1970s

84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

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84 Charing Cross RoadI’ve written about a couple of Helene Hanff books over the years – you can see them from that ‘browse’ menu over on the right hand side – but I don’t think I ever wrote about her most famous book, 84, Charing Cross Road. Well, a beautiful new edition from Slightly Foxed Editions brought about an excellent opportunity. I suspect most of you know this book already (and I can also recommend the lovely film) but, for those who don’t, I have written about it over at Shiny New Books. Below is the beginning of my review; if your appetite is whetted, you can go and check out the rest.

Slightly Foxed Editions – and I never tire of saying how beautiful they are – offer two different, wonderful things to the world. Either they are an introduction to brilliant memoirs that were undiscoverable and unknown, or they give the opportunity to have much-loved classics in that inimitably lovely series. And, of course, 84 Charing Cross Road appears in the latter category.

The Human Factor by Graham Greene

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I chose this as my ugly cover on Book Bingo... you can probably see why.
I chose this as my ugly cover on Book Bingo… you can probably see why.

My book group recently read The Human Factor (1978) by Graham Greene, and I had to whip through it in not very much time at all (since I only started it two days before we met). Coincidentally, it was published in the same year as the book we did the previous month – Barbara Pym’s The Sweet Dove Died – but it had very little in common with it. Almost immediately the group disagreed over which one was more realistic. I nailed my colours to the mast: Pym’s novel is more realistic than Greene’s, and it made me care about the characters more.

In The Human Factor, I will admit, the mundane is key. Maurice Castle is in MI6, and has to deal with various intrigues within the organisation, as well as the stigma attached to a mixed-race marriage with Sarah (incidentally – Maurice and Sarah were also the names of the couple in The End of the Affair… huh), and having to hob-nob with a man who had betrayed and blackmailed him in Africa. And yet Greene portrays espionage and double-crossing as a tedious life; one with the same dynamics of any office job, where people take sides and hold sway over the everyday lives of others.

Here’s my obstacle, and the reason why I couldn’t quite engage with this novel – excellent though Greene’s writing undoubtedly is. Yes, he achieved his aim to ‘write a novel of espionage free from the conventional violence, which has not, in spite of James Bond, been a feature of the British Secret Service. I wanted to present the Service unromantically as a way of life, men going daily to their office to earn their pensions.’ But, though he does this admirably, the genre, as a whole, is one that leaves me cold. The stakes are just too high for me to believe in the people.

Yes, it felt like an everyday office job – but the truth of the novel is that a wrong step wouldn’t end up with a letter from HR; it would lead to a clandestine poisoning. It makes it impossible for me to acknowledge any of the characters as real people, let alone feel empathy for them. Even without the violence and glamour of a James Bond film, it has the removed parallel reality of one. Yes, some people are spies; I’m sure they can feel empathy while reading a novel like this. But sadly I can’t.

Curiously enough, despite my well-documented love for novels about normal people and unadventurous lives, I might even have preferred this novel to be high octane and silly. As it is, it felt a bit like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I hope I’m not the only one who feels like this; make me feel I’m not crazy, people!

But I will say this: Greene is about the most versatile writer I’ve read. There isn’t much that links the four I have read (Travels With My Aunt, Brighton Rock, The End of the Affair, and The Human Factor) and it’s pretty impressive. But does leave me a little unnerved about which I might want to pick up next, since my strike rate is now 2 out of 4!

 

The Sweet Dove Died by Barbara Pym

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The Sweet Dove DiedIt always comes as something of a surprise to me (and to those who know my reading tastes) that I’ve read so few Pym novels. I read Excellent Women in 2004, and liked it but not quite as much as I’d hoped (largely because it’s set in London); a couple of years ago I read Some Tame Gazelle and loved it rather more. The Sweet Dove Died (1978)… fell rather in the middle.

