A Reading Marathon with some Recommendations

Since winter arrived I have found more excuses to ‘curl up with a book’.  That and listening to selected titles on my trusty Audible App.  I’ll give a brief rundown of some books without a lot of comment and then say a bit more about recommendations.

Continuing with my discovery of the British Library Crime Series I read Cornish Murder by John Bude and Christmas in White by J. Jefferson Farjeon.  Both enjoyed as comfort blanket 

reading.  Perfect over the Christmas interval.  Feel free to borrow!

I read my first Ken Follett, The Man from Moscow, a thriller set in London in 1914.  https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/ken-follett/the-man-from-st-petersburg/9781509862344

Other titles include Exile by James Swallow, sequel to Nomad  which I thought was much better. If you like biographies you might be tempted by Becoming by Michelle Obama.  This has been widely acclaimed and very popular amongst my reading friends but I am somewhat embarrassed to say that, even though her achievements are phenomenal,  I found it a bit too self-promoting.  Perhaps it was not such a good idea to listen to it read by the author herself.

Three to recommend:

The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman

Pullman’s second trilogy following His Dark Materials is The Book of Dust. 

I read volume 1 La Belle Sauvage where the baby Lyra Silvertongue is rescued by Dr Malcolm Polstead, and enjoyed it because I do get swept up into the alternative world around which the novels are based.  Volume 2, The Secret Commonwealth finds Lyra, now twenty years old and her daemon Pantalaimon finding their relationship is put to the test in a dangerous world that finds Lyra travelling through Europe and to the Middle East in a quest to be reunited with Pantalaimo whilst Malcolm now a man with a strong sense of duty and an attachment to Lyra is sent on a journey to find out more about the mysterious roses with special properties that only grow in a desert referenced in the diary of a murdered man.  Rose growers of any kind, even those growing “normal” roses, are being terrorised and murdered by mysterious attackers from the mountains.  Both travel far beyond Oxford where the earlier novels are set to uncover secrets and solve the mystery of the Dust.  I’m not a fan of magical realism but when an author works really hard to make his narrative credible I cannot help get swept up into it.

Warlight by Michael Ondaatje

I read this for my French group.  This was a rewarding novel to read. 

Ondaatje’s prose grabbed my attention and interest : the opening sentence ‘In 1945 our parents went away and left us in the care of two men who may have been criminals’ suggests all manner of outcomes might be possible. From the beginning I could not be sure in what direction the narrative might lead. The Moth and then the Darter seemed to be doubtful and rather dangerous adults to be left in charge of two children. Were they going to be mistreated? This seemed a likely plot. The school arrangements were decidedly dodgy, the children deciding they would rather live at home than board as the parents had directed that they should. The Moth acquiesced and his supervision of the children seemed very lax, as the house filled up with a group of eccentric, mysterious, maybe even nefarious characters who came to populate the children’s milieu in postwar London. The narrative unfolds but the reader is never sure where the story is going. In the background I was wondering where the parents were and why they, and in particular the mother, had left so suddenly. What important reasons were there for the parents’ continued absence? I found certain notable scenes and passages particularly memorable when I came to think about the book after I finished it.   For example the greyhound runs on the Thames, and Nathaniel and Agnes’ encounters in the London house. I thought the narrative was cleverly plotted and then unveiled as a story of espionage activities with which Nathaniel and Rachel were necessarily involved.   There were no dramatic twists and turns as often is the case with novels in this genre. Events and explanations were nicely understated in the concluding part of the novel. I liked the book all the more for that.

Second Sleep by Robert Harris

I’ve read most of Robert Harris’s novels (except the Cicero trilogy) and have never been disappointed.  His latest offering is described as a genre-bending thriller: ‘All my books are about power’ he says. What connects them all is a preoccupation with power at its  apogee, on the brink of collapse.

