Daphne Du Maurier birthday 13th May

Seeing it was my birthday on Monday – the same day as dear Daphne – I am giving away a copy of Jamica Inn – note it is not the edition pictured here – see below.

What is it about tales of smugglers, wreckers and pirates that is so deliciously compelling? Even now, in a landlocked city in the 21st century, these kinds of tales are able to raise the hairs on the back of my neck. I can remember being utterly thrilled by Kipling’s poem The Smugglers Song when I first came across it in primary school – it somehow had the same exciting quality about it that those old tales of smugglers always have. Reading those lines now after all these years -it seems pretty tame – the rhythm of the lines echoing the horses trotting through the dark I still find strangely atmospheric.

If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse’s feet,
Don’t go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street,
Them that ask no questions isn’t told a lie.
Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by.

Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark -
Brandy for the Parson, ‘Baccy for the Clerk.
Laces for a lady; letters for a spy,
Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by!
(Rudyard Kipling)

I had read Jamaica Inn before, a very long time ago – I suspect I was in my teens – all those desolate moors and dangerous men – would have delighted me – actually they still do.

Mary Yellan is twenty three when her mother dies, having promised to do so, Mary sets out to find her Aunt Patience, who she hasn’t seen since she was a child. Mary remembers her aunt as a laughing beribboned young woman, her hair curled prettily. However Patience is no longer in Bodmin, but living with her husband on a remote road alongside the moors, in a place called Jamaica Inn. Jamaica Inn is a place whispered about in fear, a place where no coaches dare stop, where no travellers seek shelter. Jamaica Inn is not a place for the feint hearted – her Uncle Joss is a giant of a man, cruel, dangerous frequently drunk and desperate. Patience is now a shadow of her former self, nervous and cowed her hair grey and lank; she scuttles to do her husband’s bidding, twisting her hands in fear. Mary very nearly flees from the inn on her very first night there, staying only to care for her aunt, her plan to somehow get her aunt away from the man she married. Joss Merlyn warns her right from the start that she is to ignore whatever she might see and hear at Jamaica Inn, she will serve in the bar when required to do so, and keep to her room on the nights the wagons come to Jamaica Inn.

Mary soon learns to loathe her uncle, but she is a feisty and tough young woman, pushing aside her natural fear of the man, she squares up to him. Mary is brave and moral, sticking fiercely to her principles, wrestling valiantly with a group of her uncle’s associates in the dead of Christmas Eve night. Unwillingly drawn into the dark business that operates out of Jamaica Inn – Mary plans to rescue herself and her aunt from Joss Merlyn before turning him over to the law. It is quickly apparent however that this will be no easy task.
When horse thief Jem Merlyn – Joss’s younger brother, turns up at Jamaica Inn, Mary is both repelled and attracted to him. Jem is dangerous, and reminds her strongly of his older, nastier brother, she is certain she should not trust him.

There is a fantastically gothic, brooding atmosphere to this novel. Du Maurier has in no way romanticised the desperate men that haunted the coast of Cornwall during these brutal days – they are presented as cruel and ruthless criminals. Yet Jamaica Inn is a romantic novel in many ways – Mary Yellan is a fabulous heroine, sparky and determined. I loved every word of this novel, and fairly gulped it down.

A Giveaway

So then I have a brand new paperback copy of Jamaica Inn to give away, I received the pictured hardback copy above for my birthday, and so the new paperback copy I had TBR is now up for grabs. If you would like it – just drop me a comment below telling me why you would like it. The giveaway is open to everyone, and a winner will be selected by random, if the winner is outside of Europe the book will be sent by surface mail – which can take a while, due to the ridiculous raise of postage costs here in the UK.

I will make the draw on Wednesday the 22nd of May – : )

The Classics Club are at it again.

It’s easy. At your blog, by next Monday, May 20, list your choice of any twenty books you’ve left to read from your Classics Club list – in a separate post.

