Opinions were divided in my book club regarding this novel (and here on GR, I see now). I cannot think why. Well, that isn’t quite true; I can see whyOpinions were divided in my book club regarding this novel (and here on GR, I see now). I cannot think why. Well, that isn’t quite true; I can see why people might find it a bit challenging to read at first. I certainly have read nothing like it. I doesn’t follow the sentence patterns, or sentence lengths, that we’re used to, and there is no clear chronology. Nor is Anna Burns overly fond of paragraphs. And so some of the book club members were annoyed even when they grudgingly agreed that the novel was ‘important.� And I � I was overjoyed with it! Best book I’ve read in a long time.
So, the topic. I felt almost plunged into Gilead (from A Handmaid’s Tale) for we are in a ‘totalitarian enclave� as our protagonist at one point calls the unnamed territory. We assume it is Belfast, at the time of the Troubles, in the late 1970s because the author herself grew up in Belfast. Her chilling, mesmerizing, almost dystopian descriptions of it � of the gossip, the intrigue, the constant strife, the we-them dichotomy at all levels of life, the bombings, the deaths � felt stiflingly real, absurd often. Which is probably why the English member of my book club, although she ‘hated� the book, said it ought to be required reading in the UK and Ireland. Yes, indeed � to that last part. I thought I knew quite a bit about the conflict in Northern Ireland; I have been to Belfast, walked around the neighbourhood with the in-your-face murals, the tanks driving by, the wall dividing Catholics from Protestants � evidence of the ‘us� of the novel vs. the people ‘over the road�. But this novel takes it all to a whole other level, immerses you in it, relentlessly so.
Then there are the people ‘over the border� (Ireland) and ‘over the water� (Britain) and the ‘renouncers� (IRA, I assume). As if naming a thing makes it scarier (Remember Dumbledore’s admonishment? Call him Voldemort, Harry. Always use the proper name for things. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself). But this novel is all about fear. Not so much of the British paramilitaries but of your neighbour, of what stories have lately been concocted about you, of entering the hospital downtown even as you fear having been poisoned but ‘they� will notice if you show up there, fear of truth, of communication, or miscommunication (you know it’s bad when your own mother would rather trust the gossipmongers than you), of a white van with a milkman behind the wheel.
The novel is ostensibly about the fear of this stalker, Milkman, but it is really about so much more. It is about the sort of environment where such threats sprout much too easily. To walk down the street and arrive home without the taint of gossip, real or false, on your tail is to run the gauntlet of a subtler but equally destructive kind of weapon than the bombs, which, by the way, you are also likely to run into. It is fear as experienced and seen through the eyes of an unnamed, 18-year-old girl, middle sister. She is observant, smart, worried, strong, part of a huge pack of siblings, as most of the children are here, a high percentage of whom are dead or ostracized, or they will be. She, our protagonist, is one of the reasons why I loved this novel. Her voice is singular in the extreme (well, Anna Burns’s voice, throughout). It is tricky to extract a meaningful (short) quote because you want the context, the entirety of it, but here she is in a night club with her ‘longest friend� (i.e. oldest), who has just told her that as she, the protagonist, has a tendency to walk around the neighbourhood while reading, she is now considered one of the people who are ‘beyond the pale�:
I didn’t like that I had contracted an incurable beyond-the-pale. ‘Just because I’m outnumbered in my reading-while walking,� I said, ‘doesn’t mean I’m wrong. What if one person happened to be sane, longest friend, against a whole background, a race mind, that wasn’t sane, that person would probably be viewed by the mass consciousness as mad � but would that person be mad?
Despite the tragedy of the place, of the stories belonging to it, the novel is deeply, darkly funny. I laughed out loud a few times and enjoyed more passages than I can count. For such a bleak milieu, it has plenty of colourful characters � maybe-boyfriend, chef, tablets girl, tablets girl’s shiny sister, the pious women, milkman, the real milkman a.k.a. the man who didn’t love anybody, Somebody McSomebody, a pair of famous, irresponsible ballroom dancers and not least wee sisters, aged 7, 8 and 9, who prefer their bedtime stories to be by Kafka or Conrad.
One of my fellow book club members pointed out that the NY Times didn’t like the novel. No, I said. I saw that. But did you see The Chicago Tribune? Or the LA Times? They loved it. And the latter tried to dissuade potential readers from buying into the bit about it being difficult to read. I have a feeling it depends on what we’re used to reading. Fifteen years ago, I might have been frustrated with it because I was still clinging to notions of the novel as essentially a thing that makes sense, that can be immediately decoded, that follows the formula I was used to. This novel demanded that I upped my game as a reader � and I liked it for that (but have also been training my novel-reading capabilities these past few years, not solely based on my own preferences but also other people’s recommendations; I haven’t loved all these efforts). Once you step out of that comfort zone, the experience can be immensely rewarding. I would suggest, though, that you not delve into this book in spurts of 15 minutes or less but take longer moments to let yourself become immersed in it. It requires (deserves) your full concentration. Once on board, I was helplessly (but willingly) pulled through the story, by middle-sister’s narration and by the author’s vision.
It is difficult not to centre any discussion about this novel on the all-important topic. And to be sure, it should take precedence � it is why the book was written. But it shouldn’t preclude a discussion of, or perhaps rather, a look at the writing itself. The writing is a huge part of why I liked the book so much and why others didn’t. To me, it is perfect for this topic, these stories. You are under a pressure cooker here � you cannot escape from this outrageous stream-of-consciousness with so many pileups of adjectives and made-up words and deaths � which makes you realise that yes, this is what middle-sister and everyone on ‘this side of the road� and possibly also on ‘that side of the road� must have felt like. It is also simply marvellous writing: dense, intelligent, funny, over the top, compelling. So, maybe there is a nod to Woolf or Faulkner or other modernists, but this is entirely Anna Burns’s show....more
I cannot get over how brilliant Edward St Aubyn is! Not since Jane Austen have I encountered a voice that so manages to belong, at one at and the sameI cannot get over how brilliant Edward St Aubyn is! Not since Jane Austen have I encountered a voice that so manages to belong, at one at and the same time, to the character and to the author and with such adept English irony. Sarcasm, acerbic dialogue and caustic wit fairly drip from St Aubyn’s pen. I can only wonder how on earth this author has managed to fly under my radar all these years. Well, no more. I ordered the two next installments in his Patrick Melrose pentalogy when I was about half way through this first one and cannot wait to read on.
The cast consists of 90 % unlikeable, upper-class Englishmen with one or two foreigners and/or likeable characters thrown in for good measure. They are holidaying in the south of France and are mainly engaged in drinking and bad-mouthing each other. Doesn’t sound appetizing? Nor to me. And yet.
The main character is ostensibly Patrick Melrose, a five year-old boy, but in this first novel in the series, we mainly see the adults Patrick is surrounded with, and it doesn’t bode well for him. His father molests him, his mother is a pill-popping alcoholic, and their friends are, except for one American woman, insufferable and pompous. A few select sentences illustrate this perfectly:
General Melrose did not find it difficult to treat his son coldly.
At the beginning there had been talk of using some of her money to start a home for alcoholics. In a sense they had succeeded.
He had suddenly lost all tolerance for his rheumatic pains and decided to go upstairs to Eleanor’s bathroom, a pharmaceutical paradise. He very seldom used painkillers, preferring a steady flow of alcohol and the consciousness of his own heroism.
I’ve underlined so many telling sentences in this slim volume. They abound throughout. I’ll give you a few more:
Bridget had not yet caught the marriage fever that tormented the older Watson-Scott sisters as they galloped towards the thirtieth year of their scatterbrained lives.
‘The dead are dead,� he went on, ‘and the truth is that one forgets about people when they stop coming to dinner. There are exceptions, of course � namely, the people one forgets during dinner.�
This last comment is made by the most loathsome, self-loving character in the novel, reminiscent of Lord Henry Wotton in The Picture of Dorian Gray, who also loved throwing shallow, witty maxims into a conversation whenever possible.
The individual voices are so distinct and spot on that I almost suspect St Aubyn of having sat behind screens or under bushes for years listening in on different conversations during his upper-class upbringing. Except of course half of said voices express thoughts and not dialogue at all, and he couldn’t have eavesdropped on those. What remains, then, is a talent to capture the absurdity and shallowness of people and to combine the tragic with the comic � sometimes on the same page.
St Aubyn is not only sarcastic and witty but, somehow, manages to also be sincere and philosophical. Much of the story is, apparently (and sadly), autobiographical. I really have no idea how he does it, but this novel is in turn funny, moving, intelligent, horrific and just plain masterful.
If I haven’t convinced you to pick up this novel, maybe Zadie Smith can. She said this of Edward St Aubyn: The wit of Wilde, the lightness of Wodehouse and the waspishness of Waugh. A joy.
Before I went to Vienna over Easter, I began reading Stefan Zweig’s memoir, The World of Yesterday. The book informed my trip and made me imagine the Before I went to Vienna over Easter, I began reading Stefan Zweig’s memoir, The World of Yesterday. The book informed my trip and made me imagine the Vienna of 1910 before the world went over the edge, or at least before Europe did. This is very much a European memoir, and to my mind it ought to be required reading for all Europeans, in fact for everyone who considers themselves citizens of the world and who do not define themselves, as Zweig did not, by means of the narrow and excluding confines of nationality alone.
This rather bloodless introduction does not even begin to describe my experience of reading this sweeping, touching memoir of a life lived in what was probably the most tumultuous period in European history. Stefan Zweig has the true soul and sensibility of an artist, and it is with keen observation, nostalgia and regret that he paints, first, the bygone days of one of Europe’s most overlooked culture capitals, Vienna, and, then, how geopolitical excuses and the human quest for power over others marked the end of peace in Europe and the beginning of a new era.
Alongside a very insightful and personal account of the two world wars, their causes and their repercussions, Zweig tells the story of how he became an author: how at school he was part of a group of youngsters who all adored poetry and the arts, how he began writing poetry and was published at a young age and how he humbly decided to dedicate himself to travel and to the translation of other authors� works of literature in order to add more substance to his own literary endeavours. Zweig would become one of the most read and translated authors of his age, but like much else in the wake of Hitler’s slaughter of Europe, that, too, came to a (temporary) end.
Throughout the book Zweig demonstrates a touching reverence for other masters of literature, e.g. Goethe and Rilke, but also for composers, e.g. Beethoven, and, towards the end, Freud, whom he visited in both Vienna and London and considered a good friend. (I, too, visited Freud’s apartment in Vienna over Easter and saw a portrait of Zweig there in one of the rooms). He took great pleasure in many of the friendships he developed throughout his life with clever, thinking people all across Europe, but in the end he had to flee Austria and his beloved Europe because he was a Jew.
He never discloses the most private aspects of his life, e.g. details surrounding his two marriages, because that is not his errand here. It is a story about Europe and a about a world long gone, as seen through the eyes of one of its biggest fans. At one point he describes himself as a man with ‘a near pathological lack of self-confidence�, which I found both remarkable and likeable in a renowned and gifted writer when only last week I heard a not-so-gifted but young (and thus perhaps forgivable) wanna-be poet admit to being a narcissist, a word that these days gives me the creeps (and I told him as much). I wonder what Stefan Zweig would have made of the world of today.
I not only admired this book but grew increasingly fond of Stefan Zweig as I neared the end, which had me in tears, I must admit. The book goes straight to my ‘favourites� shelf. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
(This was a timely read for me, as I discovered upon returning from Vienna that a new movie is out about Stefan Zweig called ‘Farewell to Europe�. A tragic aside: Stefan Zweig and his wife committed suicide only days after the manuscript for this book was sent to his publishers)....more
This was glorious. I’ve underlined great things on nearly every page. If this is what Virginia Woolf could produce when sitting in bed and simply writThis was glorious. I’ve underlined great things on nearly every page. If this is what Virginia Woolf could produce when sitting in bed and simply writing an expansive version of a ‘dear diary�, it tells us something about her genius (she calls it a dialogue of the soul with the soul). It is the best I’ve read by Woolf so far. It is more immediate, more intimate, more relatable than what I’ve read by her before. It is packed with thoughts and feelings and metaphors and meaning.
I’m slowly wading my way through Virginia Woolf’s body of work and, by extension, through the intricacies of her brain and her sensibilities. It is not an uncomplicated liaison; when I read her fiction, I occasionally glance around during the reading process, appreciating bits here, doubting other pieces there; marvelling at her imagery and insight, yet sometimes feeling frustrated at her refusal to throw me just a tiny bit of plot, just a small shard of a realistic character trait, a little something that induces me to invest in her stories. One reviewer, she admits, describes her style as ‘so fluent and fluid that it runs through the mind like water� � which is the closest I can come to a description of how her prose feels to me.
But when I read her non-fiction, well, I’m both in awe and a little bit in love. In this book, we are granted insight into, especially, her craft and her creative powers but also into her life, her friends and her demons, her gradual rise to fame, her own ambivalent attitude toward it, and into her final days.
She airs opinions that are sometimes unnuanced or that I humbly disagree with, e.g. that literature is not a matter of ‘development� but of prose and poetry. I deeply appreciate a deliberate take on form, but I also prefer deliberate content and development � of story, of people; otherwise it remains poetry to me. She does admit to learning that she could do scenes but not plots. No surprise there. In this book no plot is needed. At times her sentences are shockingly profound, at other times simply gorgeous. The list of examples of the latter is endless, but here are a few to savour:
Life piles up so fast that I have no time to write out the equally fast rising mound of reflections (�)
(�) the creative power which bubbles so pleasantly in beginning a new book quiets down after a time, and one goes on more steadily. Doubts creep in.
But to be well and use strength to get more out of life is, surely, the greatest fun in the world.
I am laboriously dredging my mind for Mrs. Dalloway and bringing up light buckets.
Joy’s life in the doing � I murder, as usual, a quotation; I mean it’s the writing, not the being read, that excites me.
I’m the hare, a long way ahead of the hounds my critics.
What a vast fertility of pleasure books hold for me.
I was a little taken aback by her blatant disparagement of other authors (Mansfield, Joyce, James, the list goes on), but she is also critical of her own ability from time to time. And as she never criticized Forster, I didn’t care so much. In fact, she mentions him with a certain fondness every time his name crops up (‘Morgan�), and as Forster was one of my first loves in English literature, I cannot help but appreciate that tendency of hers. Her best sentence about Forster may be the following:
Morgan has the artist’s mind; he says the simple things that clever people don’t say; I find him the best of critics for that reason.
On that note, she writes that intelligent criticism is to be encouraged. Yes, I thought. That ought to be a quote on the goodreads site. Perhaps it already is. Then it deserves to be read.
There are other authors whom she expresses something like love for. I savoured and wallowed in those parts. Shakespeare takes centre stage, but there’s also a wonderful scene where she and Leonard visit Thomas Hardy. A valuable aspect of the book, indeed, is when we hear about her own reading habits, her views on contemporary literature, her comparison of Turgenev and Dostoevsky etc.
Interestingly, as her books were published by Hogarth House, the Woolfs� own publishing house, her books never fell under the critical gaze of an editor. We hear of how she typed them up, how Leonard only read the books after she was completely done with them and how they themselves had x number of copies printed depending on how many were ordered.
As we progress into the second half of the book, Virginia Woolf is visited more and more by her incertitude, her ups and downs, her despair, while simultaneously being more and more in the public eye. It saddened me deeply when she muses on what exacerbated her depressions:
I think the effort to live in two spheres: the novel; and life; is a strain. (�) to have to behave with circumspection and decision to strangers wrenches me into another region; hence the collapse.
I wonder if the beginning of World War II also underlined to her some of life’s enormous sadness or if it was a complete coincidence that she committed suicide in the second year of the war. The war is like a desperate illness, she wrote. The Woolfs� home in London was bombed to smithereens, and so she spent the last days of her life in the country, at Monk’s House, where they could still hear the bombers and where, she wrote, we live without a future.
For readers who are interested in the writer Virginia Woolf, this is an absolute must-read. It was one of those books which made me impatient to read on and discover more and yet also stop and savour her words and her thoughts and not rush through it because there is only one first time for every book. ...more
P.G. Wodehouse was a comic genius. I listened to this second installment of the Jeeves & Wooster books while poking around in my garden, and I dare saP.G. Wodehouse was a comic genius. I listened to this second installment of the Jeeves & Wooster books while poking around in my garden, and I dare say it must have been a bit of spectacle if any of my neighbors saw or heard me as I stopped in my tracks and giggled or guffawed, weeds in hand.
This was even better than the first book in the series, although I’m beginning to see that the formula is pretty much the same throughout: Bertie Wooster, the idle, naïve, wealthy young man always finds himself ‘in a soup� from which his trusted, arrogant and omniscient/-potent butler Jeeves has to save him. In Bertie’s defence, it’s usually his friend Bingo (in this book) or some crazy relations who land him in the soup and not his own doings.
A standard line from Jeeves at some point in the book (every book) is: I endeavour to give satisfaction, Sir. When Jeeves is asked about the weather, it isn’t ‘good� or ‘sunny� or the like but exceptionally clement, Sir.
Apart from the extraordinary comic genius that P.G. Wodehouse possessed, what I noticed this time was the medium through which this was achieved � his exceptional gifts of language. There were so many utterly original and funny metaphors and sentences that I fail to mention any specific ones. They abound throughout the stories. He was, like Oscar Wilde, a Lord of Language, which I imagine is a major reason why Stephen Fry, the incarnation of Jeeves, loved both these authors.
