Theatre Trip

Tomorrow I will be travelling to Stratford-upon-Avon with my parents, to celebrate my mum’s birthday. We’ll be seeing ‘Twelfth Night’ at the courtyard theatre, checking out the progress of the renovations on the main theatre and having a delicious, early tea somewhere in the town before driving home. I’m so looking forward to the day, which I hope will be classy, fun and without rain (I shake my fist at you clouds).

It’s a little dream of mine to read all of Shakespeare’s plays, as well as see them all preformed on the stage. Here’s how my current totals stack up right now:

Read

Macbeth
Othello
Henry V
Romeo and Juliet
Julius Ceasar

Seen

Hamlet
Measure for Measure
Henry V
The Merchant of Venice

Lot’s more work to do on that goal obviously.

I may not have seen many of the plays preformed but what I have seen has been exceptional. In January I saw ‘Hamlet’, starring David Tenant, Patrick Stewart and Penny Downey, which was for ‘proper’ theatre goers and was spectacular. The stage had this massive mirrored backdrop which opened into secret doors, the grave scene was funny and creepy all at the same time and I think Tenant did a great job of really emphasising Hamlet’s desire for revenge and his callous behaviour towards Ophelia. Unfortunately, it took place in a London theatre with the tiniest seats ever and I sat next to a large man who kept his legs spread throughout the entire show. Exactly the sort of person that makes you want to say ‘some people’ very loudly.

In the summer I went with my friend Claire to see ‘Measure for Measure’, at the theatre closest to my work, where we snagged second row seats and goggled at how close we were to Alastair Mcgowan. Yes, we are impressed by celebrities in plays and we were doubly impressed to be inches away from Jason Merrells in an old fashioned waistcoat. Le sigh. It was really enjoyable, so enjoyable I felt sorry for the girl behind us had to take detailed notes about the set design for her drama degree. There was just one dim light on stage for most of the performance, so it can’t have been easy for her to see to scribble.

The other two productions were by the RSC (as was Hamlet). ‘The Merchant of Venice’ travelled to my university’s theatre a few years ago. It was a very bare production where they used just a couple of wooden frames to show windows, rooms and outside venues. It’s interesting to see the various ways modern companies portray Shakespeare’s set design, it must be so hard to work with just a few props and make the audience believe in what you’re doing (in this performance they didn’t even have a fake knife for the ‘pound of flesh’ scene).

The actor playing Shylock in ‘The Merchant of Venice’ turned up as a French advisor in ‘Henry V’, which I saw in the Courtyard theatre in Stratford. I really enjoyed this performance, partly because I’d read the play at college, which made it very easy for me to follow. The male lead was commanding and there was this cool part where the cast playing the French hung out on ropes and said their lines while turning rope tricks. The perfect mix of traditional and modern I thought.

The Courtyard theatre in Stratford is where we’ll be seeing ‘Twelfth Night’. It’s nice, but it is quite small and it will be wonderful when the renovations on the main theatre are finished. I have only seen a Dickens adaptation there, so it will be special to see my first Shakespeare play in the main Stratford theatre.

As for the progression of my own little dream, tickets are already booked for next year’s Stratford performance of ‘Julius Caesar’, the play I disliked most in school, but have come to freakishly appreciate many years later. Maybe I can convince someone to see Romeo and Juliet with me. That would only leave 32 plays, at one a year I could be just 56 by the time I've seen them all :)

The Woman in Black - Susan Hill

The stage adaptation of ‘The Woman in Black’ is probably one of the scariest things I’ve ever been to see. Screams came from the stalls whenever the woman in black appeared on stage. During the final scene in the haunted house, there was an inward hiss of breath, as the people sitting close to the stage tried to brace themselves for the appearance of the woman in black, who would surely violently attack Arthur Kipps as he surveyed the devastated nursery. But she never appeared, Arthur creeps around the room in silence, then flees the house and somehow that was more terrifying than anything else that has happened during the performance. Our tension was denied a release and we all kept our guard up until the end of the performance, which just meant that our nerves were more easily tweaked by the shocking finale.

This restraint and simplicity is exactly what makes the original novel so terrifying. Simple, everyday sounds and sights are perverted by the malevolent ghost who haunts the house Arthur is sent to, after his solicitor’s firm is told that a client of theirs has died. A row of small children, the sound of a pony and trap, a noise from Arthur’s childhood, all these things take on sinister associations as the mysterious lady in black uses them to show Arthur her power. These are tiny things, by themselves, but as they are repeated throughout the novel the reader learns to equate them with fear and evil, filling them with a horrifying significance and potency.

The images and sounds that Hill chooses to repeat, in order to create this building effect of horror are sparse and simple, for example the clip clop of a pony’s hooves is a crisp, ringing sound. It’s hard to describe why this particular simplicity of sound or image conjures such fear, without unpicking the years of cultural baggage that each reader loads them with, but my best attempt would be that they are pared back to the absolute core of a sound, or image and that the pure, undecorated reality of them strikes the emotional nucleus of the reader. Arthur’s narrative, which is generally full of energetic delight in nature and the surrounding landscapes, is descriptive, but sharply so, conjuring exact images that are easy to visualize, for example ‘I saw a blackbird on a hollybush a few feet away and heard him open his mouth to pour out a sparkling fountain of song in the November sunlight’. He also describes his observation of the ghostly apparitions with similar clear, piercing detail that does not over or under explain what he sees. This creates sobering moments of sinister simplicity, almost anxious tranquillity if that’s even possible, for example:

‘Lined up along the iron railings that surrounded the small asphalt yard of the school were twenty or so children, one to a gap. They presented a row of solemn faces with great, rounded eyes, that had watched who knew how much of the mournful proceedings, and their little hands held the railings tight, and they were all of them quite silent, quite motionless.'

This style of description, measured and methodical, but also evocative and precise forces the reader to fully absorb the details of the scene and crystallises the pictures in the reader’s mind, transmitting the full horror of a particular scene.

Can there be more great stuff in such a short book? Well yes, there’s the narrator Arthur Kipps, a young solicitor sent to the sleepy market town of Crythin Gifford, to venture across the marshes and sort through the paper’s of Mrs Drablow, his firm’s recently deceased client. At heart Arthur is an energetic, sensible man keen on nature and bicycling, with no time for dark hints and superstitious tales. Yet, more and more he feels the hypnotic quality of the landscape around Mr Drablow’s house, the ‘glittering, beckoning, silver marshes’ and the sadness that lingers in the house.

What struck me most about Arthur is that while initially he believes himself too sophisticated to be influenced by tales and strange occurrences, he is sensible enough to trust the evidence of his own senses and to know that there’s no point in being courageous around spirits. That’s something that sets him apart from the narrator of The Mist in the Mirror’ (which I read a month ago) who is so stubborn and prideful that he alienates the fearful reader, who would quite happily run away from ghosts. Arthur is a hero the reader can identify with and feel proud to spend time with, even as he flees the ghostly woman.

Last night, thoroughly freaked and happy that Spider the dog has made it out alive I shoved this book between the heaviest two volumes I could find. At the start of the RIP challenge I said I wanted to be gloriously scared and ‘The Woman in Black’ has accomplished that. If I was Joey I’d be keeping this book in the freezer.

Posted as part of 'The Slaves of Golconda' October discussion.

Other Reviews

E L Fay

The Reader's Choice

I finished 'The Woman in Black' last night (and then watched Midsummer Murders and True Blood, what was I thinking?). Look out for a totally admiring, yet freaked out post on that later.

