Cornflower Books

Lost and found and gone astray

 

    This coming Wednesday, 15th. May, is European Literature Night and there are events taking place simultaneously in capital cities including one up here in Edinburgh and another at the British Library in London - click there for full details, and see also the panel discussion, Writing, Creativity and Translation, on the role of translation in European fiction.

    Among the writers giving readings and in conversation in London on Wednesday evening is the Catalan author Jordi Punti whose book Lost Luggage has been translated into 15 languages and won the Spanish National Critics' Prize in 2011. I have it on my TBR pile, and was drawn partly by the compliments it has received in reviews - "A conjuring trick. Incomparable literature", "an astonishing literary artefact. Marvellous...", and also by the blurb:

    "Christof, Christophe, Christopher and Cristòfol are four brothers - sons of the same father and four very different mothers, yet none of them knows of the others' existence. They live in Frankfurt, Paris, London and Barcelona and they unwittingly share the fact their father, a truck driver, abandoned them when they were little and they never heard from him again.

    Then one day, Cristòfol is contacted by the police: his father is officially a missing person. This fact leads him to discover that he has three half-brothers, and the four young men come together for the first time... Divided by geography yet united by blood, the "Cristobales' set out on a quest to find their father, one that is painful, hilarious and extraordinary. They discover a man who during thirty years of driving was able to escape the darkness of Franco's Spain and to explore a luminous Europe, a journey that, with the birth of his sons, both opened and broke his heart."

                                                           ~~~~~

 

    Now for some pure escapist reading. I picked up Mary Stewart's Thornyhold late last night and quickly became happily engrossed in it. Here's the gist:

    "To Gilly, Thornyhold is an enchanted cottage, a bequest from her cousin whose magical visits had brightened a lonely childhood. And it comes just in time to save Gilly from a bleak future after the death of her parents. Thornyhold has a resident black cat - and a reputation for magic; as she learns more about her cousin's herbalist skills, her abilities to foresee events and to heal, Gilly realises that she has inherited more than just the house itself ..."

    That suits my reading mood perfectly.

                                                           ~~~~~

 

    Thanks to everyone who entered the draw to win a copy of Emma Donoghue's Astray, and who named a favourite book about travelling or journeys in so doing. It is Nicky's name which has come out of the hat, so I'll get the book on its way very soon, and I hope we'll have another draw before long.

Giveaway: Astray by Emma Donoghue

    

    Picador have kindly sent me a copy of the paperback edition of Astray by Emma Donoghue, which will be out later this month and which I read in hardback earlier in the year, and so I thought I'd put it up for grabs. It's a sequence of stories or 'fact-inspired fictions' on the themes of wanderings, deviations and going astray. The epigraph is from Virgil's Aeneid:

    "Tell us underneath what skies, / Upon what coasts of earth we have been cast; / We wander, ignorant of men and places, / And driven by the wind and the vast waves";

    its sections are entitled 'Departures', 'In Transit', and 'Arrivals and Aftermaths', and within them each piece is inspired by an actual historical account - but often no more than a brief mention in a letter or newspaper report - of a journey, or some form of displacement. From this seed or source material Emma Donoghue has created a series of perfect vignettes, capturing or imagining a unique and appropriate voice for each, 'assuming' a style to suit her subject matter*.

    The book begins with the story of Jumbo the famous elephant at London Zoo who was sold to Barnum's Circus in 1882 (this despite huge public outcry), and moves on through other emigrants, runaways, settlers and travellers, taking in all types of people and the transgressive or transformative situations in which they find themselves. It's inventive and intuitive, vivid and sharp of focus, and I hope whoever wins it will enjoy it very much.

    To enter the draw, then, please leave a comment on this post naming a favourite book - fiction or non-fiction - about travelling in one way or another, or which involves a journey of some kind; it can be anything at all as long as it appealed to you. The competition is open to everyone, so please put your name in the hat.

 

(*See this brief extract from the book's Afterword.)

And the winners are ...

