10 Books of Winter - Tick off Two

Cold, wet wintery days and two books with less than 300 pages have meant a strong start to the 10 Books of Winter Challenge. After standing on one leg scratching my head and constantly changing my mind I decided to let random.org decide for me the order I would read them in.

News From The City of the Sun by Isabel Colegate

 To nine-year-old Dorothy Grant, the abbey is an enchanted new world. Here, in the drab, conventional Thirties, the Whitehead brothers - autocratic but non-violent anarchist Fisher, Arnold, the practical plodder, and visionary, depressive Hamilton - have collected together a colourful array of adherents to their co-operative Utopia.

Living near and intermittently attached to the community, which shelters under the northern escarpment of Salisbury Plain, Dorothy observes the ebb and flow of its shifting and sometimes mismatched philosophies from the Thirties through to the flower children and mind-expanding drugs of the Seventies.....until beautiful Marilyn Skinner's revolutionary ideals lead to violence and death.

I like Isabel Colegate's writing style and enjoyed the first part of the book, up to the end of World War II, very much but then it seemed to start rushing through the decades, characters were growing up in a few paragraphs , which was all a bit muddled and confusing.
The ever-changing social background of England through four decades was most interesting and something the author portrays very well.

The title puzzled me all the way through. I couldn't see the relevance to the story so I did some googling and discovered that in 1602 a gentleman called Tommaso Campanella wrote a work of utopian fiction called City of the Sun so there is the connection to the abbey and the Whitehead's vision. I might have to read it again and look at from a different perspective.

Bound Feet & Western Dress by Pang-Mei Natasha Chang

The author spent many hours with her great-aunt, Yu-i, drawing forth the story of her life. Born at the beginning of the 20th century Yu-i grew up in the perilous years between the fall of the last Emperor and the Communist Revolution, her life marked by a series of rebellions , including the first and most lasting: her refusal to have her feet bound. An early,unhappy marriage to a well-known Chinese poet brings her to England, a divorce and being left to raise her son alone. It's the story of a strong woman struggling to emerge from centuries of custom and tradition and find independence.

Listening to Yu-i, Pang-Mei begins to understand her own ambivalence towards her Chinese heritage, the tug-of-war between her American upbringing and the familial duties still expected by Chinese parents.

Fascinating reading!




 

Gentian Hill by Elizabeth Goudge

The Elizabeth Goudge Reading Week is hosted by Lory @ The Emerald City Book Review.

I have been in Devon this month so the book I chose to read by Elizabeth Goudge was Gentian Hill because it is also set in that county.

Mid 19th century Torquay

" There was no sound anywhere. Voices were stilled upon sea and shore and the white gulls with their gold-tipped wings floated silently. The half-moons of golden water, swung and withdrawn so rhythmically by the ebbing tide, creamed soundlessly upon the golden sand, and the tiny sound of the ripples lapping against the jetties and the hulls of the fishing boats was lost in the great silence.
Into this vast peace, this clear light, sailed the great ships...."

1803, the Napoleonic Wars, and the Royal Navy ships find a welcome respite in the sheltered waters of Torbay. On one such frigate a young midshipman is reaching the end of his endurance. Anthony Louis Mary O'Connell is 15 yrs old, an intelligent, sensitive boy raised by his grandmother until her death when he was taken on as a midshipman on a distant relative's ship. A harsh and brutal life and two months later the lure of the land is too much for Anthony and he deserts the Navy.
Assuming the name of Zachary he wanders the countryside in search of work becoming increasingly ragged, footsore and hungry.

Weekaborough Farm is the home of Mary, an orphan saved from a shipwreck and adopted by farmer Sprigg and his wife.
At the age of 10 she is 'an elfin child with the graceful movements a wild woodland creature, a fawn or a gazelle.'
Mary loves the animals and frequently raids the larder at night to secretly feed the cats kept outside. It is while she is in the barn one night that Zachary appears and the two young people instinctively recognise a kindred soul in each other.

Events see Zachary return to the Navy and Mary must wait patiently for his return. 

