Lil Bit Brit's Lit

Books Written by Dorothy Whipple

2011-09-25T15:42:00.000-07:00

Dorothy Whipple

Born in 1893, Dorothy Whipple (née Stirrup) had an intensely happy childhood in Blackburn as part of the large family of a local architect. Her close friend George Owen having been killed in the first week of the war, for three years she worked as secretary to Henry Whipple, an educational administrator who was a widower twenty-four years her senior and whom she married in 1917. Their life was mostly spent in Nottingham; here she wrote Young Anne (1927), the first of nine extremely successful novels which included Greenbanks (1932) and The Priory (1939). Almost all her books were Book Society Choices or Recommendations and two of them, They Knew Mr Knight (1934) and They were Sisters (1943), were made into films. She also wrote short stories and two volumes of memoirs. Someone at a Distance (1953) was her last novel. Returning in her last years to Blackburn, Dorothy Whipple died there in 1966.

Young Anne (1927)
Greenbanks (1932)
High Wages (1932)
They Knew Mr.Knight (1934)
The Priory (1939)
They Were Sisters (1943)
Because Of The Lockwoods (1949)
Every Good Deed (1950)
The Other Day: An Autobiography (1950)
Someone at a Distance (1953)
Wednesday and Other Stories (1961)
Tale of Very Little Tortoise (1962)
The Smallest Tortoise of All (1964)
Little Hedgehog (1965)
Random Commentary: Books And Journals Kept from 1925 Onwards (1966)
Mrs.Puss and That Kitten (1967)
On Approval
After Tea

Republished by Persephone Books

Someone at a Distance (1999)
They Knew Mr. Knight (2000)
The Priory (2003)
They Were Sisters (2005)
The Closed Door and other stories (2007)
Someone at a Distance (2008)
High Wages (2009)
Greenbanks (2011)

Heartstone By C. J. Sansom

2011-08-28T10:29:00.000-07:00

Heartstone is the 5th Mathew Shardlake mystery by Sansom. Set in the summer of 1545, when Henry VIII is building up his maritime navy. Queen Catherine Parr has an old lady servant who's son dies mysteriously and who divulged to his mother a concern for a brother and sister who he used to tutor. They have been made Wards of Court and are now living with their father's business partner and family.

Shardlake is summoned by Queen Catherine to investigate the well being of the orphans. He travels with his man servant Barak to the Portsmouth area to investigate this legal case. Many are travelling the same road as the King is building up forces in case of a French invasion. Some of the travellers are the famous long bowmen archers and are very skilled.

Eventually they arrive at Hoyland Priory to investigate the welfare of the children. The girl has died and there is only the boy to check on his welfare. What has happened to his inheritance?

Great detail is gone into as to how the Wards of Court arose, how it was administered and what a money making racket it was. Quite fascinating because it touches on the whole Bleak House, Charles Dickens characters who were Wards of Court. An institution which went on for hundreds of years once it was established.

The whole mystery ends with the sinking of the famous Mary Rose.

I enjoyed the history I learned about the Wards of Court.

I've only read two Mathew Sharlake mysteries, but enjoyed Dissolution more.

Christy

Loving Frank, By Nancy Horan

2011-08-28T09:43:00.000-07:00

Loving Frank is of course is about a love affair. An illicit love affair between Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Borthwick.

I had no idea that Frank Lloyd Wright was such a bounder. You see books of his architecture and visit his houses, you see interviews of him on TV and you haven't a clue of what he was really like. I think this book gives you some idea. Frank Lloyd Wright was egotistical and self centered. But maybe those very traits produced his wonderful eye riveting architecture, but in human relationships led to a lot of broken hearts and grief.

Edward Cheney commissions Frank to build him a house in the Chicago suburbs. Mamah, wife and mother of his two children, is somewhat bored with her life. The youngest child who has done well for herself, who's sister lives with them and has a housekeeper too, really does not have too much to do. She is an intellectual and is interested in philosophies of the day, including Ellen Kaye the Swedish feminist. Edward is good, loving and to her boring.

She starts an affair with Frank, eventually they both leave their respective partners under a great cloud of scandal in 1907-1914 era and cruise to Europe where they take up residency in Italy. Here although a free thinking Mamah has to conform to Frank's idea of the traditional wife, although not married, because Frank's wife will not give him a divorce. She must take second fiddle to his creative time and desire, he must shine, she must support him.

Eventually they go back to Frank's hometown and he starts to build a beautiful house on the family property, Taliesen in Wisconsin. He recruits local builders and artisans to carry out his every whim of creation. It is a showpiece it is their house, it is beautiful.

It is at this time that Mamah starts to see Frank in his more narrow aspect of pettiness. His buying of expensive furniture, when he hasn't even paid the local lumber store, his workers, or the grocery bills. Frank feels it is his unalienable right to be surrounded by beauty,even luxuriousness, never mind that the local carpenter is not paid.

Frank is away on other projects and all the trades people, and that is how Frank views them "Trades People" not an artist, creative person that he is. Mamah has to take things in hand and start the mundane every day life of paying these huge debts. A new side of Frank is revealed to her.

She has left everything for Frank and is willing to make a go of it, especially since here children have now been allowed to visit her. At this point a terrible tragedy happens. All lives of the people involved are burnt up in fire, except for Frank, who seems to come through in an asbestos suite. To live in the house of his creative dreams with a new love.

Read the book it's quite riveting.

Christy

Dissolution, By C. J. Sansom

2011-08-28T07:56:00.000-07:00

I read this book back in March, it was on my Inaugural World Book List from the UK.

Dissolution is a mystery set in the time of Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Catholic monasteries (1536 - 1540) The main character is Mathew Shardlake, a lawyer and hunchback, who is commissioned by Cromwell to investigate the murder of one of his agents sent to St. Donatus of Scarsea, to make an assessment of the monastery with a view to closing it down.

Mathew Shardlake with his young assistant travel the long arduous route, to be received with coldness and surrounded by suspicion. Why is there a young girl working in the apothecary? Who will be the next victim?

The setting of the south-east marshlands of England both lonely, isolated with creeping mists is an ideal setting for intrigue and murder at a Benedictine Cloister.

Dissolution is wonderfully rich in historical detail, also architectural detail of how a monastery would be laid out and the everyday routine of the monks. The Latin terminology of the different rooms, their clothing and life all add to the richness of text.

I enjoyed this historical mystery and will read more of C. J. Sansom's books.

Christy

Knitting In Tuscany, by Nicky Epstein

2011-08-28T07:13:00.000-07:00

A long while ago I said that I would include some craft books in my reviews.

Well here is a lovely knitting book by Nicky Epstein. I personally am not a knitter but who could not resist the thought of knitting in Tuscany, one is quite green with envy just thinking about it.

The presentation is of course total eye candy, one is taken to little yarn shops in tucked away places, along with little restuarants to eat at. Some history of yarn and knitting in Tuscany along with the little hillside towns to visit.

You will love this book and if you're a knitter I'm sure it will give you even more practical joy.

Christy

High Wages. by Dorothy Whipple

2011-08-28T06:47:00.000-07:00

I got this book from the library, it came all the way from the Oswego Lake Library, doesn't that conjure up some rather picturesque images in your mind.

Actually one year when Rob was about eight we took a trip up to Canada, past the One Thousand Island in the St. Lawrence River. We camped at a State Park campground on this Lake Oswego, in New York State. It was a very nice campground, with some sites right on a sandy beach by the lake. Quite sort after I'm sure.

High Wages set before and after the WWI Is about a young girl Jane who works in a haberdashery, that's where people would come and buy all the things they would need and then send to the dress maker to have a costume made up. It gives a full picture into the life of a shop girl in Lancashire then, living on the premises and being over frugally kept by the shop owner.

This was the time when ready made dresses and clothes were just becoming available. Jane sees that this will catch on and dressmakers will be a thing of the past. A kindly benefactress lends her the money to set up a shop of her own.

There are two love interests. The ever faithful Wilfred and Noel, good looking and from the upper class.

Of course the class system of that era was very strong and it comes out in all it's vagaries in this book.

I did enjoy this book, it gives you a wonderful insight into a shop girls life then, moves along at a good pace and has a satisfactory ending.

Of course you could probably tell by the grey cover and inside frontispiece that this is a Persephone Book. I always love their face cover designs which they choose from the era of the book.

There is a forward by Jane Brockett.

Christy

M.I.A.

2011-08-28T00:01:00.000-07:00

Yes I have been M.I.A..

I would never not read. It is the breath and width and soul of life.

Without ado I will just pick up on my reviews.

Christy

2011 New Year's Book Reading

2011-01-01T00:01:00.000-08:00

I thought that I would read some of the 25 titles chosen for the Inaugural World Book Night 2011.

The first book I'm going to try and read is:-

Dissolution by C. J. Sansom

for no better reason than his name is Sansom.

Christy

A Lesson Before Dying, by Ernest Gaines

2010-12-31T13:16:00.000-08:00

This book was first published in 1993 and is again part of the Boy's school reading.

Set in the sugar plantation area of Louisiana, around 1940s. It's about the last days of Jefferson a young black man convicted of a murder he did not commit and the growing relationship with Grant Wiggins a local black school teacher.

During the trial Jefferson's defense lawyer portrays Jefferson as sub-human, no better than a hog.

"Why, I would just as soon put a hog in the electric chair as this."

Jefferson's godmother who raised him goes to visit Wiggins and says:

"I don't want them to kill no hog," she explains, " I want a man to go to that chair on his own two feet."

At first Grant doesn't want to do this, but Tante Lou, who he lives with is close friends with Emma Glenn and firmly persuades him to take this on.

He has to humiliatingly beseech the sheriffs cousin, as does Emma Glenn who has worked for the family all her life, stubbornly states what she wants and that she is owed this.

I always think of tobacco plantations when I think of the South, but Ernest Gaines grew up in the sugar plantation area of Louisiana and this is where several of his books are set. Drawing on his childhood experience growing up there. His books are powerful and moving. Well worth reading, you truly breath the humid air, feel the holding onto the tiny shred of pride that is left to them.

Several of his books have been made into films and are well worth watching.

Christy

False Dawn, by Edith Wharton

2010-12-31T12:05:00.000-08:00

An interesting read, but it will be the last of Edith Wharton's books that I will read for a while. This reading too was from an original book, from my library, copyright 1923.

This was possibly the only book of hers that I had a small glimpse of where it was heading, not completely.

Halston Raycie a millionaire and head of the family, lives on Long Island Sound. There is a wife and three children, two girls Sarah Anne and Mary Adeline, fresher replicas of the lymphatic Mrs. Raycie. and a boy Lewis.

The boy Lewis is about to be sent to Europe for the Grand Tour, which all gentlemen of his era embarked upon to round off their education and turn them into men.

The dream, the ambition, the passion of Mr. Raycie's life, was (as his son knew) to found a Family; and he had only Lewis to found it with...

With a view to this founding of a family it was Mr. Raycie's great desire that Lewis should acquire, while in Europe, some old master pieces of artwork to establish a Raycie Art Gallery. To this effect he was given $15,000 a great deal of money back then.

"Where is our Byron - our Scott - our Shakespeare? And in painting it is the same. where are our Old Masters? ..."

Lewis is in love with his poor orphaned cousin Beatrice, nicknamed Treeshy. She grew up in Italy a country he will visit.

On his European Tour, Lewis meets a young Englishman while staying in an inn, at the foot of Mount Blanche and they spend an enjoyable evening and day together. They discuss many things and he encourages Lewis to visit certain not well known chapels, while in Italy and look at the paintings.

His eyes had been opened to a new world of art. And this world was his mission to reveal to others - he, the insignificant and ignorant Lewis Raycie.

"Oh, but it's not a Carlo Dolce; it's a Peiro della Francesca, sir!' burst in triumph from the trembling Lewis.

His father sternly faced him. "it's a copy, you mean? I thought so!"

"No, no; not a copy; it's by a great painter ... a much greater ..."

Needless to say papa Racie was not enamoured of the unknown artists who's paintings Lewis had brought back to the States. Within a year, with the disgrace of the much acclaimed collection coming from Europe, Mr. Raycie was dead and his wife too. Leaving Lewis, who married his sweet heart Treeshy, a small allowance of $5,000 per year, in contrast to the millions left to the girls.

Eventually by an insignificant cousin, Lewis was left a small house in New York City, where he decided to show his art collection, now he could actually show these wonderful paintings. It never caught on.

Fast forward about eighty to a hundred years, the time of the automobile. A hither to unknown collection of a now famous artist has come to light. It's been gathering dust in an attic all these years.

I wouldn't race out to get this book. But it's a short easy read, and Edith Wharton is a time honored American author.

Christy

Marilyn Monroe's Reading Library

2010-12-31T07:48:00.000-08:00

Some of the books in Marilyn Monroe's reading library.

Christy

The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne

2010-12-31T00:01:00.000-08:00

I read this book a while ago, it was part of Boosul Boy's summer school reading and since I had not read it and The Scarlet Letter is an American classic, I wanted to read it.

I'm rushing to get this in and another review for my final round up on book reading for 2010.

My first misconception was that the Scarlet Letter was a written letter, it was in fact an embroidered A on Hester Prynne's clothing. A for adultery. First published in 1850. the setting is the early days of the Massachusetts Puritan Colony.

It's a story of adultery, guilt, open and hidden sin, and how this psychologically effects one.

Arthur Dimmesdale is the minister and secret father of Hester's child Pearl, he struggles with conscience and his own weakness. Roger Chillingsworth, Hester's husband from Europe, revenges himself on the frail psyche of Dimmesdale.

Who was made the stronger of the two? Hester or Dimmesdale? Throughout the story it is as if Hester grows and has drawn strength from the public knowledge of her adultery, where as Dimmesdale is shrinking day by day, because of his tormented conscience. Chillingsworth's revenge eats himself up, as he physically becomes older and wizened. Pearl who is released from all bounds of society by being rejected by society, has a clear childlike sight into situations that even adults cannot see; as society has boxed their thinking, blinkered their eyes.

This is a must read for everyone. It's more than a tale of Puritanical New England, but delves deeper into society how it moves and thinks, and what it means to live outside the accepted bounds of society.

Exerts from the book which have such depth:

...yes these were her realities all else had vanished.

...as if her heart had been flung into the street to trample on.

...sufferer should never know the intensity of what he endures.

...occur but once in a lifetime ... she might call up the vital strength that would have sufficed for many a quiet years. She could no longer borrow from the future to help her through the present. Tomorrow would bring it's own trial with it; so would the next day, and so would the next ...

...than to hide a guilty heart through life ... to add hypocrisy to sin. and would that I might endure his agony as well as mine.

Every gesture, every word, and even the silence of those with whom she came in contact, implied ..., that she was banished and as much alone as if she inhabited another sphere,...

Hester Prynne was able to make a living with her beautiful needlework.

...gorgeously embroidered gloves, were all deemed necessary to the official state of men ... even while sumptuary laws forbade these ... to the plebeian order (from the Latin, lower class, peasant)

The child's attire, was distinguished ... by a fantastic ingenuity, airy charm.