Firstly, I’m not a big fan of the title – which, like Some Tame Gazelle, is from a poem; the poem, by Keats, is referenced within the text, but until that point, an ignoramus like myself is left wondering when the blessed dove is going to turn up. Instead, we start the novel with Leonora – who bumps into Humphrey and his nephew James at an antiques auction. Since the novel is set in London (sigh) and the only way to meet people outside one’s set is by unlikely coincidences, this is catalyst for a lasting friendship between the three. The men vie silently and politely for Leonora’s attention; perhaps neither exactly want a relationship with her, but they certainly want the attention – and she is more than willing to bestow it on James, so much her younger. To the world, she is charming and gracious – but the reader sees her selfish, unkind side.

Pym’s narrative floats in and out of all the characters’ minds as the novel progresses, and so we are seldom at a loss to understand a character’s motivations; it is all done very cleverly and thoroughly. To the three already mentioned is added two more people James has relationships with, and Leonora’s rather pathetic friend Meg. (Incidentally, the reader gradually realises how similar Leonora and Meg actually are, when not seen exclusively from Leonora’s perspective.) In fact, it was a description of Meg that I noted down to quote:

Leonora was her usual few minutes late, though not as late as she would have been if meeting a man. Meg was one of those women who are always too early and can be seen waiting outside Swan and Edgar’s, with anxious peering faces ready to break into smiles when the person awaited turns up.

Moments like this are extremely common in Pym’s writing – by which I mean, delicious moments of observation about small details of human behaviour. The plot of The Sweet Dove Died is slight, and even the theme – how being too overbearing can damage a relationship – isn’t ground-breaking, but line by line, Pym builds up fascinatingly real characters, and sheds constant light upon the minutiae of people’s lives. Her subtlety is brilliant, and the balance and perception of her sentences show why she is so often compared to Jane Austen.

I don’t really know how The Sweet Dove Died is held among Pym aficionados. I preferred the comedy of Some Tame Gazelle, probably, but this felt a more mature and sophisticated novel. It demonstrates what an excellent writer Pym was, and how sharp her knowledge of human nature could be. But I do wish it had been set in the countryside.

Apricots at Midnight by Adèle Geras

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My housemate Melissa (not to be confused with a different housemate Melissa, who has also written the odd book review for SIAB) wanted to borrow a book, and ended up with one I was given but have yet to read – Apricots at Midnight (1977) by Adèle Geras. As always, I encourage my friends to write reviews for SIAB. This is seldom taken up, but thankfully Melissa said yes, and wrote this fab review! Do (as always) make my guests feel welcome in the comments section… and enjoy the review:

Small pleasures. I picked this book off Simon’s shelf at his
first words of description, without waiting for the rest: ‘That one is a
children’s book.’ I love books written for children; the unpredictable-but-safe
plotlines, the freshness of the detail, the firing of the imagination; and this
one did not disappoint.

