Cornflower Books

Any more?

     Any more names going in the hat for a chance to win a copy of Star Gazing? I'll be drawing the winner tomorrow (Monday), so if you'd like to enter you'll find the details here.

Good lines: diaries

    "But is a man's diary ever the truth? Isn't it always an invention, an idea of a possible truth which he uses to control his understanding of himself?"
From The Solitude of Thomas Cave by Georgina Harding.

Cornflower Book Group 2009: Volume 7

 

    So far, the Book Group has read only one detective novel, Margery Allingham's terrific The Tiger in the Smoke (read our thoughts on it here). As that was some months ago I thought it was time for another, and coincidentally it's another Golden Age crime novel I've picked, Cyril Hare's Tragedy at Law.
    Originally published in 1942, I first heard of the book when P.D. James talked about it on the radio, and if she is a fan of Cyril Hare's - and of this book in particular - then that's a good enough recommendation for me. She has written about it, too, in Slightly Foxed (Volume 12, p.14), and I quote her here:
"... there is indeed a murder followed by a solution to the mystery which is as satisfying as it is unexpected. Tragedy at Law presents a challenge to even the most perceptive reader but all the clues are fairly presented and we would do well to remember that the author, as well as his detective-hero, was a barrister."

      She goes on to compliment the writing, the drawing of the characters, and in particular the setting - a judge and his retinue on circuit through the small towns of the south of England in the early days of the war, "the world it so accurately portrays has passed for ever. The setting has become history."
     This then is a legal page-turner, and "is regarded by many lawyers as the best English detective story set in the legal world" - P.D. James again.

     You can read more on Cyril Hare here and find a list of his books at Faber & Faber. Tragedy at Law should be readily available, but if readers outwith Britain have trouble getting hold of it The Book Depository can supply it with free worldwide delivery.
      Next Saturday, 6th. June, is our date for discussing The Solitude of Thomas Cave, so let's put Cyril Hare's book on the calendar five weeks after that on the 11th. of July. I hope this author will be a good new find for many of us and perhaps an old favourite for others.

Three new arrivals

   Books from and about all the airts and pairts this week.

On the top of the pile there is Warwick Collins' novel The Sonnets.
In 1592 while under the patronage of the youthful Earl of Southampton, William Shakespeare "found himself embroiled in the political and sexual intrigue of the Earl's unorthodox household. In the three turbulent years which followed, Shakespeare is widely believed to have written the majority of his great sequence of sonnets".
With 32 of the sonnets woven into the text, this will be an intriguing interpretation of a literary mystery, all the more interesting to me on the back of my reading of Christopher Rush's Will.

   

Next is a debut novel with a wartime setting. Rosie Alison's The Very Thought of You is likely to appeal to anyone who loved The Go-between (that's me) or Atonement.

When eight-year-old Anna is evacuated with other children to a large Yorkshire estate, she soon gets drawn into the unravelling relationship of the couple who live there and becomes "part-witness and part accomplice to a love affair, with unforeseen consequences".

 

   Lastly, some American historical fiction. Nina Vida's The Texicans begins in San Antonio, Texas, in 1843 and - according to Publishers Weekly - is a "vibrantly atmospheric and emotionally dense [story] spanning 12 years in the lives of many engaging characters, who come to life on every page".

This is a time and place I know nothing about but reviews suggest I'll learn much and get great pleasure from reading it.

Almond essence

   Marina Fiorato's The Madonna of the Almonds is a cracking tale set in Lombardy in the early sixteenth century. It mixes fact and fiction to tell the story of the painter Bernardino Luini, reputedly a pupil of Leonardo's, and his creation of great frescoes in Saronno and Milan, but artist's licence comes into it in the shape of the grieving young widow Simonetta who is struggling to retain her family estate in the face of near-bankruptcy and to whom Bernardino loses his heart.
   The book's backdrop is Italy's turbulent past of wars and religious intolerance, and the author's extensive research has produced a detailed story with high romance and a good twist - naturally, I shan't reveal the latter here.

    Marina Fiorato has cannily had her heroine Simonetta concoct the original Amaretto liqueur (you can read the more prosaic version of the legend of its creation by following that link), and in marketing terms this is no doubt shrewd, as is the perfume that's been created by Floris to help launch the book. However - and here's where I part company with the more enthusiastic reviewers - while I was taken with the story and wanted even more background and detail than the author gives us, I felt the characters were two-dimensional and the writing was struggling to meet the demands of the plot. In editing terms I'd have treated the final draft as you would a chicken for a ballotine - it requires some surgical intervention and extra ingredients to shape it up.

If I sound uncharacteristically harsh there, I don't mean to be as I did enjoy the book, and it's a light historical romance with a lot of interest which will have wide appeal, especially when you're in the mood for an undemanding read.

Gaze at a giveaway!

