The Rabbit Back Literature Society - Pasi Ilmari Jaaskelainen

Translated by Lola M. Rogers.

When 'The Rabbit Back Literature Society' landed on my doorstep I had no idea who had sent it, the mystery was only cleared up a week or two later when I realised that Salt and Pushkin Press share a publicist. Initially I thought it looked mildly interesting, based entirely on enjoying the 2 Finnish novellas that Peirene have published (The Brothers and Mr Darwin's Gardener) and thought no more about it, but after a brief email exchange with Tabitha (the publicist) I promised I would actually read it (and soon - she's very persuasive).

I'm glad she gave me a bit of a push because after a slowish start I was utterly absorbed by 'The Rabbit Back Literature Society' which was something of a departure from anything I remember reading over the last few years. I'll start with the things I didn't like so much about this book - which are superficial - the first is the book cover and title. Before I read it both seemed to me to suggest something altogether cosier then the book turned out to be. Now I have read it both make sense but I would still prefer something that captured a little bit more of the weirdness inside. Second is that this translation is full of Americanisms which is fair enough when the translator lives in Seattle but is oddly distracting for me in a book which I want to feel totally European (by which I probably mean British, but I notice the use of 'parking lot' or 'block' in a way that I wouldn't 'car park' or 'street').

The book opens with a description of Ella Milana ("a pair of beautifully curving lips and a pair of defective ovaries") she is a substitute teacher, a literature graduate, and an aspiring author. Her latest job is in her home town of Rabbit Back, which is also the home town of Laura White, a beloved children's author, and her Rabbit Back literature society; a group of 9 more or less successful authors who Laura White hand picked as children to be groomed for success. Meanwhile Ella Milana's father is showing signs of dementia, he's given up running, which had been a passion, in favour of observing his garden where he keeps getting mysteriously injured. He says it's because the gnomes don't like him seeing them. He dies and Laura White invites Ella Milana to be the 10th member of her society, a party is thrown to celebrate but half way through, and half way down the stairs Laura White disappears in a flurry of snow. Oh, and the contents of books keeps changing...

For Ella Milana it's all a bit much, personally it was where the book really started to get its hooks into me. There are so many questions at this point; what's happening with the books, who and what is Laura White, why has she picked Ella Milana, were the gnomes real, and most crucially - what will happen next?

Without giving to many spoilers Ella Milana learns that she's not the first 10th member of the society, that nobody seems to be very clear about what happened to that first 10th member, and that her disappearance might not be the strangest thing about Laura White. She also learns about The Game, a method that Laura White devised for her students to plunder each other's experience to put in their own work. Ella Milana decides to use the game to get answers, but it also means giving answers. Participators have to spill, they're not allowed to tell a story, instead they have to tell what the listener accepts as the truth, and can only stop when they do accept it as truth - no matter how personal or painful the experience might be. As they're allowed to use force when they deem it necessary physical pain is on the cards too.

What becomes clear is that the truth as recounted this way is still subjective, it's always filtered through the memory and perception of the teller, never quite frees itself from story or myth making. It also emerges that Laura White's methods weren't always particularly wholesome; her pupils may have grown up to be successful but they're also quite badly damaged, the question for Ella Milana is are they damaged enough to have committed a murder. As a mystery novel it's absolutely bloody brilliant with a conclusion that's horrifying for entirely unexpected reasons, but it's not just a thriller. There is also an element of magic realism; fairy tales in the Grimm sense.

The changing books, dogs behaving oddly, those gnomes (also elves, sprites, nymphs, phantoms and nixies), and Laura White herself all hint at another world but in such a way that the reader can dismiss it as some combination of dream, superstition, and imagination or accept it as they see fit. Pasi Ilmari Jaaskelainen offers a guide to unlocking his intentions here which I haven't followed (yet) because for now I prefer to mull over my own take on his writing, but at some point it would be interesting to read the passages he highlights to see if they clear anything up (I suspect maybe not, but  as it's the ambiguity of the book that I particularly liked, that's okay).

