The Meeting Place by Mary Hocking

June 4, 2015 By Fleur in her World in Book Reports, Factual, it holds stories of the past Tags: Mary Hocking 23 Comments

I’m very pleased that when I went to look for a book to read for Mary Hocking Reading Week I found ‘The Meeting Place’, her final novel, published in 1996. As I read I found much to love, much to admire, and a storyteller who had much to say.

The story opens as Clarice Mitchell, a sixty-nine year-old, retired head-teacher, was driving across country. to an isolated farmhouse where she was to rehearse a production of Pericles. She was thinking of the past, because, by chance, she was visiting the family home of her former head-mistress; the woman who had inspired her and made her want to become a teacher too.

Near her journey’s end, as the light faded, she was startled to see a woman in old -fashioned dress standing in open country, where there could surely be no reason for any woman to be.

“It was as if some unseen hand had thrown down an old painting in front of her; a woman standing in a rocky pool formed by a spring.”

But the woman disappears as suddenly as she appeared.

The next day, as two theatre companies rehearse in adjacent barns, Clarice sees another strange woman, in 15th century garb, pass through her rehearsal space. Others suggest that she was a member of the other theatre company, in her costume for their production of the crucible, but though Clarice nods in agreement she knows in her heart that she isn’t. And when she is troubled by dizzy spells she wonders if maybe the job she has taken on is too much for her.

She thinks more and more of the past, of difficulties she faced as a head teacher, of how they affected her relationships with the men in her life, and of how, maybe, she had been restricted because she was a woman.

She wonders about the women she saw, and their stories unfold alongside hers. One is set in the fifteen century, the other is set in the early years of the twentieth century, and though all three stories are distinctive they have similar themes, and they sit well together.

I wouldn’t call this a ghost story or a time-slip story though. It’s more subtle than that, and it’s a much more grown-up story than those descriptions suggest. I’d call it a story set in a place where there is much that is unchanged and timeless, and where the sensitive may perceive echoes of the past.

The smoothness and naturalness of Mary Hocking’s writing made it very easy to keep turning the pages. I’ve seen her compared with Elizabeth Taylor, and I can agree with that comparison, though I would say that Mary Hocking had a little more grit.

I saw a wonderful depth of understanding in all of the sides of the story, and an instinctive grasp of character. Clarice’s character was particularly well done. She was capable, she was intelligent, she was compassionate, and I really don’t think I have read a better portrayal of a woman of her age and generation.

My mother was a teacher of that same generation; she loved teaching and I can imagine them talking over the things that Clarice was remembering, because they were so very, very real.

The only slight weakness of this book, for me, was that the story was told at a certain distance. Mary Hocking presents her characters rather than engaging with them, and gives her writing a degree of coolness. I like a little more warmth, but she does so any things so very well that I will always pick up any of her books that I find.

The end of the story brought everything together, in a way that was sad but inevitable. I realised that it had been foreshadowed, but that I had been caught up with the story and the characters and those signs passed me by.

‘The Meeting Place’ is a wonderfully accomplished, intelligent novel; and I am sorry that it is out of print and that its author isn’t more widely recognised.

Modesta by G B Stern

May 30, 2015 By Fleur in her World in 100 Years of Books, Book Reports, Fictional, it holds stories of the past Tags: G B Stern 9 Comments

I do wish that I could see more people reading more of G B Stern’s books.

I know that ‘The Matriarch’ is back in print, in a lovely new editions; I know that the two books about all things Austen that she wrote with Sheila Kaye-Smith still have many admirers; but she wrote so much more than that – fiction and non fiction, for adults and for children.

I can understand why she’s still relatively obscure, because she wrote a great many books, because they are wildly diverse, and because it is said that some of the are not so strong. But I haven’t found a book I haven’t liked yet, she wrote fiction with such intelligence and wit, and her multiple memoirs – where she writes of anything and everything that has captured her interest are sublime.

I was delighted to find one of her more obscure titles – a novel named ‘Modesta’ that was published in 1929.

I knew nothing about it, but when I started reading I found that I had an utterly charming social satire, firmly built on an excellent understanding of human nature.

Modesta was an Italian peasant girl who dreamed of being an English lady. Her father was a landlord and so she was able to spend time talking to his guests, offering them charm and flattery, subtly pointing out the differences between their situation and hers; admiring their lovely things, especially the dresses, the likes of which she could only dream about; arranging the flowers and make everything nice for them. She was always so, so busy; but she always managed to take the nice jobs and to leave the not-so-nice jobs for her sisters!

She was a minx, but I just had to love her.

