Cornflower Books

Dangerous Women

    I've long been interested in the creative process, in any medium, but especially in the writing of fiction. I find the genesis of ideas fascinating, how a story grows from seed to full bloom, how it leans to the light, as it were, what determines its shifts and shapes. It's often the case that a writer can't clearly identify the source of their inspiration, but for Adèle Geras writing as Hope Adams in her new novel Dangerous Women, that starting point was a quilt.

    One of the exhibits in the V&A's hugely popular 2010 show Quilts: 1700-2010 was the Rajah quilt, now in the National Gallery of Australia. Made by a group of female convicts being transported from London to Van Diemen's Land aboard the Rajah from April to July 1841, it's a large coverlet of patchwork, appliqué and embroidery, and when Adèle saw it in the exhibition she knew it would be the basis for a novel.

    In Dangerous Women she uses the making of the quilt as the background to dramatic events on board the ship, constructing a 'locked room' mystery which brings out the past history of those involved in the quilt's creation, telling their story in scraps and snippets, piecing and stitching them together with different narrative threads and repeating patterns, as the women ply their needles and sew themselves into "a patchwork of souls".

    Superintending the making - having been sent out as matron to the women under the auspices of prison reformer Elizabeth Fry - is Kezia Hayter, generous, kindly, believing the best of her workforce even when this trust appears misplaced. For her the voyage will be a rite of passage in more ways than one. As to the women themselves, with respect to their descendants Adèle has given them all invented names and makes clear that while her story's framework is factual the events at its heart are entirely fictitious.

    Towards the end of the voyage Kezia considers the quilt, "... the design has come together but the true glory lies in the work," she thinks. "Every one of the women she'd chosen had stitched most diligently. The very act of coming together every single day, of sitting quietly, sewing, one next to another, of knowing that what they were achieving was something of beauty: ... that was what had transformed them into a sisterhood [and] each one would remember this spread of flowers and leaves, colours and stripes, dots, lozenges and her own broderie perse in the middle, with its bright birds and posies. They'd remember their contribution to its making."

    So it is that in a compellingly episodic narrative peopled with outcasts who are themselves often victims, a shared piece of handwork and the compassionate heart and creative mind behind it become the cohesive, redemptive embarkation point for a new life for all.

    Adèle has used her raw material with flair and skill, fashioning her story with respect for its unique origins and using its potential to the full.

Books in brief: The Eagle of the Ninth

    A quest, an adventure, a setting to rights ... a tale beautifully constructed and eloquently, intelligently told: Rosemary Sutcliff's The Eagle of the Ninth is one of the best novels I've read this year.

    You can find the handsome Slightly Foxed edition here.

She sees the garden as her terrain, her domain

    "[...] She plants a row of apple trees along the high brick wall. Two pairs of pear trees on either side of the main path, plums, elder, birch, gooseberry bushes, blush-stemmed rhubarb. She takes a cutting from a dog-rose growing by the river and cultivates it against the warm wall of the malthouse. She puts in a rowan sapling near the back door. She fills the soil with chamomile and marigold, with hyssop and sage, borage and angelica, with wormwort and feverfew. She installs seven skeps at the furthest edge of the garden; on warm July days it is possible to hear the restless rumble of the bees from the house.

    She turns the old brewhouse into a room where she dries her plants, where she mixes them, where people come, in through the side gate, to ask for cures. [...] She clears the old well in the courtyard. She makes a knot garden, with box hedges in an interlocking grid, their vacancies filled with purple-headed lavender."

From Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

                                                  ~~~~~~

Cover illustration by Cally Conway, design by Yeti Lambregts.

Purchases and presents

    Good reading ahead.

When life gets too fraught ...

... reach for pure romantic escapism.

    So says Dorothy Dunnett, born on this day in 1923 (and thanks to Alice for the reminder). No apologies for again posting this lovely interview by Jenny Brown which puts me in awe of Lady Dunnett's industry, her research skills, and of course her ability as writer and storyteller.

