Juxtabook

A Childhood in Scotland by Christian Miller

I find it very hard when handling my book stock not to get caught up with reading sometimes! On this occasion the book I couldn't put down was A Childhood in Scotland by Christian Miller. At just 98 pages the reading of it did not distract me for long but the autobiographical tale told has stayed in my mind since.

Christian Miller was born in 1920 into an aristocratic family in the highlands of Scotland. She grew up the youngest of six and lived the kind of semi-privileged, semi-deprived life that, for example, the Mitford sisters appear to have had. In her short memoir she takes us through the rooms of the castle, introducing the family and servants who lived there, shows us the estate, and lets us join her for the key days of the year and her more abiding memories. It is hauntingly written with an economy of emotion that makes it all the more moving. What the reader is left with is the feeling of a vast amount of space and time: of course between our lives and hers, but also stretching back in that echoing empty castle over hundreds of years of ancestors.

When I was a little girl, the ghosts were more real to me than the people. The people were despotic and changeable, governing my world with a confusing and alarming inconstancy. The ghosts, on the other hand, could be relied on to go about their haunting in a calm and orderly manner. Bearded or bewigged, clad in satin or velvet or nunlike drapery, they whispered their way along the dark corridors of the castle where I was born and spent the first ten years of my life, rarely interfering with or intruding on the lives of the living.

And the people in Miller's story seem as ghost-like as the ghosts she describes at the start of the book. Her parents were distant and, though her mother was kindly, her war-wound-pained father was angry and quick to beat the children. She seemed to belong to no-one with no single adult person to call her own, and this seems the saddest thing about her life. Nannies and governesses came and went, her mother concerned herself greatly with the lives of the servants but little with her children, other staff treated the children as nuisances who got in the way. She relates how severe scoldings could happen for the wrong behaviour but there was no common ground among the adults as to what this behaviour was to be. She recalled being deprived of pudding by one governess for not having her hands neatly on the table either side of her place setting and for being scolded by her father for not having her hands in her lap when at the table. On another occasion she was sent to get a refill of sugar for the nursery sugar bowl but Cook would not let her in the kitchen. She knew she could not return with the bowl empty however, so stayed in the passage and wept.

The castle in the book seems more real than the people. Her rather distant mother though was not unkind and one can't help warming to a woman whose priorities included books:

My mother loved the little rooms. She had one fitted out as a minature library, to house her treasured collection of books. Born and brought up in the more urbane county of Perthshire, some hundreds of miles to the south, she had accepted my father's proposal of marriage after a candle-lit courtship - not having seen him in daylight before agreeing to become his wife - and seemed never to have got over her surprise at finding herself chatelaine of so comparatively uncivilised a place as the castle. Perhaps it was a sense of isolation from the sheltered world of her girlhood that made her look on her library as a sort of refuge; the tiny room lit only by the vertical arrow-slit windows, smelled of leather bindings and of the lily of the valley scent she always wore. The almost tangible presence of the characters in the books gave the room an expectant sort of magic, like the atmosphere in an empty theatre that will soon be filled with all the bustle of a play.

That last sentence is one of my favourite in the book.

Despite her childhood's emotional privations she seems to have valued the space of the castle and its estate. Childhood pastimes are regaled with some pleasure and the otherworldliness of the way of living makes every page fascinating. It is not therefore a depressing read but I came away feeling very sorry for the little girl who lived in hand-me-down boys' school jumpers fashioned into a dress with round her waist the collars of deceased dogs "the brass lables of which proclaimed our names to be Rover or Thunder or Trust".

If you are fascinated by the various biographies and autobiographies of the Mitfords then this is a must read. However it is a quieter book and the isolation of the children's lives is here unleavened by Mitford humour. There is though an intensity to the narration that makes this, in its own way, just as compulsive a read.

