Indigo's Star by Hilary McKay

The question running through my mind when I started Indigo’s Star was, “Can it possibly be true? Can this really be even better than Saffy’s Angel? The answer to which is yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Indigo’s Star is quite simply a stunning book, and it left me speechless. If you’ve been reading my ramblings for a while, you’ll likely have noticed that I’m a blabber. The more I love a book, the more I want to talk about it in great (and often excessive) detail. But in this particular case, I don’t feel that I could possibly do it justice. I’m tempted to just urge you all to read it and leave it at that, but that would probably be cheating, so I’ll have to try my best.

Let me start with the plot, though the plot isn’t really the point: Thirteen-year-old Indigo Casson is being bullied at school. He was lucky (depending on how you look at it, of course) to get ill enough to miss a whole term, but eventually he recovers and has to go back. However, when the dreaded moment comes, Indigo notices that things have changed. There’s a new boy at school, a student from American named Tom, who has also attracted the attention of The Gang. And although they continue to be harassed, they both soon realise that two is a lot less lonely than one.

Meanwhile, Indigo’s little sister, Rose, has been written furious, loving, hilarious and moving letters to their father Bill. Bill is an artist who lives in London during the week, and who seems to have forgotten to come home at all. And then there’s Saffy and Sarah, looking out for Indigo; and Caddy, trying out new boyfriends to make sure Michael’s the right one; and Tom himself, trying desperately to ignore the truth that lurks behind his stories about an astronaut for a father and a mother who looks after bears at Yellowstone. If this sounds like too many subplots, don’t worry, it isn’t. I should add, though, that this book may be called Indigo’s Star, and Indigo himself may be quite awesome, but as far as I’m concerned Rose completely steals the show.

This is, broadly speaking, What Happens. But what happens won’t tell you much about why Indigo’s Star is so brilliant. For that you have to experience for yourself the way Hilary McKay captures the fierce tenderness between these characters; the way she conveys the full significance of even the smallest of moments between people; the brilliance of her dialogue; the wonderful mix of warmth, humour, gentleness, irony, and real (and sometimes painful) emotions she brings to these stories.

I think I know the reason why I’m having such trouble explaining why I loved this book: it’s because more than to anything specific about the story, what I responded to so strongly was the sensibility behind it. There’s a deep belief here in being emphatic, in connecting to other human beings, in being as kind and decent as you can. It never, ever comes across as heavy-handed, but it permeates everything about the Casson family books. And that’s a big part of the reason why I love them so.

Then there’s also the fact that reading this book was just such a delightful experience. I laughed out loud, I cried, I enjoyed myself tremendously, and I paused in the middle of it to take in the fact that I hadn’t had this much fun with a book in quite a while. I also tried to pace myself so it wouldn’t be over so quickly, but I completely failed to do so. Sadly, Indigo’s Star was devoured in its entirety in a wonderful Saturday afternoon. I want to read the other Casson family books tomorrow (there’s two about Rose!), but part of me also wants to save them – they’re special, special things.

What was the last book that made you feel this way?

Favourite bits:

Darling Daddy
This is Rose.
The shed needs new wires now it has blown up.
Caddy is bringing home rock bottom boyfriends to see if they will do for Mummy. Instead of you.
Love Rose.

‘You can’t be disgusting to people just because they annoy you!’ she exclaimed, very crossly. ‘Thousands of people annoy me! Millions of people annoy millions of people all the time!’
‘That’s true,’ agreed Tom, thinking bitter thoughts of home.
‘You have to put up with them,’ said Rose.

Rose Casson: eight years old and my hero.

‘Are you going to tell me what you wanted that guitar for?’
‘You’ll laugh.’
‘I won’t. Tell me.’
‘For Tom.’
Eve looked at Rose, and she did not laugh. She understood about hearts, even if she did not understand about money. She put an arm around Rose and hugged her tight.

Other opinions:
Jenny’s Books
Library Queue
Book Nut
Bookshelves of Doom

(Did I miss yours?)

Read More......

Nightingale Wood by Stella Gibbons

The plot summary on the back cover of Nightingale Wood is, I think, somewhat misleading: it tells us that this is the story of Viola Wither, a young widow who goes to live with her deceased husband’s family in an old country house in Sussex. Her life with the Withers is dull until she meets Victor Spring– dashing, rich, and the local Prince Charming – at a ball, and finds herself involved in a Cinderella-like story with him. Except this prince is not exactly always charming.

All of the above is true, but this is only one of the several subplots of Nightingale Wood. The book tells us the story of the Withers and the Springs: of the two unmarried Misses Wither, women in their thirties who still live under the thumb of a tyrannical father; of how empty life was at this supposedly happy home; of Hattie Spring, Victor’s cousin, a literary young woman who feels out of place in the social whirlwind which is the Springs’ lives; and of several others colourful minor characters.

In a way, Nightingale Wood is a Cinderella story with added complications and unpredictable turns, but that’s only one among the many things it is. What this humorous, magical and tender book reminded me of was Howards End. Yes, there are many differences, beginning with the fact that they’re from different time periods, but they have a lot in common too: the focus on two families, the fact that both novels deal with class and social conventions and how these limit people’s lives, and Stella Gibbons’ very clear fondness for her characters. Gibbons is more biting than Forster, and she doesn’t refrain from occasionally despairing of them to the reader, but in the end, she gives them all what they want. She allows them to escape their constraints and discover life. Which reminds me of something else I loved about Nightingale Wood: the fact that the third-person narrator occasionally addressees the reader and breaks the fourth wall with comments that show an awareness of the storyness of the story. Rather than pull the reader out of the book, these only add to its fairy tale mood.

I think I mentioned recently that when reading fairy tale-ish books such as The Blue Castle or The Enchanted April, I don’t necessarily mind predictability. I was ready to embrace it in Nightingale Wood, but much to my surprise this story is unpredictable and subtly subversive in many different ways. On the surface things mostly go as expected, and yet—and yet they don’t, not quite. For example, Tina Wither falls in love with Saxon, the family chauffeur, who is not only from a different class but also twelve years her junior. I won’t tell you how things turn out, of course, but oh, I want to give Stella Gibbons such a big hug for how she dealt with these characters. She defied stereotype after stereotype about class, about gender, about relationships between older women and younger men, and simply portrayed them as two individuals. The Tina and Saxon storyline was my favourite, and would on its own more than have made the book for me.

There’s just so much to love about Nightingale Wood. At its core, this is a book about people struggling with imposed definitions of who they are and trying to figure out who they want to be. One of the constraints they struggle with is, predictably enough, gender. As Sophie Dahl says in her introduction,“Perhaps the most succinct surmisal of the 1930s female lot comes from Viola’s best friend, Shirley, who says wryly, ‘Vote, Marie [Stopes], perms, and all, we can’t do anything.’”

The beautiful thing, though, is that Stella Gibbons allows her characters to escape these constraints without at all diminishing their weight or shrugging them aside. She acknowledges how very real they were, and yet still finds them a way out. Nightingale Wood is a book that proves that sometimes a happy ending can be far from conventional. It can be very daring and subversive indeed.

Much to my surprise, I loved this book even more than Cold Comfort Farm. It’s not as funny, but then again it’s not supposed to be. It’s a delightful and surprising fairy tale with rich characterisation, which makes it much more my kind of book. I so wish that more of Stella Gibbons’ work was still in print.

Favourite passages:

All night the countryside did not seem to go to sleep, for the roads were busy with the tiny jewelled beetles of cars racing their owners down to the sea for a moonlit bathe, and all along the shore for miles, bungalows and beach huts were full of golden light and happy voices, and damp towels dragging vigorously across wet bodies. Don’t often get this kind of thing; may as well make the most of it. Unbelievably beautiful, the long silver waves rolled in, over the dark rocks of Cornwall, the white rocks of Sussex, the flat firm sands of Northumberland and the rounded baylets of Wales. Even the bathers, running screaming and splashing into the milk-warm water, felt the beauty of the sea rolling under that green magian-light.
‘Good to be alive, eh?’ they said to each other, with characteristic English reserve. ‘Glad to be alive on a night like this, eh?’— in a world toppling with monster guns and violent death.