St Michael's Chapel

The story is a retelling of an old legend of a shipwrecked mariner who became a hermit and built the chapel high up the steep side of a hill. A place to pray for those who face the perils of the sea.

Elizabeth Goudge's deep love for the Devon countryside is obvious with her beautiful, often mystical descriptions of Nature which she balances with the down to earth telling of daily routine on a farm. The ancient customs and rituals - wassailing, harvesting and corn dollies, the ploughing chant and the bull roarer- fascinating stuff to learn about.

An enchanting blend of fact and fiction, of Pagan otherworldliness and Christian faith. It's so long since I read any of Elizabeth Goudge's books ( one exception) that I'd forgotten what a unique voice she has , and one that is hard to describe, except to say I loved it. I think Love is the theme in Gentian Hill  - the following quote is written on a scrap of paper and moves from character to character throughout the story.

"Love is the divinity who creates peace among men and calm upon the sea, the windless silence of storms, repose and sleep in sadness. Love sings to all things who live and are, soothing the troubled minds of gods and men."

Related post - Green Dolphin Country by Elizabeth Goudge 

It's Margery Sharp Day!

A lovely idea from Jane @ Fleur in her World - ' the plan is for as many people as possible to read one of Margery’s books and post about it on her birthday'. 
For me it has been an introduction to an author I hadn't read before. I'm sure her books would have been around years a go when I was young but not the sort of thing I would have been interested in then. I chose to read The Sun in Scorpio which was published in 1965, one of her later works and from these opening lines I knew I was going to love it.

'Everything sparkled.

Below the low stone wall, beyond the rocks, sun-pennies danced on the blue Mediterranean; so dazzlingly, they could be looked at only between dropped lashes. (In 1913, the pre-sunglass era, light was permitted to assault the naked eye.) opposite, across the road called Victoria Avenue, great bolts of sunlight struck at the white stone buildings and richocheted off the windows. A puff of dust was a puff of gold-dust, an orange spilled from a basket like a windfall from the Hesperides.

Everything sparkled, from the sun-pennies on the sea to the buckles on a cab horse's harness, from the buttons on a child's reefer jacket to the heavy gold pendant at a girl's ear. Everything sparkled or shone, even the stiff black hoods of the old women; serge or alpaca, worn smooth by use, under that sun a glossy blackbird-plumage.'

The Pennon family are part of the British community living on Next-Door-Island: next door to Malta, that is. It is here their three children, Muriel, Cathy and Alan spend their early childhood and it is Cathy who is the centre of this story. A true child of the sun she thrives in the heat.

But war is looming and Mr Pennon decides they must 'go home' and there is much anticipation among the children who see this far away unknown 'home' as...

"a Kate Greenaway paradise of primroses, beehives and pet rabbits; of paddling in brooks, nutting in woods, and dancing round the maypole."

The reality of a drab London suburb was somewhat different..

" Everything dripped.
The skies dripped, the lampposts dripped, the pillar boxes dripped and the handles of the errand-boys' bicycles dripped.

Everything was cold.
The streets were cold, it was cold on the trams and cold in the shops. A puff of breath showed on the cold air like a puff of smoke without a fire..."

Poor Cathy! While Muriel and Alan adapt to their new life she is the flower that without the sun fails to flourish and grow. Ten years on , plain and ungainly, she is a shadow of her former self.

After the death of her parents she goes to live with Muriel, the domestic queen, and her husband; a situation that neither of them likes and eventually takes a position in the country as governess and 'attendant sprite' to the upper class Lady Jean and her M.P. husband.

Cathy is rather a frustrating character who drifts along accepting what life brings but doing little to make what she wants happen. I liked the ending which holds the promise that something happier (and sunnier) is coming her way.

The story spans more than three decades that included two world wars, a depression and radical social change - it is all there in the background and between the lines but the focus is on ordinary people. Margery Sharp writes with the true British humour that I love, capturing the attitudes and eccentricities of her characters with the perception that comes from close observation. At times she reminded me of Nancy Mitford but with a gentler wit.

I loved it! Thanks Jane for introducing me to another wonderful author and one I look forward to reading more of very soon.

