urnett readers! Hayley asks whether she's likely to enjoy Manservant and Maidservant after having given up A Heritage and Its History - the answer, probably, is no. In for a penny, in for a pound, with Miss C-B - her novels are all very similar and it's unlikely that you'll hate one and love another. Verity asked whether we could choose a Virago ICB, but having looked on Amazon the four that Virago Modern Classics reprinted are in quite short supply, and quite pricey too, so it will probably be best to stick with Manservant and Maidservant since it's in print in the US. Is that ok? I recommend you go and get copies now, if you fancy joining in, and we'll aim to read it during October/November? Let me know what you think about the plan...
I have 300 waiting in my inbox.
is week, so shall link to something not very bookish, but very yummy: the recipe for the cake Karen aka Cornflower made for my visit to her this week. And it was delicious!
arents and Children, and a few of you said you hadn't read the great lady before, but would be interested... I'm looking at you, farmlanebooks, Simon S, Paperback Reader, and Pamela Terry! I recently read Robert Liddell's Elizabeth and Ivy, about the friendship between Elizabeth Taylor and Ivy C-B, after seeing the book mentioned in Nicola Beauman's biography of Elizabeth Taylor (reviewed here). It's an interesting book, mostly because Liddell had the (possibly unique) advantage of being friends with both writers, but it's also rather clumsy at times. He quotes a lot of the letters, and Taylor had a disconcerting habit of transcribing lengthy conversations in her letters... quoting layers of quoting gets rather confusing. Still, a good resource.
ead, but she also wrote in Swedish, so I'm having to wait for the wonderful Thomas Teal to translate them. Tove Jansson is one of my favourite writers, and I couldn't wait for The True Deceiver to be published - it's coming out in October, but I begged an advance copy because I just couldn't wait any longer.
y? She fakes a break-in at the elderly artist's home, to persuade her that she needs companionship... and so, with her brother and her dog, moves in. The motives for her actions are mysterious; the unacknowledged battle for power between Anna and Katri continues silently and subtly. Who is deceiving whom? And what effects are the women having on the lives and personalities of each other?"Attention," Anna said. "Giving another human being your undivided attention is a pretty rare thing. No, I don't think it happens very often... Figuring out what someone wants and longs for, without being told - that probably requires a good deal of insight and thought. And of course sometimes we hardly know ourselves. Maybe we think it's solitude we need, or maybe just the opposite, being with other people... We don't know, not always..." Anna stopped talking, searched for words, raised her glass and drank. "This wine is sour. I wonder if it hasn't stood too long. Don't we have an unopened bottle of Madeira in the sideboard somewhere? No, let it go. Don't interrupt me. What I'm trying to say is that there are few people who take the time to understand and listen, to enter into another person's way of living. The other day it occurred to me how remarkable it is that you, Miss Kling, can write my name as if I'd written it myself. It is characteristic of your thoughtfulness, your thoughtfulness for me and no one else. Very unusual."
"It's not especially unusual," Katri said. "Mats, pass the cream. It's simply a matter of observation. You observe certain habits and behaviour patterns, you see what's missing, what's incomplete, and you supply it. It's just a matter of experience. Get things working as best you can, then wait and see."
"Wait and see what?" said Anne. She was annoyed.
"How it goes," Katri said, looking straight at Anna, her eyes at this moment deeply yellow. She continued very slowly. "Miss Aemelin, the things people do for one another mean very little, seen purely as acts. What matters is their motives, where they're headed, what they want."
Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale - which was hugely popular, won the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction, and is still in the bestselling list on Bloomsbury's website - blurs the boundaries between non-fiction and fiction. That is to say, doubtless Summerscale's research is impeccable - but the pace and style of the book borrow much from fiction. It tells the story of an 1860 murder in a country house, 'perhaps the most disturbing murder of its time[...] For the country as a whole, the murder at Road Hill became a kind of myth - a dark fable about the Victorian family and the dangers of detection.'
hollow laugh from me.
should be reading. It's Howards End is on the Landing by Susan Hill (a brave choice of title, since I imagine there will be errant apostrophes in 'Howards End' whenever the book is mentioned). Subtitled a year of reading from home, the book is a series of essays a la Anne Fadiman's Ex Libris, which documents Hill's decision to read only books from her shelves, for a year. She explores books she'd forgotten she owned, or had never read, or simply wanted to read again. I've only read four pages so far, but it has some lovely excerpts: 'A book which is left on a shelf is a dead thing but it is also a chrysalis, an inanimate object packed with the potential to burst into new life.' Hill's writing can be a little forthright for my tastes, but I'm sure that won't spoil a book so deliciously, well, bookish. It's out on the 15th October, and doesn't it have a beautiful cover?
