Offshore – Penelope Fitzgerald (1979)

As some of you may know, a few years ago I set myself the challenge of reading all the books that had ever won the booker prize. I had at that point already read several of them, and so it seemed a fairly achievable list – although I admit there are a few on the list that I don’t fancy much. There was no reason for my doing this – I don’t believe that books that win big prizes are necessarily any more worthy than any others. I do however find it fascinating each year when the Booker long list and short list are announced – what has made it on, how are these things chosen? Why do so many great books get left off? The Prize began in 1969 – twice there have been 2 joint winners – so there is 45 books on the list (so much shorter than some of those other reading lists) I have 9 left to read – 3 of these I have TBR. Overall there have been far more that I have liked than not.

So then, Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald which won in 1979 was my latest Booker read. This is only the fourth Penelope Fitzgerald novel that I have read, and I have to say straight off – I enjoyed it enormously. A very busy weekend has forced me to read it slowly – which I am glad of as I have been able to savour it. It is after all a pretty short book.

A quote on the back cover of this edition caught my eye – so I must share it.

“Reading a Penelope Fitzgerald novel is like being taken for a ride in a peculiar kind of car. Everything is of top quality – the engine, the coachwork and the interior all fill you with confidence. Then after a mile or so, someone throws the steering-wheel out of the window”
Sebastian Faulkes.

A mixed group of people live on houseboats on the Thames at Battersea Reach in the early 1960’s. They are each temporarily lost, often eccentric and have come to belong and rely on one another. Willis, a naval artist who has never been to sea, is hoping to sell his boat The Dreadnought before she inevitably sinks. Richard an ex-navy man dominates the Reach as does his much larger boat, while his wife Laura hates the boats and frequently returns to her upper-middle class family. Richard and Laura are the only inhabitants of the Reach with any money. Maurice, a male prostitute, and receiver of stolen goods has become particularly good friends with Nenna, who abandoned by her husband is living on the boat Grace with her two daughters Martha and Tilda.

“During the small hours, tipsy Maurice became an oracle, ambiguous, wayward, but impressive. Evan his voice changed a little. He told the sombre truths of the light-hearted, betraying in a casual hour what was never intended to be shown. If the tide was low the two of them watched the gleams on the foreshore, at half tide they heard the water chuckling, waiting to lift the boats, at flood tide they saw the river as a powerful god, bearded with the white foam of detergents, calling home the twenty-seven lost rivers of London, sighing as the night declined.”

The two girls forage along the foreshore – and don’t always attend school. They explore Battersea and Chelsea, but are more at home on the river. Six year old Tilda wonderfully old for her years is a spiky breath of fresh air.

“Tilda knew very well that the river could be dangerous. Although she had become a native of the boats, and pitied the tideless and ratless life of the Chelsea inhabitants, she respected the water and knew that one could die within sight of the Embankment.”

The character’s relationships are altered by the changes in their circumstances, the world of this disparate little community is under threat. The reader senses this fragility of a way of life, from the very start. Fitzgerald perfectly pitches this beautiful little novel. The tidal flow of the river, the rise and fall of the boats, the mud along the river bank – the interactions of her characters come together to create a wonderful sense of time and place.
I have added these quotes from the book because I loved the Fitzgerald’s writing. The descriptions of the river are particularly good I think. This book is a real little gem.

 

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry – Rachel Joyce (2012)

I was prompted to add this to my wish list having read several great reviews of it on other blogs. I am always a tiny bit nervous about reading a book lots of other people have raved about – as it sometime fails to live up to the hype. So it was my birthday a couple of weeks ago – and I was given a copy by my mum (along with a lovely watch).

So the big question – does it live up to the hype? Yes I really think it does – I loved it anyway. It’s a poignant original story about the complexities of human beings, weaving together themes of faith, hope, love, bereavement and the importance of talking to people.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is a deceptively simple tale – although well written with acutely wry observations and marvellous honesty. Rachel Joyce sees people as they often really are, many nursing great sorrows each hiding their own demons.

“The letter that would change everything arrived on a Tuesday. It was an ordinary morning in mid-April that smelt of clean washing and grass cuttings.”