I have enjoyed a chat on twitter with Cornflower about this book and you might like this link that she gave to me (scroll down) as well reading her review of A Childhood in Scotland too (I didn't read her review till I had written mine, deliberately, but it is amazing how we've focused on the same things). I have also unearthed this piece from the Times archive on Christian Miller, later Bowman (you don't need to be a subscriber to read it) which is another lovely insight into the author.

Fludd by Hilary Mantel

Fludd by Hilary Mantel was one of my holidays reads from the cottage bookcase. It was a lovely book and one that I would probably not have bothered buying before reading it but now I know I will have to have my own copy.

Fludd is set in a moorland parish in Lancashire in c.1956. I picture somewhere like Uppermill or Delph above Oldham on the edges of Saddleworth moor. We focus on the Catholic parish though there is an opening caveat that the "Church in this story bears some but not much resemblance to the Roman Catholic Church in the real world". The Catholic church is on the cusp of change in these years preceding the Second Vatican Council and Fludd has something of the atmosphere of The British Museum is Falling Down but Fludd is a darker book, funny, but more wryly so. The humour of Fludd takes its tone from the moors, it is as sharp and cutting as the Pennine wind, "a wind with no breath of sea, bearing an upland odour of privation and loss". The wind of change in The British Museum is Falling Down is fresh and light and witty; in Fludd it is dank and the humour mocking. The dark, close narrow streets are in contrast to the open moor as Fludd is in contrast to the closed societies within societies of this imaginary village Fetherhoughton. The society is penned into convent and parish, Men's fellowship and Children of Mary, mother superiors and bishops, clergy and nuns. The simplest things require permission:

Father Fludd stared at the nun's feet. She said, 'I've got a dispensation for Wellingtons. A special permission, from Mother Provincial…I'm getting a dispensation for a rainmate'.

The tone manages to stay the right side of dour however and there is a very engaging cast of characters. Father Angwin has lost his faith and clings to the outward observances with a pedantic grasp, just to keep appearances going. He resists the changes demanded by the bishop, partly out of a drunken stubbornness but also partly out of a real and secure knowledge of the needs of his poverty stricken and barely literate parishioners:

'But I'm afraid,' Father Anwin said, 'that if you take away the statues, and next the Latin, next the feast days, the fast days, the vestments …'
'I said nothing about this, did I?'
'I can see the future. They won't come any more. Why should they? Why should they come to church? They might as well be out on the street?'
'We are not here for frills and baubles, Father,' said the bishop. 'We are not here for fripperies. We are here for Christian witness.'
'Rubbish,' Father said. 'Theses people aren't Christians. These people are heathens and Catholics.'

As we meet the Father he is horrified to be ordered to take down most of the plaster saints in his church. He is aware that the Bishop is likely to send him a curate, young and with new ideas, to keep an eye on him and to check that the bishop's orders are carried out. In a bizarre ceremony-less burial Angwin submerges the saints in the local soil abetted by his concerned housekeeper Agnes and Sister Philomena from the convent.

Philomena is the heart of the novel. She leaves behind the girl who was 'tossed out of believing Ireland to this God-forsaken place' for a stigmata that was imposed on her by a mother desperate for reflected glory and a priest too keen on miracles to question what was in front of him. In Lancashire where the Bishop is too sharp for superstition she is berated instead for her youth and perceived lumbering Irishness. Into her life and into Angwin's comes Fludd.

The real Fluud (1574-1637) was a physician, scholar and alchemist. Here he appears late one night in the rain and Angwin and Agnes take him in, unquestioned, as the new curate. What happens next is a kind of alchemy in the parish. The hearts and minds of Angwin, Agnes and Philomena are disturbed and changed as Fludd passes through.

Fludd is a witty historical novel, about the restraints of religions on the surface, but about much more than that in its many layers. It is about closed societies of many kinds, of education, of the genuine and the fake, of freedom, belief and faith, of love and longing and fulfilment. It is delightfully funny throughout. Philomena and her briefly mentioned relations Kathleen and Dymphna are wonderful creations, Father Angwin says to the Bishop what we would all like to say to figures of authority, and McEvoy the tobacconist (or the Devil depending on who you believe) is a nice piece of deus ex machina in a plot determined to right wrongs, flay the bullies, and free the innocent.

