Where have I been?

I was embarrassed by some comments to posts I made a long time ago. I'm sure I've not posted in a year...so it is time to either close the blog or get to writing...so I'm going to get to writing.

I've been reading more books by post-WWII English women writers. I've always like the era around the war both just before and just after (not so much during the war). Elizabeth Cadell and Mrs. Read where writers I've enjoyed in the past. I've written on here about Anna Kavan who I really like, though I need to get on with her next book. But the writer I want to talk about today is Muriel Spark.

I read "Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" a couple years ago. I loved it and decided to read more of Spark. I've read the first two "The Comforters" and "Robinson". The first is a bit awkward, though it was really a good read. I must admit I started it and then put it away for a few months and came back to it. "Robinson" was compelling though. A plane wreck leaves three survivors living with a loner who owns the island. The man disappears and the three survivors then start turning on each other believing that one of them is a murderer.

The book I'm reading at the moment is "Memento Mori". It is about a group of people who are interconnected, though from different classes, dealing with getting old. The main characters are in their 70s and 80s. Spark challenges you with not only how their minds are aging, but also with your misconception that the elderly didn't have a life before. You find out that many of them had affairs in their younger years and they have memories of lost loves. I'm finding it interesting and a bit disturbing. We will see how it goes, I'm about half way through at the moment.

I'm also reading Elizabeth Bowen's "Hotel". I've just started it so no real impressions yet, except that I'm enjoying reading it.

So what did I do on vacation?

The stack on the right are the books that I read (ok two of them were ones that I wrote a review of only) and the stack on the left is the stack of books that I wanted to read. Only 2 of them I brought with me....the rest I bought on the trip...and truefully I think I bought more then that. Lots of great bookshops in the Peak District.

You may recognize the book "The Behaviour of Moths" by Poppy Adams. I met her at a book talk given by Wenlock Books. She was very interesting and personable. I'm about half way through now....and it is great. I've chosen it for our family book group and one of my sisters sped through it and loved it. I'll have to write a review soon.

Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell

Another book I finished ages ago, but haven’t had the time to write about. I decided that since I’m on vacation I was going to do my best to catch up a bit!

Gaskell is one of those people I’ve wanted to read, but had been put off because I’ve been told her work can be very difficult to get through. Most of her books are about the hardness of life in the 1800’s and can be quite dense reading. However, when the BBC made this into a TV drama I thought I would give it a try. I didn’t get a chance to watch the programs, but I feel that I would have missed out a lot of I hadn’t read this book. It is FANTASTIC.....how can it not be when it starts out:

In the first place, Cranford is in possession of the Amazons; all the holders of houses, above a certain rent, are women. If a married couple come to settle in the town, somehow the gentleman disappears; he is either fairly frightened to death by being the only man in the Cranford evening parties, or he is accounted for by being with his regiment, his ship, or closely engaged in business all the week in the great neighbouring commercial town of Drumble, distant only twenty miles on a railroad. In short, whatever does become of the gentlemen, they are not at Cranford. (1)

Now, as a woman, how can you not find that intriguing! Especially when you have been told how little control women had back in that time? It is written from the standpoint of a young lady who visits. I think this was an interesting thing to do, get bored...go stay with someone for a few months. Back when you couldn’t easily go visit for a day, this seems to be the way to do things. She stays with several ladies during the time frame of the book and shows us life in several different living conditions. I enjoyed it, and would suggest it to anyone needing a light and enjoyable read.

I have to admit I enjoyed the book also because it was one of those tiny editions that you could easily see a young lady of the time period putting in her receptacle to pull out and read as she walked in the garden. It is about 3” by 4”, with tiny writing. I love these editions especially that have a large margin at the bottom. I can see someone even more reading these as they walked or sat in a garden, with plenty of room of their fingers to hold the pages open. So as you can see...I am a bibliophile of the extreme. Given an opportunity to read a book in a newer edition or an old one...I always choose the old. I think that it adds to the feel of the time period of the book.

Gaskell, Elizabeth. Cranford. London: Oxford University Press, 1965.

A Stranger Still by Anna Kavan (Helen Ferguson)

As promised I’ve finished this book, a while ago actually. I’ve found it hard to find the time to sit down and write though, even if I can do it from my bed (see earlier post). Anyway, I read this a month or so ago, but have been trying to think of how to write the review. I think it would be best to be a bit sketchy, because the book is easy to get a hold of new or used.

