Juxtabook

Dissolution by C J Sansom

This is really two posts in one, the first a review of the wonderful Dissolution by C. J. Sansom and the second, marked spoiler alert, is my musings on how difficult it is, even for a writer as talented as this, to completely pull off historical fiction.

If you enjoy either crime fiction or historical fiction then Dissolution is an absolutely engrossing beauty of a book. Set at the time of the death of Queen Jane (Seymour), third wife of Henry VIII, and at an interesting point in the process of the the dissolution of the monasteries, it shows the genuine faith and the real virtue, as well as the bias, bigotry and failings of both the reformers and those who would rather stay with the church in Rome.

After leaving the Roman Catholic church and making himself head of the Church of England, Henry VIII and his ministers turned their attention upon the vast wealth and power of the monasteries. The forced dissolution of the smaller ecclesiastical houses brought rebellion in the north of England, culminating in the Pilgrimage of Grace. It was with great difficulty security was resumed, and Thomas Cromwell now seeks the dissolution of the larger houses by less aggressive means. His legal experts hone in on key monasteries, scouring accounts for fraud, checking the religious offices conform to the new rules (no saints, icons, or superstitious practises) and generally seeking to find legal means to close them down. If all else fails the abbot is offered a generous pension, with promises of parish priesthood for many of the monks, all in the hope that they will voluntarily dissolve.

At the Abbey of Scarnsea in Sussex (think Winchelsea for setting) Cromwell's Commissioner Robin Singleton appears to have been on to something, but then he is found decapitated in the monastery kitchens. Matthew Shardlake, a genuine reformer and acute legal brain, is sent by Cromwell to solve the murder and press for the dissolution of Scarnsea Abbey. Shardlake takes with him Mark, a young man from his home village whom he has sponsored into the London legal world and who was disgraced himself after showing he had too much of an eye for the ladies. The pressure is on for Shardlake and Mark: Cromwell needs answers fast and also want the prize of a big monastery to present to the king. Mark is on his last chance to redeem himself and the future of Shardlake's own legal practice will depend on his success. The anxiety from these circumstances is a great narrative driver from the first.

The author, C. J. Sansom, has both a PhD in history and a background in law. The guided tour we get of the intricacies of the dissolution and Tudor politics is therefore first rate and knowledgeable, but also lightly handled. The first person narration through Shardlake is very free and easy, and we learn much without ever having that feeling that the author is looking for ways to sandwich a bit more information in regardless of narrative appropriateness. The relationship between Shardlake and Mark is the classic crime duo with power imbalance. Shardlake is older, wiser and more influential. He is clearly in charge and it is always going to be from Shardlake's brain that the answer comes. Shardlake however is a hunch back and young Mark, in dangerous times, comes into his own as the sword wielding side-kick. Shardlake is a good and honourable man but a bit inclined to see others as he is himself, where Mark is more acutely attuned to to the potential for vice on all sides, even their own, and is revolted by hypocrisy and the compromises of statesmanship. There is a good balance of give and take, and mutal respect, and when a twist happens in their relationship at the end of the build-up is believable, and we understand the fallout.

The setting is also classic crime. Taking place in the depths of an English winter, once Shardlake and Mark arrive at the monastery they are effectively cut off from the outside world first by snow and then by the nearly impassable mud of the thaw. The monastery murder with its fixed personnel is a neat parallel for the country house murder of the 1940s. The plot is superb; beautifully impenetrable but perfectly reasonable in retrospect. Dissolution is a new classic and a joy for those who pine for Sayers and co., in the modern world world of gritty police procedural, or fluffy Fethering. It is also a smashing read if you are interested in the Tudor period, as Sansom has created a very livable sixteenth century for us to visit. As a pleasurable and intelligent read it is near faultless, and joy of joys there are sequels which I will be rushing to get, but, and as always with historical fiction there are a few buts, ...

Spoiler Alert!! Don't read on if you haven't read the book yet please!

... and the 'but' is the handling of groups, types and minorities. Within the text all is well, there are few anachronistic views put into the heads or mouths of characters, a feat well done as this is such a common failing of historical novels. However, moving back a step in the narration to the controlling hand (the implied author?) there are some odd decisions.

First gripe: women. Now this is a monastery and therefore full of men. No problem; all highly understandable. But why when there are the so few women in the book are they so darn predictable in their signification? We have, a house keeper (Shardlake's), the mention of two Queens (Jane Seymour and Anne Boleyn whose attributes and fates are relevant to the denouement), a nurse in the monastery infirmary, the missing teenage predecessor to the present nurse, and a woman in charge of the orphanage. I am not quibbling with the traditional 'female' occupations, again understandable, but with the angel or devil qualities imputed and the victim status. Now, and here comes the spoiler, one of the women (Alice the nurse) turns out to be the perpetrator so she is not a victim, but the missing girl who turns up in the fish pond clearly is, and a helpless one at that. But then our angel of mercy nurse Alice turns to to have been an 'executioner'. She can't just be a murderer for ordinary murky reasons (because she is greedy, or jealous perhaps) it has to be revenge, and revenge in a political system that is inequitable seems so much less than murder. So having been served up sweet Alice, we don't lose the sweet taste when she is revealed. She starts off dressed in pure white and ends up still in pure white with just a few red spots; there is no complexity, no grey areas. A complete contrast to the other villain, a man who is motivated by greed and, as befits a villain, meets a sticky end. With Alice on the other hand the reader is clearly meant to revel in her escape from justice.