Now it's time to quickly announce which book people who read my blog voted for me to read next. I think I may have prejudiced the vote by blog visiting a Pratchett fan yesterday, but 'Making Money' is still the official winner with three votes. I checked my email really early so I knew to take it to work for my lunch break book. Since 'The Folded Leaf' came second and I'm itching to read that book I'm going to pick that up after I finish 'Making Money'.

Thanks for voting!

Decide my reading fate! (ridiculous drama caught from reading sensationalist stories)

After readathon I cracked on with ‘The Woman in White’ and with a little bit of skimming during the last 20 pages I finished it yesterday afternoon, at about six. I’ll be posting my review the week after next, as part of the Classic Circuit’s Wilkie Collins blog tour, so no more about that for now. I’ll just let you know I had a very mixed reaction to this book, which would maybe be best described by a reading progression graph of some kind if I was graphically inclined.

‘The Woman in White’ was my final book for Carl’s RIP challenge, which means I’ve finished with a week to spare. Sadly my RIP choices have been a little lacklustre this year, with ‘The Lonely Werewolf Girl’ and ‘The Woman in White’ tying for most interesting read, even though I felt both were a bit uneven (and I bought a copy of ‘TLWG’ with many typing errors, because I forgot people had warned me about one particular edition). You can’t win them all and I know there are lots of other scary stories waiting for me to discover them next year, or even earlier. That’s what I love about Carl’s challenges, they remind me of all the stuff I could be reading, they make me examine my bookshelves and notice all the things I bought in a particular mood and then neglected. Until I took part I was blind to the gothic possibilities of my bookshelves, but now I realise they’re stuffed full of stories for dark and stormy night. I kind of wish he’d add a sci-fi challenge to his repertoire.

Of course, the really big bonus of this year’s challenge was discovering the artist Jennifer Gordan who created Carl’s challenge button this year. I’ve now got some creepy postcards, featuring her gothic prints. Post has never been so frightening!

I’m going straight from an authentic Victorian suspense novel to a novel that aims to imitate the style of a Victorian ghost story. I’m hoping to fly through ‘The Woman in Black’ by Susan Hill so that I can finally participate in the ‘Slaves of Golconda’ discussion group (discussing on 29th Oct). I saw ‘The Woman in Black’ on the stage when it was touring the country and have never quite been able to dispel the idea that one day I might see the play’s ghostly omen of death, so I’m excited to read the original text. I’m a few pages in and I like it much better than ‘The Mist in the Mirror’, which I reviewed last month. I suspect it’s the narrator’s voice which has already drawn me in, with his robust descriptions of the smells of the changing seasons.

‘The Woman in Black’ is a slim book, and I’m already indulging my greedy mind by thinking about what I should read next. Surprise, I want to read everything! I can’t decide between a whole heap of books and in a bid for increasing the interactivity of this blog (is it interactive enough, I don’t want you to feel I’m talking at you all the time?) how about you decide for me?

I’m picking between:

'The Folded Leaf' – William Maxwell : The tale of a friendship between two boys who life pushes apart, Danielle at ‘A Work in Progress’ mentioned this a while ago and it ended up in my final splurge pile before I started my most recent book buying ban (full disclosure: I broke the ban to buy ‘The Woman in Black’, but I donated 2 points to a Bookmooch charity).

'Dark Echo' – FG Cottam: The blurb mentions an evil boat, that’s a boat that is evil, squee!

'Making Money' – Terry Pratchett: umm ‘Unseen Academicals’ is out now and I feel I must read ‘Making Money’ before encouraging others to buy me another Pratchett novel for Christmas? Really I just like Pratchett, but I try to ration his books, so I’m not in some constant Discworld rereading loop (is it bad that my real, not trying to impress anyone, desert island books list would be all Pratchett and that I would try to get someone to create a one volume ‘complete works of Pratchett’ so I could count all his books as one choice?) . I feel like giving in and letting more wonderful Discworld into my life.

'The Children of Freedom' – Marc Levy: A bit of a WWII reading urge has come over me. The delicate balance between the heroic and the awful nature of humanity seems just right for the winter months. This book follows two brothers as they set up a new Resistance branch, only to discover a traitor in their group.

'The Inner Circle' – T C Boyle: This is a challenge read and basically there’s an awkward narrator, detailing sex and scandal in a 60s academic environment. It sounds good, but I’m always a little wary of awkward male narrators who tend to do all sorts of humiliating, or nasty things to stop their sexual naivety being discovered.

‘Funny How Things Change’ – Melissa Wyatt: Every teen is supposed to want to escape their small home town, but Remy’s not sure his home town is somewhere that needs escaping from. Set in the Appalachian mountains this sounds like a new development in young adult novels and comes recommended by Coleen at ‘Chasing Ray.

If you’re interested, vote with your voices in the comments and I’ll read whatever gets the majority vote.

Readathon: Hour 22

Ok I'm up again, it's a lovely day and I'm committed to reading for the next 2 hours. See you at the end when I'll spend the last half hour visiting around and giving final cheers. As this is my last post here I'd just like to say a massive thanks to the organisers and to the people who've been cheerleading their hearts out, loved the well thought out rhyming cheers some of you put together and the mini challenge hosts, I know how that sucks you into the vortex of constant e-mail checking ;)

Congrats to anyone who went the full distance!

Update: It's hour 24 and I just want to finish the whole readathon expereince with the end of event meme:

1. Which hour was most daunting for you?

Definately the hour the clocks went back. I was like, huh it's 1'oclock again? Luckily my computer knew what to do all by intself.

2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year?

I only read from two books this year, but I think comic collection like my Moomin anthology wok well. Try 'Peanuts: A Golden Celebration' (I have it and I love it)

3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?

I think it went darn well. Great idea organising the cheerleaders, maybe instead of four rotating groups to cheer for, try lots of smaller groups (less daunting, but it might get confusing). Personally I should ahve bookmarked the specific page where the readathon Mr Linky sign up was, instead of jumping back pages every time I wanted to visit blogs - but that's only occuring to me now!

4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon?

I think this is the year the timing was really cracked. All the years before I remember people getting confused about what hour it was, or when their readathon ended and this year I think it was all really clear. Also loved the Twittering this year, people were really on top of the questions asked and brought in some late participants.

5. How many books did you read?

Almost two...

6. What were the names of the books you read?

I'm about 120 pages away from the end of 'The Woman in White' and I have two comic panel stories left in 'Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip' (volume four).

7. Which book did you enjoy most?

Both were pretty good. I finally got what was so gripping about 'The Woman in White', guess I just needed time to concentrate on it.

8. Which did you enjoy least?

Pass.

9. If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders?

N/A

10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time?

I totally want to participate. I think I've learned that I'm a great reader in the begining, but in the early hours of the morn I want to be chatting with people, so I'm going to go for a reader/cheerleader combo where I change my role according to how light it is outside. I hope real life doesn't get in my way of participating, so much going on the rest of the time I don't think it's too much to say you want to put one day aside for being a geeked out, reading community enthusiast.

Readathon: Hour Fourteen - Kind of...

The clocks have gone back here, so it's officially 1:35 am again. I've read about 10 more pages, but I'm flagging so I think I'll be of to bed now. So far I've managed almost 8 hours of reading and I'm hoping to get up at 10 am to get in my last couple of hours. Didn't make it to 12 hours, but 10 out of 24 is not too shabby, especially as I've made such good progress with my classic read.

See everyone tomorrow!

Readathon: Hour Thirteen

It's time for the mid-event survey, as Nymeth begins her watch:

Mid-Event Survey:

1. What are you reading right now?

I've just been reading comics from 'The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip', because it's after 1am here and I'm begining to get tired. The Moomins started getting a sense of duty, but gave it up to drink fermented jam and watch fireworks.

