Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘persephone’

A summer recess – reading, not blogging.

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 26, 2024| 42 Comments »

Hello! I am dipping my toe back in the water – just to see how it feels. 

My last post on Heavenali was in mid June, and at the beginning of July I stopped reading other blog posts and announced on social media that I would be taking a break. Although I didn’t put a time scale on it – I had the vague idea of coming back at the end of August/beginning of September. A complete break from both writing and reading blog posts was necessary because I had suddenly become totally overwhelmed with it. Coming back I doubt I will be blogging any more often – but I need to reignite my enthusiasm. Fellow bloggers I will start to read your blog posts again – although finding time and energy to do that has become one of the hardest things for me oddly enough. 

So what have I been doing/reading since the middle of June? I have been reading mainly fiction, as usual – but quite a range of things within that. There have been light fiction, literary fiction, older and new books, translated fiction, kindle books rereads and even a tiny book of poetry. I think I can honestly say I have been enjoying my reading over the past couple of months – and it has been lovely just reading, not thinking about whether I was going to write about a book I was reading or not. 

I have continued with my Margaret Drabble reading – which has proved a huge joy this year – I continue to be impressed with Drabble’s fierce intelligence, her books are literary, and sometimes complex and yet I find myself drawn more and more to her novels. I read A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman – a collection of stories that was published in 2011 but contains stories written across a period spanning about forty years. The Radiant Way – three friends who first met at Cambridge negotiate the first few years of the Thatcher era facing personal and professional challenges. A Natural Curiosity is the second book in the Radiant Way trilogy so that was next – and was my favourite of the trilogy. I read the third book The Gates of Ivory a couple of weeks ago – a really ambitious novel set in London, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, which I really enjoyed spending time with. What an extraordinary writer Drabble is. 

When reading such complex literary novels it’s sometimes necessary to dig out some lighter palate cleansers. My WI virtual book group tends to pick lighter books. I read Dear Mrs Bird by A J Pearce with them, and The Invisible Woman’s Club by Helen Paris. I wasn’t that impressed by Dear Mrs Bird which I had expected to really like, but definitely liked The Invisible Women’s Club – a book about older women, gardening, friendship and a campaign to save some allotments. I read it during a very difficult week in the UK – news wise – and it provided something like a soothing balm to my sad heart. There was about a fortnight when I could barely look at social media and I needed nice books to read. I also read the British Library’s Death of a Bookseller – another good piece of escapism, with some lovely bookish details. I finally read Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, a whimsical Japanese novel that has been hugely popular. Not my usual thing perhaps, but I really liked it. I also finally got around to reading my first book by Claire Fuller who I had heard such good things about. I read Unsettled Ground, which was a darker novel than I realised but I enjoyed Fuller’s depiction of marginalised people living on the edge of society. 

My other book group, the feminist book group which is also now virtual, has been reading some excellent books. Some of the choices recently have been rereads for me – and at least one of the ones coming up will be too. In June I reread The Spare Room by Helen Garner. It’s a beautiful thoughtful novel – Garner is particularly good at not presenting either of the two female protagonists as a hero or villain, there’s no sentimentality, just raw honesty. Our July read was The Wren, the Wren by Anne Enright – I didn’t dislike it exactly, but I was definitely underwhelmed, it took a while to get into and there were characters I wish we had had more of. It made for an interesting discussion though. Our August read was The Crowded Street by Winifred Holtby – it was my third reading of this 1924 feminist classic and I loved it all over again, in fact it was probably my favourite reading of it. 

August is Women in Translation month – and I wanted to join in a bit even though I wasn’t writing blog posts. I began August reading Claudine at School by Colette on my Kindle – even though I had recently bought a pile of old Colette books on ebay. Those other Colette books are definitely calling to me though. I read Premonition, my first novel by Banana Yoshimoto which I thoroughly enjoyed. A much tougher read for Witmonth however was A Woman in Berlin, by an Anonymous German woman, it’s a tough, fairly uncompromising account of about eight weeks in 1945, when the Russians took over Berlin. I then read The True Deceiver by Tove Jansson which was so good, a slighter darker story than others by Jansson I have read, but beautifully written. 

Some other fantastic vintage reads include The Fly on the Wheel by Katherine Cecil Thurston, which was originally sent to me by Kaggsy, a reread of The Go-Between by L P Hartley, None Turn Back by Storm Jameson, Nothing is Safe by E M Delafield which I read in a day and Out of the Window a Persephone book I simply couldn’t put down.  

Aside from reading I have been trying to get out a little more often – there have been a few outings with the help of friends and family. My new powerchair is heavy and needs two people to lift in and out of cars, but it has been lovely going to local parks and a National Trust property – recently meeting up with other wheelchair users in a local park, on a day the sun actually shone. I spent a lot of August watching the Olympics and I haven’t stopped indulging in my love of world drama – and this past week I have got my jigsaw board out again. 

So I am tentatively saying, I’m back, I’m reading a book which I hope will be my first proper book review in more than two months. I hope you’re all well and the books have treated you well, I look forward to catching up with some of you soon via my blog reader.

Read Full Post »

Tales from my reading chair – *new books klaxon*

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on May 17, 2024| 29 Comments »

Well I have been a bit quiet recently, on here and on social media. When I am badly fatigued I find the effort and admin of blogging and social media a bit overwhelming. I’m still feeling worn out – especially after a busy day yesterday, going to a disability meet up group,which involved Liz helping, negotiating my new powerchair in the pouring rain, getting in and out of taxis etc. I am trying to claw my way back and fully intend to start catching up with other people’s blogs later today and over the weekend. I am hoping to get a book review or two written by the end of the month. There are a few books I’ve read that I could write about.  