This is your Spin List. You have to read one of these twenty books in May & June. (Details follow.) So, try to challenge yourself. For example, you could list five Classics Club books you are dreading/hesitant to read, five you can’t WAIT to read, five you are neutral about, and five free choice (favorite author, rereads, ancients — whatever you choose.)

Next Monday, we’ll post a number from 1 through 20. The challenge is to read whatever book falls under that number on your Spin List, by July 1. We’ll have a check in post for July, to see who made it the whole way and finished the spin book.

(taken from the classic club blog)

I really wasn’t sure whether I would join in with the classic spin again – but I am going for it. I’m already half way through my month of birthday reading – and have a small stack of books I really must/want to read during June – but I think I may just squeeze in a spin book next month. Last time the spin was very kind to me – I read Taking Chances by Molly Keane – and loved it.

I have divided the 20 books on my classic spin #2 list into four categories; Virago Modern Classics, Persephone books, re-reads and those I am a little apprehensive of reading.

Virago Modern Classics
1.Lolly Willows – Sylvia Townsend Warner
2. Company Parade – Storm Jameson
3. The Three Miss Kings – Ada Cambridge
4. The Land of Green Ginger – Winifred Holtby
5. Sunlight on a broken Column – Attia Hossein

Persephone books
6 Farewell Leicester Square – Betty Miller
7 House-bound – Winifred Peck
8 Dimanche and other stories – Irene Nemirovsky
9 Paitence – John Coates
10 The Exiles Return – Elizabeth De Waal

re-reads
11 Wessex Tales – Thomas Hardy
12 Washington Square – Henry James
13 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
14 Agnes Grey – Anne Bronte
15 Barchester Towers – Anthony Trollope

Books I am apprehensive of reading
16 Summer will show – Sylvia Townsend Warner
17 Rites of Passage – William Golding
18 The Conservationist – Nadine Gordimer
19 The House of seven Gables – Nathaniel Hawthorne
20 The Lying Days Nadine Gordimer

Fingers crossed for a good draw – I will be waiting anxiously to hear my literary fate.

My Cousin Rachel certainly shows Daphne Du Maurier to have been a consummate storyteller – excellent writing plot ambiguity and page turning tension make for a superb read.

“There is no going back in life, no return, no second chance. I cannot call back the spoken word or the accomplished deed.”

Our narrator is Philip Ashley – a young man of twenty four who has been brought up by his cousin Ambrose Ashley, with whom he had a very close relationship. Philip is happy on the estate, knowing himself to be Ambrose’s heir, a confirmed old bachelor – who although only in his forties, must spend the winter abroad each year for his health. When Ambrose sets out for Italy shortly after the opening of the novel, Philip little thinks that it’ll be the last time he sees him. Shortly after, Philip begins to receive letters from Ambrose that mention a new acquaintance – a distant cousin of theirs, a widowed contessa who has been living in Italy for some years. It is soon apparent that Ambrose, who previously had little time for women, has developed a fond friendship with Rachel, the two discussing gardening together – and Ambrose writing of it to Philip. Finally a letter arrives which informs Philip that Ambrose and Rachel have now married. Philip’ world is turned upside down by the news, and as servants and estate works celebrate the news, Philip finds it hard not to show his dismay. Instead of coming back to England immediately, Ambrose stays in Italy with Rachel to help her with business affairs. Ambrose’s letters begin to arrive with much less frequency – and when they do arrive – they are confused and rambling – and seem to hint at a great unhappiness between Ambrose and his wife. Having talked the matter over with his godfather Philip decides to leave for Italy. When Philip arrives in Italy however it is to find his cousin Ambrose has died, is buried and his widow left her villa for Florence. Shocked and dreadfully grieved Philip returns to Cornwall, following a meeting with Rachel’s man of business the rather sinister seeming Rainaldi, deeply suspicious of Rachel and her motives.

“There are some women, Philip, good women, very possibly, who through no fault of their own impel disaster. Whatever they touch turns to tragedy.”