Tuesday Intro: Going into Service

One Pair Hands by Monica Dickens

'I was fed up. As I lay awake in the grey small hours of an autumn morning, I reviewed my life. Three a.m. is not the most propitious time for meditation, as everyone knows and a deep depression was settling over me.

I had just returned from New York, where the crazy cyclone of gaiety in which people seem to survive over there had caught me up, whirled me blissfully around, and dropped me into a London which seemed flat and dull. I felt restless, dissatisfied, and abominably bad-tempered.

 " Surely," I thought, " there's something more to life than just going out to parties that one doesn't enjoy, with people one doesn't even like? What a pointless existence it is - drifting about in the hope that something may happen to relieve the monotony. Something has got to be done to get me out of this rut."

In a flash it came to me:

"I'll have a job!"

*****

Monica Dickens

In the 1930's it was not the thing for gently-bred unmarried girls to 'have a job.' Helping at home, sitting around idly or filling the long hours with social occasions was enough for any young woman until her prince whisked her down the aisle.
Monica decides otherwise - bored and adding the equation work = money = independence she enters the workforce as a hopeful cook-general. A strange choice as she couldn't even boil an egg but then domestic service in Britain at the time was on its last legs and employers couldn't afford to be choosy.
Monica's descriptions of her time spent in several positions ranging from city flat to aristocratic manor are very amusing and makes this memoir a fun book to relax with.

What did you think of the opening paragraph? Would you keep reading?

*****

Tuesday Intros is a meme hosted by Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea which bloggers can join in with by posting the first paragraph (or two) from a book of their choice. 

2 for A Century of Books

The Vet's Daughter by Barbara Comyns

"...if she had been a dog , my father would have destroyed her."

 Alice lives with her cowed and frightened mother and her brutal, sometimes violent father (the vet) in a bleak London suburb. The only joy in her miserable home life are the stories her mother tells of her childhood in Wales.
After her mother's death and the arrival of a wicked stepmother Alice leaves home to care for the mother of a friend and there is hope that she will at last be able to lead a normal life and find happiness.

The Vet's Daughter has been on my Classics Club list since the beginning - I've read many posts about it and it's always intrigued me. After reading it I am reserving judgement on Barbara Comyns as I think I need to reread this one or try something else.
I loved the first part. Alice's narration has a unique voice, the writing is simple but wonderfully descriptive , the story is both heartbreaking and horrifying. It does have a fairytale quality and I wanted the happy ever after ending.
I began to feel unsettled .... " ...and I felt a strange homesickness for no home I'd known.'... when I read those words which gave me a sense of where the story was going and I only skimmed the end chapter so I could say I finished it.
Not the right time for me to read this.

The Classics Club
A Century of Books (1959)

Danger Point by Patricia Wentworth

Miss Silver is returning home from a holiday when a very distressed and frightened young woman jumps into the compartment of her train. Mrs Lisle Jerningham , a newly wed heiress has overheard a conversation that questions the circumstances of her husband's first wife's death and wonders how long it will be before Lisle herself suffers an 'unfortunate accident'.

A promising beginning which sadly never lived up to the promise. Lisle is such a passive and colourless heroine it's impossible to care about her fate and when it's obvious who the villain is.... only one thing is left. The pleasure of Miss Silver's company!
But she doesn't make another appearance until over halfway through the book and when she does takes very little part in solving the case. 
Disappointing! 

A Century of Books (1942)

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

My Classics Club Spin 8# selection which I downloaded from Girlebooks which meant it was some time before I realised it was not the full length novel I was expecting but a novella of less than a hundred pages.

A novella of stunning beauty and simplicity.

In Ethan Frome Edith Wharton moves from the Gilded Age high society settings of The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth to a rural village in New England. In her 1934 autobiography she explains..

"I had wanted to draw life as it really was in the derelict mountain villages.........a life utterly unlike that seen through the rose-coloured spectacles of my predecessors Mary Wilkins and Sarah Orne Jewett."

It is not a pretty picture. From wonderful wintry images of ice , snow and bitter cold the village of Starkfield emerges as bleak and dreary a place as its name suggests with a community physically, mentally and emotionally weighed down by the environment.

