready?

Howard, dear lovely Howard who I adore, decided last night to make hemp bread. Yes hemp. I thought that was stuff you made ropes out of but there you go. When Mary Berry saw what he was doing she looked rather unsure and then came out with the best line of the night 'this looks like it is going to be good for me' which really says it all and is the death of a bake. 

Paul had his usual enigmatic goodluckmateyouaregoingtoneedit expression on his face. Am beginning to wonder if he has any other.

Of course we all knew Frances would be a smartypants and she dished up her large bun in a big coffee cup so it looked like a cappo or latte or something and it is my heartfelt desire that one week she cocks up completely and is sent home with all her paraphenalia.  Last week her biscuit tower collapsed and I really thought that might be it, but she is safe for a bit as there are others who are more worthy of ejection than her. Still, I live in hope.

Adore Glenn too. He is simply delightful but I knew disaster was just around the corner when he said he was cooking his showstopper pastries and putting caramel in the bottom of the tin. I shrieked at the TV 'Don't do it Glenn. They will stick!' and they did and when they did come out they unravelled into a long sticky trail of pastry. I felt so sorry for him and he was in tears when he was being intereviewed about it all. Bless.

Becca - she is great fun with a happy go lucky Oh Sod it attitude I find rather appealing. Did a very good imitation of Paul's Liverpool accent as well.

Kimberley - another star. She takes criticism on the chin, smiles, goes away and gets on with it.

Christine - seemingly unflappable and unfailingly nice when she and Howard both had a disastrous bake they hugged each other and cheered each other up.

OK so now we come to Ruby.   Dear sweet Ruby - not.   Presented to us as a young, beautiful philosophy student who wings it as she has been studying 'so hard and hasn't had time to practice'. HAH! Loud snort of derision. Ruby who cried the first week and had a nation (not me) going Ah poor thing. Ruby who every week says she has done really really badly; Ruby who comes up to Paul and Mary and say 'sorry' because her creation is 'dreadful'; Ruby doe eyed and with the demeanour of a wounded kitten; Ruby who no doubt knows that Paul has an eye for skinny, young bakers and is playing it for all she is worth. Ruby who is incredibly annoying.

Second week running she is Star Baker and the others all clap and try to look pleased for her when I would think that most of the older, less glam, slightly larger and less endowed with beauty, are wishing her to Jericho.  I am hoping that Mary is unmoved by all this and will remind Paul now and then that he is judging the baking and not the baker.

It was clear that the one to go was a choice between Howard and Glenn and when Howard went Glenn was clearly stunned and said it should have been him.   I do hope that dear sweet Howard can carry on with his baking and write about it. I also think that some snappy TV producer should sign him up as I think he is a television natural.

So what awaits next week? We shall see. No doubt Ruby will be in full flutter eyes mode again but her cover has been broken now and we know that she has a temper and is not as sweet as she appears.

I wonder if she will pick up my comments on Twitter?   Oo-er missus. Custard creams at dawn....

PS: anybody knew what an apricot garonne was before this show? I certainly didn't. I'm not even sure I have spelled it right

Awaiting my attention - thankyou lovely publishers

Trying to get back to normal now but it is rather difficult after the activity and excitement of the last few weeks. Does not help that I have put my back out and am sitting here doped up with painkillers, hot water bottle on my back and ponging to high heaven of Deep Heat. This the time when I think it is best I live alone. I have put Beethoven's Eroica symphony on the stereo and nothing like Ludwig to soothe the savage breast and calm my mind. The one composer I could never do without.

Anyway, I am wittering as per, so here is a round up of the books awaiting my attention and which I will try to get round to as soon as possible.

Sylvia's Lovers - Mrs Gaskell. Another of the Oxford World Classic which has been reprinted and updated with new cover etc and, as with all of these marvellous books, a joy to hold and to have.  I have not read this particular title for some time and this will be one of my winter reads as I tend to go back to Victorian literature when the nights get dark and cold. Don't ask my why. I have given up trying to work it out.   I am rather partial to Mrs Gaskell.