Silly, delightful and funny through and through. ...more
Sassy, smart and street-wise is what this novel is; what Zadie Smith is. With a literary nod to a favourite novel of mine, Howards End - which is anytSassy, smart and street-wise is what this novel is; what Zadie Smith is. With a literary nod to a favourite novel of mine, Howards End - which is anything but sassy and street-wise - this is a novel that only Zadie Smith could pull off. As in White Teeth and NW, it is teeming with snappy conversations, larger-than-life characters, literary references and unlikely plot developments (partly grâce à Forster); in short On Beauty is full of life and soul.
The prose crackles and sparkles, and once again we witness Zadie Smith’s trademark ear for different dialects and sociolects, rap and literature. And while many of her sentences are eloquent and the topics serious, they are also full of mirth. It is perhaps what I appreciate the most: her wit. Because it is invariably coupled with heart and smarts.
Here Howard, middle-aged intellectual Brit transplanted to the United States courtesy of his voluptuous, African-American, non-intellectual (and utterly wonderful) wife, Kiki, is having a conversation with a curator at the college where he teaches (who speaks the first line):
’Ag’inst Rembrandt�, the second man said. He had a high-pitched Southern voice that struck Howard as a comic assault for which he had been completely unprepared. ‘That was the title your assistant mailed us � I’m just tryna figger what you meant by ‘ag’inst� � obviously my organization are part-sponsors of this whole event, so –�
‘Your organization –�
‘The RAS � Rembrandt Appreciate � and I’m sure I’m not an innellekchewl, at least, as a fella like you might think of one…�
‘Yes, I’m sure you’re not,� murmured Howard. He found that his accent caused a delayed reaction in certain Americans. It was sometimes the next day before they realized how rude he had been to them.
Forster dealt in social classes: the cultured intellectual Schlegells, the moneyed business people - the Wilcoxes, the working class man - Leonard Bast, who were all trying to bridge the gap between their classes; between literature and life � to ‘only connect�. In On Beauty Zadie Smith takes us to a college town in New England, and so her groups are Americans, Brits, whites, African-Americans, intellectuals and non-intellectuals, students and rappers, teenagers and their parents � all trying to find their place in the world, to connect or, as in Howard’s case, work through a mid-life crisis. And as in White Teeth, she has created characters that jump off the page and really exist. But On Beauty shines much brighter than WT and NW, in my opinion.
The novel was further from Howards End than I had expected but turned out to be a fantastic book in its own right, allusion to favourite novel or not. When I read her acknowledgements at the end, I nearly broke down (in gratitude? wonder? renewed and double appreciation of Forster and Zadie Smith?) This is what she writes:
It should be obvious from the first line that this is a novel inspired by a love of E. M. Forster, to whom all my fiction is indebted, one way or the other. This time I wanted to repay the debt with hommage. ...more
Life is a mystery and (that) only sentences are beautiful (�)
The disadvantage of listening to an audiobook, however mellow and fittingly transatlantiLife is a mystery and (that) only sentences are beautiful (�)
The disadvantage of listening to an audiobook, however mellow and fittingly transatlantic the accent of the narrator, is that one cannot hold on to the sentences. They seem more fleeting when listened to, even when, as in this case, I went back many times to pay more attention to the beauty of a sentence, the significance of a word. And there was much I wanted to hold on to and savour in this gorgeous novel.
It is the story of Henry James, of his writing, his family, his friendships, his worries and regrets; his life in solitary, sedentary exile, in self-repression, sexual and otherwise. We meet Henry, as he is called throughout the novel, when his play Guy Domville fails miserably in London. After this disaster, he slowly, finally, turns toward fiction. (On the opening night of his own play, afraid to witness the audience’s response, he attends an Oscar Wilde play, Lady Windemere’s Fan, and utterly dislikes it. Already here we get a glimpse of the sombre figure TóibÃn paints: Henry James, although an aesthete like Wilde, seemed to embody the very opposite position of the dandified, larger-than-life Oscar Wilde).
It is a novel of ‘startling excellenceâ€�, as the reviewer in The Observer stated. As far as I can tell from having so far only read four of James’s novels, TóibÃn borrows aspects of James’s style such as tone, vocabulary and register, but he is more modern, and he has to a large extent abandoned the overly long sentences that were one of James’s trademarks (and which have made me, I blush to admit, abandon The Ambassadors more than once). The result is one of ponderous beauty as well as a fascinating literary excavation into the emergence of many of James’s stories and characters â€� as imagined and interpreted by TóibÃn. I especially appreciated the direct line he portrays from Georg Eliot’s Gwendolen Harleth in Daniel Deronda + Anthony Trollope’s Lady Laura Kennedy in Phineas Finn + James’s own cousin Minnie to Isabel Archer in The Portrait of a Lady. (Apropos Georg Eliot, I had to smile when Minnie claimed that you know much more how strange and beautiful it is to be alive after having read The Mill on the Floss than after a thousand sermons. Ah, indeed. I only just read that novel myself a few weeks ago).