 

    There has been a tremendous response to our favourite short story/author competition, and following all the marvellous, wide-ranging recommendations could lead us down many distinct reading trails as those comments amount to a fabulous guide to short fiction. Needless to say, judging has been difficult, but with the help of the team at Bloomsbury, we have our three winners:

     First prize, that is a signed copy of This Isn't The Sort Of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You by Jon McGregor (the paperback is published today, by the way), Ballistics by D.W. Wilson, and one of the following: Tenth of December by George Saunders, Homesick by Roshi Fernando, Diving Belles by Lucy Wood, Once You Break a Knuckle by D.W. Wilson) goes to Bethan Roberts whose favourite is Claire Keegan's collection Walk the Blue Fields - "So much emotion contained in the parting of a bride's shining hair."

    Second prize, This Isn't The Sort of Thing ... and one of the four above, goes to Kat (@hikatnelson) who nominated F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Diamond as Big as the Ritz - "Short suits sharp social satire!"

    Third prize, a copy of This Isn't the Sort of Thing ... (reviewed here), goes to Aki Schilz who said of A.L. Kennedy's Indelible Acts, "each story is like a fingerprint on my skin".

    Thankyou to everyone who entered, who shared their knowledge of the form, who retweeted our many #shortandtweet tweets, and special thanks to Bloomsbury for all the prizes! I hope the winners will enjoy them thoroughly.

More on the short story

    I'm thrilled with the wide-ranging entries in the favourite short story competition, and you've got until 5pm (GMT) tomorrow, Wednesday, to put yours in if you haven't already done so. Comment on yesterday's post or use Twitter if you'd prefer - @Cornflowerbooks or #shortandtweet - and tell us what makes your chosen story or writer special.

    Continuing the theme, here are a few links to pieces you may find interesting:

    - In this video, Jon McGregor introduces his book This isn't the sort of thing that happens to someone like you and talks about the cohesive nature of the collection and that one-line story I referred to in my post.

    - On this page you'll find links to podcasts by several of the authors whose books are the prizes in our competition.

    - Here is an article by William Boyd on the attraction of the short story for writers, a history of the form and a system of classification.

    - If you write short stories yourself, here is a competition with excellent prizes - the closing date is imminent so you'd have to get your skates on, but perhaps you've already written a piece which meets the brief.

    - Lastly, how about an evening of short story readings by professional actors? This will include the winning stories from the above competition.

Competition time!

             

             
      
     Yesterday's post on Jon McGregor's short story collection This Isn't The Sort of Thing To Happen To Someone Like You was partly by way of introduction to a competition which I'm running with the generous support of Bloomsbury. Let me tell you about the prizes, and then we'll come to what you have to do to win them.

    The first prize will be a signed copy of This Isn't The Sort Of Thing ... plus Ballistics by D.W. Wilson (which isn't even out yet) plus your choice of one book from the following:

Tenth of December by George Saunders

Homesick by Roshi Fernando

Diving Belles by Lucy Wood (which I wrote about here)

Once You Break a Knuckle by D.W. Wilson

    The second prize will be This Isn't The Sort of Thing ... and your choice of one of the four above, and the third prize will be This Isn't The Sort of Thing ... on its own.

    How to enter? The competition is open to everyone, no matter where in the world you are, and all you have to do is tell me the title of your favourite short story or the name of a favourite short story author and then tell me why they appeal to you. But, as this is all about short fiction, I'd like short answers, please, ideally no more than 140 characters! The easiest way to do this is to tweet your answer to me (assuming you are on Twitter, of course, and if so you'll find me there @Cornflowerbooks or use the hashtag #shortandtweet), or put it in a comment on this post, or if you'd prefer to enter more quietly, email me (the link to my address is over there on the right) and mark your entry "Short Stories". Why so brief? As with short stories themselves - and as was marked in some of Jon's - a few words can speak volumes, so tell us something of the quality and power of a story or the particular charm of an author in a succinct phrase or two.