New to me, though first published in 1989, I curse its date for preventing me from putting it into my top ten books of the last ten years. It is certainly one of my most enjoyable reads in the last decade. Utterly delightful.

John Clare and Helpston

On our way down to Suffolk from Yorkshire we stayed for a few days in Rutland and from there we had a leisurely drive with time to take in the village of Helpston, home to John Clare (1793-1864), the "Northamptonshire peasant poet". We had been before on our way home from an ibooknet meeting held at Peakirk Books but failed to have the camera with us last time. So here we are, a quick look at Helpston:

Poor old Clare was utterly in love with his locality but suffered mental problems, the trauma of which was only added to when he was sent away to an asylum, separating him from the landscape he loved.

If you are interested in John Clare you can do no better than John Clare by Himself edited by Eric Robinson and David Powell and illustrated with wood engravings by John Lawrence. There is also a recent biography John Clare by Jonathan Bate.

For out of print items on John Clare, Peakirk Books are no longer in Peakirk, but they still operate a mail order service and have a good range of John Clare items in stock.

There is also a John Clare society.

Edited to add: Karen at Cornflower also recommends a novel treatment of Clare, in both senses of the word. The Poet's Wife by Judith Allnatt is a fictionalised verison of the relationship between Clare and his wife Patty. You can read Karen's review here. I note that The Poet's Wife has 11 5 star reviews on Amazon; it is rare to see no dissent amongst Amazon readers! Another title for my to-be-acquired list then.

South Riding on DVD

Winifred Holtby's South Riding is one of my favourite novels. It had totally passed me by that there was a TV serialisation (Yorkshire Television, adapted by Stan Barstow) of it in 1974. I don't blame myself for missing it at the time as I was only two but how have I failed to notice such a thing existed and that South Riding is available on DVD?

Have any of you seen it? Does it do the book justice? Is it terribly dated? Do I take the plunge a buy a copy or will I be terribly disappointed? Decisions, decisions.

Special edition paperbacks

When a series of books becomes very popular there is often an urge on the part of publishers to cash in on this and sell even more copies of the titles by producing several versions. The Harry Potter series famously had adult friendly versions of the cover as well as the standard one for example. Such special editions may only by available for a limited period. When new, discounted from a supermarket or Amazon could they possibly be an investment?

Well, I wouldn't recommend buying any book simply for investment; the market is so hard to predict and frequently baffles me despite ten years in the trade now. If the series is popular even a time limited edition will still sell in large numbers and may not be worth the paper they're printed on in five years. There is however a small window. This is after the special edition finished being available new and before its devotees get fed up, move on to the next thing, and flood the market with unwanted copies. During this window (which might be months, or might be a decade) there will likely be shortage of supply which probably would not make your fortune but might make you a tiny profit on the price when you bought it new.

An example: I'd love to claim credit for this, I am a bookdealer after all, but this was entirely accidental. Anyway, I bought myself the four Twilight books last year. When ordering I happened to order the special edition with the red pages for one of the four. It was the same price as as the standard copy which is why I did not notice. When they arrived I just thought Eclipse happened to have been published that way. I read the book (ok, three times, it is that kind of book) and then my husband started to read the series. He was half way through Eclipse when I noticed on a used bookselling site that red edged editions where not standard and were selling at a small premium. A quick glance at Amazon told me that they were no longer for sale new. I photographed my well thumbed copy, gave a downbeat and honest description and popped for sale online. By lunch time I had been paid five times what I had paid for it new. I had to email Mr J at work and tell him if he wanted to finish Eclipse that evening he'd better ask one of the kids he teaches if he could borrow a copy as I had sold his.

