Cornflower Books

My Life in Houses

   

    I have long admired Margaret Forster's writing: she's clear, straightforward, understated, quietly compelling; not showy, loud or 'clever'. I've read her biography of Daphne du Maurier and several novels, chief among them Lady's Maid, and Keeping the World Away, about Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Gwen John respectively (see this post), ones to look out for if you don't already know them.

    Her latest book is a memoir, My Life in Houses, a portrait of the homes she's lived in and an account of their significance to each stage of her life, and I commend it to you for its author's clear-sightedness, self-awareness, level-headed pragmatism and lack of sentimentality.

    The book begins with a quotation from Leonard Woolf of which the following is an extract:

    "The house - in which I include its material and spiritual environment - has an immense influence on its inhabitants ... what has the deepest and most permanent effect upon oneself and one's way of living is the house in which one lives. The house determines the day-to-day, minute-to-minute quality, colour, atmosphere, pace of one's life; it is the framework of what one does, of what one can do, of one's relations with people ..."

    Margaret Forster charts her life from house to house, from growing up in Carlisle, to her lodgings in Oxford (college life having been tried and found wanting), to a rented flat in the Vale of Health in Hampstead where newly married to fellow writer Hunter Davies she finds a situation close to perfection, and thence to a house which, despite unpromising beginnings becomes the settled, much-loved family home and a place of refuge and content. Those are the bones of the book; you must read it to see how - simply but profoundly - they are fleshed out.

    Reflecting on the particular nature and significance of home - in this instance a house she has lived in for most of her adult life - Margaret Forster says "Yet somehow the house itself, its very fabric, is of importance. An intimate knowledge of its layout, of how all the rooms are arranged and used, stimulates a weird pleasure. I know this house. It has been changed by us not only in the real, practical sense of altering its appearance and internal geography, but by our living within it. Instinct guides me everywhere. I don't have to wonder where I am going or what I will find. The house doesn't need to remind me of what has taken place, why certain rooms are of a significance nobody else could possibly guess. Take the building away and it is alarming to realise memories might not be enough. Something indefinable would be lost. I need the house's influence - the 'influence' that Leonard Woolf thought 'might well be the subject of a scientific investigation'. ... Our house has not exactly moulded me. But, on the other hand, it has provided a structure and a privacy which have been of immeasurable value. I was not mistaken, as a child, to believe that having a house, never mind a room, of my own was, for me, hugely important.

    "... My house is like a garment, made to my exact measurements, draped around me in the way I like. I never want to change it."

Popping in and catching up

    Posts have been few and far between lately, and that's set to continue as other commitments take priority, but I must just mention a few things as I pop in briefly:

    The respected bookseller Topping & Company is about to open a branch in St. Andrews. I passed the shop in Greyfriars Garden this morning and found it tantalisingly full of stock but its doors firmly closed until next Monday (the 17th.). I shall look forward to visiting Toppings on my next visit.

    A couple of articles caught my eye over the last few days: A.S. Byatt on Margery Allingham - "she turned puzzles into true drama, but with a conscious artificer's grace" - and an interview with Richard Adams, still going strong at 94.

    As to current reading, I am greatly enjoying Margaret Forster's memoir My Life in Houses - and related to that, do see Liz Wood's comment on this post in which she offers a profound and most fascinating insight; much food for thought there.

Novel of the week

   

    I've read three novels over the last week, all good, all to be recommended, all much enjoyed. Despite their finer points, however, one is overwrought, another is over-long, and both those two address the issues at their hearts uncomfortably earnestly and with an ill-fitting 21st. century sensibility, reflecting on their period characters a contemporary outlook rather than views in keeping with their time.

    The third book falls into none of these traps. Juliet West's Before the Fall is a highly accomplished debut with that integrity - sense of wholeness - which is so often lacking in novels of all genres and at all points on the literary scale. Based - tragically - on actual events, it is in essence a love story set in London's East End during the First World War, but it stands out for the quality of its writing, and for the way in which it depicts the moral spectrum of its period rather than ours. While my hand was twitching for the virtual editorial pencil where the other books were concerned, of this one I wouldn't change a word.

Good lines: 'through leaves'

   

    "As long ago as 1924, Vita had recorded simple everyday occurrences guaranteed to make her happy: 'walking on crisp snow; running a stick along railings; stamping on a nut; stripping the shell from a hard-boiled egg; writing with the really ideal nib*; plunging into the sudden comfort of warm water on a cold night'. Each inspired a sensation she labelled 'through leaves' on the analogy of the uncomplicated pleasure inherent in kicking one's way through dry leaves on an autumn walk. Though not intended as an inventory of personal fulfilment (Vita's list omitted Harold [her husband], poetry, gardening, her houses, Ben, Nigel [her sons], dogs and intimate friends, it indicates something of the nature of her engagement with her world."

