Month: July 2011

A Grand Day Out

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Thanks to the lovely people at Specsavers, and the media company they use (MEC) really does provide some charming folk, I spent yesterday travelling up to London and watching two episodes of The TV Book Club being recorded. I’d seen one recorded in the last series, which was great fun and involved meeting Jo Brand, whom I love – this time we didn’t get to chat to the presenters, because other people had priority, but I’ll get onto them in a moment.

So, I arrived at Kennington tube station and whipped out my (not-so)smart phone… but Google Maps wasn’t working, for some reason… and I had to try to remember the route I’d taken last time. In my family, Mum and Dad seem to have navigation as their sixth sense, and look pityingly upon me and my brother… who very much don’t. We’re both pretty good at getting lost (one day I’ll tell you about East Chinnock’s Circular Path of Ineluctability, but not today) – however, today I managed to find my way, all by myself! True, this involved turning left, walking, turning right, walking… and I’m there. But think how many times I chose not to turn left or turn right? Several, that’s how many.

I arrived, and immediately spotted Keith, whom I had the pleasure of meeting last time. It was also lovely to meet Martin and Lyndsay. Clicking on their names should take you to their blogs…

But we weren’t the only special guests. The lovely ladies of Elm Park Reading Group had won a competition to come and see the episodes being recorded, and it was very nice to have a quick chat with them. Here are five of their group, with lovely smiles…


I’m especially hoping that Irene (second from left) will find her way here, as we turned out to have nearly identical reading tastes – bonding over Elizabeth von Arnim, Katherine Mansfield, Ivy Compton-Burnett, Barbara Pym, Diary of a Nobody… but Irene likes Catcher in the Rye, and I don’t(!) Irene – you will love E.M. Delafield’s Diary of a Provincial Lady, promise. Now I want to go and pay a visit to the Elm Park Reading Group! Are men allowed?

Onto the episodes. The first featured a discussion about The Radleys by Matt Haig – a suburban family with secret vampiric urges. The panel (Jo Brand, Meera Syal, Stephen Tompkinson, Rory McGrath and impressively intellectual celeb guest Andrea Corr from The Corrs) all loved it, as did Nicola (one of the wonderful crew) so I will probably give it a go sometime… but me and blood aren’t a great combination.

The second episode being recorded was the same panel, but with Andrea Corr ushered off and National Treasure Celia Imrie taking her place on the sofa – and they chatted about Emma Henderson’s Grace Williams Says it Loud, which I have started and sidelined… again, probably not my cuppa, but an interesting discussion nonetheless. Sorry to be quite brief about them, but (a) I haven’t read the books yet, and (b) you should watch the episodes yourself!

I love that the presenters – and often, although not always, the guests – are really passionate readers, and excited to talk about books. It’s refreshing, for a medium that often thinks the only way people will interact with books is costume drama. We love costume drama – of course we do – but there is definitely plenty of room for book discussion programmes too. I would LOVE to see more of BBC’s My Life in Books too, or (even better?) The TV Book Club could pick a year from the past (1930 would be fun) and imagine which eight books they might have chosen from that year – and do a series on them. I’d love it, anyway…

All in all, a great day out. Thanks for letting me come back!

Oh, and I did pop by the wondeful Slightly Foxed bookshop on Gloucester Road first (mostly secondhand; some new books, including their own publications) and bought a couple of books I’m pleased with. More on that soon, probably. And a neat link into tomorrow’s post… and the day after’s (day’s after?)

Adieu!

A Photo Post

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A couple of years ago I was talking to a friend about this blog, and she said “I sometimes read the posts – but usually only when there are lots of pictures.” That’s right up there with my brother telling me he “skips the bookish bits” – both of them would be pleased to see a post devoted mostly to photos. I’m no great photographer, but I thought you might like to see a few bits and pieces from the past fortnight or so. Those of you who know me on Facebook may already have seen most of them…

I went to buy delphiniums, and instead came home with a cat-covered cushion…

On my very indirect way to Hay-on-Wye, I popped back to my old village – I planted this tree with my Grandad (known as Grandad Tractor, because he worked on a farm) when it was a tiny sapling. Look at it now!

I am very impressed with the effort Blackwell’s have gone to – no ordinary scaffolding for them.