Ambrose had not signed a new will, therefore all of Ambrose’s property passes to Philip, although his godfather has been appointed Philip’s guardian until he is twenty-five – seven months away. When Ambrose’s widow Rachel arrives in Cornwall, Philip is determined to hate her – having built up various pictures of her in his mind. Philip had not reckoned on the real Rachel Ashley however.
From here, the novel takes a delicious turn, making it very hard to put down. The story is told from Philip’s point of view, but he is an unreliable narrator. A young man brought up by a comfortable old bachelor, unused to women, he is at first jealous and angry, possibly paranoid, and later becomes easily infatuated with his cousin Rachel. The questions at the heart of the novel are– did Rachel ensnare Ambrose for his money, and then turn her attention to Phillip after his death? Did she in fact cause Ambrose’s death, and has she been trying the same thing with Philip? Is Rachel a cold calculating woman, a murderess? or a maligned woman, the victim of a naïve young man’s paranoia and infatuation? Du Maurier is clever in her story telling – the ambivalence of the characters motivations is enough to keep the reader turning the page at a rate of knots.

My Cousin Rachel is an excellently suspenseful novel, set against the atmospheric backdrop of the Cornish countryside. As I mentioned in a previous post I haven’t actually read much Daphne Du Maurier before and this book has certainly made me want to read more of her work. In fact I have decided to go straight on to my re-reading of Jamaica Inn, I received a beautiful VMC designer edition of it for my birthday – so it seems fitting to do so.

“They sat islanded in their foreignness, irrelevant now that the holiday season had ended, anachronistic, outstaying their welcome, no longer necessary to anyone’s plans. Priorities had shifted; the little town was settling down for its long uninterrupted hibernation. No one came here in the winter. The weather was too bleak, the snow too distant, the amenities too sparse to tempt visitors. And they felt that the backs of the residents had been turned on them with a sigh of relief, reminding them of their transitory nature, their fundamental unreality. And when Monica at last succeeded in ordering coffee, they still sat, glumly, for another ten minutes, before the busy waitress remembered their order.
‘Homesick,’ said Edith finally. ‘Yes.’ But she thought of her little house as if it had existed in another life, another dimension. She thought of it as something to which she might never return. The seasons had changed since she last saw it; she was no longer the person who could sit up in bed in the early morning and let the sun warm her shoulders and the light make her impatient for the day to begin. That sun, that light had faded, and she had faded with them. Now she was as grey as the season itself. She bent her head over her coffee, trying to believe that it was the steam rising from the cup that was making her eyes prick. This cannot go on, she thought.” (Anita Brookner – Hotel du Lac)

Now I like Anita Brookner – although I accept that she is an acquired taste. In July she will be 85 – and I thought it might be nice to honour such a prolific and well thought of British author with an Anita Brookner reading month. Brookner published her first novel A Start in Life in 1981 when she was 53 – since then publishing a novel almost every year.

Anita Brookner’s writing is beautifully poignant – maybe to be avoided if you are feeling down, but I do find her portrayal of small disappointed middle class lives to be exquisitely done. The themes of her novels are largely those of loss, disappointment and fitting into society, her characters are often lonely or isolated in some way. There is no one who captures the mood of rainy London streets at dusk, or the sadness of a Sunday afternoon like Brookner.

So July it will be – a chance to read her for the first time, or like me to read novels which you already have TBR. I have gone for a month rather than a week – as it gives people chance to dip in and out – maybe reading an Anita Brookner novel at the beginning of the month and another at the end of the month. I have to admit that Brookner is probably not an author whose novels I would want to read too closely together. However I do have five Brookner TBR – and this will be a good chance to get at least some of those read.

Anita Brookner has published twenty four novels – her last full length novel was published in 2009, since then there has been a novella published exclusively as an ebook. Of these I have read eleven. So there are still plenty that I could choose from, as I intend to read ones I have not read yet rather than revisit ones I’ve already read.