2. How many books have you read so far?

Nothing completed, but a bit read. I've read over 170 pages of 'The Woman in White' (now on page 450) and three Moomin comic stories (they invented a time machine and went to the Wild West, journeyed back to the Age of Reason and met up with Snuffkin).

3. What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon?

I don't know how much longer I'm going to be up, but I think I might try the first book in the 'A Series of Unfortunate Events' series next, not sure my brain will hold up to much more Wilkie Collins.

4. Did you have to make any special arrangements to free up your whole day?

No, I am shockingly without responsibilities. I think ages ago I declined a spa day that clashed with it, but I couldn't really afford it so it's not a big loss.

5. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those?

Nope, a bit of chatting and a voluntary interruption to watch 'Strictly' (sigh I know Craig can't dance but I still remember him fondly from 'his 'Queer as Folk' days).

6. What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far?

I don't know why because I've seen it before, but the diversity of the mini challenges is cool.

7. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?

Nope, I think the cheerleader organising is cool. Maybe attach a twitter feed search to the main site?

8. What would you do differently, as a Reader or a Cheerleader, if you were to do this again next year?

I plan to cheerlead next time, I think it's only fair to spend one thon reading and one cheering if there are two in a year.

9. Are you getting tired yet?

Yes I'm flagging a bit now. Clocks go back in half an hour and I'd like to stay up though our extra hour if possible, but then I think I'll sleep for a while.

10. Do you have any tips for other Readers or Cheerleaders, something you think is working well for you that others may not have discovered?

One cup of tea and a ton of water has done me wonders this year, did not drink enough last year.

Readathon: Hour Nine

Now during my break I had a couple of glasses of wine as is customary on a Saturday night and I seem to have decided to extend my break by an hour - things may be getting a little off track. Oh well I can always make up for it when the clocks go back an hour tonight.

Just dropping by with a quick entry into Nicole's mini challenge for the hour. Nicole is hungry for passages about food right now and we have to find one to feed to her before she snaps and goes all Venus flytrap on us :) So here's one from 'Garden Spells' by Sarah Addison Allen:

'The menu tonight was salad, yucca soup, pork tenderloins stuffed with nasturiums and chives and goat cheese, lemon-verbena sorbet between dishes, and the violet white cake for desert. Claire was kept busy, monitoring the food on the plates, serving and then deftly and quietly taking plates away when guests had finished a course.'

Phew got away with all my fingers intact there. I'm off to visit a few more blogs now then it's back to reading at 22:00. Go readers, go.

Readathon - Hour 6

This is the hour where I start a 3 hour break to eat a proper meal and watch a couple of hour of 'Strictly Come Dancing'. I also hope to be able to visit a few people blogs to give them a cheer, I think hour six is where the headaches start kicking in so you need some support :)

What have I been doing since you last saw me? Well I've read about 130 pages of 'The Woman in White' and I'm now 226 pages from the end. That's mega good progress as this is my last book for the RIP challenge and it has to be finished by the end of next week. I can't say too much aout this one as I'm reviewing it as part of the Wilkie Collins blog tour in November, so I'll just say some really sinister goings on are taking place and it doesn't look good for the two sisters Marianne and Laura. Everyone seems so dense about Count Fosco and the true extent of his evil influence, but perhaps I am being mislead by the author and he will come good in the end (I doubt it though, he is one creepy character).

I've also eaten quite a few Mars Planets, two rich tea biscuits (small rectangular ones) which I dipped in my first cup of tea of the day, a sandwich and some spicy M&S hand cut crisps (actually I went back for some more of those this afternoon). I'm keeping myself hydrated with juice and plenty of water (the more water you drink the more alert your brain is apparently).





I just quickly want to get in on Bart's mini-challenge. You have to construct a sentence out of book titles, take a picture and link it to Bart's challenge. Man is this addictive, could have played with it all night but in the end I got:

The Pirates: looking for Alaska, sleeping with fishes; funny how things change. (Punctuation added and quite probably wrong).

Again good luck readathoners!

Read-a-thon, October 2009: The Begining

Remember my original read-a-thon pile? It seems I don't because I was sure about a million other things that I've already read were on it. It must be that my brain is tired from work, but I'm sure a weekend of reading for Dewey's Read-a-thon will rejuvenate it.

My aim for this year’s event is to set a personal read-a-thon record and read for 12 hours (I’d never be able to stay up for the whole 24 unless I booked Monday off work). With a three hour break in the evening for food, blog commenting and ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ that probably means reading until 2pm and then getting up the next morning at about 10ish to squeeze in the last couple of hours.

All I really have planned for this read-a-thon is that I’ll be reading some of ‘The Woman in White’ by Wilkie Collins. I know I won’t finish it but I thought I could use the daylight hours, when I can concentrate best, to make some progress. Hopefully I’ll get in four solid hours of this book, which means I could read about a hundred pages.

I started making a whole big other read-a-thon plan, but I kind of felt like it was taking the fun out of participating so I’ve decided to just go with whatever random books take my fancy in the later hours. I have had a genius idea about what I could read in the very early hours of 25th to keep my attention from wandering, I could read the complete Moomin comic collection!
Good luck fellow a-thoners. Look out for my copies of ‘Wolf Brother’ and ‘Chameleon’ being offered up by the organisers as prizes. I’ll be back to cheer everyone on in four hours if everything goes to plan.

Chameleon - Charles R Smith

David Attenborough continues to teach the nation. Before watching his brand new series ‘Life’, I knew chameleons could camouflage themselves by changing the colour of their bodies to match the leaves and branches, but I never knew that some of them could make their skin brightly mutli-coloured. Let’s all watch some of last week’s ‘Life’ on the free BBC iplayer and marvel at nature.

Are you done marvelling, for now? I especially like the teeny, tiny toads, but have developed a fear of bull frogs. It’s lucky they live so far away from me.

So, as ‘Life’ says, chameleons use these colours to signal things to other chameleons, just as other animals use their own methods of saying ‘go away’, or ‘come closer’. The gang characters that operate in Compton where Shawn, the narrator of Charles R Smith’s 'Chameleon’, and his friends hang out, imitate the chameleon’s method of warning others away by dressing in one gang colour, that lets people know they’re dangerous. Shawn and the guys, Lorenzo, Trent and Andre just want to hang out playing basketball, trading words and checking out girls, but their lives are often encroached on by the neighbourhood gangs. The boys have to check their clothes every day before they find something to do, to make sure they’re not wearing blue, or red, in case they meet a member of the Crips (blue) or the Pirus (red). As they remove these colours from their wardrobes the boys also imitate chameleons, indicating that they’re neutral and creating outfits that allow them to blend in so they stay out of trouble.

The theme of what colours means and how they help people shape an identity is alluded to in many situations throughout the book. When Shawn tells his mother about Marisol, the girl he likes, he associates her with three colours and the boys call a man who practises kung fu in the park ‘Black Bruce’ because he wears an all black Chinese outfit, showing how strongly a colour can become associated with a person. Later in the book Shawn becomes angry about how the gangs mean he can’t buy red or blue clothing, because as he says ‘as far as I’m concerned, if you can’t wear what you want, or go where you want, when you want, then you ain’t free.’ . These incidents and others remind the reader how choosing clothes in colours is a way in which many teenagers first begin to create their own identities and express themselves.