UK Book Bloggers
George Bernard Shaw (or someone like him) once said that Britain and America are two nations divided by a common language. Since he was Irish, that brings a whole other factor into the equation, and perhaps it’s best to pretend Dorothy Parker said it, and move on… because this is my roundabout way to say that Amy has very kindly asked me to write a bit for BBAW about the UK blogging scene. (Doesn’t the word ‘scene’ make that sound edgy? In half an hour or so, I’m going to join the cup-of-tea-and-biscuit scene. Wow, it works for anything.) Yes, that’s right, the country which brought you Shakespeare and Austen and Dickens and, erm, J.K. Rowling has also been busy a-blogging.
Of course we aren’t wholly divided blogging worlds – some of my favourite blogs are written Stateside, such as Danielle’s A Work in Progress – but most of the blogs I read are UK-based, and, as L.P. Hartley didn’t quite say in The Go-Between, the UK is another country; they do things differently there. For a start, we read different books, because different books are published here. The American blogs I read tend to be of an Anglophile persuasion, so perhaps the disparity isn’t so evident, but UK book blogs often go weak at the knees when Virago Modern Classics are mentioned, or Persephone Books, or proper orange-striped Penguins. UK’s independent publishers are celebrated, not least because they often prove most willing to send out review copies to blogs. We get excited when the Booker Longlist is announced – to American bloggers, Booker might just sound like a Creole equivalent of ‘reader’. We tend not to host reading challenges so much (don’t know why), our style is perhaps a little more dry, and, of course, over here 1800 isn’t very old and 1900 feels like yesterday. Jane Austen was dead before Herman Melville was in short trousers, etc. etc.
But we need some names, don’t we? Being a wee little place, our blogging community sometimes feels quite compact. There are doubtless thousands of literary blogs here in sunny Albion, but the ones I want to write about all more or less know each other – pop around for a cup of sugar, things like that. A whistle-stop tour of my favourite UK blogs always has to start with Cornflower. With a complementary ‘domestic arts blog’, Cornflower’s friendliness and charm comes with great book recommendations and beautiful things to look at as well. Elaine at Random Jottings is another favourite, since we share more or less the same taste in books – also does a sideline in opera-chat. And Simon S of Savidge Reads should get a mention, not just because his blog is always lively and witty and good, but because we follow each other all over the blogosphere – Simon S, Simon T, Simon S, Simon T. Try saying that five times whilst drinking a glass of water. Actually, don’t.
Alongside these old faithfuls, I must just mention one or two newer UK blogs to keep an eye on. I love Claire aka Paperback Reader and am rather excited by a very new blogger, Hayley at Desperate Reader. Of course there are many others – Brit Lit Blogs lists quite a few, though with slightly bizarre weightings given to some, and obscurity to others. Still worth a look, if you can navigate it.
One of the benefits of living on a small island (aside from never being more than 72 miles from the coast: fact) is that none of the UK bloggers are that far apart from each other. I can pop up to Edinburgh in much the same time it would take a Canadian to get a pint of milk. In fact, I will be doing that soon, hopefully, and seeing Karen from Cornflower whilst I’m there. Meeting bloggers in person is one of the fun, unexpected bonuses of writing a UK blog. Seeing the face behind the font is always exciting, and rather easier here than Across The Pond – I’ve met the good people behind Geranium Cat’s Bookshelf, Random Jottings, Dovegreyreader, Cornflower, Other Stories, Oxford Reader, The B Files, and Pursewarden – and there is talk of a UK blogger meet-up before the end of the year, watch this space.
If you can get on a ‘plane and join us, you’d be very welcome – but for now I hope I’ve done my bit for the blogs of Great Britain. Do stop by and say hello, forgive us when we –ise things instead of –izing them, and maybe we’ll make Anglophiles of you yet.
Don't forget to put your name in the draw to win a copy of Miss Hargreaves - I'll do the draw on Friday - but for now there is something rather wonderful to watch... (see above)
Isn't this fantastic? Don't you all want to be librarians now? As a Bodleian employee (now and then) I only wish that Oxford's premier library would get film something similar. I especially love how the people on telephones don't answer the questions asked, or show any sign that they've heard the questions at all.