‘Look here, Tina, what on earth did he mean? About you and Saxon’ going red, ‘about you and Saxon, I mean’ blundering.
Tina looked up quickly. Just for a second, her face frightened them, it was so furious, ashamed, despairing, so transformed by passion. Fifteen years of longing for love, of joylessness and cowardice, of trying to be ‘nice’ as her family wanted everything to be ‘nice’ and ‘decent’ (even mating, birth and death), of lies, of gently dying from starvation, of never using a strong word or telling the truth to anyone – she wanted to shriek her sufferings at her three frightened faces.

Nearer and nearer it came, until suddenly swept over her head a flock of wild swans, rushing on white-gold wings into the sunset. Laughing with excitement, she ran down the track to follow their flight, but the sunset, and tears, dazzled her, and she could not see.
For some time she stood there, staring yearningly across the distances where they had flown. They were so beautiful, she had never seen anything so beautiful in her whole life. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if she could always feel like she had felt when they thundered over her head, not wanting anyone, happy to be quite alone and looking at something as beautiful as those swans?

And for extra cool points:

Mr Spurrey, too, was content. The sun was shining (Mr Spurrey liked sunshine), there was blue sky, the Rolls was running well, and at home he had Dorothy Sayers’s latest novel waiting unopened. He would read it that evening, over a decanter.

…except that – well, I don’t want to give too much of the plot away, but something happens and Mr Spurrey doesn’t get to read his Sayers novel that night. And as Nightingale Wood was published in 1938, the book in question was probably Busman’s Honeymoon. Isn’t that tragic? Poor Mr Spurrey.

Other Opinions:
Verity’s Virago Venture
Random Jottings of a Book and Opera Lover

(Let me know if I missed yours.)

Read More......

Are Women Human? by Dorothy L. Sayers

Are Women Human? collects two essays by Dorothy Sayers on gender and women’s roles in society: the first, self-titled, was an address given to a Women’s Society in 1938; the second, “The Human-Not-Quite-Human”, deals with women’s rights within the Catholic church. The question the title of this collection asks is and yet is not tongue-in-cheek. Naturally everybody “knows” that women are human. But, as Sayers points out, in countless ways the world is still structured as if they weren’t. Sadly, a lot of what she describes hasn’t really changed in over seven decades. These essays are still as relevant today as they were in 1938.

Sayers begins the first essay by rejecting the term “feminism” – this didn’t surprise me (Virginia Woolf did the same, after all), nor did it lessen my appreciation for what she had to say. But it was interesting to notice that the reasons she gives for not being a feminist are the very same reasons why I do call myself one. Her problem with the term “feminism” has to do with the fact that she thinks it overemphasises the differences between the sexes instead of questioning them. She believes that we are first and foremost human beings, that men and women are a lot more alike than they are different, and that our different achievements have merely to do with different opportunities and forms of socialisation, rather than with different abilities. Therefore, she’s wary of anything that strengths or tries to naturalise these supposed differences.

This is a common misconception about feminism even today – in fact, my teenage self felt the same as Sayers. I don’t know whether it was any more accurate in the 1930’s than it is now, but I do know that in our days this line of thinking certainly does not describe the majority of those who call themselves feminists. Feminism is obviously not a monolith, and I have indeed seen the term be used to describe theories that are only thinly disguised versions of the ancient belief that boys-are-from-Mars-and-girls-are-from-Venus (hello, Carol Gilligan). But if I were to throw away a word every time it was used to express something different from what I mean by it, I’d have to revise the whole dictionary every few weeks.

Regardless of whether or not Dorothy Sayers called herself a feminist, these essays perfectly sum up my own thoughts on gender issues. With humour and insight, Sayers dares to question the gender binary altogether, as well as the majority of the world’s insistence on treating women as an amorphous category; as members of an alien class rather than has individual human beings. She says, for example, that it irritates her to be asked to give a “feminine perspective” on writing detective fiction. The distinction between knowledge and ability, she says, is an important one to keep in mind. Because historically women have been known to perform certain tasks (such as, say, looking after children) more often than men, as a general rule they have more knowledge of how these tasks are performed. But this doesn’t mean they have more of a natural inclination of a better ability to perform them. Likewise, when women enter jobs that have been traditionally assigned to men, such as writing, they don’t do it from a specifically “feminine” angle, nor are they magically able to tell you how all women would approach them. Because they’re simply human beings, their perspective on writing is really only that of a human being – unique, of course, but not necessarily any more different from a man’s than any given man’s is from another’s.

She also shares an anecdote about a man who asked her if she had grown up in a large house surrounded by brothers and male cousins – he thought that this was the only possible explanation for the fact that the dialogue between male characters in her Lord Peter Wimsey novels actually rang true. Sayers answered that actually, she was an only child and didn’t have any male friends until the age of twenty-five. The reason why her dialogue between men was accurate, she told him, was because she wrote it as the dialogue of any two human beings talking to each other. Oh Dorothy, I love you so. This actually touches on a huge pet peeve of mine, which is seeing people remark on how amazing it is that this or that novelist wrote a believable character of the opposite gender. To find this remarkable enough that it almost defies belief is to implicitly accept that the minds of men and women work so differently that it’s nearly impossible for a member of one gender to divine how the other thinks. We do often behave differently, of course, because we are expected to behave differently. But it’s not difficult for any perceptive and insightful observer to get these differences right. And anyway, I fully believe that the similarities largely surpass them.

There was nothing in Are Women Human? that I hadn’t guessed from reading Sayers’ novels, but it was wonderful to see her actually express her thoughts on gender. The only thing that I found slightly disappointing was that she seems to oppose violent protest of any kind when it comes to the fight for women’s rights. I don’t know what exactly she means by “violent” – naturally I’m not for bombing the houses of those who disagree with me, but I suspect that she used it to simply mean “loud”. Although I’m quiet and mild by nature, I hate to dismiss loudness and anger. Sometimes they’re more than called for, and I do appreciate those who express themselves in ways different than my own. But this is really just a side note. Overall, I loved these essays, and I’ll be pointing those who ask me what exactly I mean when I say I’m a feminist towards them.

Favourite passages:

In reaction against the age-old slogan, ‘woman is the weaker vessel,’ or the still more offensive, ‘woman is a divine creature,’ we have, I think, allowed ourselves to drift into asserting that ‘a woman is as good as a man’ without always pausing to think what exactly we mean by that. What, I feel, we ought to mean is something so obvious that it is apt to escape our attention altogether, viz: not that every woman is, in virtue of her sex, as strong, clever, artistic, level-headed, industrious and so forth as any man that can be mentioned; but, that a woman is just as much an ordinary human being as a man, with the same individual preferences, and with just as much right to the tastes and preferences of an individual.

Now, it is frequently asserted that, with women, the job does not come first. What (people cry) are women doing with this liberty of theirs? What woman really prefers a job to a home and family? Very few, I admit. It is unfortunate that they should so often have to make the choice. A man does not, as a rule, have to choose. He gets both. (…) I have admitted that there are very few women who would put their jobs before every earthly consideration. I will go further and assert that there are very few men who would do it either. In fact, there is perhaps only one human being in a thousand who is passionately interested in his job for the job’s sake. The difference is that if that one person in a thousand is a man, we say, simply, that he is passionately keen on his job; if she is a woman, we say she is a freak.

We are much too much inclined in these days to divide people into permanent categories, forgetting that a category only exists for its special purpose and must be forgotten as soon as that purpose is served. There is a fundamental difference between men and women, but it is not the only fundamental difference in the world. (…) A difference of age is as fundamental as a difference of sex; and so is a difference of nationality. All categories, if they are insisted upon beyond the immediate purpose which they serve, breed class antagonism and disruption in the state, and that is why they are dangerous.

We are different, yes, but first and foremost we are all human beings. It really is as simple and as seemingly impossible to grasp as that.

Reviewed at:
Grasping for the Wind
Devourer of Books

(Let me know if I missed yours.)

Read More......

The Sunday Salon: And Now We Are Three

On this day three years ago, I wrote my first post at things mean a lot. I think I've told you all the story of how I first started blogging quite a few times before, so apologies in advance for being repetitive. At the time, I wasn't at all aware that I was about to start a book blog, or even of what a book blog was. I didn't know that I was about to join a community of like-minded readers, to discover fantastic books I hadn't even heard of before, or to meet some of the kindest and most interesting people I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. All I knew was that a group of people from around the world were going to read fantasy, mythology, folklore and fairy tales for three months, and that I wanted to join them. This was apparently called a "reading challenge", and there were several of them out there. Many thanks to Carl and his Once Upon a Time Challenge, without which this blog probably wouldn't exist.