Surely this can’t possibly be true??

The quiz I attend every Sunday always has a cartoon round – this week’s challenge was ‘the landlord visiting a library’ and I won with this sketch! My team, Queen Equizabeth I, were rightfully proud – even if we only came mid-table for the rest of the quiz…

My housemate and I took some pirates – including Tompkins the Inconsiderate – to the woods, to find a very particular tree.

Hope all is well with you this Monday – have a great week!

International Anita Brookner Day

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Happy 83rd birthday, Anita Brookner, and Happy International Anita Brookner Day to the rest of you – surely the most publicised literary event of the past decade, courtesy of Thomas (and Simon is co-hosting). Having intended to read Brookner for a number of years, this seemed like the perfect time to give the old girl a whirl. And so I duly took down her 1984 Booker Prize winning Hotel du Lac off my shelf, and have just finished reading it.

And oh dear, it is not in the spirit of the thing, but… this might be something of a lukewarm post. Thomas did warn us several times that Hotel du Lac, although Brookner’s most famous novel, is not her best – and I did listen to him – but it felt expedient to read the novel I had on my shelves already. So I shall judge merely Hotel du Lac; I will not try and extrapolate beyond that to Brookner as a writer.

Hotel du Lac is set in a hotel by Lake Geneva, and we see it all through the eyes of romance novelist Edith Hope. She describes herself thus:

this mild-looking, slightly bony woman in a long cardigan, distant, inoffensive, quite nice eyes, rather large hands and feet, meek neck, not wanting to go anywhere, but having given my word that I would stay away for a month until everyone decides that I am myself again.

And the hotel itself
seems to be permanently reserved for women. And for a certain kind of woman. Cast-off or abandoned, paid to stay away, or to do harmless womanly things, like spending money on clothes.

Amongst these women, and the most interesting characters in the novel, are mother and daughter Mrs. Pusey and Jennifer. Edith spends most of the first half of the novel revising the ages she considers them to be, from 40s and 20s to, eventually, 70s and 40s. They are rather desperate, and lonely, and put on false cheer. But, to be completely honest, they have already flown from my mind a little. Their portraits were painted a little too thinly, on too unstable a canvas.

Amongst these women there is only one man of note – Mr. Neville. I couldn’t describe the relationship between Edith and Mr. Neville as romantic, still less a love story, but he does offer opportunities for some interesting views from Edith, which are refreshingly neither old-fashioned nor modern, but an honest path between the two.
“My idea of absolute happiness is to sit in a hot garden all day, reading, or writing, utterly safe in the knowledge that the person I love will come home to me in the evening. Every evening.” “You are a romantic, Edith,” repeated Mr. Neville, with a smile. “It is you who are wrong,” she replied. “I have been listening to that particular accusation for most of my life. I am not a romantic. I am a domestic animal. I do not sigh and yearn for extravagant displays of passion, for the grand affair, the world well lost for love. I know all that, and know that it leaves you lonely. No, what I crave is the simplicity of routine. An evening walk, arm in arm, in fine weather. A game of cards. Time for idle talk. Preparing a meal together.”
And so the novel continues. Now for the negative.

What makes me a bit cross is that Hotel du Lac made me respond in a way I hate – using responses from which I would normally run a mile. I can’t stand it when critics sneer at ‘nothing happening’ in a book, or about boring heroines. The sort of ridiculous statement Saul Bellow made of Elizabeth Taylor’s Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont, that ‘I seem to hear the tinkle of teacups’ – which ought really to be a compliment. I wish I could have heard the tinkle of teacups in Hotel du Lac! But nothing felt vital or vivid to me. Edith is quite a boring person, but that wouldn’t matter if she had not also been a boring character. Austen’s Mr. Collins is boring; Mrs. Palfrey is pretty boring, if it comes to that, but neither of these are boring characters, because of the vitality with which their dry lives are evoked – one for humour, and the other for empathy. Edith Hope simply fades, fades, fades into a pretty backdrop.

