Random Jottings

Recent Reading at Random Towers

A mixed pile of books this month or should I say an eclectic selection curated by me? Sounds posher doesn't it?

First up Lady in Waiting by Anne Glenconner.  Anne Glenconner's mother was Lady in Waiting to the Queen, she was Lady in Waiting to Princess Margaret, she came from a life of privilege and is the kind of person who, when in trouble, people might think well it's ok for her, she has plenty of money etc.  This attitude was displayed by a heavy newspaper a couple of years ago (yes you know who you are) when David Cameron, our then Prime Minister, suffered the death of his son Ivan who had a disability and had been ill since birth. Now Cameron has plenty of money, went to Eton blah blah and his wife Samantha comes from a wealthy background and is not short of a bob or two, and when this tragedy struck this paper saw fit to publish a leading article intimating that their sorrow was "privileged".  Now I have very little time for the people on twitter who can be vicioius and nasty at times, but on this occasion as one they lambasted the paper in question for its cruelty and insensitivity and they hastily took down the article and apologised.

Now why am I mentioning this I hear you ask - well Lady Glenconner was married to a complete eccentric who made life uncomfortable with his behaviour (took his virgin bridge to Paris to watch a sex show so she would know all about that side of marriage), and had a tricky time with his behaviour and his rages.  She went on to have five children, three sons and two daughters.

The eldest son became a heroin addict and for years the family struggled to deal with it. Eventually he came off the drugs, was clean and married. But his health was wrecked and he died in his twenties from an infection with which his ravaged body could not cope.  Her second son left his wife after coming out as gay and later died from Aids. After this her youngest son was involved in a motor bike accident and was in a coma for over a year. She was told he would be a vegetable for the rest of his life but she refused to believe this and nursed him back to health.

Now after reading all this you will understand how I remembered the reporting on David and Samantha Cameron and rememered the 'privilege' claim which is so horrid I cannot even imagine how it could be written. Pain over the loss of a child is universal.

Apart from this wonderfully written account of her struggles I was also pleased to read about her life long friendship with Princess Margaret a woman who could be difficult and bolshy but who was a staunch and true friend to Anne and saw her through her difficult times. In turn Anne took care of her when she got older and her health started to fail.

Towards the end of her life the Princess refused to eat and Anne was asked to come and see if she could persuade her to get out of bed and sit with her. The Queen called and asked how her visit had gone:

"Ma'am it went quite well and Princess Margaret did manage to eat a jam tart"

"A JAM TART!" replied the Queen the emphasis reminiscent of Lady Bracknell in the Importance of Being Earnest so surprised was she to hear the Princess had ageed to anything."

A simply lovely book and I found it irrestible. Lady Glenconner is the type of woman you would find organising the Women's Institute, running village jumble sales and knocking on your door with a whisky and honey if you had a cold. I simply loved her. British to the core and a stiff upper lip well in position.

Two books by Ada Leverson, The Twelfth Hour and The Limit. I am currently re-reading The Little Otleys which is much more substantial than either of these titles, and I freely admit I found them rather slight. Ada was a friend of Oscar Wilde and stood by him when everyone else had abandoned him, for which she has my admiration, but I think she probably spent too much time in his company as her books are packed with witty epigrams wihich can get a tad wearing after a while. Set in the Edwardian period of society they are frothy and light and while The Limit had some depth to it telling the story of a husband who wishes his wife to be happy even the expense of his own happiness, but I found the Twelfth Hour rather unsatisfactory. But they are of their time and there is enjoyment to be had in reading them.

The Emerald Crown by Violet Needham. When I posted about The Lost Prince by Frances Hodgson Burnett recently I had a lot of comments and one visitor recommend this book to me as being somewhat similar.  It is out of print and some copies on sale are very expensive but I managed to track down a not overly priced copy and bought it and read it in one sitting. It is set in the kingdom of Flavonia (in the Burnett book it is Samavia) and the country is ruled by a usurper. Rumours abound that the real heir to the throne is still alive. A young man comes to stay in the castle of the governor of the province and Pixie the daughter of the house and he form a close friendhsip. He is extraordinarily like the portrait of an earlier king....