I wanted to share the new books that have come into the house. After doing well for months – not acquiring many at all, honest! There has been a mini book explosion. There are a further three books I will need to buy for book group reads too – but I’ll get those on Kindle another day. 

It was my birthday the other day, and I was given some fantastic books.

Barbara Comyns – A Savage Innocence (2024) by Avril Horner was bought for me by Liz, I knew it was coming and couldn’t wait. The long awaited biography of one of the most unique women writers of the twentieth century. I started reading it on Monday afternoon, and I’m enjoying it so much.

Things Are Against Us (2021) by Lucy Ellman is a collection of essays that Karen from Kaggsy’s bookish ramblings sent me. 

The Dark Flood Rises (2016) by Margaret Drabble, a later Drabble novel that Jacqui from Jacquiwine’s Journal sent me. I am looking forward to exploring some later novels by Drabble, more of that later. 

The Parasite Person (1982) by Celia Fremin – another book generously sent to me by Jacqui. I have previously enjoyed four Celia Fremlin novels and I’m looking forward to this one.

The Third Persephone Book of Short stories (2024) – bought by my mum. I loved the first two collections, they each contain such a wonderful collection of twentieth century writers. I have quite a big Persephone tbr but this might have to leap frog the others. 

Another friend gave me a national book token, which is accepted by bookshop.org and once I have logged in, I rarely stick to just the value of whatever voucher I have to spend. Buying books is just too much fun, and too easy on the internet. 

I bought The Realms of  (1975) by Margaret Drabble on Ebay at the end of last month. I am hoping to get it read this month, but May is already running away from me. 

Life Among the Savages (1953) by Shirley Jackson is her memoir of family life. It looks simply delightful.

A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman (2011) by Margaret Drabble – a collection of short stories. The stories date from the 1960s through to the 2000s. I am eager to explore Drabble’s shorter fiction now. 

The Radiant Way (1987) by Margaret Drabble – another one for my Margaret Drabble reading. I have read this before but retain no memory of it, and as it is the first of a trilogy I decided I would have to reread it at some point. 

Prophet Song (2023) by Paul Lynch – last year’s booker winner, it was one of the shortlisted books that I was most interested in reading at the time. 

Brideshead Revisited (1945) by Evelyn Waugh – of course I have read it before and it was one of the books I was determined to reread this year. I first read it so long ago, I remember very little about it.

The Go-Between (1953) by L P Hartley was another of those books I really wanted to reread this year. Again it has been many years since I first read it, and I only retain a vague memory of it. 

I clearly need to read faster – because I just want to get to all these right now! 

There are four Margaret Drabble books among my new acquisitions – and it’s made me think about what Drabble books I read next. So far I have been reading chronologically – just missing out The Needle’s Eye as I read it some years ago. My next chronological read is The Realms of Gold – after which I now have five or six Drabble books, which don’t follow on chronologically from there. So, I have decided to just read those I have for now – which will allow me to explore some of Drabble’s later books and her short stories. 

Hopefully I will be back with a book review soon, in the meantime tell me what books have you been buying/acquiring recently?

Read Full Post »

Sofia Petrovna – Lydia Chukovskaya (1965)

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on March 15, 2024| 20 Comments »

Translated from Russian by Aline Werth

I can’t quite believe we are halfway through March already. I have been struggling to engage with blogs and social media this month, and this week have tried to claw my back with a couple of tweets (or whatever we call them now) at least. So here I am popping up with a review of a novel I read weeks ago. I think I read it about halfway through February, but have been meaning to write about it ever since. 

Sofia Petrovna by Lydia Chukovskaya is one of the most recent offerings from Persephone books, and it was a present from Liz at Christmas. Described on the Persephone books website as a book about ‘a world gone mad’ it is an unforgettable account of Stalin’s Great Purge. It is a beautiful but incredibly sad, and intense novel. Written in secret in a school notebook in the winter of 1939-1940, it was eventually published in France in Russian in 1965, translated into English a couple of years later. It wasn’t available in the Soviet Union (as it was) until 1988. 

Sofia Petrovna is the central character and she is so beautifully written by Chukovskaya that the reader’s heart really does break for her. Sofia is an ordinary woman, and for me, it is her very ordinariness that makes her so memorable and real – it is these kinds of characters that work best for me. Sofia could almost be any middle aged woman anywhere at any time in history. She is a doctor’s widow, she remembers her husband with pride and fondness, often wondering what he would say about things. She has one son, who is finishing his education as the novel opens, she adores him, anticipating great success for him. Life in the newly created Soviet Union has brought changes to Sofia’s life – her and her son have one room within the apartment that used to be all theirs, other parts of the apartment have been given to other families – and Sofia accepts that fairly happily, although she wishes her son had his own room now. Sofia is very loyal to the Soviet Union, she believes in everything she is told, accepting Stalin as a benevolent figure taking care of all Russian citizens. 

At the beginning of the novel Sofia takes up an office job, to continue supporting herself and her son. 

