In Ore Pomarii

Tracy Chevalier is a very readable author, her books though are far from lightweight and I like the way she researchers thoroughly in order to introduce real people into her narrative.  These real life characters from recent history, as well as the drafting of stories of documented human, family dramas mean the book you read holds the attention and engages you in something beyond a complete fiction.

I really enjoyed 'Beautiful Creatures' because it told a story based on the life of fossil-hunter Mary Anning of Lyme Regis.  Within the pages the reader learned about some of the fossil remains Mary found and sold. We met the palaeontologists, geologists and unscrupulous fossil dealers and collectors with whom she came into contact as they are woven into the novel.  It was a Winterborne K book group choice and at a later gathering, using shells and fossils I have at home in my collection, I gave a show and tell session to my fellow groupies which was a pleasure for me and enlightened the others.

I won't be able to give a show and tell session for At The Edge of the Orchard because our biologist from history is the botanist William Lobb and I don't have an authentic collection of pine cones.  Lobb was a Cornish plant collector, employed to collect for an Exeter nurseries and was responsible for the commercial introduction to England of the monkey puzzle tree, the Sequoia and the Redwood. I see that he is also responsible for introducing Desfontainia spinosa,  a pretty shrub with holly-like leaves and with small deep orange and yellow trumpet flowers, which Andy Doran persuaded me to plant in the newly-designed garden at Godalming.  

The novels tells the story of the Goodenough family who battle to establish a plantation of 50 trees in order to secure a plot of land in Ohio’s Black Swamp in the mid 1800s.  The pressures of poverty, illness and the grind of working land that was never meant to be farmed are intensified by the simmering hostility between James and Sadie Goodenough.  Really the novel tells the story of Robert, one of the sons of the warring parents who heads west and keeps on running.  But there is a cast of memorable characters the most memorable being some of the feisty women with whom the passive character of Robert comes into contact.

Robert's encounter and employment with William Lobb allow Chevalier to provide the reader with the benefit of her research into the  life of William Lobb and plant collection practices which took place in order to bring exotic species to the British Isles for introduction into prestigious gardens and estates.  

The narrative ducks back and forth between time frames but is always fluent and manages to keep the reader firmly rooted in the moment.  Above all this is a book with a good ending which does justice to the foregoing narrative and this leaves the reader with a feeling of full circle.

A Sweet Caress, A Beating Heart: Lives lived to the Full – two engrossing offerings from Audible.

Sweet Caress; the Many Lives of Amory Clay by William Boyd

This title has been in my Audible Library for some months.  Somehow I had not got round to downloading it from the Cloud onto my Device, favouring more immediate urges for easy listening, by which I mean thrillers and stories that have a classic structure of a beginning, middle and end.  In point of fact once I settled to Sweet Caress I found that it had a coherent, compelling and chronological structure and was easy to get into. 

This is a story of a life lived to the full.  Through this life, that of Amory Clay, a brave, feisty, characterful woman who becomes a professional photographer, William Boyd tracks some of the defining moments of the 20^th century as told through her camera lens.

  Her professional life, during which she looks for life, love and artistic expression, spans the decadent demi-monde of late 1920s Berlin, New York in the 1930s, the violence of the Blackshirt Riots in London in the same decade and where she receives an injury that will dog her life, and to the Rhineland in the Second World War.  She also, despite her advancing years for a frontline photographer, sees ‘service’ in Vietnam. 

Amory’s father is a flaky paternal figure.  She is born in the decade before the First World War and her disappointed father gives her an ambiguous name and announces the birth of a son.  She has patchy memories of his intervals of leave and there is a bizarre and vivid incident when he drives to pick her up from boarding school, ostensibly to go off on a jaunt, and tries to drive himself and Amory in their car off a bridge to commit suicide.  It is her gay photographer Uncle Greville, who is a more stable and nurturing influence, who gives her a camera, this gift representing the defining moment of her life.

Endings are tricky.  If you have been held by a book all the way through you expect a ‘good’ ending.  It may be happy or sad but if you are me you don’t like ambiguity, you don’t like to feel you have been sold short either.  Boyd’s ending to Sweet Caress is a good one, with a twist of surprise at the very close.    