"Most of the smart ones get away".

Ethan Frome did get away - to college to study engineering for a short time before being called home to help his mother when his father died. After his mother's death he marries her caregiver, Zeena who soon retreats into a state of chronic illness. Several years later Zeena's cousin Mattie, a young girl left penniless when her father dies, comes to live with them as a housekeeper and nurse. Inevitably, Ethan and Mattie fall in love with tragic consequences.

It is emotional reading - sad and with an added sense of hopelessness that comes from knowing at the beginning that something terrible has happened. The narrator is a stranger staying in Starkfield who becomes curious about 'this ruin of a man' and what happened to him twenty-four years ago. It gives him a strong bias in Ethan's favour and it was only after finishing and not being able to stop thinking about it , that I went back and read it again. ( Easy to do with a novella).

Ethan Frome is a good man with a strong sense of obligation to take care of others but he's also a dreamer who imagines what might be, yet does nothing to actively make it happen. His indecisiveness and doing what other people want seems like taking the easy way out and is as much to blame for what happens as any 'cruel destiny'.

I did feel tremendous sympathy for Zeena and Mattie. What a terrible life for a woman particularly if there is no loving relationship to draw comfort from. It was from this desperation they both had the courage to make decisions even if they weren't always the right ones.

Brilliant! Loved it!

The Diaries of Ethel Turner & Seven Little Australians

Ethel Turner has charmed generations of readers with her delightful children's books, including Seven Little Australians, Miss Bobbie and Family at Misrule.

For 62 years she also kept a diary and in this book her granddaughter, Philippa Poole, has selected the most interesting passages which, together with her commentary on each chapter and the inclusion of wonderful photographs of the time give a fascinating peek into the life of an Edwardian young woman.

Ethel's diary entries which begin in 1889 when she is 17 are really only a simple record of each day ......of shopping, tennis and picnics, garden parties and balls....

"This morning I made myself a black lace hat. Idled in  afternoon. At night went to Articled Clerks dance and wore my white liberty again, this time with crimson flowers and snowdrops. M.Backhouse asked me for a dance and then did not account for it. I shall never notice him again. He was a bit intoxicated last night, I think, it is pity, he might be a very nice boy. I'm awfully sorry for him."

If the endless round of social gaiety was enough for most girls Ethel and her sister Lilian had other ideas. Having gained experience editing their school magazine, in 1889 they launched their own monthly publication called the Parthenon which would have considerable success during the next three years. Her love of literature and writing becomes more noticeable in the diary entries as she records the books she buys and reads...

" I read the loveliest book or part of it after 11pm last night Not All In Vain by Ada Cambridge - I think I like better than any book I have read.'

 She began writing stories, poems and articles for a Sydney newspaper,  recognising that she had a talent that could earn her money and help her gain independence.

In 1894 Seven Little Australians was accepted for publication.

'Here is the Miss Louisa Alcott of Australia - here is one of the strongest, simplest, sweetest, sanest and most beautiful child-stories that I have read for years.'

Set in Sydney in the 1880's it tells the story of the seven children of a very authoritarian father and a flighty stepmother. By informing her young readers at the beginning that they are about to hear the tale of 'very naughty children' Ethel Turner immediately grasps their interest. 
She was also ahead of her time with her writing by capturing a warm relationship between parents and children and by going against the 'happy ever after' ending. This is a story of fun, adventure and and a tear-jerking tragedy and it was this that most probably prompted the Louisa Alcott comment.

Despite warnings that marriage would mean the end of her writing career , in 1896 Ethel married her long-time suitor Herbert Curlewis and bore two children, Jean and Adrian early in the new century.
She continued to write prolifically - more than 40 novels, short stories and poems for children.

In 1928 her beloved daughter was diagnosed with tuberculosis and after a prolonged illness died in 1930. Ethel was heartbroken and never wrote again.

Ethel Turner died in 1958.

The diary entries were a delightful piece of history and I loved rereading the Seven Little Australians.

