Cornflower Books

Marsh-lands

 

    Something to look forward to (although as it won't be out until 2021 we'll have a bit of a wait) is a new book from neurosurgeon Henry Marsh*. His next will be 'using neuroscience rather than surgery as a starting point for an exploration of what makes us human. He will reflect on the life of his own brain - having spent a lifetime fixing other people's - and ask what light neuroscience can shed on his past, present and future, blending the latest scientific discoveries with autobiography, storytelling and discussion about modern medicine, to create "a work of science, literature and memoir like no other".'

    If you don't already know Henry Marsh's prize-winning Do No Harm and his equally good second book Admissions, look out for them - I'm sure you won't be disappointed.

*Recently the castaway on Desert Island Discs.

Transcription

   

    I needn't say much about Transcription because Kate Atkinson is a first class novelist and readers are safe in her hands. You won't find pedestrian, clunky, formulaic writing here, for all is precise and fitting; the narrative has pace and flows smoothly from 1981 to 1950, 1940 and back; the editing is tight, the tone is light - "Think of it as an adventure [...] A bit of a lark, something from Buchan or Erskine Childers [...] A Girls' Own adventure." - and the raw material is so professionally shaped and polished as to bring out the grain in all its beauty and complexity: therein lies the skill, hence the safe hands.

    Transcription is the story of Juliet Armstrong, recruited by the Security Service during the war, her job to transcribe recordings of incriminating conversations of Nazi sympathisers: "filaments in an evangelistic web of treachery." Asked to leave her typewriter and infiltrate that web, Juliet - whether spider or fly - puts herself at risk, but retribution is long in coming.

    I loved the book's humour, for besides the black comedy, Kate Atkinson has the Alan Bennett/Victoria Wood gift of colouring a character with a telling domestic detail or a wry observation. In addition, Juliet's very self-possession, her self-awareness, gives a certain detachment to her perception of and involvement in events, and it's that little 'distance' that makes room for comedic comment and lends a spaciousness to her story. There are some set-piece scenes or longer sections which I imagine the author had particular fun with, not least the post-war BBC Schools department which is a rich seam to mine (not surprisingly she lists Penelope Fitzgerald's Human Voices as a source). There's a wool shop cameo which reminded me of Wallace and Gromit's Wendolene's Wools, and her use of a flamingo (see the cover, above) is surely a nod to the surrealism of Alice's game of croquet.

    The first of the book's three epigraphs is Winston Churchill's 'In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies." Bear that in mind as you read this superb novel.

Thanks, results, and a book of the day

    Thanks to all who offered suggestions as to the identity of Lee's mystery book (see below) - I knew you'd be able to help!

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    Remember the 2018 Reader Survey? The results are in. Mary apologises for having taken longer than expected to compile her report; as you can read here, a vacation took a very dramatic turn indeed. Thank goodness she is all right. 

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    William Boyd's new novel Love is Blind has gone straight to the head of my reading queue. It's set at the end of the nineteenth century, has a musical theme, and features a young Edinburgh man, Brodie Moncur. Here's the author in conversation with Waterstones' Will Rycroft:

Can you help?

    An email from Lee yesterday with a request for help in identifying a book:

    Lee is trying to remember the name of novel she read some years ago, similar in style, she recalls, to the work of D.E. Stevenson -

    "It was set in Scotland and revolves around a family is straitened circumstances. One son had left home and married and lived in London. His wife was very much a city girl. When she became pregnant she panicked and ended by leaving him and the baby. The son comes home to run the family estate. His mother (a widow I think) remarries an architect who adapts a house on the estate for them."

    Lee says it was a lovely light domestic novel, and I must say that I like the sound of it and would be keen to read it if anyone can tell us what it is! One of O. Douglas's, perhaps?

                                                     ~~~~~

    In other news, the blog's comments system has 'gone funny' - it's not recognising me (or others, I think) as it should and it's requiring a sign-in via Typepad but not moving to that page when the link is clicked. You can still comment using the name/email address/website url (if appropriate) boxes, and all seems to be working normally over on Cornflower, but I've reported the glitch here.

Did not finish

    I can't remember when I last abandoned a book - it is very rare for me not to finish - but I have re-shelved Long Live Great Bardfield having reached the halfway mark. 

   Horses for courses, as they say.

This week's acquisitions

    Where has the time gone? 

    I am way behind with everything, it seems, not least responding to your recommendations on last Friday's post, all of them much appreciated.

    In the end I decided on Tirzah Garwood's autobiography Long Live Great Bardfield as my next book, and 150 pages in I've got very mixed feelings about it, but perhaps she's just about to get into her stride and my reservations will fade away. We shall see.

    In other reading, the rest of the pile above arrived this week: plenty to enjoy there.

Friday reads, Friday favourites

   

    As I write I am nearing the end of Kate Atkinson's new novel Transcription which has been a treat of a read - more on it soon.

    The question is then, what to pick up next? I'm not exactly short of options but I don't like false starts so I try to choose something that will suit my mood and be just right for the moment rather than taking whatever happens to be on top of a pile. This means I swither and dither and quietly overthink, to which you are likely saying 'just get on with it, woman, it's only a book!'

    While I finish Juliet Armstrong's story (I'm deep in her post-war exploits at the moment) and scan the shelves for something to follow it, tell us, if you will, what you're reading this weekend or recommend a recent favourite.

Out today in paperback ...

 

     ... the most excellent La Belle Sauvage.

The Bird in the Tree

   

 

    Pick up an Elizabeth Goudge novel and from the first page you will feel your shoulders drop. Miss Goudge clearly had a great gift for joy and it shines through every passage and gives comfort and confidence to the reader: you know where you are with her, you know that all will be well and the greater good will be served - even at some personal sacrifice - but 'right' will triumph in the end.

    The Bird in the Tree, set in the Autumn of 1938, is the first of three books about the Eliots of Damerosehay, an idyllic Hampshire house presided over by doughty matriarch Lucilla. In terms of plot, suffice to say that there is an act of wrong-headedness, a confession, and a crisis of conscience, and I'll leave all the details for you to discover, but beyond that there is typical Goudge delight in the natural world, specifically an enchanting garden and a wild, seaside setting, a lightly handled touch of the supernatural, an interesting assembly of characters, and an appreciation - tempered with modesty and dignity - of beautiful things.

    There's little more to say other than to urge you to read EG if you haven't already done so and are in the mood for something to satisfy, soothe and uplift.

    Edited to add: I think my favourite Elizabeth Goudge so far (though it's hard to choose) is this one.