The Dark Horse - Rumer Godden

I managed to mark the start of spring with a nasty cold, it was bad enough to keep me sofa bound for a couple of days which if I'm entirely honest I quite enjoyed despite the runny nose and throat that felt like it had been sandpapered - this had a lot to do with the unexpected arrival of a parcel from Virago books. In it were a brace of Rumer Godden's - 'An Episode of Sparrows' and 'The Dark Horse' which looked like just the thing to cheer up someone feeling distinctly under the weather.

Both are part of Virago's series for children/young adults which they launched a year ago. I haven't read the earlier Godden's from this series which looked like they were intended for really quite young children but the first thing to say about these two is how gorgeous the covers are. They are exquisite, the sort of books that you have to pick up. I started with 'The Dark Horse' (nuns and racehorses turned out to be an irresistible combination) which brings me to the second thing I have to say - I have no clear idea of what makes a children's book. In this case I'm taking Virago's word for it but there's no child protagonist or anything else to make it obvious to me. My own reading career went from mostly Enid Blyton to the likes of Georgette Heyer, Agatha Christie, and Terry Pratchett none of which are unsuitable for 13 year olds but are all just as likely aimed at 30 year olds. In short I missed out on that middle faze which is probably why the idea of 'young adult' fiction baffles me a bit.

'The Dark Horse' is apparently based on a true story, Dark Invader is a classic looking racehorse picked up in Ireland by a spoilt young owner and taken over to England, he performs well in his first race but disappoints after that and is consequently sold to an Indian owner and shipped out to Calcutta where he becomes a favourite with the crowd and turns around his fortunes, then just before the biggest race of the season he disappears. He's found in the nick of time taking sanctuary with some nuns but the question remains - will he be ready to race?

Godden (who I missed out on as a teenager, but have been delighted to discover as an adult) uses her horse tale to explore a number of other issues. Written in 1981 but set in the 1930's 'The Dark Horse' mostly deals with issues of redemption and prejudice. Dark Invader's new owner is a Mr Leventine, he may be Jewish, he's definitely an outsider despite his impressive wealth, it seems it's not easy to buy your way into Calcutta society. His trainer is John Quillan a young man of excellent family who gave up a promising career in the army when he married a Eurasian woman. This marriage has  estranged him from his family, also bars him from Calcutta society, lays quite a stigma on the couples many children, and has generally made John extremely sensitive. Mr Leventine also imports Dark Invader's 'lad' an over the hill jockey by the name of Ted Mullins who has lost his licence to race, lost his wife to influenza, and has a drink problem to boot. Finally there are the nuns, sisters of poverty who do their best to help Calcutta's many poor headed up by the enigmatic sister Morag who is determined to do what she can to help the needy. Add to all that wonderfully evocative descriptions of Calcutta and its racing scene and then wonder at how it's all packed into a couple of hundred pages.

In the end all the characters who need redemption find it - Leventine who has always been generous in his way learns the satisfaction of charity, Mullins finds a purpose he lost when his wife died, and Quillan - who's marriage is happy despite what it cost him - finds people who will accepts his family despite their mixed race heritage. The nuns also get what they need (after observing that god helps those who help themselves).

I think this is a great book for younger and older readers alike. It doesn't have that element of quite dark, often violent, sexuality that can make some of Godden's other books so disturbing, and that along with the happy endings and moral certainties are perhaps what marks it out as a children's book but it truly does cross over. 

Emily Climbs - L .M. Montgomery

Here in Leicestershire we've not by any means had the worst of the weather but it's still been grey, wet, and today really quite windy, along with cold - so basically unappealing verging on downright depressing. It's the kind of weather that demands a certain amount of comfort reading. Books that demand you retire to bed with a hot water bottle and a cup of tea and if they're a little bit nostalgic so much the better.

I was a little bit annoyed that I couldn't pick up the second two Emily books locally, my very small local Waterstones did have 'Emily of New Moon' in it's 9 -14 years old section but neither of the sequels. Having read 'Emily Climbs' I'm a little bit more sympathetic about it, it's a hard book to classify. It follows Emily from age 14 to 17, and I can't decide at all whether it's meant for children, adults, or even that mysterious (to me) classification of young adult. Depending on the reader anyone could enjoy it, there's certainly nothing unsuitable for younger readers and plenty to entertain adult reader, but I suspect for those in-between it might seem quite tame and old fashioned.

Emily's strict late Victorian childhood as outlined in 'Emily of New Moon' didn't seem as old fashioned or circumscribed as her Edwardian teenage years in a provincial Canadian town - which makes me profoundly grateful to have grown up in a more liberal age. 'Emily Climbs' follows our heroine through her high school years and her development from girl into young woman as well as her burgeoning writing career. In terms of plot she gets a bit older and the scene is set for what I'm guessing are going to be her love affairs in the final part of the trilogy but mostly the book is a series of vignettes, so much so that this could almost be a collection of short stories (I consider that to be a good thing).

In the first book there's an odd incident towards the end that hints at  Emily being psychic, this slightly supernatural element is picked up again with a couple of unexplainable by normal means episodes the first of which put me strongly in mind of Jane Eyre. It's at the beginning of the book and is one of the highlights. Emily has gone to a prayer meeting and managed to get herself locked in the church after she returns to search for an incriminating bit of paper just as a storm is about to break. It's bad enough being trapped alone in the church at night in a huge storm but then she feels something furry under her hand and lightening revels a huge black dog with glowing eyes - even the strongest spirit would quail. As the very worst of the storm abates though Emily realises there is someone else in the church - a mad old man desperately seeking his dead bride of years ago, it's the beginning of a truly nightmarish chase round the blacked out church, Emily is terrified of being caught by his blood red (birth marked) hand with which he's known to grip onto young girls whilst he strokes their hair imagining they're his lost love. In her panic she calls out to her friend Teddy who comes to rescue her just in time (from over a mile away, voice in a dream - pure Jane Eyre). Afterwards in the graveyard just when they're about to share a first kiss his mother turns up and has her own moment of melodrama over Emily stealing her son away from her. This quickly escalates as Emily gives her what foe in return and poor Teddy clearly just wants the ground to swallow him up.

There is also an interesting little section towards the end when Emily goes to her old teacher for advice - should she go off to America to pursue her dreams or should she stay in Canada, Montgomery has the teacher tell her she would be a fool not to go but also declare that he dreamed of her staying and contributing to a specifically Canadian literature. I don't know much about Canadian literature, a love of Robertson Davies and Rohan O'Grady's 'Let's Kill Uncle' doesn't amount to much and nor do a couple of Margaret Atwood's and a single volume of Alice Munro but the result of reading Montgomery is that I want to know more about her and how she fitted into the literary scene of her day, and by extension much more about Canadian lit generally.

Emily of New Moon - L M Montgomery

I loved the 'Anne of Green Gables' books as a child reading my way through the series a few times but until fairly recently was unaware that Montgomery had written anything else. I found a copy of 'The Blue Castle' last year though which was thoroughly enjoyable and now that her works are out of copyright it looks like there are going to be plenty more to discover. Virago released the 'Emily' trilogy late last year and have 'Jane of Lantern Hill' coming out in a few months and these being paper books from a beloved publisher are the ones I'm most interested in but it also looks like everything is available as ebooks.