Pretty much everything happens through late autumn into winter, it all ends in spring. It's very much a story of long, dark, cold nights where everything is obscured by snow, made unreliable by ice, and the forest is a dangerous place to go. As for the forest, it feels like very old stories have crept out of it to make their mark on this novel - which I find very exciting indeed, so once again a big thank you to Tabitha for persuading me to read it so promptly.

All The Tea In China - Kyril Bonfiglioli

If it seems like a while since I wrote about a novel it's probably because it took me the best part of two weeks to wade through 'All The Tea In China'. I read a couple of Bonfiglioli's Mortdecai books years ago (when I did let the third in the trilogy defeat me) but as Penguin have reissued them all again and Waterstones kept piling them up where I could see them it seemed like time to have another go. Both times I was pulled in by Stephen Fry's endorsement, in this case ''You couldn't snuggle under the duvet with anything more disreputable and delightful".

Now I've actually finished it I'll be passing this book onto my partner who I'm reasonably sure will love it, he enjoys the Flashman novels and from what I've read of George Macdonald Fraser they share the same spirit. Theoretically a book full of adventure, art, wine, food, and jokes should work for me and separately the bits about wine, food, art, and some of the jokes do work for me so I was happy enough whilst I was reading, but when the characters are for the most part a means of furthering a joke it's hard to care enough to pick the book up again if the humour isn't quite in tune with your own.

From what I know of art and wine Bonfiglioli knows his stuff, what he says about clippers in the opium trade sounds like he knows about that too. The boat stuff comes alive which is a testament to how good a writer he is, but to really enjoy this and not feel overly prudish about some of the more disreputable jokes I would need to be holed up somewhere warm on a cold winters day. So basically a curates egg of a book for me, to good to dislike but just not quite my cup of tea.

 

Elsewhere

I have a couple of reviews up on the latest Shiny New Books, this one about the brilliant H is for Hawk and this one about the indispensable and brilliant Oxford Companion to Food. As ever Shiny New Books is full of temptations so should come with some sort of health warning for your wallet. I really can't recommend either of the two books I had highly enough.

Peggy Angus: Designer, Teacher, Painter - James Russell

This post was meant to follow the one about female role models the other day because it was reading about Peggy Angus which set me off thinking about why it might be that we allow ourselves to forget about so many creative women when we should be celebrating them, but the week got away from me.

Peggy Angus is an intriguing figure, her name has cropped up, mostly in relation to her friends Eric Ravilious and Edward Bawden, with increasing frequency over the last few years and this summer the Towner gallery in Eastbourne have had an exhibition devoted to her (which this book is partly an accompaniment to). The time is clearly ripe for a reassessment of her work partly because of a renewed appreciation for the likes of Bawden and Ravilious, hopefully because we're getting better at appreciating the decorative arts (it's Peggy's designs for wallpapers and tiles that really stand out in this book rather than her painting), and maybe because there's an effort being made to find some of those lost women artists.

As part of the general excitement around the Towner exhibition (which I wish I had seen) Rachel Cooke wrote an article in The Observer where Peggy is described as designs forgotten warrior, it also makes the point that women weren't meant to be like that back in the 50's (not that it makes them particularly popular now either) and is an interesting post script to the book on a few counts. Russell's book is excellent, right from the title - designer, teacher, painter - which makes clear what order he puts her achievements in (for which he also makes a well argued and convincing case) to the illustrations which are plentiful and quietly inspiring.

One thing I learnt studying History of Art is how important a good bit of gossip or scandal can be in holding the attention of a class, there seems to have been plenty of both around Angus and her circle (Cooke gets quite a bit of it into her article) but it's to Russell's credit that whilst he doesn't ignore this, or the more difficult aspects of Peggy's character, nor does he dwell on it. That in some ways she was an extremely difficult woman is worth considering because clearly still don't like it when a woman doesn't fit into a traditional mould of femininity. Her daughters comments to Cooke make it plain that they had a difficult relationship, Russell reveals that Peggy may have appropriated a design from Victoria that she went on to win a prize with, and comments from former pupils on the Cooke article recall how intimidating she could be. It takes a certain ruthlessness to be successful but we don't like seeing it in women.