    Alright, dreadful post title, but good post subject: in last week's Revenge of the middle-aged woman piece, Linda Gillard's highly original novel Star Gazing was mentioned. Readers with long memories will know that I read it last year and loved it, and that I was delighted when it was shortlisted recently for the Romantic Novel of the Year Award. Well, I happen to have about my person an extra copy - for I shan't give away my own - which I'd be happy to send to a lucky reader.
    Many visitors here will already have read Star Gazing, but if you haven't and you'd like to, or if you have and you'd like another copy to give to someone you think would enjoy it, then please just leave a comment and I'll draw a winning name from the hat in a few days' time. The book is set partly on the Isle of Skye and partly here on my doorstep in Edinburgh, but the settings are only part of its charm as it has so much else to recommend it. One of its themes (you'll see that here) is music, so to enter - and you can be anywhere in the world to do so - just name a favourite piece.
Good luck!

Three from seven

 
    It is only since 2002 that I've kept a list of the books I've read, and I do look at it frequently, partly to remind myself what is there and also to link the books by association with other things that were going on in my life at the time I was reading them. Just as the newspapers often run 'on this day' pieces, pulling up notable events from their archives or remembering significant anniversaries, so I thought I'd take off the shelves the books I was reading on this date each year since 2002 - just for fun, and I hope, some interest, in case you haven't come across them before.

Of the seven from 2002-08 (given that this year's are on these pages anyway), the four 'runners-up' first:
A House in the Country, Jocelyn Playfair
 Life in a Cold Climate: Nancy Mitford - A Portrait of a Contradictory Woman, Laura Thompson
The Memory Keeper's Daughter, Kim Edwards
Here at the end of the world we learn to dance, Lloyd Jones

But now 'the prize-winners', as it were, from c. 26th. May, 2002 onwards, the real corkers I remember fondly and would recommend highly:
The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor - beautiful, elegant, perfect.
An Equal Music by Vikram Seth - a music-lover's novel.
Period Piece by Gwen Raverat - Darwin's granddaughter's memoir of her Cambridge childhood; original, funny, delightful.

Lights, camera, action!

Their Finest Hour and a Half -
Cast:
Ambrose Hilliard, thespian. Pompous, egocentric, former matinee idol now character part-playing, aging has-been.
Catrin Cole, valley girl (Welsh valley, that is). Writer of worthy Ministry of Information 'shorts' on carrot consumption and the like, now scripting snappy dialogue for propagandist feature film.
Edith Beadmore, spinster of this parish. Seamstress at Madame Tussaud's - kirtles and partlets a speciality - co-opted onto film set to 'break down' costumes to a suitably Dunkirk-distressed finish.
Arthur Frith, peacetime catering manager cum lance corporal storeman in the East Surreys cum film unit's bemused military advisor. Gauche, diffident, kindly creature of habit; hobbies - woodwork and spectacle-polishing.
Cerberus, dog. Answers only to Yiddish commands.

 "Call-up had skimmed off the cream, and the industry was clearly awash with rancid curds." That sets the theme for Lissa Evans' very funny and very touching novel about the making in 1940 of a morale-boosting film based on a 'real' Dunkirk evacuation episode. The book is slick, sharp, meticulously researched and beautifully crafted, and despite its humour it doesn't make light of the terrible times and conditions it depicts.
    We must all have read books set in wartime, and for many of us our mental picture of the bombing, the food shortages and rationing, the way of living with danger, has been formed by them. In this novel, the shooting of the film - a part of the war effort, though not an essential one - is the pale rose-tinted prism through which the grim events are viewed, and it's a very effective device, not detracting from the awfulness but balancing it with a pragmatic "keep calm and carry on" attitude, and at times almost slapstick comedy.       

        I enjoyed it enormously and was sorry when I reached the final scene. They may not have said "it's a wrap" in those days (do they now?), but the action of the book does wrap up perfectly.

Also recommended:
Few Eggs and No Oranges, Vere Hodgson
The Camomile Lawn, Mary Wesley
Good Evening, Mrs. Craven, Mollie Panter-Downes
Henrietta's War, Joyce Dennys

Good lines: words

     "Like subatomic particles, every word in our language has its characteristic combination of mass, charge and spin."

From Bozo Sapiens by Michael and Ellen Kaplan.

TBR: 3

    Little need be said about this by way of introduction, but A.S. Byatt's The Children's Book, resplendent in its quite beautiful dust jacket, arrived this morning.
    I did as I always do and turned first to the acknowledgements, often a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes into the writer's working life, but here a fairly good guide to the areas of research the author has used as her raw material. So, for example, specific objects within the V&A's incredible collections are singled out, and among those to be thanked is a potter, an expert on puppetry and a writer on trench warfare on the Western Front.
    The book's Edwardian scope appears to be all-encompassing, and given its writer's skill, this is surely one to be savoured.