AusReading Month

The Ladies of Lyndon by Margaret Kennedy

"Lyndon, architectural and complacent, gleamed whitely amid the sombre green of ilex and cedar. Its classical facade stretched in ample wings to east and west. The grounds, originally laid out by the famous 'Capability Brown', and improved upon by successive generations of landscape gardeners, were admirably in keeping with the dwelling house they guarded."

Mrs Varden Cocks strongly believed that daughters must be married off young before they could form their own opinions and so after quenching a youthful romance with her cousin, Gerald, wastes no time in organising a suitable match for her daughter, Agatha.

At the tender age of eighteen Agatha finds herself the wife of Sir John Clewer and the new mistress of Lyndon.

The other ladies of Lyndon are John's stepmother Marian, the dowager Lady Clewer, and Lois,her daughter from her first marriage,  and John's half-sister, Cynthia, still in her early teens but already a mercenary little madam.

There are the men in their lives - cousin Gerald reawakening memories in Agatha and creating dissatisfaction in her marriage - Hubert, determined on marrying Lois - wealthy but vulgar profiteer Sir Thomas Bragge , Marian's cousin.

And then there is James, John's younger brother. James is an embarrassment to the family - considered to be mentally defective, a bit queer - if she had a choice one feels Marian would keep him locked in the attic. 
James is different - he scorns the life of leisure of the Edwardian privileged upper class. A talented artist he is determined to find satisfaction through his work and to marry as he will.

I would call The Ladies of Lyndon a domestic and social comedy. The plot is minimal and it's the interrelationships, the actions and dialogue between the characters that brings the pre and post-war eras to life. The tone was lighthearted enough to keep me from being emotionally involved with any one of them which is what I prefer right now.

I loved the humour which was consistent all the way through. Sometimes a phrase, a choice of word - a gentle humour with a slight edge at times but never bitter or biting like some other 1920's authors I've read. 

I loved it! I know it was Margaret Kennedy's first novel and she no doubt goes on to produce many that are considered better than this one but I haven't read them and so ave nothing to compare it with. I'm glad to have started at the beginning and look forward to reading more of her work. 
Thanks Jane! Always exciting to find a new author with a long list of titles waiting to be read.

Wildfire at Midnight by Mary Stewart

1956

First published in 1956 Wildfire at Midnight was Mary Stewart's second novel and one in which she attempted to create something different - a classic closed room detective story. It was an experiment she would not repeat explaining in a 1970 article that the emphasis on mystery was not for her - she preferred people to plot. 

In the years to come her books would become known and loved for their perfect balance of romance and mystery set in exotic locations and with that in mind I wouldn't recommend Wildfire at Midnight to anyone just beginning their acquaintance with Mary Stewart. It is high on suspense and low on romance which suited me fine as I love the former and am happy to go without the latter. An added bonus was discovering I hadn't read it before.

Camosunary Bay, Skye

In need of a holiday from her busy life as a model and tired of the crowds pouring into London for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, Gianetta sets out for a quiet interlude on the Isle of Skye. To her horror one of the guests at the hotel is her ex-husband, Nicholas. Even worse is the strange tension existing among the other guests. Very soon she discovers that recently the body of a local girl had been found murdered on the mountainside and all her fellow residents are considered as suspects.

Then two more murders occur and a young woman is missing. A killer is on the loose and suggestions of ancient Druidic rituals and sacrifice only add to the escalating fear and suspicions of everyone.

Mary Stewart's choice of setting for this novel is superb. Usually her descriptions of lavender fields and sunflowers, red-roofed tavernas and sun-kissed seas have me sighing with longing to visit these magical places. I have no desire to go to the Isle of Skye. An island of rugged but barren grandeur, with treacherous bogs and blinding mists holds little appeal for me but is used to full effect by the author to create a real sense of atmosphere and foreboding.

Blaven

There the crest of the mountain stands up above the scree in an enormous hog's-back of serrated peaks, two thousand feet and more of grim and naked rock, shouldering up the scudding sky. I stopped and looked up. Streams of windtorn mist raced and broke around the buttresses of the dreadful rock; against its sheer precipices the driven clouds wrecked themselves in swirls of smoke; and black and terrible, above the movement of the storm, behind the racing riot of black cloud, loomed and vanished and loomed again the great devil's pinnacles that broke the sky and split the winds into streaming rack. Blaven flew its storms like a banner."

