The best autumn month – it’s all darkness and gloom from now on – and my reading has been all over the place. Several half read books, a few I don’t think I can be bothered to finish and these below, which I did finish.
The Exile and the Mapmaker – Emma Musty
This is a topical book, about Theo, an old Frenchman who is developing Alzheimer’s, his daughter Elise who works for the UK Border Agency in Paris, and Nebay, an Eritrean asylum seeker who has been denied asylum in both the UK and France. Nebay, by a series of chances, becomes the carer for Theo while Elise struggles through her work, trying to meet quotas of people to refuse visas to visit the UK. Theo is searching for an old girlfriend, who he thought had died years ago, but who may still be alive – he lost touch with her during the Algerian war – and so the book flits between his past (his parents hiding his mother’s Jewish identity from the Nazis, his love for Marianne, the old girlfriend and the struggle for Algeria, his work as a cartographer and his marriage to Elise’s mother which ended with her suicide) and the present. Musty is trying to make several points about the history of refugees, the consequences of colonialism, the inhumane treatment of people and so on, and on the whole, it works as a thought provoking novel. However, she does labour the point quite a bit and in some places the research she’s done to explain things is too much – three refugees sitting in a bedsit talking in depth about international law does stretch the incredulity, even if one of them is a lawyer.
Florida – Lauren Groff
I keep hearing about Lauren Groff’s writing and in my ongoing quest for short story writers, thought I’d try this. The stories are mostly set in the eponymous state but they’re not always writing about the Florida you’d expect. There’s a lot of swamp settings, especially in the first half of the book, so many alligator threats, Spanish moss and damp housing isolated from city life.
Mary Ann in Autumn and The Days of Anna Madrigal – Armistead Maupin
I’ve not read any of the later Tales of the City books since I gave up halfway through Michael Tolliver Lives because it was written in the first person (none of the other books are, it jars.) But I’ve always been fond of the series, and I spotted one on the library shelves so thought I’d dive back in. And… they’re alright. I like catching up with all the characters as they age but there’s something missing. I think it’s the old charm. There’s something less fun, less carefree about these books, despite talk of doing carefree fun things (sleeping around, open relationships, a festival in the desert.) I guess it’s an inevitable part of growing older but these are just nice, nothing more.
The Librarianist – Patrick Dewitt
I’ve not read Dewitt’s Booker Prize shortlisted novel The Sisters Brothers though Mr B has and thought it was good, but I thought this might be up my street. It’s the life of Bob Comet, retired librarian who finds a confused old woman in a supermarket one day, walks her back to her retirement home and gets involved in volunteering there. This section made me think that it would have been funnier in the hands of a writer like Katherine Heiny, but the book then moves on to a series of flashbacks that tell us about Bob’s life and these feature a range of fun, quirky eccentrics. It was all well written but somehow the eccentrics and each storyline didn’t quite add up to a whole for me, until I put my finger on it. Essentially, this is the literary equivalent of a Wes Anderson film, it is well presented and features some oddballs in a series of unfortunate situations but none of these people are loveable or sympathetic and you don’t laugh at them. So, if you like Wes Anderson films, you might enjoy this.
We Are What We Read: A Life Within and Without Books – Vybarr Cregan-Reid
Once upon a time we valued the humanities and a humanities based education and now, in short, we don’t. This book is about the power of humanities and books and reading to transform a life, to encourage empathy and social mobility, and to make us aware of what we have lost in a society where we’re constantly told that STEM subjects are the answer to all of life’s problems. It may be clear from this that I am a humanities graduate and I have much respect for scientific people but STEM is not for everyone and humanities have much to offer the rest of us. Vybarr Cregan-Reid is a child of a Northern working class home, whose single mother managed while his father was in prison, had a series of crappy jobs before moving to Brighton and gradually studying, reading, being mentored and encouraged by splendid lovely people until he got to where to he is now, a professor of literature at York University with several books under his belt. He is a walking advert for the power of reading and the good it brings and the book is an enjoyable walk through his journey and changes that have been wreaked on the education sector in the last 20 years. It’s an excellent book.
Tales of London Town – Joan Aiken
The excellent Manderley Press has reissued this collection of short stories from children’s writer Aiken, best known for The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. These are linked stories, featuring the same cast of characters and while they could be read as children’s stories, I enjoyed them as a flight of fancy for adults too. Each has a sense of the absurd and of the magical, but magic that sits within everyday life. With a cast of eccentric characters, this was a fun bedtime read – and the Manderley Press editions are quite lovely.
Moments of Pleasure
I’ve been taking a three-month strength training programme over the summer to toughen up my muscles before menopause wrecks my physical make up and the last three weeks we had to give up coffee. My, how I like coffee. I may not need it to get through the day but life is so much better now I can drink it again. The ritual of coffee each day is a small precious moment and should be cherished. I’m really glad I stuck out the strength training and I feel much better about my body and what I can do now, but I love coffee more.
Susan E Barsby 