It is probable that there was an idea of penance in this mode of occupation. She had in her nature, a rich, voluptuous Oriental characteristic, ... a taste for the gorgeously beautiful, ... Woman derive a pleasure, incomprehensible to the other sex, from the delicate toil of the needle.

"Pearl" as being of great price, ... purchased with all she had, ... her mother's only treasure.

The child could not be made amenable to rules ... Above all the warfare of Hester's spirit, at that epoch, was perpetuated in Pearl.

... the mother felt like one who has evoked a spirit, but, by some irregularity in the process of conjuration, has failed to win the master word, that should control the new and incomprehensible intelligence.

Such passages, such writing and formation of words.

Christy

Fragments, Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters By Marilyn Monroe

2010-12-28T00:01:00.000-08:00

Fragments is a collection of typed letters, poems and thoughts, written in journals, notebooks and on hotel and personal stationery. Through which you get a deeper glimpse into the untold Marilyn Monroe.

When she died in 1962 her personal effects were left to Lee Strasberg, in turn when he died in 1982 his young wife Anna Strasberg inherited this large and uncatalogued collection.

On one side of the page is a photo copy of her actual writings and on the other a printed version, in case you can't understand her writing and also some additional inserted words where needed, but you know they aren't Marilyn's.

If you've always loved Marilyn Monroe and thought that there was more to her then the dumb blond, then get this book.

Christy

Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton

2010-12-27T08:11:00.000-08:00

Ethan Frome is an American Classic and required reading at High School, at least in this area. It's also been made into a film several times. So I think probably everyone knows the ending of the story. I do think it is one of Edith Wharton's better books. She began this short novel while in Paris as an exercise in French, around 1911. It is based on her long residence in the Berkshires, during which time she had come to know well the aspect dialect and mental and moral attitude of the hill people.

Wharton's novels and novellas that I have read so far have had an outside narrator to run the thread of the story and Ethan Frome is no different. As the other books I reviewed, Madame de Treymes. New Year's Day and one I will review False Dawn are all set in High Society, Ethan Frome is set in poor rural farming New England.

"That's my place", said Frome, with a sideway jerk of his lame elbow; and in the distress and oppression of the scene I did not know what to answer...

"The house was bigger in my father's time; I had to take down the 'L' a while back,"

I saw then that the unusually forlorn and stunted look of the house was partly due to the loss of what is known in New England as the "L"; that long deep-roofed adjunct usually built at right angles to the main house, and connecting it, by way of storerooms and tool-house, with the wood-shed and cowbarn. Whether because of its symbolic sense, the image it presents of a life linked with the soil, and enclosing in itself the chief sources of warmth and nourishment, or whether merely because of the consolatory thought that it enables the dwellers in that harsh climate to get to their morning's work without facing the weather, it is certain that the "L" rather than the house itself seems to be the centre, the actual hearth-stone of the New England farm...

I like the above passage because the house seems to represent their life, the core has been torn away from it.

In happier times when Ethan's father was alive he went to engineering college, but after his father died he had to come home to run the farm. His mother fell into a long illness and a distant cousin Zeena came to nurse his mother through her illness. It was said that if his mother had not died in winter, he may never of married Zeena but he did. She was about seven years older than him, and not long after getting married she herself sunk into a long time illness. Zeena either needs to be nursing, or be nursed. Early on they had wanted to sell the farm and move to town, for Ethan to pick up on his studies, but they could not sell the farm.

Zeena had always been what Starkfield called "sickly,"..

So indeed it was an isolated stark life at Starkfield Farm. You feel the hardness of life. The fact that they are trapped, both Zeena because a woman has to be married to have protection and basically just a place to live and Ethan who cannot sell the farm and resume his studies.

Zeena decides that she needs help and invites her cousin Mattie Silver to come and live with them. Her parents have died and she has run out of visiting all the family. It seems a good arrangement for both. Mattie has not been brought up to cook and clean and these come hard to her, plus the fact that she did not arrive in the best of health. But in the country she begins to bloom.

Zeena has taken note of Mattie and Ethan's growing closeness and makes remarks that one day Mattie will leave and marry, as Denis Eady has taken an interest in Mattie.

"I guess you're always late, now you shave every morning."

That thrust had frightened him more than any vague insinuations about Denis Eady...

Ethan looks after Mattie's interests, picking her up from the village dance. Watching other young couples going coasting.

"There was a whole lot of them coasting before the moon set," she said.

Zeena takes note of all this and arranges for Mattie to leave and another girl to come and nurse her, turning Mattie out on her own to fend for herself. Ethan is stunned, angry and helpless.

Coasting is sledding. There is a special hill with a giant elm half way down the run; which has to be navigated around, it is dangerous, but still all in the village go coasting.

Here is the stage.

It was a shy secret spot, full of the same dumb melancholy that Ethan felt in his heart.

"Matt! You be quiet! Don't you say it."

"There's never anybody been good to me but you."

"Don't say that either, when I can't lift a hand!"

On the slow drive to the train stop, they decide to take a coast, the one they had promised to take but never had.

He laughed contemptuously: "I could go down this coast with my eyes tied!" and she laughed with him, as if she liked his audacity. Nevertheless he sat still a moment, straining his eyes down the long hill for it was the most confusing hour of the evening, the hour when the last clearness from the upper sky is merged with the rising night in a blur that disguises landmarks and falsifies distances.

Earlier in the book you think that Ethan may just run off with Mattie, as there is mention of a man in the area who did just that. But Ethan is a man who knows his duty.

It's an interesting read, well written.

Christy

New Year's Day, by Edith Wharton

2010-12-26T00:01:00.000-08:00

After having read three of Edith Wharton's books; I now realize she had a certain style of taking you down one path dead ending your thinking and totally re-arranging it again. All three books which I have now read, Ethan Frome; which I still have to write up on, Madame de Treymes and now New Year's Day, all follow this pattern.

Published in 1924 I am again reading from an original copy from the library. As you can see from the above photographs.

It starts of with a New York family at the turn of the twentieth century gathered together in New York City for New Year's Day. The narrator at that time a boy of twelve.

"...the New Year's Day ceremonial had never been taken seriously except among families of Dutch descent, and that that was why Mrs. Henry van der Luyden had clung to it..."

Across the street a fire breaks out in The Fifth Avenue Hotel, all the family rush to the window, laughing and making unpleasant remarks about the people rushing out, when they see Lizzie Hazeldean with Henry Prest.

"It was typical of my mother to be always employed in benevolent actions while she uttered uncharitable words."

"The hotel, for all its sober state, was no longer fashionable. No one, in my memory, had ever known any one who went there; it was frequented by "politicians" and Westerners," two classes of citizens whom my mother's intonation always seemed to deprive of their vote by ranking them with illiterates and criminals."

Lizzie Hazeldean is worried that she has been seen coming out of the Hotel, she walks home to find out that her invalid husband Charles has gone out to see where the fire was.

"Mistress and maid exchanged a glance of sympathy. and Susan felt herself emboldened to suggest; "Perhaps the outing will do him good," with the tendency of her class to encourage favoured invalids in disobedience."

Lizzie is distort that possibly even her husband saw her coming out of the Hotel. She goes up to her bedroom.

"It was a rosy room, hung with one of the new English chintzes, which also covered the deep sofa, and the bed with its rose-lined pillow-covers..."

Later Charles comes home but has not changed in his manner towards her at all. They sit and have tea together.

"She had been one of the first women in New York to have tea every afternoon at five, and to put off her walking-dress for a tea-gown."

Charles urges her to go to a dinner that evening although he is too ill to attend. She does and so does Henry Prest, they exchange words and part, although not until she has been snubbed by Mrs Wesson.

"It was the first time in her life that she had ever been deliberately "cut"; and the cut was a deadly injury in old New York."

Lizzie gets home from the dinner, Charles comes into her room and they share a close intimate moment until his illness takes over and within two weeks he is dead. After which Lizzie goes to Europe for six months to be with a newly married father.

Lizzie Hazeldean's humble beginnings reminded me a tad of Becky Sharpe, Vanity Fair. Lizzie's father had been a vicar of some repute in New York City, but had fallen with some scandal and taken himself and Lizzie off to Europe, to grow up. Here as a young woman she was befriended by a Mrs Mant, who often did good works, but didn't know how to follow though on them. So having brought Lizzie back into New York society she didn't know what to do with her. Right at the time when Lizzie sees that she has no means and no friends in comes Charles and using her beauty, perception and whit, within a week they are engaged.

This is the stage for the book and if I told you anymore I would give the plot away, if you could say there was a plot. But there is a distinct twist in where this goes.

Do read it, it is a novella so will not take long to read.

Christy

Madame De Treymes, by Edith Wharton

2010-12-25T04:53:00.000-08:00

Madame De Treymes is a novella, written by Edith Wharton My son had to read Ethan Frome for school and having not read that, but knew it was an American classic I thought that I should. So I went to our local library and picked up several of her other books too, including this one.

Our Library although housed in a 1960s building actually dates back to 1700s which if you live in the States will understand is old. And therefore our library has many old copies of books which are still just sitting on the shelf to be loaned out. The copy I picked up is dated 1907. So must be an original copy as it was published February 1907. With several of those colored plate pages that they used to put in novels back then.

I thought that Edith Wharton might have written this during the time that she lived in France, but that was actually later. The book shows an understanding of American upper class thinking as opposed to French aristocratic thinking. Although at the time that this is set before WWI obviously all 'true' French aristocrats had been beheaded. So why French upper class should think themselves any better than American upper class is beyond me, because neither have a 'pedigree' if you were into all that.

This difference of thought process and keeping family face is the whole premise of the book.

Madame de Malrive, who used to be good old Fanny Frisbee, meets in Parisian Society on old friend from the States, Durham. Fanny is separated from the Count because of his philandering and has one child a boy. Really the whole story is based around the boy, although he hardly appears in the book.

"If he had been asked why, he could not have told; but the Durham of forty understood. It was because there were, with minor modifications, many other Fanny Frisbees; whereas never before, within his ken, had there been a Fanny de Malrive.'

Madame de Treymes is Fanny's sister-in-law.

Durham says, "If I could only be sure of seeing anything here!"

Durham would like to marry Fanny, but the obstacle is the divorce in a Catholic society where divorce is not permitted under any circumstances, and the family cannot be scandalized by this. Also Fanny wants to take her son if she gets a divorce, here is the key part of the story.

Fanny having married into and living in France understands many of the problems in extricating herself from this family, but as is the case of foreigners living in a country not theirs to know the French thinking and laws to the ump degree is not a domain held by those not born there.

"Perhaps no Anglo-Saxon fully understands the fluency in self-revelation which centuries of the confessional have given to the Latin races, and to Durham, at any rate, Madame de Treymes' sudden avowal gave the shock of a physical abandonment."

Durham sets himself up as a knight in shining armor, a go between, and his contact is Madame de Treymes.

"Durham sat silent, her little gloved hand burning his coat-sleeve as if it had been a hot iron. His brain was tingling with the shock of her confession. She wanted money, a great deal of money: that was clear, but it was not the point. She was ready to sell her influence, and he fancied she could be counted on to fulfill her side of the bargain...."

I will not tell you the plot, but let me say it has more twists than a cold war spy story.

It is essentially the difference between an American principled thinking, that cannot understand an old French families code of honour.

Do find the book and read it. It's short but a great study into two societies before WWI.

Christy

The Valorous Years, by A. J. Cronin

2010-12-03T00:01:00.000-08:00

This book was first published as a serial novella in 1940 in Good Housekeeping Magazine. The chapters are short and the story moves quickly, thus you can see how it was written for the way it was published.

I just so much enjoyed reading The Valorous Years. The main character is of course a doctor. A young man from a poor Scottish family with a handicap of a withered arm. There are three women is his life, the girl he went to school with Margaret, from the local squires hall. Anna an Austrian doctor and the Jean the daughter of a village doctor.

Plus you have the antagonists, the local council men who he flouts and goes on to St. Andrew's University to win a scholarship and become a doctor; much against his mother's wishes and estranging himself from her and leaving behind his alcoholic father.

His rival is also a doctor, son of a local wealthy builder Mr Overton, self-centered and arrogant a thorn in his side through out the story. Contrasted with this are the good friends he made in the beautiful Scottish valley which is under threat from Mr Overton, who has built a dam with an ugly aluminium plant which scars the valley.

The characters are fleshed out enough to be interesting. If you're looking for a quick read with a heart warming ending, then this is it.

Christy

World Book Night 5th March 2011

2010-12-02T15:33:00.000-08:00

What Do You Think Of The List?

World Book Night - largest book give away ever.

BBC Who wants to give away a million books?

A million reasons to read a book.

From today, 2 December 2010, members of the public are invited to apply to be one of the 20,000 givers of 48 copies of their favourite book chosen from a carefully selected list of 25 titles. Most givers are expected to be passionate readers who will take pleasure in recommending a book they love to other readers. However, World Book Night will also encourage givers to pass the books on to others who either may be reluctant readers or who are part of communities with less access to books, bookshops and libraries. 960,000 books will be distributed by givers and a further 40,000 will be distributed by WBN to people who might not otherwise be able to participate.

The 25 titles selected for the inaugural World Book Night are:

Kate Atkinson - Case Histories (Black Swan)

Margaret Atwood - The Blind Assassin (Virago)

Alan Bennett - A Life Like Other People's (Faber/Profile)

John Le Carré - The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (Penguin)

Lee Child - Killing Floor (Bantam)

Carol Ann Duffy - The World's Wife (Picador)

Mark Haddon - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Vintage)

Seamus Heaney - Selected Poems (Faber)

Marian Keyes - Rachel's Holiday (Penguin)

Mohsin Hamid - The Reluctant Fundamentalist (Penguin)

Ben Macintyre - Agent Zigzag (Bloomsbury)

Gabriel García Márquez - Love in the Time of Cholera (Penguin)

Yann Martel - Life of Pi (Canongate)

Alexander Masters - Stuart: A Life Backwards (Fourth Estate)

Rohinton Mistry - A Fine Balance (Faber)

David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas (Sceptre)

Toni Morrison - Beloved (Vintage)

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Half of a Yellow Sun (Fourth Estate)

David Nicholls - One Day (Hachette/Hodder)

Philip Pullman - Northern Lights (Scholastic)

Erich Maria Remarque - All Quiet on the Western Front (Vintage)

C.J. Sansom - Dissolution (Pan)

Nigel Slater - Toast (Fourth Estate)

Muriel Spark - The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Penguin)

Sarah Waters - Fingersmith (Virago)

A Fine Balance

A Life Like Other People's

Agent Zigzag

All Quiet on the Western Front

Beloved

Life of Pi

Love in the Time of Cholera

One Day

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

The Spy Who Came In from the Cold

The World's Wife

Toast

Christy

Passionate Nomad, The Life of Freya Stark, biography by Jane Fletcher Geniesse

2010-10-31T08:24:00.000-07:00

Freya Stark a biography of her nomadic life.  As famous as Freya Stark was in her time and only having died in September 1993, I had never heard of her.  Maybe if I had been living in England at the time of her funeral which was attended by many titled people I might have caught a whiff of her name on the news.