Lawrence Ferrier, a wealthy and idealistic young Englishman proposes marriage, with the chivalrous idea of granting her every wish.

At first things swimmingly

“And here she was, an English signora, Mrs. Laurence Ferrier. Modesta could not pronounce her own name, but she had visiting cards, and that was a joy.”

Modesta had a lovely time, but she didn’t know when enough was enough.

Her husband had loved the peasant girl he had married, but he didn’t love the spoiled society woman he turned her into. He blamed himself, and he decided that he had to do something about it.

He sent her back to Italy – alone – so she would have to stand on her own two feet!

He planned to follow her – once she had learned her lesson!

At first Modesta was shocked, but she soon decided that she liked the husband with firm opinions much more than the poor creature who had let her walk all over him; and that she enjoyed being a peasant much more than she liked being a society lady.

Her husband was happy with that – and he found that the change in lifestyle suite as him as much as it suited has wife.

The story plays out beautifully, and there’s a lovely twist at the end.

The style is warm, witty and conversational. It’s clear that the author loved the people and places she is writing about and that she was having a lovely time telling their story. Every character is clearly drawn, their dialogue is exactly right, and there’s just the right amount of detail to make the story sing without weighing it down.

Everything lives and breathes, and I loved it.

As a whole it isn’t quite perfect: there are elements that haven’t dated as well as they might have and a sub-plot involving the Ferrier family doesn’t really work.

It is a lovely light read though , with just enough serious underpinnings to stop it floating away, and I’m so pleased that I met Modesta.

Flight by Isabel Ashdown

May 30, 2015 By Fleur in her World in Book Reports, Fictional, it speaks of the here and now 11 Comments

‘Flight’ – Isabel Ashdown’s fourth novel – is an engaging and emotional story, exploring the ties – and the breaking of the ties – between three people.

Wren, Rob and Laura.

Rob and Laura became the closest of friends when they were young children. Wren become friends with both of them at university; they became a closely-knit, beautifully balanced threesome. That didn’t change when Wren and Rob became a couple, when they married, when they had a child. You might saw that they were their own chosen family.

That changed when Wren’s numbers came up in the first National Lottery draw. She told no one, she simply packed her bags, kissed her baby daughter goodbye, and walked away from her life.

In time Rob and Laura would become a couple, and Laura would take the place of the mother Phoebe had never known.

Twenty years after Wren left Laura was approached by a reporter. He was working on a ‘where are they now’ story about the winners of the first lottery draw. She was already unsettled, because Rob had received a letter and was evasive about what it said and who it was from. And so, when she had a hint of where Wren was she decided it was time to find her , to understand why she had left, to somehow come to terms with what had happened.

There’s a certain level of contrivance in the plot, but no ore than is needed to make the story work. It works very well, because everything that I read felt so real and so possible. And because the characters and relationships were so very well drawn. That make it so easy to believe that I was reading about real people; ordinary people whose stories became significant in the wake of one momentous decision.

I had been concerned that I would struggle to care about the woman who made that decision, but I found that he did. It helped that she chose the life I might wish for in times of trouble – a small house on the Cornish coast, alone but for the company of dogs – and it helped even more that it was clear that, though she would not – or maybe could not – make amends, her life was constrained by the guilt at what she had done and the grief at what she had done.

It was quiet – she was quiet – but it was there.

The woman who had picked up the pieces was easy to like. She was loyal to all those she loved, she put herself out to do what was best for them, and because she was open and honest I found it easy to understand and share in her feelings. I realised that she had both lost and gained a great deal when she effectively stepped into the shoes of a missing wife and mother.

I appreciated that the story affected not only the main characters, but also a younger generation and an older generation. And most of all I appreciated the relationships and the interactions between the characters; they rang so true, with all of the awkwardnesses, uncomfortable silences and unexpected turns that happen often in life and not quite so often in fiction.

The settings – a London suburb and the Cornish coast – were exactly right, and well chosen details helped to make the story sing. I particularly liked the understanding of the relationships between a woman and her dogs, and between those dogs and their beach ….

The narrative moves between character and through time quite naturally, always moving the story forward, always holding the attention.

‘Flight’ is a an engaging and emotional human drama; a story to make you feel and a story to make you think.

The Romance of A Shop by Amy Levy

May 19, 2015 By Fleur in her World in 100 Years of Books, Book Reports, Fictional, it came from the past and pulled me back there Tags: Amy Levy 21 Comments

This is a lovely story of four sisters, set in Victorian London.