I need say no more. You can guess the rest but I loved it.

And to finish I recently read a link on Facebook by a friend of mine to a writer called Milly Johnson.  She sounded great fun and her books too so I purchased The Magnficent Mrs Mayhew.   Now I am sure we have all seen one of those photostaged interviews when an MP has been caught having an affair and poses with his family and expresses his regret at his "error of judgement". I know I have. Well the thought has crossed my mind what if the wife instead of smiling there and looking loving and forgiving turned to the press and said Actually my husband is an absolute shit and I hope he rots in hell - wouldn't it be wonderful?

Well Milly Johnson has obviously thought the same and she has written a book in which a wife does just that and then makes a bolt for it and runs away.

I sat down and read it and loved every single word and since then have downloaded another three and borrowed four from the library. These are the kind of well written, funny and lovely books that will never make the Booker List (who cares quite frankly) but are totally enjoyable. And yes they are set in lovely surroundings and have a happy ending and I am lapping them up.  They also happen to be very well written full of a gallery of characters, some awful, some eccentric and some delightful.  I am currently reading one of them today while it is cold and dark and rainy and horrid and it is just what I need.

A nice mixture. I hope you agree.

The Little Ottleys - Ada Leverson

So far in 2020 I have mainly been rereading old and loved books as I just could not get going on anything knew. Well I have broken the duck now but I went back and carried on with The Little Ottleys by Ada Leverson, a book of which I knew nothing, and the only reason I now have it is that I spotted a copy languishing in obscurity in a box at a local book sale some years ago, was captivated by the cover and bought it.  I certainly wasn't going to leave it behind, it deserved to be on a bookshelf even if I never read it. Whenever I see a "Green" virago I hone in and inevitably purchase it as I love these old editions.

I knew nothing about the author, but discovered she was a very close friend of Oscar Wilde.  He called her his 'Sphinx' and introduced her to all his fashionable friends, the equivalent of today's A list no doubt:  Aubrey Beardsley, Walter Sickert, John Singer Sargent, Mrs Patrick Campbell and Max Beerbohm.  What a glittering array that must have been....

She sounds a wonderfully warm hearted woman when you read more about her and discover that during Wilde's trial she and her husband took him in and sheltered him.  On his release from prison two years later, when he was shunned and ignored by all his previous friends, Ada was the first to visit him and apparently was greeted by Oscar with the words 'Sphinx how marvelous of you to know exactly the right hat to wear at seven o'clock in the morning to meet a friend who has been away'

The Little Ottleys is an omnibus edition of three of her stories all featuring a married couple, Edith and Bruce Ottley.  On the surface all is light, bright and witty.  The Ottleys live in a small, new white flat. Bruce is attached, very tenously it would appear, to the Foreign Office.  He is querulous and patronising and irremediably stupid and yet has a superior attitude to all around him.  He is invariably wrong about everything but has such a high opinion of himself that he takes no notice of anything that is said to him.  Edith, with the sympathetic but unspoken support of her mother in law, learns to handle him and part of the amusement derived from these stories is the ease with which she manages to get her way and organises their lives and those of their children, by the simple expedient of suggesting to Bruce that they do the total opposite of what she really wants, safe in the knowledge that he will immediately oppose her suggestion and tell her to do what she has wanted all along.  If there is a woman living who does not understand this strategy I would be very very surprised. I practiced it for years when I was married....