She was known as a prolific travel writer traveling extensively in the Middle East, and having a complete command of many Arabic languages.  Lawrence of Arabia called her "a gallant creature."  She was not afraid to travel with just a couple of local guides and ruff it.  Speaking freely with the local people and gaining their confidence.

Her reputation began in 1927 when she was captured by the French military police after penetrating the rebellious Druze.  She explored the mountainous area of the mysterious Assassins of Persia.  Followed the Frankincense route of early traders and found many areas of archaeological interest.  Including traveling in many places the name of which we are familiar with today because of the Iraqi War.

During WWII she was used extensively by the British military and diplomatic core, with an instinct for listening, gleaning information, plus her map making abilities and organizing skills. 

Who was she?  Well her parents were English, but after her dominant mother divorced her father and aligned herself with an Italian count and a rug manufacturing venture. Her life drastically changed, shaping a lot of her emotional inner turmoils. Taken from a west country childhood of privilege to a small untutored life of poverty,  in northern Italy. This led to her receiving very little schooling and being brought up speaking English with an Italian accent, which was she felt a bane of her life.  Never quite being accepted in the circles to which she aspired and the background from which she really came from.

She did not extricate herself from her mother and the count until she was 34, but when she did break lose it was in a big way.  Traveling and writing and always falling in love with the wrong men.  Her career and travels spanned over 60 years, having published, 22 books of travels and poetic prose.  She was over 100 years old when she died.

A biography of a fascinating intrepid woman traveler of the  old school. I would recommend this book to read.

Also on the side line it touches on some interesting history of Iraq and what has led up to the problems there, along with the Palestinian problems of today.

Christy

The Blue Hour, A Life Jean Rhys, by Lillian Pizzichini

2010-09-22T08:10:00.000-07:00

After a far too long hiatus I am back.  I'll just say life.  It reminds me of a postcard I received as a child, from a dear older friend of the family who we always call auntie Gladys.  The postcard was from Wales and called the Ups and Downs.  Little caricature type people going up and down the mountains of Wales; which made me think of life, the ups and downs.  But I digress.

I have been reading, I never stop reading.  I rush into my local library and usually go no further than the newly published book section right at the front; which is were I picked up 'The Blue Hour.'  I can't say that I knew who Jean Rhys was until it mentioned in the fly leaf that she had written 'Wide Sargasso Sea', not that I knew what it was about but the title rang a bell.

I don't know about you but I like to read biographies, and this one proved to be quite interesting, evoking a whole era.  Rhys was born in 1890 in the island of Dominica, I thought I knew all the Caribbean islands, but I kept thinking of the Dominican Republic; which I knew could not be right, so I looked it up on the map.  I have to visualize geographic place and time in history.  Rhys father was a Welsh physician and her mother of Creole-Scottish descent. 

Her childhood was isolated, living on a small island of lush green tropical foliage, humming background of insects and bursting strong colours.  At seventeen as was the done thing for families of her socio-economic background, she was sent to England for finishing-off, this would have been around 1907.  To a small girls boarding school in Cambridge.  Can you imagine the contrast.  I don't think she ever felt warm again, cast across the Sargasso Sea to grey, rainy England.  She lasted about a year, flung herself into the London chorus line show girl and making money as an artists' model. From where fate led her to married men and what they could give her.  Betrayed by love, she falls into marriage and life in the Paris of the 1920s.  Sinking deeper and deeper into her drinking and paranoia, burying one child and abandoning another, her therapy seems to be her writing.  Her life is written into a series of novels. It's as if she can totally recall whole scenes and conversations that happened to her and put them right down in the sentences of a book

Rhys had two more failed marriages and an affair with Madox Ford; during this time she wrote five novels.  Her affair with Ford ended, but through him she was able to secure an introduction to his publisher in 1927.  Who published her first collection of short stories. The trajectory of her life rose and fell into obscurity, living in a boarding house in Cornwall.  Then in 1957 the BBC aired a presentation of her 1939 Novel, 'Good Morning, Midnight.'  Most people had forgotten her and even wondered that she was alive.

In 1978 she received the CBE, a year before she died.  Rhys said that this had all come too late in her life.

Although she looked backed on her childhood with clouded, rose coloured glasses, you feel that it was her life here where the root was of her despair and aspirations, never fitting in, always on the periphery looking in. Just her heritage of knowing she was part Creole, gave her discomfort.  I think that this is hard to understand in Europe, but if one has ever been down to the southern states of the USA, you will have somewhat of an understanding of what even a taint of Creole means.  Even the definition of Creole is ambiguous, there are soo many definitions.  In Rhys's case it was very distant, a great, great grandmother from Cuba on her mother's Scottish side.  Take this along with the sugar plantations, slavery and superstitious customs, of black magic.  Along with black nanny's who terrorized her with voodoo like haunting, and a long term abuse from an elderly man.  One might see why her life never came to be what she longed for.

It seemed she longed for money and the perceived security that money brings, along with love and being looked after, but always sabotaged it, by her shadier longings for all the things that would destroy that.  She never found the Lord to marry while working in the chorus line, although two of her chorus line companions did, both becoming Lady so-and so.  Her looks left her as she aged, but she still found two men to marry and put up with her extreme mood swings, bordering on manic.  Rhys was right the CBE came too late to make the difference she would have revelled in when younger.

'Wide Sargasso Sea' is based on Bertha Rochester's life, of Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte, fame.  In fact she had in mind to write this book for decades before she actually did.  Rhys knew what life was like being brought up on a Caribbean Island, visiting her grandfather's sugar plantation, and she wove this into her story of how Bertha Rochester came to be locked up as a madwoman.

I do want to read some of her books.  But I feel that they will be dark.  The Blue Hour is well written.  The title refers to twilight time of day in Paris, that Rhys referred to and the French called L'heure Bleue or The Blue Hour

Christy.

The Dead of Winter, by Rennie Airth

2010-03-29T17:45:00.000-07:00

This is an Inspector John Madden mystery. Set around WWII. Starting in the days just prior to the invasion of Paris by the Germans, people are trying to leave. Especially many Jews, who have already fled from Eastern Europe. A Jewish furrier wants to liquidate his assets and turns them into diamonds. He is asked to take along with him in his car a young couple also fleeing. The young couple find him murdered.

Fast forward to 1944. Rosa Novak is found murdered during the blackout, not far from the British Museum. Madden feels that he owes it to her to find out why she was murdered. To escape the holocaust only to be murdered.

This leads to a continental manhunt, that can only now begin as the Germans have left Paris.

This is a very exciting high speed mystery, action packed and holds you to the end.

Christy

The Story of Lucy Gault, by William Trevor

2010-03-29T17:19:00.000-07:00

Set in the turbulent 1920's Ireland, when many Anglo-Irish are coming under arson attacks. Although having lived on their affluent estates for centuries. They feel at odds in a land that has been home to them. Here enters Lucy Gault's family. Disturbed and upset by the attempt to set fire to their house, they are thinking of returning to England. Lucy their daughter does not want to go, she loves her home.

On the day they are to leave she runs off. On the search for Lucy her parents mistakenly think that she is dead. They leave as planned and are torn apart by their loss. Lucy returns home and does get to stay there, with the family servants, who get to stay on.

Her parents never truly settle, drifting on to Italy and Switzerland, with no forwarding address for them.

Lucy grows up, lonely and sad. In comes Ralph who she really does love and he her, but feels she cannot commit to love unless she reconciles with her parents. Unfortunately WWII starts and they are left in Europe, where her mother dies. Her father eventually does return to his old estate, but too much time has passed for Lucy to regain what has been lost. Ralph has married someone else.

Eventually Lucy feels somehow responsible for the young man her father wounded defending his home against the arsonists. Trying to make a distorted recompense for her lost and stunted life.

I did not especially like this book, so wouldn't recommend it.

Christy

And the winner is?

2010-03-01T16:45:00.000-08:00

Joann, Lakeside Musing.

I decided to use a number random generator. There were 15 different people who left comments from January 1st until February 28th. I listed names in random order and assigned numbers and Joann's assigned number was 14 and that was the winning number.

It's such a coincidence, because Joann was so kindly giving away several books and I asked for Winesburg, Ohio, by Sherwood Anderson, which she is mailing to me.

So Joann please contact me via E-mail and I will send off the Modern Voices note cards.

Christy

The Waves, by Virginia Woolf

2010-02-24T15:15:00.000-08:00

This is the copy of The Waves I read from:

Somehow I had in mind that the last posting on this was the 28Th, but when I started seeing every one's postings I thought, goodness me it's today Friday and of course living in the States we are already behind time wise. So I'm scrabbling to get my thoughts together. Yes I did meditate on things in my mind but paper and pen must be the fruition of thought.

My first thoughts were do I want to wade into The Waves. Did I want to put all the effort needed into it and be committed to the read. You know that feeling you have when at the seaside on the beach. Shall I change, put the swimsuit on and even if it is on, do I really want to wade into the sea. Once you've stepped in your committed. Salty wet and sand in ones hair, seaweed in ones' toes. Now you have to at some point take a shower and put oneself straight, but then you decide, yes it's worth it, to feel the waves bounce you around from trough to height and down again, and that's how I felt with "The Waves".

First I did not like it as much as Mrs Daloway, or To The Lighthouse. I was greatly remiss in not reading Orlando, but hope to a some point. I need a little distance from Woolf , after reading the Waves.

I would first say don't read this book in a depressed state or even a shade of grey. Humans as Blogland shows, are social interactive people and need this connectivity to blossom and be fruitful creatively. That's why Woolf had her Bloomsbury group. To be to isolated as you felt these characters were is somewhat sad and soul destroying. Did she feel this way later in life? One has to feel she did, because some of the thoughts of the characters I feel are bang on.

Bernard the storyteller, Louis linguistically, the outsider, Neville the homosexual, Susan wife and homemaker, Rhoda suicidal, Jinny the lover. It's not a novel, it's a soliloquy, this thought that thought, flung into the space of mind, orbiting around, but never landing. Never making a connection with terra firma. But never the less, thoughts I'm sure we've all had. These thoughts I think are very age related. I think Woolf captured that. The striving and jostling for position in youth, the middle part of ones life working on the path you have set your foot too. Then the latter part thinking what was all that striving all that work, what was it all about.

Susan seems the most fulfilled.

"In this hot afternoon," said Susan, "here in this garden here in this field where I walk with my son, I have reached the summit of my desires, the hinge of the gate is rusty; he leaves it open. the violent passions of childhood, my tears in the garden when Jinny kissed Louis, my rage in the schoolroom ..."

"I am fenced in, planted here like one of my own trees..."

Neville coming to terms with life.

"I no longer need a room now," said Neville, "or walls and firelight. I am no longer young. I pass Jinny's house without envy, and smile at the young man who arranges his tie a little nervously on the door-step. Let the dapper young man ring the bell; let him find her. I shall find her if I want her, if not, I pass on. The corrosion has lost its bite - envy , intrigue and bitterness have been washed out. We have lost our glory too...."

Rhoda of life says.

"... What dissolution of the soul you demanded in order to get through one day, what lies, bowings, scrapings, fluency and servility! How you chained me to one spot, one hour, one chair, and sat yourselves down opposite! How you snatched from me the white spaces that lie between hour and hour and rolled them into dirty pellets and tossed them into the wastepaper basket with you greasy paws. Yet those were my life."

Neville at the coming together of the friends.

"Now sitting side by side," said Neville, "at this narrow table, now before the first emotion is worn smooth, what do we feel? Honestly now, openly and directly as befits old friends meeting with difficulty; what do we feel on meeting? Sorrow. The door will not open; he will not come. and we are laden. Being now all of us middle-aged, loads are on us. Let us put down our loads. What have you made of life, we ask, and I? You, Bernard; you, Susan; you, Jinny; and Rhoda and Louis? The lists have been posted on the doors. Before we break these rolls, and help ourselves to fish and salad, I feel in my private pocket and find my credentials - what I carry to prove my superiority. I have passed. I have papers in my private pocket that prove it...."

"...Change is no longer possible. We are committed. Before, when we met in a restaurant in London with Percival, all simmered and shook; we could have been anything. We have chosen now, or sometimes it seems the choice was made for us - a pair of tongs pinched us between the shoulders. I chose. I took the print of life not outwardly, but inwardly upon the raw, the white, the unprotected fibre. I am clouded and bruised with the print of minds and faces and things so subtle that they have smell, colour, texture, substance, but no name..."

Bernard.

"It was different once," said Bernard, "Once we could break the current as we chose...
We have to leap like fish, high in the air, in order to catch the train from Waterloo. And however high we leap we fall back again into the stream. I shall never now take ship for the South Sea Islands. A journey to Rome is the limit of my travelling. I have sons and daughters. I am wedged into my place in the puzzle"

Louis.

"...I luxuriate in gold and purple vestments. Yet I prefer a view over chimney-pots; cats scraping their mangy sides upon blistered chimney stacks; broken windows; and the hoarse clangour of bells from the steeple of some brick chapel."

Jinny.

"... My mother must have followed the drum, my father the sea. I am like a little dog that trots down the road after the regimental band, but stops to snuff a tree-trunk ..."

Bernard.

"That goes on. Listen. there is a sound like the knocking of railway trucks in a siding. that is the happy concatenation of one event following another in our lives. Knock, knock, knock. Must, must, must. Must go, must sleep, must wake, must get up - sober, merciful work which we pretend to revile, which we press tight to our hearts, without which we should be undone. how we worship that sound like the knocking together of trucks in a siding!"

The above passage almost flows like a poem from W. H. Auden. The Night Train.

Of course where to stop quoting, where to end this review without becoming tedious.

I don't think I would have tackled Woolf without the incentive of the group. But I am glad that I have and feel the richer for it literary wise.

Now I have a great urge to go back to my Persephone books.

Christy

P.S. Don't forget to leave a comment if you should so wish, as on the 28Th I shall have the drawing for the note cards. I think that's why I had the 28Th in mind.

Evening by Susan Minot

2010-02-12T11:25:00.000-08:00

Evening by Susan Minot. From reading the dust cover fly leaf Susan Minot has received good reviews from the New York Times for another of her books Monkeys, which I have not read. This book is a read for my Local Library Book Club, which meets once a month and I have been quite negligent in attending.

The story centers around a three day weekend on an island off the coast of Maine, where Ann Lord attended a friends wedding. Fast forward to Ann Grant in her sixties, who lies in bed, suffering from a terminal illness. Her mind moves between lucidity, past events and delirium. Her memories cross three marriages and five children and one special event that overshadowed the rest of her life and loves.

Ann Grant had a circle of friends used to meeting together in their shared summers, all of them more affluent than Ann's modest background. The story does not really explain how she came to move in these circles of summer houses and motor boats, but she did and here she is for the wedding of her friends. Another invited guest becomes the love of her life, the highest point, she is bowled over, knocked for six and totally swept up in love and surrender.

Arriving late is his fiance, who he finds out, on that very weekend is pregnant. Of course he needs to do the right thing and stand by her, but not by Ann and she doesn't seem to mind, at least not in an angry way, just that their shared life of love has been lost.

I'm sorry, but you felt no build up of words spoken, beautiful scenes and enduring love. Just a few trysts in the boathouse does not make a life spent in an enduring love for one man.