Good lines

     "..... there was nothing sadder than owning memories so unremittingly spartan that they had to be embroidered before display."

From Their Finest Hour and a Half by Lissa Evans.

(The first of what I hope will be an occasional series of good lines taken from whatever I'm reading).

TBR: 2

     From the Second World War (see TBR: 1) to the First, specifically rural England at the time, and a short novel by D.H. Lawrence. The Fox is set on an ailing Berkshire farm where the struggles of Nellie March and Jill Barford are made the more difficult by the predations of a fox among the chickens. "When a young soldier turns up and begins to interfere with the farm and the lives of the two women, they must find ways to react to this new fox in their midst.
"A compelling study of the question of power, gender and sexuality, as well as a realistic portrayal of wartime England [which highlights] Lawrence's inimitable gift for psychological observation and dramatic description".
   Having had a bit of a Lawrence craze some years ago, it's a long time since I've read him, and this book - which looks as though it will be intense, rich and atmospheric - seems like a good re-introduction to him. The edition is from Oneworld Classics, by the way.

Two trivial points: isn't that cover photograph glorious, and DHL and I share a birthday with Jessica Mitford and Sarah Salway.

TBR: 1

   I have a few more books to add to the TBR pile, so (needs must) a quick word about each in turn.

   Anne Michaels' second novel, The Winter Vault, has just been published, but I have her first one here: Fugitive Pieces is a previous winner of the Orange Prize and the Guardian Fiction Award, and now a film.
   "Jakob Beer is seven years old when he is rescued from the muddy ruins of a buried village in Nazi-occupied Poland. Of his family, he is the only one who has survived. Under the guidance of Greek archaeologist Athos, Jakob must steel himself to excavate the horrors of his own history.
"A novel of astounding beauty and wisdom, [this] is a profound meditation on the resilience of the human spirit and love's ability to restore even the most damaged of hearts."

   The Spectator says of it, "Essential reading, both for its exceptional literary craft and for its exemplary and inspiring humanity", while The Independent on Sunday said " a powerful novel of history, loss, love and exile... It would not be easy to find a modern novel to match this one for line-by-line beauty".
    I am very much looking forward to reading it.

The revenge of the middle-aged woman

    This post isn't about Elizabeth Buchan's novel Revenge of the Middle-aged Woman (very enjoyable though it is as I recall, and an apposite example for illustrative purposes), but was instead prompted by an exchange of emails with Maggie Dana on the subject of her new book, Beachcombing (which I mentioned the other day), specifically, the use of the phrase "coming-of-middle-age-story" to describe it. Maggie was commenting that as women age they become more and more invisible, they cease to exist as far as many men are concerned, unfaded looks and unhindered youth being more marketable qualities, in books as in life. We often hear actresses bemoaning the lack of good parts available to them when they reach their forties and beyond - character roles notwithstanding - and Maggie's second point is that this situation obtains in literature, too, and that there is a dearth of good fiction whose heroines are in their middle years.
     Off the top of my head I'd cite Alexander McCall Smith's Sunday Philosophy Club series and its central character Isabel Dalhousie as an exception: here is a woman of intelligence and conscience, with - perhaps significantly - a much younger lover, and in later books, a child. She is independent, attractive, articulate and has financial means which give her a great deal of freedom, but do her circumstances set her apart from (and I generalise here) 'most middle-aged women', and is that in part why she is popular?
      An interesting point I noted from various discussions on Georgette Heyer (culminating in our book group reading of A Civil Contract) was that for those who have read her books since their youth, their preference within the canon has often shifted as they have grown up to the books with older heroines and settled marriages. A case of identifying with the character and their stage in life, then and a reassuring and comforting form of reading.
      Any thoughts on middle age in books? Any great fictional middle-aged women? And what happened to Transita who were publishing books about and for the more mature lady? 

Later: Anita Brookner's heroines are usually femmes d'une certaine age; read Mark's piece on her books here.

Wow!

    It isn't often that a book renders me incapable of coherent speech, but this one has; as the post title says, wow!
    Iain Pears' clever, immensely entertaining Stone's Fall  is six hundred pages of closely written, complex and intricately plotted narrative, fascinatingly detailed in both its essentials and its incidentals. Set out in reverse chronological order, beginning in London in 1909, moving back to 1890 Paris and then to Venice in 1867, the story is told by three narrators, the last of these being John Stone himself, financier, armaments maufacturer, man of fabulous wealth and incomparable business acumen. At the book's beginning he has fallen to his death from a window of his London home. Foul play is suspected, but there is no evidence of such. What happened to cause Stone's fall?
     All is eventually revealed, but the plot is beautifully played out and dexterously managed, as the mystery is balanced by a love story, espionage, Buchanesque antics, commercial manoeuvrings and a financial crisis of the grandest, most serious scale. Iain Pears clearly has vast knowledge of his period and his subject matter, but also great skill in turning that raw material into an utterly gripping, plausible novel. Intelligent and enormously enjoyable - what more can I say?