The job is in a publishing house and Sofia loves her job. She befriends Natasha at work, a younger woman, who is a bit of a loner. Most people have now joined the communist party, but Natasha has not been allowed to, despite her eagerness to do so, this is because her parents were landowners (before the Soviet Union), and as such she is regarded with a degree of suspicion. Sofia often confides her concerns about her son Nikolai to Natasha and gradually the two become unlikely friends. 

“‘I’ve been dismissed,’ Natasha said, when they got out into the street. Sofia stopped short. “Erna Semyonovna showed the Party organiser the piece I typed yesterday. You remember, the long article about the Red Army? I had written in one place Rad Army, instead of Red.”

“But for heaven’s sake,’ Sofia Petrovna expostulated, “that’s just a typing mistake. Why imagine you’ll be dismissed tomorrow? Everyone knows you’re the best typist in the pool.”

“He said you’ll be dismissed for lack of vigilance.” Natasha walked straight ahead. The sun was shining in her face, but she didn’t lower her eyes.”

When newspaper reports start appearing of spies and potential terrorists threatening the Soviet Union, Sofia is horrified that such people should be out there. More and more disappearances and arrests happen every day and Sofia is bewildered, her faith in the Soviet Union such that when people she knows are arrested she assumes it is a mistake that will soon be put right. Even when her own beloved son is arrested she is convinced it is a mistake and that it will be all sorted out soon. She starts to join the long queues of people who daily gather to try and find out information about what has happened to their loved ones, and Sofia assumes, with an almost childlike wide eyed simplicity that their loved ones must all be guilty, but of course her Nikolai is innocent and will soon be freed. Bit by bit we see Sofia’s confusion escalate and gradually give way to fear as the situation causes her to completely break down. 

Despite the obvious sadness to this story, I didn’t find this a depressing read at all. It is surprisingly compelling, and very readable in the way a beautifully written novel can be, especially when depicting such extraordinary events.

Read Full Post »

The Waters Under the Earth – John Moore (1965)

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on December 1, 2023| 15 Comments »

I haven’t read as many of my unread Persephone books this year as I had intended but I did spend a very pleasant week in November with Persephone book number 145 – The Waters Under the Earth by John Moore. At over 450 pages it is quite a chunky book – and I found it to be a slower read than some – though not in a bad way. I was thoroughly engrossed in this story from the word go. 

Reading the piece on the Persephone website about this book I discovered that the author John Moore was something of a conservationist long before the term was in common usage. Having now read the novel that makes complete sense. The novel is very much rooted in the English landscape – particularly that of the midlands and Gloucestershire. The overarching theme is that of change in environment and landscape, showing how that impacts families, communities and the traditions that they hold dear. Moore also depicts the social changes that were happening everywhere at this time. No longer did working class people defer to the upper classes, politics is everywhere, with a wonderfully charming and sympathetic Conservative MP character popping up. 

I’m keeping this review short – the book is quite long – and so I won’t rehash the entire plot, but attempt to give a slight flavour of what I found was an excellent novel.

The novel, which spans around six years, opens in 1950, when eighteen year old Susan is returning to the family estate of Doddington from school. The day she returns is the day the new gardener and his family move into the cottage on the estate. Susan’s mother Janet takes against them instantly, for her they represent the change she so fears. Fenton is a known socialist, his wife, a former teacher certainly not a woman to want much to do with the lady of the manor. They have a large brood of children – and even these, Janet feels are all wrong. These children are educated – the eldest about to go to Oxford to read Classics, the next son will in a year or so start medical training in Birmingham, one of the girls will go into teaching. Janet’s husband is Ferdo – a fabulously drawn character, is more realistic about the future than his wife, she wants nothing to change, and looks back to the Edwardian days of her mother with some longing. Ferdo’s family have lived in Doddington Manor for generations; there’s a tree in their woods that dates from around the time of Henry VIII. Change is everywhere, the estate is struggling financially, and a new motorway looks like it will come straight through the middle of their woods. Janet is broken hearted practically when Mrs Fenton is voted in as chairwoman of the local WI. She records everything in her diary – a document much quoted, which is harder to read as it is full of strange abbreviations and capital letters. Janet is a snob, stuck in the past and afraid of the future, but she adores her husband and strives always to protect him. 

“At the thought of what he must owe the builders, added to all the other bills and the historic overdraft, Ferdo had one of those twinges of unreasonable panic to which he was subject nowadays. They were associated with what he called his dinosaur moods, when he felt himself outdated, outmoded, imperceptive and puzzled, defensive and ill-at-ease, in a world which he seems to know less about each day as he grew older.”

Nothing much is expected of Susan, that she marries well is all Janet wants for her – and as she leaves school her thoughts are already turning in that direction. On her birthday, her cousin Tony, buys her a horse at Stowe horse fair. The family are fox hunters during the season – and both Susan and Janet are keen horsewomen. The fox hunting stuff is unpleasant in a couple of places, but both family horses survive the novel. Janet wants Susan to marry Tony and Susan does start to think about him romantically but the Korean war intervenes and Tony disappears for almost three years. The novel takes place against a backdrop of real life events – the Korean War, the death of George VI, the Coronation of Elizabeth II, general elections and Suez.

Over the course of these years Susan finishes growing up, she finds she likes the Fenton family, she becomes friends with some of their brood – her father and Fenton share an interest in the pigs and frequently set the world to rights over the pigsty wall. She is also befriended by Stephen Le Mesurier, the Conservative MP who comes to Doddington as a visitor. He opens Susan’s eyes to both literature and the natural world. The Korean war ends, and Tony, who was a prisoner of war, arrives home rather changed. 