The whole book was very confusing with the backwards and forwards in time and what she really remembered and what she just imagined, on top of the antipathy of her children, waiting for her to die. Also throw in a tragedy on that weekend and one becomes totally swirled around, where is she heading?

I just thought he was, to use old terminology an absolute bounder and a cad. And no way since somewhere in there it alludes to a son Paul who dies, but even that is buried in the dream world, would a person come out of this dalliance as a couple in love for the rest of their lives. In fact it speaks later on of a friend seeing him in Chicago with a young girl hanging on his arm, not his wife and calls him a ladies man. So even the author portrays him as this.

No this was not the great love story, sorry.

So I guess you by now you realize, I did not like this book.

Christy

Library Magazine

2010-02-03T11:48:00.000-08:00

To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf

2010-01-29T06:50:00.000-08:00

Reading To The Lighthouse was easier than reading Mrs Dalloway, because now I'm in step, my mind has caught the rhythm of her writing. I can follow her steps easily in the sand, the distance, the pace, the interlude.

I can imagine Woolf always carrying a moleskin notebook, with a thin pencil that slips into the spine. she would be wearing one of those large baggy twenties cardigans, with turned up cuffs and baggy pockets. and there in a cuff or a pocket she would sequester the notebook, ready at any moment to record a thought, a phrase. Later she sits at her desk, gathers all those ramblings of her mind, in the cup of her hands, and throws them at the canvas of her page, to be sorted re-arranged and assigned.

Of course she may not have done this but this is my image.

I enjoyed this book, a gathering of family and summer guests at their summer house on the Isle of Skye. The setting is based on Woolf's own childhood summers spent in Cornwall, at Talland House in St. Ives. All the description of the scenery is Cornwall. And having just visited the Isle of Skye and also having visited Cornwall and St. Ives, I can ask the question, did Woolf ever visit the Isle of Skye?

The island does not fit her descriptions. First of all Cornwall is a 300 mile train ride from London, the Isle of Skye is over 800 miles.

"Never mind the rent was precisely twopence halfpenny: the children loved it; it did her husband good to be three thousand, or if she must be accurate, three hundred miles from his libraries and his lectures and his disciples:"

There is not a town, near a lighthouse, where you could just walk into town. And certainly not one, except for maybe Portree where a visiting Circus would come. But still we can secede to literary license. Just why wouldn't she set it in Cornwall, with the sand dunes and hotter summers. Maybe she did not want to acknowledge too much similarity to her childhood.

The Ramsay family are a large family. Mr. Ramsay a published philosopher in his early sixties, feeling that his best days are behind him academically and Mrs Ramsay in her fifties, the Victorian wife still, although set just before the first world war, about 1912. The visiting guests are Lily Briscoe an artist and single lady in her thirties, William Bankes in his sixties, Mr. Carmicheal a poet and retired teacher who had been in India, and married incorrectly; which had not been helpful for his career; an old former college mate of Mr. Ramsay's. Charles Tansley a student, working on his dissertation. Plus Minta and Paul Rayley, soon to be engaged.

The book opens with the scene of James cutting out a picture of a refrigerator, and his persistant wish to visit the lighthouse; which requires a boat ride across to it. This visit hangs upon a tyrant father's whim and the weather. You feel like two dogs are playing tug of war with a rag, backwards and forwards. James and his mum willing this visit to the lighthouse to happen. Knitting the socks for the lighthouse keeper's son; and measuring them against James's leg to see if they are long enough. Willing this event to happen for her youngest. The father so self-centred, smashing any hopes with cold logic that the weather will be bad tomorrow.

Of course he knew how important this was to James. As all those years later, at the end of the book after Mrs Ramsey's death he demands that James and Cam come with him to the lighthouse. In remembrance of a day never fulfilled.

Mrs Ramsay is an interesting pivotal part of the family, many times mentioned as beautiful.

"But was it nothing but looks people said? What was there behind it - her beauty and splendour? Had he blown his brains out , they asked, had he died the week before they were married - some other earlier love, of whom rumours reached one?"

This reminds me of Clarissa Dalloway, is there or isn't there more beneath the surface?. In both woman I think there was. I think they lived the lives they wanted.

Bankes's view of her as mother and child and Lily Briscoe's close complicated but rewarding friendship with Mrs Ramsay and the family.

I have to mention the dinner party of Boeuf en Daube. The gathering together of all in their finery in a run down tattered old house. Here again I feel shades of Mrs Dalloway.

"But already bored, Lily felt that something was lacking..."

Mrs Dalloway thinks the party is going to be a failure and then says no, no, no the party comes together, just as the Mrs Ramsay's dinner party, after a stilted beginning comes to flow. Lily helps her by engaging the prickly socially inferior feeling young man Charles Tansley.

"... but what haven't I paid to get it for you? She had not been sincere."

The book is in three sections, before WWI, Mrs Ramsay dieing, Andrew the son who was close to Mr Carmicheal is killed during the war. Prue another daughter who dies in childbirth as the middle section. Plus the deterioration of the house the visits of a local lady to keep it in order; which is impossible. The house seems to reflect the deterioration and change in the Ramsay family, with so many deaths. And then the return to the summer house after the war.

The final curtain of taking the trip To The Lighthouse and Lily Briscoe at last capturing in her painting the family's summer house.

You have to read the book, you cannot capture or even gain the essence of the book in a short review.

Christy

Virginia Woolf Recorded Interview

2010-01-22T11:39:00.000-08:00

Virginia Woolf recorded interview, her voice.

When the interview is finished there are other Virginia Woolf related videos you may view, at the bottom.

Mrs Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf

2010-01-15T00:01:00.000-08:00

Mrs Dalloway, the events of a single day in which Clarissa prepares for a party.

First of all don't you just love that name, Mrs Dalloway, I think it must have appealed to Woolf too, when Clarissa mistakenly calls him Mr Wickham all day and only finds out at dinner what his correct name is. Sally and Peter take up on this and it becomes an inside joke "Dalloway, my name's Dalloway."

When Woolf wrote this book she was 43 years old. Seven years after the Great War, the war to end all wars. A war that changed everything, a war that had taken her generation from a time of peace and the thought that world peace was in their grasp, to the world of Septimus Warren Smith. This is why I think Woolf has Clarissa not believing in God, possibly this is how Woolf herself felt after the Great War.

I think it's interesting the way Woolf carries three threads in this book. Their youth together, their life now and Warren Smith and his wife.

Her description of Warren Smith's shell shock I think must be amazingly accurate. I have never read a biography of Woolf, but I would be interested to know if she had close friends she knew who were in that state. One would have to think she did. Of course she was older than the generation that went to war. But all were affected by the war.

By the time I reached the end of the book I was thinking exactly these thoughts about Clarissa and Woolf sums them up very concisely.

"But - did Peter understand? - she lacked something. Lacked what was it? She had charm; she had extraordinary charm. ....."

It was Clarissa's charm that made people think that there were greater depths to Clarissa, that really were not there.

"For said Sally, Clarissa was at heart a snob - one had to admit it, a snob. ..."

And the truth was she was a snob and quite shallow. She had married the right person in marrying Richard. He gave her exactly what she wanted. Her social life in London, in Society, her parties. When in fact both Richard and her daughter Elizabeth liked the countryside.

"I love walking in London," said Mrs. Dalloway. "Really it's better than walking in the country."

Her parties,to invite all those people you didn't like but they were your social circle. But to hold yourself above it as if I'm not like them, but she was like them. Would you have very old friends come and visit and just sit them aside until the end of the party, because time must be spent hostessing?

"She would marry a Prime Minister and stand at the top of a staircase; the perfect hostess he called her ..."

But of course Clarissa would, she was the consummate hostess. Appeasing her conscience with the thought that later I can devote my sole attention to them.

Youth and being in ones fifties! Woolf had an amazing clarity of these contrasting times of ones life. Close friendships of youth, that will always stand, what ever you have become in ones fifties, what ever road you travelled to get there, those times together, of youth, stand enchanted, alone. You cannot view the person in ones fifties as being the person of ones youth, and yet they are. Woolf captured this.

"She had the oddest sense of herself invisible; unseen, unknown; there being no more marrying, no more having of children now, ....."

Our minds think so many more thoughts than we ever say, but Woolf wrote them.

The scene in Regent's Park is very poignant. All those thoughts of different people watching the aeroplane.

"Ah; but that aeroplane! Hadn't Mrs. Dempster always longed to see foreign parts?"

Clarissa's friendship with Sally, the fleeting kiss.

"Star-gazing?" said Peter.
It was like running one's face against a granite wall in the darkness! It was shocking; it was horrible!"

"... She had a perfectly clear notion of what she wanted, Her emotions were all on the surface. Beneath she was very shrewd - a far better judge of character than Sally, ..."

You cannot capture in a review all the elloquence of Woolf's words.

Woolf totally captured the social scene of the time. Mrs Dalloway would be a great book to read if you were writing a social history of the time. The difference between 10,000 pounds per year and 300 pounds per year.

Ellie Henderson the poor, looked down upon cousin, who Clarissa showed a coldness to.

".. by her distressing gentility, her panic fear, which arose from three hundred pounds' income, and her weaponless state (she could not earn a penny) and it made her timid and more and more disqualified year by year to meet well dressed people ..."

Clarissa's insight into Dr. Bradshaw was bang on though. How sad for Septimus and Rezia. The law was behind him. Must! must! must! Septimus had no choice.

Two scenes which I think are very poignant is the one of Septimus and Rezia laughing together over the making of the little hat.

The second is Clarissa standing in her window alone at the party, looking across the street at the old lady going to bed and thinking about the young man who took his own life. Here is where I think all three threads come together, at that very moment.

Woolf herself straddled two worlds and she led us into them.

Looking forward to reading the other three books.

Christy

P.S. The book I read Mrs Dalloway in, was from our library, published in 1928, so quite an old copy. With all sorts of pencil markings, which was rather fun to think about who had taken this book out of the library over all those years, what they found of interest.

Woolf in Winter Give Away

2010-01-13T19:16:00.000-08:00

Woolf in Winter Drawing Give Away

When I ran across these note-cards, I thought how apropos to our Woolf in Winter reading group. So as a little contribution to this and just for fun. Leave a comment between now and Feb 28th, the end of our four book readings on Virginia Woolf and I will put your name in for the drawing on these cards. I will ship worldwide.

Have fun in your reading.

Christy

Tell No One, by Harlen Coben

2010-01-09T17:19:00.000-08:00

A scene from the movie.

I read through the first few pages of this book and thought this seems familiar. At first I couldn't put my finger on it and then I remembered French movie. 'Ne Le dis a Personne.' So I read about half of the book and then looked up the movie on Netflix and watched it again. Yes the French movie was based on this book.

Tell No One opens at a lakeside cabin in Pennsylvania. Dr David Beck and his wife Elizabeth are going there for their anniversary. They have known each other since they were children and have grown up going to the lakeside camp with their families.

Eight years have passed but David cannot move on. That was the night he heard his wife screaming, the last night he saw her alive and was unable to prevent what happened. He was knocked out and in hospital when his father-in-law and uncle identify the body. She was the victim of a serial murderer.

But their life, friendship and love was so deep, he cannot move on. A message has appeared on his computer, something only Elizabeth would have known. Is it remotely possible that Elizabeth is alive. The instructions with this are 'Tell no one.' He must follow this through. This leads him into a labyrinth of powerful family men.

You know how you always enjoy the book more than the movie and the movie is not a patch on the book. Well I don't know if I'm memorized by France, or I just love that French accent. But here was a case where I liked the movie more. Paris rather then New York, the French countryside rather than Pennsylvania countryside. Not to knock Pennsylvania because I live here and it's a beautiful State.

The script writers changed a few things from the book. And to be quite honest it hung together better than the book. It tied in loose ends. They gave it a more European flare, by having Dr Beck called Alexander and his wife being named Margot. His sister operating a horse farm; which was their father's and being sponsored by a very rich man in a charitable horse jumping foundation in memory of his dead son. In the book it's just a charitable foundation in memory of his son in New York City and other details; which I will not go into.

I did like the book, it's a good mystery. Read the book, but if you can't I say watch the French movie, or do both.

Christy

Virginia Woolf, a Winter Woolfian

2010-01-02T11:42:00.000-08:00

Mrs Dalloway: January 15. Sarah . "What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate"

To the Lighthouse: January 29. Emily . "Evening All Afternoon"

Orlando: February 12. Frances . "Nonsuch Book"

The Waves: February 26. Claire . "Kiss a Cloud"

My 2009 Year End Reading Summary from Christy

2009-12-31T13:37:00.000-08:00

How many books read in 2009? 24
How many fiction? 14
How many non-fiction? 10
How many biographical or auto-biographical? 8
How many travel books? 2
Female authors? 16
Male authors? 8
Most favourite? Someone at a Distance, by Dorothy Whipple
Least favourite? The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet, by Colleen McCullough
Any I simply couldn't read all the way through? The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet. I was amazed that the writer of Thornbirds could write such a dreadful book.
Oldest book read? The Blue Castle, by L.M. Montgomery
Newest book read? Persona non Grata, by Ruth Downie
Longest read? The Lost, A search for six of six million, by Daniel Mendelsohn
Shortest read? The Blue Castle, by L.M. Montgomery
How may books from the library? 18
Translated books? 3
Most read author of the year? Dorothy Whipple
How many by that author? 3
Any re-reads? No
Favourite character? Charlotte Gray
How many countries were visited, through the read page? Australia, USA, Canada, Russia, Poland, Germany, Monrovia, France, United Kingdom, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Kenya, South Africa, Botswana
Which books would you not have read without a recommendation? The Memory Keeper's Daughter, Someone at a Distance, Mrs Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Little Boy Lost, Facing the Lion.
Which author was new to me, and I want to read all that author's works? Dorothy Whipple
Read any books I always meant to read? The Blue Castle, L.M. Montgomery
Any books I'm annoyed I didn't read? The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society

I have never kept a statistical record of the books I have read. And I don't think this was my best year for reading books. I averaged two books per month. I think I'm going to try for three books per month next year. But I read for the love of it, so what takes my fancy or comes to my attention, will be read.

I seem to especially like books fiction or biographical, that are set in the first or second world war time period, but I'm not stuck there.

I have sorely neglected our library, book reading club and every time I run into someone they say "when are you coming back?" Just life gets in the way. So will work harder to keep up and participate in that.

Reading, what a joy, what a transportation, through time and distance from ones own fireside.

Well signing off from my American fireside reading.

Christy

P.S. Found this meme on Paperback Reader

Persona Non Grata, by Ruth Downie

2009-12-31T12:43:00.000-08:00

This will be my last book review of the year and I was going to get together a very humble little tally of the books I have read this year.

Ruth Downie has two previous books in this series, both were New York Times best sellers, Medicus and Terre Incognita.

Based around the main character, a career military doctor, Gaius Petreius Ruso, who is stationed in Roman Britain, near Hadrian's Wall and lives with his companion Tilla a tribal native of the isle. He receives a letter summoning him back to his family in the south of France.