Gianetta finds herself in terrible danger which reaches its peak in a terrifying chase through the mist enshrouded bog. The suspense was edge-of-the-chair, nailbiting stuff that kept me frantically turning pages until the end and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

From excessive cigarette smoking to outdated attitudes that rile up the feminists, Wildfire at Midnight does show its age which I know many readers don't like but for me it is all part of the charm and the pleasure of returning to a different time.

I read Wildfire at Midnight as part of Mary Stewart Reading Week hosted by Anbolyn @ Gudrun's Tights.

Also adding the link to R.I.P. IX

Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively

" The Moon Tiger is a green coil that slowly burns all night, repelling mosquitoes, dropping away into lengths of grey ash, its glowing red eye a companion of the hot insect-rasping darkness."

Claudia Hampton - the once beautiful and independent journalist and historian - is dying. Although barely able to communicate with her caregivers and visitors inside her head she is ' a myriad of Claudias who spin and mix and part like sparks of sunlight on the water.'

She recalls her life in a non-linear narrative from a post WWI childhood, a career in journalism that would take her to Eygpt during WWI and an author of history books. Her thoughts flit here and there but what prevents this from becoming tiresome is having the other person ( sometimes more than one) also give their perspective of the event she is talking about. It's a clever structure and once I got used to it I loved it. 
In this way we meet Gordon, the beloved brother and his slightly dull wife, Sylvia - Lisa, the neglected daughter and her father, Jaspar, the lover.
I didn't like Claudia - I could admire her independence and courage and I could feel sorry for her at times but disliked her selfishness , her snide thoughts about others and her terrible attitude towards her daughter. Although I have to say I probably would have loved her when I was younger!

There are some wonderful descriptive passages ..

I saw the cluttered intense life of the fields and villages -a world of dust and water, straw and leaves, people and animals - and I saw the stark textural immensity of the desert, the sand carved by the wind, the glistening mirages. It had the delicacy of a watercolour - all soft grey-greens and pale blues and fawns and bright browns. Beautiful and indifferent; when you began to see it you saw also the sores around the mouths of children, the flies crawling on the sightless eyes of a baby, the bare ulcerated flesh on a donkey's back."

....particularly of Egypt. Claudia travels there as a war journalist and during a foray into the desert meets a young soldier, Tom, her one great love, and this time is the pivot around which her life, her memories revolve.

Moon Tiger deals with several themes including end of life issues, the realisation of how fleeting our time here is , what is left of us when we're gone? 

" Not even so much of a mark as those primordial worms that passed through the Cambrian mud of northern Scotland and left the empty tube of their passage in the rock."

It's a very quotable book. If there is one reason why I can say I loved Moon Tiger it is the writing, the skill with which Penelope Lively weaves ideas and words into magical prose. Brilliant!

A Century of Books (1987)

Lost Voices by Christopher Koch

" Late in life, I've come to the view that everything in our lives is part of a pre-ordained pattern. Unfortunately it's a pattern to which we're not given the key. It contains our joys and miseries; our good actions and and our crimes; our strivings and defeats. Certain links in this pattern connect the present to the past. These form the lattice of history, both personal and public; and this is why the past refuses to be dismissed. It waits to involve us in new variations; and its dead wait for their time to reappear."

After fifty years Hugh Dixon has returned to Hobart, Tasmania and as he wanders the suburban streets he reflects on the past - his early childhood and his schooldays in the 1940 - 50's.

When he is 18 his father, Jim, finds himself in serious financial trouble and even though Jim has been estranged from his family for a long time Hugh decides to approach his great-uncle Walter for help. 

Walter is a successful lawyer but lives alone at Leyburn Farm, the estate built by the Dixons who were among the early non-convict settlers in Hobart. Hugh's visit is the first of many. Walter recognises and encourages his artistic talent and takes pleasure in educating him in art and literature. He also tells Hugh of the family connection to a notorious 19th century bushranger, Lucas Wilson.

