Reading etc.

“Wartime Women: A Mass Observation Anthology 1937-45” edited by Dorothy Sheridan [New Year’s Resolution]

I found this mildly interesting. It consists mainly of diaries but also some survey material. I particularly liked the research on married women and work from January 1944.

On the one hand:
“…going out to work is incompatible with the proper care of children. Even before the war one saw the sad result of mothers working the the factory in in a certain manufacturing village near here. The children ran about the streets wild and uncared-for with no home life.”

But on the other:
“I feel that it should always be possible – things should so be arranged that no woman should feel marriage is going to drive her into domesticity. There should be just as many openings for women as men, and just as many openings in domestic work for men as for women.”

Plus ça change..

“Just My Type” by Simon Garfield [New Year’s Resolution]

A surprisingly entertaining guide to the world of typography but in the end, the string of anecdotes becomes a little dull. On the plus side, I spend my time trying to work out fonts now. My relationship with Garamond has fundamentally changed.

“A Visit from the Goon Squad” by Jennifer Egan

This got fantastic reviews. It’s not that good but I did find it mildly entertaining. It’s a series of interlinked stories showing the effect of time on people’s lives. It ends up in the near future which was pointless. It reminded me of a couple of American novels I’ve read recently: “Freedom” and “The Private Lives of Pippa Lee”. Though both of those were more novel and less a series of short stories.

“Great Apes” by Will Self [New Year’s Resolution]

I read this book while I was ill which made its faintly hallucinogenic quality all the more disturbing. It’s the story of a man who wakes up one day and finds that the world is populated by chimps rather than humans but at a macro level, it’s all the same. So we have London’s infrastructure largely identical and famous people now famous chimps and so on. It might have worked over 200 pages but, in my view it is unsustainable over 400. In fact, I think that the author got tired of it himself and the book ends quite abruptly. Don’t know that I’d read one of his again. A bit too smart for his readers’ good.

“The IRA and its Enemies” by Peter Hart [New Year’s Resolution]

This is all about Cork during the War of Independence. It’s very engagingly written – despite a slight touch of “this was my thesis” about it – and I was really enjoying it until Mr. Waffle drew my attention to the controversy surrounding the author’s use of anonymous interviews. This, alas, does make one dubious about the author’s integrity and the reliability of his account.

It is very hard to swallow for someone from Cork. It presents a seriously revisionist view of the War of Independence. I don’t think it washes, he seems to treat as morally equivalent the shooting of someone by the IRA (outside the law) and the Black and Tans going into houses and shooting random civilians because they were under pressure. You must hold the police force and those upholding the law to a higher standard than those acting outside it. I spent my whole time reading the book saying mentally, “HOLD ON there a second now…”

Another drawback from my point of view is that, overall, it focuses much more on the county than the city and my own centre of interest is the city. There are a couple of good quotes early on about the city but much of the book is dedicated to what was happening in the county.

Here’s his characterisation of the city:

Cork city (usually simply “Cork”) itself stood out perhaps most of all in terms of its self-regard and self-absorption, its steep hills and island core adding to its insularity. Its industrial stagnation added to the occasionally passionate resentment of Dublin. This urban Cork was dense with its own particular accent, slang, characters, nicknames, dynasties, and local knowledge…there did exist an overarching sense of identity of Corkness. However stereotyped, this provoked strong characterization from outsiders and Corkmen and women alike. Among the adjectives applied: provincial, proud, boastful, sly secretive, dark, clever, clannish, grasping, brash, vain, domineering.

Later on in the same chapter he has a great story. When Harold Ashton, a Daily Mail correspondent, visited Cork in February 1917 he found:

The city was in a jumpy mood. Dublin may be the capital of Ireland but Cork is the city of Sinn Fein and its many ramifications… Sinn Feiners were out in platoons roving the streets in a spirit of high bravado. Explosions like revolver shots sent the crowd skipping and the girls screaming, and for an hour or so the warm night was very lively with detonations, explosions, and alarms, but the tall, quiet-eyed men of the R.I.C., moving always in couples among the press, cleverly broke up the demonstrators and never allowed any massed formation.

The author comments that in fact “to considerable local derision, the report actually described Patrick Street [Cork’s main street] on a Saturday night, after a football match between the Presentation [where my brother and father went to school] and Christian Brothers colleges.”

That said, despite the lack of city stories, I did find it very interesting. It’s a part of Ireland’s history I know relatively little about. However, I’m not sure, that I should have started here. It assumes a level of detailed knowledge about the Civil War and the War of Independence which I just don’t have. It’s taken as read that the readers knows the chronology of events in detail. Alas, this is not the case. Oh well, the next 10 years will see a slew of centenaries that will doubtless bring me up to date.

Updated to add: I wish I had known about this interactive map showing major incidents from Cork during the War of Independence.

“Absalom, Absalom!” by William Faulkner [New Year’s Resolution]

This is a brilliant book. I’ve never read anything by Faulkner before and I loved this. It’s hard going and sometimes it felt more like reading poetry than prose. Here’s a sentence taken at random:

She didn’t know when would come because he didn’t know himself: and maybe he told Henry, showed Henry the letter before he sent it, and maybe he did not; maybe still just the watching and the waiting, the one saying to Henry I have waited long enough and Henry saying to the other Do you renounce then? Do you renounce? and the other saying I do not renounce.”

Not a big believer in the full stop, Mr. Faulkner. And this, I assure you, is one of the shorter sentences.

I loved the language in this book and the ideas. At one point he says that Quentin (our narrator) knew something just by breathing the same air and hearing the same church bells as this figure from the past. Obviously, he didn’t say it like that but that was the gist of it. He beautifully expressed the idea of what you know unconsciously about the past in the place you’re from.

I would not recommend the Vintage edition which is the one I have. The blurb on the back gives away the entire story and it really ruins it because, clearly, the twists and turns were meant to be surprising. Maybe it’s so famous that everyone else knows what happens but it ruined it for me.

“The Pleasing Hours: James Caulfeild, Earl of Charlemont (1728-1799) – Traveller, Connoisseur and Patron of the Arts” by Cynthia O’Connor [New Year’s Resolution]

This was a present from my loving husband a number of years ago. He got it for me because I love the Casino at Marino which, though somewhat off the tourist trail is, in the view of many, including me, by far the best 18th century building in Dublin. This books is interesting in spots but it covers a lot of Charlemont’s grand tour which I found pretty dull. The author also has a deeply annoying habit of introducing people briefly once and then referring to them again 100 pages later without the slightest hint as to who they might be. I spent much of my time going to the index to find characters. I found the latter part of the book which deals with Charlemont’s time in Dublin and involvement in Irish politics the most engaging – although long pieces of art historical detection (where was the lapis lazuli table intended for?) created some very tedious interludes. Overall I think that this mightn’t have been bad, if there had been more forceful editing.

“The Whistleblower” by Kathryn Bolkovac with Cari Lynn [New Year’s Resolution]

My sister gave me this for Christmas. Somehow when people see a book set in the Balkans and subtitled “sex trafficking, military contractors and one woman’s fight for justice” their thoughts, quite mistakenly, turn to me. My heart sank and I put it on my bedside table with a heavy heart. However, it wasn’t too bad. The writing was pedestrian but the story was interesting. The title says it all really. I spent some time in Bosnia myself just after the war so the background was somewhat familiar to me. It underlines what I’ve always thought – that you have to be extremely brave and a little odd to be a whistle blower. You must be the difficult person that won’t sway to the prevailing wind. Worth a read, actually – not so much for the Balkan angle as the indictment of private police contractors.

