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Here’s August’s reading round up – a bumper month of books.
On the Calculation of Volume IV – Solvej Balle
Four books into this series about a woman who is reliving the same day over and over again and is there possibly anything new that can be extracted? There are still three books to go. In this, Tara is now living in a commune in Germany with many others who are also reliving the same day. It’s quite hard to keep up with all the names, but there are a few main characters. And for a woman who has now spent hundreds of days living the same day, you can understand why she’s relieved to have company where she doesn’t have to explain. But questions are arising. As I’ve been reading, I’ve been wondering two main things – what if one of them is pregnant? And what do they do if they then go on to the next day? How do they return to their families? One of those questions is tackled here and, the book ends not quite looking to answer another but having raised a related question. I really do need to go back and reread them all again, in a binge read but I may wait until the next is published.
And Notre Dame is Burning – Miriam Robinson
I cannot remember why I reserved this from the library, it may have been recommended by the Women’s Prize newsletter. Anyway, it’s a debut novel from US author and is written in scraps, such as letters, short paragraphs, fragments of feeling or facts, all interspersed. That narrator, Esther, is writing a novel, has recently miscarried a baby and is trying to parent another child while her marriage is also imploding. And it’s a very modern book, written as events in the world – #MeToo, Brett Kavanagh confirmed as Supreme Court justice, the fire at Notre Dame – and how much her choices and her thoughts are impacted by these. I liked this a lot, I liked how it read like you would think, especially in relation to the news. And she does act badly, but has no one to help her, especially in her grief. I really felt for her. I think we’re supposed to see her as an unreliable narrator, especially when she talks about how awful her husband was to her, but leaving aside one part in the middle where it felt in danger of her dropping into self pity, I was very much with her as she dealt with her husband’s infidelity and women’s rage in general.
Salt Sisters – Katherine Graham
I bought this on holiday in Northumberland in an indie bookshop. It’s by a local author and set in Seahouses, where my father’s ashes are scattered, so I thought it would be interesting. It’s a crime novel, narrated by Izzy who has to come back to Seahouses from her job in Hong Kong when her sister Amy is killed in a car accident. Although seen as an accident to begin with, Izzy starts poking around some anomalies and finds Amy has been killed but by who? This is enjoyable nonsense and fine for holiday reading. If you’re from the area, I’d guess you’d enjoy spotting references to local landmarks.
Old Filth – Jane Gardaam
This was the reading group’s choice and I found it testing to start with, but then it improved. Old Filth is a retired judge, a widower retired to the Dorset countryside and the book covers his entire life while being framed by his actions once a rival judge moves next door. Old Filth (stands for Failed in London, Try Hong Kong) had a hard start in life and his actions and life have been shaped by the early death of his mother, his upbringing with servants in Malaya and then being sent to England away from his emotionally reclusive father, followed by something that happened at a foster home when he was a child. It’s essentially an irascible old man trying to make amends, clumsily, in a world that has moved on. Once you’re past the unengaging opening, I enjoyed this a lot. There are two more in the series, which I may try.
Slow Trains Across Britain – Tom Chesshyre
Regular readers will know I’m a minor train nerd, enjoying train travel and books about train travel. This covers a two-month period where Chesshyre takes trains around a rough perimeter of Britain, including heritage railways where possible, and explores the impact of trains on each area. Some areas overlap with the book I read last month, To the Sea by Train, but obviously covers a wider area. Chesshyre is an amiable companion, chatting with staff and passengers throughout and, like me, he enjoys trains without wanting or being able to keep up with details about engines and carriage numbers etc. This is an interesting, casual but not unserious, look at train travel in Britain and how, these days, we really should do it better.
There are Rivers in the Sky – Elif Shafak
This has sat on the shelf for months but I finally got to it as part of my summer reading and I absolutely devoured it in two days, which surprised me. It’s an intricate interconnected book with three separate but related storylines, and discusses water, memory and family. The three storylines – a Victorian boy (based on George Smith who translated cuneiform language), a Iranian girl refugee and a scientist living on a houseboat in London – take turns each chapter and you get the idea of how they are interlinked easily throughout. There are layers to this book, so many layers and references throughout to history and science and myth and storytelling, but lightly sprinkled so the effect is not overpowering. This is a rich and absorbing read and will easily make my books of the year list. Fabulous.
