Juxtabook

New Books: New in Stock

I have been a busy bee sorting through the enormous number of new books we have now have in stock. I have made a start on cataloguing and thought I'd show you what we've got:

Lots of Ford Madox Ford

 

Lots of classic criticism including works by William Empson, Raymond Williams, Terry Eagleton, Northrop Frye, F. R. Leavis etc.

 

The F. R. Leavis books include For Continuity which, as it has never been republished, is quite hard to find.

 

I have lots of books on David Jones, the poet and artist

 

And by or on Donald Davie, poet and critic

 

And lots of books on or by C. S. Lewis

 

And lots and lots of books on Thomas Hardy

 

We will also have lots of books about Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh available with more catalogued every day, plus more general books on catholicism in literature.

 

When I have catalogued the sea of books on the bookroom floor then we will have an enormous selection of books on modernism and Victorian literature in stock so if you are looking for anything please ask!

Bloomsday Book Review: Saints and Scholars by Terry Eagleton

Saints and Scholars is the only novel by literary critic Terry Eagleton. So why am I reviewing it today when it is written by a Lancastrian not a Dubliner? Because one of the three main characters is one Leopold Bloom.

Bloom is joined by two real life figures in this bizarre intellectual game. James Connolly was an Irish republican who was very badly injured in the 1916 Easter Rising. He was unable to walk and when he was executed by a British firing squad because of his leadership role in the Easter Rising he had to sit on a chair. Eagleton imagines that Connolly survives this encounter with the firing squad and, still injured but functioning, is on the run. In a remote cottage in the Irish countryside he hides to find there Bloom escaping from the pages of Ulysses and Ludwig Wittgenstein fleeing Cambridge, Bertrand Russell, and his own intellectual sufferings. Other characters include Nikolai Bakhtin, brother of the rather more famous Mikhail, sobbing into his drink in an Irish bar. Poor Leopold Bloom has escaped his life in Dublin because his wife has eloped with Stephen Dedalus and he is caught between the brilliant but dizzy Wittgenstein and the passionate and angry Connolly. Wittgenstein thinks Bloom's a Cambridge scholar sent by Russell, and Connolly thinks he's a spy. Bloom is frightened out of consciousness but ends up discussing his wife's elopement with Nikolai over cocoa. Never was a plot more bizarre.

The plot is preposterous but mercifully short. The dialogue mindbogglingly witty and erudite. And Eagleton is funny, very funny, even in Literary Theory: An Introduction he is funny, and that's no small achievement. Wittgenstein as a character is a fine comic turn having sent himself demented with his philosophical angst and habit of reading "only detective stories and St Augustine".

Wittgenstein sat in the single chair, examined the ceiling closely, looked with sudden anger at Russell as though he had just broken wind, and placed his hand to his throat as though testing himself for strangulation. This was the room in which he conducted his seminars, sitting in silence for ten minutes or more while his eyes rolled and his body writhed in agony, labouring to give birth to an insight. His colleagues would sit around watching him attentively, like the world press viewing the last threshings of a gas chamber victim or a group of doctors observing an acutely constipated patient.

'A man,' Wittgenstein announced suddenly, 'might have a stoat or other small animal in his clothing and be unaware of it.'

Full of Joycean quirks, philosophy, Irish history, drinking, and literariness it will most likely appeal to the David Lodge fan with all those literary jokes and stylistic star turns, though frankly it is more like David Lodge crossed with Tristram Shandy. An oddity of a book, it is well worth picking up if you see one. It is out of print but there are copies on Amazon and Biblio. And, as it happens, I have one in stock available for the grand total of £1.50 plus postage. Not a sale that I'll retire on, but do enquire if you're interested!

The Crowded Street by Winifred Holtby

The The Crowded Street by Winifred Holtby has been on my wish list for a long time. South Riding is one of my favourite books and I love the sparky independence of Sarah Burton. She walks a good middle path between Fanny Price and Becky Sharp as a heroine! I had high hopes for The Crowded Street therefore and I wasn't disappointed.

