Miscellaneous

     In her comment on yesterday's post, Callmemadam mentions Wolf Hall. I am a fan, and I think Hilary Mantel is one of the few who can get away with the present tense, but I know the book's stylistic quirks irked many readers. For those who weren't keen (and indeed, those who were) may I recommend another novel of hers, the marvellous Fludd.

                                                     ~~~~~

     This collection of essays by Francis Spufford looks interesting; (Mr. C. speaks highly of his prize-winning Golden Hill).

                                                     ~~~~~

    Another Mr. C. recommendation is Minoo Dinshaw's Outlandish Knight: The Byzantine Life of Steven Runciman which is currently up for the Sunday Times/Peters Fraser & Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award. The author is the son of Candia McWilliam, and he was with her at an Edinburgh Book Festival Frank Kermode/Shakespeare event I attended some time ago. He must then have been a sixth-former or thereabouts and yet he asked I question (which I no longer remember) indicative of knowledge and understanding well beyond his years. It looks as though that early promise is being fulfilled.

                                                     ~~~~~

    Have you read Leon Garfield? I have not, but Philip Pullman (in Daemon Voices again) says Garfield's The Pleasure Garden is "a book that should never be unavailable". He expands, "... open [him] where you like, you won't find a page of sober dullness anywhere. Fantastical gloom, yes; grimness illuminated by shafts of grotesque humour, certainly; a darkness as profound and velvety as the black of an old mezzotint, by all means; but nothing sober, nothing drab, nothing workaday. The exuberance is all of a piece; even a first paragraph that begins like a travel guide twirls upwards into a rococo curlicue of imagery." You can read that paragraph here, and like me may find yourself hooked.

Comments

[Mary]

Feel slightly daunted by 784pp of the Outlandish Knight - but if Mr C recommends, he's never let me down in the past!

[Mr Cornflower]

I'm flattered and a little daunted myself by the responsibility you have placed on my shoulders, Mary! Dinshaw writes very elegantly on a man who was himself exotic and multi-layered, so it didn't feel as if I was trudging dutifully through a long a turgid tome, but it does help to have an interest in the worlds in which Runciman moved.

[Callmemadam]

I wouldn't call myself a fan of Hilary Mantel but I enjoyed A Place of Greater Safety (about the French revolution), which I read years ago.

I agree with Mr C. about Golden Hill; I thought it was terrific.

I've read several of Leon Garfield's children's books. I particularly like The Strange Affair of Adelaide Harris, which has a brilliant little twist at the end.

[Fran H-B]

I too read Leon Garfield as a child. His 'Smith' and 'Devil-in-the-Fog' were the '60's version of a child -friendly Dickens. Looking back to that decade I see the rich seam of authors of historical fiction for 10+ readers which I mined fully, thanks to the local library. I hadn't realised he wrote for adults too; more searching the library sites for me.

[Fran H-B]

Whoops, just read the age range of The Pleasure Garden...9-11 years. Better search the junior section!

[Cornflower]

I found A Place of Greater Safety a bit of an 'uphill' read in the end; it's impressive, without doubt, and interesting in terms of her developing style. I'm not particularly drawn to that period, which may also account for my response to the book.

[Cornflower]

Leon Garfield sounds very interesting, if this obituary is anything to go by: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-leon-garfield-1335399.html

[Juxtabook]

Leon Garfield seems more a teacher's book than a child's. Never been in school stock room that didn't have a set of Smith or one of his others. But the children never warmed that much - he is a bit hard, a bit ambitious for many. Great reading for an adult though. I've an edition of the Mystery of Edwin Drood finished by Garfield as well which I would recommend.

[Cornflower]

He sounds like a good fit for Dickens!

[Fran H-B]

Interesting that adults enjoyed his books too. My mother never read 'modern ' adult fiction; ie anything published after the 1940's. But she did read several 'children's' authors such as LG and Rosemary Sutcliffe as history was her thing. It was probably her sister, a teacher of 9-11 year olds who introduced us to him. She passed on the Puffin books she had read aloud to her class to me, I still have many of them.