Twentieth Century reads
The City and the House – Natalia Ginzburg
So many people have been raving about Natalia Ginzburg recently and Daunt Books have been republishing her work. When one of my US penpals mentioned her, I decided this was the sign I should try her too. The City and the House is told in letters between a group of friends, mostly in Rome or the surrounding area, and is, on a basic level, a book about failure in life. Which makes it sound rather sad and it’s not. The main story such as it is, involves Giuseppe, who is moving to America to join his brother in Princeton. He writes his goodbyes to friends, family and a former lover, Lucrezia, and they are all pretty frank with him – telling him not to go, or not to sell his flat. The frankness and barefaced cheek of the tone of the letters between each character is one of the defining characteristics of the book and one reason why it’s not so sad. Once he has gone, the others carry on with their lives – failed jobs, failed marriages or love affairs, several deaths, plus some violence by the end. It’s an odd book to describe but I enjoyed the fresh tone.
Doctor Syn – Russell Thorndike
When on holiday in Rye earlier in the year I remembered watching the TV version of Doctor Syn when I was a child and how much I enjoyed it – smugglers, the Scarecrow, racing horses across Romney Marsh. There weren’t many things set in Kent and I have fond memories of it so when I found the books were available, I thought I’d try one. It’s written in a distinctive and – dare I say, slightly amateur? – style but is a rollicking tale enough. Doctor Syn is the local pastor in the town of Dymchurch and when the King’s Men arrive to investigate smuggling in the local area, he and the other locals, the sexton, the pot boy and pub landlady, and the Squire, all try to outwit them. It is fun and easily filmable but spoiled in the reading by some appalling racial slur language when talking about some of the characters.
Crooked Cross – Sally Carson
Goodness, this book. This is published by Persephone Books in their series of forgotten women’s classics and has been getting some word of mouth recently. Set in 1932/1933, it concerns a German family, parents and four children, three of whom are growing up and of working or marriage age. But it’s been a hard time and so the only jobs the boys are able to get are within the Nazi party where they are initially grateful for the opportunity to work and earn and have a purpose. The daughter, Lexa, is engaged to be married to Moritz, a Jewish scientist. When Moritz loses his job, it’s assumed the engagement will be called off but the family hasn’t reckoned on Lexa’s extraordinary character. This is a fascinating novel – showing how a fascist regime can take hold of ordinary people, brainwashing and a cultish following can provide purpose or isolation and fear. It’s incredibly perceptive about the dangers of the Nazis and the ending the author fears for Jewish people. What’s more impressive is that it was written in 1934, performed on stage in 1935 and 1938, and the author died of breast cancer in 1941, never knowing the outcome of the war. And was then forgotten and not regarded as an important book about the war. I can’t say I enjoyed it because I read it with a creeping sense of dread, but I do think it’s excellent. Persephone have just published the sequel, which I may have to seek out.
The Summer Book – Tove Jansson
I’d not read this before, despite consistently selling copies of it when I worked as a bookseller. It’s a book for grown ups by the author of The Moomins and in general it’s a series of whimsical moments experienced by Sophie and her grandmother on an island where they spend the summer each year. It’s superficially charming but has depths about death, decay, grief and moving on. On the whole I liked it, but I’m afraid I found Sophie difficult and brattish, which is unreasonable of me as she’s only six. But she shouts a lot and it grated with me. I’m sorry.
The Camomile Lawn – Mary Wesley
I read this in a single gulp, which rarely happens these days, but I had a spare two-three hours sat in the back of a phone repair shop as they transferred data from my shattered mobile (held together with Sellotape at one point) to a new one. It felt like a book I could read in a place where there may be distractions. I’ve not read Wesley before but this title held the glamour of the TV series which my mother watched years back and while I didn’t watch it, I somehow picked up the gorgeousness of the characters and settings. (I notice the whole thing is now on YouTube so will have to sit down and watch.) It has a very different feel to other books about the Second World War, despite it featuring the ‘usual’ war incidents of bombing and losing family members. The book features a group of cousins who meet each summer at a family house in Cornwall, but who then mostly go off to London to join up and fight (the men) or work (the women) through the conflict. There is a lot of bed hopping, drinking and casual dropping by other people’s houses, and yet also an enormous amount of trauma. It’s all handled very deftly, and you do on the whole like the cast of characters, despite them all being ghastly people.
Moments of Pleasure
We had a week in Northumberland at the height of the heatwave, and it was a lot cooler there. It’s a lovely county with a gorgeous coastline, and we ate well too, including an anniversary meal, lunch at a seafood specialist and a lot of local ice creams.
I subscribed to Netflix for the summer so E could watch Heartstopper. It amazes me how much nonsense is on there and we have now unsubscribed, having caught all we wanted to see. But I did absolutely love the film adaptation of Train Dreams, the novella by Denis Johnson which I read a few months ago. I figured it wasn’t easy to film as very little happens, but this was a gorgeous respectful adaptation with lovely performances, especially Joel Egerton.
Susan E Barsby 