A few sad truths are indicative of the Henry James we meet in TóibÃn’s rendition of the Master in this novel:
(About how he managed to avoid the American Civil War:) His war was private
and further
He lived as if his life belonged to someone else; like a character not fully imagined.
It is an old-fashioned kind of story, in the very best sense; quietly paced, itself almost sedentary; a novel version of a biography about a refined hermit who devoted his life to his art (even if, at one point, TóibÃn lets Henry’s brother point out to him that his sentences have become too long!) By employing the Master’s Christian name throughout, TóibÃn cunningly makes the reader feel that much closer to the writer, as if we are truly offered an intimate insight into his life and his thoughts.
I immediately want to read more by Henry James, which was no surprise, and three of his books (two of which I’ve seen film versions of) are already on my to-read list. More unexpectedly, but most emphatically, I want to read more by Colm TóibÃn. What an imaginative, beautiful feat this novel was! ...more
This was a quiet and fantastic book and one from which I did not walk away unchanged. There were times when it was too heartbreaking for me to read, aThis was a quiet and fantastic book and one from which I did not walk away unchanged. There were times when it was too heartbreaking for me to read, and I had to leave it on the arm of my chair and do something more cheerful for a while before I continued reading. And yet, while the book contains an immense sadness, it isn’t depressing. As a friend pointed out when I mentioned that I was reading this, Stoner shows that � like Mr. Stevens in The Remains of the Day- there is dignity in misery. (I was also reminded of the agony and desperation of Ethan Frome, of the zest for life and love that is to some extent quelled by others and by circumstances, though I would venture that despite everything, Stoner’s light, though modest, was never completely extinguished).
I will not bother with a summary, which can be read in the blurb above. But I will say that this was one of those stories where style and story merge in a rare kind of beauty. At times the prose is bare and cool, at other times it is exquisite and insightful. Upon his parents� death:
Their lives had been expended in cheerless labor, their wills broken, their intelligences numbed. Now they were in the earth to which they had given their lives; and slowly, year by year, the earth would take them.
Stoner was a man who lived a life in literature � for and with his books. In that life, he found meaning and showed integrity. To a large extent, he chose the cloistered and slow extinction that awaits us all as David Masters speaks about in the early stages of the book. (view spoiler)[ He chose literature over the soil, over a life of farming with his parents. He chose literature over going to war with his friends. He ensconced himself in his world of literature away from his wife and daughter when his wife didn’t allow him into their world. During his love affair with Katherine they met within the pages of books, due to books, but found real, sensual love � the only time almost everything in Stoner’s life merged and brought him happiness (hide spoiler)].
Only once did I think, ‘oh pull yourself together, Stoner�. He meets everything in life with a dogged, stoic acceptance, but I knew he did what he could. His background on a remote farm where life was of the earth and with parents who were simple and quiet folks never prepared him for university life, nor, I think, for believing that he had a particular right to be happy.
As a teacher myself, I was particularly touched by many aspects of Stoner’s teaching life, his love of learning and dedication to teaching. (At one point I imagined that a part of Stoner’s teaching role might have been a precursor for Mr. Keating: there was a will to impart the love of good literature to his students at all costs, in his own peculiar way, but he was up against forces bigger than himself):
The love of literature, of language, of the mystery of the mind and heart showing themselves in the minute, strange, and unexpected combination of letters and words, in the blackest and coldest print � the love which he had hidden as if it were illicit and dangerous, he began to display, tentatively at first, and then boldly, and then proudly.
I wonder how this book managed to fall under the reading public’s radar for so many years, and how someone � who? � revived interest in it again. Thankfully, someone did. This is a literary gem. It is some consolation, in this day and age, to know that so many readers have appreciated a book like this (which was brought to my attention by the Waterstones bookstore chain in the UK a couple of years ago when they chose it as the book of the year in 2013).
The book was written in such a way that I felt I was Stoner. I felt angry when people were unfair to him, heartbroken when he couldn’t do anything, or enough, about it. I rejoiced when he had his small moments of happiness. I wanted to tell him he was a good man. I wanted to tell him that they were wrong when they did and said those things to him. I read most of the book with either a pounding heart or moist eyes, and in the end walked away from it, knowing that I had just read something quite remarkable.