So starts the extraordinary story of Harold Fry, who at 65, quite newly retired and living in South Devon receives a letter unexpectedly from a woman he once worked with, now in a nursing home in Berwick upon Tweed she tells him she is dying. This simple, short letter triggers something in Harold, he remembers a woman who was once very kind to him. Harold scribbles a reply and immediately sets out to post it. However as Harold reaches the post box he feels unable to let the letter go and keeps walking to the next box, and the one after that. Following a conversation with a girl in a garage shop Harold becomes convinced that if he keeps walking then Queenie Hennessy will keep on living. He sends her a message – to wait for him. So Harold begins to walk, in shirt and tie and yachting shoes with no compass, map or mobile phone. He’s a man unused to walking, and the going is slow, but he firmly believes that if he can just keep putting one foot in front of the other he must eventually get there.
As Harold walks he meets many fascinating characters, and takes time to face the reasons he finds himself wanting to save Queenie. He reflects on his once great love for his wife Maureen – with whom he desperately needs to reconnect. The relationship he had with his son David and what he sees as his betrayal of his friend, Queenie Hennessy.
Inevitably the press gets wind of Harold’s pilgrimage to Berwick upon Tweed, and at home his wife gets calls from PR agents while out on the road Harold is joined by a motley crew of followers and a dog that likes to play fetch with pebbles. It’s a long way, and it takes a long time – and there are days when doubts set in and Harold’s faith begins to wobble.

This is the kind of book people call life affirming – which it might well be. For me though it is a deeply touching story about people and how it is possible to re-find one another. It is also a real celebration of England, its people and its places. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is an impressive debut, which is already being enjoyed by many many readers.

The Case of the Missing Servant – Tarquin Hall (2009)

Now and again I find I like cosy type novels, they hit the spot on a busy or stressful week when other kinds of books seem to be hard going. Novels like those by Alexander McCall Smith – although it is a while since I read one, the Marriage Bureau books and the Agatha Raisin series – to name but a few. So when this novel came my way recently at a bookcrossing meet up – I was anxious to give it a go – as it looked like something I would love. I should have loved it – it has all the ingredients of something I would like a lot. However it left me rather cold, although I’m not at all sure why. Maybe it has more to do with my mood this last couple of days than the book. Of course it may have suffered for having been read after the beautiful prose and powerful imagery of the Hilary Mantel novel which I finished on Saturday.

In the case of the Missing servant – we meet Vish Puri proprietor of the Most Private Investigations detective agency, where he is assisted by his operatives, Facecream and Tubelight. He is hired by Ajay Kasilwal when Mary the family maid disappears, soon Kasilwal is charged with her murder despite a less than convincing identification of an already cremated body, and Puri needs to try and discover whether the young woman concerned is indeed dead. Meanwhile, much to his disgust, Puri’s mother is carrying out her own investigation into who has been taking pot shots at her son.

This novel is certainly undemanding, inoffensive stuff. I did like how the author manages to explore the inequalities of Indian society, showing the realities of the grinding poverty, and judicial corruption that still exist. In this way it did remind me of the Marriage Bureau books – although I enjoyed them much more.

So although I was rather disappointed and was left feeling a little flat by this book, I can completely understand why it has so many great reviews on Amazon. Maybe I will try another one of this series one day – because I still feel I should have loved it. I only hope I haven’t fallen out of love with cosy. I have been reading a lot of lovely good quality literature just lately, lovely Virago books, Persephone, Thomas Hardy and Edith Wharton among others, but that shouldn’t mean I stop liking cosy should it?

Bring up the Bodies – Hilary Mantel (2012)

It is not often that I leap to my computer to pre-order a new release in hardback. However I was so excited at the prospect of reading the next instalment of Hilary Mantel’s trilogy I just had to. It arrived last Monday – and I started it Tuesday night. I wished I hadn’t had to go to work this week – and I was out after work on both Wednesday and Thursday, so it is testament to the enormous readability of this novel that I have finished it today.