I wasn't entirely sure how much I'd enjoy 'Emily of New Moon' - beloved children's authors don't always stand up to adult reading. 'The Blue Castle' was fun but specifically billed as an adult book whereas 'Emily' sounded more like something meant for children, I added it to my Christmas wish list anyway and was more than happy when mum obliged with a copy. Initially it seemed my worst fears would be realised - Emily is an annoyingly winsome child living with her adoring father in a dream of poor-but-happy domestic bliss, fortunately for the reader though he's in the final stages of consumption and soon dies leaving Emily orphaned, penniless, and in the hands of her mother's estranged family. They make her draw lots to see who will take her on which is how she ends up at New Moon farm with aunts Elizabeth and Laura and Cousin Jimmy.

When the book opens Emily is around 11 years old and the first half is mostly taken up with how she settles into her new life, makes friends, and survives all the pitfalls of childhood. Emily isn't a precisely beautiful child but she has a great deal of charm and personality as well as a burning desire to write and the imagination to go along with that. Her school teacher and aunt Elizabeth might find her exasperating but most the other people who come into contact with her are instantly and deeply charmed. I managed to be charmed too - Montgomery is good at showing the injustices that can make up a child's life - the callous way her fate is decided, run ins with her horrible teacher, the minefield that adolescent friendships are made up of - are all done brilliantly.

The second half of the book deals with more complex and increasingly adult issues. One thing I didn't much enjoy from the first half is the way that Montgomery has Emily narrate through a series of letters to her dead father complete with spelling mistakes, these slowly disappear which is a relief. In there place are a number of relationships; there is Ilse, a tempestuous and neglected child with whom Emily has a stormy friendship with just an occasionally competitive edge to it, Perry the houseboy with ability and ambitions who falls in love with Emily almost at first sight, and Teddy Kent who seems to be the boy that Emily prefers. Teddy's mother is the curious thing here, she's obsessive in her love for her son going as far as poisoning his cats when she feels he's become to fond of them. There is also Dean Priest, a sort of cousin in his 30's who rescues Emily after she's fallen down a cliff and is so enchanted with her that he decides to wait for her to grow up.

For a modern reader Dean is quite unsettling in a way I don't think Montgomery intended. He too, it seems, falls in love with something in Emily at first sight but she's only 12 at this point and it turns out that he was a friend of her fathers. They develop a friendship of their own which is all quite proper except for the lurking suspicion that Dean is waiting for something more and this is how the book ends. Emily is 13, she's leaving childhood behind, there's a consensus that she has some talent as a writer with the possibility of a career ahead of her, and there are all the makings of a few love triangles and tragedies ahead. I have ordered the rest of the trilogy so guess I'll find out what happens next soon enough.

Tea By The Nursery Fire - Noel Streatfeild

'Tea by the Nursery Fire' feels like an appropriate book to write about tonight - I have spent all day trying to bring some sort of domestic order to my flat, honestly I have far to much stuff to easily squeeze into a relatively small space, that I keep bringing more things home doesn't help. I've washed, hoovered, swept, and scrubbed, hung thing up, folded them away, sorted bits for charity shops, applied wax to various wooden things, produced bread, biscuits, mince pies, and even made some marmalade. I am exhausted and filled with empathy for the average Victorian servant. I think another couple of days of the same sort of activity will have things how I want them...

'Tea by the Nursery Fire' is Noel Streatfeild's reconstruction of the life of Emily Huckwell. Emily born in the 1870's left home when she was around 12 years old to go into service as a nursery maid. She progressed to under nurse and then after a scandal involving the head nurse, a gamekeeper, and quite a lot of drinking she became head nannie whilst still in her teens. The family she worked for had six children and Emily bought them all up before going on to help with their children in turn - basically her whole life was spent in service. One of those children was Streatfeild's father, this account of Emily comes from family memory.

Streatfeild knows what she's doing, her narrative is compelling (it ended in tears for me). She takes a life that is in many ways unremarkable and shows us just how extraordinary ordinary can be. Emily can just about read and write when she's sent out to earn her living, home was 10 people stuffed into a tiny cottage so money, space, and food are all to scarce to keep her at home. There is an element of luck in her early career that sends her from her first big house job as a nursery maid, to a poorer relation as under nurse. The mistress of the house turns out to be a less than maternal woman (she reads as something of a bitch) who is more than happy to put upon her staff.

Emily goes on to learn her business well, and more than that love the children as if they were her own - which in some sense they are. She clearly created a safe and happy world for her charges providing them with a childhood they could look back on with affection, they just as clearly adored her for it. Streatfield suggests that the arrangement where by the gentry saw their children for an hour a day (if they were at home) until at the age of 8 or so when they shipped them off to school sounds as strange to Emily as it does to us, but Emily is not the woman to question her place or her betters.

To an extent Streatfeild seems to question the idea class. Sylvia (Emily's mistress) comes in for a pretty hard time of it, her behaviour shown as selfish and her attitude ungrateful. Emily may be surprised at the way things change (an odd little side note is that Emily's younger sister who eventually follows her into service, albeit unwillingly, has an affair with gentry. She is summarily dismissed, has an illegitimate baby, and post war goes on to marry the man responsible) but Streatfeild isn't and she doesn't give the impression that she regrets the good old days. However what she also does is show quite clearly how desirable a life in service was to a girl in Emily's position.

Life in the cottage involves hard work, overcrowding, hunger, and a general doing without. Life in the big house by comparison provides plenty of food, adequate clothing, and relative comfort in return for hard work. As a head nurse Emily earns £50 a year - the equivalent of just over £5000 in today's money. Not a lot, but then she has no living expenses to speak of so that's basically all disposable income as well as a job for life so perhaps not so bad for the women this life suited - like Emily - though undeniably awful for those it didn't.

I've met a few Emily's in my life, people who on the surface live small lives of no particular importance and yet who leave behind a tremendous legacy of love and affection. This book is a charming memorial to one such woman as well as a fascinating record of a particular way of life.

Some Girls, Some Hats And Hitler - Trudi Kanter

I've started putting some of my books on Library Thing - specifically Virago books, and mostly in the hope that it'll stop me buying duplicates and missing bargains which I fear might be duplicates. The good thing about doing this is that I keep finding great looking books I've yet to read. The bad thing is that I've somehow lost 'Some Girls, Some Hats and Hitler', it can't have gone far - I had it yesterday, but although my flat isn't large it has many piles of books in which one slim volume can hide. It could be a while before it turns up again so although I don't like to write about a book when it isn't to hand I'm going to just this once (before I forget to much about it).

I love me a book with a pretty cover - which is what I first noticed about this one. It's so pretty that I overcame my prejudices about potentially tear jerking memoires involving Nazi's (which is not to make light of the terrible things that happened to people).  'Some Girls, Some Hats and Hitler' is however something a bit different, Trudi was a succesful business woman and designer running her own thriving millinery studio. Her first marriage broke down, but seemingly amicably, and she fell in love with the equally successful Walter (handsome and cultured with plenty of money and a gift for invention). There relationship is passionate and possessive, both have a jealous streak and Trudi does not trust other women with her Walter. There days together in the Vienna of the thirties are a round of cloths and food and fun. Coffee and pastries at Demel's, shopping, dinners with friends, and beautiful flats full of luxurious trappings - Walter and Trudi are popular and happy, they're Jewish but not very devout (Trudi talks a lot about various pork dishes she eats, perhaps to make this very point?) and there in lies the problem.