‘An unmitigated delight from cover to cover� it says on the cover of my book, and that is exactly what it is. This little volume is divided into two p‘An unmitigated delight from cover to cover� it says on the cover of my book, and that is exactly what it is. This little volume is divided into two parts: The first part is the epistolary story (it’s not a novel; it’s too short plus it’s not fiction) - a letter exchange between Helene Hanff, book collector living in New York, and the manager of a second-hand book shop in London (and some of the people in his vicinity) lasting over twenty years. The second part, The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, is the aftermath of the letters being published in a book and Helene Hanff’s reception in London, which was every bit as good as the first part, to me.
These two sections � this book � had it all from my perspective: humour, sensitivity, books, London, human connections. I alternately found myself smiling and laughing, and simply drank in all of it. Helene Hanff’s crazy, dry, New York sense of humour was fresh and delightful, perhaps especially so because of its juxtaposition to some of the kind, polite Englishmen she writes to and ultimately meets. The book is certainly not new; it was published in 1971, and the author passed away in 1997. I suspect, however, that it will continue to be in print for many years to come.
If you suffer just the least bit from anglomania and consider yourself to have a pretty good sense of humour and a sensitive heart, you must read this book. ...more
I can say nothing about this novel that has not been said a hundred times over on this site. In fact, my own brief, empirical survey indicates that thI can say nothing about this novel that has not been said a hundred times over on this site. In fact, my own brief, empirical survey indicates that this is the novel which has been read by the largest number of my goodreads friends. A summary is therefore redundant, and despite having just read it for the umpteenth time, I will not review it. Yet, I cannot just let it sit there on my favourites shelf without sending it, and Jane Austen, a few words of love.
Jane Austen was my first love in the world of English literature, and she has been a constant love these 25 years or so. I keep on coming back to her novels � Pride and Prejudice six or seven times now. It is clever, heartwarming, funny and English. I could include a hundred lines from it that are brilliant, but picking one or two would be almost as unfair as calling this novel my favourite of her six princesses (which I do anyway).
I adore Austen’s ironies, witticisms and sarcasm; I am astonished at her ability to make me see new things about her characters every time I read one of her novels although I’d sworn I knew them all intimately (Mr. Collins, for instance, was utterly annoying to me the first few times; now I laugh at him, with much condescension); I am in awe of the fact that she wrote these novels 200 years ago and that they are as fresh, relevant, entertaining and wonderful today as they were back then.
I inhabit her universe with a rare sense of glee, acknowledging her genius yet knowing every nook and cranny because I’ve visited it so often (and basking in this knowingness; familiarity does not breed contempt in Austen’s case). I feel a profound sense of gratitude that Jane Austen existed at all. There really is none above her. ...more
This is the most important, most magical and most precious book from my childhood. It is the book that made me believe in something greater than myselThis is the most important, most magical and most precious book from my childhood. It is the book that made me believe in something greater than myself when I was about ten years old. It is, to me, one of the most wonderful stories for children and young teenagers.
By the time I was 18, I had read it three or four times, later I read it to my oldest daughter and now to my youngest. And I still struggled to hold back the tears.
It is about the love between two brothers, about life after death, about believing in goodness and fighting evil � though that is what I see as an adult now. When I was a child (and to my own children), it was/is simply a magnificent and magical story which had me reading into the small hours of the night, but above all it is about hope. With this book alone Astrid Lindgren made an indelible imprint on my childhood.
Years ago, I taught a course on fantasy fiction during which I had long discussions with my students about the genre. My students were educating themselves to become future (English) teachers, and the fantasy genre is a must in that connection, at least here in Denmark where it has been popular for a long time. A school teacher I knew at the time had read this story aloud to her pupils in school and had made sure to tell the children not to throw themselves from tall buildings because there was no such thing as Nangijala � the magical place that Karl and Jonatan go to after they die (early on in the book, so no spoiler). I made it my mission to tell my students never to do any such thing; children aren’t stupid. They know how to distinguish between what’s real and what isn’t. But more importantly: how did she know there is no Nangijala? To take away the hope and the magic that such a story offers is to misunderstand what the genre offers, not least this book.
Shortly afterwards, my mother died quite unexpectedly. Among the many cards I received was one from those same students, in which they sent me their heartfelt condolences and which ended by their assuring me that ‘we believe in Nangijala.� So even as an adult, this book is among those I will defend with my life and recommend to anyone who’ll listen. I know I’m not the only person to feel this way about The Brothers Lionheart, indeed I believe it’s part of the landscape of childhood for many Scandinavians, which just underlines how wondrous and magical Astrid Lindgren was.