They are the daughters of a photographer, and when he dies and leaves them with very limited means they decide that, rather being separated to make their homes with different relations they will use what capital they have to open a shop and follow in his footsteps.

Gerty was twenty-three years old and, though she dreamed of being a writer, she was bright enough and loved her sisters enough to put her own dreams aside so that they could live and work together.

Next came Lucy, who at twenty-years old was both sensitive and sensible. She was also the sister who showed the most skill as a photographer.

Seventeen year-old Phyllis was the youngest and the prettiest of the sisters. Because of that, and because her heath was fragile, she was spoiled and she was incline to be mischievous.

Fanny was half-sister to the other three, and though she dreamed of marriage and a home of her own she knew that at thirty her chance of catching a husband had probably gone. But she willingly offered up the small legacy she had from her mother to help the new household.

I liked all four, and I believed in them. Amy Levy captured their individual characters and the sisterly bonds between them.

Whenever I find four sisters in a novel I’m inclined to draw parallels with Louisa May Alcott’s March sisters. In the case of the Lorrimer sisters I saw parallels but I also saw significant points of difference; and I appreciated a nice touch late in the novel that suggested that Amy Levy was acknowledging the influence of the older author.

A photographer friend of their fathers’ made practical suggestions for the sisters’ new venture, as well as giving Lucy practical training. Family friends helped them to find suitable premises, a studio with a flat above, in Baker Street, and helped with the move and introducing potential clients too.

That was what kept them going in the difficult early days, when many potential customers were unwilling to offer work to women, or if they were willing expected to pay left. In time though they made contacts, and their professionalism and the quality of their work helped to establish them in London’s artistic circles.

‘The Romance of a Shop’ illuminates both the joys and the perils that faced independent women in London at the end of the 19th century. I learned a great deal about photography: that there was a fashion for photographing corpses; that artists wanted their work to be photographed; that many doors would be opened to the right photographer.

But there’s more to this book than photography; it balances the concerns of a new women novel with the concerns of a new woman novel very well, and there are as many ups and downs and as many incidents in the emotional lives of the four sisters as there are in their professional lives.

Their relationships with family and old friends change. They will cross paths with a neighbouring newspaper engraver, a widowed peer of the realm, a celebrated but amoral artist …..

This is a short novel, but there’s plenty going on. Amy Levy manages her plot beautifully, and she tells her story well, in pose that is simple, clear and lovely.

I was just a little disappointed that she – and her three sisters – were rather hard on poor Fanny.

The story, and the four sisters, were always engaging though. I loved sharing their emotions and their experiences.

The ending was beautifully judged. The afterword told me what happened next, and it was exactly as I would have wanted.

I can’t say that this is a lost classic; but I can say that it is a lovely little book, and that it has something to say.

Clay by Melissa Harrison

May 14, 2015 By Fleur in her World in Book Reports, Fictional, it speaks of the here and now 8 Comments

Melissa Harrison’s first novel weaves together a human story of four people whose lives are changed when their paths cross with the story of the seasons changing in a city centre park that those four people all love.

TC is 10 years-old, his dad has recently left, he has no real friends, and mother often forgets to give him lunch money or to have food in the house for other meals. And so he spends his time in the park, using the book about nature that his father had left behind – wrapped ready for his birthday – to track the animals that live there.

Sophia is a 78-year-old widow, living in a small flat on a rundown estate. Her daughter would like her to move but she doesn’t want to leave the park where she and her husband spent many happy hours, because they shared a love of nature. She sees TC from her window, and she likes to see his love for the park, but she is concerned that he is always alone and sad.

Daisy, Sophia’s granddaughter, lived in a much nicer area and she went to a private school. She loved to visit her grandmother, who was much more easy going that her mother, and she has come to share her grandmother’s love for seeds and insects and all the small things in nature that so many others failed to notice.

Jozef, is a middle-aged Polish immigrant who works in house clearances by day and in a takeaway by night; observing the small park as he mourns the farm he lost because he couldn’t deal with new EU regulations. He realises that TC is alone outside for far too long and he sees signs that he is hungry, so he tactfully offers him food and tries to he his friend.

Time passes, seasons change and relationships shift as Melissa Harrison tells her story in lovely, lyrical prose.

The story is subtle and the writing is understated.

The juxtaposition of life in the park and life on the estate is striking, and the balance between the story of the human lives and the story of all that life in the park is very well judged.