Change is everywhere, and change brings loss – this is a novel about what that looks like and what that feels like. It’s a wonderfully absorbing novel, thought provoking and immersive. So glad I took the time necessary to enjoy it.

Read Full Post »

A collection continues to grow – two Persephone reviews

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on December 6, 2022| 24 Comments »

I have got quite good at acquiring Persephone books – you need only look at my Persephone page to see how the collection grows (I feel confident in one at Christmas too). However, I haven’t been so quick to read them of late – for no particular reason I can think of.  

In November I treated myself (that’s how it always feels) to reading two Persephone books. The first I was gifted at Christmas last year, the second I bought recently with a voucher I was given in May for my birthday. Six other Persephone remain on my tbr, one novel, four works of non-fiction and a slim volume of poetry, perhaps I need to make more effort next year.  

The Deepening Stream by Dorothy Canfield Fisher (1930) 

I have already spoken about my physical difficulties with this large book – and for a little while that did affect my relationship with the novel. Thankfully I was able to overcome that, and once I had settled into the book properly, I enjoyed it enormously. There are images that I think will stay with me for a while, Canfield Fisher’s writing is very visual – almost cinematic. Set in the years before and during WW1 in the US and France.  

The Deepening Stream centres around Matey Gilbert (Matey is clearly a nickname – though it is never explained) one of three American siblings. Their childhood takes place in various American towns – following their academic father as he takes up new appointments, and France where he takes a sabbatical on two separate occasions. France comes to hold a very special place in Matey’s heart in particular – and her relationship with the Vinet family, who become almost as family while the Gilbert family are in France – is hugely important to her.  

Growing up, Matey and her two siblings Priscilla and Francis tiptoe around their parents – who continually seem to be on the edge of some unexplained battle. The children are scarred by their experience of living under such a cloud and witnessing this fractious marriage. Matey is saved by the love of her dog Sumner – and later by witnessing a scene between her parents that allows her to view them differently.  

Against all odds perhaps, Matey marries very happily. She and Adrian are of one mind, they think and act alike – Adrian even loves France as much as Matey. Two children come along, and then alas does WW1. Matey and Adrian are deeply distressed at the reports coming out of France as the war gets underway. They feel totally unequal to carrying on with their comfortable lives at home while war ravages the country and the people they love. Adrian is a Quaker – so there is no question of him joining the fighting, however in 1915 the couple make what to others seems like an extraordinary decision. Taking their two young children with them, they set sail for France. Here, Adrian will join the ambulance corps while Matey will give what help she can on the home front, staying with the fractured Vinet family who she first knew as a child.  

“‘There’s the dock where we’re going to land,’ said one of the passengers. They approached it more and more slowly. Matey ran her eyes over the people waiting. How French they were! Why did any group of French people look so different to Americans? There was a small, thin old woman in black, with a long mourning-veil, who was crying and waving her handkerchief at someone on the ship. Matey turned her head to see who was waving back at her. No one. She looked again the old woman seemed to be looking at her. 

With a shock Matey knew whose was that ravaged human countenance. Across the narrowing stretch of water, she was looking full into the eyes of Mme Vinet. It was her first glimpse of the war.” 

There is certainly plenty for Matey to do – she has some money left to her husband by an aunt to assist her efforts, Mme Vinet is a shadow of the women she was, her adult children scattered with no word as to how they are. Matey is a force of nature throughout the war, helping those no longer able to help themselves, she is indefatigable in her determination to save people (and especially children) from the poverty, trauma and starvation that the war has brought to so many ordinary, previously comfortable French citizens.  

The novel is a brilliant example of WW1 literature to sit alongside such books as A Testament of Youth.  

The Other Day by Dorothy Whipple (1936) 

In many ways there is a lot less to say about this book than there was about The Deepening Stream. Not because it isn’t wonderful – it really is quite wonderful – but because I can’t possibly do justice to the charming nature of it.  

Apparently, The Other Day, was a book commissioned in 1935 – published a year later – by Dorothy Whipple’s literary agent. It was not a book she particularly wanted to write.  

Dorothy Whipple was born in 1893 – and this book recounts delightfully her first twelve years. She reminds us – should we need it of all the horrors and pitfalls of childhood. How easy it is to get oneself into trouble with the grown-ups, how awful and miserable being taught by an unsympathetic teacher can be, how terrifying the illness of a sibling might feel. Her parents are presented as loving and sensible her siblings are lively and her grandmother is clearly deeply sympathetic and adoring but as children so often are, she frequently frustrated by the decisions that adults make for her.  

“I was aware, very early, of the power of grown-up people. With a word they could destroy your leaping hopes or deprive you of something you cherished with passion. They seemed not only tyrannical, but incalculable; you could never tell beforehand when or why they were going to approve or disapprove.” 

In twelve chapters – each focusing on a particular period in her childhood, Dorothy Whipple takes us to a bygone era, a simpler time perhaps, though one when a child may easily die from pneumonia. She races caterpillars with her siblings, pulls up all the flowers in her father’s garden to give to the old ladies at the alms houses, pays a visit to a hated aunt against her will, holidays in the Isle of Man and survives a miserable time at school before being sent to the glorious convent school. The family live in a Lancashire town at first, later moving to the country for part of the year. Here we witness again Dorothy’s love of the Lancashire countryside that she recounts so beautifully in Random Commentary.  