This is the list of Brookner works according to Wikipedia.
• A Start in Life (1981, US title The Debut)
• Providence (1982)
• Look at Me (1983)
• Hotel du Lac (1984), which won the Booker Prize
• Family and Friends (1985)
• A Misalliance (1986)
• A Friend from England (1987)
• Latecomers (1988)
• Lewis Percy (1989)
• Brief Lives (1990)
• A Closed Eye (1991)
• Fraud (1992)
• A Family Romance (1993, US title Dolly)
• A Private View (1994)
• Incidents in the Rue Laugier (1995)
• Altered States (1996)
• Visitors (1997)
• Falling Slowly (1998)
• Undue Influence (1999)
• The Bay of Angels (2001)
• The Next Big Thing (2002, US title Making Things Better), longlisted for the Booker Prize
• The Rules of Engagement (2003)
• Leaving Home (2005)
• Strangers (2009)
• At The Hairdressers (2011), novella, available as an ebook only

So I do hope that some of you will join me in reading some Anita Brookner in July. I would be grateful if you could all help spread the word, I know that there are many Brookner fans out there – and it would be nice to reach some of them.
Now then for the techy bit – lots of people hosting reading weeks/months/challenges have a snazzy little button to go with it. I haven’t got one – last time I tried (and sort of succeeded) in making one – I nearly had a breakdown and needed loads of techy help – so I’m not going there again. If there is anyone out there who likes doing that kind of thing and wants to make one for me – I would be hugely grateful. Otherwise I am sure we can manage without a snazzy little button.
If you don’t have any Brookner novels and want to join in, UK readers may I point you towards your local charity shops, almost all the Brookner novels I have now and have read in the past have come from charity shops – I see them all the time.

Daphne Du Maurier’s grandfather was the artist and writer George du Maurier – who wrote Trilby. Her father was the actor Gerald du Maurier, her mother was also an actress. Daphne was educated at home along with her sisters, and later in Paris. In 1928 she began to write articles and short stories, and her first novel The Loving Spirit was published in 1931. Her novel Rebecca (1938) of course is the one with which she made her name. That famous first line; “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderlay again’– strangely still able to raise the hairs on the back of my neck.

Daphne Du Mauier went on to write many novels, short stories, plays and works of biography. Many of her novels are set in Cornwall where she herself lived had often have sinister or mysterious undertones. She was often described as a romantic novelist – a term she apparently deplored.

Strangely I haven’t actually read much Daphne Du Maurier – I read Rebecca twice – and I love it, I also read Frenchman’s Creek, and Jamaica Inn, both of which I loved too, and I think I may have read Mary Anne – but it is such a long time ago I can’t be sure. I confess I still cannot enter into Cornwall without thinking on some level at least, of those novels Jamaica Inn and Frenchman’s Creek which I read when I was in my teens.

Since coming up with the idea for my month of birthday reading, I was determined to be reading Daphne Du Maurier on my actual birthday – and had originally planned on re-reading Jamaica Inn – but changed my mind and started My Cousin Rachel late on Saturday night, and I am thoroughly enjoying it. I think I might go straight from this one to my re-reading of Jamaica Inn, as I do have such fond memories of it. Looking at the list of Daphne Du Maurier novels and story collections that I haven’t read – and there are a good number – I think it might be rather a nice tradition to read something by her at this time every year – at least for the next few years.

So then, considering how few Du Maurier novels I have read – what should I be going for next? (Even if it isn’t until this time next year).

Pat Barker (birthday – 8th May)

Like Pat Barker’s hugely successful Regeneration trilogy ‘Life Class’ is set just before and during the First World War. As the novel opens Paul Tarrant an art student studying at the Slade School of art takes his place in the life drawing class tutored by the difficult Henry Tonks. Paul has a tough time under Tonks, leading him to even question his talent in his frustration. Paul and his artistic friends spend many evenings at the Café Royal, where he is introduced to Teresa, a beautiful troubled young woman, who Paul soon becomes involved with. In the background however, is Elinor Brooke another Slade student who is admired by both Paul and fellow artist Kit Neville. Paul is a lesser artist than Kit and Elinor, both of whom seem to be teetering on the brink of brilliance.

