The House of Dolls

Barbara Comyns is a writer I have problems with. I found her first in Oxfam when I picked up a copy of ‘Our Spoons Came From Woolworths’ (I actually thought I was buying ‘The Bronte’s Went to Woolworths’ which I had also seen and then had to go back for). I found it a deeply moving book, and when I found ‘Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead’ a few weeks later I was really hooked. Hooked enough to order ‘Sisters by a River’ new from amazon – which really disappointed me, and since then I’ve had mixed feelings about Comyns.

At her best I find her dark, funny, deeply disturbing and very disarming, at other times I’m left wondering why I bothered. ‘Sisters by a River’ is rather like that it’s some of Comyns earliest writing (before she learned to spell, or found someone to spell for her) it has been published as it was written and I found it hard going to read, it’s also a very fragmented book – essentially stories from Comyns childhood that she later told her own children, she uses much the same material to far better effect in ‘Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead’.

By this time I’d already acquired ‘The House Of Dolls’ and ‘The Juniper Tree’ which have since languished in various corners waiting for proper attention. I’m finding lunch a great opportunity to work through short but not entirely appealing books on my shelf (we all need a break from being polite to customers and reading seems to be the order of the day in the dining room. Perfect for me.) I’d been told that ‘The House Of Dolls’ was ok but not Comyns at her best and it’s an assessment I agree with. However I liked the sound of a book about middle aged prostitutes written by Comyns who has a way of delivering tragic and shocking material in a heartbreakingly deadpan manner.

In this respect ‘The House of Dolls’ doesn’t disappoint. It’s the story of six women – all without a man in their lives – and all trying to find ways to cope with growing up and growing old under one roof. The roof in a shabby part of Kensington belongs to Amy Doll, a young widow who lives in the basement with her daughter Hester. Widowhood has forced her to let rooms, and penury has forced her aging tenants into prostitution, some with rather more enthusiasm than others. I think if their’s a moral it’s that men give, and men take away, leaving women to pick up the pieces. There is also something of a theme about age, Hester who at 14 seems to be avoiding womanhood, Amy Doll who meets and marries a policeman (his appearance is the catalyst for the breakup of the brothel) initially inhabits a middle aged role of universal motherhood until she’s transformed back into a young bride, the other women in the house walk a thin line between middle age and old age.

Of the four whores upstairs only one is a truly a woman in search of independence, and she seems to find it – she earns enough on her back to buy herself another life elsewhere. Another left destitute by widowhood finds love with a dentist from Putney who never does learn of her profession. She too gets another chance for a happy ending. What’s left are Bertie and Evelyn, women who have long ago lost any grip on truth or reality, deep into middle age still trying hard to hold onto youth, oblivious to the fact that they are seen by everyone around them as old.

Comyns doesn’t over stress the unfairness of the double standards which apply to men and women’s sexual conduct, and doesn’t make any bones about how hideous (or unrepentant) Bertie and Evelyn are, but I think she makes the point nonetheless. Her touch is equally light and effective in exploring the perception of age, and really this book should work better but somehow I found it didn’t entirely come together; at her best Comyns holds nothing back, but in ‘The House Of Dolls’ I felt she could have gone further. That said it’s still a thought provoking and satisfying, if not always comfortable read that’s made me feel much more enthusiastic about the prospect of plenty more Comyns to read.

Oranges and Wine

Christmas is apparently coming and I’m preparing for it by candying orange slices. A week long process which involves lots of sugar and takes up a lot of space before it’s finished. It has occurred to me as I drain the oranges, simmer the syrup, and return the oranges (making the kitchen very sticky in the process) that writing Christmas cards would have been a better place to start. Oranges taste better though. As does wine, which is my day job, and this week has had more than its fair share of wine tastings. Wednesdays was (and will remain) the highlight thanks to D'Arenberg wines and some particularly luscious dessert wines which by no coincidence I think will be good with candied oranges.

It all means very little time for reading, so here’s the Orange recipe instead; they aren’t as much trouble as they sound at first and are really worth the effort anyway, especially as they cost a bomb to buy. I’ve seen several versions of candied oranges which take less time, but again the extra effort is worth it as these ones (from a recipe in Acton and Sandler’s ‘Preserved’) are by far the best I’ve tried, and even better every bit as good as the ones a tour guide friend used to bring back for me from Bruges. Just as well as- she’s changed jobs now and Birthday/Christmas wouldn’t be the same without them.