On a buying trip to Paris in early March 1938 Trudi realises the extent of the danger she and Walter are in, everyone begs her to stay in France but when she calls Walter to try and persuade him to join her he won't budge. It leaves her with little choice but to return to try and persuade him in person. She gets back to Vienna just ahead of the Germans, the Anschluss closes the borders and the couple are trapped. Things change overnight, Trudi genuinely seems to have no enemies, her employees, the building doorman, her neighbours all protect her. Walter isn't so lucky, someone has a grudge and wants him out of the way. His flat is appropriated, his car stolen by garage mechanics, his life quickly dismantled. Trudi turns all her considerable energies to finding a way out of Austria for the pair of them. It's a tense process full of unbearable delays but finally she has them on a train to Czechoslovakia. 

This is where I really warmed to the couple, Trudi as she describes some of the awful things that happened around her is clear sighted enough to understand how mob rule works, she also remembers all the small acts of kindness that get her out. Her carefully balanced account makes an anecdote about a customer all the more powerful, the girl is a Viennese courtesan (high class enough to afford Trudi's hats) famed for her lovely breasts, she survives the camps only because she's turned into a whore. (I can't quote because I've lost the book, but it's a stark insight into the reality of a situation).

In Czechoslovakia the couple try and warn Walter's family to flee, they in turn are warmly pressed to stay; the family feel safe, treat the couple with open handed generosity, none of them survive. From there they finally get to London where for the first time they meet with hostility where friendship might have been hoped for. Walter's uncle will give only the most limited help and no hospitality, but it doesn't stop Trudi - she's now determined to get her parents to England as well, something she manages despite the odds, but happily even in England she has influential ex clients and the couple haven't lost their ability to make friends. 

In a cruel twist Walter and his father in law end up interred as enemy aliens (a really shameful part of our war effort) so Trudi sets about getting them out. For all the difficulties the family meets they are the lucky ones. They come out alive, together, and even manage to salvage some of their belongings. Trudi is an amazing woman, nothing is to much for her if it will help Walter and her parents, she simply never gives up. It's not a perfect book, there are sometimes small anomalies that make you suspect she's skirting around things that she might not care to dwell on - but that's the autobiographers prerogative. It's a story that's worth telling though, and certainly worth reading.    

An Academic Question - Barbara Pym

The latest Barbara Pym to be reissued by Virago is a bit of a departure from the Pym I'm used to. It hails from her time in the wilderness when she couldn't get her novels published and whilst the first draft was finished in 1971 'An Academic Question' first appeared  in 1986 (6 years after Pym died), sometime in-between she had rewritten it in an attempt to make it more contemporary 'to swing' even (horrible thought) but the existing version is an amalgamation of the two versions along with notes that Pym's literary executor put together. 

There is a slightly apologetic introduction that explains this isn't Pym's masterpiece, and fair enough it maybe isn't, but it's a lot better than I expected after reading the intro. I except that Pym doesn't write naturally about motherhood or marriage but she does a terrific job of capturing the awkwardness of essentially conservative people trying to be liberal with their manners and morals. 

Told from the viewpoint of Caro Grimstone the graduate wife of rising young academic Alan, all the action takes place against the background of a provincial university. Caro, much to her mother's disappointment didn't manage to make it to Oxford or Cambridge, and didn't manage to marry the Byronic David, now a successful politician. Alan she considers to be somewhat below her daughter. Caro herself has reached something of a dead end. Having married Alan straight out of university she's never had any sort of career, he doesn't want her assistance with his work, and their daughter is looked after by a capable au pair. She has rather a new house, very self consciously modern with furniture that's already looking shabby, they take The Guardian, and Caro even has a gay best friend.

It's a situation that's almost as foul as it sounds, the gloss is off the marriage and life for Caro is rather empty. For something to do she starts to read to the elderly; the old man she reads to was once a missionary and anthropologist, just the field her husband is in. It's an opportunity that he exploits to steal some papers that will give him the chance to make his reputation whilst getting one over on a senior and highly respected colleague.

Caro's life of leisure, complete with good works, is quite Victorian and raises the question of what do you do with your life when you don't have much personal ambition? Having help in the house is clearly a sign of success , as is not having to work - but again what does it leave? Caro's friend Kitty who represents an older generation, and who used to live a life of colonial luxury on a Caribbean island until a minor coup made it all rather uncomfortable, had no such problems. She sees it as woman's role to be decorative, her occupation, which she finds absorbing is to 'preserve' herself and dress, and yet her life is undoubtedly more satisfying than Caro's.

Kitty's sister Dolly also lives in the town running a junk shop and keeping hedgehogs - she doesn't worry about being successful and is also happy, and again it raises questions. It might not be Pym at her best but it's still really good.

A Force To Be Reckoned With - Jane Robinson

It's taken me a shamefully long time to finish this book, I got it before Christmas, started reading it thinking all the time what terrific and rousing stuff it was, put it down for a moment and promptly got distracted. This is partly the curse of the hardback - just not a format I get on with, but I've taken to carrying a bigger bag so bigger books are less of an issue (please nobody say e-reader).

A history of the WI feels timely - I suspect most people who aren't involved in it have fairly fixed preconceptions about the Women's Institute, jam and Jerusalem aside my image involves ladies of a certain age taking their clothes off, that incident with Tony Blair, and an insatiable appetite for tea and gin (a tasting for the WI is a standard training scenario in wine sales, I've yet to be asked to do one but am always hopeful). Robinson's argument is that the WI has changed the world - and not with jam. She puts it persuasively and I'm convinced by what she says. I remember being delighted about the Blair incident - there was something splendid in the WI's refusing to have their AGM high-jacked - even by the Prime Minister. That however is only the tip of the iceberg, these women have been campaigners since the very beginning, politically neutral, but exceptionally well connected and very active on all sorts of social issues.

Without the WI it would have been nigh on impossible to evacuate children during the war (and whatever your feelings about that might be it was still a hell of a thing to pull off) they were there at the forefront of the welfare state, and have consistently been ahead of the curve on most of the big issues we've embraced over the last century. Robinson tells an excellent story, she has some good material to work with but even so hats off for doing an excellent job with it, however if I have a quibble it's this; everything is so positive. I once worked in an all female environment. Briefly. It was a mixed experience and taught me that women often don't play nicely together, there are a very few allusions to the sort of problems you might find in an institute towards the end of the book but nothing about some of the problems that might have existed at the top, at the same time the chapter that deals with Denman collage (who knew the WI had there own adult education facility) makes it clear that there have been issues, it sometimes feels like part of the picture is missing.

That's a small quibble though, I'm more than comfortable with the book being a celebration of the WI and it's ladies, it sounds like they deserve it. When the WI first came to the UK it was before women had the vote, when class was still the biggest divider of all, and when rural life could be almost inconceivably isolating, especially for women who would have had less reason to leave there farms and homes than there husbands. An institute that broke down class barriers and widened social circles with the specific aim of educating and entertaining could only have been a good thing.

Pre vote the WI would have been one of the very few places were the women who attended could look beyond the confines of family life to something altogether more public. This is the place they could learn to speak out, share ideas, campaign for better living conditions from, improve on scant education, and join in with the process of committee life. I have an impression of thousands of women starting with an attitude of 'I couldn't possibly' changing to one of 'well if I can do that, I can do this too'. I'm not sure if it's as radical as Robinson would have us believe, but it's impressive that the WI has stuck to it's own agenda - and I do agree that they are the ultimate focus group with plenty to offer in the way of community, friendship, and shared skills - no wonder they're still going strong.

The Company She Keeps - Mary McCarthy

It feels like an age since I've finished a book (I read of others managing to get through 160 + a year with a slight feeling of envy - 60 is doing well for me) but now that work has calmed down, my stress levels have fallen, and I no longer want to crawl into bed the moment I get home it's time to tackle my to be read pile.