My third blogiversary comes at a strange time: I've been feeling slightly burned out and unmotivated for a few months now, and those why-am-I-even-doing-this moments have become more and more frequent. [As have several other boggers, judging by the many posts on the topic I've seen over the past week. I imagine you might be tired of bloggers-with-the-blahs by now, but I've been working on this post for some time, so decided to go ahead and post it anyway. I apologise for beating a dead horse, though.] I absolutely love blogging, but ever since I started to work full-time back in October, I feel that I'm constantly struggling to keep my head above the water. Things have gotten worse in the past two months or so, when I've also had to deal with a lot on the personal front. The problem isn't really finding the time to read and then write about what I read - I have developed a routine that allows me to carry on doing this without much of a struggle. I always read during my lunch break at work and for a bit in the evenings, and on weekends I write and schedule my posts for the rest of the week. So that side of things has mostly remained under control.

But then there's the community, which is both the most demanding and the most rewarding side of blogging. I realise I'm a little too prone to guilt, but I often feel bad for being here at all when I can't be here one hundred per cent. I want blogging to be a conversation - and this doesn't just mean that I want to respond to people who take the time to leave me comments (sadly, even this is something I fail to do frequently these days). It also means that I want to be out there engaging with what others have to say. I want to know what's on your minds, to participate in blogging events, to maintain the connections I've made along the years. I don't want blogging to be one-sided, and I don't want to do all the talking. I want to listen too.

Unfortunately, as time passes this is becoming more and more difficult. There are blogs I love where I haven't commented in months. Very often I realise I'm fifteen posts behind on a favourite blog and give up and attempt to start over, only to have it happen again a few weeks later. I know (or hope) that nobody holds this against me, and that most of you know very well what it's like to be busy. I know, too, that all this pressure is really only in my head, and that I just need to learn how to relax. But I worry, because worrying is what I do, that I have neglected or inadvertently hurt the feelings of people I care about. If that's the case, forgive me.

I also worry that after three years, I have began to repeat myself a little too much; that even when I'm writing about different books, I'm basically saying the same things over and over again. I fear that because my reading is too samey, I have become boring, and that because my focus and my responses to things are so predictable, those of you who have reading me for more than a few months could basically write my posts for me with your eyes closed. But as I no longer have as much free time on my hands, it's difficult to break out of my four-or-five-boring-and-predictable-book-reviews-a-week-and-possibly-a-chattier-post-on-Sundays routine. I'm not really happy with my blog anymore, but sadly I don't have the time or the energy to improve it. I often wonder, should I continue to blog in auto-pilot? Or should I just quit if I can no longer keep a blog I'm happy with? Ah, blogging existential crises - we all have them, right? Or maybe these are just growing pains.

The reason why I'm telling you all this is because in a few months my life is going to change again. I'll be moving away and starting library school (a decision which, by the way, was very much inspired by the many wonderful librarians I met through blogging). For a year at least things are going to be very busy indeed, much more so than they are now, and the time I'll have available for blogging will be extremely limited at best. So, what to do? At this point I honestly have no idea what's going to happen to this blog come September. Part of me really wants to go on - I love blogging, and though it's a demanding hobby, most of the time it's also rewarding. And I know that if I quit, I'd miss you all terribly. Interacting with you through comments, twitter, e-mail, etc. has become such an important part of my life. I'd even miss my lurkers, with whom I don't really get to interact (I'm a lurker at many blogs myself, by the way, so I completely understand being quiet. But just knowing you're out there makes me happy). I know, though, that to be able to continue I'll really have to quit being such a perfectionist. I'll have to stop feeling that if I can't be here a hundred per cent, I don't have the right to be here at all. I'll have to focus on the simple enjoyment I get out of writing about books and sharing my love of them with others. I'll have to stop taking myself so seriously, to put it simply, which would be a good thing for me in more ways than one.

Anyway. I honestly didn't mean this post to be so gloomy. Mostly I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for the support, the conversations, the book recommendations and the friendship. Thank you for not giving up on me when things get too crazy for me to be able to visit your blogs as often as I'd like. Thank you for listening. Also, because it's not a birthday party without presents, I want to randomly select a winner and have them pick a copy of a book of their choice that I've posted about in the past three years. To be entered, just leave me a comment answering the following question: who is your favourite author that you've discovered through book blogs? If you're curious, mine are Sarah Waters and John Green. Yes, I'm unfairly naming two and asking you pick just one. But I won't be a hypocrite and punish you for breaking a rule I've broken myself.

Also! For five extra entries, all you have to do is record a vlog of yourself standing upside down for a minimum of seven minutes. For TEN extra entries, just come over and clean my house for me. Pretty please?




JUST KIDDING.





(Or am I? Mwahahaha.)




Well, it was worth a shot anyway. Have a great Sunday, everyone. And thank you, for everything.


Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lwr/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Read More......

The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope

In case you were wondering (I know I was), “gard” is an old word for castle. And in this context, “perilous” means that which has to do with magic – like enchanted, or bewitched. This is what Kate Sutton is told shortly before she’s sent to live with Sir Geoffrey Heron at his old castle in Derbyshire – the perilous gard of the title. The year is 1558, and Kate is one of Lady Elizabeth’s attending maids. But when she finds herself caught in a political conspiracy, she’s exiled by Queen Mary Tudor to a remote place.

At the perilous gard, Kate meets Sir Geoffrey’s brother, Christopher Heron, a young man consumed by a dark secret. She hears tales about a young girl gone missing at a place called The Holy Well, she realises that all the villagers fear the castle and its folks, and she wonders if all of this might be connected with all the legends she has heard about the castle and the fairy folk. But can the old stories really be true? Very soon, Kate’s modern Tudor world merges with the Old England of ballads and romances: a place of old rituals, eerie powers, and mysterious ladies in green.

I picked up The Perilous Gard because it’s based on Tam Lin, which is one of my favourite traditional ballads (and which inspired books I pretty much worship, such as Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin and Diana Wynne Jones’ Fire and Hemlock). And let me start by saying that no, you absolutely don’t need to be familiar with the ballad to enjoy The Perilous Gard. What we have here is not to much a retelling as it is a story in which the ballad is referenced. Kate’s awareness of the old stories and of their relevance for the predicament she finds herself in could be described as metafictional, which made me enjoy this book all the more. As you’ve probably noticed by now, I love it when stories make use of other stories.

I’m a big fan of historical fantasy, though I’m aware that this subgenre is not everyone’s cup of tea. In this case, the Tudor setting, though well-researched, is not really the main thing about the story. Kate has been exiled, and she has also been forbidden from writing or receiving letters, so she’s isolated from what’s happening in the rest of kingdom. What mostly matters about the setting is, first of all, that this is Olde Englande; secondly, that it’s the Renaissance, a time of great change, and a time when old customs and beliefs are quickly giving way to new worldviews and ways of life.

Which brings me to what differentiates The Perilous Gard from the other Tam Lin-based books I’ve read to date, and really from most books featuring the fairy folk: in this case, the story is told from the perspective of someone who doesn’t necessarily see losing the Old Ways as a bad thing. Don’t get me wrong; the book takes no moralistic stance in the old Pagan versus Christian debate. But Kate is a Tudor girl, and she’s naturally attached to her own views and way of life. The change from old customs to modern habits is portrayed more as a natural shift than as a loss, which I thought made for an interesting change.

This was all quite interesting, but the reason why you should read The Perilous Gard is because it’s a gripping story with a smart and resourceful heroine. Sir Geoffrey’s house and the surrounding forest – aptly named Elvenwood – are wonderfully atmospheric. The story is also more complex than it initially seems, and it has real emotional resonance. Plus the faeries are wonderfully written: they’re neither silly and frivolous creatures nor dangerous-but-so-sexy like the faeries we sometimes see in contemporary urban fantasy. Like Pamela Dean, Susanna Clarke, Neil Gaiman, John Crowley or Ellen Kushner, Elizabeth Marie Pope captures everything that is dark, mysterious and awe-inspiring about the old beliefs in the fairy folk. Add plenty of adventure and a touch of romance, and the result is one very satisfying book.

Other Opinions:
Sci-Fi Fan Letter
dreaming out loud
Books Without Any Pictures

(Did I miss yours?)

Read More......

The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck

The Good Earth is the story of Wang Lung, a farmer from a village in northern China. It begins when Wang Lung marries O-Lan, who is a slave at the rich Hwang House. The reason why he chooses her for his bride is because he and his elderly father could not afford a dowry for one of the village girls. Throughout the novel, we follow Wang Lung and his family until his old age, through famines and times of prosperity, through good and bad fortune, from his native village to a big southern city and then back to the land.

