Pure unadulterated Joy

Once upon a time I had all six of E.F. Benson’s Mapp and Lucia books and I loved them even if it was a long time since I read them. Last year when I started to catalogue my books I realised that at some point six had become three – there was a general wailing and gnashing of teeth. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the three that disappeared had been three that fitted nicely into one of the omnibuses, or if they were still generally in print, or if they came up regularly in second hand shops.

None of these things being the case and there always being a long list of unread (by me) books to acquire when I hit second hand sights coupled with a job that currently just about pays the mortgage and very little else I was beginning to think it would be a very very long time before all the Mapp and Lucia’s would be lined up, ducks in a row, on my bookshelf again. Then happy day I saw a copy of ‘Miss Mapp’ in the same black swan imprint as my remaining volumes for a meagre £1.50 in a charity shop. After I went home to check it was a missing one, and then went back before the shop opened the next day to stand on the doorstep in the freezing cold for quarter of an hour risking missing my work bus in the process I finally got the prize (and to work).

After a weekend battling with Sofia Tolstoy I couldn’t resist taking refuge in a bit of Benson and so started to read and haven’t wanted to stop since. I got through ‘Miss Mapp’ and have moved on to ‘Mapp and Lucia’. I think if I go without cups of tea at work for the rest of the month than I can safely order the final missing two without bouncing a single cheque so that’s what I’m going to do. (As an aside being poor is becoming really very tiresome – I would really like the chance to try something different now.)

I was trying to remember when I last read these books – I think I would have been about sixteen which seems young now to be reading about the social machinations of middle age ladies. I know I loved these books and at that age I tended to read and re read a book to death but somehow the Benson’s are in remarkably good shape and better yet I find I don’t remember much of the detail. Tilling is familiar but to all intents and purposes I could be reading these books for the first time – and happily it’s one of those meetings with a childhood friend where I find we still like each other and there are no awkward silences.

I think it’s probably common for anyone who collects books faster than they can read them to question if they have time to re read when there are so many new undiscovered things just waiting to be picked up. It never really occurred to me how much of a book I would forget after twenty years, probably because I’m only just now old enough (that’s how I would like to be thought of at any rate) to be finding out. Anyway I’m off to ponder that a bit more and to read more Mapp and Lucia - pure unadulterated joy...

Getting out of bed on the wrong side

After a disturbed and disturbing night’s sleep today has been an annoying sort of affair – due almost entirely to my own bad temper by the end. It should have been a nice day off after a generally good week but starting with over sleeping, and swiftly realising I’d let the washing up get out of control again it’s all been a bit of an uphill struggle since.

‘The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy’ are proving to be very much part of the struggle – following me around in the manner of undone homework. I believe the due date for publication is in about 10 days – but there they were glaring at me from the shelf in Waterstone’s (not even the big one with the helpful staff and the nice books, but the little one were the favourites include vampire Darcy novels). I have tried with these I really have but so far nothing doing. I started at the beginning and found young Sofia tough going so thought that’s ok – diaries – I’ll just dip in and out, find something compelling and work back than forward.

I found Sofia talking about how youthful she continues to look into her forties – not feeling sympathetic since I’ve found a new collection of grey hairs. However I will persevere – I’m sure there’s more to Sofia than an endless litany of complaints about not being able to sit at the piano for hours on end – I just need to find a way in. I’ll be taking her to work with me all week – her Russian sensibilities should chime well with the general atmosphere in the canteen. I’m also looking forward to the film based on her life, as well as reading what others make of her – I see this is being widely read at the moment.

I had meant to write about Simon King’s Shetland Diaries after Thursdays programme but have decided to hold off until the book comes out and until I’ve seen the rest of the series. The first episode was both nostalgic and thought provoking for me and I’m interested to see how it develops – it’s also making me very impatient for my summer pilgrimage north and has sent me straight to George Mackay Brown’s short stories again (Orkney rather than Shetland, but close enough at the moment) I may even tackle one of his novels Sofia permitting. Themed reading isn’t always my thing but I’m inclined to look out for Scottish island books at the moment – it’ll make a change from my accidental run of catholic lady writers.

Finally the disturbing night’s sleep – something that took me right back to ‘The Woman in Black’ – my flat plays some odd tricks with sound sometimes and last night I was woken up by what sounded like hysterical sobbing right next to me, by the time I’d a) woken up properly b) had stopped being absolutely terrified c) realised the noise was in the corridor and someone had knocked at my door whoever was so upset had gone upstairs. She didn’t return but when I woke up again today it was with a horrible feeling of guilt – someone was clearly alone and needed help, I hope she found it from somebody more awake and able than myself.

Appointment In Samarra - John O’Hara

I found John O’Hara through Caustic Cover Critic who did an interview with Tomer Hanuka about some of his covers including the ones he’d done for the vintage reissues of O’Hara’s ‘Appointment in Samarra’ and ‘Butterfield 8’. The covers looked great and the reviews on amazon sounded intriguing so it went on my Christmas list and was kindly donated by my lovely mother, by which time I’d kind of lost interest. However it’s a shortish book and that suits lunch times so I picked it up again last week and ended up being blown away by it.

