"giving pleasure or satisfaction; pleasant or attractive:"
This is the dictionary definition of the word nice. I feel that sometimes this particular word can be used in a derogatory manner or to intimate something bland and uninteresting. But, as you can see from above, it can mean precisely what is says - giving pleasure or satisfaction.
As I get older I find that my interest in books that are described as "searing" "visceral" "stunning" "brutal" is nil. Even when younger I avoided titles so described because, quite frankly, why be made miserable?
Over my reading/blogging life I have been sent a huge assortment of books and have struggled with many of them. That is not to say they were not brilliant or well written. Au contraire, one can hardly level this kind of criticism at the likes of Margaret Atwood, Barry Unsworth, Kingsley Amis etc. But I have never wanted or wished to return to them or to re-read them. Once is enough. I remember reading Possession by A S Byatt, a real tour de force but once I had finished it I felt a weariness of spirit and an exhaustion and I cannot say I enjoyed it. I might appreciate it but I did not love it.
And then I tried The Children's Book by the same author and honestly, I thought It. Would. Never. End. This was one book that I really went to town on - I normally will not give a bad or withering review because I always remember that because I do not like a book does not mean others will feel the same. However, I was heartened after writing my post - here- by comments agreeing with me. I also felt that A S Byatt would hardly notice my thoughts.
So it is with a feeling of Sod it who cares that I now read Wot I Like. And Wot I Like turns out to be "nice" books. I have not been well recently and also now have to deal with a bad hip and the likelihood that I will need an operation in the not too distant, and it is with relief that I have turned to relaxed reading.
When I worked at a library in Highgate, London many moons ago I was a teenager with skirts barely covering my bum, wearing boots and false eyelashes and full of myself. The readers who came in were lovely but they were mainly of a certain age and would ask me for a "nice" book. I knew nothing but I did note that Miss Read and D E Stevenson featured largely in their choices, ditto Dorothy Whipple. My nose was permanently turned up. But guess what I am reading at the moment - yep, Miss Read and D E Stevenson.
Last year I read all the Thrush Green books by Miss Read. There was an offer on Kindle for the whole lot some time back for the princely sum of 99p so I bought them and then forgot all about them. And then one day I was feeling at a loose end and I opened then up and found all the wonderful illustrations were there too. I read them all over a week and absolutely loved them. It also added to my pleasure when I discovered that the current price for the whole lot on Kindle was now nearly £40....
I have just started the Fairacre series and have most of them on my shelves waiting my attention. This paragraph from The Village School made me laugh:
"I am heartily sick of books from Caxley library - all termed 'powerful' by their reviewers (and in future I shall steer clear of any with this label) which give the suffering reader a detailed account of the bodily functions of their main characters. If the author has such a paucity of ideas that he must pad out his 300 pages with reiterated comments on his hero's digestive, alimentary and productive systems, I am sorry for him but do not see why he should be encouraged"
This could have come straight out of Diary of a Provincial Lady by E M Delafield (of which more another day).
I wrote about D E Stevenson a while back and here is the link. And I see I have used the word nice again!
And then D E Stevenson. Over the last year or so I have read every single one. Her output was prodigious and, naturally, there are a few that I think are a bit poor and overwritten. Hardly surprising when you write so many and I daresay your publishers are breathing down your neck. But the vast majority of them are sheer delight and it is wonderful that they are now nearly all back in print. I remember a visit to Hay on Wye some while back when I was hunting second hand copies but now they are easy to find. Dean Street Press have quite a few titles and Persephone Books have published the Miss Buncle books. And the good thing about them is they pay rereading. I have not tired of doing so and reach for one when I need to be quiet and happy.
Dorothy Whipple was another popular author which made my nose turn up but oh how wrong I was. Persephone Books now have all her titles in print and they are an eye opener. Yes, they are enormously entertaining and easy to read, but do not fall into the trap of thinking they are facile. They are not. They are positively Austenian in their dissection of human frailties and life. See my earlier thoughts here
And then there is Richmal Crompton - author of the William books which dogged her all her life and which over shadowed her adult books. Many of these long out of print titles are now available so another author to look out for.
So all Hail to Nice Books. They should be given the respect they deserve. And don't start me on the way Romantic novels are treated. That really gets my dander up.
I once had an argument with a man (well it would be) who said they were a load of tripe and brought up the name Mills & Boon. I pointed out to him that they were a difficult publisher to persuade to publish your writing. I also said that most novelists are proud of producing a book a year. DId you know said I that with Mills & Boon you have to write three or four a year? Could you manage that? Did he have the discipline and the capacity to do so? He weakly responded that they were all badly written at which point I got really cross and asked if he had read any. Of course he had not. I then asked him if he had read Dan Brown and he said yes. My response to this was that if he thought that was well written then he had no qualifications whatsoever to pontificate on romantic novels.
At this point he retired from the lists, with his wife who had been standing watching and listening, saying "I told you not to argue with Elaine"
Victory was mine. Everyone should read what they want and not have to be sneered at by others. I admit I used to when I was young and stupid but no more.
This has turned into a bit of a rant. Do forgive me.
I am off to make a cup of tea and return to Fairacre.