    I'm looking forward to discovering more good reading from your recommendations, so I'll keep the competition open for a few days while you polish your prose and make your entries short and sweet. Please do have a go!

This isn't the sort of thing that happens to someone like you

 

    Jon McGregor's most recent collection of short stories This Isn't The Sort Of Thing That Happens To Someone Like You will be out in paperback in a few days' time, and I've been reading it with enormous admiration for the author and the way his mind works.

    He strikes me as a kind of verbal or behavioural archaeologist, finding a vocal inflection, a tic, a mannerism, and constructing from that fragment or detail a whole person with a past, a present dilemma, a predetermined fate or future. He takes situations and describes them or approaches them obliquely; his focus, or way of looking at things, is unusual and narrow and all the more telling and effective for it. He gets below the surface of things, probing, sifting, ultimately unearthing the clues to his characters from their behaviour, their thought processes or the mundane places in which they find themselves. He is surprising and original and at times experimental and audacious, but he's also authentic and convincing and his writing has an impressive integrity.

    This collection includes stories which are witty and whimsical while others are gritty, bleak and stark. The sharp-edged sit well alongside those worn to a smoothness by a regular rhythm or a reiterated motif. There are long pieces here, and others which in just a page and a half dissect a life; one comprises a mere ten words. Some play with language, using words with a common initial letter as punctuation to the narrative, for example, while another's currency is  semi-officious verbal padding, jargon and business-speak, and a third threads a person's Facebook status updates through a dramatic event like a running stitch through cloth.

    The pieces share a general or originating location - the flat lands of Lincolnshire in eastern England - a place of big skies, featureless fields, fenland and a threatening sea. Peopled by an assortment of often anonymous characters who could wander in and out of each other's stories without seeming out of place, they are loosely grouped around the themes of losing things, hiding or burying them, getting away from things, facing turning points and moments of realisation - either dawning or blinding.

    Language is often demotic, settings bleached of colour, people are ciphers for situations, cryptic states of being. Some stories are like the literary equivalent of a photographic negative, the 'object' defined by the space around it. Whether sparse and spare or built up in repeating layers of meaning, each piece works on its own terms, and as a whole the collection is a masterclass in technique.

                                                ~~~~~

    I have a rather fun competition connected to this book coming up in the next post, so please don't miss it!

Power Re-arrangers

    I happened to be in a bookshop this afternoon, and during my brief browse I spotted a favourite novel from last year and took the opportunity of moving its neighbours slightly further along the shelf so that the book in question was face out. It's not the first time I've done a bit of 'guerrilla book-adjustment' like this making me - as Mr. C. coins it - a 'power re-arranger', but although it's only a tiny gesture of support for something I rate, I hope it results in the book catching the eye of a shopper who will buy it and enjoy it. For the avoidance of doubt, no other novel was 'disadvantaged' in the process, and I wouldn't dream of any major interference to a bookseller's display, just a wee tweak here and there!

                                                    ~~~~~

    Did any fans of the Moomins or The Summer Book and A Winter Book watch the documentary Moominland Tales: The Life of Tove Jansson which was shown the other night (and is still available on iPlayer)? It was fascinating to learn of all the autobiographical elements in the books, I thought, and watching it might even (slightly) enhance a reading of the 'Summer'/'Winter' stories.

Treats in store

  

    A few recent additions to the 'must read' pile:
   
   

    I have never read any of Marian Keyes's books but of course I know her as an enormously popular writer with a huge, loyal following. Her latest - much-anticipated - novel The Mystery of Mercy Close comes out next week, and I'm greatly looking forward to reading it because in preparation, as it were, I've been looking at clips of Marian on YouTube and she is just the funniest person - so warm and friendly and mad in the nicest way, and with a sense of humour which makes me laugh out loud.
    The book revolves around Helen Walsh, the youngest sister in the Walsh family who feature in a number of Marian's earlier novels (Watermelon and Angels, for example), and this one finds her in a bad patch, her work as a private investigator having dried up, her flat being repossessed and herself in the grip of some old demons. It is billed as "hilarious, heart-breaking and life-affirming and as epic as it is entertaining"; you could hardly ask for more.

