I’m not sure if this had its genesis in blogs or elsewhere, but I spotted on Facebook that this week is Sylvia Townsend Warner Reading Week! There are few authors I’ve had such varied success with (adored Lolly Willowes and her letters with William Maxwell, but loathed The Corner That Held Them, and didn’t especially like Mr Fortune’s Maggot or Summer Will Show) so I’m excited about trying some more. I have lots of collections of her short stories, but have read none, so may start there.
Join in, do!
I’ve not read her, will keep her in mind for future reading.
Do! She is a really interesting writer.
I have a battered Virago selected stories and they are brilliant.
I madly bought about eight collections of her stories during my DPhil… and managed to read none of them.
I was going to join in with this but I have run out of time and am overwhelmed by books. I have Lolly Willowes and Summer will Show tbr but this week I need to finish the two books I have on the go. Read a collection of poetry for my book group on Thursday and start some reading for my own Mary Hocking reading week which starts next Monday. I do really need to read more STW I read Mr Fortune’s Maggott a couple of months ago.
I suspect I might only manage a story or two, but I’ll try to do that. I failed at the first hurdle with Mary Hocking, I’m afraid, by not managing to even get hold of her books.
Hocking books in hardback are getting harder to find in very good condition and are rising in price.The best 5 are the titles that Virago reprinted circa 1990.
Most of her work is not “top notch” that is why Persephone are not keen.
Simon, you know how enthusiastic I am about STW! Do, please, please, please, read her short stories. They are superb – beautifully written and constructed, witty, often quite subversive, sometimes otherworldy, sometimes just plain odd, and her characterisations and relationships between people are just brilliant. She had the ability to take a quite ordinary situation and look at it sideways, so nothing is quite as you expect, and she can create a little story out of nothing as it were, and leave it hanging in the air, because life goes on, no matter what happens.
Lovely comment, Christine! Your enthusiasm is certainly infectious – now I feel SURE that I’ll love them. And will be terribly guilty if I don’t! I’ll report back…
Although I own many of STW’s books, I’ve only read “Mr. Fortune’s Maggot”, which I loved. I wish I’d known about this earlier…. !
Yes, I only discovered moments before I posted! But if you already have them there, Karen… tempt tempt!
Don’t forget her guide to Somerset Simon
Good point! Why not pick it up this week? :)