I started 'The Company She Keeps' weeks back and was, until yesterday, in two minds about it. I didn't love 'The Group' when Virago reissued it a couple of years ago but liked it enough to pick up 'A Charmed Life' when I saw it second hand which I found a much more satisfying read. 'The Company She Keeps' was McCarthy's first book and feels semi autobiographical, each chapter is a self contained story and all of them have Meg Sargent somewhere in them. Initially she's an unattractive character; shallow, self absorbed, promiscuous, and a snob, but slowly and without McCarthy noticeably making Meg more sympathetic I found myself warming to her. 

I think it's because there are no real excuses for her behaviour that it starts to become acceptable - in the final chapter Meg's seeing a decidedly second rate psycho analyst who assures her that it's all due to a repressive upbringing - she seems unconvinced: it's to easy. I can't quite imagine how this book would have read when it was first published in 1942 but it's fair to say that Meg is a woman we've all met - the difference being that it's no longer normal to marry at 20 and not unusual to have the sort of complicated sex life that Meg engages in  which takes away some of the shock value.

The pay off for me came in the final chapter when Meg/McCarthy takes a good look at what bothers her - a failure to be happily middle class, or a decent socialist, along with the realisation that the accessories of her New York liberal lifestyle all covered in there "own patina of social anxiety" fill her with disgust. McCarthy has also answered a long held question for me, for years I've wondered why so many of the husbands in the  books I read are architects - Meg's second husband is an architect "the perfect compromise candidate, something halfway between a businessman and an artist". In her case it's an admission of failure to be one thing or the other.

My over all impression of McCarthy is that she could be a bitch, when she turns that on other people as she does in 'The Group' I find it mildly repellent, when she takes that same view of herself it's really effective and totally compelling. 

Five reasons to be cheerful on a gloomy November day

I’ve been feeling slightly sorry for myself recently, work has been hard with no promise of let up until after Christmas (actually it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better), my patience with humanity as it exhibits itself in customer form has hit some all time lows and my back hurts (which is a distraction from my arm and ankle hurting at least). The economy is not encouraging either, neither common sense nor austerity particularly appeal to me and I feel like I’ve been exercising both for quite long enough now, if I had a budget I’d blow it on something extravagant but despite it only being mid month I’m already reduced to scrapping around for coppers and counting down until pay day.

However the sun finally shone this afternoon and I had an exciting parcel from Prospect books which added to a few other recent packages encouraged me to pull myself together and realise it’s not all that grim. It might be a while before I manage to read my way through all these beauties and meanwhile I can’t wait to share...

Pride of place goes to ‘Tripe: A Most Excellent Dish’ by Marjorie Houlihan. It only arrived this afternoon and I’ve done nothing more than glance at it but the title alone was enough to make me smile. It’s a history of tripe in Lancashire along with a collection of tripe recipes from around the world. Leicester has a tripe stall on its indoor market selling white and brown versions, both look revolting and I’ll take some convincing to actually try the stuff. Regardless Prospect’s English Kitchen series is always fascinating and I look forward to reading about it if not to eating it.

The book I’m currently enjoying is Matthew Sweet’s ‘West End Front’ about life in London’s great hotels during the war. I picked this up to have a look at it and couldn’t put it down, it’s much better than I expected (I mean I thought it would be good but had no idea it would be this good) there are plenty of books which I should have read before I got to this one and plenty of other things I should be doing when I’m reading it but it’s irresistible.

‘The Gentle Art Of Cookery’ also landed on my doorstep recently and is one that I meant to have a better look at before I got distracted by ‘West End Front’. This is a lovely looking thing complete with coloured page edges (we can’t think what the proper word for that is). I’ve dipped in and out of it enough to know that it’s as good as it looks – more on that soon.

‘Women’s Suffrage in Shetland’ by Marsali Taylor came courtesy of my father late last week. Mrs Taylor was my English teacher (and a very good one too) and again all I’ve done is open this and have a quick look, first impressions are excellent so I’m looking forward to spending more time with it – two obsessions in one handy volume – what a treat.

Last but not least is Jane Robinson’s ‘A Force to be Reckoned With’ a history of the WI. I’ve been tempted by a few of Robinson’s titles in the past but this is the first one I’ve got my hands on. It sound very promising and again I’m really looking forward to getting stuck into it. If only there were more hours in the day.

Votes for Women

It’s only a matter of weeks before the latest Persephone books hit the shelves, particularly exciting this time because of Constance Maud’s ‘No Surrender’. It may be that I’m missing something obvious but it seems to me that the battle for women’s suffrage is rather glossed over in popular history. What I remember from school is the Pankhurst’s, from university a few details about the contagious diseases act more Pankhurst’s and somewhere along the line a mention of Millicent Garrett Fawcett. I definitely came away with the impression that it was a middle class movement, that Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst got women the vote almost single handed, and that Emily Davison should have known better.  

I can’t remember how I came by ‘Votes for Women, The Virago Book of Suffragettes’ but it was an eye opener which made me hunt out more books which wasn’t as easy as I imagined it might be – everything had to come from amazon; I had neither internet or computer at the time so it was more of an effort than it sounds. As history goes this is really quite exciting stuff filled with character, action, injustice, faith, betrayal, feuds, and scandal - also it makes a nice change from The War (actually come to think of it either War) so why isn’t it more popular? The edited highlights that I was taught hardly do justice to the history.

There is a story, probably apocryphal, about Emily Davies, Elizabeth Garrett, and Millicent Garret (Fawcett). Emily and Elizabeth were friends and the tale goes that one night when Emily was staying with the Garrett’s the two older girls and a much younger Millie were sat by the fire talking about the women’s cause. Eventually Emily sums the matter up like this; she would secure higher education for women - she went on to co-found Girton College, Elizabeth would open up the medical profession – she became a doctor after a long struggle - the second woman to have her name on the U.K. Medical Register, the first to have qualified to do so in Britain. After that they decided that Millie would have to get votes for women which arguably she did far more towards than the Pankhurst’s and all their stunts.

I haven’t been able to find a biography of Millicent Garrett Fawcett and do not understand why her name isn’t better known. It bothers me to that the role that working woman played in demanding a vote isn’t celebrated more. I was taught plenty about how perfectly foul conditions were for working women in mills and factories across the country – long hours, low pay, harsh conditions. I don’t remember being taught that a strengthening trade union movement refused to admit female co-workers, or actively sought to keep women out of better paid employment, or that the emergent Labour party turned its back on working women.

So there you have it, some of the reasons why I’m really quite excited by the prospect of having another piece of Suffragette literature to add to a collection which fiction wise pretty much consists of H.G. Wells’ ‘Ann Veronica’, a mention in E.F. Benson’s ‘Mrs Ames’, and Cicely Hamilton’s ‘William - an Englishman’ (which is also a Persephone book). Any suggestion for more would be gratefully received. 

Jane Eyre – What’s it all about then?

A couple of weekends ago I went to see the latest film version of ‘Jane Eyre’ with the blonde, I quite enjoyed it, she fell asleep. Twice. Which was a shame because she could have translated the French bits that I couldn’t quite decipher because the captions on the screen (and this was a specifically captioned for the hard of hearing showing – our presence there was coincidental) where actually below the screen with only the tops of the letters visible. Nobody complained which is shame on us really because I’m sure we could have found a cheaper venue in which to nap and be confused in.