Now this happened about last October (2009). So what has happened to price of those red edged volumes in the meantime? Well on Amazon at least the price has risen slightly again on what I charged for my copy last year. Now I did price mine to sell and of course by definition if a book is being offered for sale at a particular price it hasn't actually sold at that price and may never do so. However given the speed at which I sold my battered-and-honestly-described-as-such copy (less than three hours) I suspect these prices are at least close to attainable.

All this is particularly interesting because another special edition of the Twilight books is coming out. It will be, wait for it, white! Not black. Anyway Twihards may well be beside themselves with anxiety for these new copies. Or maybe not. The key thing is that these copies are not being sold in the USA which leaves a very large market starved of copies. A window of opportunity for the free world wide delivery of the Book Depository. But what of the idle speculator? Will you make a few quid pre-ordering these, waiting till they're no longer sold and trying to sell them on? I really have no idea. The choice is yours!

 

Wading through online catalogues is murder when searching for Twilight items as there are so many versions. So here are the direct links for ...

Amazon UK

Twilight

New Moon

Eclipse

Breaking Dawn

Non-UK residents might like The Book Depository with free world wide delivery:

Twilight

New Moon

Eclipse

Breaking Dawn

Brownies

If you've fond memories of the Brownies then this article on author Verily Anderson by Jane Badger on the Ibooknet blog is well worth a look.

Holiday Reading

There can be few nicer things than arriving at a holiday cottage with a week stretching ahead of you and discovering some well stocked bookcases. Mr J and I (with our six year old) landed on our literary feet in Suffolk last week I can tell you.

The cottage sitting room had a wonderful selection catering to both our tastes. There was more literary fiction than I could possibly get through in the time but I spent the first evening covetously making myself an over-ambitious to-be-read pile for the week. There were several Robertson Davies including The Cunning Man and What's Bred in the Bone, Troubles by J G Farrell that recently won the Lost Man Booker, Graham Swift's Learning to Swim, a large selection of Bruce Chatwin and the wonderful comic thoughtfulness of Fludd by Hilary Mantel (a review of Fludd will follow in a few days).

Meanwhile Mr J, who on the whole is not a reader of fiction, was very taken with the large number of Ian Niall volumes. The only Ian Niall I've read is his excellent novel No Resting Place which follows the adventures of a gypsy family, but here were The Poacher's Handbook with the Barbara Greg illustrations, and To Speed the Plough among other titles. There was also a good selection of poetry including Edward Thomas on the Countryside: A Selection of his Prose and Verse, plus the wonderful River by Ted Hughes illustrated with photographs by Peter Keen.

Then there was the bedroom bookcase:

This was awash with Country Book Club editions of all sorts of gems on farming, canal boats, fishing, country crafts and more, plus paperback editions of early to mid-twentieth century favourites like Miss Read.

All in all the two bookcases made a welcome change from the battered Ian Rankin and Joanna Trollope that usually adorns the shelves of holiday cottages. They should seriously consider detailing the bookcases in brochures and on websites. I am sure I am not the only one who'd be swayed in choosing a booking by the quality of the bookcase contents!

What's your best holiday-read finding?

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You might also like the Independent's obituary of Ian Niall. Ian Niall's son by the way is Andrew McNeillie, poet, literary editor with the OUP, and founder of the poetry publisher Clutag Press. Juxtabook readers might be particularly interested in The Second Common Reader by Virginia Woolf in the excellent annotated edition by McNeillie; in it Woolf uses her stream of consciousness techniques to address a variety of major-minor writers including George Meredith, George Gissing, Mary Wollstonecraft, Dorothy Wordsworth etc. As McNeillie says in the introduction:

...Virgina Woolf felt that literary archaeology of this kind, upon what might be called primitive sites, no less than that conducted at more celebrated locations, could act as a restorative.

As many book bloggers specialise in this kind of literary archaeology of 'primitive sites' I think there is much here of interest.