As tensions in Europe rise, Elinor invites both Paul and Kit to spend some time with her family at their home, but Elinor is reticent of getting too involved with Kit who wants to marry her, and knows that Paul is also attracted to her – but she keeps them both at arm’s length. Elinor is a modern young woman, shockingly short haired she is unconventional in many ways and doesn’t dream of the traditional role of wife and mother that other young women content themselves with. For Elinior is serious about her art, and anxious not to end up like her mother and sister. When war comes Elinor wants only to continue with her art, she prefers to ignore the war as much as possible, despite her brother Toby enlisting and going off to France.

With the outbreak of hostilities, and unable to serve in the army, both Paul and Kit Neville find themselves in Belgium, as Red Cross volunteers. Here Paul works with men dreadfully injured, many of whom don’t survive their injuries. Paul and the people he works alongside have an impossible task – by the time the injured arrive at their station their wounds are already infected – they are in fact fighting their own losing battle. There is a soldier so desperate he tries to shoot himself, failing to kill himself, he is patched up, so that later he can be shot for desertion. A frustrated and enraged surgeon kicks an amputated limb across the operating room. These are not pretty images, but they are powerful. Pat Barker’s writing about World War I is uncompromising and unforgettable.

“But then, that’s the question. Should you even pause to consider your own reactions? These men suffer so much more than he does, more than he can imagine. In the face of their suffering, isn’t it self-indulgent to think about his own feelings? He has nobody to talk to about such things and blunders his way through as best he can. If you feel nothing -this is what he comes back to time and time again -you might just as well be a machine, and machines aren’t very good at caring for people. There’s something machine-like about a lot of the professional nurses here. Even Sister Byrd, whom he admires, he looks at her sometimes and sees an automaton. Well, lucky for her, perhaps. It’s probably more efficient to be like that. Certainly less painful.”

When new recruit Lewis arrives, without the matter of fact cynicism that Paul has acquired, he is accommodated in Paul’s hut, and therefore under his wing. Paul finds this responsibility irritating, and the sharing of his space difficult – wanting somewhere where he could at least theoretically paint on his days off. Paul rents a room in the small nearby town, and invites Elinor to stay, for a short time. Here their relationship naturally moves on a pace. However the war encroaches and Elinor must leave suddenly – and return to the safety of England.
The longer Paul stays in Belgium, tending to the horribly injured, later driving ambulances – leaving injured men he cannot accommodate in the road, even dealing with piles of dead bodies – the more of himself he seems to lose. The distance between he and Elinor seems greater as her letters become less frequent, and the world he once inhabited seems a long way away. Back in London Elinor has joined a group of pacifists and conscientious objectors led by society hostess Lady Ottoline Morrell. As letters pass between the two lovers it becomes apparent that neither can fully understand the world of the other.

After the bombardment of Ypres, Paul begins to see the world very differently, on his return to London, Paul must determine whether his experiences have changed him completely – and where, if anywhere, he now fits.
I found Life Class a compelling and powerful novel, Pat Barkers descriptions of injured men, and the bombardment of Ypres transport the reader to Belgium in the early days of World War I. The novel’s opening in the months before the outbreak of war, the frivolity, flirting and possibilities that life offers these young people contrast starkly with what comes later. I now cannot wait to read the sequel Toby’s Room which I have on my kindle.

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala – (birthday 7th May) – was a German born British woman, her family coming to England in 1939 she became a British citizen in 1948 – Jhabvala later married an architect and moved to India with him. In the 1970’s she moved to the US where she lived until her death last month. This is the fourth of her books that I have read – and I am reminded of how good a writer she was, and I am glad I still have two others TBR. In her writing Ruth Prawer Jhabvala naturally used her experiences of 24 years living in India, and she brings the people and places of India brilliantly to life.