The second part of the story goes back to the 1850's and Hugh's great-grandfather, Martin. At dinner one evening the family is raided by two escaped convicts on their way to join Lucas. An aspiring writer, Martin sees an opportunity for an exclusive interview with the bushranger and persuades them to take him with them.

A former guardsman transported for striking a senior officer, Lucas Wilson is an educated and charismatic man who, in the wilderness beyond Hobart, is attempting to build a utopia; a community of equal opportunity which he calls Nowhere Valley. 

The third and final part returns to the 1950's and Hugh's work as an illustrator for a newspaper and his reunion with old schoolfriend, Bob Wall. When Bob is accused of murder great-uncle Walter is called in to help.

What ties the two narratives together are the repeating patterns: conflict between fathers and sons , young men in love with older women, good men and two very evil men.

Lost Voices is a book with so much detail it deserves to be read slowly. I have been to Tasmania and Chrisotpher Koch captures its  unique atmosphere, where reminders of its harsh and violent past stand in landscapes of great beauty, perfectly. 1950's nostalgia, art and literature, bushrangers and gunfights - so much to savour.

I loved it! The best historical novel I've read in a long time.

What's In A Name Challenge 6 ( lost or found in the title)

Australian Literature Month hosted at Reading Matters.

The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington

My draw for the Classics Club Spin which I was happy about because it was short and I already had it downloaded onto my Kindle but despite that I have a feeling it would have been a title I kept putting aside in favour of something else.

The Magnificent Ambersons was published in 1918 and in 1919 won the Pulitzer Prize. The novel is the second in a trilogy which traces the growth of America from the end of the Civil War to early 20th century through the rise and fall of the Amberson family. The fictional small town that became a city was inspired by Booth Tarkington's hometown of Indianapolis.

The magnificence of the Amberson's began in 1873 when Major Amberson 'made a fortune', bought two hundred acres , built himself a mansion on four of them, and laid out the rest with streets lined with trees and statues and fountains at the intersections. The Amberson's were prosperous fish in a small pond.

The first chapter tells of these early days and is quite delightful. In great detail it describes everything from  men's beards to women's dresses,  how the townspeople lived, ate and entertained and it mourns the 'vanishings' - the 'little bunty street cars', the 'all day picnics in the woods', the 'serenading' and the ' New Year celebrations'.

Another mansion is built close to the first when the Major's daughter, Isabel, marries Wilbur Minafer. Isabel and Walter have one child, a son called George and it is his story that is the main focus of the book. Over-protected and over-indulged George is an obnoxious child who grows into an arrogant and inconsiderate young man who thinks the world owes him because of his social position. He falls in love with Lucy Morgan without being aware her father was once a suitor of his mother.

Eugene Morgan is an inventor with an interest in the development of the horseless carriage - an interest the Amberson/Minafers don't share.

"Those things are never going to amount to anything. People aren't going to spend their lives lying on their backs in the road and letting grease drip in their faces. Horseless carriages are pretty much a failure.. " 

This attitude reflects the Amberson's whole approach to life, their inability to change and progress or to see that the days of being wealthy and idle are swiftly passing.

In sharp contrast is Eugene Morgan who begins with nothing and with a combination of vision and hard work becomes an industrial tycoon.

" It may be that they will not add to the beauty of the world, nor to the life of men's souls. I am not sure. But automobiles have come, and they bring a greater change in our life than most of us suspect. They are here, and almost all outward things are going to be different because of what they bring. They are going to alter war, and they are to alter peace."

The Magnificent Ambersons is written in a simple, direct style and enlivened with a great deal of humour which I hadn't expected and had me laughing constantly especially in the first half . Beneath the lightheartedness there is a sadness and a reminder of how quickly the environment and life can change.
Worth reading for it's portrayal of early 20th century American life.

Why Shoot a Butler? by Georgette Heyer

London barrister, Frank Amberley, is travelling down to his uncle & aunt's country house when he takes a wrong turn and comes across a car parked on the roadside with a young woman standing beside it. When he stops to ask for directions he discovers the woman is holding a gun and the man inside the car has been shot dead. He believes her claim that she is innocent and doesn't mention her presence when he reports the murder to the police.