Children it seems are not so very different, whether they are born in 1893 or 1993 – those things that are important to children will always be the same. Dorothy Whipple reminds us of that, and I do think reading this and Random Commentary provides the Whipple fan with a fantastic portrait of the woman who gave us those fabulous novels and stories. All of which I suppose I shall just have to re-read one of these days.  

Read Full Post »

Tales from my reading chair

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on November 9, 2022| 38 Comments »

I am writing this while in a very bad mood – and that’s why I haven’t blogged earlier in the week as I had originally intended and why I am behind in reading and commenting on other blogs. It is amazing how trying to sort out what should be a minor issue can become all-consuming, take over your days, and interrupt your nights. I am so distracted and mithered that I am finding it hard to concentrate. I am already finding writing full reviews more challenging than it used to be, so I didn’t really need this as well.  

However, while I am struggling to write properly about books, I am reading them – not in such large numbers as I would like but I am thoroughly enjoying the business of reading, choosing what to read next and sitting quietly for a while with a book. There’s a special kind of comfort in sitting up late in silence while the world slows down a little and entering that world that you have wanted to return to since you last laid the books aside. That never diminishes. A feeling that only the booklover understands. 

The book I started November with is the perhaps oddly titled Two Thousand Million Man Power by Gertrude Trevelyan (1937) which I was delighted to receive a review copy of. I will definitely be reviewing it later this month. It’s a brilliant novel – ignored for something like eighty years it is finally being reissued by Boiler House Press at the end of the month. It’s about a man and a woman, ordinary people over several years, against the backdrop of all that was going on in the 1920s and 1930s, their dreams and the slow destruction of those dreams when everyday life is brought into play. I shall say nothing more, but please look out for it; it really is quite brilliant.  

Several weeks ago, I suddenly had the urge to re-read Elizabeth Taylor’s A View of the Harbour (1947) – which I did. Re-reading Elizabeth Taylor is always a pleasure and I decided I should give myself permission to do this more often. Then quite coincidentally my book group decided to read an Elizabeth Taylor for November, and after some discussion we settled on Palladian (1946). So, my second read of the month has been that. I found my memory of it to have been rather sketchy – I remembered a few important things but had forgotten others. It certainly isn’t her best book, but there are flashes of her brilliance in it, and while parts are a little over-wrought, her characterisation is as fine as ever. I finished rather sorry there wasn’t just a little more.  

That, I suppose is why we keep the books we do. So that we can one day take out an old friend, open up the pages and say – “ah, yes, I remember you.” There is a comfort in familiarity too.  

I haven’t bought any books for a few weeks (polishes halo) but a couple have come into my life. Two Christmas themed reads from the British Library The White Priory Murders a mystery for Christmas by Carter Dickson (1934) (aka John Dickson Carr) and from the women writers’ series Stories for Christmas (2022). I am saving both for next month. I have also just redeemed a Persephone gift voucher I had from Liz back in May for my birthday. I have ordered Dorothy Whipple’s The Other Day (1936)– and I can’t wait for it to come.  

Speaking of Persephone, I realised I had quite a bit of a Persephone backlog, I received several last Christmas which I still haven’t read. So, while everyone else seems to be reading novellas for novellas in November (I shall try to join in later in the month) I am contemplating starting one of two huge Persephone tomes. I just fancy getting really stuck into a big novel. I have The Oppermanns by Lion Feuchtwanger (1934) and The Deepening Stream by Dorothy Canfield Fisher (1930) to choose between, and I fully intend to settle down later this afternoon and make my choice. There are still a few other Persephones unread in the cupboard, but I have a feeling that I shall probably cheat and read that new Dorothy Whipple before I read them.  

That’s all from me for now, I shall endeavour to write properly about something I have read soon. In the meantime, happy reading.  

Read Full Post »

A Well Full of Leaves – Elizabeth Myers (1943)

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on May 23, 2022| 18 Comments »

A Well Full of Leaves is one of the two most recently published books by Persephone, and I was lucky to receive this one for my birthday from Liz. It has been out of print for decades, the author herself died prematurely in 1947. The piece on the Persephone website about this novel seems to suggest that it may be a book that will divide readers. I can see why that might be, I enjoyed it – though I feel enjoyed is the wrong word, as there is a lot of unhappiness here. I would say don’t be put off by the Kirkus review that is pasted into the description of the novel on Goodreads. This is a novel that is very beautifully written, and while some readers may dislike the long descriptive passages, others will relish the prose.

This is the story of a childhood, the growth of four siblings to maturity following their bleak and terrible childhood. Narrated by Laura Valley, the third of four siblings, as the novel opens she is thirteen, she has an older sister Anda, an older brother Robert and a younger brother Steve. They live in a horrible little house, in a horrible street with fairly horrible parents. Their father is mainly pathetic, he bets on the horses and loses, drinks a lot, and has been completley dominated by his terrible, bullying wife. Their mother is possibly the worst mother I have come across in fiction, she is cruel, spiteful and uncaring. She casts a long shadow over the inhabitants of that house, in which no one is ever very happy.

“It isn’t everyone who has a mother like ours. She was a specialist whose specialities never touched the kind, the gentle, or the constructive. She was at her best when she was toppling the entire scene. All her dislike of us and the world in general was extended into whatever she was doing. Under her hands soapsuds were angry, clothes sneered, steam menaced, crockery raved.”