“Late on the afternoon of Tuesday the ninth of April in the Year of our Risen Lord 1468”. A young cleric, Christopher Fairfax, is making his way resentfully to a remote corner of Wessex on the orders of his bishop to officiate at the burial of a village priest. In his opening pages Harris conjures a lost England in its mix of religiosity and brutishness. When Fairfax discovers a display cabinet in the dead priest’s study, its shelves crammed with illegal artefacts, the truth of this world is revealed. Among the plastic bottles, banknotes and toy bricks displayed there, Fairfax discovers “one of the devices used by the ancients to communicate”, its back marked with the ultimate symbol of their “hubris and blasphemy – an apple with a bite taken out of it”.  Abruptly everything shifts, slotting those strange anachronisms into place. Fairfax’s 15th century is not ours but part of a new calendar that had been reset to 666, the numeral of the Beast of Revelation. In Harris’s imagined future, God has brought down the four riders of the apocalypse on the satanic civilisation of the 21st century and the church has reasserted itself at the centre of the state. “Scientism”, the curse of the ancients, is a heresy, a mortal sin. Stripped of the medical and technological advances of the Industrial Revolution, life is once more nasty, brutish and short.

To say more would truly be a plot-spoiler.  I found Harris’s writing so easy on my reading mind, a book that was enthralling.  With a great ending.

La Belle Sauvage: The Book of Dust - Volume One

My second great read has caused me to rethink a statement I made in an earlier book review.  I wrote that I had little time for 'magical realism' and 'fantasy' writing.  That would be true for a large part of the body of literature in this genre.  But when it is good, really really good, then the genre can enthral and transport the reader into a world of surreality which feels plausible.  So it is with: 

La Belle Sauvage: The Book of Dust (Volume One) by Philip Pullman
This is a fantasy novel, a prequel, the first volume in a planned trilogy named The Book of Dust. Set around 12 years before the start of His Dark Materials, Pullman's previous trilogy, the story covers the events leading up to Lyra Belacqua's arrival as a six-month-old baby at Jordan College, Oxford. 

Amazon says:  

Malcolm Polstead's Oxford life has been one of routine, ordinary even.

He is happiest playing with his daemon, Asta, in their canoe, La Belle Sauvage. But now as the rain builds, the world around Malcolm and Asta is, it seems, set to become increasingly far from ordinary.

Finding himself linked to a baby by the name of Lyra Belacqua, Malcolm is forced to undertake the challenge of his life and to make a dangerous journey that will change him and Lyra for ever . . .

Setting

The setting is a world dominated by the Magisterium, also commonly called "the Church", an international theocracy which actively suppresses heresy. In this world, humans' souls naturally exist outside of their bodies in the form of sentient "dæmons", in animal form which accompany, aid, and comfort their humans. An important plot device is the alethiometer, or symbol reader, of which just six are known to exist. By setting three of the alethiometer's hands to point to symbols around a dial a skilled practitioner can pose questions, which are answered by the automatic movement around the dial of a fourth hand. 

Interestingly Pullman conceived The Book of Dust before the publication of Lyra's Oxford in 2003, originally as a single volume. Writing was under way by 2005, but by 2011 Pullman said that he was considering splitting the novel into two volumes, one set before His Dark Materials and the other set afterwards. In February 2017, Pullman announced that The Book of Dust had become a 'companion' trilogy.

Reception

The novel received positive reviews. The Guardian described it as "worth the wait", calling it "old-fashioned and comfy". The Independent said that "La Belle Sauvage has the feel of an extended preface; thrillingly entertaining and beautifully written, but ultimately something of an introduction to the story proper we know follows thereafter". The Washington Post was extremely positive, stating that "too few things in our own world are worth a 17-year-wait: The Book of Dust is one of them". The A.V. Club said that "even without the deep well of context of those other books of Dust, La Belle Sauvage stands on its own as a singularly beguiling work of fantasy. It's sure to be devoured by readers young and old alike". 

The New York Times felt the book to be "full of wonder" in spite of some longueurs and long stretches of flat dialogue. While acknowledging that "as a tale of flight and pursuit, it’s altogether enjoyable", The Spectator suggested that Pullman's larger aspiration — 'to see off Christianity' — was an impediment to his storytelling, and that the metaphysical ideas around which the narrative revolves were its least successful part.

Postscript: It is a rare thing these days for reviewers in periodicals to be quite so unanimous in their largely unqualified praise for a book.  After all, a 17-year wait brings huge expectations.  That La Belle Sauvage has proved to be a delight to readers is accolade indeed.