She catches the teeming life in the park quite beautifully

“…. hornbeams, service trees, acacias and Turkey oaks with bristly acorn cups like little sea anemones. It was alive with squirrels, jays and wood mice, while in spring thrushes let off football rattles from the treetops, and every few summers stag beetles emerged to rear and fence and mate … “

She catches the human lives just as well. She is gentle with her characters; she understands them, and their relationships with each other, and their love of the park. The relationships between the generations are particularly well drawn. Sophia and her daughter try to understand each other, but their differences mean that they never quite meet. The friendship between Jozef and TC grows beautifully.

But there were gaps. I didn’t understand why Linda’s daughter suddenly decided that gardening would be her consuming passion. I didn’t understand what made TC’s mother so very neglectful. Questions like that bothered me.

And I saw rather too much of the workings of the plot. There were many moments when spotted something that I knew would be significant and I knew why it would be significant. I was right.

And yet when the consequences of all those things played out I found that I was involved with these people and their lives, and I was moved by what happened.

Melissa Harrison has grown a little more as a nature writer than she has as a storyteller, and I think that with a just little more growing she might just write something very, very special.

The Far Cry by Emma Smith

May 13, 2015 By Fleur in her World in Book Reports, Classics Club, Fictional, it came from the past and pulled me back there, it took me on a journey Tags: Emma Smith 15 Comments

In September 1946 23-year-old Emma Smith set sail for India, to work as an assistant with a documentary unit making films about tea gardens in Assam. She was dazzled by India …

‘I went down the gangplank at Bombay, and India burst upon me with the force of an explosion.’

… and she wrote down as much as she could about her experiences because she so wanted to pin down the wonder of it all.

A few years later she would use what she remembered and what she wrote as the foundation for a wonderful, wonderful novel that would go on to with the James Tate Black Award for 1949

‘The Far Cry’ tells the story of 14-year old Teresa Digby. She’s an introspective and rather award child, and I think it’s fair to say that she is what her circumstances made her. When her parents’ marriage broke down her mother left her to go to America and her father left her for his sister to bring up. Teresa’s aunt wasn’t unkind, she was bringing her up as well as she could, but she lacked warmth and she lacked empathy.

When he learned that his wife was returning to England, and that she wanted to see her daughter, Mr Digby decided that he would take her to India, to visit his daughter from an earlier marriage, who was married to a tea planter. It wasn’t that he was interested in his daughter, it was just that he didn’t want his wife to have her.

He was a self-absorbed, dull-witted man who could never be the man he wanted to be or have the roles in life he wanted to play, but who would never acknowledge that, even to himself.

It’s telling that he remains Mr Digby from his first appearance to his last,

His sister knew his weaknesses, knew what he was lacking, but she believed that she had played her part and it was time for him to play his.

“He polished off this diplomacy and his visit with a kiss that landed haphazard on the nearest part of her face, and so left. Such kisses are interesting. For it might be thought that lips which had once, so any years before given off those dark flames of roses must always at a touch bestow a scent, the merest whiff, a pot-pourri of passion. But no, nothing like it.”

The relationship between between father and daughter is awkward, they are uncomfortable with each other. They don’t know each other, they don’t particularly want to know each other. He disdained her awkwardness as she dealt with so much that was unfamiliar – getting in and out of taxis, eating in restaurants, holding on to things like gloves and tickets – but she struggled through, and she came to realise that in attaching so much importance to such things and in not understanding how new and strange things must be for her it was her father who was lacking.

“Teresa, who had watched defeat and then recovery first line and then illuminate his face, observed the breach in his armour: he was old, and therefore weak. And she was young, with her strength growing. Age shook him as fiercely as he had yesterday shaken her in the street. Thoughtfully she ate her breakfast. That she had seen his weakness and was bound to take advantage of it was a tragedy, and a tragedy that the only alternative to his conquering her seemed to be for her to conquer him.”

When they set sail for India Teresa find a role and her confidence grows a little more. She helps with young children, and she formed a tentative friendship with Miss Spooner, an elderly spinster who was travelling to visit her sister. Her father lacks a role, and is left to worry over mosquito nets and play the occasional game of piquet.

In India though the story that had played out in London would play out again. Teresa was overwhelmed and that made her awkward, leaving his father to organise and mange their progress. He was ineffectual, and so Teresa stepped forward, with the interest in the strange new world they were encountering.

The endpapers of the Persephone Books edition of ‘The Far Cry’

The early pages of this novel were an intriguing character study, so well done that even seemingly unsympathetic characters became interesting, but in India there would much more. Through Teresa’s eyes I saw the wonders of India, and I was as smitten as she was and as Emma Smith had been. She caught so many impressions so very, very well.

