Today I am over at Vulpes Libris, writing about Ferney (1998) by James Long – recommended by my friend Carol, and given to me by my friend Lucy. It is, believe it or not, a reincarnation romance – but don’t let that put you off!
1990s
The Year of Reading Proust by Phyllis Rose
I actually read The Year of Reading Proust (1997) by Phyllis Rose round about the time I read her book The Shelf, which I loved so much. Indeed, like The Shelf, I bought and read The Year of Reading Proust while I was in Washington DC in April, reluctant to part company with an author I’d so quickly learned to love.
Fast forward four months, and somehow I still haven’t written about this book. It’s a difficult book to write about. But it is extremely good and enjoyable, so I didn’t want to overlook it altogether.
Perhaps the main difficulty is that the book doesn’t pay much attention to Rose’s project. While The Shelf took the shelf of a library as a starting point for many tangents and explorations, it remained a fixed and vital point for the whole book – Rose kept returning to the books on that shelf, explaining them and framing her discussions through her readings of them. I expected more of the same from The Year of Reading Proust, but Proust makes surprisingly few appearances. Instead, it’s essentially what the subtitle says: ‘a memoir in real time’.
It was while reading the introduction that I cottoned on to what Rose was trying to do. She doesn’t explain her project; she talks about the hamburger she ordered when she heard that JFK had been killed. Now, I haven’t read any of À la recherche du temps perdu (which is where her experiment with Proust begins and ends, perhaps unsurprisingly – you probably weren’t expecting this to focus on his handful of other works). But I do know, of course, about the madeleine that kicks things off at the beginning of the first volume: Rose was doing the same thing with a hamburger.
From here, I learned the key to the whole book. Rose described how Proust’s writing meandered and interwove, taking events separately and creating a pattern from them; using mundane incidents to discover profundities, and taking introspection to a new level. Ambitiously, Rose attempts the same. From dealing with her mother’s serious illness to buying a vase, she documents her life over the course of a year. She discusses her neighbour’s trees more than she does the text she is reading, yet successfully demonstrates how coming to love Proust illuminates her own experiences.
Proust had shown me the underlying laws. Like the Marxist who boasts that if you really understand history you can predict it and sneers at those who, not understanding it, are condemned to repeat it, like the Freudian smug in the face of human aberration because he thinks he can explain what produced it, I felt privileged, exempt, suddenly the master of the life I was observing. I had been given a key, a free subscription to some hitherto locked-out cable channel which in front of my eyes lost its frustrating distortion and transformed itself from blurred, wavy, taffy-pull mystery shapes into a clear and enjoyable picture.
As it’s been quite a while since I read it, I don’t remember many of the details that Rose shares – and I suppose it is a hallmark of the type of book she’s written that I don’t remember them. They aren’t individually significant (to the reader at least). But what I do remember is how much I enjoyed the experience of seeing the year through Rose’s eyes, and the glimpses into what she thought of Proust. Though she doesn’t write about the novel in any great depth, she does convey how much she valued reading him – and how she broke through, after not particularly enjoying the beginning, into near besottedness. The Year of Reading Proust did what nothing else had hitherto done: made me want to try À la recherche du temps perdu at some point.
So, I didn’t love this book as much as I loved The Shelf, but it is an entirely different creature. If not quite the book-about-books that I was hoping for, it was a rather brilliant memoir – and a very ambitious one, in trying to echo what is considered one of the greatest ever literary works. Maybe it would have made more sense under a slightly different title, but I’ll forgive Rose that.
Even though The Year of Reading Proust wasn’t quite a book-about-books, it has helped confirm how dearly I love that category – so any suggestions for those are heartily welcomed…
A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham
I read Cunningham’s second novel on the flight to America, having bought it on my previous trip. I loved The Hours and enjoyed Land’s End, and wanted to read more by him. This novel is mostly told from the perspective of two men, Bobby and Jonathan. That is to say, they start as boys. The opening lines, from Bobby’s perspective, are:
Once our father bought a convertible. Don’t ask me. I was five. He bought it and drove it home as casually as he’d bring a gallon of rocky road. Picture our mother’s surprise. She kept rubber band on the doorknobs. She washed old plastic bags and hung them on the line to dry, a string of thrifty tame jellyfish floating in the sun.