On reaching the family home and vinyard, nobody owns up to sending the letter. All is in turmoil. The family are on the edge of bancrupty, their creditors are breathing down their necks, they could all be out on the street. Gaius's sister-in-law's brother, has drowned mysteriouly on a sea voyage.

Gaius has not told his family he will be bringing Tilla and has not told them of their relationship.

As if this isn't enough their main creditor comes to visit and drops dead of poisoning in front of Gaius.

How is his younger sister mixed up the the gladiators.

Gaius is now expected to sort out the family fortunes.

What did I think?

I was truthfully expecting more. Knowing that Ruth Downie's two previous books were New York Times best sellers. It was a good read, a not in depth read. Interesting research on Roman Life. I enjoyed it, and probably I should go back and read the two previous books.

I studied Roman Britain for my final exams, so had some background understanding of this period in history.

I felt it was an OK book that benefited from it's period setting. I will hold judgement until I read the previous two books.

Christy

BBC Radio 4 Tea Time for the Traditionally Built

2009-12-30T08:23:00.000-08:00

BBC Radio 4, Tea Time for the Traditionally Built.

If you enjoyed reading this book, or haven't read it, but would like to listen to it, go to BBC Radio 4 on the internet and listen to the two episodes. They are only there for seven days, so make haste. I think you will enjoy it, I'm listening to it while writing this post.

Enjoy.

Christy

The Lost Art of Gratitude, by Alexander McCall Smith

2009-12-16T14:34:00.000-08:00

Isabel Dalhousie is a thoroughly modern woman, from a well to do background. She owns and edits from home, a philosophical journal. Has an eighteen month old boy, Charlie, who loves eating olives and lives with his father Jamie.

A chance meeting with an old acquantance Minty Auchterlonie, gets an invite for Charlie to her son's birthday party, to be held at their prestigious family house in the country outside of Edinburgh. Minty is now a high flying financier. Isabel had always thought of her as a ruthless climber, but her integrity had never been brought into question.

Minty takes Isabel into her confidence over a personal matter, but is Minty being truthful with her or is she using her. Rumors come her way of Minty being involved in a financial bank fraud, plus some other shady dealings. Being the curious Isabel that she is, she just can't say no.

Another dilemma is Professor Dove, her nemesis in the writing world. What's this whole to do about plagiarism?

Her neice Cat is dating a new boyfriend (a tightrope walker!) Isabel has Jamie, her neice's old boyfriend, Charlie's father; and the open question of marriage is still hanging.

Philosophizing, snooping and being just mum, make up this easy read series of books set in Edinburgh.

As the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency has an old worldliness to it. This series has a modern theme about it. Set in Edinburgh in the world of today. I like both series by McCall Smith, and will read more of these books in each series.

Christy

Tea Time for the Traditioally Built, by Alexander McCall Smith

2009-12-16T13:52:00.000-08:00

Mma Ramotswe and her assistant Mma Makutsi, run the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency, in Botswana. Mma Ramotswe who owns the agency is married to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni a first class mechanic who runs a repair garage along with his two young apprentices and an older man. Mma Ramotswe and her husband also have two adopted children, with special needs, Motholeli and Puso, a girl and a boy repsectively.

Mma Makutsi lives alone but has a 99% score from the Botswana Secretarial College; which she is very proud of. And at present is engaged to Phuti Radiphuti, the owner of a large furniture store in town. An advantagious marriage for one who comes from a poor background.

Mma Ramotswe, Precious has an old white van which is very dear to her, it is in need of some major work, but she is afraid to ask her husband as she knows he will say there comes a time when you must let it go and buy a new one.

Mma Makutsi finds out that her fiance to be has employed non other than her old arch rival, Violet Sephotho, who could have not scored more than 50% in her final exams at Secretarial College. Will Violet succeed in catching Mma Makutsi's fiance, or will Mma Ramotswe come up with a solution to show her up for who she is.

Plus their case at the agency with an owner of a leading football team, who is convinced there is a traitor in their midst, throwing the games.

A good cup of Red Bush Tea always helps the thinking process along. There is not a case yet that Mma Precious Ramotswe has not solved.

I the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency series of books, has delightful old values. It's like stepping back to the sixties with some modern problems thrown in. A great cozy read by the fire with a cup of tea, red bush if you like.

Christy

Mma Makutsi,

The Memory Keeper's Daughter, by Kim Edwards

2009-12-11T15:53:00.000-08:00

Obviously I have been away from my Lit Blog for a while. I have three books to review, but will start with The Memory Keeper's Daughter, by Kim Edwards. As soon as I read the review on the back of the book cover, I remembered seeing this as a film, although at the time did not realize that the film was based on a book.

Doctor David Henry is newly married, and very much in love with his wife, who is about to give birth to their first child. A blizzard in Kentucky, prevents them getting to the hospital, so he has to deliver his child at the nearby clinic, with the aid of a nurse.

The baby boy is delivered, a healthy boy. But following close on his heels is a second baby, unexpected, a little girl, who as soon as she is delivered Dr Henry can see that she has Down's Syndrome. What to do, in a split moment in time he makes a decision which affects the rest of their lives. He decides to have the nurse, Caroline take the newly born child to an orphanage, keeping the knowledge of her living, a secret from his wife. Caroline though is unable to leave the newborn girl there and makes a decision that affects the rest of her life, to keep the child. Paul and Phoebe twins, growing up apart, never knowing each other. One decision brings sorrow, the other happiness.

The book goes into why he made this decision, and how secrets within a family destroy it. You have to go back to Dr Henry's childhood, being brought up poor in the hills of West Virginia, with a very sick younger sister, who had a heart condition and who took much of the families energies and resources, but who also brought a lot of love. He saw himself in his son Paul and his younger sister in Phoebe, and he wanted to save Paul from what he went through, only remembering the bad things of his childhood, but forgetting the good. He could only remember as a student doctor a professor saying "A mongoloid, do you know what that means?" And he did all sorts of problems including the one he was most afraid of, a heart condition.

Caroline moves with the baby to Pittsburgh, where she gets a job, moving in with a woman Doro and her senile elderly father, as his nurse and helper. Here they thrive and are nurtured and grow.

His wife thinking the little girl is dead, holds a memorial service for her. She just cannot get over it. Even as years move on and she would like more children, he will not. She gives, he can't, he knows why he can't give and she doesn't. All know they have the facade of a family, but something is missing.

There is so much more to the story, split decisions, not going back and putting things right, secrets, and why we do what we do.

It is a very well written book and I would highly recommend it.

Christy.

A London Child of the 1870s, by Molly Hughes

2009-08-28T04:58:00.000-07:00

My book review of 'A London child of the 1870's' by M. Vivien Hughes. Is a delightful autobiographical addition to Persephone books. It is maybe not as flowing in a literary style, but does capture the essence of a child growing up in a middle class family of that time period.

Mary Vivien Thomas, born in October 1866 the youngest, with four older brothers, Tom, Dym, Charles, Barnholt and parents who in many ways are very liberal in their attitude to bringing up children. In 1870 they move to Canonbury, North London and live there for nine years. Their father works in the City, something to do with stocks. They have their ups an downs financially, but are never poor and have a couple of servants.

It's a charming review of a child's life. how did children play back then? What did they play with? Learning at home, the books she read, relatives who often visited. Her joy of life, wit and insight fullness.

The highlight of life was visiting her mother's family in Reskadinnick, Cornwall. These accounts are full of Cornish life back then, and I love the quotes from the locals. My grandfather came from Somerset and I can relate to that pattern of old speech. She mentions a manchet loaf of bread, that was not put in a tin to form, and if it was cut, must not be left on the table, a superstition. She also mentions her mother's family money coming from the tin mining business, which goes all the way back to the time of the Phoenicians who traded tin from Cornwall. Mollie mentions a trip that her aunt Tony took to Norway with her grandfather to buy Norwegian logs for pit props. Just interesting history.

There is a lot of mention of reading of those very pious religious Victorian books to teach morals, that mostly taught fear.

With all the liberalness of the family Mollie was not taken out on trips as much as the boys were, such as the Lord Mayor's Show, a steam boat trip to Greenwich. In fact she says, "Of course I was never allowed to go there myself." And further on that page she says "Strange as it seems I was never taken to anything more exciting than a picture gallery, not even to a Pantomime at Christmas..." Mollie does not resent this, but states it as a fact. "My father's slogan was that boys should go everywhere and know everything, and that a girl should stay at home and know nothing."

One entrance that caught my eye was a visit to Bumpus Book Shop in Oxford Street, London. It seems it was a very large and well known bookshop so here is a link to Bumpus Book Shop, don't you love that name? I think we would have liked to visit Bumpus Book Shop.

All the photos below are from the first book, except for the first photo of the author.

I wrote this a couple of days ago before the above review.

I had totally not thought about this book, 'A London Child of the Seventies', as I do not have this book as a Persephone publication. I was driving home from work today and it suddenly flashed into my mind, that I had this book, in fact the trilogy. I was so excited thinking I could do a review on it when I almost missed my exit to go shopping.

I first ran across the autobiographical works of M.V. Hughes over twenty-five years ago, in the form of a paperback discard from our local library which I happened to buy. It was 'A London Girl of the Eighties'. I so loved this book that I read it over several times during that time period.

In more recent years I realized that it was part of a trilogy, 'A London Child of the Seventies' and 'A London Home in the Nineties.' So I thought let me try and find it on ebay and in my first week of looking I came across A London Family 1870 - 1900, by M. Vivien Hughes. What is so nice about this is I have the 1947 trilogy, first published 1946. Full of photos. The three books having been first published in 1934,1936,1937. I don't know if the Persephone publication has photos in, so thought that I would post some here.

I always felt that these books would make wonderful reference works if you were writing a fictional novel in that time period. You would be able to capture the period by reading these books. But of course the writings are far more than a reference book you feel you have walked those streets with Molly.

I do have one question of Persephone. Why did they choose A London Child of the Seventies? Persephone calls it A London Child of the 1870's. As opposed to, what I personally think is the most interesting of the trilogy, A London Girl of the Eighties. That opinion could be totally subjective.

In any case try and read both, the last book of the trilogy is not I feel quite as interesting.

Christy

Persephone Books I've Read, Reviewed and Pretty Near To

2009-08-26T15:34:00.000-07:00

My New Persephone Banner to Meet the Challenge

2009-08-25T21:29:00.000-07:00

Paperback Reader , Claire and Verity of The B Files, are hosting a Persephone reading challenge all this week. With Quizzes give aways and just a coming together of Persephone book lovers.

In honour of this and because it was just plain fun, I've revamped my Lil Bit Brit Lit Blog with a new Persephone banner, made up from the lovely end papers of their books.

Christy

Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day, by Winifred Watson

2009-08-24T15:21:00.000-07:00

Persephone Challenge, first book, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.

I'll start out by saying that it is just a delightful book. It's like a bubbling brook as it runs along, or a child skipping along, a little hop, skip and a jump. That is what the dialogue reminds me of. It flows so very freely. A bubbly, bouncy, burlesque kind of story, in the genre of the old time music hall.

Miss Pettigrew a very tired greyed out middle aged spinster , who is a nanny, seeks a job, in a very greyed out period of 20Th century history, at least for some. But not if you have money. There are two types of money, that of the rather boring suburbia families, living still within the rules of Victorian morality and then there is the entrepreneurial nouveau rich. Who have cast off restraints of society themselves, and don't hold others to such high standards either. Who accept you for what you are and do not judge you by your pedigree background.

Into this is cast Miss Pettergrew desperate for a position, never given a leading role to shine is sent by her employment agency to the apartment of a night club singer, Miss LaFosse, here it all begins. We enter into the comings and goings of gentlemen folk at Miss LaFosses's apartment.

This early paragraph sums up our entrance into the story.

"...She knew she was not a person to be relied upon. But perhaps that was because hitherto every one had perpetually taken her inadequacy for granted. How do we know what latent possibilities of achievement we possess? ..."

Miss Pettigrew's thoughts on one gentlemen, Phil.

"... I do,' she apostrophized her shocked other self determinedly, 'I don't care, I do. He's not quite ... quite delicate. But he's nice. He doesn't care whether I'm shabby and poor. I' m a lady, so he's polite in his way to me.'

The relationship between Miss LaFosse and Miss Pettigrew grows. Who would be right for Miss LaFosse to marry? Can Miss Pettigrew stave off the wolf?

Her thought about Nick.

"His glance flicked over her and Miss Pettigrew became aware at once of her age, her dowdy clothes, her clumsy figure, her wispy hair, her sallow complexion. she flushed a painful red. Her mind disliked him at once: her emotions were enslaved."

As the day goes on.

"... But these people! They opened their hearts. they admitted her. she was one of themselves. It was the amazing way they took her for granted that thrilled every nerve in her body. No surprise: they simply said 'Hello', and you were one of themselves. No worrying what your position and your family and your bank balance were. In all her lonely life Miss Pettigrew had never realized how lonely she had been until now, when for one day she was lonely no longer..."

With the acceptance of Miss Pettigrew and her witty dialogue come a new wardrobe.

"... She had never worn real silk underclothes in her life. at once they made her feel different. She felt wicked daring, ready for anything. She left her hesitations behind with her home-made woollens."

I will intersperse here some personal thoughts. A dear friend of mine whose mother never had access to an education, told me that her mother never left home without dressing to the nines. She would say to M. I feel more confident and people sum you up, by first appearances, how you dress.

I personally had that experience some weeks ago. Feeling somewhat down and not bothering to dress even somewhat better, I went into a store, where I've shopped often and never been asked for ID to accompany my credit card, but on this day I was. My whole persona came across as down and the shop assistant thought of me accordingly.

I love this sentence.

"She breathed Ambrosial vapour."

Is a romance in the offing for Miss Pettigrew?

Well read the book. You will not be disappointed.

Christy

Book Page, Compliments of Your Library

2009-08-19T19:18:00.000-07:00

The Book Page, which is supplied by my local library, is a lot of fun to browse through and see what's new book wise. This magazine comes out every month.

Persephone Book Challenge

2009-08-17T19:59:00.000-07:00

I have four Persephone books which I can read for the book challenge next week. I don't think I will have the time to read four, but I am thinking of two, to keep it in the realms of possibility. I'm looking forward to it and reading all the other reviews by Persephone lovers.

Christy

They Were Sisters, by Dorothy Whipple

2009-08-17T19:26:00.000-07:00

They Were Sisters, by Dorothy Whipple. This is definitely a book I want to read, and I would love to watch the movie. I've looked for it on Ebay, but have not found a copy. I think Persephone did a viewing of this movie. Just a few scenes from the movie.

Christy

See my post in Two Sisters One Skye

2009-08-08T07:57:00.000-07:00

See my post on Reading Matter for trip to UK here is the link, for my posting on H.V. Morton travel books, In Search of England, In Search of Scotland and In Search of London.

Christy

Interview with Agatha Christie's grandson Mathew Pritchard

2009-08-07T15:48:00.000-07:00

I'm a definite fan of Agatha Christie. I read her autobiography and found it most down to earth and most interesting. Except no explanation on the 11 days she was missing.

This is an interview with her grandson.

Well do take a look at all the links I think you'll enjoy this.