If you’ve read this book do you think I’d be stretching things if I said the many illusions to the importance of colour, is a symbolic way for Smith to reemphasise the importance of black teenagers engaging with their racial identity? It seems like such a strong use of colour can’t be coincidental in a novel that’s also concerned with a young, black teen coming of age, but maybe I’m reaching a bit with this idea. There are plenty of other, more straightforward examples of Smith’s passion for helping black teenagers to learn about their culture in the novel. An example of this comes when Shawn talks about how his teacher won’t give him extra credit for reading ‘Invisible Man’, by a black author who is not on the school’s official extra reading list. Through this story Smith explains how some teachers discourage teenagers from reading by insisting they read classics that do not relate to their own experiences. When Shawn starts to read ‘The Biography of Malcolm X’ on the recommendation of his mother’s professor friend I got a little emotional, as I thought about how wonderful it is that black teens have this book to help them find out about black literature.

‘Chameleon’ is a coming of age story, which means that Shawn and his friends are exposed to quite a few life lesson moments during the novel. As an adult reader I felt these lessons were a little obvious, I could see when the plot was getting ready to lead Shawn into developing his thinking. However, the plot still feels organic. I didn’t feel like any plot points were inserted artificially to allow Smith to teach a lesson, instead the plot felt like a genuine story that naturally allowed Smith to lead into these lessons if that makes sense(one point feels like it has been inserted so that Smith can explain about how a boy’s body works, that’s about the only time I felt like I was really being ‘taught’). Smith’s writing acts kind of a like a favourite adult from your childhood whose questions prompted you to think slightly further about your ideas on life.

As in many coming of age novels, not much happens, but everything happens. There are a few dramatic scenes, like the boys fight with some Pirus, but the book is more concerned with the relationship developing between the main characters than with drug deals and gang business. ‘Chameleon’ is clearly Shawn’s story and the other three boys are individually quite undeveloped, despite the detail provided about their family lives and Shawn’s control of the first person narrative means that the book is weighted towards him. On the other hand, their relationship with each other is fully examined, as Shawn experiences their growing friendship. Again I had an emotional moment over a simple, friendly show of support that happens towards the end of the book, because boys openly expressing what they mean to each other is a rare and special event in literature.

Let me take a moment to comment on the language. I’ve been waiting for a young adult novel that played around with language in a similar way to some adult novels and ‘Chameleon’ provides a little of the experimentation I love to see in novels. Smith is a master at integrating the techniques of young adult poetry into prose writing. He includes short blocks of one word sentences and uses onomatopoeias to provide an interesting sense of rapid action that the novel about passing a lazy summertime might otherwise lack. One of my favourite passages is:
‘Time stopped ticking. Sneakers stopped squeaking. Mouths stopped speaking as silence filled the park. The whisper of a breeze gave way to the whisper of net cords caressing the ball in a swish as it dropped back to earth.’

where Smith uses internal rhyme and a sense of rhythm that surprises, as it is unexpected to find poetry in a novel about daily life in the middle of a gang district. I suspect this is again Smith gently teaching his teen readers that poetry does not have to be like the kind Shawn has experienced, ‘All that “how do I love thee” nonsense.’

I clearly need to learn how to write shorter reviews, but how can you economise when there’s such a wonderful book to write about? I’m sure I’ll work it out one day.

If you’ve reviewed ‘Chameleon’ leave a link to your review in the comments and I’ll link to it at the bottom of this post. All other ‘Chameleon’ chat is also welcome in the comments.

Other Reviews

The Happy Nappy Bookseller
Reading in Color

News Time

I thought I’d do a little news round up today, mostly book related, but with a little bit of ‘what is happening in this country’ thrown in, because there are quite a few things I’ve read lately that keep bouncing around my mind.

Speed reading

In the Times Arts supplement Erica Wagner questioned whether readers attention spans are getting shorter and admits to her own email addiction. Her column this week was in response to the fact that a woman is about to complete her mission to read and review a book a day for a year (you can read all about her progress at ‘Read All Day’). Sounds like a monumental task doesn’t it, especially if you work a traditional nine to five day as well, however Wagner wonders if cutting more distracting elements like email and web browsing out of our lives would actually improve our attention span, as well as giving us more time to read. I was pretty sceptical about the whole read a book every day thing, but then I read that Lauren Baratz (author of many books including YA sensation ‘Crazy, Beautiful’) once read 365 books in a year and regularly reads 200ish books a year! She says she speed reads, but at the same time I am like should I be reading a book a day to become the kind of well developed reader who can then go on to write novels?

Man they are smart

SB had two really great feminist critique articles up last week. First they took on the claim that making sci-fi feature relationships was destroying the very fabric of the genre, then they hit out at bro culture and championed the hero who will hold your purse. They are some very awesome ladies right there and if I nodded my head any harder at what they are saying it would fall off.

NBABBABAAGITSNBM month

Next month is National ‘buy a book by a black author and give it to someone not black’ month in America, which I think is a rocking idea. Find out more at 'Poets and Writers'.

The best and worst of British

This is the week that the BNP will speak on Question Time and I’ve received a petition that asks you to say why you love Britain, or why you hate the BNP in response to this. Like I said I believe in free speech even for objectionable people, but I’m really not comfortable with free speech meaning that objectionable people get a massive public platform, like the BBC, to project their views from. I’m fine with writing in because it doesn’t ask me to state that I don’t think the BNP should be allowed to profess their views on tv, but if it did I’m not sure whether I would or should sign something like that. Would denying the BNP a spot on tv be denying their freedom of speech, or is it perfectly fine to deny them a spot that gains them so much attention because they are still free to speak in other places? What do you guys think?

And what about Jan Moir? How dare she make a connection between civil partnerships and seedy, shady deaths. She is just an awful, awful person and the Daily Mail gives her a major platform to spread her despicable views, so can I call for her to be sacked, or is that persecuting someone because they express themselves freely?

Let me end on a great British point. Jenson Button is the F1 world champion. Apart from his team mate Barrichello, who has worked monumentally hard this season and always seems to end up second string I can’t think of anyone who deserved to win more.

The Little Lady Agency and the Prince - Hester Browne

Hester Browne really gets chick-lit. She understands the internal problems that have so far kept a genre specifically aimed at women from becoming a liberating force and has worked to align her chick-lit with feminism and reality, throughout her outstanding ‘Little Lady Agency’ series. At the same time she revels in the fun that chick-lit is well known for, setting parts of her book in the decedent land of the famous and the eccentrically odd, British rich list. In short, Browne is more than comfortable with the idea that smart women read chick-lit and she continually keeps her readership’s intellect and insight in mind, while providing them with a taste of glamorous fantasy.

‘The Little Lady Agency and the Prince’ is the final part in Browne’s series, so in case you’ve never heard of Honey Blenerhesket or Melissa Romney-Jones before here’s a quick catch up. In the first book, ‘The Little Lady Agency’, Melissa, the almost estranged daughter of a very old British family, is made redundant from her job at an estate agency. In serious need of cash and left a little naive by her boarding school days, she applies for a position with a seedy escort agency, thinking that being an escort means accompanying lonely men to events. Once she realises her mistake she runs, but this unfortunate encounter gives her an idea. Surely there are tons of men out there who need someone to fill the gap at functions, but want a woman with a bit more tact and knowledge of social situations than a pro might have.

So, The Little Lady Agency is born (the organisation is named for her father’s disparaging name for all the women in his life, to galvanise Melissa into believing she’s better than her father thinks). Melissa assumes her super secret alter ego Honey Blenerhesket by dressing in classy, yet sexy work wear and a blonde wig which make her feel empowered and keep her dad’s high class friends from recognising her. She begins with a basic package of chaperoning men to events and after a few misunderstandings about what that package does and does not include, she branches out to offer other services, like personal shopping for the clueless, grooming and manners advice.

