Painting

Trying a little experiment just before I head off to Northern Ireland. When I posted about painting a while ago, someone said I should try selling things on Etsy - a place to sell amateur art. Well, thought I, perhaps I will - but I thought I'd test the water here. This might not be for the most regular visitors to Stuck-in-a-Book, who are literary-minded folk first and foremost, but perhaps I'll be able to point people in this direction.

Anyway, I'm going to try and sell this painting Woman with Orange Background (acrylic, 40x30 cm.):


It's going to be something of a silent auction, mostly because I haven't the smallest idea how much one should charge for these things - so, if you're interested, don't write in the comments, but email me at simondavidthomas@yahoo.co.uk with an offer and your location, and I'll get back to people when I'm back on English shores! I'll find some college funding somehow...

Goodbyes

And I am now unemployed!

Thanks for your kind messages about funding - I'm not thinking about it for the next week, and will instead enjoy a week in Northern Ireland... might be a little damp, I hear. Still, I get to spend Saturday at the wedding of two friends, so that will be wonderful.

This evening I had a meal out with my two closest friends at work, Clare and Lucy, as it was my last day in the Bodleian. We don't work in the same departments at the same time as each other, but always spend breaks and lunch together, and they are very, very dear to me. We've laughed our way through the year, and have dozens of in-jokes which would irritate everyone after moments. We all got each other parting gifts, and mine included two books: Mrs Woolf & the Servants by Alison Light, which I've had my eye on for ages, and The Autobiography of Sir Thomas Bodley. He of the Bodleian, you understand. One of our most repeated private jokes - basically, if you say 'Sir Thomas... Bodley?' eight hundred times, you'll be a step closer to understanding why we laugh at the sound of his name.

So, off I go to Northern Ireland... with seven books. I probably will only finish one or two, but the idea of being stranded without books... doesn't bear thinking about.


I've packed them now, so have to try and remember them from the photo...
-They Came Like Swallows by William Maxwell - a gift from Karen aka Cornflower
-A Passage to India by EM Forster - on my reading list for next term (have I updated you on reading lists yet? I fear not! More on't soon)
-Piccadilly Jim by PG Wodehouse - been meaning to read more Wodehouse for ages, and borrowed this from my aunt Jacq years ago
-The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald - a gift from Lynne aka dovegreyreader
-The Man Who Knew Everything by Tom Stacey - review copy
-(not in picture) The Man Who Was Thursday by GK Chesterton - borrowed from Mel, my housemate

Flying Too Close To The Sun

The Icarus Girl by Helen Oyeyemi has been on the peripherals of my mind since someone mentioned it here - in fact, taking a quick trip down blogmory lane, I find it was Nichola aka Lost In Translation, back when I was talking about The Love Child by Edith Olivier, in my 50 Books... but that was only January, and I'm sure I'd heard of it before that. No matter. When Stephanie at Bloomsbury asked what sort of books I'd like her to send me, The Icarus Girl instantly came to mind.

Jessamy Harrison is an introverted, thoughtful and fanciful child, eight years old, with a fiery Nigerian mother and a softly spoken, slightly anxious, white English father. When she visits her mother's family in Nigeria (Jessamy et al live in England) she also meets Titiola, or TillyTilly, a ragged girl of her own age who seems to be living secretly in the compound. TillyTilly's friendship means a lot to Jessamy - but then TillyTilly also appears back in England, and grows more and more possessive in their friendship. What seemed to be an exciting but innocent friendship soon becomes a dangerous and terrifying one - both for Jessamy and for the reader.

I don't think any review of this book has been written without expressing astonishment that Oyeyemi wrote The Icarus Girl whilst she was studying for her A Levels. It is pretty darn amazing, but this book would be extremely impressive whoever had written it. I love narratives which introduce an element of fantasy into an otherwise domestic setting - it's what I hope to write a dissertation and possibly doctorate on - but Oyeyemi goes a step further than that, because the reader is constantly left uncertain. How much is real, how much is illness, how much is delusion? Jessamy is seeing a psychiatrist, but her sessions deliberately do not reveal much to the reader.