Candied Orange Peel:

10 navel Oranges

1.8 kilos Sugar

200g Glucose

Slice the oranges about ½ a cm thick, discarding the ends. Gently simmer the slices for ½ an hour in a large pan, drain and place the slices back in the pan with a kilo of sugar and enough water to cover them entirely. Bring to the boil and simmer for a further ½ hour.

Place a lid on the pan and leave for 24 hours

Remove all the oranges, add a further 200g of sugar to the syrup and simmer until the sugar has dissolved, return the oranges to the pan and leave for a further 24 hours.

Repeat this for the next 3 nights until all the sugar is used.

When the sugar is gone remove the oranges, add the glucose to the syrup, bring to simmering point and put the oranges back in for another 24 hours.

Finally drain the oranges, dispose of the syrup and lay the oranges out to dry on trays for 48 hours.

Store them in an airtight container with plenty of greaseproof paper between them until wanted, when they are excellent dipped in plain chocolate, or sugar.

Honestly they really are worth all the trouble.

Borders

I have a friend who is single mother to a now almost teenage son, and since it opened our chosen spot for hanging out was the local Borders – so we’ve been going there for around seven years I think. We chose it because her son liked it and could wonder around the children’s section with minimal supervision whilst we enjoyed coffee and gossip and a certain amount of humorous derision on her part regarding my book choices. Happy days. At one time we would go almost every weekend and almost always bought something. Since then the choice has declined and our buying waned with it. However plans for Sunday had already been made and they involved coffee, an unbiased and friendly discussion of everything our mutual friends had been up to… and the possibility of books – in short Borders.

The news that it was going into administration wasn’t a huge surprise. The signs had been there for a while, but that makes it no less depressing. We stuck to our original plans, but all three of us left the shop wishing we hadn’t gone. There is nothing edifying about a building full of people fighting over the scraps of a business whilst staff watch everything they’ve worked so hard on get torn apart. I’ve been in a similar position and still find the memory depressing; I sincerely hope the staff come out with decent payoffs because heaven knows they will deserve it by the time the doors finally close, and whatever situation Borders has got itself into, it’s in no way the fault of their generally excellent floor staff.

From the shop floor point of view it’s a frustrating irony that when a business goes down customers flock in, despite the fact that initial discounts are small – the 20% off most books at the weekend should still leave a profit margin – where were the customers when you needed them and running similarly generous discounts?

When it comes down to it Borders felt like it lost its way some time ago, and with it lost the interest of customers like me. There have been plenty of times I wanted to spend money, had money to spend, and couldn’t find anything to buy. I wish they had managed to get it right because although I think Waterstone’s is the better retailer I don’t like the fact that they have now become the only real player on the field/high street. It’s not healthy for anyone and neither is an over reliance on internet sources. Amazing as places like amazon are they can never replace the local Borders I remember in it’s hay day when it was defiantly a family destination; somewhere children where encouraged to engage with books and their own imaginations and somewhere that people like me could find both what I wanted, and things I never knew I wanted.

But the thing image that will now really stick with me is a line of half a dozen booksellers stuck at the tills working flat out and every one of them on the verge of tears as they deal with a public happy to get a bargain out of someone else’s personal disaster. A depressing way for anything to come to an end.

Broderie Anglaise – Violet Trefusis

I have a fascination with Vita Sackville-West. I think she kept turning up in portraits and books when I was at an impressionable age and somehow I’ve never got over her. It’s not the Virginia Woolf connection that attracts me, and I can’t honestly say I find Vita much of a writer, not fiction at any rate – her gardening articles are something else entirely. I love Sissinghurst but upper class English lady gardeners are hardly unique. Vita’s legacy to me is the variety of her experience; I imagine she must have been a desperately selfish woman in many ways but also passionate, grand, disappointed and above all complicated - impossible to pigeon hole – she would definitely be at my fantasy dinner party.

Broderie Anglaise is a book I bought out of vague curiosity a few months back because of the Vita connection and because I had seen it mentioned a few times and it was at the front of my mind. I picked it up to read this week because it’s short, so perfect to get through in lunch breaks. I tried to read ‘Pirates at Play’ a few years ago and found it very unappealing so thought ‘Broderie Anglaise’ would be a similar chore, it was an unexpected surprise to enjoy it as much as I did.