In Wolf Hall – Mantel’s marvellous Booker winning first instalment – we see the raise of Thomas Cromwell. A blacksmith’s son, who having escaped his humble beginnings, serves time abroad learning his craft until eventually he arrives back in London and goes to work for the great Cardinal Wolsey. Wolsey is doomed however and it is Cromwell who ends up with the ear of king. The story in Wolf Hall takes place over a number of years and concerns mainly the divorce of Henry VIII from Katherine of Aragon, and the fall of Thomas More. The time period of Bring up the Bodies – is much shorter – the story opens in September 1535 – when the cracks in Henry’s marriage to Anne Boleyn are beginning to show – and takes us up to the summer of 1536. The autumn of 1535 there are crops failing all over England due to incessant rain, for which some blame Anne Boleyn. Katherine of Aragon is ill – dying and separated from her daughter Mary.

For any fan of Tudor set novels like myself – the story of the fall of Anne Boleyn is one we never tire of – though we know it ever so well. When it comes to stories about Henry VIII and those surrounding him, I feel like a child hearing a loved bedtime story – crying out “again, again” We know what happens to Anne, we know who whispers what to whom, and how it ends, but none of that ever stops it being utterly enthralling. When they finally come for Anne – her uncle among them – and take her away to the tower – how can we not be thrilled at the horror of a queen taken away in shame? She must have known what her fate could be even then, although she is often – as here – portrayed as believing that Henry would intervene for her eventually.

 

It is however Hilary Mantel’s marvellous writing that separates this from all the rest. From the strange and beguiling opening sentences:

“His children are falling from the sky. He watches from horseback, acres of England stretching behind him; they drop, gilt-winged, each with a blood-filled gaze.” -

Cromwell has named his hawks after his dead daughters –from here on in, I was hooked.

Mantel’s depiction of the times is brilliant, the sights and sounds of Tudor England subtly and beautifully woven into an extraordinary tale. The politics and conniving machinations that surround Anne are brilliant reproduced. Cromwell has a ready supply of gossip mongers and court informers that conspire to bring Anne down. Lady Rochford (one of my favourite Tudor characters) is marvellously sinister. Thomas Cromwell’s household in comparison to that of Henry’s court is a happy, settled and genial place. Despite the tragedies of his wife and daughter’s deaths that we witnessed in Wolf Hall – Cromwell retains a good family life – with his son, nephew and Rafe his clerk, who was brought up by Cromwell, as well as various well treated, good humoured and trusted servants. 

Bring up the Bodies – is at least a couple of hundred pages shorter than the epic Wolf Hall – but it is utterly compelling and beautifully written, and I enjoyed it enormously. Already I am looking forward to the next instalment.

Coming soon -The Literary Blog Hop – June 23rd – 27th

Just a quick post to alert you all to The Literary Blog Hop which will be taking place between June 23rd and June 27th. This will be a literary giveaway. I have just signed up – and I am still deciding which lovely books I want to share – but will be giving away  two or three books that week. I already have a couple of ideas however as to what I might be offering. Other bloggers will be giving away things too – either books or vouchers. So book blog fans will be able to hop away – entering as many give aways as they wish – and maybe discovering some new and marvelous book blogs in the process.

If you would like to find out more or sign up to enter the literary blog hop – you can do so via Leeswammes blog

Leeswammes Blog

Looking forward to this as I love sharing books I have enjoyed with others.

The Bolter – Frances Osborne (2008)

I have for several years now, been rather a fan of anything remotely Mitfordesque, particularly enjoying Nancy Mitford’s novels: “In the Pursuit of Love”, “Love in a cold Climate” and “Don’t tell Alfred”. So when I realised (and it took me a while I confess) that the subject of this biography was more than likely the inspiration behind Nancy Mitford’s character The Bolter – I felt compelled to read it.

In 1934 Idina Sackville arrived at Claridges to meet her eldest son David whom she had last seen fifteen years earlier – when her first marriage over she had run off to Africa with another man.