    Should you not know her work there's a short post on The Game of Kings, the first of the Lymond Chronicles, here, but Alice recommends the House of Niccolò series so to mark the writer's birthday I've ordered a copy of Niccolò Rising from Blackwell's.

    For more of the lady herself listen to her Desert Island Discs here.

The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction - the shortlist

    I'm sorry Diane Setterfield's Once Upon a River and Niall Williams' This Is Happiness haven't made the shortlist, but very glad to see Tim Pears' The Redeemed there; James Meek's To Calais in Ordinary Time is a work of virtuosity but not the easiest read in these difficult days.

The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction - the longlist

    So glad to see some very favourite novels from last year on the Walter Scott Prize longlist which was published this morning.

    Tim Pears' West Country Trilogy reached its fitting conclusion with The Redeemed, Diane Setterfield's Once Upon A River is utterly enchanting, and Niall Williams' This Is Happiness is Niall Williams at his best. James Meek's To Calais in Ordinary Time didn't get a post as such here on the blog, but I did write a piece on it for the Historical Novels Review.

    The shortlist will be announced next month and the winner in June.

I must just point you towards ...

 .... this post on Adèle's forthcoming book.

    Adèle came up to Edinburgh a few months ago to do research for another novel (which will be out after the Rajah quilt one) which is inspired by Phoebe Anna Traquair. We got together for dinner, and had a delightful evening with her and her friend the illustrator Helen Craig, and I heard all about both books then - naturally I can't wait to read them.

A book isn't complete 'til it's read

The nation's favourite historical novel

    You may remember that the Walter Scott Prize recently asked us all to nominate our favourite historical novel. From the titles submitted they compiled a poll, the results of which have been announced today, and the top three books are perhaps no surprise:

    Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall wins, Rosemary Sutcliff's The Eagle of the Ninth is second, and a close third comes The Game of Kings, the first of Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles.

The Crown Agent

    Mr. C. writes - 

    The Crown Agent is a debut historical novel by Edinburgh QC Stephen O’Rourke, who among other accomplishments is a friend of mine, so I declare an interest here; I also confess that I opened it with a degree of trepidation, rather like watching one of the children perform - you want it to be at least competent so you can say “well done!” without perjuring yourself. In the event I needn’t have worried, because he tells the tale so well that I devoured the book in a day.

    It’s set in Scotland in 1829, and the hero is a young doctor Mungo Lyon, who is recruited by powerful Establishment figures to investigate murders and disappearances with political overtones. Mungo’s adventures take him though some very convincingly drawn locations - from the Grand Union Canal to Jamaica - and he is an engaging and sympathetic character. I thought the descriptions of place were particularly good - you can almost close your eyes and the smells and sounds of Greenock or Kingston are there - as were the action scenes. I look forward to hearing more from Dr Lyon and his creator.

Eyes of cornflower blue

    Thanks to everyone who over the last couple of weeks has nominated a favourite historical novel. I passed on our list to the Walter Scott Prize, and from the submissions received they have compiled a top ten on which everyone can vote (until 16th. December). The winner will be announced early next year.

    I've read five of the books on the list, and strong as the field is I'm in no doubt as to which I'll plump for: Dorothy Dunnett's The Game of Kings comes top of the poll for me. It's brilliantly, exuberantly over-written, and a joy for that! It's dense in detail and rich in ornament but vital and vibrant in its colour; it's stocked full of references and quotations (and requiring more frequent resort to a dictionary than any novel I've read) but paced fast and furious, neat and deft in the running of its course. I loved its characters from wise, clever Sybilla and gentle, courageous Christian, to blustering Buccleuch (who has some of the best lines!), hot-headed Will, and Lymond himself - he of the cornflower blue eyes - what reader would not fall for him?

    In the final few pages the other day I went straight to Topping & Co. and bought Queens' Play, book 2 in the series, and I shall start it soon - a treat in store.