Actually, this is the sort of book that as a child I didn’t
really appreciate. It’s one of those books which describes someone’s childhood
memories, and why, I would wonder, should I read about another person’s
everyday life when my own was so interesting and there were plenty of books
about daredevil escapades, fantastic worlds, or true-to-life explorations? It’s
only through growing up (a little bit) that I’ve come to appreciate the beauty
of the everyday and of simple, happy memories.
This book is built around a quilt; a quilt sewn together,
patch by patch, by the narrator’s elderly relative Aunt Pinny, from fabrics
picked up throughout her life. Each patch is tied to a story, the cue to a
memory of long ago. The apricots of the title relate to the first ball Pinny
attended, a little girl sneaking down to join her working mother for a midnight
snack.
A child’s perspective is so different: everything is
fascinating, but nothing is truly surprising. For Pinny, the line between
make-believe and reality is not particularly important; there’s no
disappointment when the adventurer Major Variana admits his limp was gained by
dropping a crate of oranges on his foot rather than being bitten by a
crocodile, and no questioning of his reassurance ‘That was the only made-up
story, I promise you’. In her old age, Pinny retains this childlike ability to
take her experiences at face value, so that the tone of the book hinges
slightly on the fantastic.
The individual salient events, people and places slowly
build a picture of the beauty of Pinny’s daily life. The emergent character in
the backdrop is her mother: thrown from prosperity at the death of her husband,
and fighting to build a life for herself and her daughter on the strength of
her dressmaking skills. She is the constant in Pinny’s life, tying the book
together, providing stability and a structure. It is she who first suggests the
quilt and teaches a tiny Pinny to hold a needle and make her first stitches.
Like a fairy godmother, she can always produce something from whatever nothing
is to hand: a garden for a convalescent Pinny from scraps of flowered fabric;
an extra sixpence when Pinny’s allowance isn’t quite enough for the music box
she wants to buy; an overnight job at Mrs Triptree’s ball so that Pinny can see
the ladies in their beautiful costumes.
There is a chance for Pinny to be involved in everything she
does – sitting in on meetings with unusual and exotic guests, contributing a
not-so-successful stuffed zebra to the soft toy stall at the church fair,
cutting out the jam tarts for a picnic. Her tears and remorse on the day she is
delayed picking Pinny up from school, and gratitude to the teachers who took
the child home for tea and entertained her, is a moment of revelation for
Pinny:

It occurred to me then that I had not once, even in the
worst depths of my misery, thought what it must have been like for her, knowing
she would not be at the school gates, knowing that she was making me more and
more unhappy every minute she was not there.

Her selfless love and care for Pinny comes out at every
turn. On one occasion, she covers for her daughter, losing a rich client in the
process, when the little girl recovers a roll of cloth that she believes
belongs to the future king and queen of Borneo but was actually the client’s
curtains. I fell in love with her at the point when she stretches a tiny budget
to provide Pinny with bulbs for her garden:

I do not remember that we had trouble finding the money. I
was too excited at the prospect of my own garden. But now I can see that my
mother must have gone without something she needed or wanted, in order to save
what was necessary.

Her generosity is not reserved for her daughter alone: when
Pinny asks a visiting gentleman at a loose end to stay, she hesitantly but not
unwillingly opens her home to him until he is able to find his feet again.
To my delight, one of the stories turns out to take place in
Oxford. This is Pinny’s first taste of what she calls ‘the country’. ‘”It’s not
the proper country, Pinny,” my mother warned me. “Oxford is a large town, and
quite near.”’ Unperturbed, Pinny’s imagination runs wild: ‘Milkmaids in mob
caps and farmers in knee-breeches, small houses with roses growing round the
doors, stiles, carthorses, shepherds coming down from the hills at sunset,
wooden bridges curving over brooks.’
The reality is quite different, of course, but turns out to
be no less exciting. Not least, St Giles’ Fair, ‘the most splendid, exciting,
glorious fair in the whole world’, as Pinny’s Oxfordian friends, Miles and
Kate, delightedly inform her. The description is priceless, a snapshot of the
fair a century before I experienced it. Some things are quite different – the
long-banned prizes of live goldfish, the penny charge for each game, the steam
powering the organs. The exhilaration of the fair, however,
is unchanged over generations, and the bright colours of the rides which draw
the children’s attention, the reckless spending on hopeless attempts at
skewering a prize, the loud music and bustle of the crowd, sound tantalisingly
familiar.

Ten patches, ten stories; yet a quilt is so much bigger than
that. I’m left wondering what else is in there; the stories that Pinny would
not tell till her listener was older, the ones she perhaps would never tell at
all? 

The Fur Person by May Sarton

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I can’t remember exactly how it came about – begging, borrowing, or stealing (or, y’know, a present), but when I stayed with Thomas in Washington D.C. about 18 months ago, he gave me The Fur Person by May Sarton. That was not even amongst the nicest things he did – he’s a great guy, y’all – but it was definitely very exciting to get. He has been keen for me to read May Sarton for ages, and the one I did read (As We Are Now) never made its way to Stuck-in-a-Book – so, rather than strike out two for two, I’ll be talking about The Fur Person now. Full disclosure: I loved it.