Where My Heart Used to Beat by Sebastian Faulks                                                                               

The Literary Review has written that "Faulks has the rare gift of being popular and literary at the same time"; he has been named "One of the most impressive novelists of his generation ... who is growing in authority with every book".  He is best known for his three novels set in early 20^th century France: The Girl at the Lion d’Or, Birdsong and Charlotte Gray.  These were published in the late 80s and early 90s.  Fast forward to 2015 and in Where My Used to Beat Faulks returns to that wartime era, but has shifted his arena for the action. 

The novel contains more than one of Faulks’ main recurring themes, the World Wars of the 20^th century and he sheds a long and woeful light over the 20^th century as glimpsed through the life of Robert Hendricks, an English doctor who has experienced the best and worst of times in that century.

  On a small island off the south coast of France, Robert Hendricks, an English doctor is forced to confront the events that made up his life.  The agent of this process, Hendricks’ host, and antagonist, is Alexander Pereira, a man who is living on borrowed time, but who seems to know more about his guest than Hendricks himself does.


To try and make sense of events and people who have shaped his life Hendricks must explore events and his experiences during the war in Italy in 1944, a passionate love that is never resolved, the great days of idealistic work in the 1960s and finally – unforgettably – back into the trenches of the Western Front.  Here Faulks has written an intensely vivid, insightful and heartbreaking passage of unbearable tragedy which epitomises the attitude of the higher echelons of military power in the arena of the First World War towards its ‘foot soldiers’, the millions of souls who were drummed up as little more than cannon fodder, whilst the generals parked themselves in their makeshift canvas headquarters at the rear of the battlefield and dreamt up new manoeuvres for their plans of campaign.

It is a complex novel, representing, in common with Boyd’s Sweet Caress, a commentary on the 20^th century.  Such a complex novel deserves a more detailed and insightful review and for this I attach the following link:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/books/2016/01/23/struggles-heart/q8snoR1kLJN7i1gzzxaLTJ/story.html

A Double Billing: Double Vision and Border Crossing

Pat Barker is an author some of whose books I read in the early days of my Godalming book group.   We started with Regeneration, the first of her First World War trilogy.  It was the second book we read as a group.  Regeneration is a historical and anti-war novel first published in 1991. The novel was a Booker Prize nominee and was described by the New York Times Book Review as one of the four best novels of the year in its year of publication.  The novel explores the experience of British army officers being treated for shell shock during World War I at Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh.  Inspired by her grandfather's experience of World War I, Barker draws extensively on first person narratives from the period. Using these sources, she created characters based on historical individuals present at the hospital including poets and patients, Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, and psychologist W. H. R. Rivers, who pioneered treatments of posttraumatic stress disorder during and after WWI. The novel explores several themes around the effect of the War on identity, masculinity, and social structure.


I stumbled upon Double Vision and Border Crossing in a charity bookshop. Whilst war, atrocities
and war-reporting feature in Double Vision it is more a novel dealing with social issues such as stalking, the exploitation of a widow by her handyman, and the questionable relationship between a young woman in her late teens or early twenties and a man twice her age.  The text flows and the novel is discrete and contained.  I enjoyed it.

Border Crossing deals with other themes:  the novel explores the controversial issue of children who have committed murder, in particular the aftermath after their sentence is served out. A tense psychological thriller, Border Crossing investigates the crimes of a particularly violent boy and the possibility of redemption.  When the protagonist, a child psychologist, plunges into a river to save a young man from suicide, he unwittingly reopens a chapter from his past he had hoped to forget. The rescuer, Tom, already knows the young man as Danny Miller. When Danny was ten, Tom presented evidence that helped commit him to prison for the murder of an elderly woman. Danny, full of suppressed memory and now free from prison, turns to Tom to help him recount what really happened, and discover the truth.  The Border Crossing in the story takes place where the border between good and evil, innocence and guilt are blurred and confused.