A Backward Place is a kind of comedy of manners centred on a group of westerners living alternative life-styles in Delhi. Judy an Englishwoman is married to Bal – living in a small house and courtyard with his family. Clarissa is a dishevelled artist, claiming to appreciate a simpler life, while Etta is an ageing Hungarian beauty determined to keep hold of her Parisian chic and mysterious allure. Dr and Mrs Hochstadt are a German couple on an extended though temporary visit to experience India. Judy’s husband Bal, is a dreamer, he sees himself as an artiste and has aspirations of fame in the Indian film industry. While Bal spends all day hobnobbing with his friends and dreaming up new schemes, Judy works with Sudhir Bannerjee at the Cultural Dais. This was the one job Judy had been able to land after having gone door to door begging for work to support herself, her husband and their two children, along with Bal’s elderly Aunt who lives with them, in the lower half of the house also occupied by Bal’s brother and wife and children. Clarissa and Etta meanwhile don’t do much of anything; Clarissa involves herself in one of Bal’s latest schemes infuriating Etta by involving Guppy – Etta’s latest boyfriend. Etta is a sorry figure indeed, longing to get back to Europe, she knows she has lost touch with it and fears being a nobody, in Delhi at least she more or less maintains a glamorous image.

“Etta entered the restaurant and stood poised within the door. She saw Clarissa immediately, but nevertheless hovered there a moment longer and pretended to be searching round. She liked entering restaurants and having everyone look at her. And everyone did look at her, and eyes followed her as she tripped smartly on her high heels, head held high and slim hips swinging, to the table where Clarissa sat waiting for her.
Clarissa was sprawled on a velvet sofa, with her things – her sketching pad, a few grubby parcels, the big checked cloth bag which served her permanently as handbag and shopping bag – scattered round her.
‘Late as usual’ said Clarissa.

Following a row with Etta – who is frequently vicious to her so called friends – Bal turns his back on his scheme for a local theatre group and decides instead to move his family to Bombay to try his luck in the film industry. Judy is not too thrilled with the idea, although she is charmed by her husband’s enthusiasm. Unlike Etta, Judy likes her life, her job at the Cultural Dais and her friendship with her sister in law, she is nervous of change.

“Judy felt no gratitude. On the contrary, she was critical of Bhuaji who appeared to her as irresponsible as Bal. In comparison with the two of them Judy felt herself to be very adult and sensible, and very English. English people didn’t behave like that, they didn’t on the whim of a moment give up everything they had and go wandering off in search of no one knew what. That might be all right for people like Bhauji and Bal and those holy men in orange robes one saw roaming about. But it was not all right for anyone English and sensible; not all right for Judy. She was determined to hold on tight to what she had, like her mother, like her Aunt Agnes, like all those other stubborn dwellers in little houses among whom she had grown up and who, she now decided, were her kind.”

In A Backward Place Jhabvala gives us a humorous and engaging novel of contradictions and cultural differences. India is a vast country and yet the canvas for this novel is small, the everyday concerns of this small group of people and their associates, their hopes fears and aspirations are presented amid the hustle and bustle of a large city. There are several wonderfully observed scenes, like one in which Judy and her colleague Sudhir go to the home of the culturally ambitious Mrs Kaul who is in the middle of firing a girl – a girl sullen but stubborn, who obviously is desperate to keep her job.
This novel has certainly wetted my appetite for more by Jhabvala – I hope to read at least one of the other books I have this month but will have to see how it all pans out. I must say a big thank you to Liz – for lending me A Backward Place and another Jhabvala novel for my month of birthday reading.