TWO MERMAIDS: The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock and Elijah's Mermaid

A couple of days after fulfilling my obligations to book group etiquette and ploughing through my duo of thrillers I am able to refind good writing.....

The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar

I stumbled upon this title whilst searching on the internet for information about The Essex Serpent. I think probably it was mentioned in the context of being another novel about a mythical creature, set in a similar time-frame as the 'Serpent' and written with a real feel for the language and mores of the time.  It is authentic to the ear.  Once I had pulled up an image of the cover I was smitten ............ in shades of grey and yellow it features a scallop shell, one of the most beautiful forms in nature to my mind, and the shell which features most prominently in my shell collection.  The shapes, colours are so various.  There are some 300 species of scallop extant, and to read more about this fascinating shell and the way it features in our lives nutritionally and culturally (think architecture, furniture, décor, jewellery, utensils, religion) check out Wiki.

But to return to the book, here is what Amazon has to say:

‘A brilliantly plotted story of mermaids, madams and intrigue in 1780s London and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it become the Essex Serpent of 2018’ - The Pool'Imogen Hermes Gowar is a soon-to-be literary star’ - Sunday Times

THIS VOYAGE IS SPECIAL. IT WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING.

One September evening in 1785, the merchant Jonah Hancock hears urgent knocking on his front door. One of his captains is waiting eagerly on the step. He has sold Jonah’s ship for what appears to be a mermaid.

As gossip spreads through the docks, coffee shops, parlours and brothels, everyone wants to see Mr Hancock’s marvel. Its arrival spins him out of his ordinary existence and through the doors of high society. At an opulent party, he makes the acquaintance of Angelica Neal, the most desirable woman he has ever laid eyes on… and a courtesan of great accomplishment. This meeting will steer both their lives onto a dangerous new course, on which they will learn that priceless things come at the greatest cost.

Where will their ambitions lead? And will they be able to escape the destructive power mermaids are said to possess?

In this spell-binding story of curiosity and obsession, Imogen Hermes Gowar has created an unforgettable jewel of a novel, filled to the brim with intelligence, heart and wit.

And for an extract of the book you can find the opening chapter here:

https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/find-your-next-read/extracts/2016/jun/the-mermaid-and-mrs-hancock-by-imogen-hermes-gowar/

And this is what I thought:

By way of introduction, well over twenty years ago, a friend and fellow conchologist with a special interest in curiosities of natural history asked me if I would arrange to go to the Booth Museum in Brighton and take photographs of the 'mermaid' they were holding in their collections.  He, David Heppell, was compiling a book of unnatural curiosities of natural history.  Often these would be Chimerae, imaginary monsters compounded of incongruous parts.  The Brighton mermaid was no exception being the melding of an ape head and torso complete with its forelimbs and the tail of a fish.  Extremely ugly but some of these artefacts were so well made they were convincing.  The first mermaid in Gowar's book is clearly of this type.  

In many ways a companion volume to The Essex Serpent of Victorian East Anglia, this debut novel steps back further, to Georgian London, and features as one of its principal characters, a 'mermaid'.  Gowar's  human cast is cleverly set in its various hierarchical milieu, with appropriate vocabulary, turns of phrase,  speech fashions and behaviour according to social class, and their respective susceptibilities and superstitions.

Gowar has written with wit and panache and in particular delivers a masterly interlude when the 'Madam',Bet Chappell, hires the wizened little mermaid to draw customers to her upscale brothel, the grotesque curio only emphasising the beauty of the women who frolic round it, draped in pearls, their privities dyed bright seaweed green, in a masque of the sea that turns into a carefully orchestrated orgy.   Without doubt this is an erotic piece of writing but with so much taste.......  Another vivid and moving passage occurs towards the end of the book when Bet Chappell faces retribution for connivance in pandering to the public appetite for sins of the flesh.

So I thoroughly enjoyed this book on many levels.  I found the notion of mermaids and the public fascination with the possibility of their existence, which flows through the narrative, to be captivating and, in a sense takes me full circle since the day I first gazed upon that ugly monstrosity in a glass case in Brighton Museum. 