“Teresa’s head was full of sound and colour. Her head was a receptacle for tumbled rags of impression, rags torn from exotic garments that could never be pieced entirely together again; but the rags were better.”

The sea voyage, the journey though India, the feelings of strangers in a strange land are caught perfectly; every detail, every description feels so right.

In Assam Teresa meets the older half-sister her father adores.

Ruth is a beauty, she had been told that since she was a child, but her tragedy was that she was so caught up in presenting that image to the world, that she had lost the woman she really was. Edwin, her husband adored her, she wanted to tell him how she really felt, but she lacked the courage to tarnish the façade she had worked so hard to create.

It’s a compelling, heart-breaking, horribly believable portrait.

The presence of her father and her half-sister unsettles Ruth’s world; Teresa didn’t realise, she was caught up with new experiences and impressions.

There was a tragedy and Ruth thought that it might offer her an escape. Maybe it did ….

Sadness and hopefulness mingle in the end of this story

There is so much that makes it special.

Smith’s prose really is gorgeous. It’s distinctive, it’s right, and the descriptions so lovely and they catch every sensation. She follows the journey and she manages the both the day-to-day and the set pieces wonderfully well.

“Lights, no bigger than the candles on a Christmas cake, fringed every balcony, every wall, every stall, every hovel, a multitude of tiny red flames flickering alive in the huge dark night. They were still being lit: glistening haunches bent forward, hands poured a trickle of oil into saucers…The warm air was soft with sorrow. They trod among the muddy unseen ashes of the dead. Widows lay along the slushy steps, prostrate in grief, or crouched forward silently setting afloat their candles in little boats of tin the size and shape of withered leaves.”

The characters and relationships are captured beautifully; with the understanding and the empathy that they lack.

The direction that the plot takes is unpredictable; it isn’t contrived, it twists and turns as life does,

And everything works together beautifully, in this profound story of people alive in the world.

“India went on and on, on and on, as though it had no end, as though it had no beginning, as though seas and shores and other continents were only part of a feverish dream, as though this was the whole world and nothing exited beyond it; a world fat and dry on whose immense surface, far apart from one another, dwelt men and their beasts, living and dying together, generation after generation.”

The Plantagenets: The Kings Who Made Britain by Dan Jones

May 7, 2015 By Fleur in her World in Book Reports, Factual, it told me about lives lived, it took me to another time and place, Non-Fiction Adventure Tags: Dan Jones 9 Comments

This is a very big book and it holds: eight generations of Kings and Queens from 1120 to 1399; a period choc full of events, history and change. It says much for Dan Jones’ ability to marshal his facts and theories and his ability to spin a compelling (true) story that I flew threw the pages.

I knew the names, I had read many of the stories; but much of what I knew came from historical fiction, and I wanted a book that would help me to put things in the right order and fill in the gaps. This was definitely the right book for the job.

The narrative opens in the year 1120, with a drunken party aboard The White Ship. Amongst those present was William the Aetherling, grandson of William the Conqueror and the only legitimate son of Henry 1st. It had been intended that the ship would race from France to to England, but drunkenness had spread to the crew and the ship hit a rock and was wrecked. It was a catastrophe, there were few survivors, and William the Aetherling was not among them.

Henry I named his daughter, Matilda, as his heir, and took care to marry her to a strong and strategically positioned consort, Geoffrey of Anjou. But when the King died many of England’s nobles were unwilling to accept a Queen Regnant, making it easy for Matilda’s cousin Stephan of Blois, one of the few survivors of The White Ship, to seize the crown while Matilda was overseas, tied to her husband’s lands, awaiting the birth of a child.

That began a long, dark and difficult period of English history that would be known as The Anarchy; a civil war with the country divided between supporters of two claimants to the throne. That conflict was only ended when, after the death of his only son, Stephen agreed to name Matilda and Geoffrey’s son, Henry as his heir.

He, as Henry II, would be England’s first Plantagenet King; inheriting the name from his father, Geoffrey, on whom it had been bestowed because he habitually wore a spring of yellow broom blossom (planta genista).

That story – from the sinking of the white ship to the accession of Henry II – is told ‘Age of Shipwreck’, the first of seven acts. It’s full of drama and colour, as are the six acts that follow.

‘Age of Empire’ charts Henry’s conquests, his troubled – and ultimately catastrophic – relationship with Thomas a Becket, and his struggles with his wife – Eleanor of Aquitaine – and their troublesome children who history would label the ‘Devil’s Brood’. And it continues with the story of Richard the Lionheart, who came to the throne in the age of the crusades and would spend his life defending and expanding the empire he inherited from his father. An empire that his youngest brother, King John, would lose.