I’ve read Jane Eyre a couple of times, first as an abridged version when I was really quite young, and the full version maybe ten years ago. In-between there have been countless film versions and TV adaptations which have made another re read unattractive. I struggle a bit to be truly enthusiastic about any of the Brontë’s ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall’ annoyed me when I read it (I was 17, it may be that I’d have more empathy for the heroine now), ‘Wuthering Heights’ was a good read whilst reading but Heathcliff is hardly the ideal romantic hero for a modern woman. ‘Jane Eyre’ was also a good read whilst I read it but it’s easy to feel you know the plot to well what with all the aforementioned adaptations and critical gubbins about the book, and there ends my Brontë reading.

Part of my Brontë problem, and this is especially the case with ’Jane Eyre’ are the critical evaluations I’ve read about it. On the whole I try and avoid works of literary criticism as experience has taught that they reduce me to indignant dribbling incoherence – which would be okay in itself, but I also feel the need to share my anger with all sorts of people regardless of whether they share my passion for the topic or not. So it was when I read Elaine Showalter’s assessment of Jane full of feminist and Freudian interpretations. I’m not convinced that it’s fair to assess a pre Freud writer by post Freudian standards. All well and good to make what you will of Charlotte through her writing but another thing altogether to assume that she meant her words to be interpreted in such a way.

Post film and during a half hearted tidy I picked up John Sutherland’s ‘Can Jane Eyre Be Happy’ and read the title essay again. I was indignant first time (of course she could be happy) and still indignant now but this time because I can’t see Rochester as a Bluebeard character, if there has to be a comparison with a fairy tale I see Jane Eyre as the story of Beauty and the Beast. It seems to me that if Rochester had wanted to dispose of Bertha there would have been a couple of easy ways out – incarceration in a foreign asylum under a false name (which is Lady Audley’s fate) or a discreet ‘accident’ which should be simple enough to arrange given her predilection for roof tops and fire setting. Because of this I believe that his motives are kind enough. The same with Adele – apart from having to have a child in the house to need a governess without whom the plot would be nowhere, it also suggests that on some level he wants the family life that his wife’s malady prevents.

I also think too much is made of Bertha’s madness in a feminist kind of way. Nothing else would quite fit but mental illness still carries quite a stigma, nothing to what it would have done when Charlotte wrote her book – it’s the only thing I can think of that makes Rochester’s proposed bigamy at all sympathetic. I can forgive the madwoman in the attic (we all come with baggage) I find the dressing up as a gypsy woman and the whole Blanche Ingram episode rather harder to understand (the gypsy bit was wisely dropped from the film in favour of some strenuous gardening which certainly made Rochester look more attractive.) I can’t help but feel that it’s this rather than Bertha that Rochester has to be punished for.

Happily the introduction to my ‘Jane Eyre’ - written by Michael Mason seems remarkably sensible, if a little opaque at times, it’s a definite relief to read something I can agree with even if it doesn’t make me think as deeply as the ones I believe are wrong do.  

A Charmed Life – Mary McCarthy

There was a real buzz around Mary McCarthy’s ‘The Group’ when Virago reissued it a couple of years ago, and I’ve seen a lot of bloggers enthuse about it in the meantime but when I read it I was underwhelmed. It can’t have been all bad though because I’ve picked up a few other McCarthy’s since and now I’ve got round to reading one of them.

‘A Charmed Life’ is the sort of book that I hoped ‘The Group’ would be; both shocking and thought provoking it made for uncomfortable reading at times. McCarthy seems to be good at lifting up the rock on human emotions and having a good look at all the stuff wriggling around underneath. Written and set in the mid 1950’s (I always seem to feel much better about books which are contemporary with their setting) the action takes place in the New England coastal town of New Leeds which is by way of being an artists’ colony. The summer season is over leaving a hard core of bohemian intellectuals and slightly contemptuous natives.

As the back of my copy states “New Leeds...boasted three village idiots, twenty one town drunkards, and two ex-wives for the average resident. It’s eighteenth-century houses and it’s artistic citizens were run down, warped, and mildewed...” which is most of the problem foe Martha and John Sinnott. Martha was a New Leeds citizen with her first husband until seven years ago when she ran away one night in her nightgown to be with John. Somehow they’ve let themselves be drawn back to the town despite Martha’s conviction that it will lead to disaster.

Her ex-husband Miles still lives nearby with a new wife and child, a man who repels Martha but whom she’s powerless to resist – as the book progresses it transpires that he’s not just unpleasant he’s systematically abusive but this being 1950’s America nobody seems to particularly object to his behaviour (or even notice it) any faults his friends can’t ignore are excused because he’s seen as a gifted intellectual. Nobody believes in Miles as strongly as Miles does with the possible exception of his current wife who really has no choice but to accept him at his own valuation.

The pivots of the New Leeds social scene are the Coe’s – Jane and Warren. He paints, she avoids housework. Jane comes from a moneyed background which along with her husband’s uncritical adoration allows her to live as she chooses. She’s a proper McCarthy monster and I don’t have to imagine her because I’ve met a few like her. Warren in an unlikely way turns out to be the hero of the piece; a miraculously genuine though not faultless man.

It’s through the Coe’s that Martha and Miles meet again which slowly but surely brings about the New Leeds disaster that Martha has been fighting against. Abusive relationships fascinate me in fiction, not the abuse but the relationship. What upsets Martha about meeting Miles and new wife Helena is the evidence that she’s failed. Loving her current husband is no consolation because he’s easy to love. Helena’s relationship with Miles who’s a horrible man is to Martha evidence that Helena is a better more womanly woman. It’s this sort of observation which made this book stand out for me. I’m quietly hopeful that Virago might reprint it, I know another McCarthy – ‘The Company She Keeps’ - is coming out in November, ‘A Charmed Life’ definitely deserves the publicity and the chance of a new audience.

Hunt the Slipper – Violet Trefusis

I’m still not really sure about Violet Trefusis as a writer; nothing I’ve read so far (in all the two and a half books I’ve got through) has proved as interesting as her personal life. She’s probably a better writer than Vita Sackville-West (the personal life again, but this is how I heard of Violet and why I eventually picked up one of her books, that and it was a virago classic) but given my track record trying to plough through Vita’s books that’s faint praise.

Doubts aside ‘Hunt the Slipper’ is the best Trefusis I’ve read so far (more faint praise but I will definitely have another go at ‘Pirates at Play’ after this). If you don’t care for spoilers it might be as well to stop looking now, this is a book to read to find out why and how things happen, the plot is a fairly pedestrian man meets girl and then it starts to go wrong affair.

Nigel Benson is, at 49, an aging sybarite who has set up home with his sister Molly. They live happily enough together, she has her garden, he has his food, his house in perfect taste, and his bibelots, along with the occasional elegantly conducted flirtation – although to Molly’s relief these are becoming less frequent. Social duty takes them on a visit to the Crome’s; Sir Anthony and his young wife Caroline, Caroline is shockingly rude and that would be the end of it except that the four meet again in Paris. It’s at this point that Nigel begins to see Caroline as attractive, and sees she’s in love with another man. Bad luck for Caroline that other man turns out to be a bounder and she catches flu. Bad luck for Nigel because he keeps her company whilst she’s sick and falls in love with her.