Then this sumptuous book The Beau Monde, Power, Fashion and Exclusivity in 18th Century London by Hannah Grieg.  Just look at the cover! This is the kind of book which makes me realise once again that though I love my Kindle dearly, real books will always be first in my heart. It is beautifully produced, lovely smooth expensive feeling paper that is a joy to stroke. I have dipped into it already and it is the kind of book I will take slowly, perhaps a chapter a night as it encourages one to linger.  Gorgeous.

Dickensian Laughter, Essay on Dickens and Humour by Malcolm Andrews.   Another little gem from OUP and again, to be dipped into and to savour.

The Lost Domain (Le Grand Meaulnes) by Alain Fournier, Centenary edition. This is one of those books that is mentioned and cited by many critics and writers and I have never read it. This rather delightful edition may change all that.

All of the above come from Oxford University Press and I am indebted to them for their never ending generosity in sending me lovely books which I always cherish and keep long after I have read them.  Sometimes they may stay on my shelves for a while before being read and I love the feeling that they are there waiting for me.

Another of my favourite publishers is Bloomsbury. I would say this of course as they have had the perspicacity to be publishing my daughter's book next year (of which I shall be burbling in due course), but also because they send me lovely books, some of which are up my street, some not but they keep giving me great choices of reading.   In the last few years I have read memoirs by Emma Smith of her childhood and growing up years during the war and have loved every word. Now she has published a third volume As Green as Grass which I have just started and it already promises to be as delightful and as interesting as the others. Will post soon.

Elizabeth Gilbert - The Signature of All things. Now this author is well known for her book Eat, Love, Pray which I thought was unutterably naff and boring and self centered and was made into an equally naff film with Julia Roberts.   Huge hit all round the world, What I Call an Oprah book and I got half way through it and gave up. I gather the author now wishes to put that behind her (good idea) and her new book is a huge tome which starts in 1800. Tells the story of Alma Whittaker whose father is a botanical explorer and how she becomes involved in this science as well.

Sounds good but reared back a bit when I read in the blurb that the man she loves draws her into the 'realm of the spiritual, the divine and the magical'.   Mmmm. We Shall See.

And finally, for today, Seven for a Secret - Lyndsay Faye.  I simply adored her earlier book The Gods of Gotham and this is the second about the New York policeman in the 19th century Timothy Wilde and I am really looking forward to getting stuck into this one.  My thanks to Headine for sending me this and when I opened it up found to my utter delight that part of my review is quoted on the title page.

Fame at last!!

I am now going to crawl into the kitchen and try and make myself some tea. I am shuffling around like Quasimodo at the moment. I am not exactly shouting The Bells the Bells but sure it won't be long.....

Au reservoir.

Elizabeth of the German Garden - Jennifer Walker

The books are piling up in the corner and I need to start delving into them. As you all know, the last few weeks have been frantic with Kathryn being here and full of excitement and family gatherings, but now it is over and all is back to normal and takes some getting used to. 

It will take me some time to sift and read but I am flagging Elizabeth of the German Garden  up straight away even though I have only just started reading the first chapter. It will take me a while to get through it and I do not want to delay giving it as much publicity as I can as I adore the works of Elizabeth von Arnim and want them and her life to be better known.

I gather since she was mentioned on Downton Abbey that there has been a surge of interest in her books and, though it is childish to say so, I got rather cross about this.   I discovered her some time ago and with other appreciative friends have rather hugged this knowledge to myself and when she started getting mentions in the papers etc  and reports of her books starting to sell well, I felt well it is all very well for you lot thinking you know so much but I have been reading her for years!. I felt as if somebody had stumbled across a secret I did not want to share. Yes I know, daft as well as childish....

Anyway, here is this new biography and it looks promising.  I have an older biog of EVA on my shelves by Karen Usborne published back in 1986 so it will be interesting to see if anything new has come up about the subject. Almost inevitable that newer discoveries are made as time goes by.