   

    England's Lane by Joseph Connolly begins in Winter 1959 and concerns three married couples living in England's Lane. "Each with an only child, and each attending to family, and their livelihoods - the ironmonger, the sweetshop and the butcher. Each of them living a lie, disguising sin, and coping in the only way they know how." Joseph Connolly has been described as "like a weird mix of Dickens and Martin Amis - quite impossible to put down", and that and the vague and tangential association with Eric Ravilious's High Street draws me to the book. Intriguing, don't you think?

    

    Lots of us have read and greatly enjoyed The Blackhouse and The Lewis Man, the first two books in Peter May's gripping Lewis Trilogy, and you'll be glad to hear that the third novel in the series will be out before long. In The Chessmen, our hero Fin Macleod is now head of security on a privately owned Lewis estate, investigating a spate of illegal game-hunting on the island. "This mission reunites him with Whistler Macaskill, a local poacher, Fin's teenage intimate and possessor of a long-buried secret. But when this reunion takes a violent, sinister turn and Fin puts together the fractured pieces of the past, he realises that revealing the truth could destroy the future."

   

    The Year After by Martin Davies sounds like a book in which to immerse yourself: "Home of the Stansbury family, Hannesford Court was always Tom's sanctuary. But in the hot summer of 1914, in the last weeks before the war, its famous tranquillity was shattered. Now, five years later, having finally returned from fighting in France, Tom finds himself alone in London at Christmas, and a last-minute invitation from Margot Stansbury proves irresistible. Soon he is caught up in a web of secrets and deceptions that he could never have imagined. The more he uncovers the truth ... the more he realises that he never really knew Hannesford and its people at all."

  

    Horse Stories is another in the lovely Everyman's Pocket Classics series (we had a quick look at their Dog Stories recently), and this covers "racehorses, ponies and cowboys' steeds" with tales from Kipling, Conan Doyle, Margaret Atwood, Ted Hughes, Jane Smiley and John Steinbeck among others. As someone who was utterly horse-mad as a youngster and a devourer of pony books, I'm looking forward to reading this grown-ups' equivalent!

To be read: Dog Stories

 

          The cover picture alone would make me pick up this book: it is Portrait of a Terrier by the English artist John Rabone Harvey, and it adorns what for me is a 'must-read' -  Dog Stories, the very handsome Everyman's Pocket Classics collection edited by Diana Secker Tesdell.

    What's inside sounds just as appealing as the anthology includes stories from as diverse a group of writers as Chekhov and Patricia Highsmith, Penelope Lively and P.G. Wodehouse. There are tales from Tobias Wolff and Mark Twain, Ray Bradbury and G.K. Chesterton; "imaginative, lyrical and empathetic portraits of man and woman's most faithful friend."

    As a dog-lover I'm looking forward to reading about Kipling's heroically faithful Garm, to O. Henry's tale of a dissatisfied lapdog's escape in Memoirs of a Yellow Dog, and to meeting "an aggressively affectionate three-legged pit bull who lives in a block of flats for dogs" - that's Jonathan Lethem's Ava's Apartment. (I just hope there are no sad ones ...)

Portmanteau post

    The word portmanteau always brings to mind Mary Poppins' carpet bag, and I hope this post will include items as useful and diverting as Mary produced from her luggage. Here, then - with a flourish - are a few bits and pieces, hat stands not included:

    Food in fiction: novelists Joanne Harris (author of Chocolat, of course) and Donna Leon (creator of the food-loving Commissario Brunetti who features in an extensive series of novels beginning with Death At La Fenice) discuss "the evocative role that food plays in fiction" at the Oxford Literary Festival on Monday, 26th. March. Yum!