This book was much easier to read then Let Me Alone. The Kavan character isn’t central to the plot. Instead the plot revolves around the Lewison family. Cedric Lewison owns a department store chain, and has done very well for himself. Kavan, the author, I feel likes to show rot in families. Cedric doesn’t realize that he can’t control his partners anymore then he can control his family. Slowly things begin to change and go further out of his reach. His older son isn’t has business savy as he is and can’t take care of the business when Cedric becomes ill. His other son Martin, isn’t interested in the family business and has married a woman that has brings shame on the family. The daughter falls in love with the man that helps to topple Cedric’s empire. His partners take over the bulk of the shares and he is not longer in control of his business.

The Kavan character is involved only in a small way. We see her has she has left her husband and has moved back to England. She has opened a shop with a school friend, though this isn’t working out very well. Kavan just isn’t interested enough. When she decides to leave she feels that she has had an epiphany:

It was as if on this night of her twenty-fifth birthday someone had suddenly called her to account for herself. The sense of unreality had left her, she felt clear-headed as never before. She stood there in absolute honesty, looking into herself. She was suddenly, objectively, aware of the girl Anna Kavan, an individual human being, alive in the world, alone, without support, without obligations, capable of intelligent thought and responsible for her own destiny. For twenty-five years she had existed fortuitously. Her life had unrolled itself haphazard, without definite aim, direction or method. From laziness, from good nature, from thoughtlessness, from indifference, she had drifted into one meaningless situation after another. She had allowed chance external circumstances to control her life. She had relied vaguely for support on something indefinable and non-existent, on something outside herself. There were, she knew, elaborate systems of thought, philosophies and religions, specially designed to provide external support. But as far as she was concerned she knew they were useless, void. She was completely reliant upon herself, completely independent. She shuddered as she realised her utter freedom and the responsibility it implied. With perfect clearness she saw the futility of her past life; saw that it must be changed. She must change everything. Now, at once she must assume control of her existence. (55-56)

This all sounds great, but she finds that it isn’t that easy. For a woman of that age, she can’t just make her own decisions because she has no financial freedom. Even though she was in business with her friend, she was relying on her friend to make the money and her part had been finance by her Aunt. She was a good saleswoman, but her heart had to be in it, and it often wasn’t. She just wasn’t interested enough. She needed to find something that she could do herself, but that was impossible because she had not been taught skills. She ends up back under her Aunts financial control for awhile until she meets Martin Lewison, Cedric’s son. This is where the two stories collide. Anna and Martin fall madly in love with each other. Finally, you hope that Anna will find happiness. But of course, it isn’t to be. Martin can’t deal with the idea of having someone else relying on him. Germaine was ok as a wife, because she didn’t need him for anything. They got on with their own lives, and only because Cedric insisted did they divorce. But Martin finds it difficult to think that he is responsible for anyone.

There is so much more there, but I don’t want to chat on too long. The book is well worth a read and has themes that Kavan uses in most of her writings. I tried to read Goose Cross, her next book, but found it difficult going. I couldn’t take it home for one thing, because we had to Interlibrary Loan it from a library that made it reference only. I got about half way through so got the flavour of it. I can understand why it didn’t do as well as A Stranger Still, though the themes of not being in charge of your own existence are there.

Kavan, Anna. A Stranger Still. London: Peter Owen, 1995.

Update on Kavan's book " A Stranger Still"

This book is much better then her last "Let Me Alone". It has the same character in it, Anna Kavan, but she has come in to her own. The writing is much more like her book, "The Dark Sisters". I'm really enjoying it.

I process the orders for the library I work for, and one of the tutors has ordered a few of Kavan's later works and the new biography "A Stranger on Earth" by Jeremy Reed. I've been reading this biography along with the books, to get an insight from someone. There isn't a whole lot of scholarly work out there about Kavan, that I've found yet. I'm going to keep looking though. I just think it is interesting that someone that I've discovered for myself is now going to be taught in a literature course.

I told you having the computer in bed would make it easier for me to write! I wonder how many writers actually write in bed???

The Comforters – Muriel Spark

I had to take a second stab at this book. I’ve done that twice now with books, and found the second time I could read them. I’m not sure what makes the difference; probably just my mood…but it did this time. I enjoyed this book very much. It was so different then the other books I’ve been reading by Virginia Woolf and Anna Kavan. In this story, people knew or figured out what was going on in others lives. They didn’t just make assumptions on how the other characters were feeling. In this story they try to find out. Even to the extent of being really nosey. I loved it.

Laurence Manders is a snoop and has been his whole life. His grandmother is up to something, she seems to have a “gang” of men that come around to play cards. He wants to find out what is going on, not because he wants to save her from any wrong doing. He just can’t stand not knowing what is going on with people around him. His grandmother is very proud of his ability to snoop and enjoys his attempts at finding out.

Laurence’s girlfriend, Catherine, has become a devote Catholic, and is on retreat when she is introduced to the story. She comes across Mrs. Hogg who was a servant of the Manders. She seems to be very sinister, though a she says a lot about being a devote Catholic. You spend most of the book trying to figure out what her game is. Catherine runs away from the retreat, because Mrs. Hogg upsets her. When she gets home, she starts hearing a typewriter and voices repeating the thought she has had. This part reminded me so much of the movie “Stranger then Fiction” (which I loved). You wonder if Mrs. Hogg has something to do with this.

So what does all this have to do with each other? You find out that each character is living out their own fantasy, but they soon end up all tangled up with the others. It is so much fun to be taken for the ride and to see what piece is going to fit in where.

This is Spark’s first book, and she bit off a bit more then she could handle….I thought with all the different plot lines…. but she handles it really well. At the end you feel that you’ve had a fun ride and all of the questions have been answered for you. Along with the fact, you get a lot of insight into each character.

I’ve found recently reading the writers of this era; they are really good at describing people and giving you a good explanation of the motives of the characters, without using psycho-babble. For instance Laurence’s Dad finally makes an appearance at the end of the book. He was either on one retreat or another.

…he had been given cause to wonder if he did not make his retreats too frequently. Amazing things occurred at home; extraordinary events which he never heard of till later.

‘Why didn’t you inform me at the time, Helena?’

‘You were in retreat, Edwin.’

He had misgivings then, about his retreats. He told his spiritual director, ‘I might have done better to spend the time at home. My family have had to cope with difficulties…my son…my brother…my mother-in-law…one of our old servants…I might have done better had I not made so many retreats.’

‘You might have done worse,’ said the shrewd old priest, and sounded as if he meant it. It was a humiliating thought, which in turn was good for the soul.

‘They managed admirably without me,’ Edwin Manders admitted.

(227)

Edwin has qualms about being out of things at home, but in the end knows that he can’t really handle it. So he is better off in a retreat hiding from the world. I thought Sparks tells us this in a really cunning way, instead of just saying, he can’t handle family problems. Her writing is lovely too. All in all a good read, I mean who could resist a grandmother who runs a gang of thieves!

(Spark, Muriel. The Comforters. London: Macmillian, 1985.)

I have been reading, believe it or not.

In fact I’ve been reading a lot. I just haven’t felt like sitting in front of the computer at home. I have to do so much of it at work. I’m going to try and use my laptop a bit more, so that I can type in bed where I usually do my reading. I’ll see if that encourages me. Only problem is, I keep hitting the wrong buttons....ugh!!! This keyboard is so different.

So what have I been reading.....I've been trying to get back into some of my mysteries, as well as keep up with my "header" reading. I've also been reading a very good book about depression "Just Shoot the Damn Dog" by Sally Brampton. If you have suffered from depression, or know someone going through it...it is a great book. Makes you know that even though you aren't "sane" you aren't "different" then any other depressive! (Though I have to admit I hate the title.....being a dog lover!)

I've waded through Helen Ferguson/Anna Kavan's "Let Me Alone". I was just working on the review for that, but not sure if I can manage it. It is a bit difficult. There are so many different parts to it. It is autobiographical, the main characters name Anna Kavan, was taken on years later by Ferguson. It describes much of what Ferguson's life must have been like, so you don't really know where fiction and non-fiction meet. There really isn't a plot, you are just going through birth to the early 20's of the main character. Unexplainable things happen to her by other people. For example, her Dad stands her against the barn and shoots her outline with a gun. She doesn't flinch or scream, and you don't really get a sense of why other then he wanted her to be strong, or to hate him. I can't decide. Happiness seems to always be enjoyed for short spurts before people around her effect her life in a negative way. I think in the end of the book, she is finally able to choose how she wants her life to be. Well, I'll find out. I'll be reading the sequel "A Stranger Still" next.