What starts as a novel about loneliness and isolation becomes infused with issues of obsession, possession, power and, most sophisticatedly, doubleness. I know 'duplicity' is probably the correct term, but doubleness is more to the point - even from TillyTilly's first appearance (and her name!) when she simply repeats everything Jessamy says. It seems a little like those pieces of voice-activated-typing software, where they have to listen to your voice for a while, to register and recognise it, before the programme will work. Doubleness and identity become increasingly important through the novel, very cleverly.

Now, I like novels which don't tell you everything - ambiguity is fine. My Cousin Rachel is an example from my recent reading. But I finished The Icarus Girl without a clue as to what was real, what the almost hallucinatory final chapter signified - but I also felt that the fault was mine. Someone who's read it - is it clear? Should I have been able to work things out? It doesn't alter my opinion of the novel, though - it is exceptional, and I look forward to reading more of Oyeyemi's work.


In less happy news, for those of you who've read this far, the Arts & Humanities Research Council decided not to give me any money for my Masters next year... the next step is college funding, and the step after that is bankruptcy! But I'm determined to do the course, and will keep praying.

Oxford Stories

I've been attending my very first book launch! Not for my book, you understand, but for The Lost College & other Oxford stories, a collection by OxPens, a group of writers in Oxford. Last year they very successfully published The Sixpenny Debt & other Oxford stories, which I've read *almost* all of, and most of the authors make a repeat performance the second time around - and, what's more, have secured the approval of Colin Dexter. He, who indirectly provides most of the University's funding through Morse filming, was at the launch, and gave a kind, unassuming and funny talk. Also suggested that a potential future short story title could be 'The Identity of the Second Dog Handler'...


Keen followers of Stuck-in-a-Book will recognise a few names from OxPens - Mary Cavanagh (The Crowded Bed), Margaret Pelling (Work For Four Hands... still haven't reviewed this, but it's very readable!) and Jane Gordon-Cumming (A Proper Family Christmas - now back in print! ) It was very nice to meet Jane and Margaret, and to see Mary again - this blog really has given me all sorts of lovely opportunities.

I can't review The Lost College etc. because I only bought it a few hours ago, but there were some very promising readings from the authors included. I especially like the sound of Sheila Costello's 'Rabbit Fenley and The Body in the Garden'. Having read The Sixpenny Debt etc., though, I'll chat about that, in the hope that I'll have read The Lost College etc. by the time the next anthology comes out... I always find it so difficult to find anything unifying to say about short story collections, so it is a blessing that OxPens have done this for me - all the stories in both collections are connected with Oxford. That can be quite far-ranging, I'll admit - from Tchiakovsky's posthumous visit to the Sheldonian through to the accidental stealing of a library book in the distant past, from the confusion arising when a child understands everything adults say entirely literally, to the dangers of cycling in Port Meadow. My two favourite stories, though, are both connected with the middle classes committing murder... what does that say about me? Jane Gordon-Cumming's Education in Action opens: 'Dulcie was the scourge of the evening class. Which one? No, I don't mean any class in particular. Dulcie was the Scourge of the Evening Class, generic. And I use the term loosely, to include day-time classes, weekend courses, summer schools - Dulcie was the scourge of the lot.' You know the sort... The Rising Price of Property by Laura King contains an ingenious motive for murder, and is wonderfully cynical.

For a taste of Oxford from its real residents, though with real life being something usually foreign to these collections, do seek out The Sixpenny Debt & other Oxford stories or, I'm sure, The Lost College & other Oxford stories. Me, I'm just excited about having been to a book launch.

I'm back! / Mockingbirds and Cousins

Hurray! The internet has arrived at Marlborough Road!

For those of you thinking "That's not news, you blogged on Saturday", I have to say - that wasn't me. Well, in a way it was, but it was a phantom post - I tried to link to the video on Youtube a couple of weeks ago, and failed. Obviously it was hanging around in the ether, waiting for someone to authorise it or something, and suddenly it appeared at the weekend. Strange.