Caroline is able to return to England without a backwards glance, but poor Molly is left to drag Nigel around Italy in a forlorn and tortured state. On the whole it seems to agree with him though because he returns home lean and fit. Meanwhile Caroline and Anthony have been travelling around Italy too where she’s become increasingly restless and increasingly attached to her memories of Nigel. All the while a delicate game is being played out in letters. When they finally do meet again an affair is quickly begun but Nigel is plagued by jealousy and insecurity regarding his age. Caroline in turn is totally ruthless in emotional matters and given to the grand gesture. She wants to marry Nigel and bear his children, welcomes the possibility of a scandal, longs to work and struggle and live (in the way that people who never have had to work or struggle do) and has no compunction when it comes to leaving her existing husband and child.

For Nigel the choice is harder (for some reason Molly never figures in the equation although an elopement would render her homeless as well) Caroline would mean the loss of Ambush, the house that Nigel loves to the point of worship, it would also mean the worst kind of betrayal of his friend Anthony who can be urbane about a discreet affair but would be devastated by open scandal. It’s also clear to Nigel that when the time comes Caroline will be able to leave him just as easily to move onto her next adventure leaving him with nothing.

Violet Trefusis

There are echoes of Violet’s affairs here but interestingly I think both Nigel and Caroline are self portraits. The introduction and afterword are both fairly insistent that Nigel is Violet as she was by the late 1930’s when this book was written. I don’t doubt that Caroline is Violet as she was in her early twenties before she discovered that the world might not be well lost for love. Had this been another rehash of past events the only interest would have been prurient, but the sense that it’s all Violet made it work for me. My sympathies were with Nigel, I think Violets were with Caroline a lot of the time but without doubt (this time) it’s an honest and intriguing exploration of the game people play in love.

Girl with a one track mind

The well worn track is virago, of which I acquired quite a few last week – pay day lead to some shopping excitement in three of my favourite second hand shops. Two of them are local charity concerns, the third is the mighty Astley Book Farm. The Blonde and I were very flattered to be recognised (we don’t go that often, honestly we don’t) and identified with this blog although we were a little concerned when asked if we could look for things other than Virago’s because they were struggling to get hold of enough... In the end there was no need for panic, we both came away with nice a collection of things (I’m particularly pleased with a Mrs Oliphant) and left plenty for future customers.

We both agreed as we left that if bookselling offline has a future it’s in places like this. Knowledgeable but not intrusive proprietors, thousands of interesting books, and a cafe coming soon – it’s a bookselling fantasy, because yes, I do fantasize about going to bookshops with a choice. The Scottish one despairs but the blonde understands.

As a result of the frenetic book buying I spent quality time rearranging and feel very pleased with the results and whilst I was doing that Simon Stuck In A Book’s post was very much on my mind. I think I’ve probably talked as much as anyone about how I felt Virago books gave me a voice, or introduced me to women’s voices generally and Simon wonders where that leaves men like himself who find their reading home in these same books.

I very specifically went off one afternoon to look for novels by women after one of those stupid arguments about there being no great women artists – you know the sort, someone will say “Well show me a female Dickens” which of course you can’t – but then there’s only one male Dickens, and I wish that was the response I’d come up with 20 years ago. Even so back then I was convinced that there had to have been a whole lot of really good (if not necessarily really great women writers), there was plenty of evidence pointing that way but all I could ever think of were genre writers (someone show me a male Agatha Christie please)(actually don’t that’s purely rhetorical). I found what I was looking for and never looked back.

But what’s easy to overlook is how things have changed in the last 30 odd years. Only that long ago the idea of a lady vicar was as outlandish as the concept of a same sex marriage, drinking and driving was vaguely acceptable, perfectly nice people could talk about ‘queers’, and it wasn’t so outrageous to pay women less to do the same jobs as men. Hopefully things change. It’s also been easy to forget that half the reason I went looking for these particular books was to be able to win an argument, and had I got Rebecca West, Ivy Compton-Burnett, Rosamond Lehmann, and Elizabeth Bowen at my fingertips than it might have been a more grown up discussion, but to win the argument the books needed to be read not just by women like me but by the men we were at variance with.

As I look at the shelf next to me I see plenty which strikes me as feminine and domestic and plenty which doesn’t seem to fit either category but nothing which feels exclusive. When these writers started to slip out of print it was men as well as women losing the voices of their mothers and grandmothers. A collective loss, and a collective gain when they were resurrected.

Symposium – Muriel Spark (a Virago modern classic...)

My New Year trip to the borders has become something of a tradition, indeed a host of traditions including this one; from the moment I buy my train ticket each year and know I’m actually going I start planning which books I’ll take. I try for a good spread of books to cover any likely mood and to have at least one more (but no more than two more) than I can read...

This year I managed to read Scott’s ‘The Bride of Lammermoor’, and Muriel Spark’s ‘Symposium’ (in-between my confusion over what to do with ‘The Small House at Allington’ – it was a packed holiday). The Muriel Spark was one I’ve been looking forward to for a while and which I thought might make for a welcome change of pace between all the 19th century doorstops I’ve been hauling around with me.

So far I’ve not read a Spark I didn’t like but ‘Symposium’ is defiantly the oddest offering yet from a writer who doesn’t shy away from odd. It’s billed on the back blurb as being the story of a dinner party where connections are made between the characters and tensions build. There is also talk of boiling emotions and ugly motives all of which is quite true but only gave me the sketchiest indication of what was actually in the book (it’s either a really good blurb or a really not good one I can’t quite decide).

For me, and this is straight off the back of ‘The Bride of Lammermoor’ with its attendant chorus of hags and prophecy, there was a good bit of the occult about ‘Symposium’. The unifying theme is a dinner party and it’s a great device for introducing characters, telling a bit of story and then quickly moving on. The story I picked up on was that of young bride Margaret Damien (nee Murchie) an almost unnaturally self possessed young woman who’s just too good to be true. It’s not true and dark things keep happening around her in what I think of as a particularly Scottish way. What I read this time was a murder mystery but the really brilliant thing about this book is that next time I read it when doubtless I’ll have a different set of pre-occupations is that it will almost certainly be another strand that catches my attention and I’ll find myself reading a book about love, or obsession, or family, or friendship...

Surely not many writers could pull off a trick like this in less than a 150 pages – Spark makes it look effortless.

Every week is Virago week with me (number of virago modern classics bought in the last 7 days – 8, so it’s been a good week, and you can probably guess it’s been pay day as well) but a semi official ‘Virago reading week’ (thanks to Rachel and Carolyn) has been interesting. It’s fascinating to see how many of us there are who share a love for this particular imprint, and how general the feeling of ‘discovery’ is (nobody ‘discovers’ penguin). Publishing and especially the publishing of ‘lost’ classics has changed almost beyond recognition in the last decade and a half, but when I first found Virago there was nothing else quite like it – nobody else giving back a voice to the generations of women who earned a living through writing but were lost to the canon.

No longer an independent publishing house and the iconic green jackets a thing of the past (but oh so collectable) I still think Virago are one of the most exciting imprints around. The list might be smaller than in its heyday but arguably the overall quality is a shade higher – long may the good work continue.

Virago, not just for Christmas.

Due to events of a festive nature my contribution to Virago reading week is a little late in coming, but Virago is defiantly a publisher I want to celebrate (though a week seems like an awfully short time for such a big passion). My relationship with Virago stretches back across half my actual life and all of my adult reading life. I keep them in my bedroom now, partly because that was the only place that I had left to fit a bookcase, but not least because these books have so many memories attached and I like to see them so by way of homage to Virago here are a few of the reasons I sleep with these books...