Though the reader will enjoy and laugh while reading this book it is clear that Edith is trapped in an unsatisfactory marriage.  She is not actively unhappy and holds Bruce in a vague affection and deems this enough until she meets Aylmer Ross at a dinner party and it is an immediate coup de foudre.  The second book. Tenterhooks, shows how Edith deals with this relationship with honour and sticks to her husband who, of course, is totally unworthy of this loyalty and whose own behaviour is pretty shabby.  Edith sounds almost too good to be true, but Ada Leverson obviously has great affection for her and instead of finding this nobility insufferable, we come to admire Edith.  Ada Leverson's own marriage was not a very happy one and it is not hard to imagine that Edith is based on her experiences.    How the trilogy ends and a solution found is masterfully done.  An immensely funny, benign and comic creation in the person of Madame Frabelle who latches onto the Ottleys and comes to live with them, is the catalyst who brings about a solution to the dilemma .  It is farce which averts the upcoming tragedy and ensures that all ends well.  Edith Ottley finds happiness and by the time I came to the end of the final story, Love at Second Sight I had grown so fond of her that I was delighted by the outcome.

In some ways the style of writing reminded me of EM Delafield's Diary of a Provincial Lady, writing which is funny and ironic but not laugh out loud.  The humour depends on the gentle undercurrents in the text and it can be difficult to demonstrate just why one finds it amusing, but it jst is.

I have also just read two new titles, to me at any rate, by this author and will be reviewing those shortly so I am finally getting going on my reading for the coming year.

Mike Walmer - Publisher, eclectic and interesting list

A few years ago my name was given to Mike as somebody who might be interested in the kind of books he publishes, ie - out of print, forgotten or unknown titles that are deserving of a second chance.  There are many publisher out there now doing this and it is such a joy to leave the best seller lists and seek out something new waiting to be discovered.

Mike is based in South Australia and he publishes books lost to current readers from recent times a well as long ago, plus those which have a special meaning for him. The website is here so do please check it out.

At the moment I have awaiting my attention two titles by Ada Leverson - The Twelfth Hour and The Limit. About ten years ago I came across a title by this writer, The Little Otleys. This is a trilogy and I found one of those fantastic Virago editions with the Green covers which I love, in a jumble sale. I could not let it go even though I knew nothing about the author.

I soon discovered that Ada Leverson was a very close friend of Oscar Wilde.  He called her his 'Sphinx' and introduced her to all his fashionable friends, the equivalent of today's A list no doubt:  Aubrey Beardsley, Walter Sickert, John Singer Sargent, Mrs Patrick Campbell and Max Beerbohm.  What a glittering array that must have been....

She sounds a wonderfully warm hearted woman when you read more about her and discover that during Wilde's trial she and her husband took him in and sheltered him.  On his release from prison two years later, when he was shunned and ignored by all his previous friends, Ada was the first to visit him and apparently was greeted by Oscar with the words 'Sphinx how marvelous of you to know exactly the right hat to wear at seven o'clock in the morning to meet a friend who has been away'.

I admire those who stick by their friends in the face of rejection and disgrace and I felt my heart warm towards her even before I had read the Little Otleys and when I had finished it and LOVED it, I began to check for more by Ada Leverson. Two have recently been published by Mike Walmer.

The Twelfth Hour is set in one of those long golden Edwardian seasons in London and tells the story of Felicity and Sylvie Crofton and their brother Savile and their marriage and love life. 

The Limit tells us about Valentina and Romer Wyburn - happily married, or so it seems but Valentina is fining her solid and devoted husband somewhat dull and starts an affair with an elegant but poor artist.

This is just a brief sketch of the outline as I have yet to read these two titles but they are on the top of my to Be read pile and I am looking forward to them.

Among other authors published by Mike are Saki (I read the Chronicles of Clovis and enjoyed. Sperb witty writing) Ronald Firbank and Max Beerbohm.

Mike is based in Australia but his books are distributed in the UK so there is no fear of heavy postage. I warmly recommend his website http://michaelwalmer.com and do urge you to take a look at his titles and authors.  I think the word eclectic is the correct one to descrie the selection.

You will not be disappointed.