    From Behind the Mask: The Life of Vita Sackville-West by Matthew Dennison.

 

*Oh yes!

By their books shall ye know them

    If you had to plot a person on a map of character, so to speak - i.e. mark their position on a chart of temperament, foibles, predilections, and so on, you could do worse than define them with reference to their taste in books.

    I came to this conclusion the other day when I was reading Cynthia Harnett's The Wool-Pack which is set mostly in the Cotswold village of Burford, a place I know slightly, and indeed I've stayed in The Bay Tree in Sheep Street, a building which could be the model for the Fetterlocks' house in the book. Picturing the location, I quickly sank into the story and its delightful and detailed look at 15th. century rural life, and then I noticed that on the endpaper of my library copy was a map with places such as Newbury, Winchester and Southampton all marked. "Oh no," I thought, "don't tell me that Nicholas has to leave the safety and comfort of home and go on a journey!" And with a moment of sharp self-awareness I realised that if I'd been a member of The Inklings when Tolkien was writing Lord Of The Rings, I'd have said "just let them stay in The Shire, Tollers," and then where would we be?

    In case I give the wrong impression, I do of course leave my northern fastness to venture 'abroad', I am not a recluse, but I love home and my roots go down deep, so any novel which makes much of a happy house and a settled person is welcome on my shelf. Let them travel if you must, I would say to an author of their characters, but bring them safely back again, so that at story's end these lines of Browning's might sum things up:

   The year's at the spring
    And day's at the morn;
    Morning's at seven;
    The hillside's dew-pearled;
    The lark's on the wing;
    The snail's on the thorn:
    God's in His heaven—
    All's right with the world!

The Beat Goes On

   

    Mr. C. writes:

    "I hope you get as much fun reading these stories as I had writing them" says Ian Rankin in the introduction to The Beat Goes On, the complete set of short stories about Edinburgh detective John Rebus. Mission accomplished: both for hardened Rebus fans and for newcomers, this collection is so evocative you can almost smell the malt tang of the Caledonian Brewery and see the grey, glittering city with its dark passions and moral ambiguities. There are tales of high society and low life, tales of bitter depravity and macabre humour, all illuminated by Rebus's glowering intelligence as he pursues a very personal ideal of justice through the bars and drawing rooms and suburban bungalows and grim estates of Edinburgh. A dangerous book to have on the bedside table - you just want to keep reading on and on into the wee small hours of the night - and a dangerous book to lend: make sure you get it back.

Fact and the unexplained

    From last month's Historical Novel Society London conference, here is the very interesting discussion Fact and the Unexplained: Myths, Fairy Tales, and the Gothic, chaired by Kate Forsyth with Prof. Diana Wallace, Essie Fox, Jessie Burton and Deborah Harkness*. (I loved Kate Forsyth's description of historical fiction as "history set to music".)

*I recently re-read A Discovery of Witches, the first volume in Deborah Harkness' All Souls trilogy, and enjoyed it just as much as the first time - it's a lot of fun. If you want to know more, watch this edition of Book Lust with Nancy Pearl.

Recommendations

   

    Back in May, on the recommendation of Lory, I added Hild by Nicola Griffith to my lengthy wish list. Browsing the latest edition of The Good Book Guide today I see the novel - which is based on the early life of St. Hilda of Whitby - is the 'Editor's Choice' in the historical fiction section, praised for its exhaustive research, page-turning qualities, characterisation, and the fineness of its 'cloth'. I've moved it up my list.

    From my own recent reading I'd like to offer you three recommendations (and these books will all be appearing in next month's Guide):

    Mr Mac and Me by Esther Freud, which I loved for its delicacy, its subtlety, its beautiful, restrained writing, and for the poignancy of its story, that of Charles Rennie Mackintosh in the Suffolk village of Walberswick at the beginning of the First World War; "a fine novel of art and nature, and of life's ebbs and flows."

    The Taxidermist's Daughter by Kate Mosse is the first novel of hers I've read, and on the strength of it it won't be the last. She describes herself as a storyteller, I believe, and this book clearly demonstrates that skill. A gripping gothic thriller again set on the south coast but this time in the very stormy spring of 1912, I was impressed by the way the central conceit is developed, and I admire the lengths the author went to for her research (the clue is in the title!) for this "compelling story of justice, and of a punishment to fit a crime".