A couple of pages later, we shift to Jonathan’s perspective…
We gathered at dusk on the darkening green. I was give. The air smelled of newly cut grass, and the sand traps were luminous. My father carried me on his shoulders. I was both pilot and captive of his enormity. My bare legs thrilled to the sandpaper of his cheeks, and I held on to his ears, great soft shells that buzzed minutely with hair.
So, Bobby is five and Jonathan is five. And, it turns out, A Home at the End of the World was first published on my 5th birthday, 7 November 1990, which is a fun coincidence. But, instead of 1990s Merseyside (where I spent that birthday), these boys are in Ohio in the 1960s.
Had I known the extent to which this novel incorporated the ‘coming-of-age’ genre, I might have fun a mile; it’s not a subset of literature that I often enjoy. In describing this novel, I can’t really deny that it is firmly in that genre. And yet it’s done rather better than I could have hoped for; events and emotions follow on from events and emotions, and Cunningham entirely captivates the reader while they’re relayed. Usually I just roll my eyes or wait for some horizon where they become adults and the prose can start describing a destination rather than a journey. Here, the journey of growing up was made to feel an apt focus.
There are some significant events – including deaths – that affect the lives of both boys. One of the most powerful comes early in the book, when the older brother Bobby idolises dies in a freak accident, running full pelt through glass doors. Their relationship was mostly founded on taking drugs together, so he was hardly a stablising influence on Bobby’s life but Cunningham conveys the closeness of brothers extremely well – and the ways in which Bobby responds to it.
Throughout the novel, he is shown as sensitive, attuned to others, and with a deep-set need to belong. Jonathan, on the other hand, values independence – struggling to accept the overtures of his friendship his mother offers. As Bobby and Jonathan grow older, their close friendship turns into a sexual relationship, albeit one that neither of them want to directly discuss even between themselves. The alternating first person narratives give the reader a chance to see how both characters feel and think about their experiences, while at the same time witnessing their diffidence. Cunningham handles the tension between first-person insight and objective events really beautifully.
Here was another lesson in my continuing education: like other illegal practices, love between boys was best treated as a commonplace. Courtesy demanded that one’s fumbling, awkward performance be no occasion for remark, as if in fact one had acted with the calm expertise of a born criminal.
In a coming-of-age novel, this might be where events would have ended – but, for Cunningham, it is simply the beginning. One chapter of their lives end, and another begins – indeed, takes most of the novel – as Jonathan moves to New York. Bobby remains behind, even moving in with Jonathan’s parents; the men lose touch, until Bobby decides to move to New York too.
Another thing Cunningham portrays brilliantly is the way that friendships peter out. In fiction, once characters bond they often seem ineluctably close forever after. Far more realistic is the awkwardness between Bobby and Jonathan – an affectionate awkwardness, but where all the affection is based on memories. Still, Bobby moves in with Jonathan and his housemate Clare. The three of them form a delicate trio. I shan’t write any more about what happens, but suffice to say that plenty more happens – all of which (as throughout the novel) is played well for plausible emotional impact and character rather than simply the shock of plot.
Easily the greatest achievement here is Cunningham’s writing. I jotted down, in my pencil note at the beginning, that the writing was ‘seductive’ – by which I meant that it seduces the reader into the world of the novel. And that, I think, is by gradually building up composite portraits of its characters (particularly, of course, Jonathan and Bobby) through a sort of restrained intimacy. The first-person narratives feel like they’re telling us everything, but they are not confessional voices: they reveal parts of the people, and keep enough back to reel us in.
Although this novel is not flawless (I think death and dying is used a little too often to maintain its impact, for instance), it’s difficult to fault the creation of character, the exploration of perspective, or the realism of behaviours. He really is an exceptional writer. (And which others do you think I should read?)
Letter From New York – Helene Hanff
Any of us who love books about books have surely read the lovely 84, Charing Cross Road, a collection of letters between American Helene Hanff and a London bookseller. Her other books aren’t as well-known, but I heartily recommend Q’s Legacy if you’d like to read more about the success of 84CCR – and now I can also recommend Letter From New York (1992). I took it to America to read there, and… read it in Worcestershire instead.
These letters were broadcast monthly on Radio 4 back between 1978-1984 (and nothing shrieks ’80s more than Hanff’s unstinting belief that formalwear necessitates a black velvet pantsuit and white satin blouse). They are, indeed, not letters so much as thoughts, and concern life in New York – but, more precisely, life in Hanff’s apartment block.