You know me, I love books without much plot. I love novels which look gently, calmly, slowly at the ways in which people interact. I thought I would love Anita Brookner, but I certainly did not love Hotel du Lac. Which is not to say I hated it – more than anything, I was disappointed. There seem to be so many novelists who ‘do’ this sort of book rather better – E.H. Young, E.M. Delafield, even Richmal Crompton to a lesser extent. Brookner’s writing in Hotel du Lac is never glaringly bad, and is occasionally perceptive. She has a knack for using unusual adjectives or adverbs which unsettle (‘”I hate you,” she shouted, hopefully’) but… overall, I was not blown away by her style, or compelled by her prose. Often my eyes slipped to the end of the page, without taking in what had I had read. It all felt tolerable, I suppose, but…

Yet I will not let my lukewarm response to Hotel du Lac put me off. I shall remember that I was warned it wouldn’t be Brookner’s best. I will read the other reviews which will doubtless pop up around the blogosphere today. And I will wait a few years, and given Anita another go.

Burying the Pratchett

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First things first – huge congratulations to my brother, who has passed his final lot of actuarial exams, and is now a fully-qualified actuary!

Second things second – onto the post for today (and possibly my favourite ever post title – I do love a pun, donchaknow). There are a few authors who are not just liked or disliked, but seem to inspire a fervour in their fans which sets them apart from common or garden novelists on your bookshelf. Jane Austen, James Joyce, Angela Thirkell – these are all names which come to mind. And, beating all these by securing such fanaticism during his own life, Terry Pratchett.

Of course, there are plenty of people who like Mr. P a bit, or appreciate some of his books and not others, etc. But there are plenty who think he can do no wrong, and refuse to believe that anybody could be immune to his charms. Their eyes light up at his name, and they are adamant that he should be read by all. I don’t think I know anybody quite at this level of fandom in the blogosphere (are there?) but I have met quite a few in book groups and other social gatherings – and Mr. P certainly isn’t without his devoted (if not feverishly fervent) fans among the blogs – including the lovely Claire of Paperback Reader, Sakura of Chasing Bawa, and doubtless many others.

Another of his rational admirers is my housemate Mel. We don’t have a hugely similar taste in books, but we do overlap with quite a few favourite titles (Gilead, Rebecca) and generally know whether or not the other person will share our enthusiasm for a book. I lend her Angela Young, but I wouldn’t bother with E.H. Young. She told me I shouldn’t judge Terry Pratchett by his covers (I think all the ones I’ve seen are awful) and should give him a go – so, over the course of a few months, I read Going Postal (2004).

Going Postal, in brief, is about conman and trickster Moist von Lipwig, who is apparently also in Making Money and Thud! He has been caught, and is faced with the choice of being hanged, or… sorting out Ankh-Morpork’s post office.

The plot winds over 472pp. and it would be too complex to explain to the uninitiated (such as I was myself) what golems or banshees are in the Discworld, er, world. Lots of characters appear in several novels, and I didn’t really know whether people like Havelock Vetinari, who seems to rule the roost, appear in lots of other novels or not. Almost everyone I’ve spoken to about Terry Pratchett say it doesn’t really matter whether or not you read them in order, and that they can all stand alone, but I think perhaps it would take a while to feel like you knew the world Pratchett returns to time and again.

For a full plot outline of Going Postal, I’m going to be lazy and point you in the direction of Wikipedia’s very able summary. The main gist is that the city’s postal service is completely useless, and the post office is filled with tens of thousands of unsent letters – envelopes cascade when any door is opened; the whole building threatens to collapse under the weight of it all. The command of aging postman Tolliver Groat and his assistant, pin-obsessive Stanley Howler, does not inspire confidence. Moist von Lipwig revitalises the postal service, and must decide between honest work or corruption – or, as seems more likely, a blend of the two. In the background, there is also a somewhat unlikely romance with the unaptly named Adora Bell Dearheart.

So… what did I think of my first Pratchett read? Well, I enjoyed it rather more than I thought I would. Some of it is very funny – I especially like the Dimwell Arrhythmic Rhyming Slang which does not rhyme, an example being “Syrup of prunes: wig”, and I couldn’t help laughing a lot at Stanley’s discourses on the topic of pins. But… but… I did have a few problems with it.