On the other hand, and far more importantly, Peggy was clearly an inspired and inspiring teacher who gave her pupils an excellent grounding in history as well as technique. She fought for the right to work after having her children (because she had to) which was unusual  at the time, and at the same time was working on big commercial projects with her tile murals. She believed in, and promoted, patronage of the arts, and looking at the illustrations clearly believed in introducing colour and pattern to every aspect of her life. It's all very exciting, and at the risk of over using the word - inspiring.

Her design work, wallpapers and tiles specifically, are a revelation. Many of the original tile murals are lost now as the post war buildings they were put up in have been pulled down. Similarly wallpaper being something that generally goes up in private spaces and is likely to be changed as houses are sold or tastes change is easy to miss. Peggy compared herself favourably to William Morris, I think she may gave had a point. She preferred to print the blocks by hand valuing the subtle variations in finish that this gave, she would also design papers specifically for the person commissioning them, and highly patterned or brightly coloured as they might be they were also intended to be a background for more art to be hung on. Russell's illustrations show how effectively this worked.

The woman who emerges from this book is a gifted, energetic, complex character whose influence is likely far more wide spread than it's possible to guess. It's high time she got this reassessment, I hope that at some point Carolyn Trant's biography gets a reprint that makes it affordable/accessible so that it can add to the conversation. Meanwhile Russell's book is an excellent place to start exploring from not least because it's very readable (which is a bonus), but also because it begs the question how did she get forgotten in the first place.

A poem for national poetry day.

It may be that I only realised that it was national poetry day this evening listening to some suitably themed thing on radio 4, but that doesn't make it to late to share a poem I'm fond of. It's Norman MacCaig's 'Praise of a Collie', I found it in an anthology a while ago and not long after my father had had to have his old sheep dog put down (she was much loved, but not at all well) I thought he'd like it until I got to the last verse when I realised that it might be a bit soon. It's stuck with me though so here it is - it doesn't have a happy ending, I cry every time I read it - I hope that's enough of a warning.

She was a small dog, neat and fluid —
Even her conversation was tiny:
She greeted you with bow, never bow-wow.

Her sons stood monumentally over her
But did what she told them. Each grew grizzled
Till it seemed he was his own mother's grandfather.

Once, gathering sheep on a showery day,
I remarked how dry she was. Pollóchan said, 'Ah,
It would take a very accurate drop to hit Lassie.'

And her tact — and tactics! When the sheep bolted
In an unforeseen direction, over the skyline
Came — who but Lassie, and not even panting.

She sailed in the dinghy like a proper sea-dog.
Where's a burn? — she's first on the other side.
She flowed through fences like a piece of black wind.

But suddenly she was old and sick and crippled ...
I grieved for Pollóchan when he took her for a stroll
And put his gun to the back of her head.

Days out in churches

My partner is researching chantry chapels at the moment so we've been out looking at church's again, it's something that interests us both - from my point of view ecclesiastical architecture is the easiest kind to read, and full of exciting twiddly bits and grotesques, he might be taking a slightly more professional viewpoint on it but still finds it exciting. After the rather austere churches I grew up with in Shetland (a Methodist chapel and I think a Church of Scotland kirk) which clearly didn't believe in putting decorative distractions in front of good Christian souls the churches of the south (starting with Orkney's Italian chapel) were a revelation. For me the fancier the better, gothic or gothic revival for preference, baroque and rococo are more than acceptable, something in the classical mould is fine as long as it has some suitably exuberant bits inside, and any combination of pre Raphealite, arts and crafts, and art nouveau works too.