There are about a million reasons why Melissa is my favourite chick-lit heroine of all time, here are just a few:

* She owns her own business
* She is capable, organised and sensible
* None of the things above are used as a reason for her initially poor love life, it is also never suggested that Melissa’s job and sense of organisation may endanger her chances of having a happy love life, in fact in this book her fiancé says that he loves her for being so organised
* She dresses stylishly, rather than fashionably, in a way which enhances her body shape
* She likes to eat! While she has the same self-esteem issues about her body as many women she doesn’t let them stop her from eating, or from dressing well
* She understands that you can be stylish in the day and still own clothes you can slob out in (which Trinny and Susannah do not get at all, as they show by cutting up the ugly but comfortable clothes of the women they help)

In ‘The Little Lady Agency and the Prince’ Melissa is about to move to Paris with her fiancé Jonathan. They are going to quit their jobs, get married and start a new life somewhere neutral. Only, Melissa’s apprehensive about giving up the agency and leaving her flatmate Nelson and her best friend Gabbi. She doesn’t give herself much time to think about these things though as Jonathan and she visit each other every weekend, her flaky sister requires her help with a surprise baby and a nasty nanny. Melissa’s Granny has also landed her with the project of a lifetime, in the form of Prince Nikki who needs to learn some manners before her can get his family’s royal seat back.

This instalment is just as good as the first book in the series. There’s plenty of firm feminism as Melissa teaches Nikki the right way to behave towards her and other women. There’s also a counterbalance to be found in Melissa’s relationship with Jonathan, as she finds it hard to have tough conversations with him, when she would happily have them at work. Browne shows that even the most resolute feminists can struggle, when it comes to applying the theory that makes them so proficient in the office, to their personal lives. This balance keeps the feminist feeling, that runs through the book realistic and human, showing real women how they can relate to feminist ideals. I think the realism in this book is one of the things I liked the most about it, because it demonstrates that chick-lit books don’t need to divert into impossible fantasy to provide happy endings and heroines don’t need to sacrifice things that are really important to them to find love. It also emphasises the difference between making compromises and giving things up. A lot of the chick-lit novels I’ve read seem to miss this distinction.

While Melissa’s personality is happily grounded in reality, this book is also a great choice for readers who like to escape the daily grind through the celebrity lifestyle of some chick-lit novels. In fact Honey is a perfect metaphor for this escapism as she provides Melissa with the chance to let loose a larger than life version of her personality. As Nelson says she already is sexy and strict and organised, but assuming the identity of Honey allows Melissa to project these character values with confidence. Readers who like glamour will be envious of Melissa’s work wardrobe and chick-lit fantasy could not find a more chic situation than aboard a prince’s yacht, or at a polo match. There’s also a happy ending, which is not strictly realistic but is very right for the characters of the book.

Throw in some British humour and this book is done. There are a few clever set pieces as small things lead to very complicated situations, where Melissa must use all her feminine ingenuity to protect Nikki from causing a scandal. Browne’s also writes lines like (insert quote) that made me giggle. Not many authors make me really laugh out loud (four at the last count, perhaps I am just very humourless).

One thing that did bother me was that Melissa’s inability to detect sexual innuendo was used as a joke over and over again. It was funny in the first two books and is even funny a few times in this one, but I felt it was an over-used device by the end of the book. I found it quite hard to believe she could be having such stellar, behind closed door relations with her fiancé and not be able to identify any possible meaning for some of the phrases.

If you haven’t heard of this series before I urge you to go pick up one of the books (if only to admire how the UK editions of the first two books break dramatically from the trend of decking out chick-lit covers in pastels). If you’ve already read these books what did you think of them? Have you reviewed them (if you have leave a link in the comments and I’ll link to your review)? If you’re a smart girl who loves chick-lit do you have some recommendations for other series with capable heroines?

Wanted: intrepid women, must have own boots

When I posted my review of 'Flygirl' litlove mentioned a book about Beryl Markham, who was a female pilot/horsetrainer/adventurer and I wondered why there is never a university course that exclusively focuses on intrepid woman. If you take specific courses about adventurers/mountain climbers/pilots in history there tends to be one lecture on the women and the rest of the course focuses on the men. Now there's obvious reasons for this approach like the fact that these women were anomalies, there were very few of them in each field and it would probably be hard to create an entire module around female mountaineers, for example. However there is certainly enough material for a more general course on all the intrepid women, operating in different fields.

So the wheels are turning on a possible idea about that, but while I'm great at ideas bringing them to life is another matter, so we'll see if anything comes of it. Right now I'd like to know who your favourite intrepid women are (real women and women found in fiction), and what you think the definition of an intrepid woman would be if a university course did exist.

My definition would be 'leaves home to do something that at the time was considered an activity exclusively for men', but I realise that excludes excellent women like Mary Seabold who went to nurse in the Crimea (nursing being a female occupation). You could include female botanists who travelled the world, but perhaps not female scientists who stayed in their own country? Opinions, please :)

Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel

I finished ‘Wolf Hall’ on Friday and have passed it along to my mum, in the hope that she’ll like it just as much as me (sadly I think she is currently writing off ‘Nation’ but I think ‘Wolf Hall’ is much more her thing). I’ve already talked about some particular aspects of the first 300 pages of ‘Wolf Hall’ so I think I’ll just do a general wrap up of any other issues I found interesting.

Writers can tell the story of Henry and his wives chronologically, relying on the fact that the period has a thrusting plot line built in for them. It would be hard for any writer to make this particular period in history seem dull, or rob the plot of its pace, it’s a gift of a dramatic set up, that just keep on giving.

What Mantel has done differently is to make ‘Wolf Hall’ focus entirely on the character development of Thomas Cromwell. The novel may sometimes seem to be preoccupied with the action at court, as Cromwell becomes involved in the king’s business, but really this novel is concerned with showing how Cromwell develops, then how his character affects his family and shapes England. One of the most quotable lines from ‘Wolf Hall’ must be that "the fate of peoples is made like this, two men in small rooms…”, a thought that reflects the novel’s curiosity about people. The action almost seems to happen around Cromwell’s thought processes and his daily life, instead of appearing to drive his movements. It is decadent to be allowed to indulge in the detailed development of one character, but the novel doesn’t feel slow despite its lengthy preoccupation with the small details that create a character.

Mantel has taken a standard revisionist line with Cromwell’s story, changing the characters who are usually the saints of the story, into sinners and giving those without a voice room to speak in their own words. Revisionist history has been popular for years with historians and with novelists, but for some reason Cromwell has never received much sympathetic revisionist treatment. This is possibly because raising him up means, to some extent casting down Katherine of Aragon, who is a gigantic symbol of women’s oppression by men. Cromwell is the councilor who facilitates the dissolution of her lawful marriage after all and it seems unlikely that readers can support him without deserting the feminist cause.

I think Mantel understands the impossibility of supporting both Cromwell and Katherine, so she has framed the story in a way which almost avoids acknowledging Katherine and her troubles. Mantel has accomplished this so skillfully that I didn’t fully realise that I was being asked to abandon Katherine for Cromwell, until near to the end of the book. Katherine does not often feature actively in the novel and when she does she is extremely unpleasant to the main character, who readers have been strongly encouraged to support. It’s a sly trick to re-revise history, so that it favours men again and one that I can’t say I really approve of, but it is probably the only way to tell this story from Cromwell’s point of view without throwing historical accuracy into a volcano.