Christy

Writer's Favorite Recipes, by Gillian Vincent and the National Book League of Great Britain

2009-08-04T19:07:00.000-07:00

I was wondering exactly which blog I should post this on, but in the end decided on my literary blog. As I thought literary folks might like to know of this book. I will place some of the recipes on my Lil Bit Brit Blog. Especially Sherlock Holmes housekeeper's recipe for Kedgeree. Isn't that a lovely word k-e-d-g-e-r-e-e? A corruption of the Indian word Khitchru, meaning a medley or hodge-podge.

I found this book on the library discard shelves. Lots of lovely vintage illustrations.

Christy

The Devlin Diary, a diary holds the key to a centuries old mystery, by Christi Phillips

2009-08-03T17:12:00.000-07:00

This story is set in two time periods. Modern day 2008 academic University town, Cambridge and London of 1672, the time of King Charles II when he has been reinstated to the throne, after his exile in France.

Hannah Devlin is the daughter of a court doctor, who died under mysterious circumstances. She learned at his side, and is as good as any trained physic. But being a woman she cannot practice, only among the poor where nobody will notice her.

One day she is in a most clandestine manner brought to court to treat the King's mistress. She is his favourite and nothing must happen to her. Hannah can help, they know she can because her father could have helped and she knows all her father knew.

At court she meets, a charming courtier, Ralph Montagu and Dr. Strathern. When two members of court are murdered and appear with symbols on their bodies, which seem to tie in with her father's death, a mystery is afoot. What is the connection with her father and what do the symbols mean. Can this knowledge overthrow both King Charles and his relative by marriage, King Louis. Who of the two men will prove her counterpart.

Travel forward to Cambridge, Trinity College, Claire Donovan an American, excited to be teaching history for a few semesters. She has been invited by a colleague Andrew Kent. What will old books reveal in the library. Who will stop at nothing to publish their papers first, even stealing other peoples ideas? How does all this tie together with 1672? And a modern day murder.

It was a good read and the description of modern day University life, with all the perks and recognition that go along with being a don. Interesting enough to want to read on and not skip parts. I'm not quite sure what is up with both the heroines having Irish names, just a choice of the author I guess.

I have lived quite near to Cambridge and will be there again in a month visiting, so was able to relate to the town, but the cloistered community of Cambridge academia is another world.

Libraries of the World

2009-07-31T17:40:00.000-07:00

In honour of the Persephone Challenge Read in August and my upcoming trip to the UK. I will be featuring Libraries of the United Kingdom. Starting off with the British Museum Reading Room. See my side bar.

Christy

The Spy Game, by Georgina Harding.

2009-07-29T16:05:00.000-07:00

On a foggy cold morning in 1961, Anna's mother drives off in the family car and that is the last she sees of her. The siblings, her older brother Peter and her are told that she died in a car accident. The same morning a spy case breaks, the case of the Krogers. Who seem to be ordinary people, living in suburbia, but this is at the height of the Cold War, and the Krogers are spying for Russia.

Peter becomes obsessed with spies and codes; their mother was from the eastern part of Germany, what if she was not who she seemed to be? She was a refugee, what if she were a sleeper or even an active spy too?

Peter weaves fact and fantasy, their childhood circles around this. But as adults, what do they now believe. Can Anna find out the truth of her mother's family history and place of birth? Does it have anything to do with Russian spies, or is there just as much another mystery to be uncovered.

I related to their childhood in the sixties, with all the period detail.

This is the first book I have read by Georgina Harding and I liked her style of writing a lot. So I will definitely seek out her other books.

Tranquebar: A Season in South India
In Another Europe
The Solitude of Thomas Cave

Christy

The Journal of Helene Berr

2009-07-27T14:37:00.000-07:00

Helene Berr kept a journal from April 1942 to February 1944. She is a recent graduate of the Sorbonne, with a love for English literature and plays the violin, she calls her 'selfish magic'; which helps her to escape the everyday oppressiveness of living under a Nazi Vichy government.

The time covered is the same as Anne Frank's Diary. But while Anne was hiding in rooms in Amsterdam, Helene was a student at the Sorbonne, however their fate was the same eventual incarceration at Bergen-Belsen, both being there at the same time and dying in 1945, only weeks before liberation.

Her father is a director of a chemical company and a decorated WWI veteran., her background is one of privilege. Will their fate be the same as poor Jewish refugees?

She writes of everyday things, friendships and loves, the ups and downs of youth. She thinks she loves Gerard, until she meets Jean Morawiecki, a fellow student.

Early on the petty anti-Semitic laws are upsetting and bothersome, but as time goes by the signs become more and more clear that this is a noose, becoming tighter and tighter.

She writes in reference to the wearing of the star. A friend Vivi Lafon says '"I can't stand seeing people with that on." I realize that: it offends other people. But if only they knew what a crucifixion it is for me. I suffered there, in the sunlit Sorbonne courtyard, among my comrades. I suddenly felt I was no longer myself, that everything had changed, that I had become a foreigner, as if I were in the grip of a nightmare. I could see familiar faces all around me, but I could feel their awkwardness and bafflement. It was as if my forehead had been seared with a branding iron.'

She writes of inertia and even covert duplicity of French Catholics around her. 'And she was right Catholics no longer have the freedom to follow their conscience, they do what their priests tell them to do. And the latter are weak cowardly and often unintelligent. If there had been a mass uprising of Christians against these persecutions, would it not have won the day? I am sure it would have. But the Christians would have had to protest against the war in the first place, and they weren't able to do that. Is the Pope worthy of God's mandate on earth if he is an impotent bystander to the most flagrant violations of Christ's laws?

Do Catholics deserve the name of Christians when, if they applied Christ's teaching, religious difference, or even racial difference would not exist?'

She often quotes from Keats, reads Winnie-the-Pooh and recites Rudyard Kipling's 'Rikki, Tikki, Tavi.'

Helene was indeed a gifted writer. This book, I have read, has been immensely popular in Europe, and I think, stands on par with 'The Diary of Anne Frank.'

Christy

Little Boy Lost, by Marghanita Laski

2009-07-24T16:07:00.000-07:00

I finished this book well over a week ago, so If I don't write a review of this book soon I will loose the flavour of it.

The style of writing is excellent, and one wants to read on, her word pictures are beautiful.

Hilary Wainwright is a poet and intellectual. He was married to a French girl, Lisa. They have a baby boy, who he sees one time before leaving for England in 1940, WWII. She dies during the war and now after the war he comes back to look for his son.

The questions asked are. Will he be able to find his son? How will he know it is his son? And does he even want his son? These questions are the basis of the story, and turn the ending into a cliff hanger.

Haunting pictures of post war France are drawn, people are coming to grips with their involvement during Nazi occupation.

What was Hilary Wainwright doing during the war? And his ambiguous relationship with his mother.

Why did he take so long in coming back to France to look for his son?

Hilary's relationship with Pierre, the Frenchman who found this child and takes him on an unfolding journey to look for his son.

Some quotes from the book.

The residence of Madame Quilleboeuf.

"'What an extraordinary place,' said Hilary, standing in the entrance and staring at the grass growing between the cobblestones. 'This isn't Paris - it's some shabby village away from all the routes natioanales.' He added with a kind of delight, 'It's a splendidly romantic place to begin a search from."

"But at the sight of Pierre her great hooked nose and nutcracker chin came together in a wide smile and in a hoarse voice she said, 'So you have come back with your friend, monsieur. Enter!' "

Hilary's description of Monsieur Mercatel. "He looks like an Englishman, was Hilary's first thought, but he did not. He might have been a native of any country, this small thin grey-haired gentleman, kindly mouth, mild blue eyes, the cultured European of true goodness, but of no importance what so ever."

The following quote so sums up Hilary and his relationship with Pierre and what type of men they both are.

"And this led him to think about Pierre who had said that under the Occupation people had done what they must, and that what this was had been settled long before. He thought, Pierre is a better man than I. He has the liberal virtues that I profess and personally lack. I am an intolerant perfectionist; Pierre refrains from judging anyone but himself. And yet I am a liberal intellectual, and Pierre is devoting himself to the furtherance of illiberal perfection. But Pierre can be tolerant of me, but I can't be tolerant of him."

The mother superior talking to Hilary at the orphanage.

"She smiled, 'Ah, you feel it too,' she said, 'and I wonder whether you share the other rather strange feeling I had about this boy - that here was a child that would give one great happiness to help?' She peered intently at him, shading her eyes with a frail yellow hand on which the mauve veins stood out in swollen relief. But Hilary's face showed none of the sudden comprehension and hope he felt at her words, and she let her hand fall into her lap and added gently, 'And have you any idea whether he is your son, Mr. Wainwright?'"

"Monsieur Mercatel said. 'I have been wanting to tell you, monsieur, speaking as his schoolmaster, what I think of the boy. Whether he is your son or not, of course I cannot say. What I can say, is that he is certainly the son of someone like you.'"

"Hilary said vehemently, 'I couldn't bear to take the wrong child and then perhaps find my own later on.'

'But you will not.' said the nun, 'that is as nearly certain as anything can be. If this child is not yours, then you will never find your son.'"

"'Why? asked Hilary sharply, 'Why are you so anxious that I should take him?' She looked at him steadily for a moment and then said, 'There are many reasons. One is that I am deeply sorry for you. You seem to me to be lost and in need of comfort. I would not wish to withhold that comfort from you.'"

Hilary thinking while with the woman who he picked up.

"The chatter flared around him while he thought of the queer change Parisian women undergo between the delicate faun-like beauty of their youth and the predatory brassiness of their middle age and how seldom it was that one saw, as he could see in Nelly, the brief stage of transition between the two."

"Hilary said nothing. He stood there watching the child, feeling only hate for the creature who had put him in this predicament, through whose intervention he had made a fool of himself. The little coward, he was saying, the little coward."

"You see, Pleaded Hilary, I am incapable of giving. I dare not give and so I'm running away. I've finished with ordeals. I am fleeing to the anaesthesia of immediate comfort and absolute non-obligation."

I had two more quotes but I think that will give away the ending. The beauty of the well written word shines through.

Did I totally understand Hilary? No, as a mother I found him very hard to connect with. Academically I understood where he was coming from, but it did not endear him to me.

Did I enjoy reading the book and would I recommend it? Yes, absolutely.

Christy

Resistance, A woman's journal of struggle and defiance in occupied France, by Agnes Humbert

2009-07-23T16:01:00.000-07:00

Before I start this book review of Resistance, remind me if I ever write a book about WWII, I must remember not to title it Resistance. Have you ever tried to find a book on Amazon just using the title Resistance, almost impossible to come up with the right book quickly.

Having said that, and this being my second book review of a book entitled Resistance, the other one was fictional, this is an autobiography of Agnes Humbert's second world war years in France. In the French it was entitled, Notre Guerre.

She worked at the Musee de l' Homme. As the occupation started, Agnes and some fellow co-workers and others, started the fledgling Resistance movement. She kept a diary, which forms the beginning of the book. After being arrested by the Germans, it is her remembered account of what happened to her. Where she kept that diary hidden we do not know, but it would have been devastating if it had ever fallen into German hands.

Agnes Humbert's account is interesting, she was arrested early on and at that time the German's were not sending imprisoned resistance workers to the concentration camps, but rather to work in the factories in Germany, not that they weren't treated terribly, but at least there wasn't a gas chamber at the end.

The details of her imprisonment in France before her trial and ones she got to know there, although in a solitary cell, were interesting. Many of the ones she was in prison with were executed. At this time the SS had not perfected their interrogation skills. She writes while in the French prison>

"I think back to all the happy times in my life. Just the happy times. The rest you have to forget, especially in here you must forget, or else you get wrinkles. Wrinkles on your face are bad enough; in your heart they are even worse. ..."

Her detailed account of working in a Viscose factory in Germany, making synthetic silk fabric, which uses acid in the process. They had no protective clothing such as gloves, boots or aprons and inhaled the fumes all the time, their clothes already in tatters, became even worse with every spot of acid which spat on them.

Her strength of character and descriptions of fellow prisoners, which ran the gamut, from German woman, there for stealing, murder and prostitution, to the political prisoners. She formed several friendships, which were mutually sustaining in the terrible places she was at.

After being liberated she worked alongside the Americans and two close friends, in a small German town, documenting details of ones who were SS and involved in war crimes. One American she worked very closely with, but others she found to be too trusting of any German who could speak English.

There were many groups who were gradually coming back to the village after being liberated from the concentration camps, this is what she writes about one of them.

"I have been in contact with a sect that seems to be quite widespread in Germany, known as Bibelforscher, or Jehovah's Witnesses. Those whom I have met conduct themselves with outstanding dignity. Today our investigations led us to the home of Herr Mengel, recently freed from the concentration camp where he had been held since 1937. While the Bibelforscher are greatly to be respected, they have never been of the slightest practical help to us. Infinitely discreet, they refuse to denounce their persecutors, trusting in God to avenge them. I have tried in vain to suggest discreetly that perhaps we have been sent by God to help them, but they obstinately refuse to view us as archangels in disguise, and keep their lips firmly sealed."

Eventually she was repatriated to France and met up with her adult son.

She had finished the book by 1946. So unlike many first hand accounts of the war written quite a few years after it, her memories were fresh and recorded very soon after the war ended.

Her resolve comes through, she was in her forties when all this happened to her, so not in the throws of youth. The idealism with small achievements met with such dreadful sentences. She writes.

"How bizarre it all is! Here we are, most of us the wrong side of forty, careering along like students all fired up with passion and fervour, in the wake of a leader of whom we know absolutely nothing, of whom none of us has ever seen a photograph. In the whole course of human history, has there ever been anything like it? Thousand upon thousands of people, fired by blind faith, following an unknown figure. Perhaps this strange anonymity is even an asset: the mystery of the unknown."

You do get the feeling that she thought it was all a great adventure, almost in the way the boys of WWI went to war. Actually her mother was British, Mabel Annie Wells Rourke, (1869-1943), who was part of the large expatriate community in Dieppe. She was very close to her mum and it grieved her terribly that she was not with her mum at the end.

Agnes Humbert's account is an historically important one. It details the fledgling beginnings of the French Resistance, and their thoughts, feelings and idealism.

I enjoyed reading it.

Christy

Greenbanks, by Dorothy Whipple

2009-07-22T15:53:00.000-07:00

As you can see I'm on a run with Dorothy Whipple. Now I'm wondering whether I should save a couple of books to take on holiday, because I know she is always a good read. Greenbanks, the name of the house, starts in 1908, the copy write of the book I read was 1932. And concludes no later than the mid 1920's.

It is set in the town of Elton in the Midlands. This is the story of the Ashton family, Robert and Louisa, the parents in their forties, and their children. Rose and Thomas , who are both married, and do not feature much in the story. Letty is married to Ambrose Harding, they have Dick, a set of twin boys and Rachel, who live close by. Laura who lives at home and is dating and Jim and Charles who live at home, all are young adults.

Robert has aged well and has always been a philanderer. Louise knowing this, but keeping the peace and family together. Loise is the central character around which all the others orbit. Suddenly a big change comes when Robert and his lady friend are thrown out of a trap and he is killed. Ambrose takes over looking after Louise investments, Jim and Thomas decide that Jim will take over and run the family business, a wood yard and Charles, who all the brothers feel is a waster, but is most beloved of Louise, has been persuaded to try his chances in South Africa.