After that ‘Age of Opposition’ follows the conflicts that led to those loses, the conflicts with King John’s nobles and churchmen that led to history’s most famous failed peace treaty – ‘Magna Carta’ It continues into the story of John’s son, Henry III, a very different King who would also be opposed by his nobles, chief among them Simon de Monfort.

The next inheritor of the throne – Edward I – changed things, casting himself as the inheritor of King Arthur; the story of his reign, his quest to steady his kingdom and rebuild an empire, and to establish the rights and obligations of Kings is told in the ‘Age of Arthur’.

‘Age of Violence’ tells of how all of that would be undone by his son – the notorious King Edward II – who seemingly failed to understand any of those obligations or any of the consequences of his actions, playing favourite with Piers Gaveston and Hugh Despenser, and setting into motion a chain of consequence that would send his wife, Queen Isabella, into the arms of rebel Roger Mortimer, and would end with them putting his son, the young Edward III on the throne in his place, as a puppet king.

The story of how Edward III broke free, brought stability to England and re-established the country as a military power with victories on land and at sea at the start of what would become The Hundred Years War is told in ‘Age of Glory’. It tells of his sons, who included his heir Edward, The Black Prince, and John of Gaunt.

The Black Prince’s early death signalled a change in England’s fortunes. The final act – ‘Age of Revolution’ charts that decline, the accession of the Black Prince’s son, Richard II, a boy King thrown into a difficult situation without any real understanding of his rights and responsibilities. That was disastrous, and his story would end when he was usurped by his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke.

That’s where this story ends. Not with the last Plantagenet King, but with a significant shift. You might say that it was the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end for The Plantagenets. It was the right place to break the story; good though it was this book was long enough.

There were so many stories, all well told, with enough colour and detail to make them live. I was left with some striking images, and their was more than enough to keep my intention through the few quieter period.

The author stated that his intention was to track how the government and the role of monarchy changed over the years, and he did that very well indeed. I was fascinated to learn much more that I’d known before about Magna Carta and to learn about acts and treaties and settlements I’d known little or nothing about. That may sound dry but it really isn’t; it grows quite naturally out of the changes and conflicts of the human drama that was being told.

But the human story was what I missed in this book. Even on a book this long you can’t have everything, but I wish there had been a little more room for many of England’s Queens and to understand a little more of what made England’s Kings the men that they were.

I could see that the author had favourites, and that there were other he had little time for. That’s understandable, but I was disappointed that there were times when there was room for different interpretation of events that wasn’t mentioned. I accept that space was a factor, but a little space could – should – have been made to allow that there are shades of grey, not just black and white.

That leave me a little worried about picking up the story in ‘The Hollow Crown’ – because their are definitely different views to be taken on the War of the Roses. But I will because there were so many more things about this book that I did appreciate.

I took what I wanted from this book; I’ve filled gaps and I have my Kings in order; it’s a starting point not an end, and it has me enthused about reading more to fill out the human stories and build my understanding of the history.

Marianne Dreams by Catherine Storr

May 6, 2015 By Fleur in her World in Book Reports, Fictional, it came from the past and pulled me back there, it shows wonder and imagination Tags: Catherine Storr 31 Comments

Catherine Storr’s 1958 novel Marianne Dreams is one of those classic children’s stories that passed me by, but luckily I spotted a Puffin copy from the 1970s, I picked it up, I thought it looked lovely, and so I brought it home.

It was lovely, it was spooky, and it was the kind of book that brought out the child who loved books inside me.

Marianne is confined to bed with an illness that will keep her their for several months. Bored, she starts to draw to pass the time, using an old pencil she found in her grandmother’s workbox. She draws a house, with a garden, set in rough moorland.

When she falls asleep she dreams that she is standing outside the house she drew. She goes to the door but she finds that she can’t get in, because she didn’t draw a door knob. She adds that the next day, and after the next night’s dream she adds a staircase, so that she can go upstairs to meet the boy she drew looking out of a window.

The next day she goes back to her drawing, and she adds a door handle, and a boy looking out of an upstairs window. That night’s dream makes her realise that she needs to add stairs, and when she has added those she meets Mark. he tells her that he has trapped, because he has been ill and he can’t use his legs properly.

Marianne had been having lessons with Miss Chesterfield, a tutor who gave lessons to sick children in their own homes; and she realised that Mark was another pupil Miss Chesterfield had told her about, who had polio. That intrigued Marianne, but it also upset her when her tutor was a little late on her birthday, explaining that it was because Mark had arranged for his mother to buy her flowers; many more flowers than Marianne had own mother buy.