Her greatest loathing is directed at Steve the youngest. At just eleven, he is already shaping up to be a great Greek scholar, winning a scholarship for the Grammar school. Laura is determined that he will continue his education, and make it to the university in a few years’ time. Robert has been forced to leave school at fourteen, and is working as a clerk, this despite his enormous fascination for history which continues despite his having left school. Anda the eldest at sixteen, is a traffic stopping beauty, and she has no intention of staying in that house much longer.

Laura has her own unique way of surviving the misery of her surroundings. She has a wonderful capacity to see outside of herself – to see beauty in the smallest of things – to enjoy the rain or the wind or the sound of a bird. Laura’s love of nature saves her – though reader beware, this is no adult fairy-tale.

“The wind was not just a casual noise to be swallowed up and forgotten with the other noises of the street. It had risen in the thin blown-glass of waves meeting a far-off shore; it had travelled from beaches where the sea slid forward and fled back again, grinding the shells to sand; this wind had boomed in slippery caves with hanging seaweeds for aeolian harps; it had blown across wild heaths setting tatted winter weeds jigging, careered through copses and wild-wood and quiet country cemeteries where tombstones listened to it impassively in the moonlight; it reached the towns, roaring round the theatres and churches, past shut shops where quails and shrimps and sheep’s brains and forced strawberries were all quietly waiting to be bought and devoured and so become the blood and thoughts of men and women. And it came at last to shabby streets like our own, shrieking aghast through leagues of brick and hovels, whipping the waters of lonely, warehouse-enclosed canals into long stiff ridges of black cream, and finally going off blustering and spent to the hills beyond the town.”

It is in these descriptions and observations of the natural world that Myers is at her very best. She reminds us that even in the humblest of streets the same gentle breeze may blow as over any green field – that a bird, or a blade of grass, a wildflower can sometimes be enough to lift the spirits.

Anda escapes the house for life with a kindly artist, many years her senior, though the relationship appears to be platonic. Later, she marries into aristocracy, and enters London society. Steve’s hopes of continuing his education are thwarted by his vile mother, who simply can’t allow any of her children even a modicum of happiness. Steve accidentally finds the world of the theatre, and by the time he is in his early twenties he is a huge success. Laura stays at home long enough to care for her father in his last illness, as she can’t bear to leave him to her mother’s not so tender mercies. Then she moves in with Steve, and falls in love with a married playwright that Steve introduces her to. Steve is the most damaged of the Valley siblings, his relationships with those around him anything but healthy, women adore him, but he uses them, despising them, throwing them aside. He can’t leave the past behind, and carries his bitterness with him every day. As the years pass, Laura becomes the only person that Steve can tolerate.

I think the reader probably knows early on that there are no happy endings here, Myers shows us how impossible it is to rectify the damage of a terrible childhood. I won’t say any more than that because of spoilers.

I am glad that Persephone brought this back into print, I know Elizabeth Myers wrote other books too, but it does seem she disappeared without trace.

Read Full Post »

Random Commentary – Dorothy Whipple (1966)

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 10, 2022| 35 Comments »

How difficult it is sometimes to talk about a book that I loved as much as I loved this one. A fabulous treat of a read for #ReadIndies month.

I have loved everything that I have read by Dorothy Whipple – everything that has so far been published by Persephone. Her novels and short stories remain endlessly popular among Persephone readers. Random Commentary however is not a novel.

This book is a compilation of pieces from Dorothy Whipple’s journals and notebooks. There is a note from the publisher in the front explaining their approach, and now I have finished the book, I am glad they chose this approach, it was the right one I think. The journals were kept intermittently by Dorothy, then years later she simply copied out extracts that she thought might interest her readers. Nothing was ever organised or dated – though of course it all runs fairly chronologically, therefore the title fits absolutely. Persephone decided to stick to Dorothy’s original intention and produce the book as a facsimile. Naturally some events give us an idea as to date, and as there a lot of mention of her writing, the publication dates of her stories and novels help us orientate ourselves as to where we are within the period of approximately 1925 – to the end of the Second World War. However, the majority of the time it really doesn’t matter to the reader (well certainly not to this reader) what year it was – I just revelled in Dorothy’s world – and loved every word.

In these extracts Dorothy Whipple doesn’t just reveal the writer she was, the struggles and the constant self-doubt, the highs, and lows, she shows us the world around her, and her appreciation of it.  

“I went to walk on the front. The day was ending, and over the vast expanse of Morcombe Bay, I saw hundreds – thousands of birds flying together. They rose up like a tree. They streamed like a long undulating snake. They wheeled, they became a whale, they threw themselves like a net over the sky, they settled like a dark mud bank. Such unison. Like a wonderfully trained choir, or corps de ballet. But who or what conducts them? By answering “instinct,” you don’t dismiss the mystery.”

This book is a delight for any Whipple fan – and perhaps best enjoyed by those who have already enjoyed her fiction. For those of us already familiar with her fictional world, it shows us something of the woman behind those loved stories. A woman full of self-doubt, as delighted as a child by glowing reviews of her books, a normal married woman, who happens to write very popular books and is on friendly terms with J B Priestly. She is indignant on her husband’s behalf when he must retire earlier than he’d like. They have a little terrier called Roddy who they adore, and when he inevitably dies, get another also called Roddy. She is an author often annoyed by the constant interruptions when she wants to write – interruptions she is certain no male writer would suffer, I think she was probably right there. An aunt, who is absolutely smitten by her pretty young niece, a child she loves having to stay and who she puts in one of her books.