Whilst reading Border Crossing my memory of a similar case of

murder by minors is triggered.  The events in Barker's novel are possibly inspired by the tragic murder of James Bulger in 1993.  Then a the two-year-old boy was taken from his mother's side whilst in a shopping centre, and suffered ten skull fractures as a result of an iron bar striking his head. His body was then placed on railway tracks and covered with stones. The two murderers were found to be Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, both ten years old.  The case caused considerable controversy both in Britain and worldwide. Just like Danny in Border Crossing, Thompson and Venables were tried and sentenced as adults, served a sentence then were released under new identities.  Again this was a book that read itself: structured and with an almost unambiguous ending.  With his cover blown once you are not sure whether Danny will manage to escape the grip of his past.

Challenging Reading

In recent months I have been working through novels that I have picked up here and there, titles by authors whose work I have consistently enjoyed.  My reading thread has periodically been punctuated by novels that have previously been nominated for the Booker Shortlist, or have been winners.  Titles such as St Urbain's Horseman by Mordecai Richler, Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess, Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes and Time's Arrow by Martin Amis.  None of these was a particularly 'easy' read.  They are not what I would call accessible novels and I found the challenging.  But there you are, I am a collector and these are four titles ticked off the list.

Meanwhile I continue with another list, my BookRiot challenge.  Slade House by David Mitchell
fulfils the 'horror' category although it is more weird and mystical as a fantasy than frightening.  It began as the series of tweets by Mitchell in July 2015 which evolved into a story and which was set in the same universe as The Bone Clocks.  But the 2,000-word story quickly acquired a life of its own and was published on 27th October 2015 just in time for Halloween.  You need to concentrate when Mitchell is doing his thing, slipping between time frames but his writing is always inventive and articulate.

And then I decide to tackle The Year of the Flood by Margaret Attwood.  I love this woman's writing, and her voice even more.  My sister in law Jenny forwards me a link; it takes me to a slot on YouTube where you can listen to Attwood read one of her poems, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGOaB7Ifg5U   Listening to ' The Moment' has a remarkably calming effect on me.  Her deeply modulated voice and the words and their meaning speak directly to me, have the ability to change a personal perspective.  The message is clear and I heed the message as I continue to sort through a surfeit of papers, documents, publications that I no longer need.   Meanwhile I plough on with The Year of the Flood......  

With a reading of MaddAddam this third novel by Margaret Atwood brings together two of her previous works, Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood.  I read Oryx and Crake at least ten years ago and have no clear memory of the book.  Tackling The Year of the Flood through the medium of an audio book requires a lot of concentration.  I find it is not always easy to hold onto the strands of narrative and I miss the ability to leaf back through pages to help re-orient myself in the narrative when I 'lose the plot'.   Some reviews of MaddAddam run as follows:

“The final entry in Atwood’s brilliant MaddAddam trilogy roils with spectacular and furious satire … Her vision is as affirming as it is cautionary, and the conclusion of this remarkable trilogy leaves us not with a sense of despair at mankind’s failings but with a sense of awe at humanity’s barely explored potential to evolve.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“An epic dystopian journey through a wasteland of high science and low deeds that ends in hope.” – The Independent

I am left with the feeling that I have not done the trilogy justice.  It seems clear to me that I should tackle a second reading challenge in that I should at some point reread the three novels, in hard copy, and try to make sense of the narrative and the new world disorder that is portrayed.

Of Hares and Unicorns: folklore and myth

The hare (Lepus europaeus) appears in English folklore in the saying "as mad as a March hare". 

Here we are on the second day of March having just enjoyed the gift of an extra day in this 'leap' year.   The legend of the White Hare tells of a witch who takes the form of a white hare and goes out

looking for prey at night, or of the spirit of a broken-hearted maiden who cannot rest and who haunts her unfaithful lover.  The mythical Unicorn is white too.  It is a legendary animal of European

folklore, often depicted as a white horse-like or goat-like animal with a long horn and cloven hooves and sometimes a goat's beard - but not lady unicorns surely?  In the Middle Ages and Renaissance it was commonly described as an extremely wild woodland creature, a symbol of purity and grace, which could only be captured by a virgin. In encyclopedias you will read that its horn was said to have the power to render poisoned water potable and to heal sickness. In Medieval and Renaissance times, the tusk of the narwhal was sometimes sold as unicorn horn.