Sometimes I feel stupidly ignorant of things I really should know, and here I am admitting to it. I picked up The Mystery of the Yellow Room in a charity shop sometimes ago and thought it looked interesting. It was only very recently that I realised it was by the author of Phantom of the Opera (the novel) which I’m now not even sure I knew was a novel. When I was researching which authors were born in May, for my birthday reading challenge I saw Gaston Leroux‘s name pop up on several lists – and for a while didn’t register I had one of his books on my TBR. I am now a fan, and want to read all his books that are available in English.
Gaston Leroux was not the first person to write a locked room mystery – that I think was probably Edgar Allan Poe in the 1840’s, but some consider The Mystery of the Yellow Room to among the best of its kind.
The setting for this early nineteenth century mystery is an isolated French chateau – where in a small pavilion in the grounds a scientific professor and his attractive thirty-five year old daughter spends hours closeted together over ground breaking scientific study. During the summer months Mathilde Stangerson sleeps in a small bedroom behind the laboratory – the yellow room. One night – having been working with her father until midnight Mathilde retires to bed in this small square room, locking and bolting the door behind her. Soon after her father and their trusty servant Old Jacques hear sounds of disturbance and cries of “Murder murder!” coming from the locked room. When they eventually break down the door, they find Mathilde badly injured from a blow to the head, a bloody handprint on the wall, and no sign whatsoever of the attacker.

“It was at that stage of our friendship that the famous case of the Yellow Room occurred – a case which was not only to place him in the first rank of newspaper reporters, but also to prove him to be the greatest detective in the world – a double role which it was not that surprising to find played by the same person, considering that the daily press was already fast becoming what is today – the gazette of crime.”

Enter Joseph Rouletabille, a young journalist and amateur detective, who with his friend lawyer Sainclair (who is our narrator) travels to the chateau to investigate. He quickly befriends Robert Darzac – the fiancé of Mathilde – who has already fallen under suspicion of the crime. Darzac and Professor Stangerson invite Rouletabille to stay at the chateau, where he is given a room next to the official detective on the case, while Mathilde lays a few rooms away recovering from her attack. The official detective on the case is Frederick Larson, and Rouletabille pits his own wits against those of Larson, determined to get at the truth before him.
Rouletabille soon realises that there are secrets surrounding the lives of the Stangersons and Darzac which may well have some bearing on the case. Rouletabille becomes convinced that the mystery attacker is about to strike again, and goes about laying a trap for him, but things don’t turn out to be so simple. Rouletabille is determined that he can uncover the truth, even though it may take him many months and a long journey to do so.

“That same evening, Rouletabille and I left Glandier. We were very glad to do so, and there was nothing to detain us there. I declared that I gave up any attempt to solve the mystery, and Rouletabille told me that he had nothing more to learn at Glandier, because Glandier had taught him everything.
We reached Paris about eight o’clock, dined rapidly, and then, weary, we separated, agreeing to meet next morning at my lodgings.
At the appointed time, Rouletabille entered my room. He was dressed in a suit of English tweed, had an overcoat over his arm, a cap on his head and a bag in his hand. He told me he was going on a journey.
“ How long will you be away?” I asked
‘A month or two,’ he said ‘It depends.’
I did not venture to question him further.

In the Mystery of the Yellow Room, Leroux has woven an intricate and compelling mystery that is still as readable today, I found it an engrossing page turner. I didn’t guess the solution to the mystery – I wonder how many people actually do – as I thought it was extremely clever. I was mildly irritated by a couple of errors in my Dedalus edition – towards the beginning the date for the events is given as 1802 – which threw me for a while – then I realised it must be a misprint – as there are mentions of trains, telegraphs and photography. According to Wikipedia – the action is supposed to take place in the 1890’s. ‘The Mystery of the Yellow Room’, is the first in a series of books featuring the character of Joseph Rouletabille –unfortunately it seems as if only the next two are available in English.

Graham Swift  (birthday 4th May)

The Sweet Shop Owner is the first book in my month of birthday reading. Graham Swifts birthday is May 4th, ooh that’s today – spooky. I have read two other Graham Swift novels although quite some time ago, I am now reminded what an excellent writer he is.
It is June 1974 and on the last day of Willy Chapman’s life, he gets up re-reads a letter from his daughter and goes to work at his sweet shop, the shop he has run for over thirty years. Through a series of flashbacks we see Willy’s life – from the time he met his emotionally damaged wife Irene – through the events that have led him to that one last sad day. Willy is an unremarkable man – on the face of it – running a small suburban sweet shop, the father of one child, he didn’t even see service during the war, but was drafted into the army stores, doling out helmets and ration books keeping count of the boots and the packs he issues. Yet Willy’s steadfast devotion is, in the end, what makes him really quite remarkable.