    Bloomsbury podcasts: five podcasts start this very promising-sounding series from Bloomsbury, among them Lucy Wood on her short story collection Diving Belles which I wrote about recently. I haven't had a moment to listen yet, but I shall certainly do so (standing up, of course!).

    Faber Academy have been running face to face creative writing courses for a while, but now they are launching the inaugural 'writing a novel online' course, to be taught over 28 weeks. Meanhwile, aspiring writers of non-fiction may be interested in this in-person course with Kate Colquhoun (Mr Briggs' Hat) and guest tutor Kate Summerscale (The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher).

    The RNA Epic Romantic Novel Award has gone to Rosie Thomas for The Kashmir Shawl. I mentioned recently that two of my favourite novels of last year (that book and Deborah Lawrenson's The Lantern) were in contention for the prize. My commiserations to Deborah, but congratulations to Rosie, and thanks to both authors for such enjoyable novels.

    The Song of Achilles: it is US publication day for Madeline Miller's marvellous book, another of my 'best of 2011'. I hope Madeline's home readership will enjoy her debut as much as I did.

First impressions - Diving Belles by Lucy Wood

 

    Our second book in the 'First impressions' series of posts is a collection of short stories: Diving Belles by Lucy Wood, a "luminous, startling and utterly spellbinding debut".

    "Along Cornwall's ancient coast, the flotsam and jetsam of the past becomes caught in the cross-currents of the present and, from time to time, a certain kind of magic can float to the surface ...

    Straying husbands lured into the sea can be fetched back, for a fee. Magpies whisper to lonely drivers late at night. Trees can make wishes come true - provided you know how to wish properly first. Houses creak, fill with water and keep a fretful watch on their inhabitants, straightening shower curtains and worrying about frayed carpets. A teenager's growing pains are sometimes even bigger than him. And, on a windy beach, a small boy and his grandmother keep despair at bay with an old white door.

    In these stories, Cornish folklore slips into everyday life. Hopes, regrets and memories are entangled with catfish, wreckers' lamps, standing stones and baying hounds, and relationships wax and wane in the glow of a moonlit sea."

    I've read several stories to get a feel for the book, firstly Diving Belles itself, in which a woman goes to great lengths - or rather, depths - to be re-united with her husband; then Notes from the House Spirits, which shows that a home is far more than just four walls; and then Of Mothers and Little People which includes the great line "You have always believed in fate, picturing it as a fairy godmother labouring over a huge timetable".

    These and others transpose traditional myth and legend to a contemporary setting, giving an effect as of curiously beguiling dislocation, a type of cultural mis-step or syncopation, original and intriguing. Here is a voice which catches your attention; it's one of subtle detachment but distinctive emphasis, and though I'd intended to read only a story or two and leave the rest for later, I'm minded now to carry on and finish the book today - it's matter-of-fact other-worldliness has quite drawn me in.

       

 

One last thing, I must mention the lovely jacket, designed by Holly Macdonald. 

 

 

Edited to add: you can read one of the stories from the collection here.

Round the table

 

    Reading Diane Meier's collection of linked short stories Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner (plus a bonus story: Cocktails), I was reminded of those dinner parties at which, after a course or two, the male guests are required to pick up their napkins and move two places along the table - just when you've started to get to know your neighbours and found them to be fascinating, they up and off and others take their places. This has happened to me in drawing rooms after dinner, too, when a hostess, keen on circulation and ensuring everyone has a chance to talk to everyone else, instructs the men to move about the place - fine if you've been stuck with someone who is hard going, but less welcome when you're happily settled and the conversation is good.

    So it was that on finishing Breakfast: The Talking Box, the opening story of this collection, I found myself wishing it hadn't come to an end but would go on, because just as I was beginning to feel at home in the world of a top-flight marketing expert and her Michigan fashion shoot for a well-known chain of department stores, wanting to know more and see how these characters and situations would play out at closer acquaintance, their piece was done and we were on to the next story. This is perhaps why so many people read little short fiction, preferring the 'full meal' of the novel to the 'single course' of the shorter form.