The queens too are rather black and white. London is in mourning for good Queen Jane, whilst we get flashbacks to the execution of the sexually alluring Anne. The only woman played in shades of grey is the orphanage mother. She is loyal, courageous in the face of the power of the monastery, and she is caring without being sentimental in a modern way. A nice portrait of a minor character who makes a good red herring precisely because her realistic portrayal would have made her a convincing perpetrator. I don't think the icky-sticky sweetness of Alice would have been such a problem in a plot that naturally had more variety of women characters, but here it is a bit of a glitch to a smooth read.

Then we have the other classic minority areas: disability (Shardlake), and ethnic minority (the moor doctor), and a homosexual (the Sacrist). The fact they are all there makes it seem rather formulaic in casting, as though it has one eye on the TV adaptation. But rather jarring with this PC hand behind the scenes, is the death of the homosexual character. He dies saving Shardlake by putting himself between the Commissioner and danger. It is a conscious sacrifice of a tormented man but also, rather like Hardy and Mrs Gaskell killing Tess and Ruth off by way of redemption, there is a sense here of narrative punishment for his sexuality. In contrast Mark's hetrosexual activity goes on with little punishment, and he is rewarded with his escape with Alice in the end. As I say, by unseen hand, I don't mean the author explicitly, not least as there is an inconsistency here of PC character representation juxtaposed with conservative treatment of women and homosexuals. Rather the 'implied author' construct we are led to impute from a reading of this book is an odd and inconsistent beast, and that is in itself a failing in the writing.

The ethnic minority character is the doctor Brother Guy. As is the tradition if you have only one ethnic minority character he is lovely. There was no way in the 21st century that the one ethnic minority character was going be cast as the villain. He, like the orphanage mother, is also set up as a potential red herring, but because of his ethnic background it is hard for the reader to be hooked in there. This makes me wonder what Sansom, in an otherwise well played plot, was about in making Brother Guy a moor. I am guessing it is because, having come to England via deeply Catholic Spain, he provides an intellectual counterpoint to the reformer Shardlake. However, the interest Shardlake takes in Guy's background is the one anachronism in the book. This is Tudor England for goodness sake, not multicultural now. We talking about a culture that was trying to define itself as mono-. People were being beheaded, burned and disembowelled, and sometimes all three, for not taking the party line, and whilst Shardlake is portrayed as a thinking reformer not a zealot, the cosy chats in the dispensary about other cultures just don't ring true.

I get the feeling that Sansom, as a knowledgable historian, is trying hard not to be anachronistic, and on the whole he does a splendid job. It took a lot of words to explain my quibbles above, but they are only really minor quibbles about an otherwise smashing book. But even while he tries not to be anachronistic, he is also trying to be even handed between reformer and Roman Catholic, and whatever else the Tudors were, they were not even handed. Sansom very nearly pulls off the trick of losing the 21st century altogether but his fingertips just hang on to that idea of even handedness and so modernity, if not dragged into the book, is certainly dragged alongside it. And here's the historical fiction writer's dilemma, to pull it off completely for the sixteenth century then your guiding hand needs to be a bit of a zealot, or at least a thinking but loyal adherent to one side or the other; to be even handed is to be too 'now'. But then, if anyone were to write from such precise stand point in our culture of equivocation, would it have been published at all?

I would be interested to know what you thought about historical fiction, plausibility and managing a modern audience. You might like to read this post on Shelf Love on the same subject too.

New blogs, blog a Penguin, and more...

Thank you to everyone who commented on yesterday's post about blogs. I have visited them all and will be adding several to the blogroll. I am glad I asked as Juliet mentioned Emma Darwin, and when I went on her blog I realised I had been there before, liked it, intended to return, and forgot to bookmark it. So that one is definitely straight onto the sidebar now. I have done the same thing in the past with Fugly Horses, and so I am glad of the reminders ladies, thank you.

I was also taken with the Deanna Raybourn Blog A Go-Go. I am ashamed to say I have not heard of Deanna. I should pay more attention to Scott Pack and add Me and My Big Mouth to the blogroll as well. Having worked out who she is I will be adding Deanna Raybourn's debut novel to my wishlist pronto. I was also very pleased to introduced to freelancemum who seems to have the same trouble with 4 year olds that I do. So thank you everyone for your suggestions. Any more anyone? Keep them coming!

Onto Blog a Penguin ... The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole. It's arrived and looks as good as I had hoped. A lottery in every sense of the word is the Penguin draw as Penguin Classics cover such a range of fiction of fiction and non-fiction and who knows what I might have landed, so at least I am a very lucky girl not to have to read Kirkegaard before breakfast, or indeed after it (sorry Jane!).

And lastly, on the subject of blogs, in case you missed it, the professionals are moaning about us amateur reviewers again: an article in the Observer and Comment is free thing in the Guardian - pointed out by one of my customers in the day job - thank you Janice!

Recommend a blog please!

I love blogs! It is like having a periodical and picking your own book reviewers and columnists. Wonderful stuff. I have my favourite blogs, those I visit nearly everyday to see if they have posted. I have other blogs that I just catch up on from time to time. The old favourites are the best pleasure though, with the in-house jokes and stories, the exchange of comments online, and often the off-blog emails too, meaning some of them are rapidly becoming virtual friends even though I have never met them.