    First Impressions by Charlie Lovett is indeed, as its subtitle has it, a novel of old books, young love and Jane Austen, and if you've read Charlie's The Bookman's Tale, its style will be familiar. It's a literary romp set in Oxford and London in the present day and in Hampshire in the late 1700s, and it features the genesis of one of the greatest novels in the English language and a dastardly plot to discredit the blessed Jane. It's fast-paced and fun, and if at times it recalls the old silent movie 'pretty girl tied to the railway tracks by the evil villain' trope, it's none the worse for that!

Short but sweet

    The above was found on Twitter; I don't know the identity of the young book reviewer, but I admire the passion behind their words!

Good lines: good reasons

   

    "Kiss me."

    "I beg your pardon!"

    "We're two lovers of old novels in a garden in the moonlight. Kiss me."

     Will she? Won't she? You'll have to read Charlie Lovett's First Impressions: A novel about old books, young love, and Jane Austen to find out.

A quick look

   

    Talking about 'looking' over on the other site today reminds me that I haven't mentioned Chiang Yee's The Silent Traveller in Oxford since I read it.     The author was a consummate observer, seeing details others would not, and from them constructing an atmospheric and - despite wartime privations - joyous portrait of a time and place. Any man who can begin a chapter with the words "I LOVE rain" is my sort of writer, and indeed he describes himself later as "an odd person who indulges himself by taking pleasure in things not noticed by those of a more objective turn of mind". That's spot-on, and the book is charming.

Bargain of the day - The Home-Maker

   

    In case you're not on the Persephone Books mailing list, you may like to know that the new 'Classic' edition of the excellent novel The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher is available for the next two weeks for only £6 instead of £9.

    The link there to the book's page on the website tells you all you need to know about this, one of my top favourites from the Persephone list, and if you haven't already read it you're in for a treat.

Weekend reading

   

    Yesterday I quoted a passage from Esther Freud's new novel Mr Mac and Me, and Lucille kindly left a link to an interview with the author on Radio 4's Open Book. Do listen if you can as it gives an interesting insight into the background to the book which tells the story of the celebrated architect/designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh's time in the Suffolk village of Walberswick in 1914 and 1915, and his friendship with the young Thomas Maggs.

    I'm about half way through and loving the book, admiring Esther Freud's lightness of touch, and fascinated by the portrait of Mackintosh and his history, for despite his enormous standing now, this shows him at a time when his fortunes were on the ebb.

    That's my weekend reading - what's yours?

Always keep a notebook

    Writers and their notebooks pop up here from time to time; for instance, we've had

    Dorothy L. Sayers,

    Tracy Chevalier,

    Lawrence Norfolk,

    Mr. Norfolk again with A.S. Byatt and others,

    my guests 'at the writing desk',

    and now here's Joan Aiken on the subject - and by the way, the Joan Aiken blog, written by Joan's daughter Lizza, is very much worth visiting.

Bellman & Black - in paperback

   

    Out in paperback tomorrow (the 25th.) is Diane Setterfield's Bellman & Black, one of my top favourite novels of last year. No apologies for re-posting my review - as you can see, I thought the book was a superb piece of work:

 

    "You will have seen rooks [...]. Don't be put off by any sense of familiarity. Rooks are enveloped in a glorious sky-cloak of mystery. They're not what you think they are."

    Those lines are from Mark Cocker's book Crow Country, and Diane Setterfield has used them as the epigraph to her long-awaited novel Bellman & Black, for rooks feature throughout, occasionally in the foreground, more often as a shadowy background figure, but always wearing that 'sky-cloak of mystery'.

    The story begins with a group of young boys playing in the Oxfordshire countryside. One of them, William Bellman, has a catapult, a good aim, and an unshakeable confidence in his ability to hit a target, and to his companions' surprise, his missile reaches its target - a rook on a far tree - and the bird is killed. Now rooks suddenly arrive from all directions and take their places on the branches where their fellow had sat. There is no noise, no chatter, just "intent and purposeful silence" as the birds stare at William who in turn is deeply unnerved.

    As William forgets the incident, so we follow him as he grows up, as he goes to work for his uncle at Bellman's Mill, as he quickly masters every aspect of the business and becomes an indispensible second-in-command. He is a man of drive and purpose, of great commercial sense and shrewdness and strategic ability, one who will apply himself to any problem and find a solution, and when competitors are failing, William's mill flourishes and he prospers. He seems blessed, both in his family life and his work, until tragedy strikes ...

    I loved this novel. I slid into it like a hand into a glove, and it held me comfortably from start to finish so that I was sorry to leave it. I loved its gentle pace and steady rhythm, its repeating images and motifs, the playing out of its central mystery - of which I'll say no more - the fugue-like development of its themes, and the inevitability of the story's trajectory. I found the details of the workings of the woollen mill, the 19th. century cloth industry, and William's subsequent business building and running an emporium on London's Regent Street all quite fascinating, and it struck me that Diane Setterfield has not only researched her subject with the utmost thoroughness but placed her facts and findings with care and skill to build a story of pleasing integrity.