The Good Earth surprised me in several ways, and the first thing to surprise me was the Biblical vocabulary and syntax it uses. Possibly this is a widely known fact about this novel, but, well, at least I never claimed not to be ignorant. I really liked the simple, direct and lulling writing style. I liked the rhythm it created, as well as the fact that it gave Wang Lung’s story an epic, timeless feel. I imagine that the story is set in the 1930’s, when the book was published, but there’s nothing about it that clearly tells us that. If it weren't for the appearance of a train at one point, it could have been set centuries ago. It’s strange: in some ways, the very simplicity of the language makes it stand out, but at the same time, the prose feels discreet. This is a book in which events speak for themselves; in which the narrative voice almost seems to cease to exist.

Wang Lung is not an unkind man, but he follows his village’s traditions, namely when it comes to the treatment of women. The sexism in The Good Earth is appalling – and just to be clear, this is not a comment on the book itself, but on the reality it depicts. After reading Xinran’s The Good Women of China earlier this year, none of what I saw here surprised me, but my heart still broke for these hard-working and unacknowledged women and their undesired baby girls.

But at the same time I think that Pearl Buck managed to achieve a very delicate balance in how she portrays O-Lan. We respect her too much to pity her. The Good Earth manages to show us both the social system that relegates women to the roles of slaves and everything that falls outside it – the very real humanity of those who are actors in that system. There’s Wang Lang’s tenderness for his baby daughter; there’s his awareness of the fact that he’s been unfair to O-Lan; there’s his real appreciation for her role in the family; there’s the conflict he sometimes feels between what is traditionally accepted and what a human being should or should not do to another.

There has been some controversy surrounding The Good Earth, namely about the fact that it was written by a white American woman who presumes to speak for China. While I can see why this is a source of concern, I don’t automatically reject the idea of someone writing a book about a culture that is not their own. Naturally there’s a great deal of responsibility involved – the responsibility to be faithful and fair, and to avoid generalisations and oversimplifications. But to assume that this is a Bad Thing no matter what seems to me to be a way of avoiding the responsibility we have as readers: the responsibility to make sure we don’t limit ourselves to a single perspective. It’s up to us to listen to local voices too, to seek out books by Chinese authors, to ask questions, to compare the two. A book by an American woman won’t tell us everything there is to know about China, of course, but then again, neither will a single book by a Chinese person. These are my own humble two cents, but I’d of course be interested in hearing your thoughts on the matter.

One of the things Pearl Buck has been accused of is of superimposing Western values like individualism and hard work into Wang Lung’s story. I know very little about Chinese culture, so I don’t feel that I’m qualified to comment on how accurate or not Buck’s portrayal of it was. But I will say that I find the above a very superficial reading of this novel. I didn’t at all read Wang Lung’s saga as a rags to riches story about a man who climbs up in life because he works so hard. One of the things I loved the most about The Good Earth was its impermanence and vulnerability: the fact that it clearly showed us just how arbitrary Wang Lung’s good fortune was.

Wang Lung is undoubtedly a hard worker, but then again, so is his neighbour Ching, who for all his work never succeeds like Wang Lung does. Wang Lung's success depends on so many chance factors, on so many things he can’t control. Like all humans, he’s at the mercy of the land. A draught or a flood at the wrong time could have ruined him. He knows what hunger is, and never quite forgets that it can come again. And the fact that later in his life he can remain prosperous even through hard times has more to do with the fact that he was once in the right place at the right time than it does with his diligence. The Good Earth is such a human book, in so many ways. And for that reason I found it very moving. It’s too kind a book not to acknowledge that we are small and often impotent, and that even the most hard-working people go through bad times.

I wasn’t aware until I finished the book that Pearl Buck returned to the story of Wang Lung’s family with two sequel, Sons and A House Divided, which I assume tackle some of the things that are hinted at in the final chapters of The Good Earth. Has anyone read them? How do they compare?

Many thanks to Michelle, Claire, Mee and David, whose Asian Book Group encouraged me to pick up this book at last. Please visit Bookie Me between today and the end of the month for more thoughts on this book.


Reviewed at:
Caribousmom
Rebecca Reads
Lotus Reads
In Spring it is the Dawn
Lesley's Book Nook
The Armenian Odar Reads
Age 30+ … A Lifetime of Books
Library Queue
The Zen Leaf
su[shu]

(Did I miss yours?)

Read More......

Women in Science - an Ada Lovelace Day Wishlist

Ada Lovelace, also known as Augusta Ada Byron, also known as the daughter of Byron the poet, was a nineteenth-century mathematician and writer who created the first algorithm meant to be processed by a machine – an effort for which she’s considered the world’s first computer programmer. Today is Ada Lovelace Day, which means that bloggers from around the world are invited to post about women in science and technology.

The goal is, I think, to write about a particular woman scientist we admire. But I’m going to have to cheat a little bit, as sadly I don’t know enough about women in science and technology to be able to write a good tribute post. When I don’t know enough about a topic I naturally try to read about it, so I thought I’d celebrate Ava Lovelace Day by putting together a wish list, which I hope will be useful not just for myself but for others too.

But first, I hope you’ll bear with me as I try to explain why I even care about any of this to begin with. If you’ve been reading this blog for some time, you’ll probably have noticed that feminism and science are two things I care about. Unfortunately, when the two come together the results aren’t always the most fortunate. Things like Luce Irigaray’s infamous assertion that Einstein’s mass–energy formula is sexist because “it privileges the [masculine] speed of light over other speeds that are vitally necessary to us” make me cringe so badly I almost go into convulsions. Their sheer absurdity hurts feminism and it hurts science. And sadly, the result is that they cheapen something that is more than important enough to deserve to be discussed seriously.

I don't believe that the scientific method is in itself sexist (or racist, elitist, classist, you name it). But the method is of course applied by flawed and biased human beings, which means that over the course of history the practice of science has been and continues to be all of the above. You could say that the fact that science has been dominated by (white) males has shaped the way some questions are framed and some issues dealt with, but this is not because men and women are inherently different or look at the world differently; it’s because we all operate under certain social constraints. I think that saying that the speed of line is “masculine” or that “girls can’t do science” are nothing but two examples of the same harmful way of thinking.

I don't think women scientists should be appreciated simply because they're women, of course, nor that they should be patted on the head. But the best way to make sure that this ceases to happen is to continue to tip the balance: the more women there are in science and technology, the less likely it will be that they’ll be perceived as women first and human beings second. And women will be more likely to follow careers in these fields if they’re not made to feel unwelcome. To me, Ada Lovelace Day is about taking a moment to celebrate the pioneers, the women whose efforts contributed to the fact that, though we still have some way to go, a woman following a science career is no longer widely considered “unnatural”.

Without further ado, here’s a list of books on the topic I’d like to read:

• The Door in the Dream: Conversations with Eminent Women in Science by Elga Wasserman — a collection of interviews with women who are members of the American National Academy of Sciences, focusing on their experiences in traditionally male-dominated fields.
  
  
• Kindred Nature: Victorian and Edwardian Women Embrace the Living World by Barbara T. Gates — I want this book SO BADLY it’s not even funny. As the title tells us, it’s about female naturalists in Victorian and Edwardian times, and how they fared in a world where sexism was even more blatant than it is today.
  
  
• Nobel Prize Women in Science: Their Lives, Struggles, and Momentous Discoveries by Sharon Bertsch McGrayne — a group biography of fourteen women who either won a Nobel prize or played a fundamental role in a Nobel prize winning project. It’s important to note that out of over three hundred Nobel winners in several science-related fields since 1901, only nine were women. By depicting the battles these women had to fight, Sharon Bertsch McGrayne sheds some light on the reasons why.
  
  
• Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA by Brenda Maddox — a biography of chemist Rosalind Franklin, whose crucial contribution to the discovery of DNA’s structure was never recognised.
  
  
• Women in Science: Then and Now by Vivian Gornick — like The Door in the Dream, this book is based on interviews, but it’s more specific in that it asks women scientists about any changed they have (or have not) noticed when it comes to what they have to face over a period of twenty-five years.
  
  
• Scientists Anonymous: Great Stories of Women in Science by Patricia Fara — A YA biography of several women scientists from the 17th century to the modern era, covering big names like Marie Curie, Florence Nightingale and Rosalind Franklin as well as some lesser-known ones.
  