My own top bloggers, my must-visit sites are: Books, Mud and Compost, Musings from a Muddy Island, Cornflower, Dovergreyreader, Stuck-in-a-Book, Random Jottings and Ready When You are C.B. I also particularly enjoy Susan Hill's blog, not because I always agree with her but because she is always interested and therefore interesting. I also like the publisher blogs Snowblog and Fidra because of the insights they give into another side of the booktrade. My favourite writer's blogs are Justine Picardie, Alis Hawkins at Hawkins Bizarre and Angela Young at Writing, Life and the Universe. I also check out Books4All regularly because although I contribute, so do others and I never know what my bookselling colleagues might post about. My favourite teaching blog is To Miss With Love (recommended even if you are not involved in education) as living in a mainly white, mainly middle class, rural idyll (Midsomer without the murders, but with more blunt Yorkshire folk) I need reminding what life is like elsewhere, and I also usually visit Mother at Large, currently on maternity break. These blogs throughout the week make up my very own "periodical".

But there is also a particular pleasure in discovering a new blog that you just know is going to become one of those old favourites. Today, via Stuck-in-a-Book, I visited Other Stories for the first time, it appealed to me instantly and I know that this will be a regular stop now too.

What I would like you to do dear readers, is to recommend a favourite, top draw blog, that you visit regularly but that I don't have in my side bar on the right (book blogs under the booksellers list), and to recommend it with reasons why. I will visit them all, and probably post about them, and add them to my links, as you all have such good taste (well you're here aren't you!) and aren't likely to steer me wrong. It would be great to discover some more favourites!

Mrs Darcy's Dilemma by Diana Birchall

If I was writing a novel (most unlikely) I would not try a sequel. If the original was any good the chances of faring well by comparison are very slim. The few I have read of the simple 'what happened next' variety have never been satisfactory on any level, and generally leave me feeling let down. It is thanks to Elaine at Random Jottings then that I have had my mind changed a little on the subject of sequels.

I first heard of Mrs Darcy's Dilemma on Stuck-in-a-Book, and then was fortunate enough to receive a copy from the publishers Sourcebooks courtesy of a draw on Random Jottings. Simon's comments had prepared the way for me to be open minded but nonetheless I was surprised by how very much I enjoyed Mrs Darcy's Dilemma.

It is nearly a quarter of a century since Elizabeth Bennett and Mr Darcy were married. They live happily enough at Pemberley the proud parents of two sons and a daughter and their only worries, like any parent, are the futures of their children and it is from this that the plot emerges. Fitzwilliam, the eldest and the heir, is pleasant enough but "provided sufficient concern to make any anxious mother happy" in his rather self-focused obsession with his horses, racing and hunting, and lack of inclination for assisting his father with the estates and the welfare of their dependent tenants. Fitzwilliam is also surprisingly dim for the child of two such sharp parents. Elizabeth's favourite child is her second son Henry, destined for holy orders and in many ways reminiscent of Mr Knightley (charming but a bit too avuncular). Mr Darcy's favourite child is their daughter Jane, a young woman neither too good nor too bad or, to be honest, particularly interesting. The young female characters of interest are two of Lydia's daughters: the delightful Cloe, and the beautiful but horribly Lydia-like Bettina.

From the first Diana Birchall captures the tone of Austen's milieu perfectly. My previous encounters with such sequels have shown authors heavy handedly ladling on humour that was more Groucho Marx than Austen, by which I mean more up-front verbal dexterity than the subtle situational irony which is really required. Birchall captures Austen's narratorial voice in all its shades perfectly. It is a skilled piece of mimicry which is a pleasure to experience, maintained with seeming ease to the very last word.

Along side the social settling is the historical one, no longer Regency but now on the cusp of the Victorian age. Birchall cleverly uses this Janus moment to reflect through the events on the roles of women and men, of the upper and middle classes, of those from the 'big house' and those who are dependent, on a clergy who use livings as a sinecure, and those who strive to alleviate social want, all pictured as Britain enters its period of great social mobility and attitudinal change. This, like her use of Austen's voice, is very subtle.  One character, Kitty's husband Dr Clarke, is a vicar who cares for his roses. He is no villain, no rogue, no layabout who leaves all to his curate, but still Elizabeth's son Henry's vision for himself as a social reformer in clerical orders is of a far more active role for a clergy man than the one played by this gentle man going through the motions till he can get back to his garden. The genteel Regency period where gentlemen vicars did not get their hands too dirty with either the poor or politics is moving to a quiet retirement.

The physical manifestations of all this social mobility and potential are the new trains that move about  the countryside and move the characters about the plot. It is the train that allows the bumptious Lydia, and her daughters, easier access to her wealthier relatives, and trains that allow access to the centre of vice otherwise known as London. The access provided by the railway means opportunties for both Bettina and Cloe but their opportunity to rise is also their opportunity to fall and different fates await the girls. But even this is handled differently from Lydia's fall in Pride and Prejudice; in the new Victorian age a fall is not what it used to be, and a society that can accomodate the increasing rise of tradesmen to the middle class is more open to both a mix of education and, even, of virtue.

Apart from setting and tone Birchall's other strength is her characterization of Elizabeth which is smart and believable. Elizabeth is described on her marriage as being "as deeply in love as a girl of sense and spirit could well be", and that is how it should be. She is dedicated to Darcy but no doormat, nor a dormouse. She is quieter in her humour, for as a parent things have potentially greyer shades than when she was a flippant drawing room wit in her youth, but it still shines through in her dealings with her children, and of course with her sisters. Lydia is still delightfully diabolical, but Birchall makes the sensible decision to kill Mrs Bennett off from the start; Mrs B. doesn't lend herself to reincarnation as there is nowhere to go with her except more of the same, whereas Lydia, now a matron, is both recognisably Lydia whilst being convincingly older.