The list so far

    I've taken the comments on the last post together with contributions on Twitter and Instagram and listed the books/authors mentioned so that we have any easily viewable list which might guide our future historical fiction reading:

The Lymond Chronicles, Dorothy Dunnett (3 votes)

The House of Niccolo series, Dorothy Dunnett

King Hereafter, Dorothy Dunnett

The White Company, Arthur Conan Doyle

The Aubrey/Maturin series, Patrick O'Brian (2 votes)

Hild, Nicola Griffiths

The Morland Dynasty series, Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

Wolf Hall & Bring up the Bodies, Hilary Mantel (4 votes)

A Place of Greater Safety, Hilary Mantel

The Eagle of the Ninth, Rosemary Sutcliff (3 votes)

The Silver Branch, Rosemary Sutcliff

The Lantern Bearers, Rosemary Sutcliff

The Woolpack, Cynthia Harnett

Stars of Fortune, Cynthia Harnett

Cue for Treason, Geoffrey Trease

Fire over England, AEW Mason

A Traveller in Time, Alison Uttley

The Norman Pretender, Valerie Anand

Heart of Midlothian, Walter Scott

Treasure Island, RL Stevenson

Georgette Heyer

Nicola Upson

Frances Brody

 

If any more nominations come in I'll add them here.

The nation's favourite historical novel

    The Walter Scott Prize, often mentioned here, is celebrating its 10th. birthday and is asking us all to nominate our favourite historical novels. We have until the end of November to suggest a book (which must be set 60 years prior to date of original publication and be written in English), and from those a shortlist of the ten novels with the most nominations will be published on the Prize's website in early December, and the poll will then open for voting. The novel with the most votes will be crowned ‘The Nation’s Favourite Historical Novel’ in January 2020.

    You can go straight to the nominations page if you wish and list your top books there, or you can leave a comment here and I'll collate them and forward a list of the titles mentioned to the prize administrators - sharing our favourites that way would give us a useful resource to broaden our reading.

    It so happens that my current read is a book which I shall certainly nominate: I'm only half way through Dorothy Dunnett's The Game of Kings, the first of her Lymond Chronicles, but it's an astonishing piece. I'd had it for ages, unread, until an enormously enthusiastic message from Alice, who has just finished it, made me pick it up and begin. I'm so glad I did.

    I'm off to scan my shelves (and the Cornflower Blues archive) for my best historical fiction, but do please tell us your favourites, and may the best book win!

Now, where were we?

    Bit of an unplanned absence there - I was away for a few days (including a second literary pilgrimage here), and recent reads haven't felt terribly post-worthy, so the blog has been becalmed, but let's see if we can get some wind back in the sails.

    I popped into Topping & Co. yesterday to buy Andrew Whitley's book on sourdough (having made a loaf, following instructions in a general cookbook, which would not have looked out of place in the Ashmolean's Last Supper in Pompeii exhibit), and I picked up a copy of 4th Estate's free booklet The World of Wolf Hall: a reading guide to Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies, to prime us for The Mirror and the Light (out in March and a wrist-breaking 864 pages, apparently). 

    A browse round Blackwell's Broad Street shop when I was in the south resulted in a couple of additions to my Christmas wish list: DJ Taylor's Lost Girls: Love, War and Literature 1939-1951 and Christina Hardyment's Novel Houses: Twenty Famous Fictional Dwellings, meanwhile the Persephone Biannually arrived and caused the placing of an order: a DE Stevenson, Stella Martin Currey's One Woman's Year (which I shall keep for January), and Milton Place by Elisabeth de Waal which has started very promisingly. 

    Elsewhere in the family, daughters have been reading Oscar Wilde and Donna Tartt, and Mr. C. is deep in the Mick Herron canon and promises a post "soon". It was Adèle who put him on to MH, and the baton has been duly passed to the Hussar who sped through the Jackson Lamb series in no time. Incidentally, I sent him this picture of the George Macdonald Fraser novels taken in Toppings, 

saying these shelves ought to have a warning affixed: "reads these books at your peril - a career in the military awaits". He replied, "excellent preparation for a life of adventure!"; he read them as a teenager and has ended up in the modern incarnation of Flashman's regiment, which says something, does it not, about the power of literature!