Why all this hares and unicorns?  As it happens I have just read two delightful books; the one recommended by a new bookish friend who came to lunch at The Old Workshop with other village friends who are keen readers.  The other is my choice to fulfil a category on my reading challenge.

'Hare' by Jim Crumley is one in the series Encounters in the Wild, where the author writes of memorable experiences as a quiet bystander at the margin of a place where he can observe the animal's activity and behaviour.   Hares, golden-brown in colour with a pale belly and white tail, spend most of their day nestling in a patch of grass, known as a form, and is most active at night.  When they are disturbed, they can shift..... up to 45 mph.  Jim Crumley's Encounter series is written as short monographs on individual species; companion books include Fox, Barn Owl and Swan.  They are pretty and bijou, very much books to have and to hold. 

'I Believe in Unicorns' by Michael Morpurgo is my choice to fulfil the 'Middle Grade' category on my list of challenges.  I disliked this term intensely when I first encountered it, as it implies something mediocre and not quite worthy of the attention of a discriminating reader.  In fact it is part of educational terminology and describes a category of reading suitable for 8-12 year olds before they are ready to tackle Young Adult fiction.

Tomas hates school, hates books and hates stories. Forced to visit the library, he stops to listen to magical tales that the Unicorn Lady spins. These tales draw him in and soon his life will be changed for ever.  The story is set against the backdrop of war-torn Europe, and explores the power of stories to transform lives    Many reviews of this book are united in finding the story enchanting. "It has adult themes of loss and redemption wrapped up in a delightful and safe story for children. Adults will get as much from this book as children - it brought tears to my eyes." writes one reviewer.  Another says " It will make you cry a little or at least get a lump in your throat but a truly brilliant read and one I think everyone should read."  I am absolutely with these reviewers on that one.  It did bring tears to my eyes, happy ones.  I doubt anyone who treasures the joy they find in reading can help but feel emotional as the story draws to a close.

Whilst on the subject of animals......... I complete my reading of The Soul of an Octopus, lent to me by Francis Shaxson at one of our Bookish Lunches.  The Author Sy Montgomery offers a unique window into octopus behaviour and intelligence through eloquent and vivid descriptions — both science-based and emotional — of her extended encounters with octopuses while going behind the scenes at Boston's New England Aquarium and diving in Polynesian waters. 

The aptly-named giant Pacific octopus Octavia comes alive in the book (as do other octopuses) with a unique personality that responds to Montgomery in poignant ways.  Wild-caught in British Columbia and transported to the aquarium by Federal Express, Octavia is the octopus Montgomery comes to know best. On one occasion, Octavia and Montgomery hold on to each other for one hour and fifteen minutes, in an instance of tactile pleasure felt in an apparently mutual way by octopus and woman. 'I stroked her head,' Montgomery reports, 'her arms, her webbing, absorbed in her presence. She seemed equally attentive to me.'

Montgomery watches Octavia with added excitement when she lays eggs — thousands of them, like 'tiny seed pearls on black string.' 'Mottled with dark patches, Octavia is radiantly beautiful', writes Montgomery, 'the very picture of a healthy octopus and a diligent mother. She fluffs the clusters of eggs nearest the window with one arm, like a mom sitting on a park bench might jiggle a baby buggy.' The eggs, though, will never hatch; they are inert, infertile, sending no signs of life back to their caretaker. Never having had the opportunity to mate with a male, Octavia will not experience the evanescence of octopus motherhood shortly before death in the way that wild female octopuses do."

So three very different animals, two from the real world and the third from the surreal world of fantastical beasts.  But the octopus has been the subject of many mythological stories over the years, one of the best known being that of The Kraken, legendary sea monsters of giant proportions said to dwell off the coasts of Norway and Greenalnd and usually portrayed in art as a giant octopus attacking ships.