How was I not going to love it, considering that it’s about a cat? Well, some cat-centric books have failed with me, one way or another. I wasn’t enamoured by Jennie (Paul Gallico), and – while I did adore Dewey, it was for all the wrong reasons. But The Fur Person (1978) combines a strong understanding of cats with a complete lack of sentiment – in the best possible way. So, although the novella undoubtedly includes cat-lovers, the narrative is presented from the cat’s perspective (albeit in the third person, if you see what I mean). He – Tom ‘Terrible’ Jones, no less – is pragmatic and selfish (like all cats) but willing to exchange affection and loyalty for the correct ‘housekeeper’, having realised that one cannot be a footloose, fancy-free young tom forever.

The story is simple, and supposedly based on the real life adventures of Sarton’s cat. He experiments with various housekeepers, before settling on the admiration and respect of Sarton and her partner. In a chilling warning to such as me, Tom is not interested in the cloyingly affectionate:

The trouble was, as he soon found out, that as soon as he came into reach, the lady could not resist hugging and kissing him with utter disregard for the dignity of his person. There are times when a Gentleman Cat likes very much to be scratched gently under his chin, and if this is done with savoir-faire he may afterwards enjoy a short siesta on a lap and some very refined stroking, but he does not like to be held upside down like a human baby and he does not like to be cooed over, and to be pressed to a bosom smelling of narcissus or rose.
Which is understandable, but there is a certain pathos in the way Sarton presents the scene. Tom is intent merely on getting out of the house – by the common feline method of standing silently by the door until obeyed – but, in the background, this would-be owner is mournful:

“You’re not a nice cat at all,” she said, and she began to whimper. “You don’t like me,” she whimpered, “do you?”
In another sort of novel, this might have been a tragic moment in her life – but, in The Fur Person, it is one of many instances that occur while Tom is finding his way to the idyll at the end of his journey.

The Fur Person bounded up the stairs, and at the very instant he entered the kitchen, the purrs began to swell inside him and he wound himself around two pairs of legs (for he must be impartial), his nose in the air, his tail straight up like a flag, on tip toes, and roaring with thanks.

It’s quite a sweet ending, but it doesn’t fall over the boundary into saccharine. And the reason for that, I believe, is because Sarton has observed the behaviour of cats so precisely. Everything she described rang true. Perhaps not the ten commandments for cats (individually they were accurate, but I suspect cats do not repeat these mantras by rote), but certainly the movements of tail and paws, the stretching, the staring and waiting – everything it described with such precision and accuracy that any cat-lover (particularly those of us who love cats but don’t live with any) will thrill to the reading experience.

The Siren Years by Charles Ritchie

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One of the greatest pleasures I have had in blogging is getting to know Claire’s blog. We all know and love her as The Captive Reader, and I am lucky enough to have very similar taste to Claire – we have both followed up each other’s suggestions, and have only had the occasional mishap. When I received Charles Ritchie’s The Siren Years: A Canadian Diplomat Abroad, 1937-1945 (1974) as a gift in the post, I was very touched – and a little nervous. I trust Claire. But… I thought she might have made a mistake. A book about politics? Me? And the cover did nothing to convince me… Lucky for me, I was wrong and Claire was right. Which makes a total of no recommendations from her that have turned out to be duds.

Ritchie often seems more like a society gossip than a diplomat, and that – you will not be surprised to learn – makes him much more up my street. He describes the people around him with a catty tone, albeit one au fait with national and international politics. Not to mention literature; Elizabeth Bowen was a large part of Ritchie’s life, and he is a sensitive interpreter of people.

And who can fail to be moved by any war memoir? The experiences of war, even on the home front, are so foreign to those of most of us today that any description of life then is both fascinating and poignant. Indeed, it is perhaps more so on the home front – because the places, relationships, and roles are recognisable, but thrown into extraordinary relief.