One of my first forays behind the green covers came through Molly Keane. I found ‘Young Entry’ in Waterstones in Aberdeen and during my university career bought and read all her books. Broadly speaking Keane’s pre-occupations with family and lifestyle were very sympathetic to my state of mind but what sealed the deal was finding that my grandfather knew her. I knew when I started reading the books that he had been familiar with that world, but just before I graduated and when he was already becoming quite frail he and dad took refuge with me for a night waiting for a flight back to Ireland. I was reading a Molly and we had a chat about her. It was the first time I think we ever had a conversation as adults, before then he had told us amazing stories or taught us things, he was always courteous and charming – but my sister and I were always children, and he was very much a grown up. It was also the last conversation I had with him like that, we only met one more time and by then he wasn’t sure who we were, but I still have Molly who’s given me a link to my own history I’ll always prize.

My one big fail with Virago is Ivy Compton-Burnett’s ‘A Heritage and its History’ I’ve tried to read this so many times and given up 20 pages in. I just don’t get her, but I very clearly remember carefully selecting the book in Blackwell’s Oxford from a stand of Virago’s just after leaving university. I was convinced the world was mine for asking (apparently not) ‘A Heritage and its History’ stands as testimony to unmet aspirations (not least to actually read the damn thing) and challenges me when I’m feeling complacent. Truthfully it’s rare for me to keep a book I know I won’t read but this one is so pretty I can’t let go of it, and maybe one day...

Rosamond Lehman was a discovery from when I was working in a clearance bookshop (sadly these don’t seem to really exist anymore), this enthusiasm must have coincided with Little Brown taking Virago on and a lot of the back list being trimmed because all the cheap bookshops were full of virago titles and I bought loads, Lehman stands out because I actually read them straight away. Her complicated love affairs were a revelation to me after a steady diet of Georgette Heyer, what I read in those books without doubt left me better equipped to deal with the first relationship break up that I took seriously which came not so long after.

I have an undoubted crush on Vita Sackville-West, but struggle a bit with her books (though unlike the Ivy Compton-Burnett fiasco I don’t try very hard to read them) it’s a copy of her letters to Virginia Woolf which fuels the fire and bring both women to life for me. (There was also a really good play based on these – I can’t actually remember what it was called, but it’s due a revival.) So far no other publisher has come near to mirroring (or forming) my personal fiction fixations, possibly another reason the books are in the bedroom is because taken together they say more about who I think I am than I’m prepared to share with any casual visitor – because obviously when the man comes to read the meter he’s only really interested in judging the inner most depths of my soul through the books I read and not with getting on with his job. Nope it’s only those who are initiated into the Virago cult who get to have a look at my books.

Which brings me to Andrea Dworkin ‘Life and Death’ is one of those books ‘that changed my life’ or at least helped me sort out where I stand on all manner of fundamental issues relating to feminism. It’s also one of the books over which my friendship with the blonde was forged, I bought books from her, she gave me a job and hasn’t been able to shake me since. Her Virago obsession is equal to mine and we have a book hunt planned for Sunday...

F. M. Mayor is another Virago find which has sort of changed my life in so much as she lead me into blogging. Such is my enthusiasm for Mayor that when I found a copy of ‘The Squire’s Daughter’ second hand I was almost high with excitement. I briefly flirted with the idea of calling my blog The Squire’s Daughter – the plan was that it would be in a sort of Provincial Lady style and then I realised that it would be extremely hard to do well, embarrassing to do badly, and that either way I’d struggle to talk about books. Rather neatly (I think) this brings me round to Book Snob, someone asked me if I was Book Snob after reading her review of ‘The Rector’s Daughter’ which I was also talking about a lot at the time. I had to admit I wasn’t she, went and had a look and thought why am I not doing this myself? It was a stop dithering and get on with it moment.

I could go on but think this is probably enough for now beyond saying Thomas at My Porch has a competition and there are more on the host sights Book Snob and A few of my favourite books – go and win great books.

The Semi–attached Couple & The Semi–detached House Emily Eden

So much for the author, now what about the books? ‘The Semi-attached Couple’ was written around 1830 but not published until 1860, the year after ‘The Semi-detached house’ came out (slightly confusing). Both books feel very much of their time; in ‘The Semi-attached Couple’ it’s all horse drawn carriages and has an unmistakably Georgian feel (says she bought up on Georgette Heyer). Indeed more than anything else (and certainly more than an Austen feel) reading ‘The Semi-attached Couple’ felt like reading an early Heyer. For me that’s a good thing but I must admit that I was slightly surprised at how very fresh the writing seemed, but then I find myself saying that a lot so it’s undoubtedly as much to do with my perceptions of how an older book should read as it is to do with authorial style.

‘The Semi-attached Couple’ is the story of what should be a fairy tale marriage but somehow isn’t. The bride is young, lovely, and the indulged darling of her wealthy parents her husband to be is the catch of the season, the owner of fabulous wealth and the sort of looks normally thrown away on penniless younger sons, so what could possibly go wrong? Well all sorts of things it seems. The bride has been a sheltered pet all her life and at 18 is still all but a child, she isn’t ready to leave her home, hasn’t fallen entirely in love with her husband, is to inexperienced to express her fears and is frightened by her grooms passion for her. He in his turn becomes jealous of her families influence over her, is cast into despair by her lack of affection, and all too frequently allows his temper to get the better of him. This is the situation during their honeymoon when a large house party invites itself to share the couple’s home.

I’m reading Trollope’s ‘The Small House at Allington’ at the moment and finding some interesting parallels between the two books, if nothing else I’m forming a very definite impression of the house party as a hot bed of intrigue, gossip, and interference. I’m not giving much away when I say that ‘The Semi-attached Couple’ ends happily after all the complications and misunderstandings are smoothed out – the story itself is the weak part of the book. What makes the it are the details and the secondary characters who I think must have been based on people Eden knew; Lady Portmore who is by way of being the villainess of the piece makes me think she might have been based on Lady Caroline Lamb (although this is just a guess, and I might be miles off). There is a fascinating and funny account of an election and despite the happy endings some acerbic asides about marriage. Eden who was 30 when she wrote this book was jilted as a young woman, I wouldn’t describe her as bitter, but very clear sighted about both the advantages and disadvantages for a woman in swapping the position of daughter for wife. Eden herself became a sister.

In 'The Semi-detached House’ the newly married and pregnant Lady Chester is being installed in the suburbs whilst her husband makes a diplomatic expedition to Berlin. Blanche Chester is very young (18), highly strung, volatile, and very assured about her position in society. Her neighbours are a good solid suburban family who are slightly over awed by their grand new neighbours (although they initially think Lady Chester may be either a cast off wife or a discreetly installed mistress). Throughout the book the Chester household and manners are held up against the other grand occupants of the neighbourhood; Baron and Baroness Sampson, social climbers, new money, snobbish, and Jewish. I wondered for a while if it was their Jewishness which was a problem, but on the whole it’s not – although it may be that there is some small prejudice there – but it is much more that they are concerned only with facade and not at all with substance. Blanche who is the personification of egalitarian good will with her lower middle class neighbours is still savvy enough at 18 to instinctively avoid the Baroness’ overtures, but it’s the Sampson’s with all their faults and unpleasantness which make the story interesting adding some necessary shade to proceedings, that and Eden’s sense of humour which is an absolute delight.

Emily Eden

A while back Lyn at I Prefer Reading did a blog about book covers and I liked the look of an Emily Eden – ‘The Semi-attached Couple & The Semi-detached House’, a quick look online produced a longish excerpt (possibly the whole of ‘The Semi-attached Couple’ but I can’t find it now) and plenty of 1 pence copies on amazon so I ordered one. A few days later a very acceptable used copy (Virago – which was actually enough to make me buy it anyway) turned up at which point I realised I’d bought not one book but two in one (bargain).