It reminded me a little of one of my all-time faves, The L-Shaped Room (if you’ve not read it – go and do so. I’ll wait.) in that I sort of fell in love with a building and its inhabitants. Not as much as I did with The L-Shaped Room (have you read it yet? I mean, you didn’t just glide past my previous parentheses did you? DID YOU?) because that will never happen, but Hanff is great at writing enough about her friends and neighbours to make you feel like you know them well. If she described them completely, she would seem (and make the reader feel) like an observer; by referring to them as though we already know them pretty well, Arlene, Richard, Nina, and the rest became friends. Here’s an excerpt…
Big excitement here a couple of weeks ago because the New York Times ran a story about Arlene, with a photograph of her that also included Richard.
Since you know that Arlene and I are opposites, when I tell you that I detest large cocktail parties and dinner dance,s you won’t be surprised to learnt hat Arlene earns her living organizing large cocktail parties and dinner dances. She runs the parties as fund-raising events for Democratic politicians who need money for their election campaigns. Her most famous fund-raiser was a birthday party for the Mayor of New York aboard the Queen Elizabeth II – ‘the QE Two’ to Arlene [Simon adds: …and to everyone else]. She phoned the office of the ship’s public relations chief, who was ‘at sea’ off the Bermuda coast and talked to her via ship-to-shore phone, and Arlene talked him into letting her use the ship for the Mayor’s birthday party. She hypnotized the chef into creating a replica of New York’s City Hall in margarine and a birthday cake bigger than the undersized Mayor.
As you see, Hanff deals not solely (or even much) with the grand moments in New York life – rather, we get the refreshing minutiae of her own life. That might be her neighbour’s dog being borrowed to perform as a greeter at an apartment party; it might be watching a bee in a roof garden; it might be a ticker-tape parade. All of it flows from Hanff’s pen lazily and contentedly; the tone you may remember from 84, Charing Cross Road, albeit mellowed a bit.
Hanff’s writing has three faults, in my mind. Only one of them really counts as a fault: the other two are that she prefers dogs to cats (there is a lot about dogs in Letter From New York) and that she prefers the city to the countryside. Those factors made it trickier for me to connect with her, but the only real ‘fault’ I noticed was that she has trouble with section endings. Each letter has a pat ending, a quip or neat sentence, that often felt a bit forced, or looped back to something she’d only mentioned for the first time a paragraph or two earlier. It’s a small thing, and it didn’t really affect my reading, but it brought about the only instances of Hanff’s writing feeling unnatural in a book that is largely characterised by being natural.
If you’ve enjoyed 84, Charing Cross Road, then Hanff will feel like a friend whom you should revisit. If you haven’t – good grief, go and get a copy! (And read The L-Shaped Room while you’re at it.)
Old Books, Rare Friends by Leona Rostenberg & Madeleine Stern
You know what it’s like with book reviews on Stuck-in-a-Book – they’re like buses; you wait a month for one, and then three come along at once. (If you’ve ever waited a month for a bus, then – please – just give up and get a taxi.) In the weekend last year where I coincidentally read a bunch of books I bought in America, one of them had the enticing title Old Books, Rare Friends: Two Literary Sleuths and Their Shared Passion (1997) by Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine Stern. (Who first told me about this? Was it YOU?)
I’m not the sort of man to walk away from a book about loving books, particularly one penned by older women, and so I was excited to read this. But it was quite a while ago, so I’m going to review this one in bullet points… let’s call it an experiment.
Leona and Madeleine take it in turns to narrate chapters, starting with their childhoods (perhaps unsurprisingly) and through the schooling and college education.
The main point of interest here is that one of them was refused her doctorate, mostly because her supervisor disagreed with her argument. (That is NOT acceptable supervising.)
I could never really tell Leona and Madeleine apart from their writing styles, so their lives intertwined for me.
They set up a rare books business together, buying and selling, and this is where my interest was piqued.
They make catalogues! I could read about the preparation of catalogues forever.
They’re only interested in very old books, so my love of 20th-century literature was never really satisfied. But, oh well.
And they discovered sensation magazine stories that Louisa M. Alcott had written under a pseudonym – which led to a minor sort of literary fame for them.
I really enjoyed it! Reading about the books business, particularly in a time before the internet made book hunting both easier and less filled with surprises is always fun.