Jim who is very much influenced by his fiance, eventually leaves home and marries her, much to his mother's relief, he always found fault with everything. At this time with the loss of Charles, Louisa decides to ask a lady Kate Barlow to come and live with her. Kate was befriended by Louise many years ago when she was just coming out, unfortunately she fell in love with Philip Symonds a married man and become pregnant with a boy, who she gave up for adoption. Kate left town and has been living as a companion, so Louise decides that maybe she can show her kindness by inviting Kate to live with her. Kate proves to be a prickly, frozen individual, so it does not turn out as Louise would have wished.

Laura has been dating Cecil Bradfield and taking little Rachel along as a chaperon, it seems they are quite in love. Laura though who has always been prone to be selfish and prideful, has a tiff with Cyril; which leads to a separation, that is not repaired. So in a silly mood of pettishness she decides to visit her sister Rose down south and meets George, a rather over weight but rich man and she marries him. Letty visits with Laura and basks in all the things money can buy as Ambrose is a penny pincher.

In reference to being married Laura says to Letty, "Oh, Letty said Laura, wiping her eyes. "You've got it boiled down to that, have you?" Letty still looked blank. "What's the matter?" she said. "Nothing .....nothing! Have some more keep - I mean cake. Let's plaster our souls with chocolate cake, darling. It will perhaps hold them together as well as anything else ..."

Rachel is a comfort to her grandmother, and is growing up..Ambrose feels that "He looked forward with pleasure to forming Rachel according to his influence."

Letty visits her aunt Alice regularly, hoping that some day she will inherit, and have some money of her own. "It's not really me, having the children and living with Ambrose,' she would think in bewilderment. 'This isn't my life really; it will all be different soon. I shall begin to live as I want to soon."

Charles who although set up quite well by his family money wise, decides to come back from South Africa, as he has a billiard room invention he wants to work on. His mother hears him playing the piano as she walks up the street home, she knows it's Charles and is delighted. The Invention does not pan out and his brothers ever glad to get rid of him find a job in the Far East for him. He isn't there too long when WWI breaks out and he comes home again, only to join up, the others being far to busy making money off the war to join up.

War brings changes in Elton. "The spoon of war stirred the contents of the provincial pan very thoroughly and Mrs. Spence called at Greenbanks one Saturday afternoon to ask Kate Barlow to join the Bandage Class." Ambrose with his solid good looks and southern diction, that fell pleasantly on Lancashire ears, helps in a figurehead position with the War Relief , Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association. "I don't care what you do it for,' said the woman. 'But I'd like to know what yer mean by being late with my money, 'And it over. I'm waiting to go out.' 'Savages.' muttered Ambrose .... I love this comparison.

By the gate, under the laurel bushes there were snowdrops like little congregations of White Nuns at prayer....' It is March and news is received at Greenbanks that Charles has been killed in action. Laura comes home for the funeral, bumps into Cecil on leave and all is reconciled between them, leaving George out in the cold. Laura in her usual way leaves it to her mother to break the news to George. As she takes off with Cecil to seize happiness. He goes back to the front and she becomes a nurse and gets assigned to France.

Time moves on, the war ends. Cecil and Laura move to Kenya to live. 'But in spite of the fact that she did not come home, it got about that she had gone away with Cecil Bradfield. There was not the sensation in Elton that there would once have been. The war had blown most peoples ideas sky-high, and the pieces had not yet come down. When they did come down they would never fit together again as they had before the war.'

Rachel is now seventeen. She has passed all her exams with flying colours and has been offered a scholarship to Oxford. Her father will not think of letting her go, to be a blue stocking. It's interesting he says that as Vera Britain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testament_of_Youth in her autobiography writes that her father said the same thing. Girls of that time were just not expected to go to college, just marry well. Rachel does not hold back in telling her father a few home truths, about how he has always spoiled everything through out their lives and that is why all the boys left, Dick to work with his uncle in the engineering firm and the twins to South Africa.

Dorothy Whipple writes, 'Children make parents as wretched as parents make children; but children do not really believe that. They can't understand how it is that those whom they take for tyrants can be hurt by the victims of the tyranny.'

Rachel mopes around for a year and even her father has to admit, that maybe he made the wrong choice, and allows her to attend Liverpool University three days a week. Laura writes, can her mother intercede with George as she is expecting a baby and she must have a divorce.

Again Laura leaves it to others to sort things out for her. Letty and Louise go to visit George and this time he is only to happy to comply, maybe he'll be landed with a wife and baby this would upset him and his finances.

Who turns up one day at Greenbanks, John Barlow, Kate's son and guess who he falls in love with? Letty's aunt dies, will she stay with Ambrose?

Well of course I have sketched out the bare bones and one must read the book to feel the ambiance of Dorothy Whipple's writing. Now should I move on to the Lockwood's or take it back to the library and save it for another time.

Christy

Librairies of the World

2009-07-21T19:02:00.000-07:00

Over a period of time, in the side bar, I'm going to add pictures of different libraries throughout the world.

I've started in Portugal. Why Portugal, because I fell in love with Lisbon when we were there last year.

These libraries are amazing.

Christy

The Priory, by Dorothy Whipple

2009-07-21T15:48:00.000-07:00

The Priory by Dorothy Whipple

Is set on the cusp of WWII. The Priory around which the story revolves is the stately home of Major Marwood and has been in the family for generations, along with surrounding farms and farmland, which are gradually being sold off to keep the Major happy in his expensive hobby of cricket.

His daughters Christine and Penelope are entering into womanhood, still occupy the upstairs nursery, having the whole floor to themselves and liking it that way; their mother died when they were young, and they've pretty much been left to their own devices.

Into this comes Major Marwood's idea, that he maybe should remarry, someone who will take over the household and possibly guide his girls. So with the least effort he proposes to Anthea. Isn't he shocked when Anthea declares that she is pregnant with twins. But in his usual style he carries on with arranging for the annual summer cricket tournament. Aided by his trusted retainer, Thompson.

Anthea decides she needs a nurse and implores Nurse Pym, to aid her through the pregnancy. They become so attached that this becomes a permanent arrangement.

Thompson, who is a bit of a lad, but most handsome, and good at heart has got himself entangled with Bertha, who on seeing that she is about to be ditched for the young housemaid Bessy, who he really is in love with, says she's pregnant and he had best do the right thing by her; which he does. Only to find out it was a lie.

Bessy wants to leave but Anthea with the pregnancy wants her to stay and persuades her to do so. "In the end, she persuaded Bessy to stay. She meant to be kind."

The Major has invited an excellent player to join his team for the summer, Nicholas Ashwell, who comes from a wealthy industrial family, his father is Sir James a little blustery, and his mother Sarah, good people.

Christine and Nicholas fall in love and marry, but not all is rosy as young Mr. Ashwell, has never found his own path and made is own way in life. They have a child, a little girl, Angela. After things revealed Christine leaves him, taking Angela, and goes to live with her sister, who has also married, but not for love, to the ever faithful Paul.

What transpires to both of them in the mean time, makes them grow up and see things so much more clearly.

Saunby Priory is to be put up for sale. Christine is the one who truly loves the house. Sir James is the means by which all is fulfilled and brought to a happy conclusion for all.

In 'Somewhere at a Distance' money is the ruination of the family. In 'The Priory', money makes all things possible, an interesting contrast.

I found the beginning a tad slow and it took me a while to become in tune with the characters. By the time I got to the end I was enthralled by her wonderful fleshing out of characters.

This book was written and published in 1939, it brings out how the people of Britain and indeed Europe, were so hopeful that the Prime Minister would bring about peace with Hitler and Mussolini, and for a moment they were ecstatic in thinking that it had been achieved. Dorothy Whipple writes.

"Life had been given back to them and they were delirious with the gift. The immense wave of hope and goodwill that was sweeping over the world engulfed Red Lodge too. This was the time when miracles could have been accomplished, when if they could have come at each other, the peoples of Europe would have fallen on one another's necks like brothers and wrung one anothers hands with promises of peace."

Christy

The Blue Castle, by Lucy Maud Montgomery

2009-07-20T15:40:00.000-07:00

A charming delightful book. The book I read from was dated 1926. The central character is Valancy Stirling, don't you love that name? Who is in her later twenties and has led what only can be called a very grey, molded, restrictive, socially overbearing life. She lives with her mother and her Cousin Stickles, all is ugly.

LMM writes 'Valancy, so cowed and subdued and overridden and snubbed in real life, was wont to let herself go rather splendidly in her day-dreams. Nobody in the Stirling clan, or its ramifications, suspected this, least of all her mother and Cousin Stickles. They never knew that Valancy had two homes - the ugly red brick box of a home, on Elm Street, and the Blue Castle in Spain.' Thus the title of the book - The Blue Castle.

Valancy also delights in reading John Foster's books about the woods, which she gets from the library, even these are eked out by her mother, who does not know how much she enjoys them.

She is having some trouble with palpitations of the heart, so decides to go to the doctor, and not their own family clan doctor. This is a big step for Valancy. While at the doctor's he is called away urgently to see his son in Montreal, who is involved in an accident. A few days later Valancy receives a letter in the mail from the doctor, stating that she has a very serious heart condition and has only at the most about a year to live.

At this time Valancy makes a monumental decision in her life. She is going to do exactly what she wants to do. She wants to live life, what ever short life she has left.

Thus she decides to help a young woman, Cissy, who lives with her father, the town drunk Roaring Abel. Cissy has been ostracised by the town for having an illegitimate baby, that died at a year old. Cissy has never gotten over this and is herself dying of consumption, TB.

In comes Valancy to live with them, as their house-keeper and companion to Cissy. The Stirling clan are beside themselves, what will people think.

Into this pot is thrown the other leading character, Barney Smith. Nobody knows where he came from and he drives around in a terrible old car, called Lady Jane. Is he a jail bird? Is he a murderer, all stories abound. At best he is a reprobate, or so the town thinks, and therefore a very bad association for one's good name. But Valancy likes him, and decides to ask him to marry her, explaining it's only for a year.

He lives on a beautiful island in a lake, it is idyllic. Here Valancy blossoms, from a very plain woman into an alluring, interesting, and somewhat beautiful woman. The island is her Blue Castle.

And who is John foster?

I will not tell you anymore. You must try and find the book for yourself to read. I managed to find it at my local library, filed in what they call old shelving. Books that you have to request, and they are brought down to you, in all their mustiness, and expectation of what forgotten stories will unfold from within.

I cannot finish this review without addressing the book written by Coleen McCullough, published in 1987, The Ladies of Missolonghi. I read this book a long while ago and just loved it. It is set in Australia, where as LMM's is set in Canada. At that time I did not know of LMM's book.

The story and plots of the two books are so similar. As I read 'The Blue Castle', 'The Ladies of Missolonghi', kept coming back to me. The word plagiarism does come to mind.

You must read them both, first LMM's book, then Coleen McCullough's book. See what you think.

Christy

Somone At A Distance, by Dorothy Whipple

2009-07-19T11:59:00.000-07:00

Dorothy Whipple can take what would ordinarily be a mundane predictable story and takes it to the pinnacle of character studies. With just as much insight into a man's thinking, as a woman's.

Someone at a distance set after WWII, is based around a wealthy, upper class family, the North's. Mr North, is a co-owner of a publishing house in London, and goes up every day on the train. Ellen his wife is a stay at home mum, but is very busy with a big house, and looking after all the household duties. As this is post WWII and domestic staff, willing to live in the country are hard to find. Their eldest son, Hugh, who is doing his national service time and their daughter is away at boarding school.

What falls into all this British country idealism, Ms Louise Lanier, a young French woman who is socially conscious of her working class position, in her small town. She had for a long time secretly dated Paul, the son of a wealthy town family, but he had jilted her for the socially acceptable Germaine, right family, right class.

Mrs North senior answers an add in the paper for a companion. Feeling left out and not payed enough attention to, even though she has her lovely own house and a companion servant, plus the family do visit here, she feels slighted.

So begins the circle of events that spiral down to the breaking up the the North's happy family. Very near the beginning you know this will happen. It is the character studies that carry this story through. I was able to jump to the end and read it, which usually would totally ruin a book but not this one. You just want to read what they think, why they act the way they do, and Dorothy Whipple is a master character builder.

A few quotes of the many I enjoyed.

Ellen says of Louise, "When you don't mind how rude you are, you have every advantage."

Speaking of old Mrs North and Louise's relationship together, Ms. Whipple writes 'They were very pleased with each other.'

Louise's parents looking at a photograph of the North's said 'She has a sweet face," said Madame Lanier. 'What a very nice family. They all look so happy.'

Louise's thoughts, 'For a long time, she had been looking on at money without having any herself. It was too bad. The lack of it had ruined her life. If she had, had money, Paul wouldn't have left her for Germaine Brouet.'

In reference to Avery, 'She always had to listen carefully, ..... he barely moved his lips when he spoke. It gave her the air of hanging on his words, which he thought very attractive in her.'

Louise looking in the mirror, after having married Avery. 'She always gave as much pleasure to her own eyes as others. More, in fact, because she alone knew what perfect finish she had achieved.'

Mrs Brokington an elderly close friend of Ellen's. 'They were silent during Ellen's tale, the old woman saw or thought she saw that it was the child, Anne, who was keeping her parents apart. But she said nothing. It was too late the divorce had happened. She wouldn't throw Ellen into worse agitation and confusion by saying that Avery might not have wanted it at all.'

Well I could go on and on quoting passages from the book.

It's hard from our 2009 viewpoint to understand the class system of the time period. But I can say of my own experience as a child in the 60's it was strong. I'll give you an example.

Of a baby boomer class of 40 children strong, only one child passed her eleven plus examination to go to the prestigious High School, every one else was denigrated to the secondary modern school. This was so based on the class you came from, what your parents did for a living.

After five parents kicked up a rumpus, saying it was impossible for all the other 39 children to have failed, they got their children into the Grammar School, not even the High School. Class distinction at it's worst.

To be quite honest the curriculum at the secondary school was very good, but it was the stigma, you just cannot know how that felt to work so hard as an eleven year old, know you truly were good enough and not make it. Not to wear that uniform.

So I can just a little have empathy for Louise Lanier.

Do read it. It is available through, Persephone Classics .

Persephone Books reprints forgotten twentieth century novels, short stories, cookery books and memoirs, by mostly women writers. It is their 10th Anniversary this year. Someone at a Distance was among the first group of books offered.

The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet, by Colleen Mccullough

2009-07-18T12:24:00.000-07:00

Can you open a book review, by saying absolute rubbish.

After reading the first opening chapter, which I thought held some promise, from there onwards it was downhill. Victorian Gothic gone aerie. I enjoyed reading Sanditon, which was an unfinished manuscript of Jane Austen's, which was finished in the style of her writing, so thought I might enjoy this.

Colleen Mccullough of 'The Thorn Birds' fame, made into the for TV series, and a book which I do very much like and would recommend, 'The Ladies of Missalonghi', should never have gone down this path. I hope she writes another book to redeem herself.