LATER

…… Some time after reading this book my attention was drawn to another 'Mermaid' novel by Katharine.  Only too eager to indulge my fascination with mermaids I settled to read:

Elijah's Mermaid by Essie Fox

Check out this blogspot for a beautiful site about this book with some captivating illustrations:

http://elijahsmermaidreviews.blogspot.com/

This short blurb appears on Amazon:

Saved from the Thames one foggy London night, Pearl grows up at the House of Mermaids - a brothel that becomes the closest thing to home. But despite being cosseted and spoiled by the Madame, come her 14th year, Pearl is to be sold to the highest bidder. 

Orphaned twins Lily and Elijah are on a rare trip to London when they meet the ethereal Pearl. And the repercussions of this chance encounter will bind all their fates together, in a dark and dangerous way.

Bewitching, gothic and sensual, this is a tale of love and betrayal in a world where nothing is quite as it seems.

There is a longer synopsis/review on the web page of the author, Monique Mulligan

https://moniquemulligan.com/2013/03/02/review-elijahs-mermaid-by-essie-fox/

This review inevitably contains plot spoilers so should be read with that proviso. 

And what did I think:

Well...……… if you like seriously gothic, Victorian London, under-belly aspects of a demi-monde life in a story of love and betrayal , obsession and guilt, you may well find this an engaging read.  Women and children are exploited as victims of poverty, a male culture and the world of the Madame and her brothel.  There are family bonds that tie and relationships to be revealed as the story unfolds.  

What I do like is the several sections at the end of the book where Fox mentions real historical characters who have influenced those in her novel, real places which have influenced her settings, including the Grotto at Margate which I know well, and other themes relating to photography, health.  She also provides a glossary of Victorian slang which occurs in her prose.  I like it when authors bother to give that information to their readers.  This contrasts with an absence of such ancillary information in Imogen Hermes Gowar's book.  I thought she ought to have given a nod to the 'mermaid' which must have in part inspired The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock.  She has worked as a curator in the museum world, surely she must have come across an example of the 'monkey-fish' monstrosities that were contrived and passed off as genuine mermaids.  I am always impressed by authors who give the reader some background as to the origins of their works of fiction or non-fiction.

I found this novel sat quite nicely in the context of other recently-read titles such as the Mermaid and Mrs Hancock, also The Essex Serpent.  It also picks up on themes in A Year of Marvellous Ways.  Sometimes it is fun to read a gaggle of books whose plots and themes echo each other in some ways.  

Then again I am always a sucker for the stuff of mermaids...…..

One Hundred Years of Solitude

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Wikipedia:  This is a landmark 1967 novel by Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez that tells the multi-generational story of the Buendía family, whose patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía, founds the town of Macondo, a fictitious town in the country of Colombia.

The magical realist style and thematic substance of One Hundred Years of Solitude established it as an important representative novel of the literary Latin American Boom of the 1960s and 1970s, which was stylistically influenced by Modernism (European and North American) and the Cuban Vanguardia (Avant-Garde) literary movement.

Since it was first published in May 1967 in Buenos Aires by Editorial Sudamericana, One Hundred Years of Solitude has been translated into 37 languages and has sold more than 30 million copies. The novel, considered García Márquez's magnum opus, remains widely acclaimed and is recognized as one of the most significant works in the Spanish literary canon.

As a metaphoric, critical interpretation of Colombian history, from foundation to contemporary nation, One Hundred Years of Solitude presents different national myths through the story of the Buendía family, whose spirit of adventure places them amidst the important actions of Colombian historical events. 

The basic structure of the novel traces the chronicle of the Buendía family over a century. It is the history of a family with inescapable repetitions, confusions, and progressive decline. Beginning sometime in the early nineteenth century, the novel's time span covers the family's rise and fall from the foundation of Macondo by the youthful patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía, until the death of the last member of the line. Throughout the narrative, the fates of the Buendías and Macondo are parallel reflections. In fact, we witness the history of a people who, like the wandering tribes of Israel, are best understood in terms of their genesis from a single family.