  
• She's Such a Geek: Women Write About Science, Technology, and Other Nerdy Stuff edited by Annalee Newitz and Charlie Anders — another book I’m dying to get my hands on. This is an anthology of 24 essays spotlighting women who work not only in science and technology, but also in other nerdy fields such as video games or the comic book industry. I’m especially interested in this book because it deals with sexism in geek culture, a topic close to home.

Have you read any of these? If so, what did you think? Do you have any women scientists you admire, or any other books about them you’d recommend? Also, I was wondering – do you know of any fiction books that deal with these themes? If so, I’d love to hear about them.

Remember, it’s still not too late to join the Ada Lovelace Day celebrations!

Read More......

La Perdida by Jessica Abel

La Perdida tells the story of Carla Olivares, a young Mexican-American who grows up in Chicago with her mother and brother. Carla’s father is Mexican, but she was never much in touch with him growing up. When she graduates from college, she decides to pack up her bags and move to Mexico City for a year to reconnect with her roots. At first she crashes at the flat where an ex-boyfriend of sorts, Harry, is staying. Harry is in Mexico to follow the footsteps of his Beat heroes and write a novel, and mainly hangs out with other expats. But when things go wrong between the two of them, Carla moves into a new place and develops her own circle of friends – mostly Mexican people, who she hopes will be able to teach her what Mexican culture and life are truly like.

La Perdida is quite simply one of the smartest comics I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading – the concepts it deals with, the characterisation, the writing, the storytelling, the way it moves to an inevitable and yet surprising conclusion – it all impressed me so much. La Perdida is a politically sophisticated book about political naïveté, and I don’t imagine that’s an easy thing to pull off.

When Carla arrives in Mexico City, she acts like an idealistic young American who doesn’t want to be an idealistic young America. She criticises Harry for only making friends with other expats; she visits Frida Kahlo’s house and hangs a poster of hers in her room; she makes an effort to visit places outside the usual tourist routes; she goes to markets, buys local art and talks to people; she tries to learn Spanish; and she becomes incredibly distraught when a man she meets at one of those markets accuses her of being just another naïve American trying to appropriate a culture she knows nothing about; of roughing it in the third-world just because she thinks it’ll be “authentic” and fun.


The question of whether or not this is Carla in a nutshell is raised again and again throughout the book, and the answer is not easy to find. La Perdida asks difficult questions about colonialism, social justice, privilege, political idealism, cultural appropriation, and cultural relativity. The one thing we can be sure of is that Carla means well, but unfortunately out there in the real world meaning well doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t do harm. Very often well-meaning people are part of the systems of oppression they want to combat, and this seems to be the case with Carla whether she likes it or not.

Carla wants to be open; she wants to listen and to learn. Unfortunately, her very openness slowly transmutes into a sort of wilful blindness to the dangers that surround her. Her guilt for being white, American and very well-off compared to those who surround her leads her to accepting things that would normally have set her alarm bells ringing. The reader, of course, can easily see where things are heading. But the brilliant thing about La Perdida is that it makes it difficult to blame Carla for being so wilfully naïve.

There’s a very strong cultural tendency to blame women who put themselves in situations of danger, who are naïve when they “should” have been alert and then suffer the consequences of their trustfulness. I love the fact that Jessica Abel challenges this tendency and makes it hard for readers to blame Carla. Because we get to know her so well, it’s difficult not to respect her. And because she asks herself so many difficult questions, we’re forced to ask them too, instead of simply explaining away what happens as the actions of a silly young woman.

La Perdida is an excellent, excellent book, and I’ll try to get my hands on more of Jessica Abel’s work as soon as possible.


(Have you reviewed this book too? Let me know and I'll add your link here.)

Read More......

Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy L. Sayers

I'm sorry! I feel like I'm going to single-handedly make you all sick and tired of Dorothy L. Sayers by sheer gushy repetition. But I can't help the fact that I seem to have developed a bit of an obsession. The good news for those of you who are getting tired of hearing me go on and on about her is that Busman's Honeymoon is the last of the Harriet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries. For me, however, this is nothing short of tragic news, and I even might have actually shed a tear or two when I finished this book. I so didn't want to part from these characters. Valerie was kind enough to point out that there were a few short stories featuring them, but I might have already devoured those too, which means that there's really nothing more for me to read. Sadness. (Though there's some comfort to be found in the fact that I still haven't read all those Lord Peter sans Harriet books.)

Busman's Honeymoon begins right where Gaudy Night left off, with (this might be spoiler-y, but I think it doesn't actually ruin things to know that they do end up together. I won't tell you how it happens, of course) Harriet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey getting engaged. The first section of the book, which is told through letters between several characters and journal entries by Lord Peter's mother, describes their engagement and wedding. And oh, what fun I had reading it. Lord Peter's mother is a hilarious and perceptive narrator, and through her we get glimpses of some truly sweet moments between Harriet and Peter. But - and this is the interesting thing - they're really only glimpses. Sayers never really shows us anything truly explicit (and no, by “explicit” I don't mean sexual), which somehow only makes the glimmers of emotions we do get to see stand out all the more. More than anything, Sayers suggests and implies, and the reader’s imagination does the rest.

Busman's Honeymoon is, of course, a murder mystery, and by now you just might be wondering where the murder this. After the first 150 or so pages, which are pure fun, the book becomes much darker: a body is found in the country farmhouse where Harriet and Peter have gone for a quiet honeymoon. Having found themselves involved in the murder, they can't just walk away and go have fun elsewhere, leaving someone who committed a crime on the loose behind them; and, even more importantly, leaving the suspicion hanging over the heads of several innocents. Busman's Honeymoon is different from Sayer's other books in that it's a country village mystery. We get to know the characters and see what makes them tick, all along knowing that the culprit is one of them; possibly even someone we actually like. Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane know this too, and Sayers doesn't make light of it. Unlike, say, Have His Carcase, this is not an impersonal mystery. And despite the sheer delight that the first third of the book offers, it's not a light story either. But its darkness and complexity are a big part of the reason why I loved it so much - it lived up to Gaudy Night, and that's saying a lot.

Sayers herself admitted, in a letter a friend, that Busman's Honeymoon was either a love story with detective interruptions or a love story with detective interruptions. I think it's neither, actually, because the love story and the mystery are tied so close together that I never felt that one was interrupting the other. The difficult things that Harriet and Peter have to face have an impact on their relationship, and they move the characterisation forwards immensely. Busman's Honeymoon is, among other things, a book about the fact that happiness and intimacy are not easy. It looks beyond the “happily ever after” and shows us what's on the other side.

I love Sayers so much for not ending these characters' stories with them getting together at the end of Gaudy Night. The great majority of love stories tend to be about what people call “the thrill of the chase” (only I hate that metaphor and everything it implies with a passion), but personally I'm a much bigger fan of stories about long-term intimacy. We need more of those – we need stories that acknowledge all the hard work that actually remaining close to another human being requires; that being permanently vulnerable before someone, navigating difficulties, and remaining honest and respectful always is not necessarily easy. Happiness is not effortless, especially for those who don’t necessarily expect it. Busman's Honeymoon is one of those stories, and I love it for it.

Also, all the gender considerations Sayers introduced in Gaudy Night (and before that, really) and present here again, though in different ways. Harriet and Peter are two people struggling not to slip into the roles that everyone around them expects them to play; to remain, before one another, primarily two human beings rather than Husband and Wife.

Moving back to the mystery, I want to share a passage in which Sayers explains something I have always felt to be true about her books: that they’re primarily howdunits rather than whodunits. At one point in the investigation, Peter Wimsey says:

‘You can have no idea (…) how refreshing it is to talk to somebody who has a grasp of method. The police are excellent fellows, but the only principle of detection they have really grasped is that wretched phrase, ‘Cui Bono?. They will hare off after a motive, which is a matter for psychologists. (…) You’ve got to show how the thing was done, and then, if you like, bring in motive to back up your proof. If a thing could only have been done one way, and if only one person could have done it that way, then you’ve got your criminal, motive or no motive. There’s How, When, Where, Why and Who – and when you’ve got How, you’ve got Who. Thus spake Zarathustra.’