Initial excitement was only slightly tempered by being informed by the back blurb that Eden was “A true if minor successor to Jane Austen...” (a damning phrase if ever there was one) and now I’m almost ashamed to admit that the book might have remained unread on the shelf for any length of time except for having that stinking cold which made something light and romantic seem appealing. I couldn’t have chosen better if I’d thought about it (which was lucky because I was well past being capable of thinking about it). I understand the Austen reference, it seems Eden (1797 – 1869) was a big fan, ‘Pride and Prejudice’ is mentioned in ‘The Semi-attached Couple’ and I’m guessing that she wrote it partly as a tribute.

There will be more about the actual books in the next few days (two books so it seems only reasonable to spin this out into a couple of posts) but at the moment I’m more fascinated by Emily herself, she seems to have been very well connected, independently wealthy or at least left very comfortably off, she travelled to India where she lived for 6 years with her brother, was a renowned political hostess (Whig), and the portrait of her that springs up on Google suggests that she was fashionably attractive. She wrote for fun rather than out of any necessity but did well out of her books and comes across as a warm, witty, intelligent, and acutely observant woman. My overall impression of both novels is one of light romance – more Georgette Heyer than Jane Austen, but (like Georgette Heyer who must certainly have known the Eden novels) with enough bite and satire to keep my attention from wandering.

The letters that Emily sent home to her sister from India have also been published by Virago, and I’m hopeful that the copy I ordered will hit my doorstep any day now as I’m nowhere near having had enough of her voice, I imagine too that the letters will have more of the acerbic wit and less of the fluffy romance and I can’t wait to read them. Much as I enjoy reading older books it’s not so very often that I wish I could meet the authors, but Emily Eden would be top of my guest list for that imaginary dinner party of people you’ve always wanted to find yourself in a room with.



Desert of the Heart – Jane Rule

One question that came up on Saturday was “What books won’t you read” which is one I find hard to answer. The fairly flippant reply was “anything written by contemporary men” which is sort of true because I don’t read much contemporary fiction (by men or women), I suppose I should really have said I just won’t read anything that doesn’t appeal to me (I’ve been thinking about this a lot since) it’s not a very specific response but it’s accurate.

It’s something I’m still thinking about because as I come to write up my thoughts on this particular book I realise I have quite a collection of books about lesbian relationships. This is a theme that clearly appeals to me probably because of the way roles are worked out between protagonists who generally start from a point of unambiguous equality. (Or something like that.)

The back blurb for ‘Desert of the Heart’ reads thus

“Evelyn Hall, an English professor, is in Reno to obtain a divorce and put an end to her sixteen year marriage. During her six weeks’ stay at a boarding house, she meets Ann Childs, a free spirited casino worker and fifteen years her junior. Evelyn is about to be overwhelmed by more than just the staggering, spare beauty of the Nevada desert...”

Which is basically what happens, Sarah Waters says ‘A significant novel by any standards, and an undisputed lesbian classic’ but for me the big thing about this book is the way it talks about work.

Meanwhile the relationship element rings true to me, especially the intense conversations between Ann and Evelyn - they talk about philosophy and feelings in a way that feels clunky but at the same time realistic, however the way Rule talks about work, and Ann’s work particularly is something else entirely. Ann is a change apron in a casino. A job that seems to entail carrying a massive weight of cash around for hours at a time (my estimate is about 25kilos) whilst keeping a watchful eye on the gaming floor.

The thing with Ann is that she’s a clever and able young woman working in an apparently dead end job which she clearly gets both satisfaction and inspiration from. For the time being what she does provides her with a kind of family albeit a dysfunctional one, and a rhythm to her life that has nothing to do with earning money. Most of her friends including the work ones, disapprove of what Ann does but not Evelyn who has a ‘respectable’ profession so perhaps has a better idea of what a bear pit any job can lead you into, and who can see the skill that Ann needs in her work especially when it comes to handling people. What fascinated me were the details of how the apron is worn; that if you turn round to quickly the weight will swing out of control and is enough to knock you down, how tired Ann is at the end of a shift – tired enough to cry and to struggle to function, how break patterns work, and how she justifies her job both to herself and others.

Work and relationships are the two things we’re most likely to define ourselves by – to me Ann’s need to justify what she does suggests that she’s not the free spirit her sexuality suggests. She’s neither proud of nor indifferent to her job, and the job itself seems to be used as a challenge to convention where I might have expected her preference for women to be.

In fact the more I think about it the more I think this would be a great book group read; there’s a lot going on and a lot to talk about – my book about work and identity will be someone else’s love story, and another’s tragedy so in conclusion I can only agree with Sarah Waters and repeat ‘A significant novel by any standards...’

Good things also come to those who wait...

More lovely parcels have been coming my way – birthday and Christmas are frankly going to be a disappointment after this and once more these books I’m particularly pleased to have especially as some of them seem to have come my way against the odds.

There are a lot of nice things about blogging and at the risk of sounding shallow/mercenary I have to admit that the occasional free books that come my way are high on the list of my personal reasons to get out of bed in the morning. I’ve always loved getting post, and I love books so as combinations go what could be better (apart from a lottery win, or world peace, or a sunny summer on the Scottish coast, or a really good cake...)? Nope, I can’t think of anything either.

Perhaps part of the reason I get so excited about these things turning up is because it has a definite novelty value and because the few mailing lists I’ve been lucky enough to get myself on are with publishers I’m hugely enthusiastic about. Of all these my absolute favourite is Oxford World Classics who mail out utterly unexpected books including ‘The Complete Fairy Tales’ of Charles Perrault. I’ve wanted this book ever since I saw it in hard back a year ago – it’s been quietly sitting on my wish list ever since, and moved up a notch or two when I saw it was available in paperback so imagine me when I turned up at the post office to collect an expected parcel on Friday morning having a conversation a bit like this with the post man...

Me “hello I’ve come for this” (brandishing receipt for undelivered packet)

Postman disappears behind the scenes and makes some furtive rustling noise in the background appearing a couple of minutes later with two parcels and a sheepish expression. “Do you have another receipt anywhere” he asks

“No, just that one” I say eyeing up the second parcel and my chances of getting hold of it (he’s clutching them pretty tight I can tell you, and I doubt I’m getting to him through the plate glass window, plus I should stay on good terms with the post office...)

“ummm” he says “er, we seem to have two parcels for you”

“Well I’ll have both” says I, and then I see the date on the Oxford parcel “it says September on it”

“Yes, we’ve had it for a while” (I can tell he’s lying being economical with the facts because I’m in that office quite often care of my dirty amazon habit.)

“Thank you for keeping it” I say through gritted teeth as I head back off into the dawn and on to work. This isn’t really a criticism of the post office who got me my post in the end even if it did temporarily go missing (though I also know for sure that there is a micro library of mislaid books out there with my name on them and where do these things get to?) In truth I was so pleased to have the book that nothing would have dented my mood – and nothing did for the rest of the day.

I also want to say a big thank you to Sophie at Virago who made me feel like a kid in a sweet shop by telling me to let her know if there was anything I might like. Oh yes. I asked for ‘Desert of the Heart’ and she sent it twice after the first copy was a no show. I consider that particularly generous and again it’s a book I’m really looking forward to reading. Now – time for bed to get up for work and just the possibility of something exciting in the letter box when I get home (quite likely at some point this week courtesy of that amazon addiction.)