One issue I have with Going Postal, rather than (I assume) Pratchett’s wider work, was Moist himself. Selfishness is the trait I loathe most in fictional characters, and I am never going to be able to get behind a character who is a conman or robber and yet is supposed to be sympathetic too. This is why I can’t watch the TV drama Hustle. And the same casual cruelty which I find so unpleasant in some of Evelyn Waugh’s novels. Moist has something of a redemption (I love that the Wikipedia article lists the themes of the novel as ‘Fantasy/Redemption/Post Office’) but not really – he’s still happy to trick innocent people out of their savings, and so on.

More generally, I found the whole novel a little too *silly*. I love surreal elements in books, and the idea of a post office which needs overhauling could be really fun. But everything is writ so large; there is so much exaggeration and extravagance, from the fantastical names onwards, that it all felt to me a bit like a schoolboy writing his first over-the-top story. Which was fun to read, most of the time, but difficult to feel like it affected me much. Not every novelist has to address the problems of the human condition (although I daresay plenty of Pratchett fans would argue that he does) but one of my problems with fantasy novels is that they often seem to sideline the minutiae of human interaction in favour of wider, more ridiculous and hyperbolic brushstrokes.

This might all be throwing fuel onto the fire for ardent Prachettites. I want to reiterate that I enjoyed Going Postal rather more than I thought I would, and I’m pleased I gave him a go. Since my book group is reading one of his novels later in the year, I daresay I’ll give him another go. But it has not been a wholly successful experiment – the fault is with the reader, not the book; the writing is good, and I imagine Pratchett is one of the best at what he does – but what he does is not what I want, and I shall slink back to my real people in real houses, with only a moderate amount of mail coming through the postbox of a morning.

You wait ages for one obscure book to be reprinted…

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…and two come at once!

Verity alerted me to the fact that Greyladies will be reprinting Richmal Crompton’s Leadon Hill – it’s one that I own (and paid an extortionate amount for) but haven’t read, but I’d always be delighted to have more RC in print.


And Jane is blowing the fanfare for a reprint of Leo Walmsley’s Love in the Sun – I’m sure I’m one of many who read her enthusiastic review last year, or perhaps longer ago, and wanted to read it but couldn’t find an affordable copy. The Walmsley Society is reissuing it at the end of July.


Any other upcoming reprints or translations you’re excited about?

A Book Surprise

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You know me – it’s not unusual that I buy a book or two, now and then. The other day was one of those days – I spotted A Fairy Leapt Upon My Knee by Bea Howe mentioned in the Sylvia Townsend Warner / David Garnett letters, and it sounded like it might be useful for my thesis, as well as quite interesting. Bea Howe was a friend of Sylvia TW’s, as well as Bloomsbury enough to warrant this rather nice portrait by Duncan Grant:


Anyway, said book arrived. Or, rather I had to go to the Royal Mail Sorting Office and pay £1.97 to get it, because the people sending it hadn’t put enough stamps on the parcel. I was a little miffed about this, but soon didn’t mind AT ALL. Here is the book (and I’ve taken the opportunity to show you the new cushion I bought, called ‘Moggy’)


I opened the parcel whilst I walked down street, as one does, and flipped it open… this is what I saw:


Could this be true? Could this copy be from the library of Richard Garnett, the editor of the Garnett/Warner letters? Surely a coincidence?

And then my eyes flicked over to the right-hand side… and there it was:


OHMYGOODNESS. David Garnett, much beloved (to me) author of Lady into Fox had owned this book. The book I bought because it was mentioned in his published letters. I got home and checked the signature against his online – they matched.

Breathe, Simon, breathe.

Any books in your libraries that are exciting for similar reasons? The nearest I’ve had before was the copy of The Priory by Dorothy Whipple which I bought, and discovered upon arriving home held her signature. Fun!

Life in a Day

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It’s time to take a step away from my normal book reviews, and turn attention towards film – I don’t write about films very often, because this isn’t stuck-in-a-box-office – and so when I do, it tends to be films which I’ve loved, and want to encourage other people to see. So it should come as no surprise that this review of Life in a Day is almost wholly positive – I think Life in a Day is one of the best films I’ve ever seen, and certainly the best non-fiction film. It’s almost a documentary, but not quite.