Here is my caveat (for which I have slipped out of bullet points). I love reading about readers; about people who hunt for books because they are desperate to read them. Rostenberg and Stern hunt for books for a living, and so (naturally enough) are concerned more with profit than anything else. Still, I couldn’t help weary a little at the number of times they said how much they’d paid for something and how much they’d sold it for – particularly on the occasions when that effectively meant diddling a seller out of money, because the seller had sold a book for less than it was worth. Which made it rather a surprise to come across this paragraph in the epilogue:
We have become keen observers of the generations who have succeeded us. Every age is critical of the next, and we are no exceptions. Although we admire and befriend many young dealers who do not confuse value with price, we deplore the all too popular conception entertained by many dealers that books are to be regarded primarily as investments. Such booksellers go in for dollarship, not scholarship.
I wonder how they think they differ from this? Perhaps as bibliophiles, albeit bibliophiles who get money from their love, rather than simply gratification.
But, this quibble aside, I found it fascinating and fun. It’s not up there with Phantoms on the Bookshelves or Howards End is on the Landing – the works of true booklovers, and lovers of 20th-century fiction into the bargain – and it’s not quite the book that I thought it would be, but Old Books, Rare Friends will still retain its place on my books-about-books bookshelf.
Many things Milne
Issue 3 of Shiny New Books had not one, not two, but three posts about A.A. Milne & family – and I’d really encourage you to go and read them all.
Curiously enough, none of them are actually reviews of books by A.A. Milne himself (as in the books weren’t by him… neither were the reviews, but that is perhaps less surprising.)
I reviewed a long-term favourite, which I re-read as Bello have just reprinted it – Ann Thwaite’s brilliant, award-winning biography A.A. Milne: His Life. Review here.
Another long-term favourite is Christopher (Robin) Milne’s The Path Through the Trees, the middle of his autobiographical trilogy – so it’s not so much about being Christopher Robin as it is about fighting in WW2 and opening a bookshop, but I love it. Claire (The Captive Reader) reviewed Bello’s reprint here.
And then I put together Five Fascinating Facts about A.A. Milne.
Let me know which Milne books you’ve read, or would like to read!
Symposium – Muriel Spark
I really thought I had written about Symposium (1990) by Muriel Spark months ago, when I read it, but a quick search suggests that I, in fact, did not. And that was foolish on three levels – (a) I’ve forgotten quite a lot about it, (b) it was a lovely gift from Karen/Kaggsy and thus part of Reading Presently, and (c) it’s one of the best Muriel Spark books I’ve read.
In some ways, it is not simply a collection of people around a table, or a series of events, but a symposium of Sparkian traits and tricks – a pantheon of Sparkisms, characteristically condensed into only 140 pages. There are (of course) the flashbacks and flashforwards which subvert the typical ways in which authors dispense information, and moments which would be big ‘reveals’ in most novels are slipped in incidentally. There are self-important characters who dramatise their lives when nobody is really listening. The narrative – as always with Spark – is darkly dispassionate, showing things happening without permitting emotion to enter the tone of the narrative, even for a moment. Selfishness, cruelty, greed, avarice, and foolishness are all present in spades. And, oh, I loved it.
The first words are definitely dramatic:
“This is rape!” His voice was reaching a pitch it had never reached before and went higher still as he surveyed the wreckage. “This is violation!”It was not rape, it was a robbery.
This is one of the pivotal moments of the narrative, despite appearing on the first page – the narrative weaves back and forth, with Spark’s usual disregard for linear structure, with this burglary appearing repeatedly in the timelines of the various characters. It is Lord and Lady Suzy who have been robbed, but this is not the only robbery which takes place; while the guests assemble at Hurley Reed and Chris Donovan’s dinner party, another burglary is taking place…
The dinner party (or, indeed, symposium) is depicted in the present tense, and the conversations swirl snippily in Spark’s inimitable style, conversationalists never quite on the same plane as each other, and logic never quite being followed. And then Spark takes the reader back into the recent history of everyone at the table – and further back still, so that this slim novel encompasses Marxist nuns, a complicated case of possible insanity, and family tensions between a newlywed and his mother.
“I don’t give it a year,” said Hurley Reed. He was referring to William Damien’s marriage.”
You might be able to tell that many of the specifics have now gone from my mind, as I read Symposium months ago, but quotations like the one above reveal why I love Spark so much. That quirky way of expressing herself, so the reader is constantly being jolted in their expectations, and conventions of narrative being consistently disturbed. And of all the Spark novels I’ve read (which is about a dozen, I think) this is probably my second favourite after Loitering With Intent.