    But move on we must, and in Lunch: Tap and Toe an unpleasant New York billionaire businessman calls on an old acquaintance - who is now a successful advertising agency boss - for help with a newly acquired company. Money talks, they say, but Carrie isn't about to listen, even though the famous Matt Mollinsky once held her in thrall.

    Dinner: Slip of the Tongue is an intriguing many-layered, dinner table conversation among a group of creative people at which some chewy topics come up for discussion, and then in Cocktails, a cocktail party is the scene of a moment of disquieting revelation for Bernadette Lowell, one of the characters from Diane's lovely novel The Season of Second Chances who happens to be the subject of her forthcoming book, from a chapter of which this stand-alone story has been taken.

    The linking themes are those of style and self, of 'positioning' - defining a brand and its market, or a person, their history, the face they choose to present to the world, and the doors which will open to them according to those choices. Each piece is sharp, witty, ironic, its scenes well drawn, its characters fleshed out as much as the medium will allow, and each one - as I said earlier - leaves the reader wanting more.

A romantic writer

 

     My first Edinburgh International Book Festival event of 2011 was one so richly enjoyable that it will be hard to surpass. Salley Vickers was in conversation with James Runcie, and that was such a happy combination, a perfect pairing of subject and interlocutor, that an hour sped by and all present would have gladly stayed for more. At the end, James Runcie likened the event to a car journey with a very good friend which has as its destination a place with the most perfect view. Well put, I think.

    I have twelve pages of notes from the discussion which began with reference to Salley Vickers' most recent book, the short story collection Aphrodite's Hat (now in paperback - post on it here), but which ranged widely from the significance of art and theatre to her writing to the danger of self-exposure inherent in loving and being loved. The 'buried' life, the hidden life and its underlying mystery, the life as yet unlived, these are themes she returns to and ones to which her background as a psychoanalyst gives her particular insight, and which contribute to her being, in James Runcie's words, "a curious, sympathetic, wise writer".

    On the subject of modern fiction, when a member of the audience commented that she is very good at endings, Salley Vickers replied that it takes courage to leave the characters and end the book, that there is a sense of mourning - both for reader and writer - when the world in which one has been living is finally left, and in her opinion many modern novels have unsuccessful endings, but she agrees that she leaves the reader with a feeling of hope, and notes - generally - a prejudice against optimism in fiction today. She describes herself as a romantic writer in the tradition of Keats, not Cartland, and is avowedly affirmative about the human heart, the hopeful spirit and the positive sides of life.

    As to the business of writing itself, she says that if you write against your gender, you can take more risks and harness your imagination and unconscious rather than your experience. For this reason, she loves to write from a male point of view, and cited Henry James and Anthony Trollope as being marvellous when writing about women, and George Eliot as being particularly good on men. Her own writing is organic, unplanned; she says Miss Garnet's Angel began life as a short story but in effect "wrote itself", and that her novels begin with a voice which attracts or repels other voices, and come to "a pre-destined ending spun out of the nature of the characters"; as with a good dinner party, things naturally unfold.

    Mr. C., who hadn't read any Salley Vickers at all, came to the event with me. He left quite full of it, stimulated and enthusiastic, so glad that I had persuaded him to join me. Testament to the impression made, he is now reading Aphrodite's Hat.       

Books of the half year

 

    I keep a running list of books for the end of year posts in which I choose the best ones of the twelvemonth, and invariably there are a lot of contenders, too many to include them all, so some very good ones won't make the final cut. Since we are half way through the year now I thought I'd post what is currently on my list - some titles may be elbowed off by books I've yet to read, some may retain their place and make it through, but whether or not they feature in December, they are certainly worth reading.