“The Illustrated Wee Free Men” by Terry Pratchett

I love Terry Pratchett but I find the wee free men a little tedious. This book is quite clever. It’s a children’s book. And it references a lot of other children’s books. You can see trace elements of the Narnia books. And Alice in Wonderland. Very readable ,like the best children’s books. Mr waffle laughed when he saw me reading this. I think, secretly, he envies my shameless reading of children’s books.

“Call my Brother Back” by Michael McLaverty [New Year’s Resolution]

This was lent to me with a ringing endorsement which, I find, often leads to disappointment. It’s set in Belfast during the Civil War and War of Independence. The early chapters are set on Rathlin Island and it is a relief when we leave it as the author is very fond of descriptive adjectives. The book is alright and I suppose it provides an interesting (fictional) counterpoint to my reading on happenings in Cork during the same period. But, frankly, I wouldn’t press it on anyone.

“Wigs on the Green” by Nancy Mitford

A surprisingly entertaining early novel. For me, the triumph was the social climbing Mrs. Lace who is hilarious. She has spent six months in Paris and on foot of this changes her name from the prosaic Bella to the glamorous Anne-Marie. Clearly trends in names are no longer as they were in 1935.

When going through my posts to make yesterday’s list, I was slightly surprised to discover that I read 37 other books which were not on my bedside table in 2011. It certainly didn’t feel like that. I see a lot more teen fiction in this pile.

Here’s a summary of what I thought was good and bad:

Best books: “Over Sea, Under Stone” by Susan Cooper; “The Memory Chalet” by Tony Judt; “Gone” by Michael Grant “The Summer Without Men” by Siri Hustvedt; “I Shall Wear Midnight” by Terry Pratchett; and “A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian” by Marina Lewycka
Most worthwhile books: “The Death of the Irish Language” by Reg Hindley; “Another September” by Elizabeth Bowen and Granta 114
Worst book: “Green Lantern: Rebirth” by Geoff Johns, illustrated by Ethan Van Sciver

And here are the details on all 37 with reviews copied and pasted whether you like it or not:

1. “The Death of the Irish Language” by Reg Hindley
Mr. Waffle bought this when he was poor and living in Paris. I think because he is a masochist. The book examines the health of the Irish language in 1985/86 by DED. This is not, in fact, as tedious as it might sound. One of his research methods was to hang around playgrounds listening to the local children to see whether they were really speaking Irish to each other – testing the truth of the census and, more particularly, the deontas returns. I can see this being a quite effective methodology but one probably not open to older male researchers today.
The author can’t help himself from lamenting the fact that women and men from the Gaeltacht have no concern about finding another Irish speaker when looking for love and non-native speakers are constantly marrying in and diluting the strength of the language – not to mention the damage that the television and the roads do. This is gently funny from time to time though not deliberately so.
The author is a linguist and an Englishman from Bradford. He gives a phonetic English pronouciation of Irish place names for the convenience of the English reader, one assumes. I was amused to see him say that Cois Fharraige might be pronounced Cush Arriger in English. It mightn’t. That intrusive final “r” is entirely English. Oh that a linguist should make such an error.
All in all I found it surprisingly enjoyable but a little depressing. I don’t want the Irish language to die. And even though, the other night my loving husband and I sat on the sofa and watched our children sing songs in the first national language and do some Irish dancing (a long way from Riverdance), in a manner that would, I am sure have made De Valera proud- it’s not really much good, if Irish is on its deathbed as a native language. The author points out that in general Irish people are positive towards the language and do not want it to die out but essentially they feel that the duty of saving it falls to civil servants and school children.
On the back of the book is a quote “Oh the shame of Irish dying in a free Ireland.” I do think that this may be our generation’s tragedy, that Irish as a living language will die on our watch. Of course, what with the IMF and that there is a lot of competition for what this generation’s tragedy might be. I suppose we’ll have to see how the recently published 20 year strategy on the Irish language pans out – come back to me in 2030.

2. “Death of a Macho Man” by MC Beaton
Left behind by my sister following babysitting adventure. All her tired brain could face after a day with my children. Undemanding.

3. “Another September” by Elizabeth Bowen
This is set in County Cork at the time of the War of Independence. I found it tough enough going and, for a slender volume, it took me quite a while to read. If you’ve ever read “Cold Comfort Farm” by Stella Gibbons, you will know that she satirically asterixes descriptive passages which are particularly fine. I can’t help wondering whether this was the very book she was satirising, take this passage selected at random:
“The screen of trees that reached like an arm from behing the house – embracing the lawns, banks and terraces in mild ascent – had darkened, deepening into a forest. Like splintered darkness, branches pierced the faltering dusk of leaves. Evening drenched the trees; the beeches were soundless cataracts. Behind the trees, pressing in from the open and empty country like an invasion, the orange bright sky crept and smouldered. Firs, bearing up to pierce, melted against the brightness. Somewhere, there was a sunset in which the mountains lay like glass.”
I think that is quite dreadfully overwritten, even allowing for the changes in tastes over the 80 odd years since it was published. And there is a lot of this kind of thing to wade through. As I read on, I remembered that I had found “The Death of the Heart” a real struggle. What saved this book for me was the context. It was interesting. Firstly, it was written from the point of view of an Anglo-Irish family. They considered themselves Irish and disapproved very much of the English whom they found vulgar: obsessed by their digestion and by money.
And at one level, where else would this Anglo-Irish family be from? There they were in their family home on the site where their ancestors had lived since the 1600s (assumption based on the belief that Danielstown is Bowen’s Court, Elizabeth Bowen’s family home). But yet, they seem very alien to me. Even allowing that everyone from the 1920s would seem very foreign, this is another layer of separation.
Co-incidentally, I went to an exhibition in the National Photographic Archive called “Power and Privilege: The Big House in Ireland”. Mostly these photographs of the landed gentry, their houses and their households dated from the period between 1900-1910. They provided images to go with the text of Elizabeth Bowen’s book. To my surprise, what I found fascinating about the exhibition was not the houses but the staff. Their uniforms, the women’s lace hairpieces and their number; those houses needed armies of servants. Under one picture, there is a comment that all of the servants in the picture are English. The gentry, or this particular family at all events, didn’t want Irish servants; one can only imagine the rancour this must have caused in a poor country where employment was scarce. In England, there was no such thing as the absentee landlord. In Ireland, many Anglo-Irish families never visited their Irish estates at all.
All this by way of saying that the attitude to the Big House (and its inhabitants) in Ireland is ambivalent, some were good landlords, many were not but all of them were different. This book captures that rather well. These people suspended between Ireland and England, neither one thing nor the other. I was fascinated to see that they appeared to be just as terrified of the Black and Tans as any other Irish person despite the fact that they were entertaining British army officers over tea and tennis. In this story, there is an exquisitely awkward moment when Lois, our heroine, inquires of a family (presumably tenants, though possibly neighbours) whether they have any news of their son who both parties know is on the run. I would quote it but it is too bloody long to retype. Bowen is good on interactions between people and all that is implied by silences and unfinished sentences and the half truths which make up polite conversation in difficult circumstances.
In the 60s, the longest Georgian terrace in Europe was in Dublin. It was knocked down for a modern concrete construction. In the face of some outrage (the terrace was pretty, the replacement was not) a government Minister said that he was delighted. He regarded this as one in the eye for the oppressor. This attitude is a very direct descendant of the one which burned down some 200 big houses up and down the country during the war of independence. I think we have made our peace with the big house now, they’re mostly filled with luxury hotels. When Paddy Kelly put up a development near Castletown House, in Kildare, he said, “It was time the Irish went through the front gate.” I’m not sure that he considered the Anglo-Irish to be really entirely Irish.
The introduction is by Victoria Glendinning, an English woman. She says, “I don’t want to spoil the book by revealing the climax. But I would ask you, as you read, to notice the accumalative imagery of fire and burning.” Any Irish person, of any description would not need that – you know, almost from the first chapter that the house will be burned. This picture, “An Allegory”, by Seán Keating should be used for the cover of the book:

4. “At Home” by Bill Bryson
I love Bill Bryson and this is a very readable, entertaining book but I feel that it is, slightly, painting by numbers. He’s done better and he certainly got full value for his subscription to the dictionary of national biography in drafting this tome. There are a couple of places where things are repeated and it could, perhaps, have done with more thorough editing. All that said, I enjoyed it very much and learnt some new things. I found myself itching to get back to it and it was a great Christmas holiday read. Bryson has an infectious enthusiasm for everything and if you ever thought you would like to know more about sewers there is no better man to talk you through them. This is, essentially, a history book. It is organised around the rooms in his house. So, for example, in the bedroom he covers sex, childbirth, illness and death over the years and the changing perceptions and processes from about 1600 to the 20th century. Sometimes one feels that interesting facts he has learnt are somewhat shoehorned into the format but, broadly, it works.

5. “Over Sea, Under Stone” by Susan Cooper
My sister got this for the Princess for Christmas, she didn’t fancy it so I picked it up and read it myself. I really enjoyed it – more for the delightfulness of childhood summers that it evoked than for the plot, it must be said. I went out the next day and bought volume 2 of the series which is really all you need to know.

6. “The Dark is Rising” by Susan Cooper
Volume 2 of the series which began with “Over Sea, Under Stone”. Oh, the disappointment. All dull fantasy (and I don’t object to fantasy, just dull fantasy), none of the lovely seaside holiday feel of the last book and only one character carried over and that one among the least engaging. I think I will be leaving the rest of the series alone.

7. “Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance” by Atul Gawande
When I was at my parents’ house in Cork over the weekend, my father said to me, “I’m sure you gave me a Christmas present, just remind me, what was it.” It was this book and a companion volume “Complications”. My father is impossible to buy for and we almost always end up giving him books. This is guilt inducing as he has a huge pile of worthy books which people think he might like to read (mostly they tend to cover sailing boats, steam engines, medicine and Cork usually with a dash of photography thrown in) and which only serve to unnerve him at every turn as he tries to polish off his daily crossword. However, I was delighted when he said, “Oh I thought that they came from your aunt, they were very good.” I was delighted also to clarify that I was the brilliant donor. I found this volume on the couch and, on the basis of his recommendation, read it. It’s an interesting read and a very easy one, the author has a very accessible style and seems to be as much a writer as a doctor which is an unusual combination. He writes about medical matters in a very insightful way and certainly gives the lay reader a number of new perspectives. One of the essays in this series is about cystic fibrosis – my father particularly recommended it and it stuck in my mind also. I think one of the reasons for this is that, in Ireland, cystic fibrosis rates are high. A girl in my class in school died from it. The author used CF as an example of the finding that medical success rates are in the classic bell curve shaped graph. He said that we expect the graph to be fin shaped with good results bunched towards the right of the graph but this is not actually the case. He then goes on to discuss how to use this kind of information to improve performance. In the best performing case in the US, there is someone who is 67 who has cystic fibrosis. When you consider that my former classmate died in her 20s that seems amazing. Gosh, I am making this sound quite dull but it’s really not. I recommend it and, what’s more, I’m going to find the companion volume to read when I go to Cork next.

8. “Greenwitch” by Susan Cooper
9. “The Grey King” by Susan Cooper
10. “Silver on the Tree” by Susan Cooper

So, I persisted with “The Dark is Rising” series – it’s alright, I suppose, but I think that there was something deeply appealing about the first book that is missing in the others. The author does have a great sense of place and that comes across in the settings of all of the books. I also like the way that she inserts Welsh phrases into “The Grey King” without translation or much by way of explanation. Nice touch. But for me, I think I am just too old to enjoy these properly. The nice thing about children’s books though, is how they respect the rules. In Greenwitch, the children are fighting the dark for the survival of mankind but they can only do it in the Easter holidays and our hero is worried that the week provided by the school authorities won’t be long enough. Well, rules are rules, even if evil is about to take over.
I thought the last book which was largely set in fantasy land was the weakest of the bunch. When she talks about England and Wales and an idealised landscape she is really quite unbeatable. The “Lost Land” is just tedious. But maybe not if you’re 13 which is probably when I should have read them.

11. “The Memory Chalet” by Tony Judt
A series of autobiographical essays, vaguely reminiscent of W.G. Sebald, except that I enjoyed them. The essays are full of nostalgia for the 40s, 50s and 60s which I found very appealing. They are very readable though about hard ideas so they make you feel clever. Always welcome. The one about French intellectuals is the best.

12. “Wait for Me” by Deborah Devonshire
How many Mitfords can one girl take? The sane sister gives her take on her upbringing and relationships with her sisters. A bit like seeing how the magician’s tricks are done. She has a style that tends slightly towards listing things. There’s a whole chapter at the end devoted to all the great parties she’s been to which, frankly, could have been left out. She’s also much too sensible to be nasty about anyone so that side of her personality, which was visible in her letters, is left out. Which, though worthy, is, alas, dull. Only for the hardcore Mitford enthusiast.

13. “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell
I am coming to this somewhat later than everyone else on the planet and maybe because the internet has changed so many things in the past ten years or maybe because the ideas are now mainstream, I am distinctly underwhelmed. There’s a lot about Sesame Street for aficionados. There’s a whole chapter about smoking that was clearly written for something else and is shoehorned in at the end. It’s alright, I suppose.

14. “Pigeon Pie” by Nancy Mitford
I thought that this might be another name for “Wigs on the Green” which is a roman à clef and given my doctorate level knowledge of the Mitfords due to incessant reading over the past couple of months, I think I have the clef. Alas, it is not and, I realised, as I read, that I had read this before and not enjoyed it much. On re-reading, I wasn’t overly impressed. It’s alright but just a bit slight. Very mildly amusing in places. Sigh.

15. “Noblesse Oblige” edited by Nancy Mitford
It contains the famous “U and non-U” essay. If you need to know who said mirror and who said looking glass in 1955, this is the book for you. Oh, it’s alright and of mild historical interest, I suppose but it’s not worth a re-read.

16. “The Ruby in the Smoke” by Philip Pullman
This is a detective novel for teenagers set in Victorian London. It was seriously recommended to me by someone at a party before I was married and I have been meaning to read it ever since. It probably wasn’t worth storing up for 11 years but it’s perfectly acceptable aside from the author’s tendency to lecture about the rights of women. I am all for the rights of women and I would describe myself as a feminist but I feel slightly hectored by Mr. Pullman.

17. “Gone” by Michael Grant
Very enjoyable sci-fi teenager thing, if that’s you’re thing. Everyone over 14 disappears. Everyone left is trapped in an area with a diameter of 20 miles. And there are mutants. Great stuff.

18. “Hunger” by Michael Grant
Three months later and the kids in book 1 are running out of food. Not as good as volume 1 but there you are – still very pacy.

19. “Lies” by Michael Grant
Volume 3, very put downable.

20. “Plague” by Michael Grant
Volume 4 and we’re back on form – nasty illnesses strike the abandoned children. Not for those who don’t enjoy reading about parasitic insects.