“Every night their clothes hung over the chair by the bed stirred by the breeze through the window. And every day the pieces of the picture fell into place; the boat trips to Weymouth, the little scenes of themselves arm in arm on the beach or at table for two, about which the nodding onlookers might say ‘honeymooners’; their Mr and Mrs in the hotel register. But if only she would say, ‘I love you.’ No not even that, if only she would say – sometimes it seemed like she used him like an excuse – ‘I know that you love me.’ But she wouldn’t. Not even when the moment was ripe. When the evening sun burnished the sea and they walked back, in the cool, along the cliff tops. Swallows dived. Cow-parsley frothed in the hollows. Her dress was white with diagonal rows of blue flowers. No, that was not included, not part of the bargain. Wasn’t the rest enough?”

Dorothy – Dorry as she is known, was Irene’s gift to Willy, part of the unspoken bargain between them, Irene’s middle class family provided the money that bought the shop, Willy ran it – while Irene stayed at home, damaged, often sick – giving him a daughter she is unable to love. Willy provides a secure and safe home for his wife, remaining in the same house, running the same shop for nearly forty years seven days a week, holidays in Dorset and Teignmouth the only respite. Willy’s love for Irene – is sad and passionless, though unexpressed, his devotion never wavers, and his loyalty to her is absolute, but Irene a fragile beauty can’t show love. Willy never really knows why this is (though the reader does) he accepts it and works hard for Irene, proud of what he has built up. Now Irene is dead, and their angry educated daughter is still bitter, feeling rejected, especially by her mother – a rejection that Willy seems to have been complicit in. Their latest communications have been bitter and resentful, but Willy still hopes – vainly that she will come.

“But she would come, surely. Now she had the money. She would come – she hadn’t said she wouldn’t – through the hallway (she still had her key to the front door), past the mirror, the barometer clock, the photographs of Irene and herself on the wall. Her eyes would be moist. She would find him in the armchair in the living-room, by the French windows where he always sat – where Irene had sat with her medicine – still, silent, his hands gripping the arm-rests. She would go down, weep, clasp his knees, as though she were clasping the limbs of a cold, stone statue that stares out and beyond, without seeing.”

The Sweet Shop owner was Graham Swift’s first novel, and I think it is hugely accomplished. The lives of these ordinary broken people and their quiet acceptance of the limits that life has placed upon them resonate strongly. It is a sad and memorable novel, and I am very glad that my month of birthday reading prompted me to read it.

Tell us about the classic book(s) you’re reading this month. You can post about what you’re looking forward to reading in May, or post thoughts-in-progress on your current read(s).

For this month of reading I have got a little reading project of my own. My birthday reading challenge – it’s my birthday on the 13th of this month and so I will be reading authors only born in May. I have some lovely books selected to read – more than I will be able to manage in fact. Luckily though there are some from my classics club list.

So then this month I hope to read all or at least some of the following:

My Cousin Rachel (such a pretty edition I have too) and Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier – who shares my birthday. (13th May)

Jamaica Inn will be a re-read for me, I read it such a long time ago, but I remember it with real fondness. I am hoping to be reading that on my actual birthday.

The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston Leroux (6th May)

The Wonderful Wizaard of Oz – by L Frank Baum  (15th May) a children’s classic I have never read – I anticipate an easy quick and undemanding little read. I will be reading this one on my kindle – though I don’t think I will then be reading the whole enormous series – there are after all rather a lot of them.

In fact I am intending to start on the first of these – The Mystery of the Yellow Room later tonight. Written by the man best known for writing The Phantom of the Opera – it is said to be the best of all “locked room” novels. I’m looking forward to it.