Next spring, a year after her mother's death, she felt the vague stirring of her individual soul. She was free to choose her own vicar; she left her mother's Dr. Braithwaite who was broad and twice married, and went to Canon Wrench, who was unmarried and high. There was something stimulating in the short, happy service, the rich music, the incense, and the processions. She made new covers for the drawing-room, in cretonne, a gay pattern of pomegranate and blue-green leaves. And as she had always had the cutlets broiled plain because her mother liked them that way, now she had them breaded.
And Mrs. Hancock wanted to know why Harriett has forsaken her dear mother's church; and when Connie Pennefeather saw the covers she told Harriett she was lucky to be able to afford new cretonne. It was more than she could; she seemed to think Harriett had no business to afford it. As for the breaded cutlets, Hannah opened her eyes and said, 'That was how the mistress always had them, ma'am, when you was away.'
course, if you already have a copy of Miss H and would prefer the bookmarks, just say that in the comments.I turned to the chancel, hoping to find something - however slight - that I could praise. But it was worse up there. Seaweed green altar frontal; dead flowers; lichenous-looking brass candlesticks; pitch-pine organ with a pyramid of dumb pipes soaring over a candle-greased console; 'Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus,' splashed in chrome Gothic lettering over the choir walls; mural cherubim reminding you of cotton-wool chicks from Easter eggs; very stained glass; tattered hymn books, tattered hassocks - it was a horrible church. But there were, mercifully, two redeeming features; those were the dust sheets spread over lectern and pulpit. Somehow you felt a little safer with those dust sheets.Meanwhile, Squint was rhapsodizing."I beg you to observe the beautiful lettering and decoration on the chancel wall. 'I saw the Lord sitting upon a Throne.' You like it?"He had a habit of hissing like a goose, particularly when he was eager about something."Very pretty indeed," I said."Original," said Henry."Unusual, in a sense.""Full of feeling.""Filthy," I said.
'And this lady, this Miss Hargreaves, she is still alive?'
'Ten minutes old, precisely,' said Henry.
I trod on his toe brutally.
'The soul of youth,' I said. 'She is a poet,' I added dreamily.
'She would be an old lady,' said Squint. 'Over eighty.'
'Nearer ninety,' said Henry.
'A touch of rheumatoid arthritis,' I said, 'but no more than a touch.'
Limping slowly along the platform and chatting amiably to the porter, came - well, Miss Hargreaves. Quite obviously it couldn't be anyone else.
'At Oakham station,' we heard her saying, 'we have exquisitely pretty flowers. The station-master is quite an expert horticulturist. Oh, yes, indeed!'
'Shall I have all your luggage put on a taxi, Mum?'
'Just wait! Kindly stay! A moment. Accept this shilling, I beg of you. I am a trifle short-sighted, porter - oh, did I give you a halfpenny? Here you are, then. Can you see a young gentleman anywhere about? If so, no doubt but it would be my friend Mr. Norman Huntley.'
I flopped weakly on to a chair.
'Can't see no one, Mum,' I could hear the porter saying.
'Then let us wait! Do not go. What a handsome train - what a most handsome train! I wrote a sonnet to a railway train once. In my lighter moments, porter; in my more exuberant moments. My Uncle Grovesnor was good enough to say it recalled Wordsworth to him. Do you read at all, porter? Tell me. Tell me frankly.'
Oh why must I go with my green tender grace
To lay all my eggs in one basket?
If I were a mayor I could carry a mace;
My card and address in a casket.
[...]
All this goeth on and my mind is a blank,
A capriciously prodigal hostage.
What care I when comforters tell me the Bank
Will pay death-duties, homage and postage?
But Miss Hargreaves is not all frothy excitement and delight - she "abominates fuss", wants things to be just-so, and is unlikely to let decorum of convention prevent her from carrying out her good intentions. 'She had the gift of being able to do unconventional things in the most casual manner, never losing her dignity thereby.' As the novel progresses, while she may retain her dignity, Miss H manages to cause all sorts of trouble for Norman, with his family, his girlfriend, and his colleagues and acquaintances at the Cathedral where he plays the organ. (Music is a hugely important element of the novel - anybody who loves the organ, harp, or violin will find plenty to enjoy here.) She becomes something of a Frankenstein's monster - as Norman's mother says, 'I think one would get quite fond of her, and yet never want to set eyes on her again.'
written in the sort of delicious writing which is hardly found anymore. Miss H is one of the best characters of the twentieth century, in my opinion, and I really cannot encourage you enough to find this extraordinary book.