Later that day, still upset, Marianne drew bars across Mark’s window, and sinister eyes on the boulders that she had drawn to fill the spacce on the page outside the house and garden. Later she regretted what she had done, but the marks that the pencil made couldn’t be arased, and all Marianne could do was add more to her drawing.

(The black and white illustrations in my copy are really effective.)

I saw that the pencil captured Marianne’s intent as she drew as well as the marks she made on paper. She didn’t notice that, because she was too caught up in the adventure and the practicalities that presented themselves. I would have been the same if I read the book as her age; and I would have been as disturbed as she and Mark were by the watchers.

The eyes that Marianne drew onto the boulders when she was angry with Mark had turned them into sinister, sentient beings that she knew would harm the two children if they tried to leave the house. But she knew that they had to leave the house, because their health and happiness in the waking world reflected their health and happiness in Marianne’s dreams.

What could she draw to give Mark the strength to escape, and to allow them to escape the watchers ….. ?

The idea behind this book was inspired, and the execution was perfect. The internal logic held, and Catherine Storr had the wisdom to not explain so much. She focused her story on her characters; I liked Marianne and Mark, I felt for them and I believed in them; they behaved exactly as children their age would. I do wish I’d met them when I was their age, but I’m glad that at least I’ve met them now.

What I wouldn’t have noticed when I was that young is that the writing is elegant, the story-telling is lovely, and that the book has hardly dated at all.

Marianne’s story was adapted for television in the 1970s, it was modernised for the cinema in the 1980s (Bernard Rose’s ‘Paperhouse’); and a few years ago it was adapted for the stage.

It would sit very nicely among the children’s classics on anyone’s bookshelves; and I understand that it is still in print …..

The Dead Duke, His Secret Wife and the Missing Corpse by Piu Marie Eatwell

May 4, 2015 By Fleur in her World in Book Reports, Factual, it speaks of intrigue and crime, it took me to another time and place, Non-Fiction Adventure Tags: Piu Marie Eatwell 17 Comments

Piu Marie Eatwell has chosen an extraordinary title, and it suits her wonderfully written and researched telling of a true story that unfolded in late Victorian and early Edwardian England wonderfully well.

It’s readable, it’s accessible, and its utterly gripping.

In 1898 a widow named Anna Maria Druce applied for the exhumation of the grave of her late father-in-law, Thomas Charles Druce. Her claim was that he had faked his death 1864 death, because he had been the eccentric 5th Duke of Portland, who had chosen to live a different life under a different name.

Under that name the Duke had worked as a furniture dealer, married, and raised a family. Eventually he decided to end his double life and return to the ducal seat, Welbeck Abbey in Worksop, Nottinghamshire until his death some fifteen years later.

The Duke had never married a distant cousin inherited the title and everything that went with it.

Anna Maria said that her son was the true heir to the Portland estate.

It sounds ludicrous, but the truth can sometimes be stranger than fiction, and there was much that made Anna Maria’s assertion sound entirely plausible.

Each man could be described as eccentric. The 5th Duke of Portland was reclusive, he rarely went out in daylight hours, and he had constructed a labyrinth of underground tunnels beneath his estate where he disappeared for extended periods.

Witnesses testified that T C Druce looked exactly like the Duke, and that he had never spoken of his early life; it emerged that the tastes and patterns of behaviour of the two men were strikingly similar.

Of course, if Anna Maria’s claim was unfounded the executors of the Druce estate had simply to permit the exhumation, to prove that T C Druce had died and that his body was in his tomb to bring all of the legal proceedings and all of the public interest and speculation to an end

They refused, and so a long and complex legal battle that would become a cause célèbre began.

Piu Marie Eatwell brings that case to life. She is a wonderful guide to the times and to the places where her story will play out, making it easy to understand how contemporary observers would have viewed the case with reference to newspaper reports, to other cases they would have known, novels they might have read, and the legal framework and the world that they knew. She introduces everyone who had a part to play carefully, with their history, their character, their connection to the case; that made the human drama that played out fascinating, relatable, and so very engaging.

You might think that you were reading the finest of Victorian sensation novels; such is the quality of the storytelling, the drama of the plot, and the sheer page-turning quality of the whole thing.

The question at the centre of the case – whether T C Druce and the 5th Duke of Portland were two men or one – was beautifully balanced, and as the case twisted and turned, as new claimants and new evidence emerged I could never quite make up my mind. I knew that I could go away and look up the case, and I so wanted to know what would happen, but I resisted because I knew that this was too good a book to spoil.