    The book will not appeal to everyone. Some will not take to the rook lore with which chapters are interspersed; some will have no time for its central conceit; for others, the very seamlessness of the narrative - its steady pulse and its deliberate predictability - will not appeal. But for me, William Bellman and his ever-present calfskin notebook, his lists, his plans, his application to the task in hand and the one beyond it, the bargain he makes with a mysterious stranger ... all this made compelling reading.

                     

Suspend your disbelief

    Here is a lovely talk about the power of fiction, and a book as "a doorway to wonder" - it should make you smile!

                                                ~~~~~

    The 'flipside' of this, you might say, is the real experience which inspires a fictitious one, and this article reveals the fairly mundane basis for the dream-like party scene in Alain-Fournier's Le Grand Meaulnes, which itself had a very famous literary successor.

Looking forward to reading ...

 

    ... Behind the Mask: The Life of Vita Sackville-West by Matthew Dennison, out on 9th. October.

    I greatly enjoyed Victoria Glendinning's biography of Vita which I read some time ago, and of Vita's own work I can very warmly recommend All Passion Spent (there's much comment on it here) and The Heir, which as I said last year, shows you how to paint with words on a small canvas, (and fill the picture with passion).

    While I wait for the new biography, I am reacquainting myself with Vita as gardening writer by way of Vita Sackville-West's Sissinghurst: The Creation of a Garden by her granddaughter-in-law, Sarah Raven, and I do love her style.

Have you read ... Robin Hobb?

   

    I confess I had not heard of Robin Hobb until recently, but a 5* review (by Jane Shilling) of her latest book, Fool's Assassin, caught my eye, and I was intrigued.

    Should you look at the sidebar on the left there you'll note that I don't have a 'fantasy' category in the archive, and that's because I happen to read so little of it - other books put themselves in my orbit more, but now this one has appeared, it "transcends the genre," apparently, and it sounds so good I want to know more.

    The new book is the first volume of a trilogy which features characters from the author's previous series: "Fitz ... is preparing to celebrate Winterfest with his wife, Molly, when a messenger arrives at their rural retreat of Withywoods. In Fitz's old occupation, the arrival of a messenger was invariably the preamble to a testing adventure. But either he has lost his edge, or he prefers not to recall the past, for he ignores his visitor, who vanishes, leaving nothing but a sense of disquiet. The vanished messenger had something of momentous importance to impart, but it takes Fitz almost the entire book to realise it. In the headlong final pages, when the slowness of the opening chapters comes together, the reader realises with a mixture of exhilaration and dread that the adventure is just beginning."

    "Hobb is always readable," Jane Shilling sums up, "but the elegant translucence of her prose is deceptive. What interests her is not fine writing per se, but writing that offers the least resistance between reader and story. Groping for comparisons, you find yourself in the company of the great compendious literary novelists. As the best writers do, Hobb shows us ourselves in her characters. Their longings and failings are our own, and we find our view of the world indelibly changed by their experiences. That is the ambition of high art. The novelists in any genre are rare who achieve it with Hobb’s combination of accessibility and moral authority."

    Is it necessary, I wonder, to have read The Farseer and The Tawny Man trilogies, to better appreciate this new book, or can one begin here?

    Have you read Robin Hobb, and what do you think of her work?

Bargain of the day

   

" ... a bizarre but lovely mixture of old books and typography, modern technology, a quest, a code, a secret society, a lot of Googling (i.e. an illuminating look inside Google HQ itself), the weirdest book club in the world and the search for something which I cannot reveal. Fun, sweet, warm-hearted, mad-in-a-good-way...",

    that's my summing-up of Mr Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan which is one of today's Kindle deals.

Books on foot

    Since walking was the subject of yesterday's Cornflower post, how about some books on the subject? In no particular order:

    As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, Laurie Lee

    Wild: A Journey from Lost to Found, Cheryl Strayed (appropriate name ...)

    A Walk In The Woods, Bill Bryson

    A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, Eric Newby

    A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water by Patrick Leigh Fermor

    To the River: A Journey Beneath the Surface, Olivia Laing  

    The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot, Robert Macfarlane

    The Green Road Into The Trees,  Hugh Thomson

    Walking Home, Simon Armitage

    Footsteps, Richard Holmes

    If you can think of any more along similar lines, please leave a comment.

    The painting is Miss Jekyll's Gardening Boots (1920) by Sir William Nicholson, so nothing to do with walking as such, but the boots look as though they have tramped many a mile.