21. “The Hare with the Amber Eyes” by Edward De Waal
A bit of a slow start. Lots of art history, and I like art history but there is only so much of Paris in the late 19th century that I can take. “Persist until he gets to Vienna,” said my friends. I persisted. The story follows the history of small carved Japanese figures called netsuke from when they came into his family in the 1870s. This device is used to tell the story of his family, the Ephrussis, an extremely rich banking family of Russian, Jewish extraction. Vienna works better for a range of reasons. Paris is too long ago and the author’s link is too indirect. His grandmother grew up in the Viennese family and it is much more immediate and, of course, over this fin de siecle Viennese tale hangs the reader’s and the author’s knowledge of what happens to European Jews over the following 50 years. It’s fascinating and very direct and moving. Also, I now really want to visit Odessa.
The author was in Dublin a couple of weeks ago and I went to hear him speak but he only spoke of pots. Alas. He is a famous potter as well as an author.

22. “I Feel Bad about my Neck” by Nora Ephron
This book is sinful. The publishers and the author pulled together a couple of slight, previously published essays from a variety of sources, added a couple of new ones and foisted them on an unsuspecting public. Or maybe I’m just bitter because I have only three years before my neck collapses. Very mildly funny in places.

23. “The Tiger in the Well” by Philip Pullman
For my money the best of the Sally Lockhart novels. The author is still concerned about women’s rights but this time he’s showing how married women had a very raw time when they fell out with their husbands. But it’s a bit more complicated than that. And also quite exciting in spots.

24. “The Water Beetle” by Nancy Mitford
I’ve been reading/re-reading Nancy Mitford novels although, annoyingly, both Love in a Cold Climate and The Pursuit of Love have, unaccountably, disappeared from the shelves. I quite enjoyed this series of essays, though I have now had three versions (Decca, Deborah and Nancy) of the sisters’ story of how their Nanny said to Diana on her wedding day (when she complained something was torn), “Who’ll be looking at you?” And really, one version would probably have been enough. These essays are very readable but a bit forgettable. One of them features “Eire”. Her views are as might be expected.

25. “The Blessing” by Nancy Mitford
It has to be said that a strong element of sameness runs through the work of Miss Mitford. I wouldn’t read three or four in a row, if I were you. That said, I enjoyed this story of an eight year old boy who tries to keep his parents’ marriage on the rocks as new potential partners woo him to get to his parents. Last time I read it, I didn’t have an eight year old of my own at home.

26. “The Summer Without Men” by Siri Hustvedt
I love Siri Hustvedt, I love the way she thinks and the way she writes and I did enjoy this book. However, it is packaged as a novel and it’s not really a novel. She would have done better, I think, to have bitten the bullet and turned it into a series of prose pieces and short stories. Only for hardcore fans, I feel.
I met my friend R while I was reading this and showed it to him. R is always recommending books to me that I really find tough, tough going. R, recoiled in horror, “I hate her,” he said with unusual vehemence. You might like to know that following years of recommendations both ways, the only book we both liked was “Havoc in its Third Year” by Ronan Bennett. You may wish to rush out and buy it as it clearly has immensely wide appeal.

27. “The Alchemyst: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel” by Michael Scott
28. “The Magician” by Michael Scott
29. “The Sorceress” by Michael Scott

Books 1-3 in a teenage fantasy series written by an Irish author pretending to be American (our heroes are American twins). Drags somewhat but I’m on volume 3. I’m not exactly dying to check out volume 4 though.

30. “I Shall Wear Midnight” by Terry Pratchett
Another Tiffany Aching novel. Terry Pratchett is reliably excellent. What greater praise can one give?

31. “A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian” by Marina Lewycka
I resisted reading this as I did not enjoy “Two Caravans” by the same author. This is much better. Very, very funny. And lots of Ukrainian history for free.

32. Granta 114
I borrowed this from a cooler friend. Really, who subscribes to Granta? Honestly. But it was a feminist issue and I am interested in feminism. And it was excellent and very easy going [not to be confused with easygoing, which it wasn’t]. Who would have thought?

33. “Green Lantern: Rebirth” by Geoff Johns, illustrated by Ethan Van Sciver
I include this for the sake of completeness. I know you care. Daniel spent all of our holiday in France reading and re-reading it. As we took it out of the library, I felt a twinge of guilt as the librarian said, “You know that this is an adult graphic novel.” Eventually, in France a combination of a shortage of books and mild interest in what my then 5 year old was consuming made me turn to this. I am fond of science fiction and I like to think of myself as able to follow a plot, but I had no idea what on earth this was about and had to turn to Daniel for advice and guidance which he very willingly gave. I was pleased to note, however, that unlike the X-men graphic novels which he has also been perusing with interest, there were no scantily clad women; this was somewhat offset by the random violence, of course. Not recommended.

34. “The Left Hand of Darkness” by Ursula Le Guin
We went into the library in Marino, round the corner from Bram Stoker’s house and they had an enormous gothic section. I was suitably impressed. They had a number of Ann Radcliffe books but when I asked for “The Mysteries of Udolpho” they said it had just been taken out. I took this instead. And a little quiz to check if anyone is reading along. Ann Radcliffe and Ursula Le Guin are linked in my mind by having been read by a fictional character in a book I read over the summer. If you identify it, you may be my husband.
Anyhow, this seemed appealing. Look, gender and science fiction, my key interests in one handy package. It starts off fine. Slightly underwhelming but fine. And that’s how it continues. The big item of interest is that she tries to imagine a world without gender. It’s not that interesting; and I’m a feminist.

35. “A Life of Contrasts” by Diana Mosley
I was reading this in tandem with Doris Lessing’s book and I have to say that I found it by far the more enjoyable read. I couldn’t help feeling that Doris Lessing was a much worthier person but far less entertaining than Diana Mosley.
This is, of course, more Mitfordia as Diana was born Mitford and became, briefly, Guinness and then Mosley. I know most of the stories and the cast of characters already. And Diana was probably the most interesting sister of them all. She defends Mosley at every turn and despite myself, I find some of the questions she raises interesting. She seems a charming and lovely person despite her beliefs – sorry, but there it is. She glosses over, as I suppose might be expected, the less pleasant aspects of her husband’s activities and she must have been the only, somewhat sane, (her comments on the deaths of the Goebbels children make me wonder whether she was entirely so) person defending Hitler in 1977. Definitely worth a read. But, if you are going to tackle only one Mitford book this year, make it the six sisters one.

36. “Snuff” by Terry Pratchett
Not vintage Pratchett but not bad by any means. Involves smuggling and slavery.

37. “Death Bringer” by Derek Landy
The latest Skulduggery Pleasant offering and very acceptable, if you like teenage fantasy novels set in Dublin. Go on, you know you do.

Happy New Year!

This time last year I made the best new year’s resolution ever and I am going to share all the gory details with you.

In January 2011, I decided to read all the books on my bedside table. At that stage, it looked like this:

Exhibit A

In the last 12 months, I’ve read 37 books from the pile and now it looks like this:

Exhibit B

I know, it’s like a makeover show for bookworms. OK, I didn’t read all the books but the sense of achievement is tremendous.

My resolution for 2012 is to finish the remaining books. And, oh yes, to move house.

Here’s a summary of my adventures in reading:

Best books: “The Jane Austen Book Club” by Karen Joy Fowler; “Old School” by Tobias Wolff and “Broderies” by Marjane Satrapi
Most worthwhile book: Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Most disturbing book (by some distance): “Dei Bambini Non Si Sa Niente” by Simona Vinci
Worst book: “Jane Austen Ruined My Life” by Beth Patillo

And here’s a detailed list of what I read to get from Exhibit A to Exhibit B with the reviews I wrote at the time (yes cut and pasted for YOU):

1. “JPod” by Douglas Coupland [New Year’s Resolution Pile]
Sitting on my bedside table since 2006 hasn’t done this book any favours. It’s supposed to be bang up to the minute and I’m sure it was in 2006 but putting technology at the centre of your book turns out to be a problem. One of the characters describes kodak photo share as like being transported back to 1999. Hmm, but this book has no twitter and no youtube and it features game designer nerds who would presumably use all these things. Catastrophically dated. Also, annoyingly self-referential. These characters talk about Douglas Coupland a lot and he has a bit part.
I used to really like his books and I have read a lot of them but this book lands on the wrong side of the line between pretentious and original. Disappointing.