What did I think:

I started this novel twice with an interval between.  I felt I had not given the novel my full attention the first time and went back again resolving to give more focus to the narrative and try and wrap my head round the characters.  But this was such a problem, with the repetition of names as the narrative unfolded.  But not just the repetition of one character's name, but the successive naming of subsequent generations using the small pool of names for the characters.  I mean, 17 Aurelianos and 7 generations of Buendias!!  There were times when I felt as if I was reading the Bible.  It's a family saga without equal!

I resorted to Wikipedia and thought, well if I read this I will at least have learnt something about the plot, the symbolism and metaphors, the context, the significance in Latin American literature, the reasons for the acclaim it received.  And, what magical realism is.  Well, to be truthful if I never read another magical realistic novel again I will be happy!  My reading temperament is not cut out for the blurring of fantasy and the real world.   It's a style of writing in which the supernatural is presented as mundane, and the mundane as supernatural or extraordinary,  a constant intertwining of the ordinary with the extraordinary. 

I was interested to read what the Solitude of the title represented and I read that:

"Perhaps the most dominant theme in the book is that of solitude. Macondo was founded in the remote jungles of the Colombian rainforest. The solitude of the town is representative of the colonial period in Latin American history, where outposts and colonies were, for all intents and purposes, not interconnected.  Isolated from the rest of the world, the Buendías grow to be increasingly solitary and selfish. With every member of the family living only for him- or her-self, the Buendías become representative of the aristocratic, land-owning elite who came to dominate Latin America in keeping with the sense of Latin American history symbolized in the novel."

In addition to Wikipedia I read other critiques and sets of study notes ion the Internet in order to try and get inside the framework and purpose of the novel, but in truth even these bits of text had my head spinning.  But of all the comment and criticism I read about 100 Years this particularly struck a chord with me:

"Although One Hundred Years of Solitude has come to be considered one of, if not the, most influential Latin American texts of all time, the novel and Gabriel García Márquez have both received occasional criticisms. Stylistically, Harold Bloom (Harold Bloom (born July 11, 1930) is an American literary critic and Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University and has written 40 books including 20 on literary criticism - so he knows a thing or two) remarked that "My primary impression, in the act of rereading One Hundred Years of Solitude, is a kind of aesthetic battle fatigue, since every page is rammed full of life beyond the capacity of any single reader to absorb... There are no wasted sentences, no mere transitions, in this novel, and you must notice everything at the moment you read it."  

That was the problem, the intensity of concentration the book seemed to require almost reduced me to tears of frustration.

But at least I know a bit more about this important and iconic novel than I did before and, in a way, I'm glad it was chosen!

Two Women: Eleanor Oliphant and Marvellous Ways

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

Here is a debut novel, discovered through a writing competition, by an author in her 40s, which has sold for huge sums worldwide.  This title was chosen by my Winterborne Kingston Book Group, known as 'Splinter'.

Amazon says:  Eleanor Oliphant has learned how to survive - but not how to live

Eleanor Oliphant leads a simple life. She wears the same clothes to work every day, eats the same meal deal for lunch every day and buys the same two bottles of vodka to drink every weekend.

Eleanor Oliphant is happy. Nothing is missing from her carefully timetabled life. Except, sometimes, everything.

One simple act of kindness is about to shatter the walls Eleanor has built around herself. Now she must learn how to navigate the world that everyone else seems to take for granted - while searching for the courage to face the dark corners she’s avoided all her life.

Change can be good. Change can be bad. But surely any change is better than… fine?

An astonishing story that powerfully depicts the loneliness of life and the simple power of a little kindness

What I thought:

From the outset I realised that Eleanor is something of an oddball.  I confess at first I thought she was, as we tend to say these days of someone who is a bit odd, obsessive, or antisocial, 'on the spectrum'. Being so precise about her food choices and meals, buying two tickets for a gig in case she lost one, and taking people literally, leading an orderly life, these all spoke of some kind of autism, I thought.   But as the narrative progressed I realised that rather, Eleanor was lonely and a damaged person, used to being let down in life.  During the course of the novel we gradually find out why she is isolated.  There was much humour in the portrayal of Eleanor in the context of her interactions  at work, her shopping habits, her regular consumption of two bottles of vodka  (somehow this did not sit as quite convincing to me).  I laughed out loud at her puzzlement after she had opted for a Hollywood wax.  Even odd titbits such as her buying a copy of Razzle for Sammy! And her shopping expedition to buy clothing was equally funny.  Then there are poignant things as when Eleanor goes to a hair salon and thanks Laura for “making her shiny”.   But where did her naïve belief that she was destined to connect with the second-rate self-obsessed pop star for a romantic relationship come from?  Did this fit with the character as she was being revealed by the writer.  Certainly it gave a mechanism for the emotional crash that was to come.  