Mary has been left at home, the spinster, to look after their mother, their father died two years after Lizzie and Jane married. It opens with mum dieing, Mary is now 38 and has changed so much as to be interesting and a beauty, in the line of Lizzie. She has saved up the allowance Darcy gave her for looking after the girls mother, keeping her off his hands and out of his way. With this money she intends to travel England, see the poor and write a book about it, publishing it with her own money. Mary very much likes the writings of Argus, a socially conscious person, who turns out to be Angus, the love interest in the story.

Lizzie and Jane's marriages, have not turned out to be particularly happy. The story center's around Mary, and Darcy's hunger for power and his wanting to become Prime Minister, therefore having to keep his wife's family under wraps. He regrets marrying beneath him. Lydia is an ongoing disgrace to the family.

Darcy has a younger half brother from his father's liaison with a Jamaican lady of ill repute, who he has brought up. Ned is totally loyal and loves Darcy, who was good to him as a boy, but now as an adult willingly does his beckoning, what ever Darcy may call for and more.

Mary leaves on her travels, trying to do so as cheaply as possible, by stage coach. This leads to all sorts of problems. Eventually she is hijacked by a highwayman, found by Ned, then taken by a Father Dominus and The Children of Jesus, who live in the caves in Derby shire. Here she is held prisoner, to write a dictated book by Father Dominus. Who turns out to be an old servant of Darcy's father. Stole the gold which was acquired illicitly by Darcy's father and buried it under an alter in the caves. Mary thinks the children who he has acquired, probably from their parents for gin money, that help him in the caves and only leave at night, may be murdered when they reach adolescence.

Well need I say more. I did not read the book all the way through, just skipping through and read the end. It wasn't worth the time.

Do read 'The Ladies of Missalonghi' a delightful story.

Christy

P.S. Oh dear! I just found out that The Ladies of Missalonghi and L. M. Montgomery's Blue Castle have a great similarity of ideas. I will have to find Blue Castle to read.

The Zookeeper's Wife, by Diane Ackerman

2009-07-15T16:09:00.000-07:00

I did enjoy this book and would call it a good read. My friend C. loaned it to me and I have been rather remiss in getting stuck in to reading it. I went through rather a dry spell on the reading front, I wanted to read a book, but just could not get settled down to do so. C. said you should like this, as I'm interested in history and books set around the period of the two world wars, which wreaked such havoc on people, changed empires and the course of where and how we live today.

The Zookeepers Wife is set in Warsaw, Poland. Jan and Antonina Zabinski were Polish christian zookeepers. Horrified at the Nazi atrocities, they were able to save over 300 people. Hiding them in their house and in the empty cages of the zoo.

What I found so upsetting was the empty cages of the zoo. We think of people dying in war but so many animals are killed too. Plus war with many people who perpetrate it, brings out the worst in people. Not only were many animals at the zoo killed during the initial bombings of Warsaw, but on new years day many drunken SS men came in and shot the animals in their cages for sport, a despicable act. Many animals escaped from there gashed cages and just wandered down the cobbled streets. camels and llamas, ostriches, foxes and wolves, seen from apartment windows just walking though the city.

The Nazi party also had a programme of eugenics for animals. The keepers of the Berlin Zoo, father Heck and his two sons Heinz and Lutz, known to Jan and Antonina in zookeeper circles. Had this idea of the resurrection of three pure blooded extinct species - the Neolithic horses known as forest tarpans, aurochsen (the wild progenitor of all European cattle breeds), and the European or "forest" bison. Lutz's thinking was: an animal inherits 50% of its' genes from each parent, and even an extinct animals genes remain in the living gene pool, so if he concentrated the genes by breeding together animals that most resembled an extinct one, in time he would arrive at their purebred ancestor. The war gave him the excuse to loot east European zoos and wilds for the best specimens. Their thinking on this matter went along with the ideologies of the Nazi party.

So here I thought the book would be about keeping the animals alive during the war, but unfortunately there were hardly a handful of animals left at the zoo to keep alive. Antonina kept a diary and there are many quotes right from her diary as to how she felt about things. What day to day life was like for them. All the personalities of the people they sheltered, along with the animals that were part of her household. Her husband's involvement in the resistance and getting Jewish people out of the Warsaw ghetto. So a view of Warsaw under occupation and a snapshot into wartime history.

I enjoyed reading this book and if it is the genera of book you enjoy, you will too.

Christy

Alfred & Emily, by Doris Lessing

2009-07-14T17:02:00.000-07:00

This is an interesting book. It's about Doris Lessing's parents, who both went through WWI. Her father loosing a leg and almost dying and her mother a nurse, where she met her father, in hospital.

The first half of the book she has imagined how her parents would have been if WWI had never been and the second half of the book is how her parents actually were. Interesting, but I found the second half a little fragmented, but still worth reading.

She quoted from D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover.

This I think so applies to ones who have been through war.

And dimly she realised one of the great laws of the human soul: that when the emotional soul receives a wounding shock, which does not kill the body, the soul seems to recover as the body recovers. But this is only appearance. It is, really, only the mechanism of re assumed habit. Slowly, slowly the wound to the soul begins to make itself felt, like a bruise which only slowly deepens it's terrible ache, till it fills all the psyche. And when we think we have recovered and forgotten, it is then that the terrible after-effects have to be encountered at their worst.

So with Doris Lessing's parents.

My neighbour G., went through WWII, he actually was stationed near, and went to the Pub in Earles Colne, the village where my mum lived as a girl, funny to think of them being so close and moving in different circles.

In any case his eldest son was in the Vietnam War. He came home, married, he had a thriving business, then after 40 years all of a sudden he starts getting flash backs. He can't concentrate, he lost his business, his wife, after all that time. Not that the signs weren't there before.

So when I read the above quote from D. H. Lawrence, it made me think about my neighbour's son and so many others.

Facing The Lion, by Simone Arnold Liebster

2009-07-13T20:27:00.001-07:00

I enjoyed reading this book very much and would highly recommend it. Facing the Lion is an autobiographical account of a young girl's faith and courage. In the years immediately preceding World War II and through the war years.

You get to know her family, the every day life of town and country pre-war Alsace-Lorraine and what it was like during Hitler's regime.

She has a close family, loving parents, grand parents, aunts, uncles and cousins. In the pre-war years her parents turn from the Catholic church and become Jehovah's Witnesses. The war years come, the schools are the propaganda machine of Hitler. Simone refuses to accept the Nazi party as being above God. Her simple acts of defiance lead her to be persecuted by the school staff and local officials, and ignored by friends.

With her father already in a concentration camp, Simone is wrested away from her mother and sent to a reform school to be "reeducated". While there she learns that her mother also has been sent to a concentration camp, and she remains in this harsh, embittered environment until the end of the war.

How she stands up for her beliefs under overwhelming pressure to conform to society, when all her peers around are conforming, is a potent reminder to stay true to one's beliefs.

I enjoyed the picture into a young girl's life, what it was like before the war, where her dad worked, where they lived. How she felt, what her feelings were. It is a snap shot, just as Anne Franke's Diary is a snapshot into a young girls life during this time period.

The Lost,A Search For Six Of Six Milion, by Daniel Mendelsohn

2009-07-08T11:02:00.000-07:00

I liked this book. In fact I read almost all 512 pages in one evening and a whole day. I don't think I've done that since I was a teenager. It coincided with me having the right book and the time to read it.

The Lost is about the writer's search for the truth as to what happened to his grandfather's brother, wife and four children. Growing up listening to his grandfather's stories and the rich way he told them about the old life in Europe. Where it was said you could be born in Austria, grow up in Poland get married in Russia and die in the Ukraine, with out ever leaving town.

The search takes him to the small Ukrainian town where his family has lived for three hundred years, to speak with eye witnesses of events. His travels will take him to Israel, Australia, Sweden and Denmark, to name a few.

He has to become a detective listening to what these eye witnesses have to say and what they hold back, cross referencing these stories one to the other. It's part memoir, part mystery, and part scholarly work.

Daniel Mendelsohn speaks of his grandfather never telling a story from its beginning to end, but rather jumping around and pulling in other pieces, which hold you spell bound and I think this is how he has told this memoir. It unfolds like one of those paper finger puzzles you used to play with as a child. Lifting one corner peeking underneath and closing it back up again.

Daniel Mendelsohn is a Hebrew, Greek and Latin scholar and I found this to be of interest in the book with his definitions of words and references from the Bible and Torah.

"Sunt lacrimae rerum, there are tears in things."

Resistance, by Owen Sheers

2009-07-07T10:54:00.000-07:00

Resistance is set in 1944. When you first pick up the book you think that the cover is depicting France and of course the title makes you think that. The premise of the book is this what if Nazi Germany was successful in invading Britain. How the lives of woman living in an isolated valley in Wales are changed by the war.

Sarah Lewis a twenty-six year old farmers wife wakes up one morning to find that her husband has left during the night. It turns out that all the men in the valley have left during the night to join a resistance movement. The women had no previous knowledge of this, they are left to do the best they can and band together helping each other run the farms.

Later a German patrol comes to the valley on a mysterious mission. Sarah begins a faltering acquaintance with the commanding officer, Albrecht Wolfram.

After this basically all that happens is set in the valley, between the women and the German patrol. The end is up beat, but leaves you wondering, does Sarah meet up with Albrecht for a future life together? Or does she become her own woman and take charge of her destiny? I came to the first conclusion, but you could quite easily come to the second, it's ambiguous.

I did like it the premise was interesting. I think a whole other book could be written on that idea, but moved out of the confines of the valley.

Easy Company Soldier, by Don Malarkey

2009-07-06T10:42:00.000-07:00

This is a memoir of a "Band of Brothers" soldier, from his early life in Oregon, to his being drafted in 1942. He spent more consecutive days in combat than any other member of Easy Company. Battled his way across France into Germany.

I enjoyed reading about his family, his childhood, growing up in Oregon of Irish descent, and also some of his life after he returned from war.

Something that really makes you think though, is the fact that so many WWII veterans became alcoholics. My husband's father was a flight engineer in WWII and flew many missions over Germany. I'm happy to say he did not become an alcoholic. But Don Malarkey did, a functioning alcoholic. So many of his company became alcoholics, even ending up homeless. I have a friend who's father flew the regular route over the Himalayas, taking supplies to China. A great guy to talk to, a wealth of stories, but an alcoholic. You cannot possibly see all that and not be effected.

Something, a statistic I heard recently, which when explained you understand. A Japanese kamikaze pilot had a better chance of living, than an American or English bombing crew. The reason being because these crews and squadrons, were flying day after day. A kamikaze pilot only flew when the weather was right and they had located the target and that was not as often. An amazing fact.

So I'm very happy that Bo's father made it back to later have a son.

To get back to the book, did I like it? Yes. See My Bookshelf for this book.

Charlotte Gray, by Sebastian Faulks (the book verses the film)

2009-07-05T10:23:00.000-07:00

The book or the film?

A Scottish girl recruited by secret service to work with the resistance in France during WWII. Falls in love with a British pilot Peter, who is shot down over France.

Julian is her resistance co-worker in France, who she also likes.

A full one third of the book was dedicated to Peter and Charlotte, which gave you a much closer insight into both of their personalities and why they made the decisions they did. Charlotte was in a way a strong character, making things happen. Peter came across, and he said it himself, as one that didn’t think things through but went along and acted on a situation that came up. He was very much disturbed by loosing almost all of his friends in the Battle of Britain. Which was the first big air fight for control of the skies over Britain. Even the two men who recruited Charlotte pretty much said he and all men who came through there were emotionally disturbed.

Charlotte was distanced from both her parents. The hinted at problem of her child hood with her father was sorted out in a satisfactory way in the book. Referring back to WWI and how it had affected him as a doctor. Her relationship with Julian’s father was tied into her relationship with her father. Both had fought in WWI. I felt so much of the book was about her relationship with Julian’s father not with Julian and not with the children. At the end of the book she felt a need to let him know why Julian did what he did. Traveling up to the internment camp, paying for a guard to tell him. She did not go for the children, although she saw their suitcase on the station platform, what was that about? I don’t think I ever came to a conclusion on that. Was it just that she knew that they had left the internment camp and had been transported. I thought she would act on that knowledge, but she didn’t do anything.

Julian’s father was a painter. You didn’t get the impression that the house was as run down as they depicted in the movie, because Charlotte was hired to clean it. They also had another servant I think and the girl who came to pose, whose house the children were eventually hidden in, not for long though. Julian’s mother did not die young she was around when he was a boy. He spent time with his father at the shore along with other artistic friends. Although he was not a good father, the animosity towards his father did not come across so strongly as in the film.

I didn’t think that her going to France was primarily to find Peter; it was secondary to her need, although part of it. Her relationship with Julian I did not find at all central to the story. Also she was never told by her contact that Peter was dead, was she? She did try to find Peter initially, but the contact was cold and she left it there. The book did go into more detail about how Peter escaped from France. Which builds up more about Peter, and that is why when you come to the end of the book, you have no feeling that she has even thought about staying or going back to Julian.

The two Jewish children, Andre and Jacob, Julian was the one that I think was more especially close to them, and the two older ladies whose house they stayed in, in town. Julian would visit them. Charlotte would go now and again, you didn’t get the idea though that they were constantly on her mind. Also after the children were moved to the country the old lady at the house betrayed them, although they probably would have found them.

I haven’t mentioned the movie too much. The movie gave Hope for both Julian’s father, who was one quarter Jewish and the boys. Also they did not have to face the ordeal alone. The book left you no hope, taking both to their ultimate conclusion. There was no letter in the book. When the boys were taken in the movie, I did think, better they had been taken all at once with their parents, but then they had Julian’s father. In the book they never came to know his father. So I felt they definitely would have been better off if they had been taken with their parents in view of the outcome. If the outcome had been different and they had not been found then of course I would say it was a good thing they did not go with their parents.

How about B. I cannot think of his name. Benoir comes to my mind but I don’t think that’s right. The schoolteacher. There was a lot more background as to why he did what he did, his thinking on how the war would go. Also the fact that many thought like him and did not like Churchill and the British, but would rather have the German’s there with a Vichy government, and get rid of the Jews and the Communists. B’s need for recognition and power. The girl who was the telephoned exchange operator, she was not so much against them.

There were many more characters in the book, all the different resistance workers and a mention of the two groups, the Gaullist’s and the Communists.

The conclusion of the book was satisfactory, with the good outcome with her father. Peter coming to the realization that he truly did love her and he lived to be reunited with her. But as in true life the sadness. The small wish of Julian’s father that Charlotte would like Julian, but he knew it wasn’t so, because she had told him about Peter and knew she didn’t feel that way towards him. No hope for the father and the children.

The book did leave you to think that Peter and Charlotte would go back to France to visit the families and individuals who had helped them. As with Peter and the elderly couple who took him in with his bad leg and shared all they had with him. Julian and Charlotte had a strong friendship, which was more, for a brief moment of need. You felt that after the war Peter and Charlotte would go back to France together to visit.

In the movie Charlotte sees Peter, tells him it's all over, too much water under the bridge. After the war she goes back to France, to see Julian, and their future is together.

Which did I like more, well I liked both, but the movie held out more hope.