2. “Una Bambina e Basta” by Lia Levi [New Year’s Resolution Pile]
This is really a novella and the fact that I took two years to finish it is more a reflection of the fact that it is in Italian than the content itself. It’s about a little Jewish girl who ends up hidden in a convent during World War II and about how she and her family get through the war. It’s autobiographical and I find the author’s childish voice a little tedious. I suspect although it has merit, it’s the kind of book I wouldn’t have particularly enjoyed even had I read it in English. Rather annoyingly, my mother-in-law is reading it also and she loves it. My mother-in-law sits Leaving Certificate courses for fun and this book is on the Italian course. Which reminds me of a rather amusing anecdote she once told me. Regular readers will recall that my husband’s next door neighbour when he was growing up is now a well-known novelist. My mother-in-law decided to sit the Leaving Certificate English paper for fun and she relied on the young pre-novelist, then a Leaving Certificate student herself, to supply details of the syllabus. This worked very well until the night before the examination when the pre-novelist admitted to my mother-in-law – “Oh dear, I forgot to tell you, we had to do a play as well.”

3. “Jane Austen Ruined My Life” by Beth Patillo [New Year’s Resolution Pile]
I cannot tell you how dire this book was on every level. I received it as a present from someone who has never previously failed to deliver. Which, of course, makes it worse. Good title though.

4. “Decca, The Letters of Jessica Mitford” edited by Peter Sussman [New Year’s resolution list]
Lads, this is a massive book. 700 odd pages. Why, oh why are American books so bloodly long?
Once you are sucked into the world of the Mitfords, you never really leave. Last summer I read “The Mitfords: Letters between Six Sisters” which was a collection of the sisters’ letters edited by Diana Mosley’s daughter-in-law Charlotte Mosley. I enjoyed it very much.
What this book suffers from by comparison is that it is all one voice. Only Jessica Mitford’s letters. The early letters are pretty dull but as she gets beyond her 20s, they are a lot more interesting. She becomes a much more compassionate and appealing person (I suppose we all do). And although she was doing very interesting things in her 20s, somehow she fails to convey much. I feel that she was probably putting up a brave front and that makes for a dull read.
If you are steeped in Mitford knowledge, then you will be aware that Jessica (or Decca – the nicknames, Lord, the nicknames – here’s a selection of the sisters’ nicknames for each other – Sooze, Cord, Honks, Bobo, Woman, Hen) is the second youngest, that she eloped to Spain with her cousin, Esmond Romilly; moved to America; stayed there when he died; married a radical lawyer and wrote about the American funeral industry. What I found really interesting was her life after Romilly’s death. This doesn’t really get a great airing in most of the accounts I have read. She was a committed communist, very happily married to a radical lawyer for the rest of her life. And she knew EVERYONE. Random example – Hillary Clinton was an intern in her husband’s office. They really were an extraordinary family. Each of the 6 daughters, other than Pam, did very, very unusual things. Jessica fell out with them all when she eloped with Romilly. As a dedicated communist, she was peeved with her sister Diana who married Oswald Mosley and didn’t see her for 34 years. There is a rather funny letter where she describes meeting Diana while weeding in her sister Nancy’s garden. When Diana asks what she is doing, she says that she refrained from saying that she was giving the irises lebensraum.
For someone so unconventional, she does seem to have been unhappy about her daughter living in sin. Not so much for the sin but because, I think, she felt that it made for a somewhat unstable relationship. She was a veteran of many anti-racism campaigns. She used to front to buy houses for black families in white neighbourhoods. In response to the regularly asked question “Would you let your daughter marry a negro?” she answered “Rather!” Her daughter’s partner was black.
I find myself veering wildly in my opinion as to whether I would like to be around her. At times her letters are so funny and loving and she bore all sorts of deprivations very cheerfully. But, my goodness, she was quarrelsome and not at all inclined to just let things go. In the end, I think this made her what she was but she could be difficult, I feel.
I did enjoy this book but it was just too long and I am already steeped in Mitford knowledge (though considering re-reading Nancy’s novels and “Hons and Rebels” after this). If you fancy getting into the Mitfords, and there’s plenty of material to go around, Charlotte Mosley’s book is just much better. If you’re there already, then this is worth a read. Perhaps more fun for an American audience than a European one as dramatis personae presumably better known.

5. “A Soldier for Eden” by James Congdon [New Year’s resolution list]
There is potentially excellent material here. This is the story of a young American boy who ends up joining the fedayeen by accident and proves himself an outstanding recruit. Unfortunately, the author has a gift for making everything dull. Not recommended.

6. “Free Agent” by Jeremy Duns [New Year’s Resolution]
This is not my kind of book at all but it was written by a friend from Brussels and my loving husband bought it for me for Christmas. I must say, it was quite thrilling and I was dying to get back to it even though I did get somewhat confused between agent and counter-agent. It’s set in the 1960s and our hero is a spy. Any further details might ruin it for you.
What is hilarious, at least for me, is that the author is so utterly unlike his anti hero. I was emailing him back and forth about the book and he commented that his daughter was sitting near him watching television while eating a jam sandwich and refusing to get dressed while he was mentally preparing for another day of researching secret weapons.

7. “Mothers and Sons” by Colm Toibín [New Year’s Resolution]
A collection of short stories on this theme. Some are better than others. I think this collection suffers somewhat from the William Trevor phenomenon where all the stories feel like they are from the 1950s regardless of when they purport to be set. He’s a good writer though. He really is.

8. “The Shadow in the North” by Philip Pullman [New Year’s Resolution]
More of Ms. Lockhart, Victorian London’s most liberated young lady. I am now officially tired of Mr. Pullman hectoring me about the rights of women.