The Crowded Street is one of a long line of books from the early twentieth century that deal with middle class women with a brain trying to balance their emotional lives with their career, when merely thinking of a career was in itself pretty daring. It reminded me throughout of The New House by Lettuce Cooper but where The New House is a very emotionally controlled and contained novel (set as it is over one day) The Crowded Street is much more chaotic, and I don't necessarily mean that in the pejorative sense.

We begin with a childhood party in 1900. Poor Muriel, who is nothing like Sarah Burton from South Riding, gets it all wrong. She is too timid and doesn't get enough partners for her dance card. She suffers the humiliation of her mother's intervention and the rather patronising kindness of a popular boy who does eventually dance with her. Mortified she seeks solace in the quiet of the supper room. She is tempted by a bowl of sweets, she knows that they are for her, as one of the children, at least eventually, so she gives in and takes one. She is caught red handed committing this solecism of helping herself. Poor Muriel, "The Party was spoilt, The Party was spoilt."

This event, presented as a prologue, sets the tone for the novel. Muriel is a social failure, only in the most minor things, but this enough. We follow her through school, and though her twenties. Muriel's life is the terrible pedestrian one of the unmarried married Edwardian daughter. The defining features are relationships, good and bad, with the women around her: her mother, always focused on getting things right socially; her sister Connie, strong willed and selfish; Clare, daughter of an actress and a right little dazzling starlet; and motherless vicar's daughter's Delia, intelligent, independent, caustic and radical (and remarkably like Vera Brittain).

Where The New House is brilliant but a tad claustrophobic The Crowded Street is brilliant but a tad flat. Neither book is one to read if you are feeling down, in fact (reader response theory alert!) these are books where the version you experience will very much depend on what you bring to the reading yourself. Whether Muriel is irritating or sympathetic, for example, would I think change on different readings. She is such a self-conscious personality, a social wall-flower. In the narrative itself she remains elusive though you are looking at her all the time. It is like looking at a very faded water colour and inevitably you have to bring some definition and colour from your own mood to the book. This is not to say that this is a fault, rather it is actually, I think, a very clever handling of the characterisation, to make the central character so ethereal.

Leavening things are some nice social set pieces, dances, tennis parties and at-homes where little things matter a lot. There are also some times away from the Yorkshire village, at boarding school, in Scarborough during WWI, and a brief period staying at what seems like an Edwardian prototype of Cold Comfort Farmwhere Muriel, if she but knew it, was playing at being Flora Poste before Stella Gibbon had thought of her, amongst some rather twisted rural characters.

The Scarborough section is a great piece of historical writing. Holtby was in Scarborough during WWI when it was shelled by the Germans. The description of the bewilderment and fear of the civilians affects is very nicely caught. As the sick are moved away from the coast by the few available cars, the able-bodied take to their heels. As Muriel and her companions run away the army trucks full of raw recruits are driving past them in the other direction to deal with what was a suspected invasion. One can only imagine the disaster that would have followed if they had been required to engage in combat.

Although Muriel's life is flat the narrative can often be witty and light:

Some women take to crochet as others do to cigarettes.

All in all, The Crowded Street caught me in the right mood and I thought it was a lovely book. I can see though that it will not be for everyone, nor would it seem lovely every time. It does seem in many ways ahead of its time being published some years before either The New House or Cold Comfort Farm, and that is almost a good enough reason to read it on its own.

New Books: TBR pile

I have taken in well over 1,500 books this last two weeks, the most I have ever acquired in one go. The majority are mainly for stock of course, though that's a moot point when you have to hurdle them to get to the front door. I have also lots of new books from publishers, from visits to two libraries, and from spending the last of my birthday funds on yet more; these volumes I have to hurdle to get into bed. I have photographed them on the sitting room mantelpiece as that is the about the only place left in the house not full of other books, and you will see that today's themes are trilogies and good things that Cornflower has recommended.

 

As you can see it is an eclectic mix. Simon and Schuster, through the Real Readers scheme, have kindly sent out a paperback copy of Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith together with a gorgeous limited edition hardback proof of Agent 6 signed by Tom Rob Smith. These two are the first and third in the trilogy. Next on the left hand pile we have The Far Pavilions by M. M. Kaye. Like Gone with the Wind this is one of those titles that I feel I out to have read but have not. I've borrowed this from my mum-in-law.