Since it’s been far too long since I read this wonderful diary, I shall just give you a series of quotations I noted down from it. After all, I am only going to say ‘I love this’ after each one, if I elaborate any further.

On public figures from Eton…
What happens to them at Eton? However innocent, stupid or honest they may be they always look as though they had passed the preceding night in bed with a high-class prostitute and had spent the earlier part of the morning smoothing away the ravages with the aid of creams, oils and curling tongs.

On politicians
[…] a few senators and political big-shots whose faces give one a feeling of familiar boredom like picking up an old twice-read newspaper.

On work rituals
Being a Private Secretary is a busy unreal sort of life – unreal because it makes one’s day such a programme of events. One does things in a certain order not because one feels like doing them at the time or even because this is the order of their importance, but because they appear in that order on the day’s programme. This programme is dictated by the engagements of the Chief, who is in turn a victim of his engagements and spends most of his day in doing unnecessary things which he does not want to do. Yet neither of us is unhappy. We feel that the ritual of our lives is obligatory – we grumble but we submit with satisfaction to the necessity. A day of telephone conversations, luncheon parties, notes acknowledged, visitors received, memoranda drawn up. Exhaustion is merely staleness – we return with zest to the game. What an extraordinary amount of time is spent in saving our own face and coddling other people’s vanities! One would really think that the people we deal with were a collection of hypersensitive megalomaniacs.

On war in London
Never has there been such a colourless war – not a drum, not a flag, not a cheer – just sandbags and khaki and air-read shelters and gas-masks and the cultivated, careful voice of the B.B.C. putting the best complexion on the news. London is waiting for the first raid like an anxious hostess who has made all the preparations to receive formidable guests – but the guests do not seem to be going to turn up. Every time the door-bell rings she thinks, “At last there they are,” but it turns out to be the grocer’s boy delivering a parcel. So the day pass. We look at our watches, turn on the wireless, pick up a novel and wait.

On Oxford, and a building I used to work in
The moment I stepped out of the station I smelt the familiar smell of Oxford. What nonsense the woman was talking the other day when she said that it did not matter if a city were destroyed physically, if its soul lived. Cities are nothing without their bodies. When you have destroyed Paris and Oxford what happens to their souls? Oxford rebuilt in this age! It would be easy to see what it would be like by looking at the new Bodleian Extension – that blankly commonplace hulk which they have dared to plant in the face of the Sheldonian. That is the most distressing thing about Oxford – for the rest the changes are temporary.

On Elizabeth Bowen
“Take it from one of the best living novelists that people’s personalities are not interesting,” Elizabeth said in a dry voice; “except,” she added, “when you are in love with them.” Her books show much that you would expect if you knew her only as an acquaintance, he intelligence, her penetrating eye, her love of houses and flowers. These things you would have gathered from talking to her in her drawing-room. But there are certain passages in which her peculiar intensity, her genius, come out, which would be hard to reconcile with this cultivated hostess. That purity of perception and compassion seems to come from another part of her nature of which she is perhaps not completely aware.

On wartime
We have long ceased to find the war thrilling – any excitement in the movement of historic events is gone. There is a vague but persistent worry in people’s minds about the coming air raids this winter, but like everything else this is accepted as inevitable. The truth is that the war has become as much a part of our lives as the weather, the endless winter, and when the ice does break there will be no cheering in the streets.

The Listener by Tove Jansson

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It’s no secret that I love Tove Jansson, and I was pleased to get the chance to read the latest collection of her work from Sort Of Books; a new translation (by Thomas Teal) of her first collection for adults, The Listener (1971).

I read it for Shiny New Books; my review is here. You can also win a copy – along with the other editors’ favourites from their sections – by entering the competition on the homepage. And then have a browse!