9. “Testament of Youth” by Vera Brittain [New Year’s Resolution]
and

10. “Letters from a Lost Generation” Edited by Alan Bishop and Mark Bostridge
It turns out that Vera Brittain and Vera Lynn [Blue clouds over the White Cliffs etc.] are completely different women. You knew that didn’t you? I read these two books in tandem. “Testament of Youth” is far superior as it has a voice from the 30s, a surprisingly modern voice, describing the events which are covered in the collected letters and frankly, some of those letters deserve to be cut as Vera Brittain has done in her book. For example, as far as I can see, the bulk of Vera’s brother Edward’s letters in 1918 deal with his lost valise and lost luggage was about as interesting then as it is now.
What is interesting about the letters book is that it quotes from letters which Vera Brittain did not have access to for copyright reasons and includes photographs and copies of original documents. So, we see Victor Richardson’s application for a commission in the Territorial Army which asks – question 1 “Are you a British subject by birth or naturalization?” followed by question 2 “Are you of pure European descent?” Other less vital matters follow. The letters book also provides more general information that Vera Brittain’s clearly could not, for example it states that “In 1934, the year following the publication of Testament of Youth, Vera made the discovery that, shortly before the action in which he was killed, Edward [her brother] had been faced with an enquiry and, in all probability, a courtmartial when his battalion came out of the line because of his homosexual involvement with men in his company.”
Both books do convey the misery of war, particularly the dreadful uncertainty but to me the startling thing is how the first world war seems to have really ushered in the modern age. Apparently, it’s true, wars do speed up social change. Early in her book, Brittain comments on clothes for young women before the war:
… all girls’ clothing of the period appeared to be designed by their elders on the assumption that decency consisted in leaving exposed to the sun and air no part of the human body that could possibly be covered with flannel. In these later days, when I…watch the lean brown bodies of girl-children, almost naked and completely unashamed, leaping in and out of the water, I am seized with and angry resentment against the conventions of twenty years ago, which wrapped up my comely adolescent body in woollen combinations, black cashmere stocking, “liberty” bodice, dark stockinette knickers, flannel petticoat and often, in addition, a long-sleeved, high-necked, knitted woollen “spencer.”
At school, on the top of this conglomeration of drapery, we wore green flannel blouses in the winter and white flannel blouses in the summer, with long navy blue skirts linked to the blouses by elastic belts which continually slipped up or down, leaving exposed an unsightly hiatus of blouse-tape or safety-pinned shirt band. Green and white blouses alike had long sleeves ending in buttoned cuffs at the wrist, and high collar covering the neck almost to the chin and fastening tightly at the throat with stiff green ties. For cricket and tennis matches, even in the baking summer of 1911 we still wore the flowing skirts and high-necked blouses, with our heavy hair braided in pigtails..
Meanwhile, her family have gone from a large house full of servants to a flat where it is impossible to find help and her brother Edward finds himself doing the dishes when the maid is ill – mind you this is still so odd that it’s worth commenting on in a letter.
By the end of “Testament of Youth” I do begin to feel really sorry for Vera. The world has changed utterly and the people she loved most are dead. Unfortunately I find it very difficult to relate to her in her letters as she sounds a bit of a prig. There is a huge difference in the narrative which, is, for the most part, more reasonable and self-deprecating but, also, by definition, written for publication. I think she’s patronising throughout about her parents but she had a difficult time with them, I suppose.
At the end of the book, there is quite a hefty bit on after the war. The author was an early feminist and she talks with considerable enthusiasm about carving out a career for herself. Then, she met another man
Marriage, for any woman who considered all its implications both for herself and her contemporaries, could never, I now knew, mean a “living happily ever after”; on the contrary it would involve another protracted struggle, a new fight against the tradition which identified wifehood with the imprisoning limitation of a kitchen and four walls, against the prejudices and regulations which still made success in any field more difficult for the married woman than for the spinster and penalised motherhood by demanding from it the surrender of disinterest intelligence, the sacrifice of that vitalising experience only to be found in the pursuit of an independent profesison.
Are you listening Oliver James?
She goes on to say:
Today, as never before, it was urgent for individual women to show that life was enriched, mentally and spirtiually as well as physically and soically, by marriage and children; that the experiences rendered the woman who accepted them the more and not the less able to take the world’s pulse; to estimate its tendencies, to play some definite, hard-headed, hard-working part in furthering the consturctive ends of a political civilisation.
Would you say that this has been achieved? No, really?
There is a lot of detail about the early days of the League of Nations which the author ardently supports. However, it makes for heavy going especially when the events are not as clear as they would have been to a contemporary reader – the following paragraph is typical:
“In the opening days of the Assembly, Mr. MacDonald and M. Herriot…had made “Arbitration, Security and Disarmament” the triple slogan of the hour; they had wrung one another’s hands in public, had been photographed together, and now had left Geneva to simmer pleasantly in a consoling atmosphere of peace and goodwill very different from the hectic antagonism aroused by the Corfu dispute of the previous Spetember.
You need to be strong to get through a lot of this stuff.
Anyhow, I think that both these books are too long. In my view, by far the best book I’ve read on the first world war is Robert Graves’s “Goodbye to all that” [in college at the same time as VB and rates a couple of mentions] which I think I will reread and which, if memory serves me, is also quite a bit shorter.

11. “The Tin Princess” by Philip Pullman [New Year’s Resolution]

Slightly tedious fable set in a doomed statelet in Mittel Europa with the now familiar cast of Lockhartian characters (Jim’s turn to star). All action but it never really leads anywhere. The conclusion is feeble and gives the impression that the author just ran out of energy and couldn’t be bothered tying up the loose ends.

12. “Georgette Heyer’s Regency World” by Jennifer Kloester [New Year’s Resolution]
This was a present and one which I might have been imagined to like but I found it very tedious until about three quarters of the way through when I stopped trying to read it as a kind of narrative and started reading it like a dictionary. I finally know what “boxing the watch” really means.

13. “Memoirs of a Geisha” by Arthur Golden [New Year’s Resolution]
Can’t see what the fuss was about really. I suppose, culturally, a bit interesting though hard to know how accurate it is. I met the only Irish person I know who speaks fluent Japanese for lunch today and asked her whether it was true and she said, as far as she knew, yes and also, it’s pronounced gaysha not geysha [this information is free to you, I had to buy her lunch]. Also, I had to explain to my daughter what a geisha was, as she saw the book around the house. And in the same breath, she said, “And what’s a lesbian?” Parenting is very tiring.

14. “Pilules Bleus” by Frederik Peeters [New Year’s Resolution]
This “graphic memoir” [term dug up from trawling the internet] describes the relationship between the author and his girlfriend and her young son. His girlfriend and her son are HIV positive and the book focuses on how this affects their lives together. For me, the part about the small boy was particularly touching. I wasn’t convinced, however, that this memoir worked well in graphic format. Easy read though and thought provoking.

15. “The Bonesetter’s Daughter” by Amy Tan [New Year’s Resolution]
This is a bit forgettable and the heroine is very annoying. There is a framing device – a 20th century American daughter and you become engaged by her concerns – and then she disappears for 100s of pages. Very annoying indeed. But you know, lots about upheavals in 20th century China, if that’s your thing.

16. “Broderies” by Marjane Satrapi [New Year’s Resolution]
Another French graphic novel. I preferred this one. The author is Iranian and this is a series of stories told by nine Iranian women to each other. The stories are all about sex but the effect is, generally, not salacious but more about the relationship between the women in the group.

17. “Chance Witness” by Matthew Parris [New Year’s Resolution]
This is a book by a very odd man. Mostly, the book is about his life in politics under Margaret Thatcher and his views on this are interesting. But what I found more interesting was how awkward a person he still seemed to feel in his late 40s. Constantly tormented by guilt about all kinds of things especially whether he had stood up for gay rights sufficiently. It makes him tortured but interesting, I suppose.
His description of the interview he had with Mrs. Thatcher when resigning as an MP [she was not pleased – he was causing a by-election] is hilarious – he feels honour bound to tell her he’s gay and he thinks that lots of gay men are natural conservatives and perhaps the party might be friendlier. Her response? “There, dear,” she breathed. That must have been very hard to say.”
And I’m also going to include his best anecdote which arose in the context of his laudable efforts as an MP to stop prostitution being an imprisonable offence for women.
‘Are you the prostitutes from Birmingham?’
It had been idiotic to put the question like that – I realized this the moment I said it. But there seemed little doubt they were. Before daring to make such an inquiry in the Central Lobby of the House of Commons I had hung close by to listen in, and all these women had strong Birmingham accents. They were overdressed, mutton dressed as lamb, and more than a few appeared to have hit the lipstick with a vengeance. They had to be of doubtful virtue.
There was an awful pause. They were temporarily too affronted to reply. ‘No,’ said their leader. ‘We’re a Catholic women’s group and we’ve come to lobby for the rights of the unborn child.’

18. “Old School” Tobias Wolff [New Year’s Resolution]
I think Tobias Wolff is a great writer. This is a story about a smart boys’ school in America in the early
60s. All the boys are obsessed with writing and with Hemmingway. There are some small tragedies and these are beautifully resolved.