I have every single one of von Arnim's books on my shelves.  They are variable in quality but only variable in that they range from good to marvellous with Vera being the standout title that is really her best. A view on an abusive marriage, mentally abusive that is, full of nervous tension and a shocking ending. I was appalled and riveted by it when I first discovered it. Then The Caravanners and Christopher and Columbus, both funny and full of mordaunt wit; Priscilla's Fortnight is a tremendously Ruritanian type tale of a Princess who wants to lead a normal life with hilarious results; Introduction to Sally about a beautiful girl who, unintentionally, causes havoc wherever she goes and so many more I could rave all night. They are funny, intense, silly, hilarious and sad in tone of tale and narrative and I am glad that many more are sharing the delights of reading Elizabth von Arnim even if it took Downton Abbey to do it.

The author of this biography, Jennifer Walker, is a new name for me but looking at her brief biography it seems that she has lived in Switzerland for fifteen years where she discovered that many of her favourite places had also been those of Elizabeth. One thing led to another and here we have the end result. I am looking forward to reading it.

Random Update

Well the last two weeks have flown by and this morning I drove Kathryn to Heathrow to catch her plane back to Australia.  Horrible to say goodbye and will not be seeing her now for another year.  It has been wonderful to see her with her sister and nieces and we have had many family get togethers and it has all been chaotic and exhausting but wonderful too.

The drive along the M25 was pretty tedious and horrid with roadworks and traffic jams but I had made sure we left in plenty of time so that we were stress free and not get panicky when held up. So a quick farewell, neither of us feel it is a good idea to hang about and then I grabbed a coffee and Danish and then home. Not really looking where I was going and instead of taking the route to M4 and M25 for some lunatic reason, probably because I was snivelling a bit, I ended up on the M4 to central London and found myself heading for Chiswick. Could have gone through London, city traffic does not faze me any more, but I did not want to risk incurring a congestion charge so managed to find a roundabout and did a quick turn about and shot back to Heathrow, through the airport and this time hit the right route and put my foot down to get home as soon as I could.

So tired when I got in I decided I would go to bed and fell fast asleep and woke up feeling much better. Tomorrow is a quiet day with catching up and tidying up and being quiet.  Lots of books to sort through, read and review and will start getting back into a routine. So if you could bear with me for a few more days I will be back in full flow on Random.

Wonderfully Happy Day

Lovely day yesterday with family celebrating Beatrice's first birthday.   She is actually one today but Monday is a difficult day to have a party for obvious reasons.   I cannot tell you what joy it was to be there with my two darling daughters and two wonderful grandchildren all under the same roof and to watch them together.  These times do not come around often and are cherished when they do.  

I only occasionally post photos of my family on Random and never put up pictures of Florence and Beatrice as you know.   So while I would love to share a pic of the five of us together I am sticking to that promise I mad when when Florence was born and you will have to make do with one of myself and my two gorgeous daughters. Helen on the left and Kathryn on the right.

By the end of the week I shall be quiet and regrouping myself and back to book blogging....

Random Family Jottings

Madly busy as I knew I would be with family at the moment. I have been in London helping out with grandchildren as daughter and husband fraught and loads of work on and children need to be collected from nursery/school etc.  After three days I was glad to get home and have a rest before back up tomorrow as Beatrice is one. Her birthday is on Monday but we are celebrating tomorrow and as Kathryn is here with us from Oz, other members of family are gathering and there will be cake and champagne. I have just baked two quiches for lunch and a tiramisu for dessert and it is a measure of how tired I was that I fell asleep on the sofa and burned both quiches and had to make two more......

So lots of exciting things happening but something I must flag up, could not before until it was all official and publication date was sorted, but my historian daughter, Helen McCarthy, has a book published next year by Bloomsbury. It is called Women of the World, the rise of the Female Diplomat.

I have read chunks of it in proof and it is good - well I would say that obviously, but it really is and looking forward to reading the whole thing and having a copy in my hands.

I will be writing more about this book in due course but just wanted to tell you about it now as I am bursting with pride and joy and want to share it with you all.

Back with you all soon after I have recovered from the festivities. It is All Go but I am not complaining - it is wonderful having such happy family times with memories to cherish in the future.