As a reader she appreciated Rose Macaulay, and Katherine Mansfield is saddened by the death of Winifred Holtby. As a writer she is invited to events she find herself nervous of attending, finds herself chatting to H G Wells, finding him an easy, kind man to talk with, she liked him enormously.

“When on this lovely September morning, I went up for the paper and opened it, standing under the golden trees in the sunshine, I saw that Winifred Holtby was dead. I am sad, sad. So generous, brilliant, warm hearted, so young to die. I feel so sad as if I had missed saying something to her and now never shall.”

During the course of these extracts Dorothy and her husband Henry are living in Nottingham and decide to rent a holiday cottage in the countryside at Newstead, to spend weekends. Dorothy comes to love the peace of the cottage – often yearning to be back there, however, after Henry’s retirement they have to give up the cottage and the house in Nottingham and move to a house in Kettering. Generally never happier than when at home quietly, Dorothy is often obliged to travel a bit – London of course a frequent destination and she and Henry holiday in British resorts. So, we also find her in such places as West Runton, Cardigan Bay and Southampton and on trips back to her native Blackburn to see her mother, completley swamped by that feeling of home on hearing the accent of the railway porter.

“Thousands of incendiary bombs on London tonight. Terrible damage. Hundreds of homes, eight Wren churches, the Guildhall gone, and Dr Johnson’s house in Gough Square, which I always promised myself to see, and now never shall. I am sad, sad about London. One feels for it as if it were human, and very dear.”

As we hit the 1940s the war becomes a necessary backdrop to her journal entries. She reports on raids, and the news and the despair she and so many others must have felt. In the midst of which ordinary life goes on, her books and stories written, published, and reviewed. For this is very much a glimpse into the life of writer, although it’s wonderful to see so much of the woman she was too.

I am so glad that Persephone decided to republish this volume – in just the way Dorothy Whipple originally intended. Now all I long for is that they reissue her childhood memoirs too. That’s not too much to ask is it?

Read Full Post »

The New Magdalen – Wilkie Collins (1873)

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on February 7, 2022| 24 Comments »

It seemed like quite a while since I had settled down with a Persephone book, and so reading this one felt like quite a treat. After a good Christmas haul, I have now amassed a lovely little pile of unread Persephone books to add to my enormous collection of already read Persephone books.

The New Magdalen by Wilkie Collins might seem like a surprising addition to the Persephone list, but it isn’t really. Wilkie Collins was a man ahead of his time in his attitudes to society and women – and he was often angered by the injustices that he saw around him. I read a lot of Wilkie Collins about thirty years ago, and The New Magdalen was one I had read before, I had retained some memory of it, but little of the detail. It is of course from the genre called the sensation novel – and is a great page turner.

The novel centres on Mercy Merrick a young ‘fallen’ woman, as the society of that time would have judged her – who sets about trying to rehabilitate her character, and reputation in an unforgiving society. She sees her chance and takes it – but nothing is ever as simple as that.

If you’re familiar with the sensation novel, then you’ll know the kind of thing you’re going to get. It’s a very particular kind of storytelling, quite different from modern novels, but in that it does provide a degree of escapism, which I appreciated. The world of the sensation novel is small and full of coincidences. This is necessary for the plot to move along at the cracking pace that it does, so the modern reader needs to let go of that inner cynic that is apt to cry “really!” So, a principle character only needs to sit and idly remember someone they once loved/met/was inspired by and the reader knows that person will be turning up soon, and anyone they meet in one place will be part of the family or social circle they settle into later.

Mercy Merrick has had a difficult life already when we first meet her, one that had led her to a refuge for fallen women in London. Each time she has begun a new life, a new job, someone finds out about her past and it all comes crashing down.

“For three years past all that a sincerely penitent woman can do I have done. It doesn’t matter. Once let my past story be known, and the shadow of it covers me: the kindest people shrink”

Having left the refuge again, Mercy is now working as a nurse in France during the Franco-Prussian war. As the novel opens Mercy is sheltering in a small cottage, as the French and Germans close by try to blow each other to pieces. With her in the cottage is a French officer, a surgeon some wounded men and another young woman in need of shelter. Grace Roseberry is on her way from Canada to England. English born, she hasn’t been back since she was a child, and now with her father recently dead, she has no one in the world. She is however carrying letters of introduction from her father to a Lady Janet Roy – who Grace hopes will take her in, and employ her as a companion in her large London mansion. Grace confides all of this to Mercy as they sit waiting for the crisis to end. However, the cottage is badly shelled, and Grace takes a direct hit.

Mercy takes her chance – in terrible fear of being discovered, but desperate for a chance, she swaps places with Grace Roseberry, who lies lifeless in a French cottage. She takes Graces clothes, the precious papers and calling herself by the name Grace Roseberry she makes her way to England and to the home of Lady Janet Roy.

“To the mistress of the house, and to all who inhabit it or enter it, she is known as Grace Roseberry, the orphan relative by marriage of Lady Janet Roy. To herself alone she is known as the outcast of the London streets; the inmate of the London Refuge; the lost young woman who has stolen her way back – after vainly trying to fight her way back – to Home and Name. There she sits in the grim shadow of her own terrible secret, disguised in another person’s identity, and established in another person’s place. Mercy Merrick had only to dare, and to become Grace Roseberry if she pleased. She has dared, and she has been Grace Roseberry for nearly four months past.”