19. “The Sexual Paradox: Extreme Men, Gifted Women and the Real Gender Gap” by Susan Pinker [New Year’s Resolution]
This book suggests that women’s and men’s brains are different and this is why women tend not to be as successful as men in their careers. Despite seeming like a cop out there are some interesting ideas here. And, really, why is it that a majority of those who suffer from Aspergers are men?

20. “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” by Jonathan Safran Foer [New Year’s Resolution]
This is about a clever, slightly weird, child whose father died in the Twin Towers. It’s also a hymn to the wonderfulness of New York and the huge variety of odd people who live there. It left me cold. The child is supposed to be winsome but I just found him really, really annoying. I thought that the whole thing was a bit cloying and over-sentimental. That’s just me, there were two pages of critical plaudits at the start of the book.

21. “Last Orders” by Graham Swift [New Year’s Resolution]
My husband said I wouldn’t like this but I did, in the mildest possible way. It’s about a bunch of older working class men who go to throw their friend’s ashes off the end of a pier. That’s it. It’s a gentle, easy book. Very nicely written though and the author is great at drawing characters which is good because plot is not his long suit.

22. “The Jane Austen Book Club” by Karen Joy Fowler [New Year’s Resolution]
This book was such a surprise. I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it but I found it very clever and immensely enjoyable. The story is about a group of people (all women, bar one) who meet to talk about each of Jane Austen’s books in turn. The characters and their stories are entertaining in themselves but if you know Jane Austen’s books reasonably well, then you can see how in each chapter there are events which echo events in Austen’s books. Absolutely terrific on a range of levels.

23. “Park and Ride: Adventures in Suburbia” by Miranda Sawyer [New Year’s Resolution]
It turns out Miranda Sawyer likes the suburbs after all. I started this expecting to be smug about my urban life and getting a chance to look down on the suburbs. Fortunately enough, Ms. Sawyer starts with exactly the same perspective. By the end she is singing the praises of suburban life and I can see where she’s coming from. I’m not quite ready for the long commute yet though.

24. “The Inheritance of Loss” by Kiran Desai [New Year’s Resolution]
Another Booker prize winning book set in India. For my money, every bit as dull as “The God of Small Things”. Yeah, I know, you loved it. But, it just did not work for me at any level. There is no real plot. There are lots of interwoven stories only two of which interested me slightly. I found the our heroine’s character slight and under-developed. It is well written I suppose but exceptionally good writing would be needed to make up for the shortcomings of character and plot in my view. No more Booker winners for me.

25. Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu [New Year’s Resolution]
I have been curious about Lady Mary for a long time and I picked up this volume of letters. It’s a bit of a con. There is an unreadable academic introduction and then what folllows is an unchanged bowdlerised 1906 version of the letters – interesting, the academic tells me, in itself for socio-cultural reasons. Letter editors in 1906 do not feel the same need to hold your hand as more recent scholars. That leaves a lot unexplained. We start out with her early letters to Mr. Wortley Montagu. She was in her late teens and was enjoying a will we/won’t we relationship with him. Though the register of language is clearly different, in essence a lot of these letters say: “UR dmpd. Nvr cll me agn.” The sequence begins with a letter from March 1710 which finishes thus:
I don’t enjoin you to burn this letter. I know you will. ‘Tis the first I ever writ to one of your sex, and shall be the last. You must never expect another. I resolve against all correspondence of the kind; my resolutions are seldom made, and never broken.
Next letter:
To Mr. Wortley Montague. I have this minute received your two letters etc.
Clearly Wortley Montagu was a bounder because her confidence that he would burn her letters appears to have been entirely misplaced. At least he responded to her letters though.
So, not a strong start. She elopes with Wortley Montagu – a mistake. This does lead to a number of interesting letters to him about how to get elected.
I hope you are convinced I was not mistaken in my judgment of Lord Pelham ; he is very silly, but very good-natured. I don’t see how it can be improper for you to get it represented to him that he is obliged in honor to get you chose at Aldburgh, and may more easily get Mr. Jessop chose at another place. I can’t believe but you may manage it in such a manner ; Mr. Jessop himself would not be against it, nor would he have so much reason to take it ill, if he should not be chose, as you have after so much money fruitlessly spent. I dare say you may order it so that it may be so, if you talk to Lord Townshend, etc. I mention this, because I can not think you can stand at York, or any where else, without a great expense. Lord Morpeth is just now of age, but I know not whether he ‘ll think it worth while to return from travel upon that occasion. Lord Carlisle is in town; you may, if you think fit, make him a visit, and inquire concerning it. After all, I look upon Aldburgh to be the surest thing. Lord Pelham is easily persuaded to any thing, and I am sure he may be told by Lord Townshend that he has used you ill; and I know that he ‘ll be desirous to do all things in his power to make it up. In my opinion, if you resolve upon an extraordinary expense to be in Parliament, you should resolve to have it turn to some account. Your lather is very surprising if he persists in standing at Huntingdon; but there is nothing surprising in such a world as this.
But the letters really come into their own once she finally goes abroad. Her letters from her journey to Turkey are fantastic: interesting, engaging, funny and still very, very readable.
One of her many correspondents was Abbé Conti and in her letters to him, she is regularly very scathing about catholicism in general and transubstantiation in particular. I was fascinated by this and wondered how the correspondence could possibly continue in those times of religious turbulence.
She also corresponds with her sister who is married to a leading Jacobite and I can’t help wondering how that works when she is also corresponding enthusiastically with the English court. Truly a modern edition with a guide through these mazes would have been very welcome.
Lady Mary quotes from Roman poets, in Latin. My edition believes translation is for wimps so I did my best with my school Latin but it is challenging. Oh for a modern edition.
Childbirth is not the centre of her life in the way it might be to a modern mother. Here is how she announces to her sister that she has had a daughter. Below is the entire reference to the event. Note that her sister is not informed of the baby’s name. Those were clearly more robust times. No epidural either.
In the first place, then, I wish you joy of your niece; for I was brought to bed of a daughter five weeks ago. I don’t mention this as one of my diverting adventures; though I must own that it is not half so mortifying here as in England; there being as much difference as there is between a little cold in the head, which sometimes happens here, and the consumption cough, so common in London. Nobody keeps their house a month for lying-in; and I am not so fond of any of our customs as to retain them when they are not necessary. I returned my visits at three weeks’ end ; and, about four days ago, crossed the sea, which divides this place from Constantinople, to make a new one, where I had the good fortune to pick up many curiosities.
About 1739, I found myself thinking (in the middle of letters to the Countess of Pomfret and others), oh no, she was born in 1689 – how much longer has she got?
Quite a bit longer – what do you think of this extract from a letter to her daughter in 1749?
I was quietly reading in my closet, when I was interrupted by the chambermaid of the Signora Laura Bono, who flung herself at my feet, and, in an agony of sobs and tears, begged me, for the love of the holy Madonna to hasten to her master’s house, where the two brothers would certainly murder one another, if my presence did not stop their fury. I was very much surprised…However, I made all possible speed thither…and was directed to the bed-chamber by the noise of oaths and execrations; but, on opening the door, was astonished…by seeing the Signora Laura prostrate on the ground, melting in tears, and her husband standing with a drawn stiletto in hand, swearing she should never see tomorrow’s son I was soon let into the secret. The good man, having business of consequence at Brescia, went thither early in the morning; but as he expected his chief tenant to pay his rent that day, he left order with his wife that if the farmer, who lived two miles off, came himself, or sent any of his sons, she should take great care to make him very welcome. She obeyed him with great punctuality, the money coming in the hand of a handsome lad of 18; she did not only admit him to her own table, and produce the best wine in the cellar, but resolved to give him chère entière. While she was exercising this generous hospitality, the husband met midway the gentleman he intended to visit…he returned to his own house, where…he opened his door with the passe partout key, and proceeded to his chamber, without meeting anybody, where he found his beloved spouse asleep on the bed with her gallant. The opening of the door waked them; the young fellow immediately leaped out of the window, which looked into the garden, and was open, it being summer, and escaped over the fields, leaving his breeches on a chair by the bedside – a very striking circumstance. In short, the case was such, I do not think the queen of the fairies herself could have found an excuse, though Chaucer tells us she has made a solemn promise to leave none of her sex unfurnished with one, to all eternity.
Later on she offers advice to her daughter about the education of her granddaughters and she really struggles to justify what she believes to be worthwhile (the education of girls) and what she knows to be socially inappropriate (the education of girls).
I really cannot recommend the letters strongly enough, although I would steer clear of this edition unless your knowledge of the period is excellent. To be honest, I can’t see that the bowdlerising did much harm but then I don’t know what I’m missing. My next mission is to get hold of Lytton Strachey’s “Biographical Essays” which features our heroine. Since the edition I have, disapprovingly omits all letters to her lover whom she spent quite a while junketing around the continent with/after, I feel there is more to learn.