I'm afraid my return to the blogosphere will be short-lived, since I'm away on holiday on Friday, and back on 29th August - so more then. I do hope some people are still here, even with all the disruptions of late... blame the world of technology which eludes me. Thankfully one of my housemates has a very savvy boyfriend, who kindly tip-tip-tapped away at the keyboard and got everything sorted out. I am living proof that young + male doesn't necessarily = good at internetty things. In fact, if you use the word 'internetty', then you probably don't qualify. Though I once plugged an ethernet cable in upside down (no easy task), so I'm in a league of my own.

In the time I've been away from blogging, I've had quite a build-up of books to talk about, so that will probably take us up til I head off to Northern Ireland. Today I'm going to write about the last two book group books I've read in recent weeks, both classics of the twentieth century.

My Cousin Rachel is the third novel I've read by Daphne du Maurier - I wrote about The Flight of the Falcon here, having not been overwhelmed, but Rebecca is one of my favourite novels. My Cousin Rachel probably fell between the two. (There are some spoilers here, but not too many...) It tells the story of Ambrose and Philip Ashley, cousins who are more or less father and son, living in Cornish rural simplicity, away from women and contentedly reliant upon one another. Ambrose is taken off to Italy, and it is here that he meets and marries Rachel - and dies. Rachel comes to see Philip in England, and he is prepared to hate her - but their relationship becomes increasingly complicated, as does the readers' thoughts about Rachel's potential culpability.

The novel has a lot in common with Rebecca - and not just the setting. The same intrigue, power, and issues about what is left unspoken in relationships. Though not as successful as Rebecca - I found the first 80 pages dragged a little, in fact until Rachel arrived - My Cousin Rachel is brilliantly successful in the sense that I have never left a novel so uncertain as to a character's guilt or lack of it - and either interpretation seems quite valid. Brilliantly done. There are such sophisticated themes of obsession and attracting obsession without being aware of it, the cyclical nature of the men's experiences... The group discussing the novel were divided from absolute loathing to absolute loving, and thus an 'interesting' meeting was held!

My other book group were rather more agreed on To Kill A Mockingbird. This is one The Carbon Copy has been telling me to read for years, and I've continually meant to, so was glad when someone recommended it for book group and spurred me on. What a great book. I don't think there's any point in me giving a synopsis, since almost everyone has read this novel before me, but having seen the film I was surprised that so little of the book was concerned with the trial of Tom Robinson. To Kill A Mockingbird is much more a depiction of Southern life for the Finch family, and a portrait of a daughter's relationship with her father - and a beautiful portrait at that. When I did the Booking Through Thursday about heroes, Colin put forward Atticus Finch, and I have to agree. The man is incredible - a very worthy father, a moralistic lawyer and a humble citizen, a combination which is tricky to write without seeming unrealistic or irritating. Atticus, though, remains wholly admirable and likeable throughout, and is one of the great male characters in literature, I'd say. I could eulogise about him, and this novel, for ages - but I won't. I want to hear what you think.

There, written about two books without quoting from either of them. Tsk. Here's one I like: "If I didn't take this case (Scout) then I wouldn't be able to hold my head up, I wouldn't be about to tell anyone what to do, not even you and Jem." Or this:

"I'm no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and in the jury system - that is no ideal to me, it is a living, working reality. Gentlemen, a court is no better than each man of you sitting before me on this jury. A court is only as sound as its jury, and a jury is only as sound as the men who make it up. I am confident that you gentlemen will review without passion the evidence you have heard, come to a decision, and restore this defendant to his family. In the name of God, do your duty."

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Mary Ann Shaffer

You may remember I eulogised about Mary Ann Shaffer's epistolary novel The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - in fact, it's had rave reviews from more or less everyone. Elaine at Random Jottings pointed me in the right direction, and the latest fan is Our Vicar's Wife, who took it to Cornwall with her last week.

Anyway - it's now on the shelves, published and ready to be read, so do go and get yourselves a copy! Bloomsbury have made this YouTube trailer for it - enticing!

Steinbeck Decision Reversed

I'm not sure how many of you have been following the Steinbeck publishing case, but the 2nd Circuit just overruled the lower court's ruling and found in favor of Penguin and the Estate of Steinbeck's third wife, Elaine. Here's the entire decision.