Although she has had a difficult life, and has now entered into a fraud, Mercy is a good woman, the reader knows this immediately, Mercy is constantly conflicted by what she is done, and grateful for everything that comes after. Lady Janet takes her in, gives her a home, employs her as a companion, and soon starts calling Mercy her adopted daughter. One of the men who helped liberate her from the cottage is Horace, a friend of Lady Janet’s and is clearly smitten with Mercy, and is soon asking her to marry him. Lady Janet’s nephew Julian is a clergyman, a man with a strong social conscience he is often out of step with the narrow, thinking of the society in which he lives. Mercy once heard him speak, while she was still at the refuge and has never forgotten him. Julian is also deeply affected by Mercy. Julian has been contacted by someone asking him for help, a young woman is in need of assistance after being caught up in the war in France and terribly injured.

For Grace Roseberry hadn’t been killed, she had been terribly injured and it has taken a long time for her to be recovered enough to travel to England. She is full of anger, looking for revenge desperate to right the wrong she realises has been done to her. She is proud and in no mood for forgiveness or charity.  I’m sure it is no coincidence that one of these women is called Mercy and the other Grace, for one of them has both these attributes, and one of them has neither.

The New Magdalen is definitely in the thumping good read category of novels. Great page turning escapism and a story that reveals all those anxieties that people of the Victorian era held – anxieties which resonate still, even in 2022.

Read Full Post »

Expiation – Elizabeth von Arnim (1929)

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on February 4, 2021| 23 Comments »

I am as you are all probably aware a big fan of Elizabeth von Arnin and of course a big Persephone fan so a book combining the two felt like a real treat. This wonderful Elizabeth von Arnim novel was out of print for decades before Persephone brought it back. I can’t understand why it was out of print so long, perhaps the rather unexciting title is partly responsible. For me, Expiation felt like classic von Arnim.

This is a novel full to the brim of Elizabeth von Arnim’s delicious wit, a satirically humorous novel about middle class prudery and close-minded cruelty. Everything about this novel is perfect – each scene, each piece of dialogue is simply superb. Even the name chosen for our heroine’s in-laws is perfect – Bott – a word that can be spat out in exasperation and disgust as poor Milly might long to do. Oh, those Botts!

“That important south London suburb appreciated the Botts, so financially sound, so continually increasing in prosperity. They were its backbone. They subscribed, presided, spoke, ordered. Titford was full of Botts, and every one of them a credit to it.”

As the novel opens Milly Bott is surrounded by her sorrowing in-laws – her husband died in a road accident a few days earlier, they have buried him and the solicitor is about to read the will. Everyone adores Milly, in her forties, she is soft and comforting and good – and never gave poor Ernest a moments trouble. Though the couple remained childless she was a good wife to Ernest. The Bott clan is a large one, an elderly mother-in-law and several sons and daughters each with their own wives and husbands and offspring. These people are drawn so well – they are hilariously infuriating, and while Milly may have committed adultery, our sympathies are one hundred per cent with her. There is something very lovable about Milly – perhaps because she isn’t perfect, and the Botts are so insufferable, pompous and rather absurd. We know how well von Arnim writes such absurd creatures, her portrayal of them is always wincingly accurate.

In the polite suburb of Titford the Bott family are well known and well thought off – the Botts are suitably proud of their position. They are respectable in every way – and consider themselves the leading lights of behaviour and morality.  However, the Botts are about to be shaken to the core. When the will is read, it is revealed that Ernest has left all his money to a charity for ‘fallen women’ – adding the dark rejoinder that his wife will know why. Milly will have just a £1000 of his large estate for herself. Speculation is immediate and not kind – by page 29 the reader knows that the Bott speculation is pretty spot on.

“It had begun quite by chance. And what a chance, thought Milly, looking back now with the horrified clear vision which is the portion of the found out, at the beginning. Such small things had made it begin. Five minutes earlier, five minutes later, and she never would have met Arthur. A missed train, a slower taxi, even just a pause to watch the pigeons in the courtyard, or, indeed, even a little decent reserve, and she would have been saved. But the train was caught, the taxi was swift, the pigeons didn’t interest her, and in she went; and there, in the British Museum, in the gallery where the busts of the Roman emperors are, she met Arthur Oswestry, and they sinned.”

For ten years Milly had been having an affair with a man she met in The British Museum – and now she realises, due to the date of the will, that Ernest had known for the last two. For readers of a novel first published in 1929, this was far more shocking than it would be today.

The novel is the story of Milly’s attempt at expiation, at atonement for her great sin. This involves her deciding to escape the Botts by fleeing to her sister who many years earlier disgraced the family – and who Ernest had barred Milly from contacting – yet in a wonderful bit of past defiance had continued to write to. Only, things don’t quite work out as Milly had planned. We follow Milly as she encounters the harsh world of disapproval in the guise of her sister changed by circumstance, a nosy landlady and the sneering, family lawyer. She even feels unworthy of her £1000, and the deep black of mourning that she is wearing. Poor Milly wears her shame heavily and is horribly hard on herself.  In time Milly must make her way back to Titford – and the world of the Botts – submitting meekly to their plans for her.  

Anyone worrying that this will all be horribly bleak and sad, fear not – in Elizabeth von Arnim’s hands it is anything but. Ultimately this is marvellously uplifting – and I defy anyone not to fall in love with dear Milly.

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »