Upon experiencing a seizure which leads to the discovery of a brain tumour and the reality of increasing memory loss, Holly Dawson embarks upon a memoUpon experiencing a seizure which leads to the discovery of a brain tumour and the reality of increasing memory loss, Holly Dawson embarks upon a memoir which investigates all the personas she has adopted and discarded during her lifetime. Written as a stream of consciousness and sometimes diverging form memory into imagined past, All of Us Atoms resonates with moments of insight at a granular level. It’s a powerful read but, as the book draws closer to its conclusion, the insight is too often overtaken by emotional outpouring. As a result, the narrative loosened its grip on my imagination, the further I got into the text. ...more
Beginning with the arrival of a knight hoping to join the Round Table, only to discover that King Arthur has just been killed, The Bright Sword swingsBeginning with the arrival of a knight hoping to join the Round Table, only to discover that King Arthur has just been killed, The Bright Sword swings into its narrative with the same effortlessly engaging voice that Lev Grossman employs in his Magicians trilogy; and at times The Bright Sword displays a similarly soaring imaginative power. But it's too loosely structured for me. About two thirds of the way in, the narrative starts to spiral chaotically in all directions, and I began to ask myself what the author was really doing here, other than just having fun. Obviously, that's a big part of the answer. And it is fun. What's more, it's undeniable that anyone taking on the Arthurian story has to deal with the fact that the saga ends in defeat and a descent into Dark Age anonymity. But when I started reading, it did feel like this story promised more than it delivered at the end. Not as good as I'd hoped....more
Set in Northern Germany at the end of World War Two, Once The Deed Is Done examines the impact of the war’s aftermath on a small town as they wait forSet in Northern Germany at the end of World War Two, Once The Deed Is Done examines the impact of the war’s aftermath on a small town as they wait for their menfolk to return from the front. The narrative unfolds primarily through the eyes of Ruth, a British Jewish Red Cross worker running a camp housing freed slave labourers, and local people slowly coming to terms with Germany’s defeat.
Rachel Seiffert does not go in for broad brushstrokes. Instead, the picture is built up gradually from lots of small scenes as the reality of what has happened slowly becomes understood by everyone, even the children. She emphasises the ordinariness of the community. These are people like us, preoccupied with day to day concerns, in the midst of a terrible reality in which they are all incriminated.
Beautifully written and profoundly moving. ...more
Good Behaviour is an excoriating portrait of life of the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy at the beginning of the twentieth century. Representatives of a dwindlGood Behaviour is an excoriating portrait of life of the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy at the beginning of the twentieth century. Representatives of a dwindling and deeply resented class, Molly Keane’s characters exist in a world set apart from the overwhelming majority of native Irish who feature only as servants. Their lives are an endless round of horse-riding and fox-hunting; intellectual pursuits of any kind are discouraged; displays of emotion are not to be indulged; even grief at the death of a loved one must be discreetly muted.
The narrator and central character, Aroon, has all the cards tacked against her. A “big girl� at a time when it is fashionable to be thin, entirely ignorant about sex, she falls in love with her brother’s best friend whom the reader can see perfectly well is homosexual. Indeed, the reader understands everything that Aroon is describing far better than she does herself.
It’s not a feel-good read; we watch as Aroon’s personality is warped by her suffocating circumstances; but this is literature, doing its job, exploring the darkness, finding empathy in the stalest of environments. ...more
A foreign policy specialist who spent over a decade working in the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Chloe Dalton was at a loss when covid hit A foreign policy specialist who spent over a decade working in the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Chloe Dalton was at a loss when covid hit the UK confining her to her home, a converted barn in the north of England until a chance encounter with an abandoned leveret transformed her life. She determined to save the animal, which meant feeding it by hand, but under no circumstances to turn it into a pet. The most remarkable bond developed between them and as it grew into an adult hare, it continued to return regularly from the wild to the barn where if eventually began to raise its own young.
It’s a beautiful book, intelligently written and very moving. I could have done without the last two chapters. Up until that point, the author is almost entirely concerned with describing the behaviour f the hare; in the last two chapters she gives us her thoughts on the relationship between the built environment and the natural world, which I found much less compulsive reading. Nonetheless, it’s still a delightful read, distinguished by itenderness without a hint of sentimentality
Gail is a divorced woman in her sixties, living in Baltimore. Three Days in June recounts the events surrounding her daughter’s wedding. In doing so, Gail is a divorced woman in her sixties, living in Baltimore. Three Days in June recounts the events surrounding her daughter’s wedding. In doing so, the narrative also focuses on Gail’s own relationship with Max, her ex-husband, who turns up on Gail’s doorstep the day before the wedding, needing somewhere to stay and bringing with him a stray cat. It’s quintessential Anne Tyler � an utterly relaxed narrative, revealing the emotional narrative slowly and carefully, and allowing the characters to discover themselves. I could read this forever but, sadly, it’s quite short. Still, no one does American Domestic better than Anne Tyler. A real treat....more
Brideshead Revisited meets Harry Potter in this powerfully-imagined, utterly page-turning fantasy set in an alternative England between the wars. ClovBrideshead Revisited meets Harry Potter in this powerfully-imagined, utterly page-turning fantasy set in an alternative England between the wars. Clover, a student from an impoverished background, has managed to get a place at the county's most exclusive university, which is dedicated to the teaching of magic, an art most definitely not meant for members of her class. But she's there for a reason: she needs to break the curse under which her brother suffers and which is gradually killing him. Clover will do anything to achieve her ends, even if it means unleashing forces that will bring the world she loves crashing down around her. A hugely enjoyable read....more
The Party is a convincing, if somewhat depressing, portrait of an intelligent girl on the cusp of adulthood just as the nineteen fifties are coming toThe Party is a convincing, if somewhat depressing, portrait of an intelligent girl on the cusp of adulthood just as the nineteen fifties are coming to a close. Intensely aware of the winds of change beginning to blow through the class-bound society in which she finds herself, Evelyn is determined to seek out new experiences at the house party to which her older sister has brought her; but is she simply allowing to herself to be used by the affluent and cynical older man who has taken a fancy to her?
There are times when I feel the reader is told too much about what Evelyn and her sister are thinking, leaving too little to the imagination. Nonetheless, Tessa Hadley’s writing is tremendously evocative of the period and you feel immersed in Evelyn’s world, sharing her frustrations and her longing for meaningful encounters.
Donal Ryan has an absolutely wonderful ear for dialogue. His characters' conversation absolutely leaps off the page. It's a real pleasure to read. UnfDonal Ryan has an absolutely wonderful ear for dialogue. His characters' conversation absolutely leaps off the page. It's a real pleasure to read. Unfortunately, however, there are just way too many characters in this novel. To begin with, every chapter introduces a new voice and they are all equally appealing But it takes too long before we hear from them again and by about a third of the way into the story I began to lose track of who was who.
I understand this novel features some of the same characters as its predecessor. So maybe if I'd read that, I'd have found this easier to follow. But it's marketed as a stand alone novel and, for me, it doesn't work as such. I really did love it at first but it got much too complicated for me....more
Written in careful, unassuming prose that produces its emotional effect slowly and deliberately, My Name Is Lucy Barton is the portrait of an AmericanWritten in careful, unassuming prose that produces its emotional effect slowly and deliberately, My Name Is Lucy Barton is the portrait of an American woman brought up in extreme poverty and social isolation by incompetent and, in the case of her father, mentally-ill parents. In middle age she becomes hospitalized and over a period of days she is visited by her mother whom she has not seen for many years. Her mother's visits cause her to recall details from her childhood and to come to terms with its impact upon her.
There's a lot about this novel that is very appealing. Nonetheless, I couldn't entirely believe in it. Lucy was too forgiving, too understanding of her parents, and her transformation from social misfit to successful writer seems to have been achieved too easily. Perhaps I'm just not a very impressive human being but I'm not convinced you can overcome such experiences without more anger and bitterness. For this reason, I felt the novel lacked authenticity....more
Vere Hodgson's wartime diary is interesting, but only up to a point. It's a useful first-hand account of wartime life in London. Both at the beginningVere Hodgson's wartime diary is interesting, but only up to a point. It's a useful first-hand account of wartime life in London. Both at the beginning of the war and right at the end, when V1 and V2 rockets are raining down on the city, you get a real sense of the ever-present possibility of death, and a feeling for how ordinary Londoners coped with it .
However, it's important to understand that Vere Hodgson wasn't really an "ordinary Londoner" at all. She was a very middle-class woman who worked at the centre of the Greater World Christian Spiritualist Association, a charity which clearly did a lot to help people displaced or impoverished by the bombing, but which was primarily concerned with publicising the work of Winnifred Moyes, a trance medium who claimed to be channelling the teachings of a spirit guide called Zodiac.
That's interesting in itself because it's notable that there was a real surge in interest in spiritualism at this time, for obvious reasons. As a consequence, however, the book's focus is divided between descriptions of the exigencies of the war, meetings with Ms Hodgson's large list of acquaintances, and the task of getting out the organisation's regular newsletter with its encouraging messages from the spirit world.
The result is a lengthy read, and there's a lot of chaff for only a little wheat....more
First published in 1934 and neglected for the last ninety years, As It Was in the Beginning is a short novel depicting the confused memories of an eldFirst published in 1934 and neglected for the last ninety years, As It Was in the Beginning is a short novel depicting the confused memories of an elderly woman dying in a nursing home after suffering what seems to be a stroke. Told entirely in stream-of-consciousness, the novel presents us with Lady Millicent’s disjointed thoughts as they track backwards through her life.
Initially she is fixated on her time as a well-to-do widow in her forties and her intense affair with a younger man who emerges as little more than a gold-digger. Later she focuses on her youthful marriage to Sir Harold, the squire of the small community in which she has grown up, who is both dependable and suffocating. Finally, she recalls episodes from her childhood as the daughter of a country doctor, regressing all the way back to infancy.
Millicent is not a particularly likeable character. She is not at ease with herself, or with the role expected of a woman of her class and time, or even with her own body. She suffers from a sort of generalised alienation which makes her feel at odds with much of the world. However, she never seems to have discovered, or even sought out, an alternative way of being. Instead, she has allowed herself to be borne along by the tide of events, always experiencing intense anxiety about whatever persona she finds herself adopting.
This is an important re-publication. Trevelyan’s mastery of stream-of-consciousness narrative surely merits her recognition as a significant modernist writer. Perhaps even more significant, however, is the spotlight she turns on issues of identity and gender. Lady Millicent is no radical; she pursues no cause; but she suffers, and sharing her suffering is like watching a moth battering itself against a lamp. The inside of her head is not a comfortable place in which to be but there is too much within it that is recognisable and relevant for the contemporary reader to ignore....more
Rory Stewart’s memoir chronicles the machinations that led to the Brexit referendum, the fall of the Prime Minister David Cameron, the doomed attempt Rory Stewart’s memoir chronicles the machinations that led to the Brexit referendum, the fall of the Prime Minister David Cameron, the doomed attempt by Theresa May to salvage something from the wreckage, and the relentless rise of Boris Johnson.
Not many of the actors come out of these events with their hands clean but it’s clear he believes that Theresa May was putting the interests of the country first, whereas Johnson was prepared to promise anything to anyone if it would further his ambition.
Stewart himself emerges as, hard-working and honourable but also naive. He seems to have been unaware that for most of his colleagues, continuing in post was a matter of financial necessity, and that consequently, career was always going to triumph over principle. Possibly Stewart’s own rather rarefied background had blinded him to the grubby compromises so often involved in earning a living.
It’s a depressing picture but also an illuminating one. So many MPs trot out the formula about entering politics because they wanted to make a difference. What emerges from Stewart’s memoir is how little scope there is to do that, and how when the opportunity does arise, all heads seem to turn in the opposite direction.
A searing real indictment of the British political scene. ...more
Dexter and Emma spend the night together on the eve of their graduation from Edinburgh University. They’re right for each other but Dexter isn’t readyDexter and Emma spend the night together on the eve of their graduation from Edinburgh University. They’re right for each other but Dexter isn’t ready to commit. In fact, he’s not going to be ready for years. His problem is, he’s too good looking for his own good. So David Nicholls proceeds to show us Emma and Dexter each year on the same date for the next twenty years, and we observe the compromises they make, and the way these impact this has upon their lives. By turns it’s funny, sad and infuriating but always entirely recognisable. These characters feel so real that you want to ring them up and tell them what they need to do to sort their lives our Unfortunately, you can’t. All you can do is watch them slowly make a mess of things in ways that are terribly familiar and intensely poignant. Absolutely addictive....more
The lives of ordinary people do not really feature in the surviving Latin literature since the elite Romans who wrote that literature were entirely unThe lives of ordinary people do not really feature in the surviving Latin literature since the elite Romans who wrote that literature were entirely uninterested in the welfare of those outside their own social class. Consequently, the job of conjuring up a picture of those countless numbers of people who were effectively invisible to the ruling class is not easy. Robert Knapp is obliged to rely on monumental inscriptions, grave-markers, graffiti, scraps of papyrus, amulets, curse tablets, and what can be gleaned from a variety of secondary sources including books of interpretations of dreams, fables, and biblical writings. With the material he has, he does a very good job, shining a light on the lives of ordinary men and women, labourers, slaves, sex-workers, soldiers and gladiators, but his style is sometimes a bit dry and didactic. Nevertheless, it’s certainly an illuminating read, and there are often moments when the ordinary person who walked those ancient streets springs to life once more in the reader’s imagination....more
H E Bates once said, “a story is told not by the carefully engineered plot but by the implication of certain isolated incidents, by the capture and arH E Bates once said, “a story is told not by the carefully engineered plot but by the implication of certain isolated incidents, by the capture and arrangement of certain episodic movements� and that’s certainly true of Fair Stood the Wind for France. The power of this novel is not in the plot, which depends too much upon coincidence and happenstance, but in the lyricism of the prose with its focus on sensory images � sights and sounds, the play of light and shade, small, emblematic details of the central character’s surroundings � and upon the surge and resurgence of his emotional response.
All this makes for a unique voice but not one I was entirely convinced by. The characterisations struck me as under-developed. The central character, for example, an English airman who crashes in France, speaks French sufficiently well to be able to hold a whispered conversation with a French woman about the difference between Catholicism and the Church of England. Yet there’s no explanation of how he developed this facility because we know next to nothing about him. Similarly, we know very little about the young French woman with whom he falls in love. She is presented in an idealised way, almost as an image of France itself.
But perhaps it’s pointless to judge H E Bates in these terms because for him it’s clearly all about the intensity of the central relationship and luminance it lends to the world the central character encounters, and for that reason alone, the novel is well worth reading. ...more
There is so much to like about this book. In particular, there’s Kaliane Bradley’s prose which is absolutely fizzing with wit. She has a real gift forThere is so much to like about this book. In particular, there’s Kaliane Bradley’s prose which is absolutely fizzing with wit. She has a real gift for snapshot similes. They’re all over the prose:
“He got out of the car and looked up and down the street with the weariness of a man who has travelled across the continent and has yet to find his hotel.�
“That night, I slept with unpleasant lightness, my brain balanced on unconsciousness like an insect’s foot on the meniscus of a pond.�
She also has a real gift for juxtaposing ideas. The premise of the book is that a government department has plucked a handful of people out of the past and is studying them to see what effect time travel has upon them. The narrator who has been assigned as a minder to one of the time travellers is of British Cambodian heritage (like the author) and continually views the situation and behaviour of her charge through the prism of dislocation and exile. It’s a comparison that yields all kinds of interesting insights.
However, Bradley’s writing is more than a little opaque. Indeed, as the novel went on, I found it harder and harder to understand what was going on until, by the end, I was frankly lost. I don’t think it was all my fault. The closing stages of the book felt full of slightly frantic explanation that didn’t really explain things at all.
Nonetheless, this is an exciting debut from a writer I really want to read more of....more
Michael and Marnie are on the cusp of middle-age. They’ve both come out of failed marriages and in Michael’s case, a traumatic event that has left himMichael and Marnie are on the cusp of middle-age. They’ve both come out of failed marriages and in Michael’s case, a traumatic event that has left him both emotionally and physically scarred. They’ve each embraced their solitary lifestyle. So when they’re thrown together on a long walk across England, the relationship that develops between them takes them both by surprise and, predictably, is far from plain sailing. So much so, that it’s not clear until the very last page whether or not things will work out for them this time.
This is the story of two people who have got out of the habit of expecting happiness and don’t know what to do with it when it sneaks up on them. David Nicholls is brilliant at depicting the small events that add up to hope or disappointment. An utterly addictive read and the book I’ve most enjoyed so far this year. ...more
The third volume of Tom Holland’s history of the Roman empire, Pax chronicles events from the suicide of Nero to the accession of Antoninus Pius. ThisThe third volume of Tom Holland’s history of the Roman empire, Pax chronicles events from the suicide of Nero to the accession of Antoninus Pius. This is, unapologetically, history with a narrative arc, seen through the eyes of the elite players, but illuminated here and there by telling details: Otho, one of the four emperors of AD 69, was rumoured to wear a toupee, Domitian, the much hated younger son of Vespasian, practised archery by shooting arrows through the outstretched fingers of a slave boy. On the whole though, Holland’s focus is the fortunes and misfortunes of the Roman state and the regime it imposed upon its subject peoples, a regime that had its rewards as well as its penalties, but one that depended upon a brutal truth: the Romans always won. Pax is as entertaining as it is authoritative and from the first page, one feels in very capable hands....more
The first in a trilogy, Nero is mostly narrated from the perspective of the emperor’s mother, Agrippina. The action begins with the return to Rome of The first in a trilogy, Nero is mostly narrated from the perspective of the emperor’s mother, Agrippina. The action begins with the return to Rome of the absentee emperor Tiberius, continues after his death with the terrifying reign of Caligula, which is, in turn, cut short by assassination and is followed by the accession of Claudius. Throughout all this, Nero is a mere child but the events he lives through clearly have a profound influence upon him.
There’s nothing particularly new here. Nevertheless, the book makes compelling reading, largely because of the vividness of the characterisation. The players, major and minor, are so powerfully drawn that the reader is sucked into their dilemmas, whether they are played out in the stifling seclusion of the imperial palace or in the murderous backstreets of Rome.
All the participants are monsters of corruption and ambition and yet in moments of intense lucidity the author renders them sympathetic, focusing on their vulnerability as much as their cruelty. Agrippina , in particular, is a fascinating character, utterly cold and ruthless; yet, I found myself wanting her to succeed. It’s a terrific read. ...more
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