This is the first time I’d heard of O’Hara and the more I find out about him the more I’m surprised about that (also disappointed that I’ve missed out for so long, and that none of my local bookshops stock either of the recently reissued vintage titles) because he seems so much the sort of writer that I would know about – a friend of Dorothy Parker damn it. First published in 1934 ‘Appointment In Samarra’ charts the fate of Julian English from tipping point to final fall – all taking place over a single Christmas weekend.

I’ve been wondering how to write this without giving away chunks of plot – I don’t think I can – so there will be spoilers. Mr and Mrs Julian English are leaders of the young married social set in their home town of Gibbsville Pennsylvania, outwardly they appear affluent, happy, popular, successful; the perfect couple, inwardly it’s clearly been falling apart for a while before Julian gets drunk and throws a drink in the face of an influential business colleague. From there on things literally fall apart; the fractures in the English marriage widen past repair, Julian’s drinking is revealed to its full extent as is the state of his finances. Caroline English is revealed as a loving but difficult wife – one who leaves her husband unsure of himself and her. Julian compounds one foolish action with another and within forty eight hours the marriage is in tatters – he’s stayed drunk, gotten into fights which will destroy his business, been seen to leave a bar with the local gangsters mistress, and finally takes his own life.

It could be very depressing, and at times it is, but what made this book for me was the way O’Hara looked beyond what was happening to his immediate protagonists and took time to examine what the repercussions of Julian’s actions are on those around him; characters whose lives are peripheral to the English’s but which will overlap in potentially catastrophic ways. Like his contemporary Fitzgerald, O’Hara exposes the tarnish on the American Dream but I warmed to Julian and Caroline more than I ever have any Fitzgerald character. They may be flawed and weak, but they’re also human and recognisable as are the pressures they face. I also found this book a neat contrast with McCarthy’s ‘The Group’ – both are set in the same time period – although McCarthy was looking back and O’Hara is writing what he sees around him – and both deal with many of the same issue’s – careers for wealthy young women, sex out of wedlock, marriage, contraception; it’s all in here.

The other thing that O’Hara reveals, and I have no idea how deliberate this is, is the casual and bitter racism prevalent in small town 30’s America. An absolute hatred of Jews, the divide between wasp’s and Catholics at the higher end of the social scale, attitudes towards Greeks, poles, and Italians – everything in the cultural melting pot bubbles up to the top. I can’t imagine anything post war could be as openly and casually anti Semitic and I find it fascinating to read; it’s a shock to my pc eyes, but to forget that these attitudes existed - where accepted as normal – is surely almost as bad as still quietly holding onto them.

I loved this book, can’t recommend it highly enough, and will be looking out for more O’Hara – first 'Butterfield 8' and then anything I can find second hand.

Simon King's Shetland Diary

Is on tonight at 8pm on BBC2. This is my part of the world and therefor I am recommending anybody who has the BBC should watch it...

The Woman in Black

I like a weekend off as much as the next person, but what I like even more is what I have for the rest of this week – later starts. I cannot express how pleased I am not to have to get up at 6.30am and not to have to rush through everything to get to bed on time. It’s an extra blessing after a latish night at the theatre last night – ‘The Woman in Black’ – followed by a broken night’s sleep (I wonder why that would have been). Today, sadly not for the first time, I ran over my own foot with a very heavy cage of wine, I need to sleep.

I suspect most people who read this will have either read, watched the TV version, or seen the play of ‘The Woman in Black’ but just in case I’m not the last to have done so I’m going to try hard not to give away any of the plot...

Susan Hill is a writer who has mostly passed me by until now – The first I read was ‘The Man in the Picture’ a couple of years ago; I was disappointed by it hoping for something altogether more creepy, I did however really enjoy ‘Howards End Is On The Landing’ so when I saw ‘The Woman in Black’ was on in town I thought I’d go and see it, and read the book. I liked the book and loved the play; both were suitably scary without being Stephen King terrifying.

One little niggle I had with the book was that I couldn’t place when it was set – lots of mentions of light switches even in the isolated Eel Marsh house which suggests mains electricity, there’s also talk of cars, yet no suggestion of the war. If it wasn’t for the light switches I would think it was set around the turn of the century but it could be almost forty years later. It shouldn’t matter, but not being able to narrow the action to a specific period distracts me from the plot – which is perhaps why I didn’t find this book as spooky as I know others have. I liked the play so much more because none of those questions arose. Costume set the tone and everything else fell into place.

Grumbles aside it’s a terrific ghost story and this is exactly the time of year for reading such a thing accessorised with hot chocolate and hot water bottles I found it just the right side of unsettling, nice and short too because sometimes it’s a bonus to be able to swallow a book whole – especially I find when it’s of a slightly sinister nature. I would also say that the last few paragraphs are some of the most powerfully sad I’ve ever read – they certainly express the raw abruptness of the aftermath of any accident or sudden tragedy with brilliant economy and impact.