Mr Bazalgette's Agent - Leonard Merrick

A few weeks ago I received a lovely email from the British Library asking if I would be interested in reviewing a couple of books they were publishing. Regular Random Readers will know that this was a very silly question as, obviously, I was and so they duly arrived.  I was unaware that the British Library had its own publishing arm which is a severe dereliction of duty as far as I am concerned but I then investigated and found it had lots of rather interesting stuff so do check it out on their website here.

The first book I essayed was Mr Bazalgette's Agent by Leonard Merrick. The author was born in 1864 so was a true Victorian writer and wrote twelve novels though I doubt if many of us have heard of him today. I know I hadn't.   He was widely admired by his peers and J M Barrie called him the 'novelist's novelist'. He wrote plays and short stories and many of these were made into films of the 1920s. So no slouch then and I opened the book with anticipation only to find a most interesting introduction by Mike Ashley who tells the reader that 'the book you are holding is both rare and intriguing'.   Until this republication is seems that it was almost impossible to locate a copy outside of the major research libraries and  this is because Leonard Merrick apparently tried to buy up all the copies he could find and destroyed them.   He said that it was because he thought the book was 'terrible'.   The introduction then goes on to tell us of other earlier stories featuring a lady detective which Merrick might have used for inspiration and wonders if he felt some guilt at this and thus destroyed the copies.   We shall probably never know but it certainly made this reader eager to see what is in the novel.

Miriam Lee is 28 years old, unmarried and has fallen on hard times.  She sees an advertisement for private agents and decides to apply. Mr Bazalgette employs women it seems and soon Miriam finds herself on a train to Hamburg chasing down a banker's clerk, Jason Vining, who had forged financial documents which allowed him to acquire £40,000 and has now absconded. Nobody knows where he has gone but it is thought he is in Europe and as he is known to be a person who would get through his stolen money quickly, Miriam and a fellow female detective live in the best European hotels and frequent the casinos and other places where he may be found.   They find him but then he does a moonlight flit and they discover he has taken a steamer to South Africa.  Undaunted by this turn of events Miriam and companion follow him and end up at the Diamond Fields where Vining, who is now penniless, is intent on mining for diamonds and making his fortune again.

Miriam soon realises she has fallen in love with Jason and is torn in two between her duty to her employer and her love for a fraudster and a thief. What is she to do and what will her decision be?  We are left in suspense until the last few pages when an unexpected and surprising twist ties the story up beautifully.

The pleasure in reading this detective story is first, its rarity and discovery of a book that few others will have read. It is also one of the very early books to feature a female detective first published in 1888. However, as mentioned above he might not have been the first as there was a previous heroine featured in a weekly serial in one of the cheap penny dreadfuls, as they were known and then the American equivalent of this publication, the dime novel, also featured a woman of 'rare beauty and intelligence' who occasionally works for a detective agency.

The next pleasure is its pure Victoriana style, written mainly in epistolary form as Miriam writes in her diary and her reports throughout the book. There are also some wonderful passages of purple prose:

"What cowardice, am I mad! My weakness may be imperilling him......I must break the seal and quickly. My darling, I need all my courage, now for you - the enclosure lies before me! I struggle to understand it and I cannot the cipher has escaped my memory, I am going cold as ice 'wait!"

And a lot more like this which I loved.

I refer back to the start of this post when I said that Merrick thought it was 'terrible'.   Authors can be hard on their own works, and while this is certainly no literary masterpiece (there is a preponderence of exclamation marks, far too many for me),  it has great charm and if you love Victorian writing, as I do, then this is for you. I was reminded of  Louise May Alcott's foray into melodramatic gothic tales written in much the same declamatory style. I loved those and I loved Mr Bazalgette's Agent.  

I have another gem to review which was sent to me by the British Library but will be posting about that nearer the publication date but do check it out before then in their catalogue. It is the Santa Klaus Murder by Mavis Doriel Hay.