I also knew that the answer to that question would not be the end; because whatever that answer was there would be more questions.

The resolution of the case comes before the end of the book, and it as that point the author moves smoothly from dramatic storyteller to interested researcher, offering answers to some of the unanswered questions and suggesting what might be answers to others.

That was fascinating, the depth of her interest was evident, and I continued to think of everything I had read long after I put the book down.

As Far as Jane’s Grandmother’s by Edith Olivier

April 28, 2015 By Fleur in her World in Book Reports, Fictional, it came from the past and pulled me back there Tags: Edith Olivier 10 Comments

Edith Olivier’s first novel, ‘The Love Child’, published in 1927 is a small masterpiece; telling the story of a woman who has led a cloistered life, who reaches for something more, something that maybe she cannot quite reach.

I love it, I know other who love it too, and it is one of those books that I know I would rescue from a burning building or take with me to a sojourn on a desert island.

‘As Far as Jane’s Grandmother’s’ was published a year later; it tells a very similar story in a quite different way; it’s as odd and as distinctive as its title, and it’s another story that I want to hold close to my heart.

Objectively it isn’t nearly as good a book as its predecessor; but. subjectively, I did like it.

As a child Jane was expected to be good and quiet, to read and to help with her mother’s needlework; because her mother played the role of an invalid and had her whole household spin around her, even though she had no real infirmity. Jane’s one touch of freedom came on the weekly walk to her grandmother’s with her friend and their nurses:

“Jane’s delight was to linger till the nurses had disappeared round the curve in the road, and then she had her own way of swinging herself up the gate and on to the top of the wall. Taking the handle in her hands, she kicked vigorously, then, with a sudden leap she stuck her feet into the handle, and at the same time threw her hands over the gate. One more swing of her body brought her out onto the top, in a curve like a caterpillar making a journey. A cat climbs in much the same way. Then Jane was happy. She ran and danced along the wall. She made an unforgettable picture against the sky – a thin little figure with very long legs and very short skirts. Her hair, the colour of honey, tossed about her face, which was always strangely pale, like a little white flame, vivid for all its pallor”

Jane was is such trouble when she was spotted on the wall but she carried out; keeping her naughtiness secret and playing the good girl; learning how the world worked from novels.

I had to feel for her; and to fear for her.

When Jane’s parents were killed in an accident she went to live with her grandmother, and then she really had to be good; Jane’s grandmother was a formidable woman who held firm to her Victorian values and had no time for anyone who didn’t do the same, who centred her life on her family estate and expected Jane, her heiress, to do the same.

As time passes life presents Jane with possibilities: marriage, friendship, wartime service, convent life …. but they never grew into more than possibilities, because Jane could never find the courage and strength to face uncertainties, the approbation of others, and most of all the disapproval of her grandmother.

Jane told herself that those things weren’t important, that she had enough of a life:

“I don’t think my life has been empty. I was content. But perhaps I like emptiness.”

But she was lonely, she was fearful, and she was horribly resentful of anyone who had more in their life than she did,

This probably isn’t sounding like a book to love, and it certainly isn’t a book for everybody. I can understand why many people would find her infuriating. But as a Jane who was a painfully shy bookish child I understood, and I cared.

And there were things that illuminated the story.

The tone was lovely; it was demure but it was also bright and hopeful. So was the prose, especially the dialogue and the descriptions.

There are little hints of the fairy-tale. And there is a touch of autobiography; Edith Olivier’s life was constrained, but she found – she made – a new life for herself.

There are lovely glimpses of the part of the world that she loved; and I suspect that the lives of the social circle that Jane wasn’t a part of echoed the lives of the friends that the author made when she made that new life for herself,

In the end, after her grandmother’s death, Jane has a second chance of marriage when she met the man she had loved long ago.

But could Jane leave behind her grandmother’s principles and catch up with – and enjoy – a world that had moved on without her?

“It struck her as a most indecent spectacle, yet it really was a most a most delicious sight.

The long lean figures of the bathers shot like curved and living arrows through the stream’s uncertain and changing lights. They caught twinkling gleams and shadows. They were clothed in clear green water-colour, unearthly and magic. Beautiful fish they might have been, now diving and moving soundlessly through the water, and then coming to the surface, spluttering and splashing, real ragamuffins after all.”

Jane’s reaction to that scene answers the question, and leads the story to a natural conclusion.

It was a moving ending, to a story that really struck a chord.

Fleur in her World

Notes from a bookish life on the Cornish coast …

Category Archives: Book Reports