The producer, Ridley Scott, and his team asked people on YouTube to contribute a video about their life on Saturday 24th June 2010 [I mean July, thanks Liz!]. There were a few questions – what do you love? what do you fear? what’s in your pocket – but in general they were given free rein. And not just in the West, but around the world; 400 cameras were sent to the developing world. They received over 4500 hours of film, from 81,000 contributors, in 192 countries. This was edited to a few hundred submissions, and turned into the amazing film Life in a Day, which I saw yesterday and want to watch again, right away.

The film is vaguely both chronological and thematic. 24th July turned out to be a full moon, so there were some shots of that, and we move through people’s early morning routines – including a moving one of a toddler and his father in a hugely untidy apartment, I think maybe in Thailand. Towards the end of the film it was night again, but in between the pieces were cut together in more subtle ways, the only obvious editorial intrusions being when several people together answered what they fear (“ALL kinds of monsters), what they love (“My refrigerator – it just stays in the corner and keeps its mouth shut”), and what they have in their pockets (a lot of guns…)

What made Life in a Day so brilliant, and not mawkish as I’d feared, is that almost all the clips show rather than tell. I expected lots of grainy videos of British teenagers whining, but most of the contributions were collaborative – people filming other people, or taking the camera on a tour. Most felt quite professional too – or, at least, the people owned a tripod. Camera professionalism didn’t ruin spontaneity, or make the clips feel fake. Indeed, probably my favourite video went a bit awry – a man films his wife holding their baby twins, and is in the midst of quoting Walt Whitman when his wife interjects “This is so self-indulgent – I’ve been looking after them ALL day, will you please stop?” and all the while he is trying to remember whether the Whitman line has the word ‘spirit’ or ‘soul’ in it.

For there are equal amounts of laughter and tears in this film, often provoked by the same clips. For instance – the man videoing the birth of his baby (moving) who faints in the process (amusing!) Alongside births (both human and giraffe) there are marriages, a proposal, and pregnancy – but the only deaths are seen at a distance, in the tragic events of the Love Parade festival in Germany. For some people and families 24th July 2010 was especially significant, and these moments are included – but the more interesting moments of the film are entirely normal – whatever that means for the people and cultures involved. A boy has his first shave in the West; African women sing while preparing food; in one of my other favourite moments, we get a quick glimpse of a balut cart in the Philippines – which brought back memories for me.

And then there is the triptych of US soldiers in Afghanistan; a war wife dressing herself up to Skype her husband there, and crumbling before the monitor once the conversation is over; an Afghani photo-journalist taking the camera around the Afghanistan that doesn’t make the news.

It sounds cliched, but Life in a Day really did make me marvel at how wonderfully and fearfully made humans are – how precious lives are, and how poignant the mundane can be. Going with a cynical mindset would ruin the film, but you don’t need to be as easily teary as I am to make this a moving and memorable experience. Some critics have said that the film is too upbeat, but I don’t think it could be called that – there are plenty of sad moments, among the happy and the hopeful. It’s also the most compelling film I’ve ever seen. The film is as varied as life is – and, as a stunningly ambitious experiment to capture the whole world’s life in a day, I think the film has succeeded as well as is humanly possible.

Watch the trailer below:

Song for a Sunday

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Slightly unusual choice today, but I thought I’d share a clip someone uploaded to Youtube. Sian Reese Williams is an actress in a soap opera I watch called Emmerdale, and in fact her character Gennie (short for Genesis) is one of my favourites. But I didn’t realise she could sing too – here she is, performing The First Cut is the Deepest.

I have just been to see a film which is relevant to Youtube… will reveal all tomorrow.

Stuck-in-a-Book’s Weekend Miscellany

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Happy weekend everyone, hope you’ve got something fun planned – and that you’re reading something good. It’s been a while since I did a Weekend Miscellany, and there’s no time like the present.

1.) The book – is A William Maxwell Portrait – a collection of personal essays written about William Maxwell and his writings. It was published in 2004, but arrived at my house this week. Does anybody know anything else about this?

2.) The link – is an amusing video called ‘book librarian’ sent to me by a colleague – enjoy!

3.) The blog posts – are a few book reviews you’ll probably want to see, if you haven’t already: Lyn on Fanny Burney’s Evelina, Nicola on Rebecca West’s The Fountain Overflows, and Tanya on Nicola Humble’s Culinary Pleasures.