    Anyway, I'm glad to be back and I hope you are all well and thriving and finding good things to read.

Tracy Chevalier - notes on process

    As promised, a few notes on Tracy Chevalier's writing process, as outlined in her recent Edinburgh Book Festival appearance:

    -    Tracy commented that her writing focuses on the senses, so if stuck on a scene she asks herself what her characters would see, smell or touch, and she goes on to imagine what that scene would look like if it were a film.

    -    When researching, she prefers to read books and take notes rather than resorting to Google for her facts (see the bibliography at the back of A Single Thread).

    -    She writes in notebooks then types up her draft every day or so, but the first pass is always done fully by hand and that relative slowness is a crucial part of the process; in addition, the crossings-out and movings-around on the page become the book's road map, she says. She edits on paper, too, printing a scene or chapter and working on the text by hand before correcting it digitally.

    -    As to stationery, she always tries to suit the notebook to the novel, but sometimes has to "make do" if her large collection can't furnish the perfect style. She can't work in cafes or other public places, preferring to sit on her sofa away from the distractions of the computer.

    -    On editing, "be ruthless" is Tracy's advice, for "editing is where most unpublished novelists fall down".

    -    How long does a book take her? She'll do six months' research before beginning to write, then she aims for around 1,000 words a day (her novels are typically about 90,000 words) but despite the initial work she often has to break off to check facts, and other writing commitments intervene, so 2 - 3 years in total is a fair estimation. Her next book is set in Venice in the 15th. and 21st. centuries and is about glass-making and beads; this is a big subject so will take longer, and no, she has not got any quicker over time and with practice. 

    -    Regarding subject matter for future books, while a place or situation may draw her, Tracy says she has to be patient "then something will click" and she sees "a flash" of what she could do with it. For example, Girl with a Pearl Earring grew from looking at Vermeer's painting and wondering "what did he do to her to make her look like that?", thus a portrait of a relationship took shape on the page.

A Single Thread

    Tracy Chevalier was in Edinburgh today to launch her new novel A Single Thread. Her Book Festival event was chaired by Clare Hunter, author of Threads of Life, and while the discussion naturally looped back often to embroidery - the book's main character Violet Speedwell is one of the 'broderers' of Winchester Cathedral - it covered much else besides, and the audience spent a happy hour learning about the writer's craft - in the widest sense.

    Asked about the novel's genesis, Tracy explained that she had always been fascinated by cathedrals and knew they would feature in a novel one day. On a visit to Winchester she discovered all the stories and associations for which its cathedral is best known, but then she came upon a display of ecclesiastical embroidery done by a group of volunteers between 1931 and 1936, and she realised she had her subject. Something about the seat cushions, kneelers and alms bags - made under the guiding hand of Louisa Pesel and all worked in wool on canvas - caught her imagination, and she decided to explore that world through her character Violet, one of the so-called surplus women, those from whom the terrible losses of the First World War had taken all prospect of marriage.

    Violet has left an overbearing mother in the family home in Southampton to try to make an independent life for herself. Working as a typist in an insurance office in Winchester, she lives in a boarding house, ekes out her meagre income, and is uncomfortably aware of the condescension and judgement - express or implied - to which the single woman is constantly subject. She comes upon the work of the broderers and on impulse she joins the group, learning the stitches from scratch, making friends, finding in her new interest an absorbing occupation and in the cathedral itself a place of refuge. 