Next up is one I have had on my radar for a while. Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky by Patrick Hamilton is the umbrella name for the trilogy of The Midnight Bell, The Siege of Pleasure and The Plains of Cement. I noticed the glowing reviews for the serialisation on DVD of  Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky and the book(s) immediately went high up on my 'to be acquired' list. I saw it in the library and pounced. I shall be after that DVD next.

Jill by Philip Larkin was also a book I pounced on. I've had enormously pleasure loathing the poetry of Larkin over the years, since I did Whitsun Weddings for A-level in fact. I admire Larkin's writing but find little to like. The depth and variety of things not to like is, however, enormous. I have always wondered if I'd feel the same way about his prose. The edition I have got has a nice introduction by Larkin where he is effusive about Bruce Montgomery aka Edmund Crispin which gets us off to a more cheerful start than I was expecting. What the actual novel is like remains to be seen.

Lastly on this side of the pile we have The English German Girl by Jake Wallis Simons and Nimrod's Shadow by Chris Paling which were the two books from Fiction Uncovered that most appealed before my funds ran out. Fiction Uncovered with its promoting of new fiction seems like a jolly good thing. The first place I saw Fiction Uncovered mentioned was on Cornflower so thanks to Karen I now have these tempting two volumes.

On the other side I have a nice review copy of Gillespie and I by Jane Harris which I am thoroughly looking forward to as I have heard so much good about it, again especially from Cornflower.

The Borrible Trilogy by Michael De Larrabeiti is one that I read as a young teen. I remember that I was quite shocked by the violence and that it features some sort of demonic version of the Wombles and that it was also quite witty and not like anything else that I had read at the time. It was a library book and I had not seen it since. Having spotted the trilogy again recently I couldn't resist.

 I, Coriander by Sally Gardner is another one from the library, and again I've had my eyes open for it since I saw this review from Cornflower a couple of years ago.

Like Bees to Honey  by Caroline Smailes is Caroline's most recent book. She has a reputation for difficult subject matter and though I love her blog I suspected her early work would be too dark for my tastes. Like Bees to Honey is altogether a perkier tale I gather and I've wanted it for a while.

Rattling through the last volumes: The Cleansing Flames is the last of the wonderful St Petersberg Mysteries. Thank you to Faber for the review copy. Marcus Sedgwick's My Swordhand is Singingis a YA version of the vampire myth, with all the Eastern European trappings I gather (I think I saw this first on Gaskella). Monsieur Montespan by Jean Teule is a review copy of a historical love story from Gallic Books.

Thank you to the publishers for their review copies but mostly to Cornflower for her reviews! You'll note I've held that review of I, Coriander in my mind for four years!

New College of the Humanities: First Thoughts

There's a lot wrong with a lot of undergraduate courses in English Literature and plenty of room for new standards to be set so I looked with interest at the New College of the Humanities just launched with much fanfare by Prof A. C. Grayling and Co. The New College of the Humanities is a new, private university designed to rival the education offered by Oxbridge and the Russell Group (and Durham which oddly is not in the Russell Group).

You can read the English prospectus here.

What I like: there appears at first glance to be a good overview on offer with courses from the year dot to the present day. I am not a great believer in sectioning off literature for an entire undergraduate course as some places do e.g. just doing twentieth century literature for three years. I think when you're an undergrad you need the breadth and depth of a good "middle ages to the present" syllabus. Literature is a conversation: you can't effectively participate when you join in near the end.

What I don't like:

1. There is no major language component. I know it is billed as an English Literature degree not Literature and Language but language is still pretty crucial. There's "Varieties of language in conversation and literature" but that appears to be it, and that is optional. There's no suggestion that they'll be studying Anglo-Saxon literature in the original; surely you'd need a separate Anglo-Saxon language module before you could do that. I am not so traditional as to think it vital that you do Anglo-Saxon texts in the original but to have no history of the development of the language course as an alternative seems remiss.

2. There is no overt literary theory. There's an Approaches to Text module which might be a language course or might be a theory course but seems rather more a simple critical techniques course seeing as the set books are called things like Literary Studies in Action and Ways of Reading rather than something like Literature in the Modern World: Critical Essays and Documents (I don't think I've ever seen a prospectus for undergraduates, and that's first year undergraduates, that doesn't make Walder or one of the alternative anthologies compulsory reading). Lots of people don't like literary theory but you cannot put genies back in their bottles very easily. Literary theory exists and can't be ignored. A good degree should have an overt introduction to the subject and the option to study one or more theories from a purely philosophical standpoint. This degree appears to have no overview of theory and two courses (women/postcolonial) that are optional. As there is no major theory course preceding them I can only assume that they will look at a few books by women or ethnic minorities and that this will largely be the reading of those texts not the study of feminist theory or postcolonial theory philosophically. In fact, I hope I am wrong, but it would appear that women and ethnic minorities have been added as a bolt-on. Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Woolf and Toni Morrison do not make for a balanced course otherwise very, very, heavy on the DWEMs.

3. The only novel post-1945 mentioned on the reading list for the compulsory courses is Toni Morrison's Beloved. Damn good book. But where is the rest of post-war fiction? There is a course called 'the novel' and other courses that might have a post-war novel or two in passing but it seems very light.

4. For this superficially traditional course they are going to charge £18,000 a year. I haven't forgotten the decimal point, that's 18 grand. To my mind what they're offering for that is just not good enough.

In case you're thinking I am asking too much in three years, my own degree, also just English Literature not lit and lang, had a first year of: history of English language, Middle English literature, Renaissance literature and Introduction to literary theory and a subsidiary (philosophy in my case, including formal logic, much vaunted by New College of the Humanities) and 9 courses across the next two years of which Milton to the Romantics, Victorian literature, Modernist literature and Contemporary literature were compulsory as was a course on Shakespeare, further literary theory, and a literary theory option (I did narrative theory, pure theory not applied, and there were about six to choose from). We were able to pick three optional courses from a large range covering everything from the Brownings to Bob Dylan to holocaust literature.

The thing about literary theory is that it is hard and potentially boring when you start. I hated it in my first two years. By the third year I was starting to get it (and quite enjoyed it once I was a post-grad). But in my first two years, broke as I was, I think I would have been tempted to pay 18k to NOT do literary theory. This course, theory-lite as it is, seems designed to appeal to the paying parents (who might not know much about it but like the traditional sounding nature of it) whilst avoiding students dropping out because of having the heebie-geebies over literary theory, and dropping out students take their 18 grand a year with them.

For further thoughts on the teaching and standards likely to be available David Allen Green has a good piece on his Jack of Kent blog.

I don't want to get in to a big argument about whether there should be tuition fees at or not as that seems a done deal for the future. But what do you think about the New College of the Humanities as proposed, and particularly what's on offer as the Literature course?

Edited to add: Harriet in the comments below points out how old fashioned the course seems and no wonder if an article in the Higher Times Ed is to be believed. Gabriel Egan finds he recognises one of the courses offered:

"The college’s website helpfully lists the courses to be taken, and I noticed that something called Renaissance Comedy: Shakespeare and Jonson is a required component. Coincidence? No: the 200-word course description, the prescribed reading, the “topics for special consideration” were all mine. Or rather not mine, as I’d sold them to the University of London (via Goldsmiths) nearly two decades ago.

Students at the New College of the Humanities will take the University of London External BA exams, so for English literature they’ll get the teaching materials written in the 1990s at Goldsmiths. Apparently my fresh-from-a-BA reflections on early modern drama strike the New College professoriate as suitable promotional material for their £18,000-a-year degree. I was just happy to get them past the gatekeepers at Goldsmiths."

Cringe.

Books on the Wish List and the Power of Bloggers

I thought I share some books from the blogosphere that have caught my eye thanks to some excellent reviews over the last few months:

When God Was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman reviewed by Simon on Savidge Reads

The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett reviewed by Jenny at Shelf love

Four Meals for Fourpence by Grace Foakes reveiwed by Harriet Devine

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt reviewed by the ever reliable Annabel at Gaskella

Illyrian Spring by Ann Bridge reviewed by Simon at Stuck-in-a-Book which is sadly hard-to-find and expensive.

And I do, in the end, either buy or borrow most of the books I note down. My wish list these days is far longer than it ever was when I relied on traditional reviews.

The Taste of Sorrow by Jude Morgan

The Taste of Sorrow by Jude Morgan has possibly the worst opening page I have ever read. Apart from that it is a beautiful book and I recommend it wholeheartedly.

Its risible opening is a mixture of sexual fantasy and an account of the death of Maria Bronte nee Branwell, mother of the Bronte sisters. Clearly not a combination with a lot of potential, unless you're trying to be funny, and I don't think Morgan was. In short The Taste of Sorrow is a fictional version of the lives of the Bronte siblings. Once we get going it very quickly becomes utterly beguiling. It is a very emotional realisation of the lives of six people not least because it is their relationships with each other, as much as their relationship with their writing, that dictates the tone of the novel. It is easy to forget, seeing them as we do through the prism of their writing, that of course the defining feature of their lives was not their work but what they were to each other, to their friends, to their father and aunt, and in Charlotte's case to her husband. The lovely thing about The Taste of Sorrow is that the characters that are created, and created utterly without cliche, would make a very readable novel even had they never put pen to paper in any meaningful way. And of course three of the siblings don't ever do that.

One of the great delights of this book is that its opening section, focusing on Maria, Elizabeth and the very young Charlotte, is not rushed in order that we can get to the famous threesome. Instead Morgan takes real time to build a convincing portrait of the eldest sisters: brave and intelligent Maria, and kindly and steady Elizabeth. "Maria will inspire her, and Elizabeth will comfort her," says the Rev Bronte as he sends Charlotte to Cowan Bridge School after her sisters.

The portraits of the father and aunt are slightly tending to caricature, not unlike Nellie and Joseph in Wuthering Heights, but are nonetheless sharply drawn. Swift dialogue nails a temperament to the page:

"Pray for Lord Byron's soul?" Again the stony chuckle. "Well, I dare say you can try."

And Aunt Branwell crystallises as the words flow past.

The emotional enormity of those early losses manages to be both elegant and unsparing. Charlotte tries to convey Cowan Bridge to Branwell:

"You couldn't get near the fire," she said at last. "The big girls shut you out so. You hung about hoping... But mostly you had to imagine yourself warm. You had to have the fire inside."

And when the time for Elizabeth's funeral comes Charlotte cannot console herself, as she had done since she was a child who'd just lost her mother, by thinking of her two elder sisters as barriers against the world leaving her safely in the middle of her siblings. After an abortive, and prophetic, attempt to push Branwell forward in the funeral procession, "You're the boy, you should follow Papa," realisation dawns that she is now at the head both literally and metaphorically and she doesn't like it, not one bit:

So she went first; after the coffin (so light, swooping up), after Aunt and Papa, she led the way, and stepped out into the gentle sunlight with such a feeling of stinging merciless exposure that she wanted to throw her arms in protection against a world besetting her; a world where there was no longer any middle to inhabit, only edge, brunt naked extremity.

Throughout the prose is this rich, this emotional. However it suits the biographical tale, and balances the physical bleakness of the lives of the four Brontes who reach adulthood, and the end result feels balanced, and witty, and light. There are lovely moments throughout, though we immerse ourselves in Branwell's nightmare and Charlotte's depressions, as we must.

If I had read the first page in a bookshop I'd have dropped this book like a hot brick. Which would have been a shame. I read it only because it was lent by a friend with a strong recommendation. In the end it was such a great pleasure, despite knowing the facts of the Brontes inside out, to see them walking and talking and writing and thinking in front of me. I loved it so much that I got my paws on a copy of Morgan's Passion, on Byron, Shelley and Keats, straight away.

 
What do you think of using real lives as the mainstay of a novel?