It’s funny: if I had been told this about her books out of context I might have been put off. I like psychological explorations of motivation, thank you very much, and I’d probably think that this would make her mysteries impersonal and not really character-oriented at all. I couldn’t have been more wrong, of course, because while it’s true that she doesn’t really go for in-depth psychological portrays of her criminals, the complexity of characterisation is all there in her amateur detectives themselves. And that’s just fine by me.

I’ll shut up soon, but one last thing: I loved the ending of this book. It was perfect and painful and it left me in tears. I won’t give it away, naturally, but it has to do with everything I was saying before about closeness and vulnerability being hard work. Plus we learn a lot more about Lord Peter and Bunter and the origin of their friendship (as that’s what it is, really, even if officially they’re Lord and Servant). We also learn about what Peter saw and went through in the Great War, and the consequences of those experiences. But I’ll say no more. Just…Dorothy Sayers, you have earned my undying love.

Bits I liked:

He appeared satisfied, but Harriet cursed herself for a fool. This business of adjusting oneself was not so easy after all. Being preposterously fond of a person didn’t prevent one from hurting him unintentionally. She had an uncomfortable feeling that his confidence had been shaken and that this was not the end of the misunderstanding. He was not the kind of man to whom you could say, ‘Darling, you’re wonderful and whatever you do is right’ – whether you thought so or not. He would write you down a fool. Nor was he the sort who said, ‘I know what I’m doing and you must take my word for it’ (Thank God for that, anyway!). He wanted you to agree with him intelligently or not at all.

And this – this is perhaps the clearest of those glimpses of raw emotion I was talking about before. Call me a sap, but it made me cry:

She lifted his head between her hands, and what she saw in his face stopped her heart.
‘Oh, my dear, don’t… Not all that… It’s terrifying to be so happy.’
‘Ah, no, it’s not,’ he said quickly, taking courage from her fear.

‘All other things to their destruction draw,
Only our love hath no decay;
This no tomorrow hath, nor yesterday;
Running it never runs from us away
But truly keeps his first, last, everlasting day.’

‘Peter—’
He shook his head, vexed at his own impotence.
‘How can I find words? Poets have taken them all, and left me with nothing to say or do—’
‘Except to teach me for the first time what they mean.’
He found it hard to believe.

‘Have I done that?’
‘Oh, Peter –’ Somehow she must make him believe it, because it mattered so much that he should. ‘All my life I have been wandering in the dark—but now I have found your heart—and am satisfied.’
‘And what do all the great words come to in the end, but that? – I love you – I am at rest with you – I have come home.’

*sniff* Best couple ever. And sorry, this is huge. It seems that once I get started I really cannot shut up about Sayers.


(Have you posted about this book too? Let me know and I'll add your link here.)

Read More......

Fairy Tales, Short Stories & Bees

It's here! Once Upon a Time, the challenge that will always be number one in my heart. Not only because it’s devoted to my favourite genre, fantasy (and fairy tales, folklore and mythology), but also because this challenge is the reason why I started blogging in the first place.

I’m going to do Quest the First, and try to read at least five books that fit one or several of the above categories this spring. I won’t force myself to stick to a list, but I thought I’d post a pile of potentials anyway, since (for me at least) seeing what other people are planning to read is half the fun. As I piled these books, I realised this post could very easily be retitled Books Other Bloggers Were Kind Enough to Give Me and I Have Ungratefully Not Read Yet. Sorry all!

Here's what I'm thinking of reading:



(Not the best picture, I know, but I couldn’t resist because of the background.)

• The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsany - A fantasy classic I can't believe I haven't read yet.
  
  
• The Princess and the Goblin by George McDonald - Ditto.
  
  
• The Book of Flying by Keith Miller - A gift from my friend Chris, who swears by it. I hope I'll love it as much as he did.
  
  
• Robin Hood by Antonia Fraser - I bought this book in Nottingham, meaning to read it while I lived there. Two years later, it remains unread. Sigh.
  
  
• Godmother by Carolyn Turgeon - This retelling of Cinderella was a gift from the lovely Nancy. Everyone seems to have strong feelings about the ending, which makes me extra curious to read it.
  
  
• Gasoline by Dame Darcy - A post-apocalyptic fairy tale with wonderful illustrations. I plan to read this very soon.
  
  
• The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia McKillip - Another gift from a blogging friend, this time Jeane. I always feel so guilty when I take forever to read books that people were kind enough to send to me. It feels inconsiderate somehow. And no, I never think others are being inconsiderate when they don't read books I give them right away, but alas. Anyway, I'll read this soon-ish. I've been meaning to read McKillip for ages anyway.
  
  
• The Language of the Night by Ursula K. Le Guin - Essays on fantasy by Ursula K. Le Guin. What could possibly go wrong?
  
  
• Red Spikes by Margo Lanagan - It's Margo Lanagan. Enough said.
  
  
• The Changeover by Margaret Mahy – a gift from my Secret Santa, Alessandra, and a Carnegie Medal winner.
  
  
• Tales from Moominvaley by Tove Jansson – another children’s classics that I missed growing up.
  
  
• Illyria by Elizabeth Hand – I broke my no ARCs policy for this one because it’s Elizabeth Hand and she’s brilliant.
  
  
• Fairest by Gail Carson Levine – I know it probably won’t be as good as Ella Enchanted, but I suspect it’ll still be good enough to make me happy.
  
  
• Skulldugery Pleasant by Derek Landy – this was highly recommended to me by several trusted blogging friends.

• Best-loved Folktales of the World edited by Joanna Cole – a gift from my friend Debi. It’s too long for me to consider reading it all (besides, I think folk and fairy tales work best in small doses), but I do hope to dip into it here and there.

Have you read any of these? What did you think? Where should I start?

---

I thought I’d also take this chance to officially join two challenges I actually joined long ago, but only in my head. First, Lu and Jason’s Clover, Bee and Reverie challenge, which is devoted to poetry. Secondly, Kate’s Short Story Challenge.

For Clover, Bee and Reverie I think I’ll read the two Mary Oliver books I own, some Emily Dickinson, and perhaps also some poetry that’s available online – more Sylvia Plath? Christina Rossetti? Anne Sexton? Billy Collins? Do you have a favourite poet? Do you know of a poet you think I'd love? I'm more than open to suggestions here.

For the Short Story Challenge, well, there are all those anthologies and collections on my to be read pile, starting with Lord Peter by Dorothy Sayers, which collects all the Lord Peter Wimsey short stories. Alright, so this one has been on my tbr pile since yesterday, but hey, it still counts. (Why, yes, I am slightly obsessed with Sayers. Why do you ask?)

Read More......

Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild

Ballet Shoes is the story of the adopted Fossil sisters: Pauline, Petrova and Posy. Their peculiar surname’s original has to do the fact that all three of them were found and brought home by Matthew Brown, a fossil collector, who left them under the care of his great-niece Sylvia and her old nurse, Nana. After bringing home the youngest of the sisters, Great Uncle Matthew embarked on an expedition, leaving behind enough money to support the family for five years.

Only the five years pass, and still there’s no sign of him. Sylvia, Nana and the Fossil sisters have to come up with inventive ways to make ends meet. They decide to let some of the rooms in their big house, and one of the boarders, Miss Dane, turns out to be a dance instructor, who suggests that the sisters learn ballet and stage performance.

And so it begins. The “show business” side of Ballet Shoes was interesting (I especially liked the details of the production of A Midsummer’s Night Dream that Pauline and Petrova are in), but what really drew me in were the characters and their relationships. I came to Noel Streatfeild the wrong way around, so to speak. The first thing of hers I ever read was one of her books for adults, Saplings. I absolutely loved it, especially for its psychological insight and complex characterisation, and I was looking for a little bit of the same here. Ballet Shoes is of course a different sort of book altogether, but it was still perceptive enough to satisfy me.

We never get inside Posy’s head (I wonder why Streatfeild made that choice?), but Pauline and Petrova’s thoughts always rang absolutely true. I loved how well Noel Streatfeild captured these children’s loyalties, their preferences, their ambitions, the misunderstandings behind their small or not so small hurts. More than about the world of stage performance, this is a book about family, about relationships; about people faced with hardships struggling together and trying hard not end up resenting one another for a situation that isn’t really anyone’s fault. Sylvia, Nana and the boarders that befriend the children always deal with their feelings with such tact – that kind of respect for the emotional experiences of children was another one of the things I loved the most about Saplings, so I was thrilled to also find it in Ballet Shoes.