Our latest trip took us to Newark and Southwell. Newark has the very fine Church if St Mary Magdalene, it boasts the highest spire in Nottinghamshire which makes it very easy to find, has bits dating back to the 11th or 12th century and amongst many other points of historical and artistic interest 2 surviving chantry chapels either side of the high alter both dating from the very early 16th century. One of them has a rare dance if death painting on it which I particularly liked. Newark itself has the full compliment of ruined castles, civil war history, medieval looking street plans, and Georgian buildings (the market square looked to be almost completely Georgian) to the point that I felt like I might have been wandering around somewhere written by Trollope, Oliphant, or Dickens. That it also had a couple of decent second hand bookshops, a very good beer shop, and a place that sold amazing coffee and walnut cake makes me determined to go back.

Southwell is close by and is apparently both a minster and a cathedral which confuses me a bit, is a mix of Norman and Gothic (you can see the join in a way that makes it a perfect illustration for the architectural historian) has a stunning chapter house, and a very good tea room. The town is small, charming, and also has a good second hand bookshop. I got an old penguin Chaucer and a Virago edition of an Edith Wharton I hadn't seen before. I'm going back there too. The minster people want £5 off you to take photographs but I'd already spent money on books and tea so no pictures of the chapter house but it really is impressive. They also have a stunning west window put in in 1996 which manages to look both traditional and new and invites happy contemplation.

Role models

When I was at school and university (I wonder how much has changed in the last twenty years?) as a young woman of feminist leanings it wasn't unusual to find myself in an argument that went along these kind of lines, a man (or more specifically given our age and their attitude - boy) would declare that women could not be great chefs/writers/artists, they just didn't have it in them. Nonsense, I would say, and then be challenged to name 6 or 10 which at the time I couldn't do. Which was annoying because I knew they had to exist but had no clear idea where to find out who they were or what they did (these were the days before google) and because it was a challenge designed to shut me up and put me in my place.

It's also a challenge that's given me a lot to be grateful for, it sent me off to the nearest bookshop to seek out a canon of female authors which is how I discovered Virago books and in turn legions of writing women stretching back to the 18th century. Later on I found Persephone books and yet more writing women along with the concept of the middlebrow all of which has been extremely encouraging. What mattered to me then and now is not how high the art is, but that there is a traceable tradition of women having a voice and being able to make a living from it. Most especially being able to make a living from it, as that's a subtly different, infinitely more encouraging, view of history than the one where women were basically dependants or drudges and men were intent on keeping them that way.

When it comes to artists rather than writers the process of public rediscovery seems to have lagged behind a bit but I think it's finally happening in earnest now, and it's exciting for the same reasons; you could name a few, it seems likely there had to be more of them, but where and doing what. Again it's not specifically great masters I'm looking for but a long tradition of women creating and recording. It's why I love paintings like Emily Mary Osborn's Nameless and Friendless from 1857.

In it a young woman in mourning (I'm inclined to believe her father rather than husband has died as I can't see a wedding ring on her finger - though maybe she's already sold it?) accompanied by a youth is trying to sell a painting, and maybe a portfolio of sketches too. The appraising looks from the dealer and his assistant suggest the work is commercially viable (but not that they'll necessarily offer a fair price). The appraising looks from the two swells on the left suggest an entirely different kind of transaction. Our heroine is definitely in need of friends. Osborn did quite a line in paintings of  distressed women. She herself seems to have been supported in her chosen career by her family but I'm guessing that the situation in Nameless and Friendless was not uncommon which in turn suggests that there were plenty of women seeking (and succeeding) in making a living this way, and that Osborn expected everyone to be outraged by this particular girls situation. 

BBC2 had an excellent series this spring hosted by Amanda Vickery called The Story of a women and Art which unearthed a host of female artists, some more or less household names, and some who had been hiding in plain sight - all very encouraging in the search for role models. Perhaps even more exciting from my point of view though was Alicia Foster's 'Warpaint' which took the real life figure of Dame Laura Knight along with 3 other fictional characters based on real women war artists and created an entertaining thriller along with a really useful look at what these artists were doing (it's brilliant, read it). 