26. “Daughters of Britannia” by Katie Hickman [New Year’s Resolution]
I thought that this would provide more background on Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu but, alas, it largely quotes from the Embassy letters which I have just read. For the rest, it is a mildly entertaining description of the set-up of British embassies abroad over the centuries and the travails of diplomatic spouses. There is one chapter, “Dangers” which describes kidnappings and being caught in the cross-fire of civil wars and uprisings. The author covers in some detail the domestic aftermath of the assassination of the British ambassador to Ireland. The author’s father was a counsellor in the embassy at the time and her mother was up at the house trying to comfort the ambassador’s children. Their mother was in England and heard the news on the car radio which must have been dreadful. I vaguely remember the event myself (I was 7) but to read about it from someone who saw the domestic fall out at close quarters was really surprisingly distressing.

27. “The Female Eunuch” by Germaine Greer [New Year’s Resolution]
This is Mr. Waffle’s edition. I’ve never read it before. It was interesting in places, still, alas, current in some, very dated in others. Her chapter on work is of historical interest only. Her chapter on romance could not be more relevant. Except she has a dig at Georgette Heyer, which I resent while acknowledging the fairness of her argument. I don’t think I’ll be able to look at advertising in quite the same way in future. She has completed for me a process begun by women laughing alone with salad. On the other hand, I think she is fundamentally wrong about violence against women; largely wrong about children; and mistaken about marriage. I wonder what she thinks now?

28. “9th and 13th” by Jonathan Coe [New Year’s Resolution]
Very short book of 4 short stories. Jonathan Coe is always worth reading but this is slight in every sense.

29. “Accordion Crimes” by E. Annie Proulx [New Year’s Resolution]
A history of the new world told through the travels of an accordion (or possibly several, I got a bit confused). Beautifully written and engaging enough but each individual vignette stood on its own and the overarching theme of immigration to America and accordions did not turn it into a novel.

30. “The Factory of Facts” by Luc Sante [New Year’s Resolution]
This was a present on one of the many occasions when I left Belgium definitively. It’s a memoir by a Belgian/American and has an insider/outsider view of Belgium. It’s interesting enough in its own right, I suppose, but for someone who lived in Belgium for many years, it’s very appealing. I have pressed Mr. Waffle to read it, but I’m not entirely sure that I would press it on everyone.

31. “Great Irish Lives” ed. Charles Lysaght [New Year’s Resolution]
This is a collection of obituaries from the London Times, starting with Grattan and Daniel O’Connell and covering many major figures thereafter. It was a present and it isn’t the kind of thing I would have bought it myself but I found it entertaining and mildly interesting. Although, you would need to know a lot about the ins and outs of 19th century politics for most of it.

32. “Under My Skin – Volume One of My Autobiography, to 1949″ by Doris Lessing [New Year’s Resolution]
I loved chapter one – lots of ancestral history. I will love this book, I thought to myself. OK, you know where this is going. It was ok, but my fundamental problem was that I found the author very annoying and difficult to relate to which is a problem for autobiography. I found myself sympathising deeply with her much loathed mother. And she lives so much in her inner life, it can be a bit difficult to follow what is happening in her outer life. She assumes that you know a lot about her novels and her life already which, I suppose, is not unreasonable but it is a false assumption, in my case anyhow. She has lots of affairs, she leaves her husband and two small children, her second husband, possibly, becomes an East German spy. But yet, it is dull, for my money because she’s so enormously earnest.

33. “The Private Lives of Pippa Lee” by Rebecca Miller [New Year’s Resolution]
I finally persuaded my book club to read one of my new year’s resolution books when I had them trapped in my house recently. It covers the descent into nervous breakdown of the perfect wife – something of a theme for Americans, I often think. It’s a reasonable page turner. The characters are not very believable; maybe people like our heroine do exist but I think it is doubtful. But lots of things happen to her and they are well-described and the book is well-written also. Entertaining.

34. “Abyssinian Chronicles”by Moses Isegawa [New Year’s Resolution]
I bought this because it got good reviews. It sat beside my bed for years. Picking it up and reading the back did not fill me with enthusiasm. It’s by a Ugandan who moved to the Netherlands. Funnily enough, this first novel is also about a Ugandan who moved to the Netherlands. And it was going to feature magical realism. I hate magical realism. Whenever I think of Ben Okri’s “The Famished Road”, I feel mildly ill. However, good news – there was no visible magical realism. In fact it zooms along with lots of plot and incident. Our hero spends about 100 pages in a catholic boys’ boarding school and though the time, context and many other things were different, I was very surprised how much the mood reminded me of the school in Paul Murray’s “Skippy Dies”. That book features a Dublin boarding school which is a very thinly veiled description of a school run by Holy Ghost fathers – a missionary order, I do wonder whether our hero also attended a Holy Ghost seminary and could that explain the atmosphere or are all boys’ boarding schools, in some ways, the same? It drags though. 460 pages is a good 200 too many. But, you know, it could have been a lot worse. Author is very keen on lush adjectival use which is tiring. But let those of us without sin etc.

35. “Des Histoirs Vraies” by Sophie Calle [New Year’s Resolution]
More art than literature. A series of pictures about her life taken by the artist and her commentary on them. Mildly disturbing.

36. “Dei Bambini Non Si Sa Niente” by Simona Vinci [New Year’s Resolution]
This got good reviews and I thought it would be good for my Italian. It is a good book and it was good for my Italian. Unfortunately, it is also a deeply unpleasant and disturbing book. Not recommended if you are at all sensitive.

37. “Ladysmith” by Giles Foden [New Year’s Resolution]
I read and disliked “The Last King of Scotland” by the same author. Why would I torture myself this way? I suppose I was curious about the Boer War. “The Last King of Scotland” is a very literary book about Idi Amin in Uganda. This is not literary. In fact, it’s pretty clichéd in many places. It begins with an eviction in the West of Ireland. It has a distinct whiff of shure and begorrah. The action then moves to South Africa where anyone who turned up at all at the Boer War puts in a cameo: Churchill, Gandhi, MacBride (one for Irish audiences) – you name them, they’re there. It’s alright, I suppose and, mercifully, a very easy read, but mostly underwhelming. And also, I still didn’t know who’d won the Boer War at the end.

If you’ve got to here, congratulations. Tomorrow I might tell you about the 37 books I read that weren’t from the bedside table. There’s something to look forward to.