You know, I vehemently oppose the idea that books have due dates, or that you have to read certain things by a certain age to truly “get” them (though you could, of course, argue I'm only saying this because I read so little as a child). All the same, the experience of reading as a child is different from that of reading as an adult – you connect to things at a different level, and the world of the book, the character, the stories, often feel so much larger when you’re young. I wish I could have had both experiences with certain books, and Ballet Shoes is one of them. I’m sure this is a story that would have felt larger to me back then. To be specific, there’s something about how I experienced the passing of time in the book that I think would have worked better had I been younger. Somehow, the story didn’t seem to cover as many years as it actually covered; only I don’t think a child would perceive the way time passes in the book the same way at all.

But anyway. I most certainly did enjoy it – especially the characterisation, the humour, and the warmth. And also the fact that, as I was saying about Saffy’s Angel the other day, this is a kind book. Speaking of which – I was intrigued by the fact that Ballet Shoes seems to have a dark twin in Noel Streatfeild’s first novel for adults, The Whicharts. The books essentially have the same plot and even share some passages, only in The Whicharts, things don’t go nearly as well as they do in Ballet Shoes.

Has anyone read it? Would you like to? Some readers at The Fossil Cupboard, the Noel Streatfeild discussion forums, were saying that reading it sort of spoiled Ballet Shoes for them – it’s apparently quite a depressing book, and now they can’t shake off the feeling that the story told in The Whicharts is what “really” happened, whereas Ballet Shows is the fairy tale version. I don’t think that would happen to me, though, and I must say I’m really curious.

The only problem was that the book was out of print for years, and used copies became prohibitively expensive. Fortunately, it seems that a small publisher is bringing it back into print, but I must say I don’t quite know what to make of the fact that the only information I can find for the publisher at all is a page through which to order The Whicharts. Hmm. What do you think?

A passage I liked:

Doctor Jakes came over to the shelves.
‘Literature is my subject.’
‘Is it? Is that what you’re a Doctor of?’
‘More or less. But apart from that, books are very ornamental things to have about.’
Pauline looked at the shelves. These books certainly were grand-looking – all smooth shiny covers, and lots of gold on them.
‘Ours aren’t very,’ she said frankly. ‘Yours are more all one size. We have things next to each other like Peter Rabbit and Just So Stories, and they don’t match very well.’
‘No, but very good reading.’
Pauline came to the fire. It was a lovely fire; she stood looking at the logs on it.
‘Do you think Peter Rabbit good reading? I would have thought a person who taught literature was too grand for it.’
‘Not a bit – very old friend of mine.’

Doctor Jakes: a woman after my own heart. I actually haven’t read Peter Rabbit, but I still appreciate the sentiment immensely.

Other opinions:
Sassymonkey Reads
The Movieholic & Bibliophile's Blog
A Comfy Chair and a Good Book

(Have you reviewed it too? Let me know and I’ll add your link here.)

Read More......

Bourbon Island 1730 by Apollo & Lewis Trondheim

Please bear with me as I try to summarise the plot of Bourbon Island 1730, as it’s not an easy task. It’s not that the story is confusing; it’s just that there are a lot of interrelated events going on at the same time, which makes it difficult to recap. Let me start with a bit of historical context: Bourbon Island, named Réunion in our days, is a small island on the Indian Ocean, to the east of Madagascar. The island still belongs to France today. In the eighteenth century, it was a colony occupied by a few white settlers, who owned coffee plantations, and many slaves brought over from Madagascar and East Africa. It was also a frequent point of passage for pirates, many of whom settled on the island and became plantation owners themselves when the King of France issued a Pirate Amnesty.

The story opens when a group of ornithologists arrive in Bourbon Island. They come in search of the last Dodo, and also to catalogue the island's many unique bird species. But they get involved with a group of Maroons – escaped slaves who live in free communities up in the mountains, always in fear that they’ll be recaptured – and also with the daughter of a rich plantation owner, whose eyes are open to the injustice that surrounds her. And more than this I cannot tell you, except that around the same time a famous pirate by the name of Buzzard is captured, and that one of our ornithologists is obsessed with Libertalia – a legendary pirate community that, if real, is said to have been the first modern democratic republic in the world.

I liked Bourbon Island 1730 a lot, but strangely enough it actually took me a long while to realise this. At first, the book left me feeling vaguely uneasy and slightly frustrated. This is because the ending brings no closure, no solutions, no answers, and to be honest, the story doesn’t really go anywhere much. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised that actually, the narrative had done its job, which was to make me feel and think. I do, of course, know better than to expect all my narratives to be neat, and I know that sometimes discomfort is a valid goal for a work of art. A book about slavery, colonialism, and the lengths to which human beings will go to be acknowledged as human is going to be uncomfortable almost by. But funnily enough, my initial reaction was still to be somewhat put off. I wonder why that is.

It's interesting how readily I accepted this same kind of discomfort when I read Deogratias a few months ago, yet it still gave me trouble here. Ah well – what is to be human but to be inconsistent? It’s also curious to note that both Bourbon Island 1730 and Deogratias are francophone comics. I wonder if they generally tend to be more open-ended and less structured than English-language ones? I can’t draw conclusions from two books alone, of course, but I’ll keep this in mind as I read more of them in the future. Also, let me take this chance to say that I love that First Second books publishes French comics in translation. France and Belgium have a huge comics tradition that I'd love to explore, but sadly the books are not always available in a language I can read.

But back to Bourbon Island 1730: its greatest strength is that it does a wonderful job of capturing a moment in history and of humanising it – it gives us a glimpse of what it felt like to live through these experiences, and that’s really all I ask of historical fiction. My absolutely favourite scene was one in which one of the maroons speaks to a newly captured slave late one night. They’re both from West Africa and speak the Yoruba language, but as the majority of the slaves in Bourbon Island were brought from East Africa, the maroon hadn’t heard his native language in years – and neither had the slave after being captured.

He tells the newly arrived young man what his life on the island is going to be like, and his account is shown against the backdrop of a coffee plant growing. For the sake of Europeans being served a good cup of coffee, these people’s lives were destroyed. His account is in itself heartbreaking, but more than the details of a slave’s life, what moved me the most was that this is such a human moment in the middle of a system that was heavily based on dehumanisation. The writing and the art together really capture that glimpse of humanity and make it stand out. The result is absolutely stunning.


(Click to enlarge)
And speaking of art: the illustrations in Bourbon Island 1730 are quite different from what I’m used to in most of the comics I read. I liked them, but because they’re both in black and white and very detailed, I had to slow down to be able to take it all in. This is more of a warning than a complaint, really. This is a very rewarding book, but it’s not one you’ll want to race through. Also, if you decide to pick it up, make sure you read the historical notes at the end. They were absolutely fascinating and taught me a whole lot about this time period, including a lot of facts about the late days of piracy. And who doesn’t like to learn about pirates?

Other Opinions:
Bart's Bookshelf

(Did I miss yours?)

Read More......

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim

To Those who Appreciate Wistaria and Sunshine. Small medieval Italian Castle on the shores of the Mediterranean to be let furnished for the month of April. Necessary servants remain. Z, Box 1000, The Times.

Such is the advertisement that attracts the attention of both Mrs Wilkins and Mrs Artbuthnot in a rainy day in March. Both belong to the same ladies’ club, and both live in Hampstead and know each other by sight. But they had never exchanged a word until that afternoon, when both dream of wisteria and sunshine as the gloomy London rain falls outside. A few more things they have in common are the fact that both are still young, that they’re married but not very happily so, and that they have some personal savings put aside. It only makes sense, then, to inquire about the Times add.

Mrs Wilkins and Mrs Artbuthnot – Rose and Lotty – are joined by Lady Caroline Dexter and Mrs Fischer that April in Italy; these two ladies respond to another add, one Rose and Lotty put up themselves in an attempt to find someone to share the holiday expenses. Each of these four women goes to Italy for a different reason. Rose Artbuthnot feels distanced from her husband Frederick, whose life choices, she feels, go against her deepest beliefs; Lotty Wilkins feels that she has been too good for too long, and also that she has let her own husband intimidate her for far too long; Lady Caroline Dexter is tired of everything and everyone she knows, and also of being stared at and petted because of her looks; and Mrs Fischer, the oldest of the party, wants to sit in the sunshine and remember having lunch at her father’s house with eminent Victorians – Tennyson, Carlyle, Browning, Ruskin – sitting at his table.