The latest addition to my own personal library of women in the arts is James Russell's 'Peggy Angus Designer, Teacher Painter'. She was a friend of Eric Ravilious, Edward Bawden, John Piper amongst many others, lead a long creative life, and is quietly being rediscovered some 20 years after her death. 

Jam Pan

A while back Marian Keyes wrote a cookbook (Saved By Cake) which I haven't read but looks to be about how baking helped her through depression. She doesn't claim that it's the answer for everybody but I guess depending on how down you are and how much you enjoy cooking it's as good a way as any to deal with a thing. For me cooking is something that I enjoy enough and find absorbing enough that I can rely on it to get me through sticky or stressful patches in life. At the moment we have a family member battling the final stages of cancer, it's a common enough situation to find yourself in - who hasn't been touched in some way by this disease - but that doesn't diminish how upsetting and unsettling it is, so I've been preserving things.

Lots of things. In the last couple of weeks I feel like I've worked my way through at least half of the brilliant 'Salt, Sugar, Smoke' and very helpful I've found it. I've made Purple Fig and Pomegranate jam, Rowan Jelly (though that was from a River Cottage recipe), Cherries in eau-de-vie, Prunes in Armagnac, sweet fig vinegar, and Greengage and Gewurztraminer jam. As I haven't burnt myself it's a harmless pursuit that leaves me feeling better about the world in general, and as I have plans for a lot more preserving (next week I may try making chutney for the first time) I've finally bought a proper maslin pan. For years I've made do with a generously proportioned old cast iron casserole pan that was often (especially at marmalade time) not quite generous enough size wise and weighed approximately half a ton when full of boiling sugary liquid. Now I have a deeper, lighter, altogether more practical stainless steel affair which meant that tonight, for the first time, I managed to make jam without getting it everywhere (joy of joys, none in my hair). This is more than enough of a bonus to off set the trifling inconvenience which is having nowhere to store another pan (it's living under my bed along with several pots of jam, a couple of litres of last years damson gin, plenty of dust, and whatever other items have failed to find a home elsewhere) mostly I am wondering why it took me so long to buy one.

There is nothing quite like having the right tool for the job, however much I might like to think of myself as a natural improviser, generally speaking I am not. I'm more of a natural appreciator of good design and a relatively easy life. I'm also an appreciator of jam and am very much looking forward to making more of it now. (Possibly plum, orange, and cardamom next.)

Clara's Daughter - Meike Ziervogel

For the most part I read old books in newish editions, the very fact that they're still around is testament to some combination of quality and popular appeal, and it's very easy to avoid books that won't interest me. Reading a novel, or in this case novella, hot off the pen is a different matter, especially on the rare occasions when I can claim some sort if acquaintance with the author. I know Meike through occasional email exchanges about her Peirene titles, she's a woman I like and admire so reading her first book, 'Magda', was unexpectedly nerve wracking - what if I didn't like it? I did like it, very much, which made me look forward to her second book with interest, and happily say yes when I was offered a proof copy by the publisher, but I read it with that same nervousness - this time because the contemporary north London setting is not one that I'm drawn to.

After all that the first thing to say is that I really liked this one too. Clara's daughter is Michele, successful business woman (though if I had a quibble it would be that I couldn't quite imagine her as the CEO of an oil company which is what she's meant to be), mother, and wife of the rather less successful Jim, she is also Hilary's sister. Initially it seems that Jim and Michele have it all - a happy marriage, children successfully launched on their respective paths, nice home, financial stability, but that's not an impression that lasts long.

The heart of this book is the relationship between mothers and daughters, and specific expectations that society has about daughters when it comes to ageing parents. Clara has reached the point where she isn't quite safe on her own but is unwilling to give up her independence. For Jim the answer is simple - a good residential home, for Michele it's more complicated. The relationships between mother and daughter, husband and wife are interesting but I'm mostly going to ignore them because what really interested me was the relationship between Michele and Hilary.

