Librairies of the World

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)

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.