Side lining Katherine allows Mantel to show that Katherine isn’t the only person whose has a story that has been brushed aside and obscured. Cromwell’s poor background offers a great motivation for his enemies to defame his character at the time and to portray him as the evil advisor in historical records. ‘Wolf Hall’ is a convincing claim for Cromwell as a historical figure who has been silenced because of his background and because he proudly championed his class. A logical case is offered for the Protestant religion as a social movement, that aimed to free the underclass from the influence of priests and I have to say this argument moved me, even though I’m not religious at all. While the leaders of the reformation are shown in a balanced way and their faults are illuminated, Mantel’s argument is clearly that their good intentions should be recognised alongside the executions and persecution the reformation is famous for.

‘Wolf Hall’ is well written, convincing and takes an equally deep interest in character, structural experimentation and plot. One minor problem, Thomas Moore’s death is very anti-climatic and it takes ages for Cromwell to let the reader know it’s happened, but as his execution takes place in the last few pages of the book it’s not such a problem (unless you really hate Moore by then). Now, when can we expect the second part of the trilogy?

If you've reviewed this book please leave a link in the comments and I'll add your review at the bottom of my post.

Update: I meant to say that the publisher, Fourth Estate, has printed this book on FSC paper from sustainable forests. Good going Fourth Estate!

Other Reviews

Cornflower Books
Paperback Reader
Medieval Bookworm

CORA Diversity Spin Off - The Problem Show

This week’s CORA diversity roll call is all about ‘problem’ YA novels, those books that tackle a particular social or moral issue related to the teenage experience like pregnancy, or drug use. Tanabata commented at Colour Online that problem novels can work as long as they don’t come off like after school specials and as a girl who spent a lot of Saturday mornings watching ‘Saved By the Bell’ when I was little I know the kind of ‘it turned out ok in the end’ dilemmas that she’s thinking of. I don’t have a lot of experience with problems novels, so I’m going to do a kind of CORA spin off post and talk about the best ever 80s ‘problem’ television series that puts all those other teen problems shows in their place.

I have a bunch of interesting pregnancy dilemma books on my reading list, but ‘Slam’ by Nick Hornby is probably the only clear cut problem novel I’ve read in the YA genre so far, but it’s one that shows how books that deal with the big, bad issues teens might face have are reacting to the hundreds of different ways people live their lives now. If ‘Saved By the Bell’ or one of those films I believe are called ‘Lifetime movies’ in America had run that storyline it would have ended in a very different way. While I want to say that those programs are a product of the morals of their time last year I discovered a program made around the same time that takes a much more complicated, grown up view of the tough issues some teenagers smash against. It’s called ‘21 Jump Street’ and the season three box set is the reason I didn’t read anything this weekend.

’21 Jump Street’ follows a group of cops who excel at their jobs, but look too sweet and young to be taken seriously by their colleagues, or the criminals they have to chase down. Mostly they get stuck doing community policing, or traffic duty until the force realises they can use these fresh cops by sending them into high schools to follow up on crimes committed by teens. Through this device viewers meet kids involved in drugs, gangs, prostitution and athletics scandals, but the good guys and the bad guys are almost indistinguishable sometimes, as murderers try to reinvent themselves and the bullied buy up guns. Each episode focuses on a different teen problem, but often the cops make their arrest and end up confused about whether they’re helping kids of condemning them.

Ok that situation sounds a little skeezy right – adults spying on kids, yes in some ways it is, but the amazing thing is that ‘Jump Street’ totally gets the grey ethics of itself and addresses this issue in several episodes. I just watched an episode where two police officers go under cover in a juvenile detention centre and freak out when they see where the kids go after they’re sentenced. So many assumptions the Jump Street crew have to make in order to do their job are thrown up in the air and the cast are once again left trying to wade their way blindly through life’s issue in the same way as many of the teens they meet.

There is so much to love about Jump Street, for example there’s a multi-racial cast with members of both gender represented, which is a big score when it comes to teen drama. The series has a great big focus on women’s issues, with officer Judy Hoffman keen to defend women’s rights and make sure she helps girls who have been abused. If you like ‘before they were famous’ casts this show has the mother load of hauls for you, with a young Johnny Depp and a ton of 80s stars. All five series are available on dvd at the moment and wikipedia tells me that you can also get a spin off series featuring Booker, who is introduced in series three. So if you're looking for your issues fix and you like things more smudgy than sharp black and white Jump, 21 Jump Street.

Did I mention...

Wolves are the Elite league champions!

Flygirl - Sherri L Smith

‘Flygirl’ follows Ida Mae, a young, African American woman who has recently graduated from high school and now helps run the family farm, while also working a job cleaning rich, white people’s houses. Ida Mae’s dream is to be a pilot, like her dead father, but being a woman she’s having trouble getting her pilot’s license from the bigoted examiners in her area. Of course it’s not only Ida’s gender that’s keeping her out of the clouds, there’s also her race and the fact that there’s a war on, which means that although her dad’s crop dusting plane sits in the barn Ida can’t fly it because petrol is scare for civilians. However, the war is about to provide Ida with a very special opportunity to pursue her own happiness and help her country.

See, although Ida is African American she doesn’t look black. When her little brother shows her a newspaper clipping about an attempt to recruit female pilots to fly planes for the army and that newspaper clipping shows a female pilot, with a very Asian surname, Ida decides to try to ‘pass’ for white so she can take part in the training program. She gets her chance but at a personal cost. Her mother and her best friend, Joleen, feel hurt by what Ida is doing, her mother especially because she has bad memories of her husband’s family, who actively tried to breed their children light skinned. Ida creates a significant distance between herself and some of those she loves the most. She must also be constantly on her guard, meaning she can never be completely truthful with the friends she makes among her white colleagues. When she begins passing Ida’s mother warns her that race is not a line you can just cross back and forth between. As Ida begins to build a life on the other side of the line she begins to understand, just how hard it is to lead a double life, when there’s only one of you.

‘Flygirl’ is one of those books you want to love as soon as you hear what it’s about. The idea of a black, female pilot making her way through all the army’s hoops, in order to help her country, sounds like a rousing edition to the historical fiction canon, the kind of book you’d try and read even if you were warned off by reviewers. Fortunately ‘Flygirl’s unique subject matter is backed up by the friendly, yet determined voice of the main character, the iron bonds between Ida and the other characters and some really clever use of similes and descriptions.

I feel like I’ve left it a bit too long to review this book in depth, but it’s one I’ve already talked up to a real world friend. It’s a novel I’d really like to see everyone reading and talking about, because of the originality of the subject area it focuses on, as well as the spotlight it aims at race and gender issues of the past, not to mention the fact that it indicates the reasons why the women’s movement separated along racial and religious lines, despite the common causes of the movement. It seems I’m hearing so much lately about how groups with an oppressed history need to let go of their anger, but before people start talking about achieving serenity and forgiveness they really need to understand just what those groups have to forgive. ‘Flygirl’ will give them that education, expand the knowledge of those who feel they already know enough and at the same time, provide a story of aerial action and growing up fast in the middle of a war.

Other Reviews

Fledgling

The Booksmugglers
books i done read

CORA Diversity Roll Call: Blogs

The current CORA diversity roll call task is to shine the spotlight of joy (not interrogation) on some bloggers who are different from you, for example:

“ think about blogger(s) who:
a. Identify with another race and/or ethnicity, religion, cultural background, age, etc.
b. from you. Live the farthest from you
c. Have entirely different tastes in books from you (but you love their blog anyway)”
I’ve linked to MissAttitude at ‘Reading in Colour’ and Doret at ‘The Happy Nappy Bookseller' before, but I thought I’d quickly point out a few other bloggers who I’ve just started reading and who are a different race from me.