It feels like a given that Michele's loyalties are torn between her mother and her husband - it is after all what society expects - the question is will she be a good daughter or a good wife. What Michele might actually want is kept deliberately unclear, there are times when her choices about Clara look to be motivated more by ambivalent feelings towards Jim than anything else, but in the background there is Hilary. Manipulative, emotional, Hilary who doesn't want Clara to go into a home, doesn't want to lose her inheritance, isn't in a position to care for Clara herself, and who keeps on chipping away until she gets what she wants.

The portrait of mother and daughter is good, but the sister is the detail which really brings it alive and made this book something special for me. There's a scene where Hilary is on the phone telling Michele that Clara's had a fall, spent the night in hospital, and had tried to phone Michele for help. She's almost hysterical which is a stark contrast to Michele's colder more logical approach and there's more than a suspicion that she's not being quite honest but either way Hilary is an external voice for Michele's internal guilt regarding her mother. This isn't just a primeval stand off between mother and daughter, it's between mother and daughters with the other daughter reinforcing that first learnt loyalty to the mother, the dynamic between the three is fascinating.

I'm aware as I try and write this that I'm expressing myself badly. Essentially I think Ziervogel touches on something fundamental in the relationship between mothers, daughters, and sisters with all the subtle elements of competition, expectation, resentment, and disappointment that are integral to that particular combination. It's a good book, and short, well worth reading - and that's before you even begin to consider the portrait of a wound down marriage - which is also excellent.

Autumn is in the air

The weather may have remained summery for the last few weeks but the shortening days (it's the equinox next week) and the constant danger of being hit by a falling conker on my way to and from work tells me it's autumn. If I had any lingering doubts about the turning of the year there are other indications in the way of seasonal fruits, an overwhelming desire to make jam, and book releases. A new River Cottage offering has become a sure sign of autumn in recent years - the latest picked up very reasonably in W H Smith's (they're a great place to look for bargains on big name titles) for a mere £10. It's 'River Cottage Light and Easy' healthy recipes for everyday - I've only had a quick look so far but if I was buying only one book about healthy eating this year it would be Diana Henry's 'A Change of Appetite', as it is I'll buy any number of books about all sorts of things and I have a soft spot for River Cottage books so I'm very happy with to have this one (though I'm not sure I'd have paid full price for it).

There seems to be a trend in cookbooks at the moment to fill pages with either lavish pictures of things which aren't food (I want a cookbook, not a coffee table book full of slightly out of focus pictures of market stalls and shabby chic table dressings with a few recipes thrown in - though judging by the number of such books around I might not be in the majority) or with things that don't in my view count as a recipe - in this case I don't think grapefruit with a sprinkle of black pepper and an optional tiny pinch of salt truly deserves a double page spread, and carpaccio of bananas with lime  - or limey bananas - is pushing it's luck too. On the other hand for the modest sum of £10 there are a lot of nice ideas in there.

Otherwise it's been all about the jam and jelly this week. After a bit of investigation online I decided to buy a big box of jam jars (48) this year instead of recycling a collection of old jars and lids, of which an ever decreasing number seem to match, and all of which have the remains of impossible to remove sticky labels. I am ridiculously excited by the new jars - far more excited than you might reasonably assume a person should be - but there's something so nice about not scraping them down, worrying about lingering pickle smells from previous contents, or conducting an exhaustive search for lids. I've been so excited by them that on Monday I made 7 jars of rowan jelly (just in time, fruit is ridiculously early this year) and 10 jars of fig and pomegranate jam. Tuesday I was at work, today I have mostly been removing jam from odd corners of the kitchen (ably helped by my friends dog who did me the favour of licking it off the floor before I mopped it). The jam recipe comes from Diana Henry's (can you tell how big a fan I am?) brilliant 'Salt, Sugar, Smoke', opening it again has filled me with enthusiasm for preserving things - it is such a good book, and once again there are so many things in it I want to make. This evening prunes are doing there thing, well on the way to becoming prunes in armagnac. Autumn is most definitely her - all I want for now is a source of quinces.