Sunday Afternoon

Weekends off are lovely, but frankly two days are not enough to catch up on the (inevitable and seemingly self replicating) washing up, laundry and all the other crap that has to be done. I bought Seville oranges two weeks ago to make marmalade and have only got round to it today. For two weeks two kilos of oranges have sat in the corner quietly criticising the lack of organisation which not only failed to cook them, but even failed to stick them in the freezer. Still they are simmering away merrily now – which all goes to create more washing up... Having embarked on the marathon that is an afternoon of marmalade making I find I’ll be missing a Poirot episode I’ve never seen; two days is certainly not enough time to have time to do nothing.

When I haven’t been elbow deep in soap suds I made it across town to visit a couple of second hand bookshops and to pick up the gadget to experiment with mobile broadband – internet in my own home – what will it do to my reading time. Already I’ve spent more time reading about other people’s reading than in picking up a book of my own. Simon S has been writing about January melancholia; I know the last week of January is traditionally the most depressing of the year but I’ve never found it so.

Growing up in Shetland we had Up-Helly-Aa on the last Tuesday of January (worth spending a few minutes on you tube if this is something your unfamiliar with) roughly it’s a fire festival involving a lot of dressing up, drinking, and dancing which marks the lengthening of the days after mid winter. Not an easy thing to replicate in the midlands but I do now (thanks to the Scottish one) celebrate Burns night, something else that brightens up the gloom of winter and is much anticipated by the blond and I – we like the Scottish ones knees and his poetry reading. It’s fair to say we look forward to it for weeks in advance, and it makes me wonder why we don’t have an English version.

There must be an English poet who could reasonably be celebrated and I feel strongly that a night of poetry reading with friends is a very good thing which ought to be encouraged. On these same lines I’m very disappointed to learn, to late to change my work rota, about the Poetry Brothel (I found the flyer when I was distracted by a shoe’s on my way to the bookshop) . Leicester (my home town) has a comedy festival. Amazingly (to Leicester natives who generally fail to make the best of the city) it’s the biggest and longest established festival in the country outside of the Edinburgh fringe and in its twenty odd years has gained international standing. It starts on Friday and the Poetry Brothel is one of the kick off events. I’m not sure how it’ll go down here – hopefully well – apparently it appears to be a drink fuelled burlesque show but when one peruses the menu “it’s true purpose becomes startlingly apparent: for a small fee, they can slake their literary lust with personal one-on-one readings from the poetry whores’.

It sounds silly and fun, fancy dress is encouraged – but I don’t think a W******e uniform is what they have in mind – nor does a late shift followed by an early one encourage late nights of promiscuous poetry reading, so I will have to be content with a not at all humorous visit to the theatre tomorrow night to see ‘The Woman in Black’ – which it occurs to me I also meant to read today and have now left to late. Ah well back to the marmalade and the kitchen sink – I will beat the washing up.

Wilde - The Complete Short Stories

The first play I remember being taken to see was Wilde’s ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’, one of the first classics I remember buying (rather than pinching from my mother) was ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’. I went through my teenage years happy to declare nothing but my genius and then mostly grew out of it (although I still have a love of silk pyjamas fostered by Oscar Wilde and Peter Whimsy in equal parts, and green carnations which are pure Wilde). I even had a birthday drinking champagne in the Cadogan Hotel (where Wilde was arrested) – a day of Sloane Square fantasy away from the reality of work. I was there as a chaperone for my mother who was being entertained by a wealthy American who had designs on her virtue. She foiled him with me – as his manners on that occasion were impeccable he gracefully gave in, plied us with champagne and dinner and watched us leave – a clearly frustrated man. I would feel sorry for him if it hadn’t been such a good birthday and I like to think Oscar would have found the situation amusing.

I had a missed parcel note in the post a few days ago which was intriguing because a surprise, when I went down to collect it the parcel turned out to be a copy of the complete short stories kindly and unexpectedly sent by Oxford University Press. I read these as a child, and periodically since, but haven’t seen them for a few years. Reading them again over lunch hours made me realise how deeply embedded some of these stories are in my imagination. ‘The Happy Prince’, ‘The Nightingale and the Rose’, ‘The Selfish Giant’ ‘The Birthday of the Infanta’ and ‘The Star Child’ especially are all better remembered than I expected and yet have lost none of their impact. Nearly all of them will make me feel unreasonably emotional (and when not in the staff canteen are more than able to bring a tear to the eye).

They are wonderful children’s stories, full of beauty, cruelty and injustice – good things for the young to understand if they are to grow up well. They are also simply wonderful stories. Adult reading convinces me that Wilde is at his best just here; the plays are wonderfully elegant and fragile confections, very amusing but not really stirring. I’ve enjoyed the stories so much that I’ve got out both the copies I now own with the express intention of running a bath, filling it with something decadent in the way of unguents and reading through both introductions. If I ever was to make a list of books not to be without Wilde’s short stories would most certainly be on it.