“In front of her, hats bobbed past with the hiss of a whisper –she remained, it was clear, instantly recognisable. Idina tapped a cigarette on the nearest little table, slid it into her holder and looked straight ahead through the curling smoke. She was waiting for the red carnation that would tell her which man was her son”

Idina Sackville (the author’s great-grandmother) shocked society of the 20’s 30’s and 40’s by marrying and divorcing five times, taking numerous lovers, and effectively abandoning 3 children. Most of her friends, lovers and husbands lead similarly chaotic, hedonistic lives and between them they kept the newspapers and gossips going for more than 3 decades. When her first marriage ended in 1919 Idina left her two very young sons and ran away to Africa, a place she fell in love with, and would leave and return to again and again. Her third husband Josslyn Hay 22nd Earl of Errol – would some years later be the victim of the murder made famous in White Mischief by James Fox – which was also made into a film. It was with him that Idina had her third child Diana – who she later would leave in England – and not see for a dozen years. Many other well-known figures rubbed shoulders with Idina – people I feel I know from other biographical works – including Beryl Markham, Karen Blixen, Tom and Cimmie Moseley and of course Denys Finch Hatton. The Happy Valley set of which Idina was a leading light are brilliantly portrayed in all the dazzling selfishness of their bed hopping and high drama. 

It is not surprising that when the author discovered the truth about her great-grandmother she was instantly captivated by her story. Therefore I do wonder how objective she was in her writing, it is obvious that the author is very close to her subject and sympathises with her enormously. Osborne tells us time and again how shocking Idina’s behaviour was, but she doesn’t ever demonise her – instead she tries to find some explanations for what she did. Idina did leave her children; she did behave rather appallingly even by today’s standards. Yet of course after all the years that have gone by since Idina died – it is hard to know exactly what made her tick. At the end of the hugely readable biography she does remain something of an enigmatic figure. Idina may well not have been as bad as much of society of the time saw her. In fact in a poignant afterword, written a few months after the initial publication of The Bolter, Frances Osborne gives yet another view of Idina – which the world had not previously seen. This does make for a great read, and I sat up very late last night to finish it – and as always with books like this I adored poring over the photos.

Family Roundabout – Richmal Compton (1948)

The anticipation of opening a new Persephone is always a big part of the pleasure of reading one of these beautiful books. Luckily though I can generally be very confident of loving what is inside too, and certainly within a few sentences of starting this book I knew I loved it.

The Sunday afternoon in the July of 1920 Mrs. Fowler was sitting in her wicker chair under the lime tree at the end of the terrace.

The story centres on the fortunes of two families in the years between WW1 and WW2 – the Fowler and the Willoughby families are the two principle families in Bellington. The Fowlers are an old genteel family, while the Willoughby’s owners of a local paper mill are the considerably wealthy new money. Both Mrs Fowler and Mrs Willoughby are widows, the parents of now adult children, they are rather different women. As the story starts the two families become united by the marriage of Helen Fowler and Max Willoughby. Mrs Willoughby is a deeply controlling woman, she holds sway over everything, from the mill itself to her grandchildren’s schooling. Her new daughter-in-law fits right in immediately proving to be very like Mrs Willoughby. Helen’s sister Anice marries a bookshop owner – a not very successful one at that – and as the years pass is driven to bitter envies of Helen, which affect her marriage and the relationships between her husband and their children. Peter Fowler is married to the spiteful vengeful Belle, beautiful and downright nasty – Peter is soon looking elsewhere. When the eldest Fowler Matthew returns from abroad he too falls under the spell of Belle. Oliver Willoughby has fallen for the youngest Fowler – Judy, while Cynthia Willoughby, Judy’s close friend since childhood has begun to write letters to an author she admires from afar.

(the beautiful re-production endpaper for this edition)

The years pass and these relationships change and develop, children are born and grow up and Mrs Fowler and Mrs Willoughby too begin to age. Yet they are the witnesses to the continuing roundabout of family life, the same problems and mistakes being visited upon each generation. The characters are beautifully drawn and their relationships often painful.

I do love books like this that examine family members in detail, recreating the domestic situations and concerns of people from the inter war years. Persephone publishes a lot of novels like this – and that is why I love Persephone books. Yet when it comes to describing the book to someone else I find it is very difficult to do it justice. Richmal Crompton has created a world that is still very recognisable, the women are very strong and not always likeable, and the men are much weaker. The world is changing and as the young want to move with the times, or even move away from the suffocating little world of Bellington, the older generation like Mrs Willoughby are more resistant. There is a lovely timelessness to this novel – and it is surprising perhaps that it is such a page turner.