(Two more books by Iain Pears come particularly highly recommended: An Instance of the Fingerpost and The Dream of Scipio).

Back in business

    After that small hiatus in posting due to a technical problem - solved with a flash of genius by our very own Dark Puss, and my thanks to him for his expertise - it looks as though we are back in business here.
     But what to talk about today? After a very busy weekend with little or no reading time I am 'behind' with my books. I'm still utterly gripped by Stone's Fall and with a bit of luck and a following wind I may even reach the end today, and when I do finish it it will be passed straight on to Mr. C. who is already practically reading it over my shoulder and urging me to get a move on so that it can flit across to his bedside table a.s.a.p. (He's marking time with an old favourite P.G. Wodehouse the while).
    What about everyone else? What are you reading? What have you just read? What can you particularly recommend just now?

Water, water, everywhere

  

    Two more books just in, and their common thread - for the purposes of this post at least, the sea.

    First off, and for younger readers, a ghostly adventure set on the south coast of Devon. Chris Speyer's Devil's Rock is about Zaki and his family, a modern day sailing story with echoes of Swallows and Amazons, and a gripping mystery from the past. With a theme of change and how we react to it, this sounds as though it has plenty to hold the attention.

     For adults, a novel which comes highly recommended by very popular writers in the field. Katie Fforde says this is "a wonderfully uplifting story about a woman on her way to fulfilment", while Elizabeth Buchan calls it "a sparklingly attractive novel written with humour, brio and a refreshing unsentimentality", and the object of their praise: Beachcombing by Maggie Dana.
     Maggie (a long-time visitor to Cornflower) has written "a coming-of-middle-age story" about the independent Jillian who falls in love with an old flame. Will this be her chance for a new beginning in life?

Books, books, everywhere and barely a minute to read them today - I'm hoping for more free time tomorrow.

Absorbed

I can't put this down!

Too many books?

     I love this story from the excellent Chatsworth: The House by Deborah Devonshire (a book delightfully full of its author's personality):
"Plum-coloured plush covers a pair of enormous wing chairs constructed for men on the same scale which flank the fireplace [in the Chatsworth library - see above]. Two big fellows - the Eighth Duke and the then Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury - sat in them one evening about a hundred years ago. The latter looked up at the gallery running round the room... 'How do you get up there?' Lord Salisbury asked. Long pause. 'Damned if I know,' replied his host."

The false books on the gallery door have titles thought up by Patrick Leigh-Fermor. They include "Sideways through Derbyshire" by Crabbe, "Gloucester in All Weathers" by Doctor Foster, "Jellies and Blancmanges" by Somerset, and "Venus Observed" by I. Sawyer.

     Moving swiftly on - all those, like me, who have been helpless with hysterical laughter reading Counting my Chickens will be so pleased to know that a new volume of Deborah Devonshire's writings has just come out: Home to Roost has an introduction by Alan Bennett and is guaranteed to enchant and entertain. This is a must!

In today's book parcel ...

   I can't wait to begin this book: Stone's Fall by Iain Pears is the story of John Stone, financier and armaments manufacturer, "a man so wealthy that in the years before World War One he was able to manipulate markets, industries and whole countries... A panoramic novel with a riveting mystery at its heart, Stone's Fall is an intricate and richly satisfying puzzle, completely engaging on many levels, a triumphant return for one of the world's great storytellers". Gosh!
I haven't read any Iain Pears before but this book sounds great, as does this one.

     Next, a novel set in sixteenth century Italy. The Madonna of the Almonds by Marina Fiorato follows the young widow Simonetta who is struggling to preserve her family's estate. "Her endeavours bring her into contact with a young apprentice of da Vinci, and also bear fruit with her discovery of a new liqueur based on the essence of almonds. She encounters rivalry and hostility, as well as the suspicions of the religious ruling elite. Can she maintain her strength of will to overcome such obstacles?"
Marina Fiorato's earlier book, The Glassblower of Murano, was very popular last year, and it looks as though her new one is set to follow that in the 'summer read' category.

     Last (but by no means least) of today's batch has been described as "funny, moving and intensely readable": Lissa Evans' Their Finest Hour and a Half is about the making of a morale-boosting, heart-warming war film in 1940, "preferably one that will appeal to the American market". Work begins on 'Just an Ordinary Wednesday', "an almost-true tale of bravery and rescue at Dunkirk, but since call-up has stripped the film industry of the brightest and best, it's the callow, the jaded and the utterly unsuitable who are making up the numbers."
This one comes highly recommended, and I'll report back on it soon.