Susan at ‘Color Online’ runs a blog where she and other writers showcase books written by and about black, latina, asian and native American women. She also maintains a small library collection which gives girls a space where they can read about characters like themselves. If you find yourself with a little Christmas spirit later in the year you can donate a book or two to their shelves.

‘Image Nation’ is a blog that primarily reviews books about Africa. It’s a massive continent, with so many different traditions and variations of culture that it really deserves at least one blog dedicated to it.

Zetta Elliot at ‘Fledgling’ is the self-published author of ‘A Wish Before Midnight’. I suspect I may have linked to her before, but she always has the best stories covered at her blog and she’s a blog activist, engaged in the ‘Writer’s Against Racism’ series.

Speaking of WAR Amy Bowllan is the creator of this series that collects writers experience of prejudice together. She writes at ‘School Library Journal’.

Finally ‘Browngirl BookSpeak’ is a new addition to my feedreader and she recently gave me an award. Everyone on the list above should consider the 'Who Loves You Baby' award passed on to them : )

Upcoming Events

There are a few exciting book blog projects gathering force at the moment, for those of you who like joining in (in real life it’s quite an effort, online much easier):

Dewey’s Read-a-thon – Participants sign up to read for 24 hours from 1pm GMT (5am Pacific )Sat 24th Oct – 1pm GMT Sun 25th Oct , or they can sign up to cheer on the readers electronically, or do both. There are already 146 readers signed up. I’m so impressed to see 39 cheerleaders this year, the cheerleaders really do keep the event going and it’s a great job for those who can’t take the whole day off to read as you can commit to cheer for just a one hour. If you’re an author passing through, a publisher looking for a little promotion, or just a generous person you can donate something by emailing the organisers at DeweyReadathon at gmail.

Rebecca has turned her tentative idea into a reality and begun setting up the ‘Classics Circuit’. In case you missed her original post Rebecca wanted to see classics getting just as much blog time as the shiny, modern books and proposed starting a ‘Dead Authors’ tour. That idea will get its first outing in Nov when book bloggers will have Wilkie Collins ‘stop by’ their blogs in a scheduled blog tour. I signed up and I’m really excited about this, I think it’s going to recreate the kind of excitement readers at the time felt whenever a new Collins, Dickens etc popped out. The tours restricted to dead authors, but there are still plenty of modern classic authors who qualify and to dispel any idea that classics only spring from the dead, white male canon an Elizabeth Gaskell tour will run at the same time as Wilkie Collins is dropping in on bloggers. You can get interactive right now and suggest a future tour.

Whatever you’re doing to try and hold Christmas back it is a-coming. Why not sign up for a book related Secret Santa at ‘Never ending Shelf’ and embrace the season?

Will you be taking part in any of these events? I see so many people mentioning Wilkie Collin’s ‘The Woman in White’ already, as an RIP choice, it almost seems he’s taking over the book world yet again!

The Booker Announcement and other Bookerish content

Wolf Hall won the Man Booker Prize 2009. Hurray! Reasons to be cheerful.

As I was reading bits and bats from the Booker website yesterday I came across the perspective of a former Booker judge Alex Clark. She judged the 2008 prize and makes it sound like an ordeal no one should miss out on. One bit I especially liked:

‘And I begin to wish death and destruction on 'pseudo-novels', the books that look like novels and consist of many novel-like attributes - plots, characters and imagery, for example - but somehow seem to lack the strange alchemy of style and subject matter, the dizzying experience of being introduced to another subjectivity, that true works of literary fiction must have.’

And another I didn’t:

‘Never read blogs. We are a sub-standard panel of self-serving nitwits who have chosen a dud novel from a duff shortlist from a poor long list in a dying medium, say the bloggers, whose convictions are so strong that they find it unnecessary to sign their contributions with their real names.’

Sigh, I’m sure she doesn’t mean to show hatred for all bloggers in one short paragraph, unless I’ve missed it and the ‘proper literary people’ have decided we’re trying to steal their jobs again.
Then after the official announcement the BBC decided it needed to hammer home the point that Booker sales do not compare with the sales of popular fiction, like Dan Brown. Personally I don’t understand why almost a million people would buy his new book when Maureen Johnson is reading it for all of us, save the trees, read her readers guide.

They also drafted in Robert Harris as this year’s expert on snobbery and the Booker, which is sad because I like the idea of Robert Harris’ books, some of them are on my shelves waiting to be read and now I think they may wait a little longer. It seems like Harris is one of those authors who both literary snobs and people who think setting your books in ancient Rome makes them impenetrable, get their backs up over, being one of those wonderful authors who know how to plot a book and how to write sentences that don’t inspire very funny real time reads at blogs, but is quite happy operating within some general literary conventions. This is all hearsay by the way, as I haven’t read his books (who needs to read ‘How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read’ ?;)

I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of this argument over whether popular fiction can be literary and whether the popular authors get an unfair deal from prize judges. What I want to see discussed is what content (the subject and the word choice and the structure and anything else you can think of that might be found in a book) makes a book a work of great literature, not how many sales makes your book in/eligible to be great literature, or if a certain genre should be awarded critical regard.

Can popular fiction also be literary fiction? Yes, remember Charles Dickens, remember Wilkie Collins, surely we’re not saying that spirit in popular fiction is dead. Is the book industry the only place that venerates the underground, the things that do not sell commercially, above commercial successes? No, music fans love to find that band that no one’s heard of and scorn the bands that sell well. If you’re a big selling author, but you can’t pick up the prizes should you start associating literary fiction with snobbery? No, count your money, thank your fans and try to make the world a better place. If you believe in literary fiction must you look down your nose at popular writers? Nu-uh, not necessary. Although I’m still not prepared to try Dan Brown I like writers, such as Jodi Piccoult and Ian Rankin, while also getting a kick out of Lorrie Moore and Margaret Atwood. There are wonderful authors with neither the money, or the acclaim just trying to break into the world all you guys inhabit, count yourselves lucky.

Wolf Hall - Half Way Point Reading Notes

I’ve read just over half of ‘Wolf Hall’ in about a week, which must be some kind of personal reading best. Usually it would take me at least a month to make my way through 600 or more pages of historical fiction, but I just cannot put Hilary Mantel’s chunkster ,about Cromwell and Henry Tudor, down. I want to always be near it and I think I might finish it this week. I’m so interested in this book that I finally managed to write the kind of in progress, reading notes I always mean to write, but usually forget to post before I finish the book. Here goes:

Starting with the basics, the narrative structure is one of the things I like the best. The first chapter is the only direct, chronological retelling of Cromwell’s childhood. The next time readers meet him he’s a grown man who has been involved in all sorts of things, but neither the reader, nor his family can get a full account of them. I suspect that this blank period of his life is a nod to the limitations of non-fiction, historical narrative’s ability to reconstruct the early, undocumented lives of major historical figures, if they started out poor and unnoticed. If it is it makes me go all history fan-girl for Mantel.

After the first chapter, stories of Cromwell’s childhood and younger days are only told in memory sequences. These sequences are initiated subtly, without any heavy signalling that a flashback is about to occur and they’re part of a larger scheme of reminisces, remembrances and stories. The narrative constantly twists back on itself, going back to Cromwell’s earlier days, but also incorporating myths, as well as lore like stories and the real events they disguise. This is all accomplished while Mantel marches the central timeline forward and keeping readers from wandering away from this central line.

The Guardian Digested version of ‘Wolf Hall’ pretty much expresses my opinion on the kind of person the narrative is written in:

‘He likes the Cardinal, but he likes the third-person historic present better, a reformative take on the stream of consciousness that is making the Pope spit blood, though no more than the King's ongoing petition to have his marriage to Katherine annulled. It's just a shame he doesn't always know precisely to which he each he refers.’
So a really interesting way to write, but a bit confusing at the beginning until you learn to pay attention to it.