    If you click on the authors' names you'll get to the posts on these books; so, in no particular order, but beginning with non-fiction:

Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England by Amanda Vickery

Romantic Moderns: English Writers, Artists and the Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper by Alexandra Harris

The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance by Edmund de Waal

Now to fiction:

The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald

My Friends the Miss Boyds by Jane Duncan

I am the Blade by J.P. Buxton

The Blackhouse by Peter May

Kept: A Victorian Mystery by D.J. Taylor

House of Silence by Linda Gillard

Night Waking by Sarah Moss

Last Fling by Sue Gee

Half of the Human Race by Anthony Quinn

Gillespie and I by Jane Harris

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

The Lantern by Deborah Lawrenson

Tbr: The Empty Family

  

    The more I read and the more I write about books, the less well-read I feel. You'd think it would be the other way round, but so many books coming in from all quarters tends to show up the gaps in my reading. One of today's arrivals is a good example: The Empty Family is a new collection of short stories by Colm Tóibín, someone I've never read despite having had The Master in my sights for some time, and noting the praise for Brooklyn, but here's my chance to put that right.

    "Always deeply moving, the stories here - like the surf-washed pebbles on that Wexford beach - will be read for meaning and enjoyed for their shape and sound for ages to come", and "Exquisite ... The chief reason to read these stories is the peculiar power of Colm Tóibín's prose," say the reviewers.

    Out in paperback on 30th. June, this collection could be a great introduction for anyone who, like me, has yet to sample the author's longer work, and with nine stories to the 200 or so pages, they could be taken in one go or fitted in around the usual novel-reading.

(Two more new arrivals will be popping up here later in the day).

Cornflower Book Group 2011: Volume 6

 

    Apologies for being later than usual in posting the next CBG book, but it is a very short one so we should still have plenty of time to read it within the month.

    I've chosen Babette's Feast by Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen), one of her Anecdotes of Destiny, a mere 54 pages in the Penguin Mini Modern Classics edition. Here's the blurb:

"Babette's Feast is a sublime celebration of eating and drinking and sensual pleasure. In [this] life-affirming story, two elderly sisters living in a remote, god-fearing Norwegian community take in a mysterious refugee from Paris one night - and are rewarded for their kindness with the most decadent, luxurious feast of a lifetime."

   

    What drew me to it was reading the chapter on Karen Blixen and her house at Rungstedlung in Denmark in the lovely Writers' Houses book (post on it here), and specifically the passage on her love of flowers and her pleasure in entertaining:

"On days when she received guests, she rose at five in the morning to go out and gather flowers while they were still moist with dew. Composing bouquets became her passion, an activity from which she derived as much pleasure as painting. Karen loved to elaborate on her gift for entertaining, which required that parquets be polished to a glistening finish, that a fire be crackling in the hearth, that flowers perfume rooms that she had had repainted in different warm and subtle colours. The dinners were delicious: 'That woman is in the process of transforming a dinner at the Café Anglais into a sort of love affair,' says Colonel Galliffet in Babette's Feast."

    I wouldn't anticipate any difficulty getting hold of a copy of the book, but if you want to buy it online, The Book Depository (who also offer free worldwide delivery) have it slightly cheaper than Amazon - when I checked prices just now - and you can get a further 10% off all books there if you enter the code 'May11' at the checkout*.

    I hope this little book will appeal (apart from its literary merit I trust it will yield considerable material on which to base the Books and Cakes post!), and how about we put Saturday, 25th. June in the diary as discussion date?    

*NB If you read this post yesterday you'll have seen that the 'further 10% off everything' offer was originally open until the end of May, well The Book Depository have now extended it until Sunday, 5th. June, but the coupon code is still 'May11'.

Also, BR Wombat has kindly pointed out that the book is available in a Kindle edition.

Stories to savour

 

    When I posted that beautiful passage from Sue Gee's new collection of short stories the other day, Margaret commented that she favoured novels over short fiction as there's more 'to get your teeth into'. I know exactly what Margaret means, and hers is a common preference, but I've been thinking about that bias as I've reflected on the stories which make up Last Fling. If a novel is the equivalent of a full meal, a short story - a good one - is a perfect canapé or appetiser: a single mouthful that displays all the chef's skill in terms of balance of flavours and textures; and so it follows that reading a collection such as Sue Gee's is like choosing the menu de dégustation at a starred restaurant - each individual part which makes up the whole has its own distinct integrity, and taken together they not only satisfy but successively delight.