    On the therapeutic aspects of needlework, Tracy spoke of her association with the charity Fine Cell Work and the ways in which stitching benefits the prisoners who take part in the scheme. As Miss Pesel says in the book, "When there is an upset, there is nothing like needlework to bring calm and focus," but in common with the fictional Violet, the inmates also find a sense of achievement, of having made their mark in the world through colour and texture and the creation of something beautiful and lasting: every good reason to pick up a needle. Asked whether anyone could learn how to stitch, while in the novel the skilful broderers prize evenness, Tracy spoke to the craft's inclusivity, making the point that it is often the very irregularity - the obvious handmade-ness - of handwork which gives it its character.

    I'll cover what Tracy had to say about her writing process in another post, but for now I'd urge you to get hold of a copy of A Single Thread (officially released on 5th. September) and hope you will enjoy the story of Violet, the embroiderers, and Winchester Cathedral as much as I did.

Friday reads

   

    "The sun was two fingers of the brink of the world when they rode out of Heytesbury, Laurence Haket, the lady Bernadine, Thomas, Will and Madlen. Drops of dew lay on every leaf and mist stood thick as milk in the hollows. Sheep's fleeces glew gold of the morning and the cattle stinted to graze and beheld the riders going by as if the days of Adam's kind were long gone and they hadn't never seen no man before. The riders went by hollow ways through dim woods where the birds sang loud as children achatter in the church, and by fields of ripening corn that hadn't been weeded a week, bright with red, yellow and blue blossoms. They came of their horses and led them on foot down the steep road into the dean of the Wylye, between still, sleeping towns without no smoke nor bells, and up a wild road on the far side onto high green downs, nearer to the sun, thick with bees and butterflies, where the grass grew so rich the horses trod without no sound. By mid-morning they came to the top of a hill that looked down on Mere, with its mighty castle, and beyond the town a great wold glimmered with the water of the Stour, and beyond that, blue and far, the downs of Dorset, so Thomas said."

    I'm reading To Calais, In Ordinary Time by James Meek, out soon and sure to get a lot of attention. It's set in England in 1348 and tells of a gentlewoman, a Scottish proctor (or representative of the clergy) and a young ploughman joining a company of archers on the road to Calais, while coming towards them is the qualm or plague, the Black Death to which half of the population of Northern Europe was to succumb. What is remarkable about the book is James Meek's use of language or idiom. I won't go into it here, but I will quote Hilary Mantel who says "fans of intelligent historical fiction will be enthralled by a story so original and so fully imagined. Meek show the era as alien, and doesn't falsify it by assimilating it to ours. But his characters are recognisably warm and human." It's an impressive piece.

    Anyone else reading something particularly good?

To be read - 1

 

    "London, 1321: In a small shop in Paternoster Row, three people are drawn together around the creation of a magnificent illuminated prayer book. Even though the commission seems to answer the aspirations of each one of them, their secrets, desires and ambitions threaten its completion. As each struggles to see the book come into being, it will change everything they have understood about their place in the world.

    Rich, deep, sensuous and full of life, Book of Colours is also, most movingly, a profoundly beautiful story about creativity and connection, and our instinctive need to understand our world and communicate with others through the pages of a book."

    Robyn Cadwallader is the author of The Anchoress (also on my TBR pile); you'll find her website here.

The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction: the winner

    News just in from the Borders Book Festival: this year's Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction has been awarded to Robin Robertson for The Long Take, written in both verse and prose and set in America after the Second World War.

    The judges said -

    “The Long Take recounts the inner journey of Canadian veteran Joe Walker as he travels from New York to Los Angeles and San Francisco attempting to rebuild his life after living through the horrors of war in Europe. In poetry of the utmost beauty, Robin Robertson interweaves themes from the great age of black and white films, the destruction of communities as cities destroy the old to build the new, the horrors of McCarthyism and the terrible psychological wounds left by war.

    Robertson shows us things we’d rather not see and asks us to face things we’d rather not face. But with the pulsing narrative drive of classic film noir, the vision of a poet, and the craft of a novelist, The Long Take courageously and magnificently boosts the Walter Scott Prize into its next decade.”

    John Banville reviews the winning book here.