Since it is an amalgam of everything that I love about Spark, and representative of so many of her characters and writing quirks, I can’t decide whether it would make a brilliant entry-point for sampling Spark, or if it can only truly be appreciated by somebody who has already developed a love for Dame Muriel… maybe the latter; for us Spark appreciators, it is a delightful treat, of her best qualities neatly parcelled up. Karen – thank you so much!
Others who got Stuck into it:
“What I read this time was a murder mystery but the really brilliant thing about this book is that next time I read it when doubtless […] I’ll find myself reading a book about love, or obsession, or family, or friendship…” – Hayley, Desperate Reader
“Spark doesn’t play to the emotions – I was watching them all from a distance, detached.” – An Adventure in Reading
“A perfect little morsel of the macabre set against the backdrop of everyday life.” – Polly, Novel Insights
The Queen and I – Sue Townsend
Following on from The Restraint of Beasts, here is another gift book (from my lovely ex-colleagues at OUP), another comic book, another one which seems like it might have a message hiding in there somewhere… but entirely different. Knowing how much I love, admire, and respect Queen Elizabeth II, my colleagues got me (amongst other Queen-related things) The Queen and I (1992) by Sue Townsend, and I wolfed it down in a day or two.
The premise of The Queen and I is something that makes me Royalist blood run cold – a politician called Jack Barker uses subliminal pictures on television to brainwash the nation into voting his party to power, and his first act is to abolish the monarchy. (Shudder!) The Queen and her family are sent off to live on a council estate in Hellebore Close – known locally as Hell Close. There they must make do with benefits or the pension, with only the possessions they can fit in their tiny houses (most of which end up getting stolen pretty quickly anyway.) The country rather falls apart with a hopeless leader in charge, but of more interest is seeing how the royals get along without any money and in surroundings which they are far from used to.
And, oh, it is funny! But more than that, it is believable – not the premise (even if we ever lose our monarchy – Heaven forbid! – it’s unlikely they’d get aggressively shipped off to council houses) but the way in which various members of the Royal family would respond. Sue Townsend writes very affectionately of the royals; although it’s tricky to work out whether or not she thinks the institution is a good one, she certainly has a lot of respect for certain members of it. Chief among these is, of course, the Queen. She behaves exactly as I would expect – that is, she just gets on with it. Since she spends her life seeing every imaginable culture, habits, and traditions, it’s unlikely that there is anything that could wrong foot her socially. The one thing she cannot quite get used to (and this is where Townsend’s social critique of Britain comes into play, one suspects) is how little money people are expected to live on, and how inefficient and difficult the system is. Here she is, chatting with a social worker…
“And what is the current situation regarding your personal finances?”
“We are penniless. I have been forced to borrow from my mother; but now my mother is also penniless. As is my entire family. I have been forced to rely on the charity of neighbours. But I cannot continue to do so. My neighbours are…” The Queen paused.
“Socially disadvantaged?” supplied Dorkin.
“No, they are poor,” said the Queen. “They, like me, lack money. I would like you, Mr. Dorkin, to give me some money – today, please. I have no food, no heat and when the electrician goes, I will have no light.”
But not everybody is so resilient. Other royals do cope well with the move – Prince Charles is thrilled about getting to some quiet gardening, Princess Anne loves getting out of the limelight, and the Queen Mother (bless her!) finds the whole thing hilarious, so long as she’s got a drink or two next to her. But Prince Philip takes to his bed and won’t engage at all, Princess Margaret similarly refuses to acknowledge that her situation in life has changed – while Princess Diana is saddened chiefly by the lack of wardrobe space. It’s quite odd to read a book about the royals set before Diana died – because it is impossible to think of her without that context now. In 1992, she could still be affectionately mocked as a clothes horse and a flibbertigibbet. Indeed, remembering how old all the royals were in 1992 and reformulating my view of them is quite tricky, since I was only 7 then, and don’t remember (for instance) Princess Anne’s days as a relative beauty.