The British Library is in the London Borough of Camden and I worked for their library service for many years as did my mother and my sister.  In fact, my sister used to work for the British Library in one of their older offices in Store Street in London and was hoping to move into the the new building which is now in the Euston Road. Alas, it fell way behind its schedule and took years to build and she never made it. We still have a family link as my daughter Helen, the historian, did hours of research for her own book there, I have visited it often and so am delighted to have this opportunity to extoll not only its virtues, but now its very own publications.

The Austen Project

I was vaguely aware of this 'project' but had put it to one side as something I was not really interested in. More cashing in on the Austen name I thought and decided to have nothing to do with it when a copy of Joanna Trollope's update on Sense and Sensibility arrived unexpectedly.

Now I have read many of this author's novels, back in the nineties she was responsible for books that the papers dubbed 'Aga Sagas' which I gather did not meet with the approbation of the writer, but so many of them featured rather super cool glam mums with an Aga that I thought it was quite apposite. After a while these began to pall on me and I have not read any Joanna for some time.   However, she is a skilled and accomplished writer with an easy narrative flow which always drew me in and so it was with this latest.

We are now up to date at Norland and the Dashwoods are about to be slung out of the home they have lived in and loved for so long. We all know the story - along comes the incredibly ghastly Fanny, even worse in this version:

"It was outrageous really, how soon after Dad's death that Fanny came bowling up the drive in her top of the range four-by-four Land Cruiser with Harry in his car seat and the Romanian nanny and the kind of household luggage you only bring if you want to make it very very plain who's the boss around here now......she asked if they would mind awfully staying in the kitchen wing for a few hours as she had her London interior designer coming and he charged so much for every hour that she really wanted to be able to concentrate on him"

This is a taster of how the update has been done and of course the character of the protagonists has to remain the same so we have slightly dozy Mrs Dashwood, only it turned out that she had never married Mr Dashwood, Elinor, who I always have sympathy with, Willoughby (called Wills in this update - clever as it is then impossible not to picture the Duke of Cambridge in this role), Fanny - see above, John, even weaker and more spineless that in the original etc etc etc

And of course Marianne remains the same, simply a pain in the neck.   I, personally, can only tolerate her behaviour because of the ironic treatment Jane Austen gives her and with this absent she is just boring. And Edward - well, what can one say about Edward other than that he is even more gormless in this version than in the original and with less excuse for being dominated by his mother and aimlessly wandering around searching for a role. I am simply staggered that Elinor every found him attractive.

I did enjoy this book in a subfusc sort of way and it was amusing and mildly fun.   I note that the Austen Project (sounds really grand does it not?) will publish Val McDermid's reworking of Northanger Abbey in Spring 2014 and Curtis Sittenfeld's Pride and Prejudice in Autumn 2014.

I would like to say what is the point of all of this except that publishers and authors know full well that anything attached in any way to Jane Austen is a moneyspinner so I already know the answer, but I do find it rather dispiriting.    Mark you, pretty sure that Jane would find the entire thing very amusing and would chortle at the thought that after all this time her books were still generating interest, and cash.

NB - book is due to be published on 24 October 2013

 

Daughter in Oz - here

Just to let you know that I have a very busy and exciting two weeks coming up. Busy because I am helping out with Florence as she settles into the nursery class of her new school and will be up and down the A12 like nobody's business, but mainly because on Friday morning my darling Kathryn arrives from Australia for a visit and to meet Beatrice for the first time.   I am so excited and thrilled about it all as you can imagine so thought I had best mention that posts might be few and far between. I shall be staying up in London a few days at a time as well but will take my laptop with me for updates on Random.

I have various interesting and exciting things to plan and do after Kathryn's visit which I think is just as well as I shall need some distractions and looks as if I will have a busy winter but more of that later. In the meantime I will pop in and out when I can.

Must just mention that after reading Longbourn which I reviewed the other day, I was sent the updated, modern version of Sense and Sensibility written by Joanna Trollope and have to say that I am enjoying it very much and I was honestly not expecting to.   So more of that as well.

Early night tonight as off to London in the morning. Weather is glorious at the moment and long may it last and long may we all enjoy it.

Au reservoir to you all.