The following day the dead man is identified as Mr Dawson, the trusted old butler from Norton Manor. Who could possibly have wanted to murder him?

Although I've enjoyed many of Georgette Heyer's Regency romances I hadn't read any of her mysteries before and wasn't sure what to expect and to be honest I wasn't impressed. Frank has his suspicions but doesn't share them and the young woman, Shirley, obviously knows something but she's not saying anything either. Most unfair to the reader in search of clues who has to wait until the end when all is revealed.

The story is saved by the wonderfully witty and sometimes snarky dialogue. Frank is arrogant and rude and doesn't mince words especially when it comes to his opinions on the abilities of the local constabulary. 
My favourite characters were Uncle Humphrey muttering and mumbling with disapproval.....'Murders at our very gates! I do not know what the world is coming to!' .......and Aunt Marion who is not as away with the fairies as she appears....' Dear me, how exciting!' Their contrasting attitudes to the mayhem happening around them makes for some very funny conversations.

All very class conscious 1930's and jolly good fun for a Sunday afternoon's reading.

Vintage Mystery Challenge 2013 - Scattergorie 23 - The Butler did it....or not! 

Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay

An Australian Classic

Valentine's Day, 1900, and a party of girls from Miss Appleyard's College for Young Ladies are excitedly preparing for the annual school picnic. Their destination is Hanging Rock, and with permission to remove their gloves and strict warnings against any exploration of the Rock they set out on the hot and dusty three and a half hour drive to their destination.

Hanging Rock, Victoria, Australia

"While they were talking the angle of vision had gradually altered to bring the Hanging Rock into sudden startling view. Directly ahead, the grey volcanic mass rose up slabbed and pinnacled like a fortress from the empty, yellow plain. The three girls on the box seat could see the vertical lines of the rocky walls, now and then gashed with indigo shade, patches of grey green dogwood, outcrops of boulders even at this distance immense and formidable."

After their lunch at the picnic grounds the girls settle down to amuse themselves for the afternoon with suitable activities like sewing and drawing. Knowing they have an essay to write next day four of the girls decide to walk closer to the base of the rock and are seen by two young men jumping the creek. Some time later an incoherent and screaming Edith emerges from the bush alone and there is a sudden realisation that one of the teachers has also disappeared. A massive search is undertaken in the following days without success until Mike and Albert, the last to see the girls, set off on their own and find a bleeding and exhausted Irma. The other two girls and their teacher were never seen again and in the aftermath of the tragedy many lives were changed forever.

Picnic at Hanging Rock is a mystery with an eerie atmosphere and a strong sense of foreboding that makes compelling reading.

Picnic at Hanging Rock - William Ford 1875

"Insulated from natural contacts with earth, air and sunlight, by corsets pressing on the solar plexus, by voluminous petticoats, cotton stockings and kid boots, the drowsy, well-fed girls lounging in the shade were no more a part of their environment than figures in a photograph album, arbitrarily posed against a backcloth of cork rocks and cardboard trees."

It's also a study of contrasts - of repression and control against what is natural. The geological marvel that is Hanging Rock as opposed to the oppressive and disciplinary Miss Appleyard and her school . In the last glimpse of the missing girls they are rejoicing in their freedom, with no hats, shoes or stockings they dance on the rocks above the picnic grounds.
The English settlers who bring the customs and attitudes of the mother country with them, whose thoughts are always on 'home', who struggle to plant pansies and petunias in a climate unsuitable for them to thrive have no interest in or understanding of the landscape surrounding them.

Joan Lindsay achieves a great deal in only 186 pages and the story stays with one because nothing is ever resolved and the reader is left to make their own conclusions. The author had written a last chapter but in a mutual agreement between her and the publishers it was withdrawn when first published in 1967.
In 1987 it was released and some later editions of the book include it - it can also be read online.

I have no wish to - it's perfect as it is!.........without a solution.


Rereading in January

The Classics Club