‘Wolf Hall’ contains the best fiction explanation I’ve come across, of the ideas that surrounded the formation of the Protestant church and Henry’s attempts to dissolve his first marriage. It breaks with the simplified arguments that Henry was a tyrant and tyrants do as they please, showing him as a knowledgeable king and one who needed to deceive himself into believing that he was doing the right thing, by making use of scripture and law. It’s not a case of him throwing over Katherine and taking up with Anne, he’s spent the last three hundred pages trying to get his advisors to work out a loosely legitimate, logical way that he can annul his marriage, or divorce his wife and he is getting mighty frustrated. How sad for him, don’t you feel his pain?

Cromwell and his father never had a happy relationship. Despite the fact that Cromwell treats his own son in a completely different way, almost pandering to him, their relationship is not close. This relationship provides a fascinating secondary string, that contrasts with the king’s desperate wish for a son, especially as Cromwell’s house takes in more and more children.

I’m not quite sure what to make of Mantle’s portrayal of women just yet. I think I’d need to read more of her work before making an informed judgement. In this book the intelligent women do seem to be the most unpleasant, while Cromwell’s wife is lovely, uncomplicated and not a great fan of reading. It’s no surprise that the best educated women are the women who surround the king and they certainly all have their own reasons for behaving impolitely towards Cromwell: Katherine is embittered by the way Henry treats her, little Mary is watching her own father try to make her illegitimate and Anne is, well, a scheming little madam who, although surely mistreated by history, I’m not sure I will ever like. Cromwell’s daughter Anne is educated and a mostly likeable character, but is she enough to provide a balance to the other women?

I can’t help feeling that Henry is coming off all too sympathetic, considering what he’s trying to do. Is this because he is filtered through the eyes of a male character, taught to be faithful to his king? It’s not a first person narrative, although the narrator is very close to the character, inhabiting ,his and only his thoughts. Mantle has the ability to critique the king and the way his wives have been portrayed throughout history, without making Cromwell historically unrealistic, because she is using a third person narrative. So far, the king seems to be getting off lightly, even if all his hypocrisy is acknowledged. However, we haven’t reached the really nasty parts of Henry’s reign yet...

On I go swiftly to the next part of the book (don’t worry Anne, your time is coming), at the moment I’m thrilled this is going to be part of a historical trilogy as it means more Tudors for me. Are you reading ‘Wolf Hall’? How do you feel about it and will you read the next one? Do you have Booker predictions to make ahead of the announcement tonight?

The Post Office Girl - Stefan Zweig

Christine is in her mid twenties, works as a post official and lives with her desperately sick mother in severely straightened circumstances, in Austria, during the years just after the first world war. In a fit of beneficence her aunt, who escaped Austria following a small scandal, invites Christine’s mother to holiday with her and her prosperous husband. Unable to go the mother sends Christine in her place. She arrives at the Swiss hotel her aunt and uncle are holidaying in, a poor, shabby girl, ashamed of her clothes and frightened of desk clerks. Her aunt quickly transforms her into a presentable young woman and her new appearance unleashes a natural exuberance that makes her the shining light of hotel society.

A few weeks later her aunt hears rumours that people have found out that Christine is a poor village girl. Fearful that the scandalous origins of her own money (the pay off for removing herself during the scandal years ago) may be discovered she dismisses Christine in a night, sending her back to the run down village she used to call home. Christine’s mother is dead and her prospects are bleak, as they were before, except now Christine is aware of how good life is for some other people and how very bad things are for her.

Recapped like this the premise of 'The Post Office Girl’ suggests that the central dilemma in the book is whether a person is better off ignorant of their true situation and it’s certainly something that Stefan Zweig mentions, although it is clear from the beginning of the book that he thinks this question is artificial. When the reader initially meets Christine she seems content in her current position, quiet and not ambitious, or interested in examining her way of life:

‘Thus the postal official sits in a kind of pleasant waking paralysis at the center of her sleeping word. She’d meant to do some needlework – this is clear from the needle and scissors there at hand – but she has neither the will nor the strength to pick up the embroidery lying rumpled on the floor. She leans back comfortably in her chair, hardly breathing, eyes closed, and basks in the strange and wonderful feeling of permissible idleness.’ .

But there is a dreadful wastefulness and forced quality embedded in this sleepy description of contented idleness. Christine is paralysed, she has ‘neither the will nor the strength’ to take up a task at this point in the day, not because she is tired but because her inactive job saps the rest of her energy, which she needs to fill other aspects of her life. This type of negative language is used throughout the initial description of Christine’s world, for example the clock in her office makes a ‘weak, monotonous sound’ that ‘gulps down a drop of time every second’, creating an atmosphere of constant, draining inaction. By using these adjectives with negative connotations Zweig shows us that although Christine’s world is stable, there is nothing to be actively enjoyed even before Christine learns of the world of possibility outside the village.

The knowledge of possibility is something that negatively affects a character’s responses when they are required to return to their original circumstances, so some people might feel that the best way for the poor to be happy is for them to remain ignorant and untroubled. However, Zweig makes it clear that this should not be considered a real answer to the problems of poverty, or mindless work, because the character is already suffering the ill effects of their situation even if they don’t realise it. Poverty, lack, an unfulfilling life all continue to destroy, despite ignorance and perhaps when a character gains knowledge about their true situation they can begin to react and combat their conditions. Zweig endows his main character with an understanding of what is missing in her life and while this causes Christine great pain it gives her the courage to try to beat back the system that oppresses her.

Christine’s story is meant to engage readers with the questions she and the second main character Ferdinand ask about their lives. Why can’t the poor rise as the rich do? How does the generation who powered and upheld the war effort fit in, once the war is over and their youth is gone? How can others around them go on with life as it is? Both characters have been changed by the war, Ferdinand realises it sooner as he is physically disabled and unable to pursue his career, but it takes a trip outside of her world for Christine to see how the war has robbed her of youth and pushed her into a lifelong position from which she can’t escape. The questions they both ask, once aware of their missed opportunities, are questions that, at the time Zweig was writing, few people were asking. Despite the fact that the first world war changed so much, it had not managed to shake the old order of things. This left those directly involved moor less between the old and the new ways of having what you want, without any way of breaking free from their current lives.

‘The Post office Girl’ reminds me of all the modern, classic novelists I like the best, because Zweig’s writing style shares so many similarities with them. He uses fast, tumbling language and sentence style that manages to show the heightened emotions all the characters. He is precise in his use of words, despite the speed which pushes each sentence along. He examines each emotion thoroughly, almost over dramatising them, with elaborately descriptive language, in order to show how intensely every human being can feel. Then he pares everything back to simple sentences that show the darkness of life and the bare walls his characters must shelter underneath. He creates both seedy scenes and bracing walks with the same commitment and scrupulousness, which makes me imagine that he understood or tried to understand everything.

But there’s so little of him to read! It looks like he’s another author to ration through the years.

Did this book inspire you to seek out his short stories and novellas? Did you dislike it? Let me know in the comments. ‘The Slaves of Golconda’ have much to say about the sudden ending and Zweig’s status as a humanist author (by the way Wiliam Deresiewicz who wrote the afterword to my edition believes the book was never completely finished as he feels the ending was too modern and I found it very abrupt).

If you’ve reviewed ‘The Post Office Girl’ please leave a link to your review in the comments and I’ll add the link at the bottom of my review.

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