    Sue Gee's prose is marked by its clarity, and her new book exhibits that to fine effect. Every story is somehow turned to the light so that its characters' past, present and future are shown or reflected, and the internal weather of the lives we glimpse is subtly evident. Often, the subjects are artists, or the settings rural, and the mind's eye is given vivid images to take in; elsewhere, it's emotional insight and empathy which bring a scene to life and take our focus. Common themes are what was lost, or how and why happiness is always just out of reach, but there's also humour, and a typical delicacy to the writing which gives the collection resonance.

    As is obvious from the above, I loved the book, but whether or not you're already a fan of Sue Gee's novels, don't wait for her next one, The Tiger of Tulsipore (due in 2012), read her here in concentrated form and savour the experience.

Good lines: on marriage

 

    "In the great, enduring marriages, there is passion and also partnership and peace. This is how I imagine it to be. There is a to and fro of kindness and consideration which goes deep. I compare such marriages to great houses: with time to spare, you can wander from room to quiet room, follow cool corridors to spacious kitchens, lofty dining rooms, with a place at the table for everyone. There is a study where you can be by yourself, there are doors which lead out to the graceful garden, and paths to the contemplation of water. They wind past a shrubbery, through a rose garden, back to the house, where fires are lit in the evenings. The house holds its history; there is a future ahead of it; much care goes into its preservation.

    Great houses are rare, and few people live in them. Beyond their graceful gardens are wild, empty, uncultivated places, lonely and sometimes dangerous. The solid gate swings shut, keeping the fortunate safe. Those who are left outside it, with darkness falling, look about them fearfully."   

Outside the House, from the short story collection Last Fling by Sue Gee.

Gee whizz

  

   I am a fan of Sue Gee's work, finding her novels exquisitely written and deeply engrossing, and that goes for the contemporary Reading in Bed with its literary references and wit (there's a short post on it here), to Earth and Heaven, her beautifully balanced and sustained story of three artists in rural Kent between the wars (some impressions here), and her similarly impressive The Mysteries of Glass (click on the title to see what the Cornflower Book Group made of that tale of a lovelorn Victorian curate). All the above are books of quality and integrity - they are not showy, not gimmicky, they are perfect examples, I think, of what it means for a writer to be artist and craftsman in equal measure.

    I am eagerly awaiting another novel from Sue Gee, but in the meantime I still have The Hours of the Night to read, and - good news - there is a collection of short stories, Last Fling, coming out in May. Also, if anyone is looking for a copy of The Mysteries of Glass at the bargain price of £1.99, click here!

A many-splendoured thing

 

    A few more words on Aphrodite's Hat, Salley Vickers' short story collection on the theme of love, which I've mentioned once or twice and which I've dipped into frequently, a story at a time, over the last few weeks.

    Moving covers a couple's last few hours in a house when the remnants of a life are packed up and ready to go. The chance find of a forgotten item reveals Selina's sad history. That's all described in eight or nine short pages, but elegant, succinct ones.

    In The Deal, smart, shrewd, resourceful young Alice makes an unusual bargain involving a marmalade kitten and a bottle of Newcastle Brown, while in The Return, Sophie - on a romantic visit to Rome with her boyfriend Greg - asks "Do you think people leave a part of themselves behind in a place? ....do you think we rub off on places the way places rub off on us?", and Greg has cause to wonder if the two are really alone.

    While naturally I had favourites among the stories, and there were some I felt worked better than others, overall it was a most enjoyable book - very readable, very concise. There are recurring elements of the other-worldly or supernatural, but all beautifully handled and well-balanced, occasional very funny moments, much insight into human nature and many references to art and literature. Salley Vickers' prose speaks with a clear, bell-like voice and a sophisticated, measured tone; for that reason and all the above it is a pleasure to read.