It is apparently a fictionalised account of the aftermath of Violet and Vita’s affair – and a meeting between Violet and Virginia Woolf, all told from the point of view of her caricature of Virginia – Alexa Harrowby Quince, and very much a reply to ‘Orlando’ which is referenced. I still think that Violet Trefusis is a decidedly second rate writer but here at least she’s very compelling. It’s possibly because she’s getting to have her say – the last word on a very public affair, and a certain amount of revenge through some fairly malicious characterisations. ‘Broderie Anglaise’ was written in French (in 1935) and presumably only published in France, Victoria Glendinning (Vita’s biographer) who writes the introduction thinks it unlikely that either Vita or Virginia new the book, she also points out that Violet would be unlikely to want any of her (still living) victims to read the book, especially Vita’s mother Lady Sackville who gets a pasting.

The plot such as it is has centres around the young Lord Shorne (Vita) and the older but inexperienced Alexa’s (Virginia) affair overshadowed as it is by Shorne’s previous affair with his cousin Anne (Violet) and his morbid fear of his mother and the extraordinary domination she has over him. The initial pen portrait of Alexa is certainly recognisable as Virginia, although a Virginia stripped of any charm. It’s unkind but not entirely unsympathetic, Vita and her mother are treated with real cruelty and disdain; Lord Shorne is shown to be a coward and a liar, his mother a virtual demon, and as with anything to do with Vita, Knole (Otterways) features largely; in this case as another unhealthy obsession.

Bits of it work. The relationship between mother and son is unsettling, grotesque, and just feasible; the relationships between Alexa, Anne and Lord Shorne are imaginable but turning Vita into a man is an over simplification. However bitter Violet felt about the end of their relationship the fact remains that they were both married women, Vita with children. Whilst Lord Shorne has nothing to fear but his (admittedly terrifying) mother his behaviour towards Anne is cowardly and unforgivable, as is his behaviour towards Alexa. For the real Vita – unable as a woman to inherit as the fictional Shorne does, dependant on her mother and her writing for an income, the decision to return to the husband she undoubtedly had a loving if unorthodox relationship with (and of course her children, home and other responsibilities) is altogether less cowardly.

The very best part of the book though is the grand seduction scene – as with all half planned seductions, this one set to take place in the most theatrical of locations there is more than a hint of farce. In this case it’s the drunken progress through a series of state rooms to a moth ball infested four poster. Entirely English, very funny, not particularly salacious, and I suspect very cruel because it has an entirely authentic ring to it.

There are other passages I’ve marked too, an acid aside about the Italian spring which I’m inclined to see as a sniffy dismissal of ‘The Enchanted April’ is just one. Quite apart from any associations with actual personalities I consider this worth a read – just for the bedroom farce alone it’s worth the cover price, and there’s much more than that, but for anyone with a passing interest in any of the three women it concerns it’s absolutely worth tracking down. If nothing else Violet does a cracking job on demystifying Virginia Woolf and raises some interesting questions about gender and same sex relationships – mostly by not mentioning them.

Could somebody please explain why...?

There is something particularly nice about a week day off – I definitely see it as one of the plus points of working in retail. The illicit joys of day time TV aside it’s particularly satisfying to enjoy a not to early breakfast whilst watching the rest of the world go off to work and shopping is far nicer without the weekend crowds. On a weekday whichever side of the counter you’re on you’re far more likely to be treated as a person rather than a necessary evil. (I’m not a fan of the policy that demands purchase related conversation with every customer. It’s hard on the assistant to keep up the required level of enthusiasm and drains the joy out of genuinely spontaneous discussion.)

I really rather wanted the ‘Postcards from Penguin’ box which had resolutely failed to be available for purchase either on the internet, in my home town, or even the quite-cosmopolitan-in-comparison Nottingham, but yesterday they finally hit my local Waterstone’s. Working on the theory that even at full price 15p a postcard is terrific value and that they’ll make great birthday cards I threw caution and loose change to the winds and got a set. Now I’ve had a look the idea of letting any of them go seems ridiculous; so not so economic but still a very nice thing to have.

One postcard particularly grabbed my attention and that’s because I have a bit of a bee about the book in question. It’s Ludwig Bemelmans ‘Hotel Splendide’. I first heard of Bemelmans in a ‘Slightly Foxed’ article although I was already familiar with the title ‘Hotel Splendide’ because it’s on a penguin tea towel (and a mug and a pencil). I should probably add that I’m a fan of the Penguin merchandising, I have tea towels, lots of mugs, a beloved bag, and now of course postcards. I would also have deckchairs if they funds permitted, so this isn’t me being some sort of design snob. What I would like to know is why the book itself is out of print? It’s a good book – Ebury have printed a slightly abridged version under the title of ‘Hotel Bemelmans’ which I have, but it was an effort to find. It seems somehow wrong that I can send a postcard of a book which I consider a classic, but I can’t buy the book.