When you see a section entitled Bad Days, you think you know it is going to go end badly. I did guess that the mother was no longer alive and the phone calls were taking place in Eleanor's head.  Something of the language the author used in that dialogue was not quite authentic to my ear and that is what started me thinking.  Raymond is a character of continuity throughout it all and I wondered if  he and Eleanor would end up together.  Gail Honeyman does not go that far for her reader, but in the end you do feel that Eleanor has been rescued from the loneliness that has dogged her all her life.  

A Year of Marvellous Ways by Sarah Winman

A Year of Marvellous Ways begins on the bank of a Cornish creek in
1947. The year absolutely helps me to ground this novel in historical
terms, I was born that year so it gives a good context. And Cornwall
was the destination for many family holidays between the years of
1976 and 1984. We did not do abroad when our children were young.
Where Winman talks of creeks off the Carrick Roads, the ebb and
flow of tides, the gathering of cockles to coddle and limpets to pickle,
this is so familiar to me. I thought her descriptive prose was beautiful
and vivid with a real feel for nature. I loved the descriptions of the
orange starfish, many of them getting washed onto the shore and the
idea that they are stars that have fallen to earth. There was lots of

imagery which was beautiful.

The arrival of Francis Drake, the young man only recently returned
from the battlefields of France on his errand to deliver a letter to a
bereaved father from his son, a fellow soldier who didn’t make it
home. On the face of it you might think that Francis has been the
lucky one to survive the war but there are traumas in his past and he
has only recently had the shocking experience of Missy drowning
herself before his very eyes. I found this passage very shocking. I
liked Missy, she introduces the idea of a mermaid, how life can
change. I connected with her character rather better than Marvellous.
Yes, this was a character that the author wrote many words about,
she is after all the raison d’etre of the novel. But I found her a bit
tiresome sometimes, whimsical, ambiguous, contradictory. I
sometimes found it difficult to separate the real from the ‘magic’ this is
the so-called genre magical realism and I find it a bit frustrating. You
can sometimes not know where you are. Also known as 'marvellous
realism' it essentially represents a view of the real world whilst also

adding or revealing magical elements.   It does not ring my bell 

(Is it a coincidence that the main protagonist is called 'Marvellous'?) 

A good definition for Magical Realism is 'It is what happens when a highly detailed realistic setting is invaded by something too strange to believe'.

In some ways the narrative almost reads like a fairytale, complete with 

a journey into the woods; characters with strange, winsome names
and enchanted pasts (Marvellous tells the story of her mermaid
mother, shot shortly after her daughter’s birth, mistaken for a seal
frolicking in the water); and a gentle kind of magic is available to those
in need: a young girl drops an egg white into a glass of water to see it

take the form of the face of her one true love.

                                         ………………… 0000000...……………...

Here is a Short review from the Guardian below, "gripping suspense", "pacey plot"
...…...do any of Splinter recognise this as the book we read?

Waiting is what 89-year old Marvellous spends the year 1947 doing, in
an isolated Cornish hamlet, although she isn’t sure what she is waiting for. This
might seem like a less-than-engaging narrative device, but Sarah Winman creates
gripping suspense while unfolding Marvellous’s memories, from lonely nights spent
“willing her life to change” to the time “Whatshisname” was lured in her direction by
a Louis Armstrong song playing on the wireless. Paths cross in unexpected ways in
this pacey plot. An unlikely friendship develops at the core of the compelling tale
when Marvellous meets a troubled young soldier, Drake. Storytelling rejuvenates
Drake: as Marvellous shares stories of her life resonating with the transcendent
power of love, Drake learns how to marvel at life again, seeing the extraordinary in
the ordinary. “Everyone had a limit,” writes Winman, engrossingly showing
characters pushed past their breaking point. The novel’s surprising denouement is
also well worth the wait. .

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