I've also read the charming "Tales of Hill Top Farm" by Susan Wittig Albert. My mom had been bugging me for ages to read any of this series. I have to say I loved it. It helps that I love Beatrix Potter, who is the main character, and love the area the book is set in. I've been fortunate to have vacationed for a week in the Lake District and went to Hill Top Farm. My husband and I bought ourselves a large rustic wood carving of Squirrel Nutkin. The characters are interesting and like Rita Mae Brown's Sneaky Pie books, they talk...but only to each other, not to the humans.

I could go on, but I want to work on a real review....so Happy reading!

The Dark Sisters by Helen Ferguson (Anna Kavan)

I was so very, very lucky to be able to get this book. I had to Interlibrary Loan it from Dublin. The book is a bit rare because it was only printed once. The book is in great condition though, puts modern printing to shame!

I was really interested to see what Kavan, since that is the name she changed to later I’ll use it here, wrote next after reading The Charmed Circle. Wow is it good. Again we are dealing with family, two sisters, who are inexplicably tied to each other. I just finished Night and Day by Virgina Woolf and I’m finding these books and the last book I reviewed very similar. The books are about what happens when you don’t actually tell people what you are thinking!

Emerald and Karen live in an apartment together. Emerald supports Karen by modelling. This is an excellent description of Karen:

“Karen could be trusted never to do anything efficiently. She had a genius for incompetence that maddened her sister. At times it really drove her almost to madness. But in spite of her resentment and perpetual sense of grievance that it aroused in her she could not resist. Emerald’s soul rebelled always with bitterness against the helplessness in Karen that forced her into every leading role, saddling her for ever with the entire responsibility of their joint lives. The responsibility was nauseous to her and yet unspeakably dear; a sweet torture. She could never forgive Karen for inflicting it. She was passionately devoted to her sister.” (10)

Karen always lives in a dream world, rarely worrying about how she is fed or what will happen from day to day. Instead she is thinking about pixies in the woods and her embroidery.

“In spite of her helplessness there was a certain isolation and self-sufficiency about Karen. With practical things she was unsuccessful because she had no will to succeed. Such things were unreal and unimportant to her. She seemed scarcely alive to reality. Yet she had some vague life of her own, apart and lonely like the sea. And if she was troubled by her sister’s irritation, it as only faintly, superficially, as the sea is troubled. " (11)

Emerald on the other hand is realistic and active:

“Emerald, as the elder, had long assume, half avid, half reluctant, the direction and responsibility of their lives. In her the sound heritage of san-living ancestors battle, successfully in the main, against a dangerous imaginative streak bequeathed by the mother. Mainly, a wholesome zest triumphed. Inaction was distasteful to her. It pleased her to work, to be always doing things. She saw life in terms of action. But psychologically she inclined to extravagance.” (29)

In the course of the book she tries very hard to seduce a man into marriage, because she feels it would be best for them. She knows that she would not be happy with the man and his way of life, but she felt that responsibility to take care of them. This is only one of her schemes. She seems to go from one man to another, depending on who is giving her attention. One moment she is trying to capture Edmond and the next Morgan. Her vanity gets the most of her many times in this book.

The relationship between Edmond and Morgan is interesting. Both have money, though Edmond lives in the country on a great Estate and Morgan in the city. Edmond is big and country like, Morgan slight and cultivated. I’ve never read a book of this age that so clearly shows homosexual love. It is never openly acknowledged. But the love the Morgan has for Edmond is not just friendship. There is a real caring, and Kavan writes about physical contact between them that usually you would read about between man and woman.

“…he laid his hand caressingly on Edmond’s hand that was resting on the table beside him.

Edmond looked down at the hand lying on his own. In the pinkish glow of lamplight, it was wonderfully white and frail, as if refined away, with the blue veins showing their faint tracery. He frowned in bewilderment. He really did not understand his friend; and because he didn’t understand, he must always be on the defensive, a trifle suspicious of him.” (136)

The writing is well done, Edmond never really understands his friend even at the end. But then again, none of them understand each other. That is the problem. This is why relationships never seem to work in this book. The reader knows what each person is thinking, and like most of us the thoughts can be confusing. One moment Karen is delighted that Edmond is paying her attention, the next she can’t stand the fact that he is so big and clumsy. Almost in the same breath these thoughts are expressed by all of the characters in this book. For example Karen thinks this about Edmond:

“There was a certain kindliness about him that was rather touching. He seemed to watch her with an almost fatherly solicitude. It was difficult to withstand his gentle kindliness. Her heart warmed towards him. But then, all at once, she shuddered as though he had thrown a shadow upon her. Again she saw him as a heavy, indifferent man who encroached upon her with his imperceptiveness, inaccessibility, out of her secret world; to force her into contact with him. And this she could not tolerate. There could be no contact between them.” (99)

What changed her feelings towards him? Nothing that actually happens, her thoughts just flow from thinking about his kindness to his indifference.