As far as social commentary goes, Townsend obviously wants to draw attention to the plight of the poor, in the battle against bureaucracy and out-of-touch officials, but perhaps it doesn’t help her cause that every working-class character is essentially kind and decent. A few rough diamonds, but they’re all there to help each other at the drop of a hat, issuing generous platitudes when needed and handy at knocking together a makeshift hearse. Of course, that’s better than making them all selfish, violent thugs or benefits cheats, but it might have been a more effective portrait of a working-class community had the characters and their traits been more varied, as they would be in any other community.
Which is a small quibble with a very clever, very amusing page-turner. The idea was brilliant, but in other hands it wouldn’t have worked. I can only agree with the Times review quoted on the back cover: “No other author could imagine this so graphically, demolish the institution so wittily and yet leave the family with its human dignity intact.”
The Restraint of Beasts – Magnus Mills
Magnus Mills has been hovering around the edges of my reading consciousness for some time, including having read two of his novels – The Maintenance of Headway (good, but didn’t quite work for me) and All Quiet on the Orient Express (much better) – but I’ve always felt that I could really love a Mills novel, given the right novel and the right timing. Well, about three years ago my then-housemate Mel gave me The Restraint of Beasts (1998) – where better to re-start with Mills than with his first novel? (N.B. Mel, now that I’ve finally read the book you got me for my birthday in 2010, will you buy me books again?)
Our narrator is anonymous (which I confess I hadn’t noticed until I read the Wikipedia page for the novel) and has just become the foreman of a Scottish fencing company, led by the domineering Donald and contentedly useless Robert. He is a foreman of a small team – Gang no.3 – which consists of just three people, including himself. The others are Tam and Rich – inseparable but taciturn, fairly lazy, and undemonstrative. Having been introduced to his team (and discovering that he is replacing Tam in the foreman position), the narrator and his colleagues are sent off to fix the fence of a local farmer, which has been erected poorly.
If this is all sounding rather dull, then I should let you know – the activities of the heroes (or lack thereof) are determinedly boring. They put up fences. They travel to England to do so, and vary the monotony of hammering in posts only with trips to the local pubs, which provide almost no incident, and are generally almost empty.
One of the things studying English for so long has enabled me to do, I hope, is identify how a writer creates certain effects or atmosphere. I hope Stuck-in-a-Book generally shows that sort of insight into a novel, or at least tries to. But with Mills and The Restraint of Beasts (which is my favourite of the three I’ve read so far), I am almost entirely unable to say why it works. Here is a sample paragraph for you…
Their pick-up truck was parked at the other side of the yard. They’d been sitting in the cab earlier when I went past on my way to Donald’s office. Now, however, there was no sign of them. I walked over and glanced at the jumble of tools and equipment lying in the back of the vehicle. Everything looked as though it had been thrown in there in a great hurry. Clearly it would all need sorting out before we could do anything, so I got in the truck and reversed round to the store room. Then I sat and waited for them to appear. Looking around the inside of the cab I noticed the words ‘Tam’ and ‘Rich’ scratched on the dashboard. A plastic lunch box and a bottle of Irn-Bru lay on the shelf.
And, believe me, things get technical. I’ve learnt more about putting up fences than I’d ever imagined I’d know. (Fyi, they’re usually being built to pen in animals – the restraint of beasts, y’see. Excellent title.) Mills worked as a fencer himself for some years, so you could be forgiven for thinking this was turning into an odd autobiography.
But, in amongst this, occasionally bizarre or momentous things DO happen, and they are treated with as casually and matter-of-factly as the tedium of standing in the rain with a fence hammer. That is one of the reasons I loved this novel – I love surreal and black humour, but I hate anything disgusting, unduly frightening, macabre, or viciously unkind (so psychological thrillers almost always off the menu.) Mills lets the moments of darkness become instantly surreal simply by giving us a narrator who does not see the difference between life-changing, terrible incidents and the everyday minutiae of the construction industry. (Note that I’m deliberately avoiding telling you what these dark moments are, because I don’t want to spoil the surprise!)
Somehow, throughout plain and ‘deceptively simple’ (sorry, had to be done) prose, Mills expertly implies growing menace and claustrophobia. The humour is still there – never laugh-out-loud funny, but always a dry, bleak humour – but the darkness seems to be spreading. And from the opening pages, the reader is pulled from page to page, without almost nothing happening… how? I don’t know what is in the writing that makes it work so well, as tautly engaging as a detective novel. It’s obvious that All Quiet on the Orient Express was written after The Restraint of Beasts, because it follows a similar premise and style, but with a firmer structure. And yet I refer The Restraint of Beasts, perhaps because it is more daring in its lack of structure.