This is is the only Austen sequel I have read that I would unreservedly recommend reading. In fact it is so good, it is safe to buy this for the Janeite in your life if you are present hunting. Whether you like the tale told is, of course, a matter of personal taste, but it certainly will not offend anyone's Austen sensibilities. Birchall is not Austen but she does Austen's creations justice, and she writes well, tastefully, feelingly, humorously, and cleverly. It is, on its own merits, a very neat piece of historical fiction; far more Georgette Heyer than Austen-lite. To be honest, Birchall writes too well to be doing sequels at all. I hope there are more historical novels from Diana Birchall and that she liberates herself from such tight literary ties next time.

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Mrs Darcy's Dilemma is published by Sourcebooks in the USA and is available from them, or no doubt from the usual places online. Simon at Stuck-in-a-Book also has a great interview with the author, as well as his review, which you can read here.

BAFAB - And the winner is ...

Borrowed daughter's fetching sun hat...

Stirred the entries about...

And drew out....

Emily'smother!

So please drop me an email and let me have your posting address and the book and cards will be off to you soon!

Thank you very much to everyone else for entering.

The Magic Apple Tree by Susan Hill

This lovely book was lent to me by a very dear friend who knows my taste for edgy modern literary fiction. She said, as she gave it to me, "It is a very gentle book", and this was clearly by way of a preemptive apology. She thought it might be too staid for me, and too much the non-fiction book. She's a lady of good taste however, and I am sure many people will find something to enjoy here.

The good news is that though my friend is right, it is gentle, it is also a busy, textured book and there is much to recommend. The Magic Apple Tree is an account of a year in the life of novelist Susan Hill focusing on her life in the country with her husband and young daughter. Beginning with Winter the book is split into four seasons and each covers the family home, the people in the village and surrounding countryside, seasonal change, food, traditions, gardening and wildlife as the changes of the year move though the English countryside. There are recipes, gardening advice, country relationships and the keeping of hens, and it is beautifully written and all very charming.

However, it is not just a sentimental review of a WI lifestyle, and it is certainly not a modern Lark Rise to Candleford. There is modern life here too. Hill, though clearly working, as well as being a housewife and mother, has no 'room of her own':

I do not require a large or grand room, but I have always had one in which to work, to close the door on everyone and to be myself. In winter, I had eventually taken to writing in the kitchen and, later, to having my desk and papers and type-writer on the small, light landing, which is a little room in itself, albeit a passageway too, and overlooks Mr Elder's greenhouse, and a lane up to the village. That, and the kitchen, are fine when no-one else is in the house, but they will not do otherwise, and moreover they are not really mine, not private places.

Which brings to mind of course Virginia Woolf's famous, "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction". For those living a creative life in a property without half a dozen bedrooms, division of space is hard. For Susan Hill the scholar-husband got the study. Here, Mr J and I share a study which is chaos as I blog, run a business and occasionally dabble in the side effects of education (known as exams), and also do Mr J's paperwork. I do this on my large desk, behind the desk, between the desk and cupboard which won't shut, and all over the floor. Mr J meanwhile attempts to run his teaching and part time writing from the alcove in the corner; but he has the best desk, more drawers and a shelf in here for his own books (my study shelves are full of bookshop stock and tax files). The 4 year old sproglet draws on the floor in the 8 square inches of space in the middle. We'd both be happier and more efficient with a room of our own. The 4 year old does have a room of her own, with a desk, but she prefers her creativity should play itself out under her parents' feet; such are infants! I suppose I should be glad it's not lego.

In The Magic Apple Tree the author's room dilemmas are solved and this is the tenor of the book: small but nonetheless important problems have their solutions worked out often by taking one's time and interacting with family and neighbours, and the right person, the right place or the right decision will out.

There are also the contradictions of country living. Only a town dweller could call a book about country life sentimental. The book has its fair share of natural violence, creature upon creature, as well as the local hunt and of course farm animals. Hill reminds us of the complicated provenance of our table:

Spring is lambing time, the fields are full of them, bleating and leaping, frisking in pairs and trios, playing the way all young things play, and Jessica says how lucky the farmers are to have all these lambs to play with, just as we have our cats and dog, and I say, yes, yes, yes, and the first, milk fed legs of lamb are hung in the butcher's stalls in the city market, covered in that creamy white caul that looks so very like a baby's lacy vest, and it will be tender and delicious, served with the earliest of the potatoes, the very first tiny broad beans, and carrot thinnings, and I cannot bear it for the meat tastes of mother's milk and sweet meadow flowers, and turn to ashes in my mouth...But later in the year I shall manage the chops all right, thickly smeared with my own mint or redcurrant jelly, just as I feed our own hens in the morning and then go to collect a freshly-killed one later the same day...to eat at night.

The language might be as tender as the meat but the eating goes on.

Throughout the apple tree in the garden helps pin the whole together. We see it at different times of day, in different seasons, and in different social situations. The tree rather than a cast of characters holds the book together, representing both change and continuity, seasons and landscape, the traditions of the past and the hopes of the future.

I go to the top of the seven stone steps and look down, at the magic apple tree and at my daughter dancing beneath it, arms outspread to the cats and the dog, and to the bending sunflowers, and the country beyond, the Buttercup field, the Rise and all the flat Fen, still sunlight, all the sky, still blue.