Originally published in 1922, The Enchanted April is a delightful and uncomplicated story in which everything goes as it should. By “uncomplicated”, however, I don’t necessarily mean “simple”, let alone “simplistic”. Remember what I was saying the other day about how the predictability of The Blue Castle was part of its very charm? Well, the same is true here – and actually, the two books remind me of one another in several ways.

The Enchanted April is full of humour, of misunderstandings, of instances of characters miscommunicating and misjudging one another’s intentions. But everything works out regardless, and sometimes because, of the misunderstandings. I suppose this book reads a lot like a romantic comedy, but if the words usually send you running, please considering staying this time. You probably do have to leave your inner cynic at the door, but if you manage to, the result is a complete delight. This is one of those rare books that are always on the verge of becoming too charming and sweet, but somehow never do - they manage to keep the balance.

Another thing that makes The Enchanted April stand out is the strength of the characterisation. My favourite of the four protagonists was Lady Caroline Dexter: Lady Caroline is rich and very beautiful, and she’s sick of people who want to be around her simply because she’s rich and very beautiful. She also suffers from the misfortune of having a lovely and harmonious speaking voice, so anything she intends as a sarcastic remark is perceived by the listener as just another instance of Lady Caroline being oh so charming and friendly.

Lady Caroline is very much a “poor little rich girl”, but kudos to Elizabeth von Arnim for making her so sympathetic regardless. The reason why she’s sympathetic is because the way she’s portrayed acknowledges that she’s fully human. There’s a bit of a tendency to just dismiss beautiful women who complain about the attention their looks bring them, but this is a real problem. I imagine that it must be hugely frustrating to be constantly treated like a doll, and to be surrounded by people whose only interest in you has to do with what you look like, not who you are. Of course, women who don’t look like dolls are made to feel bad in other ways, but these are really just different angles of the same problem. We define beauty too narrowly and put far too much of an emphasis on it. This is far from a novel idea, I know, but I loved how The Enchanted April dealt with it, and I loved how complexly Lady Caroline was portrayed.

Last but not least, another thing I loved about The Enchanted April were the gorgeous nature descriptions. If I were to compare it to a book other than The Blue Castle, it would be The Secret Garden: both are, among other things, charming celebrations of spring. This book made me want to sit outside and watch the world come to bloom. And that’s a lovely frame of mind to be in during the month of March.

Bits I liked:

Mrs Wilkins longed to get up and open the shutters, but where she was was really so very delicious. She gave a sigh of contentment, and went on lying there looking round her, taking in everything in her room, her own little room, her very own to arrange just as she pleased for this one blessed month, her room bought with her own savings, the fruit of her careful denials, whose door she could bolt if she wanted to, and nobody had the right to come in.

‘Were you ever, ever in your life so happy?’ asked Mrs Wilkins, catching her by the arm.
‘No,’ said Mrs Arbuthnot. Nor had she been; not ever; not even in her first love-days with Frederick. Because always pain had been close at hand in that other happiness, ready to torture with doubts, to torture even with the very excess of her love; while his was the simple happiness of complete harmony with her surroundings, the happiness that asks for nothing, that just accepts, just breathes, just is.

‘The great thing is to have lots of love about. I don’t see,’ she went on, ‘at least I don’t see here, though I did at home, that it matters who loves as long as somebody does. I was a stingy beast at home, and used to measure and count. I had a queer obsession about justice. As though justice mattered. Ad though justice can really be distinguished from vengeance. It’s only love that’s any good. At home I wouldn’t love Mellersh unless he loved me back, exactly as much, absolute fairness. Did you ever. And as he didn’t, neither did I, and the aridity of that house! The aridity…

They Read it Too
Paperback Reader
Serendipity
somewhere i have never travelled
Shelf Love
Lakeside Musings
Passionate Booklover

(Did I miss yours?)

Read More......

Henrietta's War by Joyce Dennys

Henrietta’s War is a humorous epistolary novel set in a village in Devonshire during WW2. “Humorous?”, you might be thinking. “WW2?”. Well, yes. And unlikely though it may sound, it actually works rather splendidly. The story is told through the letters that Henrietta, a middle-aged woman, writes to her childhood friend Robert, who is fighting at the front. In these letters, she satirically describes life in her hometown during the war.

Henrietta’s War is quite a short book, but we get to know the characters surprisingly well as we see them react to the strain of the war. Henrietta’s village is in a relatively privileged position, as it hasn’t suffered any direct bombings. But all the same, its inhabitants have to deal with food rationing just like everyone else, as well as with the threat of bombs gone astray or of an invasion. And most, if not all of them, had loved ones either at the front or in areas that were being heavily bombed. Which is why, Henrietta tell us, they couldn’t help but resent it when London refugees made a point of telling them how good they had it down there.

That was one of my favourite things about Henrietta’s War, actually, as I can very easily imagine these things happening in the context of a war: in the middle of all the larger or more visible tragedies, the small ones got lost. It was probably very easy for people to feel that their feelings and experiences were being dismissed. I’ve always had an interest in WW2 literature, but more recently I have become interested in books that talk about these hidden, semi-forgotten human dramas that surrounded the war. Of course, nobody means to compare them to the horrors of concentration camps, but these are nevertheless stories that deserve to be remembered.

For example, Henrietta has an aged dog, and as food rationing increases, she becomes worried that she won’t be able to feed him at all. Her husband hints that Perry has lived a long, happy life, and perhaps it would be best to end it rather than let him suffer any privations. But Henrietta finds the thought alone almost impossible to endure – somehow, not being able to feed Perry hits her harder than not being able to feed herself. I had never thought of what became of animals in these situations, and doing so now broke my heart. This is, of course, not the sort of tragedy that comes to mind when one thinks of WW2, but it’s still a very real way in which wars hurt people and other living creatures that have nothing whatever to do with them. Mrs Savernack, a lady with whom Henrietta doesn’t always get along, has several dogs, and their common heartbreak and worry brings them together.

As you can probably tell by now, Henrietta’s War is funny-but-not-just. Don’t get me wron: Henrietta’s voice is a delight, and the tone of the letters is very light and humorous. And yes, there are many truly hilarious moments. But you can very much sense that there’s real fear and real helplessness underneath it all. Henrietta’s humour is her coping strategy. She might sound light, but she never actually makes light of serious things, and in between her ironic remarks there are real and very moving moments of despair.

The letters collected in Henrietta’s War were actually written by Joyce Dennys during the war, and published as a regular feature in Sketch magazine. I don’t know how autobiographical they are, but it’s easy to imagine Dennys experiencing the same fear and helplessness the characters she created experience. Possibly writing was her way of feeling that she was doing something – and if making people laugh and helping them keep their sanity is not something, I don’t know what is.

Favourite passages:

His gardening consists in refusing to talk to the gardener, and, occasionally, very occasionally, when the sun is really warm, taking his before-Sunday-lunch sherry down the garden path and saying: ‘Is that an apple-tree or a pear-tree?’; and ‘There seem to be a lot of weeds’; and ‘Of course, I’d like to do some gardening myself, but a doctor has to think of his hands’; and finally, ‘It would be much cheaper to lay it all down in asphalt.’ Then he goes indoors to roast beef with a self-satisfied expression on his face as of one who has spent the morning close to Mother Earth.

I have been rather bad about the war lately. This time the feelings of waste and isolation have taken the form of extreme irritability with Mrs Savernack, whom I suspect of enjoying the war because she can sit on committees and boss everybody about as much as she likes, as well as practising those small economies so fear to her heart.
Yesterday, when I was changing my book at the library, she told me, firmly and loudly, that this war was a Crusade. I said I seemed to have heard that before somewhere, about twenty years ago.
‘Oh, that war,’ she said. ‘That was quite different.’
When I asked her why, she said that, for one thing, the last war had been entirely unnecessary.
Having dismissed the sacrifice of a few million young lives as a sort of boyish prank, she bought a box of rubber bands and left the shop.

Where are those children whose only anxiety then was to get nicely browned on both sides, like a filet of fish? And where are you, Robert? I know you aren’t where you were before, but where are you?
It’s not much fun, you know, being a middle-aged woman, safe and protected, on a roof, thinking of other people in danger.

(Also, there are illustrations! And lovely ones they are too. Some of the far superior reviews I'm about to link to include them, so make sure you click over.)

Other opinions:
Paperback Reader
Nonsuch Book
The Indextrious Reader
Random Jottings of a Book and Opera Lover
Stuck in a Book
Savidge Reads
Letters from a Hill Farm
Cornflower

(Did I miss yours?)

Read More......