And what is it all about? I haven’t the foggiest. The ending (which, again, I shan’t spoil) isn’t conclusive at all, but dumps a whole load of clues about the meaning of the novel. I wondered whether it might be a metaphor for fascism, or perhaps communism, or… well, I don’t know. It doesn’t much matter, and I’d have been rather cross if it turned out to be a heavy-handed metaphor for anything (only George Orwell can get away with that), so I’m happy to let it be simply an excellent, bewildering, disturbing placid novel. If you’ve yet to try Mills, start here.
It’s been a while since I did a ‘Others who got Stuck into…’ section, because I have a terrible memory, so…
Others who got Stuck into The Restraint of Beasts…
“He is able to turn the ordinary into something sinister in a way that defies description, so that you’re never quite sure whether a terrible event is going to happen or whether the author is just playing with your sense of the dramatic.” – Kim, Reading Matters
“There are a number of things said that seem to be evasions or euphemisms that are not explained. Everything is sinister and suspect.” – Kate, Nose in a Book
“It has an undercurrent of mystery and black farce that I felt it could have done without, as it remains an unresolved and unlikely subplot.” – Read More Fiction
A House in Flanders – Michael Jenkins
I wouldn’t usually write a book review for the weekend (although this self-imposed rule might well be something nobody notices?) but today I am seeing a couple of lovely ladies from the internet, in beautiful Malvern, and one of them gave me A House in Flanders – thank you Carol! (The other is Barbara, of Milady’s Boudoir, so I expect to see a post about a Malvern trip there, in due course.) Since I’ll be seeing Carol, I thought I should write about the book she gave me about this time last year – which would mean it was during our trip to Chatsworth, I think. The edition I have is from Souvenir Press, but it has also been reprinted as one of the lovely Slightly Foxed editions.
Although this book qualifies for my Reading Presently project (I never did write an update on that… well, I’ve read 29/50, which is a super quick update, and shows I have a little way to go) it would also cover a tricky year for my Century of Books, being published in 1992 – and since it is about the author’s experience as 14 year old boy in 1951, that indicates quite how long his memory has had to stretch itself.
In that year, Jenkins spent the summer with his ‘aunts in Flanders’ – although they were no blood relation, they were mysteriously called aunts by his parents; all is revealed in the book – and, despite being without young companions, experiences the sort of halcyon summer I didn’t realise existed outside of fiction. Most of the other residents of the beautiful Flanders house are elderly women – sisters, sisters-in-law, nieces and the like – with the odd man thrown in, and chief amongst these is Tante Yvonne. Although she hardly leaves the house and garden any more, and scarcely moves around those, she is a force of kindness and strength that holds the household together. Everybody – even her intimidating sister Alice – bows to her natural authority, and a rather moving closeness develops between Yvonne and Michael.
I am always dubious about autobiographies which claim to recall verbatim conversations which happened years earlier – I can’t remember conversations I had ten minutes ago, let alone forty years – but I suppose that is necessary in order to have any dialogue in the book at all. What is more revealing is the way in which the characters – from happy-go-lucky, slightly downtrodden Auguste to glamorous Mathilde, and everyone in between – are drawn with a curious mixture of the fourteen year old’s perspective and the adult’s reflection. A boy of fourteen is certainly capable of compassion and empathy, to a certain extent, but Jenkins’ understanding of age and weariness seems insightful for a man of 55 (as he was at the time of publication), let alone a teenager.
It was a very busy summer. And when I say busy, I mean busy – in fiction he wouldn’t have got away with the number of significant incidents that happened, from a legal tussle to helping the local madwoman to the return of a German soldier who had occupied the house during the Second World War. I kept forgetting that it was all over the course of a few months. As though to draw attention away from this whirl of action, each chapter focuses on a different person in the milieu (or arriving from outside it), which certainly helps bring the people to the fore, rather than the events.
Jenkins’ nostalgia silently permeates the book, and that is another factor which could only (of course) have come with time and reflection. As he writes towards the end: “I was surprised by how passionately I wanted this world I had so recently discovered to stay intact.” That hope was, of course, impossible – and the book closes with the death of Yvonne, some time after Jenkins returned to his everyday life. But in the affectionate and moving portrait he put together of his summer in Flanders, and the ‘aunts’ he met there, he has created a way to keep that world intact, and it is beautiful.