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I was lucky enough to read this in the Long Barn Books anniversary edition which appears to be out of print at the moment. If you can find a copy then I recommend you do as it is beautifully produced with John Lawrence's engravings still in attendance from the original Hamish Hamilton publication. Otherwise there are more plentiful copies of the Penguin version easily available. Both Ibooknet and Biblio have secondhand copies of the Hamilton and/or the Penguin.

BAFAB Round-up

A quick round up of some of the BAFAB giveaways about on the blogosphere:

Musings from a Muddy Island - which turned 1 yesterday. Happy Blogoversary Juliet!

Write from Karen

In Spring it is the Dawn

Books4All

Oxford Reader

Cornflower

Some of the draws finish quite early so don't delay your visits. And Juxtabook's draw can be found here. Anyone may enter Juxtabook's draw, you don't have to have a blog, or have commented here before, and I am happy to send internationally. Thanks to everyone who has entered already.

Edited to add a few more giveaways:

Stuck in a Book

Shelf Love

Random Distractions

and coming up on the outside Books, Mud and Compost

Does "Mr Collins" stop you enjoying a book?

Over at Random Jottings Elaine mentioned being aggravated by a couple of female characters in the Inspector Lynley novels. She noted that one was "the female character I would most like to kick in the butt", and this got me thinking about annoying characters in general.

My characters that "I would most like to kick in the butt" include Catherine Morland and Fanny Price courtesy of Miss Austen in Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park respectively, and Cathy Earnshaw in Wuthering Heights. Also in contention are George Eliot's characters Gwendolen Harleth from Daniel Deronda and Rosamond Vincy from Middlemarch. To be honest I think Rosamond Vincy takes the prize. There is something about a lot of heroines in nineteenth century novels that sets my teeth on edge. They're often either vapery and missish, or potentially bitchy rebels that are just a bit too tea-party or lady of the manorish in their rebellion, or failing that they are just dishonest. Give me the eighteenth century Moll Flanders over silly sly Victorian Cathy Earnshaw any day.

In the spirit of equality male characters for whom the same treatment is required include, for me, Joe in Ian McEwan's Enduring Love, Louis de Bernieres Captain Correlli (he of the Mandolin), Mr Collins in Pride and Prejudice (of course!), Margaret Hale's father in Mrs Gaskell's North and South and Paul Dombey senior in Dickens' Dombey and Son and Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse. Oddly I can think of more irritating men in twentieth century novels than in the nineteenth century ones. For women (avoiding chick-lit) I think the chronology of irritation is reversed.

In children's fiction of course many irritating characters are included deliberatly as irritating characters, and you are meant to enjoy your irritation. Gwendolen in Malory Towers, Susan Pyke in Ruby Ferguson's Jill books, Crabbe and Goyle in Harry Potter (though of course these latter become something far more sinister) are just a few. Not only do they irritate the reader, often humourously, they irritate the characters in the books too. Interestingly you get this a lot in Jane Austen too: Caroline Bingley and Lady Catherine de Burgh and (again) Mr Collins in Pride and Prejudice alone. Irritating characters in adult novels rarely do this I think, and it is strangely a feature of Austen's work. Gwendolen Harleth and Cathy Earnshaw are explosively annoying to the other characters in the novels, rather than being scratchily irritating. Maybe it is partly because of this feature that Austen shares with children's fiction, that Austen is so easily enjoyed by any child (girl usually) old enough to cope with the vocabulary. It helps create the surface lightness and bubbly sensation of mild social tension, so beloved of the traditional "Janeite", regardless of whether you fully understand the real maelstrom turning underneath.

Irritating characters interestingly do not necessarily impair one's enjoyment of a book. In fact I would put almost all of the adult novels I have mentioned very high on my list of all time favourites. So long as the irritating character is balanced in a good mix then, no problems. For me my least favourite of the adult novels above is Wuthering Heights, and this, I think is because so many of the characters share the same facets of Cathy's character that annoy me so. If you are not annoyed by Cathy, then you probably feel more positively about Wuthering Heights. WH is so incestuous (literally as well as metaphorically) that characteristics are bound to be replicated; it is like watching marked or even bad characteristics in a dog being deliberately bred though an entire extended gene pool. For me it is bad enough reading about Cathy without Heathcliff, Hareton, Hindley, Joseph and the rest.

Contrastingly Pride and Prejudice is enhanced by Lady Catherine and Miss Bingley, they make Elizabeth's enagement more than a good romantic conclusion; it is also a social victory. We could perhaps have lived without Mr Collins though!

So which literary characters would you "most like to kick in the butt"? Do they have the potential to spoil books for you, or do you find it doesn't matter? 

Buy a Friend a Book Week and more on Haworth

Prize draw 1: As BAFAB week is fast approaching it seems fortuitous that I have a copy of The Road to Haworth. This little hard back volume covers the Bronte story in Ireland (facts, not a fictional version) and I am offering it as a prize. It is secondhand (I am a used book dealer after all) but I also have a small selection of mint postcards from the Bronte Parsonage Museum Shop which I will include as well. The postcards show interiors of the parsonage plus the famous Apostles cabinet which is mentioned in the red room in Jane Eyre. To enter all you have to do it leave a comment on this post.

Prize draw 2: I also contribute to the Ibooknet blog Books4All and on there I am offering a paperback novel. It is fairly recent, it is literary and it is yours if you are first out of the hat after commenting on the appropriate post on the Ibooknet blog.

N.B. To enter both draws you have to comment on both blogs.

Lastly, returning to Haworth the photos were taken a few weeks ago, not when we went to the Simon Armitage reading, but when we went to see the Fay Godwin exhibition at the Museum. It is Fay Godwin whose photographs so beautifully illustrate Ted Hughes' Elmet.

