Three novellas for #novnov

I have had a much better reading month this month (hooray) but more of that in my monthly roundup post in a few days. One challenge has helped me get through more volumes during November and that’s #novnov. Some of the novellas probably don’t warrant a post all to themselves – and so I am combining three reads in one post – which is also helping me catch up. Apologies for the long post.

Murder in the Dark – Margaret Atwood (1984)

Murder in the Dark, a collection of what are described as prose poems ticked another reading challenge box for me. November is MARM (Margaret Atwood Reading month) and I usually try to read a couple of things but this year have only managed this little volume. Prose poems is probably a good description, or vignettes, they are generally too short to be considered short stories. It’s always impressive how much some writers like Margaret Atwood can say in just a few paragraphs.

These little pieces are fabulous examples of Atwood’s absolute brilliance – several very bizarre – others rather funny, childhood reminiscences and observations of life. I just the love the way Atwood has of looking at things. She exposes the frailties of human nature, the balance of power between the sexes is a theme we come across many times in this little collection.

In Making Poison a group of very young children mix up a big pot of poison – adding all kinds of noxious substances having little idea what they will do with it. She recalls stealing Horror comics from the drugstore – reading them with her friend on the street outside the funeral home. She recalls Boyfriends, Liking Men and the Victory Burlesk. She discusses something as mundane as Bread – but gives it a little Atwood kick – and we suddenly see it differently. Men and women swap roles in a piece titled Simmering and it the titular piece knowing when to call a halt to a game of Murder in the Dark is vital.

“Men’s novels are about how to get power. Killing and so on, or winning and so on. So are women’s novels, though the method is different. In men’s novels, getting the woman or women goes along with getting the power. It’s a perk, not a means. In women’s novels you get the power by getting the man. The man is the power. But sex won’t do, he has to love you. What do you think all that kneeling’s about, down among the crinolines, on the Persian carpet? Or at least say it. When all else is lacking, verbalization can be enough. Love. There, you can stand up now, it didn’t kill you. Did it?”

(from Women’s Novels)

These pieces are full of Atwood’s wisdom and wit, her feminism and intelligence shines through – but those who dislike very short pieces may want to swerve this one.

The Story of Stanley Brent – Elizabeth Berridge (1945)

This sweet little hardback of only about 80 pages, The Story of Stanley Brent is published by Michael Walmer has been on my tbr for well over a year. Simon’s recent reading of it – reminded me it was one I intended to read this month I’m delighted I did, I rather loved it.

It is the portrait of a very ordinary man – a very ordinary life. Although this novella is very short – Elizabeth Berridge does a wonderful job of portraying a whole life – a marriage, a career neither of which are particularly unique. It’s in Stanley Brent’s very ordinariness that the poignancy lies for me – there must have been countless men like Stanley in that generation.

Stanley proposes to his Ada in 1907 – after which follows a long engagement. Finally they marry – and suffer an excruciatingly awkward honeymoon with Ada utterly ignorant of the realities of married life – Stanley is left feeling terrible – suddenly seeing Ada as a stranger. A young man horribly unsure of how to fix things.

“The sight of the flat sands, the quietness of the night, emphasised by the slight sea-noise of dark waters, bought him uncomfortably face to face with himself. Time seemed absent. This was an hour that would not tally with his accustomed thoughts – not only was Ada a stranger to him, he was a stranger to himself. He was conscious of life and death flowing in and around him, desolating and building his spirit, testing and judging. He had never felt so helpless.”

It’s an inauspicious start – but they find their way in time.

 Stanley works in a firm of land agents in London, an old fashioned firm – when he is made a partner he and Ada can buy a house in the suburbs. Two daughters are born. He and Ada have different ideas – and while Ada thinks her husband should have some ambition, get himself into one of the new estate agent firms springing up in the suburbs – Stanley is content to stay in his old fashioned firm, that just don’t do the business it once did.

It’s hard to convey just how good this is – what Berridge achieves in this tiny volume is very impressive indeed. She presents us with a very realistic portrait of a couple often struggling to understand one another. She reveals their hopes, fears frustrations, parenting and frailties.

This is the sort of very short novella that really packs a punch, the characters and atmosphere of the piece are so memorable I am convinced it will really stay with me.

Under the Tripoli Sky – Kamal Ben Hameda (2011) translated by Adriana Hunter.

Another novella I have had tbr for a long time. One of the Peirene Press coming of age series Under The Tripoli Sky is set in the Tripoli of the 1960s. I love a coming of age story – and so that’s what drew me to it initially – no idea why I waited so long to read it.

Our narrator is Hadachinou a lonely boy – who undergoes a circumcision ceremony as the novella opens. In this segregated society, Hadachinou is able to slip through the sweltering streets virtually unnoticed, listening to the whispered conversations of the women, hearing their stories, a witness to their desires.

“They forget about me but I’m there, catching glimpses of them through the gaps where the tented awnings cross, watching.”

His friends are all young girls who don’t yet have to be segregated – he also likes the company of his aunts, his mother and her friends. This is a society where many woman are discontented with their lot, they have lots to complain of stories of violence meted out, for the slightest thing. He is a strange little witness to their lives – a boy who soon enough will soon take his own place in this patriarchal society.

His mother shares her own secrets with her best friend Jamila. A woman this adolescent boy finds an extraordinary presence in their home, when she comes to stay. Jamila is a woman much talked about in the community – gossip Great Aunt Nafissa tries to put a stop to. Jamila fuels his imagination at time when he is discovering his own desires.

This is an engaging little story of pre Gaddafi Libya, full of cultural insight of a society on the brink of change.