Rereading this old favourite reminded me of my university days back in the 90s when I first discovered E. M. Forster and fell completely in love with Rereading this old favourite reminded me of my university days back in the 90s when I first discovered E. M. Forster and fell completely in love with his works. I devoured several of his books at the time as well as the wonderful Merchant-Ivory (and other) film adaptations of his best novels.
This time round it was a different reading experience, as it always is when you read something many years later; the book is the same, but you’ve changed (and have read many more books). I still appreciate his Edwardian humanism and the gentle, sympathetic temper which seems to pervade the novel, but it didn’t blow me away this time as it did twenty years ago. This time round, I also noted his sometimes antiquated (but, given the times, perhaps inevitable) view of women. And yet, at other times his view of women is surprisingly modern, but then he was a marginal member of the Bloomsbury group, whose female beacon was Virginia Woolf.
He has been criticized for his mysticism or leanings towards the metaphysical, which is even more pronounced in A Passage to India, and this is one aspect I used to love but have somehow grown out of. What I do still appreciate, and which is one of the reasons why I love this period in English literary history, are the concepts and images developed, which belong to this pre-World War I period: motoring (!) into the country, the personality of old houses, the peace of the country (as opposed to the flux of London, indeed of modern life, making itself increasingly visible beyond nearby hills), truth, art, literature; and specifically to Forster: the connection between people of different classes and mentalities, between the mind and the body � or perhaps more the desire to try to connect.
I felt the presence of other works this time round as well, one after the publication of Howards End (by Virginia Woolf) and one before (by Jane Austen): Mrs. Wilcox drifts through life much like Mrs. Dalloway drifts through London, physically as well as emotionally. Or maybe I see the resemblance because both characters were played by Vanessa Redgrave in the film adaptations. As to the reference to Austen (whom Forster loved), there are the two sisters in Howards End, Helen and Margaret/Meg Schlegel, who are respectively wild/temperamental and sensible/mature � much like two other sisters, Marianne and Eleanor Dashwood. Interestingly, Emma Thompson played both Margaret Schlegel and Eleanor Dashwood in the film versions. The symmetry of this seems amazing but completely right. Helen was supposedly also partly inspired by Woolf as a child. As an adult, Woolf, too, was a huge Austen fan. But of course I may just have taken Forster’s epigram to the novel ‘Only connect� too literally and connected these authors� works because I love them. (Although Woolf reminds us that all works of literature stand on the shoulders of the literature that came before). ...more
I love this novel, and it’s one of only 16 books on my favourites shelf because, while there are many novels I find really good, this one is splendid I love this novel, and it’s one of only 16 books on my favourites shelf because, while there are many novels I find really good, this one is splendid and magnificent. A literary tour de force.
This was my third reading of the novel, and it was as if it shed yet another layer, added new touches, a tell-tale sign of literary depth, which is one of the things I love about this novel.
Another aspect I love about it is the ambience created in part 1 of the novel - the paradoxical juxtaposition of impending doom/smouldering menace and a hot, languid, pre-war, English summer's day where it's all drinks, cigarettes, cream coloured clothes and hopeful expectations, set in the grounds, drawing room, dining room (and library!) of a country house. It's decadent, stifling, alluring and ominous all at the same time.
It is thus all the more surprising when we move to the second part. The first time I read it I was reminded of The House of the Spirits, which I read decades ago. There, too, the first part is set in a grand house, inhabited by a rather...interesting family. Pure magic. Then came the completely different second part: upheaval, social comments, war and its casualties.
I will say little about part 3 except that it becomes clear that the author has taken us for a ride. Although the style of the novel is such that it could have been written at the time it takes place in the beginning (1935), the last part makes it clear that this is a post-modernist piece of writing.
Finally, the third reason why I love this novel is the writing. Ian McEwan blends Virginia Woolf-like, modernist descriptions of impressions with post-modernist hints of plot twists and really just demonstrates how good writing skills have been honed to perfection. I cannot praise this novel enough and feel extremely reluctant at ever reading anything else by McEwan, suspecting that his other works cannot possibly live up to this (which I’m also led to believe by other reviews in here). But this is a five-star read if ever there was one. Third time round as well.
Review from 2012:
Rereading this novel for a book club, I'm struck again by how wonderfully written it is. Knowing what's going to happen makes it a different, but by no means lesser, reading experience. The sense of premonition and subtle atmosphere of impending doom remind me of A Passage to India, another masterpiece in English literature. Back to reading: I have less than four days to read more than 300 pages...
And it was worth it. What a masterpiece. I love the writing style, the characterizations, the milieus depicted, and I rejoice and suffer along with the characters. This is a book one should read more than once!...more
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