I have a few more Haworth photographs which I shall add below as I know from the stats that many visitors here are from outside of the UK and may not know, or have a Chance to see the landscape that it is so important to the Bronte novels. Most of them are just shots of the countryside. You'll notice that there are plenty of trees; Mrs Gaskell says otherwise. The difference is economic I think. The apparent barrenness of the area when Mrs Gaskell was there was not just her famous exaggeration, but also the over-grazing of land and over-felling of trees caused by having a fast increasing and very poor population.

The first photograph is of the parsonage from behind and above from the conservation meadow. The rest are snaps of the outlook from Haworth and some features from within the village.

 

...the road to Haworth

In a town one does not look for vivid colouring; what there may be of this is furnished by the wares in the shops, not by foliage or atmospheric effects; but in the country some brilliance and vividness seems to be instinctively expected, and there is consequently a slight feeling of disappointment at the grey neutral tint of every object near or far off, on the way from Keighley to Haworth. The distance is about four miles; and as I have said, what with villas, great worsted factories,

rows of workman's houses,

with here and there an old-fashioned farm-house and outbuildings, it can hardly be called country any part of the way.

...Right before the traveller on this road rises Haworth village; he can see it for two miles before he arrives,

for it is situated on the side of a pretty steep hill, with a background of dun and purple moors, rising and sweeping away yet higher than the church, which is built at the summit of the long narrow street.

... the ascent through the village begins

...The old stone houses are high compared with the width of the street,

...which makes an abrupt turn before reaching the more level ground at the head of the village, so that the steep aspect of the place in one part, is almost like that of a wall. But this surmounted, the church lies a little off the main road on the left;

...hundred yards, or so, and the driver relaxes his care, and the horse breathes more easily, as they pass into the quiet little by street that leads to Haworth Parsonage.

...The parsonage stands at right angles to the road, facing down upon the church; so that, in fact, parsonage, church and belfried school house, form three sides of an irregular oblong, of which the fourth is open to fields and moors. The area of this oblong is filled up with by a crowded church yard...

Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Bronte, Chapter 1.

Simon Armitage

Last night Mr J and I had the great pleasure of listening to poet Simon Armitage read at a Bronte Society event in Haworth. I have enjoyed his work for a long time both as a reader and a teacher, indeed the first poem I ever taught was 'About his person'. Armitage's work is a technical masterclass which is a teacher's dream of quick witted similes, rich metaphor and structural finesse. Juxtaposed with the clear apprenticeship in traditional form is his laconic, vernacular word play and easy conversational style, and the ability to pull off wit, absurdity, pathos, or loss and pain as the subjects twist and turn through his work. Work which has now been published over a frightening number of years for a man who is only just approaching his mid-forties and includes the snappy Book of Matches, the poignant Out of the Blue (providing memorial work on 9/11, World War II and Cambodia) and the self depreciating autobiography Gig: The Life and Times of a Rock-star Fantasist.

Assembling in the upper room of a chapel in Haworth were assorted members of the Bronte Society and poetry enthusiasts from the locale; a pleasing age mix from a couple of teenagers to those in late middle age. After a brief introduction from one of the Bronte Society Arts officers Simon began to read and immediately had the audience in the palm of his hand. The first two poems he picked were hilarious; the first on the surreal musings of a sperm whale and the second on the quasi biblical crossing of a causeway before the tide was properly out. He had his rather staid audience rolling with laughter. His ad libbed comments between the poems were also funny, and his timing when reading was like watching the best of comic actors. Having got us totally onside he moved on to a range of poetry covering a great mix of styles and emotions. His preambles before each poem made everything quickly accessible even if you had not heard that poem before, or if the poem proved difficult. And don't be fooled by his easy style, his work is often challenging and his little talks helped to peel away stylistic or thematic layers.

After a well run break (tops marks for Bronte Soc organisation) he read again beginning with the poem 'Emily Bronte' by Ted Hughes from the book variously called Remains of Elmet or simply Elmet in its reissue. The Parsonage is running an exhibition of Fay Godwin's photographs which are an integral part of Hughes' book, so this was particularly appropriate. Simon went on to explain that Elmet was his poetry bible and recommended that if you only ever buy one book of poetry this should be it. We have both Elmet and Remains of Elmet and I shan't argue with him there.

Elmet having given him a nice link to more personal poetry he went on to read poems about his childhood and family. A cute piece inspired by his teenage love of punk was concluded with the surprising comment that it was a sonnet - "That's what happened to punk in our house", he added wryly - but in truth it is a tribute to his light handling of form that the structural foundations of his poems don't over-bear. He ended his recital with the poignant 'Evening' from his recent Tyrannosaurus Rex and the Corduroy Kid.

The clapping at the end was roof raising and had it not been such a small intimate venue where such gestures seemed inappropriate it was that sort of applause that becomes a standing ovation. I have seen other poets read including his rival for the soon to be announced Poet Laureate position Carol Ann Duffy, but Armitage combines depth, humour, warmth and technical wizardry like no other at the moment. He also has the long view combining a very modern approach with a real understanding of context, hence his pacey, readable and sharp translation of Gawain and his reworking of some of the Classical tales. His performance was superb and if you ever get the chance to see him then I really recommend it. You don't need to know his work to get a lot of out the evening. As a bookseller I kept a close eye on the mobile Bronte Society Bookshop in the corner and despite bringing a lot of stock I noticed they just about sold out of Armitage's work: no higher tribute really.

At the end Simon was asked if he would take some questions, which he clearly hadn't been expecting, but he took it in good part and gave lengthy thoughtful answers on poetry, music and influences.

As if it wasn't enough that he is talented on the page, or as poetic raconteur, apparently he has also begun a career as a rock musician. If you like The Smiths or Joy Division or other northern rock of the 80s then you'll probably like The Scaremongers self-depreciatingly described as "The Sound of Mature Huddersfield". If only all mid-life crises could be so good.

The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells

Despite struggling a bit in the middle I did finally finish The War of the Worlds. I am glad I didn't start reading Wells with this volume else I don't think I would have picked up another one. Having finished it I decided to leave it a week before trying to write about it; I felt a bit of distance was required to make proper sense of things.

Narratively speaking the whole thing is preposterous from the start. The un-named narrator falls in immediately with an astronomer which means he witnesses the martian explosions that herald the coming threat. He then happens to be in the right place at the right time to witness the first capsule and the emerging creatures. This kind of marked coincidence happens chapter after chapter. Clearly, if you are going to have  a first person narrator then they have to be both a witness and a survivor but Wells takes it to absurd lengths. It is made worse by the fact that there is no characterisation whatsoever. The narrator is just a function and it is hard therefore to emotionally engage with what is happening. The events hardly move out of the home counties which is exasperating too.

What makes all of the above a problem is the real drive of the book is the shock factor, and the impact of the new; the science fiction of it all. Of course, this is a book it is impossible to come to cold, and what was new and brightly imaginative in Well's hands in 1898 is now hackneyed, trite and reminiscent of 1950s B movies. Without a really strong plot, proper narrative design, characterisation, humour or emotion it is dated, dated, dated.

Despite all that should you read it? Yes, I think you probably should. There is no denying its importance in the SF genre. My copy has Brian Aldiss quoted on the front, "The foundation stone for all alien invasion stories", and indeed it is. There are some eerie moments in the invasion, and many salient observations about human behaviour, government, colonialism, armed reactions to unpredictable threats, man's interaction with the environment and man's treatment of animals.

The ordinary sapper is a great deal better educated than the common soldier, and they discussed the peculiar conditions of the possible fight with some acuteness. I described the Heat-ray to them, and they began to argue among themselves.

'Crawl up under cover and rush 'em, say I,' said one.

'Get aht!' said another.'What's cover against this 'ere 'eat? Sticks to cook yer! What we got to do is to go as near as the ground'll let us, and then drive a trench.'

'Blow yer trenches! You always want trenches; you ought to ha' been born a rabbit, Snippy.'

A eerie portent for the first world war and the cold war and perhaps also the war on terror. 'What's cover against this' indeed. Further, though the martian requirement for living space is not a total parallel with the expansion of Nazi Germany (as mars as an environment is presented as dying whereas 1930s Germany was not) but it does still make you think of lebensraum, with the martian attitude to humans being akin to untermensch.

Other twentieth century concerns such as farming, animal welfare and vegetarianism are also foreshadowed here:

They did not eat, much less digest. Instead, they took the fresh living blood of the other creatures, and injected it into their own veins...Let it suffice to say, blood obtained from a still living animal, in most cases from a human being, was run directly by means of a pipette into the recipient canal.

The bare idea of this is no doubt horribly repulsive to us, but at the same time I think that we should remember how repulsive our carnivorous habits would seem to an intelligent rabbit.

It is such reflective nuggets that make the book worth persevering with. It will not shock or frighten you as it might have done your great-grandparents, it is embarrassingly parochial in places, and woefully stilted at times, but it has the dual virtues of being short and an important piece of literary history. So try it, but don't let it put you off Wells if this is your first go. And don't read it in the Red Penguin edition as I did. It infuriatingly has the superscript numbering for footnotes, but no actual notes, and as the contemporary reaction and situation of this book is important I think the notes would have been most useful. The Penguin volume that is edited by Patrick Parrinder and has an introduction by Brian Aldiss looks a much better bet, and to be honest a bit of partisan enthusiam from a fan and fellow writer like Aldiss might have been just what was needed to help me through the book's time delivered failings.

My favourite H. G. Wells so far has been Tono-Bungay, and I have Ann Veronica lined up now too. Can anyone with wider Wellsian experience recommend where they would start with his work, or what they think is his best work? I'd be delighted to know.

My Last Thoughts on Age Banding

Thank you to everyone who took the time to read and/or comment on my last post. My visitor stats rocketed for several days so it is obviously a topic of interest. At the risk of boring those not following the saga I am going to make a few more observations before going back to reviewing books, and in part I hope to answer some of the points raised in response to my post.

I think the main problem with the argument is that, in principle, the No Age Banders are right. Of course no-one should want to put kids or books into categories, and categories will change over the years too, and will date as average reading ages and the subject matter considered suitable for a particular age group alter over time. Juliet points out that even if removable stickers (and I admit they are horrible, unevironmentally friendly and, as a used bookseller, the bane of my life!) were used they might quickly become part of the permanent book image. Jane and Vanessa both point out the unbalanced and potentially inaccurate 'research' which doesn't seem to have any academic standing, that has come out of marketing-land, and they are rightly suspicious. Adele Geras (in a comment to my last post and on the Guardian books pages) points out that authors have not been consulted about what happens with their own books. These are all important parts of the debate.