“But copies are cheap and plentiful on amazon” I hear you cry, “well yes they are” continues the conversation in my head, but... when you read a recommendation for a book, and money is perhaps short, and it’s not like a blog where it’s always possible to question the reviewer more closely, well sometimes you just want to pick the book up, consider it, flick through it and then decide to buy, or not. Or at least that’s how it is with me. I fully intend to get a copy of the Penguin version one day and sit down to compare both books to see what’s omitted by Ebury, but it’s not a project that feels pressing.

Further investigation of the postcards reveals an interesting mix of books and styles. Plenty classic stripy Penguins, some which I imagine we’re meant to laugh at, and some I want to investigate further. Putting aside the (not insignificant) consideration that this box set is more about a design legacy than literature I’m still wondering why some books last and others disappear, seemingly regardless of quality. Back to Bemelmans – this is the man who wrote the ‘Madeline’ book and also the man packed off to New York from his uncle’s hotel in the Tyrol at the age of 16 after he shot a waiter. His life in hotels as described here would be fascinating enough but he was also a gifted painter as well as writer and bon vivant. Anthony Bourdain (of ‘Kitchen Confidential’ and other bad boy cooking memoires) wrote the introduction, he too clearly loves the book. The thing about ‘Hotel Bemelmans’ for me was that the world of petty (and grand) scams and rigid hierarchy is still familier to anyone who’s worked in catering. The prohibition era grand hotels have gone, excess today is a little different, and fortunately child labour laws and human rights have improved working conditions, so just from a historical point of view this is worth a read....

Enough, I think it’s a terrific book which should be better known but unaccountably the world at large doesn’t bend to my every whim, however I still don’t see why it should be possible to buy ‘Keeping Poultry and Rabbits on Scraps’ and not ‘Hotel Splendide’ unless it’s because one’s a joke and the other isn’t. Bookselling is truly a strange game.

Finally I want to spare a thought for Borders (UK) staff today who will be facing a grim Christmas after yesterday’s announcement that the company has gone into administration.

Castle Rackrent

After ‘The Big House of Inver’ I’m in the mood for – well if not more of the same then at least something firmly rooted in place. Given that 'Castle Rackrent' is billed as the first regional novel in English on the back blurb it seemed like a good place to start. My copy has been sitting on various shelves for a good decade without being read, mostly because much as I like the sound of novels of this vintage I often find them hard work to get into. There are several exceptions to this and after actually reading Maria Edgeworth I think she’s one of them. I also have ‘The Absentee’ and will be trying that soon as well in the hope that I find it as immediately appealing as ‘Castle Rackrent’.

Clearly Somerville and Ross knew ‘Castle Rackrent’ well as much of it is re worked into the back story of ‘The Big House of Inver’ and some of the same devices are used for the rest of the plot – two very different books but both belonging to a tradition that must have started with ‘Castle Rackrent’. Basically a novella of barely 90 pages that tells the story of the Rackrent family from the point of view of an old family retainer starting with generous and drunken Sir Patrick, tight fisted and litigious Sir Murtagh, inveterate gambler and rake Sir Kit, and finally ill fated Sir Condy with his weakness for whiskey punch.

I really loved this book; the romp through family history is basically an excuse for recounting some of the juicer scandals from Irish society mid 18th century and for throwing in every stereotyped caricature of the Irish character that Edgeworth can find. Just the promise of those two things was enough to make me read on but there’s more, this is such a genuinely funny book. The jokes could probably have been written yesterday – they feel fresh enough and there’s something about the rhythm of the dialogue between various Rackrent’s and their wives which whilst it clearly comes of its time it could equally be spoken word for word today.

Being a short book probably helped my enjoyment as well. One of the things I was conscious of when reading ‘The Big House of Inver’ was that whilst the same kind of family narrative was entertaining it could drag on a bit; I spent a long time waiting for the action to unfold, not an issue in ‘Castle Rackrent’. It’s definitely a book I can see myself reading again and again, especially on wet afternoons, I have the feeling there’s a lot more to find in it, I also have a page of scribbled queries to follow up the first being about the life of a Lady Cathcart. I would say more but don’t want to throw in any spoilers. Honestly though this is a book which really repaid the couple of hours it took to read it and I’m wondering how to follow it up, at the moment I’m thinking to carry on with old and regional but will have to see what the book shelf casts up.