It feels a bit lazy to be pointing to my reviews elsewhere, but then I remember that I still spent time writing them… probably more time, as I do more double-checking etc. for SNB reviews! And I hope that regular SIAB readers still have fun looking at those reviews.

More Muriel

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My stream of reading Muriel Spark doesn’t look likely to come to an end any time soon – so was just so wonderfully prolific – and the latest one I’ve read is Territorial Rights (1979), given to me by Virago in their nice new edition, and reviewed over on Shiny New Books.  The copy I read, I will confess to you, was the copy given to me by Hayley after Muriel Spark Reading Week (and I gave the Virago copy to a deserving friend).

It’s not in the top two or three Spark novels – or maybe even top ten – but it’s still brilliant, with lots of recognisably Sparkian elements. Head on over to my Shiny New Books review to find out more…

Tea By The Nursery Fire – Noel Streatfeild

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Picture nabbed from
Hayley’s review…

I seem to be on a little run of lovely books at the moment, although Tea by the Nursery Fire: A Children’s Nanny at the Turn of the Century (1976) by Noel Streatfeild doesn’t have quite the same feel as Patricia Brent, Spinster.  It’s not as funny – indeed, it’s not trying to be funny.  But it’s another book that is so enjoyable and cosy that you’d be forgiven for mistaking it for a duvet.

Noel Streatfeild will be known to many of you as the author of Ballet Shoes and other books of that ilk.  Indeed, she is known to me as that, but I haven’t actually read any of them – the only Streatfeild I have read is the Persephone (Saplings) which I don’t remember having very strong feelings about, but finding racier than I’d expected.  Well, as you’d imagine, Tea by the Nursery Fire isn’t remotely racey. It’s the complete opposite of racey, even if there is the odd bit of illegitimacy and out-of-wedlock liaisons going on along the way.

It’s difficult to say whether Tea by the Nursery Fire is fact or fiction, and the blurb has cautiously opted for calling it a blend of the two.  Noel Streatfeild is writing about her father’s nanny, from childhood in the 1870s until her death.  Streatfeild never identifies which of the child characters is her father, so I couldn’t work out whether one of the last generation was Noel herself under a pseudonym, but I think it’s fair to assume that Noel either never met Emily Huckwell, or at least never spoke with her to any meaningful extent.  Thus every detail of this many-detailed story comes either from passed-on memories of her father, or from her own head.

Everything progresses as you might expect – we start with scenes of a poor and big family, where boys are expected to become labourers at 14, and girls head off at the same age to find a ‘position’ somewhere.  Emily is given the lowest rung at the local squire’s – basically the maid of a maid of a maid.  Only a chance comment at family prayer’s, where she offers to mend the dress of a visiting family member, gives her the opportunity to move up the ranks (and escape the watchful eye of the house’s unpleasant housekeeper).  She goes to the much smaller residence of the woman in question, and aids the friendly and wise nanny there.

And on it progresses – scenes full of nannies and their charges, maids and their duties, mistresses and their ways.  It’s a late-Victorian world which is chiefly familiar to me through the eyes of Ivy Compton-Burnett.  Of course, the tone Streatfeild takes could scarcely be more different.

I loved reading Tea by the Nursery Fire, it was heartwarming and sweet, but I think I might have really loved it if Streatfeild had taken the heartwaming down a notch.  Emily is basically perfect, and never puts a foot wrong.  She is very wise, very kind, and very forgiving.  There are a few moments of tragedy in her life, and while it is true that she deals with these calmly, rather than with the semi-histrionic heroism so beloved to 1940s cinema, she also doesn’t seem to be impeded in her path of virtuous goodness.

All of which makes her a nice, rather than lovable, character.  But it is understandable – she is the sort of paragon that you can imagine a child believing his nanny to be. Still more, the sort of person that son’s daughter would wish to believe in.

Yes, it’s lovely.  Perhaps it is only the cynic in me that would have loved it rather more if Emily had let loose with an acerbic aside now and then.