However ...

tackling the easy one first - Adele's point. I appreciate and sympathise that it must be awful to have your work messed about with but what has that to do with the reading public? Authors might get bad illustrations, bad printing, bad book binding and a whole pile of more irritating features pushed the way of their work of art but that is between them, their agents, and their publisher. It has nothing to do with kids and reading. Why sign a petition about only one tiny aspect of publishers interfering in authors' work? I understand authors' personal annoyance, but don't see why this should be the subject of wider debate.

Vanessa's worries about the unsubstantiated market research and the Tescoifcation of the book sale world are well grounded and shared by me too. Tesco is quite dominant enough. She is quite right to worry, but then the dormant teacher in me thinks - some kids might get books who would not have done so previously, and will Tesco be any worse at it than Smiths? Non-literary families don't go to book shops nor do they go to libraries unless taken by school but they do go to supermarkets and to shops that sell other things like CDs or computer games (ie W H Smiths, or Woolworths). Kids from such backgrounds don't buy books at all, if they ever have them then they are bought for them by someone else. If the banding is in the shop and removable ie a sticker on the front or on the shelving then the kids might never see it, and to be honest even if it was printed directly on there I really don't think they would notice. Most kids don't notice signs in red letters several inches high. Do we want more democracy from the book world for kids currently disenfranchised? If yes, then all power to Tesco as they'll do more for literacy than Ofsted have ever done. I want both good independent bookshops where I can discuss books with knowledgeable people and for books to be available to people from backgrounds different to mine. If Tesco need age banding then why not - just don't make it permanent folks (can I start a separate petition for that?).

Juliet points out there is some classification already on shelves, and in the same vein Vanessa notes that she uses the concepts pre-school, developing reader, confident reader and young adult (which I would translate in teacher speak as early years, key stage 1 and 2, key stage 3 and key stage 4). If you want to argue that kids aged 8 won't read a book for age 6 kids then you've got admit the correlation that a kid in key stage 3 and a poor reader might not like to be a "developing" reader if he or she knew others the same age were "confident". In other words, there is no way around classification. Kids know this too even if we don't. They know because they recognise attempts to avoid competition and failure for what they are: gilded fibs. They know if they can't read so well as others. They are tested, classed, set all the time. They are used to it. They are also used to age banding on content for films.

Actually perhaps that would be a happy compromise - use the U, PG, 12, 15 and 18 notions. Everyone knows them, they know they are related to content and have no ability stigma.

What has worried me most about all this, far more than poor market research, publishers' desire for more sales, and the growing dominance of Tesco, is that it has revealed how far removed from most real reading situations the movers and shakers in our democracy are. It is really scary that influential people can say "let them use the cover" to tell them which book is right; this is "let them eat cake" for the 21st century. A two nation state or what! For once, maybe for the wrong reasons, a literary barrier called "how to buy a child a book" might be being broken down. See Jane's comments on helping a traveller child to read and then ask yourself if this a barricade worth manning with a petition, or if it should be broken down altogether?

Enough ... back to book reviewing next time, I promise.

No to Age Banding - what is so black and white here?

I have been putting off about posting on this because I don't want to fall out with anyone. The Say No to Age Banding campaign is being supported by many bloggers and authors whose blogs/work I enjoy and whom I respect in many ways. But as a blogger on both literature and literacy I can't ignore it any longer.

If you have managed to miss out on this debate you can read Vanessa's eloquent explanation here, Juliet's here and an impassioned plea by guest poster Steve Augarde on dovegreyreader here.

Steve Augarde notes: "I’ve yet to hear of any author, teacher, librarian or reader who thinks this a good idea." So I guess it is time to stick my head above the parapet. I don't necessarily think it is a good idea to indelibly mark a book as part of the book production process, but a sticker, why not?

There have been impassioned comments on the above blogs by readers and writers, many of them professional readers or writers, about how they or their children read outside the assumed ages of certain types of literature and profited from doing so. Of course. Me too. But let me throw something else into the pot here.

Just addressing Steve's criteria for support/objection: I have an English degree, a post graduate teaching qualification, an MA on the 18th century novel, teaching experience including being "second" in the English department and whole school literacy co-ordinator. I have a decade of experience marking GCSE exams scripts, and I now run my own business selling books. Oh and I am a parent and an aunt. My father was a head teacher and my mother a specialist in the teaching of reading, so I came from a very literate home. I am lucky, and because of that I think this idea needs a second glance.

Back over a decade ago, when I started teaching as a starry eyed middle class graduate in one of the most "challenging" schools in the country, in one of the most deprived areas of the north of England, I had strong feelings about the individuality of kids, and how reading stereo-typing was bad etc. etc., and I would have jumped like a shot to sign this petition. Then I took a middle set year 7 into the library. This was a middle set note, not the bottom set. For many of the kids this was the biggest library in which they had ever been. Even so it was not huge. A long wall of books about 8 bays wide ran away from you as you entered, then there were 2 bays across the bottom of the room before the shelves turned back for about 3 bays, cutting the bottom of the room in half. The other long wall was full of shiny new pcs and desks for homework. Some of the brighter girls went to the shelves and picked out pink things, Baby Sitters club and such like, some, including some boys picked Goosebumps. No other books were touched. 7 years of primary school education, battling against non-literate home backgrounds, hadn't been able to make much of a boost in their literary aspirations. Most of the boys, and some of the girls, just ran about. Given a big space what else were they to do; you can see their thinking.

I persuaded them into chairs and tried to single out the non-book-selectors and assist them to find something. Faced with rows of books they were petrified, which came out as sullen and objectionable behaviour. So I started trying to narrow it down, selecting a few books which I though might interest them