When considering these reactions to relationship, it seems to me like they are just trying to keep people at arms length. Emerald and Karen neither want to really give in to anyone. So once they start liking someone, or see someone responding to them…they cut them off. They even do it to each other. Because of the way they act, others around them act defensively and have the same thought patterns. If the characters actually told each other about their feelings then she would have to make a definitely decision. Once someone actually tells Emerald that he loves her, she automatically runs. She can’t handle the truth any more then she can handle not knowing.

To let you know a bit more about the plot, the sisters go to Edmond’s for Christmas. Morgan is also there with many rowdy relatives of Edmond’s. Emerald first goes between liking both men to deciding the best thing for her and Karen is to marry Edmond. So she tries to lay her trap, but she can’t quite deny herself and the fact that she doesn’t really like him. He also feels threatened that Karen and Edmond like each other. (Again, if they had just talked she would have seen that Karen had no more liking for Edmond then Emerald did really.) Emerald gets very jealous and angry with Edmonds brother-in-law, who accuses her of doing exactly what she has been trying to do. Emerald can’t take that she has been found out, so she decides to leave. She tells Karen to pack up they are leaving, and Karen decides she doesn’t want to be told what to do. She refuses to leave until the next morning, and the sisters depart very angry with each other. Karen didn’t think that Emerald would really leave, but she does. For the first time you actually see Karen taking in what is going on around her and her own welfare. She crumbles. What is she to do with out Emerald? Edmond comes to see her and he falls in “love” with her. He thinks he is in love, but the reader knows that really he likes to be needed and Karen needs him. He promises to take care of her. Over the next few days he tries desperately to get her to show feeling for him, but she just can’t pretend. She knows she owes him a lot so she makes the right noises, but he can tell she doesn’t really mean it.

While this is going on, Emerald goes back to her life and finds it very difficult not to have Karen around. She finds her life shabby and boring compared to her selective memory of what life was like in the country. Her friend Carew takes her out and ends up confessing his love. She runs saying scathing things to him because she doesn’t know how to deal with true feelings. Morgan comes to her rescue and they make a trip to Edmonds to check on Karen. Morgan talks to Edmond and finds that his friend is very unhappy with the situation with Karen. Though Emerald at first tries to stay in the car, she found herself drawn to the house. She promises herself that if Karen will forgive her for leaving, she will never leave her again. She will take her back to their old life, and will take care of her forever. Karen does forgive her, and twisting the knife in a bit, Edmond tries to convince her to stay. He has decided that he wanted Emerald all the time, not Karen. Fickle, yes, but they all act that way. They are desperate to get on to some life they think is out there. Emerald, remembering the cross she is baring of promising to take Karen back to their old life and take care of her, refuses. They head back into town.

Emerald of course is very bitter…as she was to begin with…with having to take care of Karen. She thought she could go back to the old life, but seeing what life could have been like makes it even harder for her. She finds out that Karen hasn’t been as true to her sister as Emerald has, well Emerald never explained her promise to Karen…so how was Karen to know she was causing so much grief? Karen and Morgan have started to see each other when Emerald has been out. They have found that they are very suited to each other. They are both a bit other worldly and Morgan appreciates her dreaminess and doesn’t see it as a slight to his ego. At the very end, Carew comes back to see Emerald. The book ends with him coming to visit and her unexpectedly and she excepts him into her apartment.

The book ends different then A Charmed Circle, even though Karen and Emerald are still living together, the reader does know that things are in the process of changing. I felt very relieved actually. You hate to see people going round in round in circles and never learning from that what they need.

Over all a great read, and if you can get your hands on a copy…even though I’ve given away the plot etc…you might find it interesting.

Into the Wild the Movie

Wow. It was good. I'm so glad I saw it on the big screen. The views are stunning and the music was GREAT! I mean Eddie Vedders music and voice was perfect for the film. It was a long one, but I thought it was just long enough to tell the story....it wouldn't have worked shorter. The screen play stuck really close to the book as far as Chris' story. It left out the stuff about Krakauer and other people that he discusses. It sticks right to Chris. But I have to admit I cried most of the movie. I just couldn't help it!

I know people think he was selfish and put his parents through a lot of pain (and others who he met.) The thing is....his parents were selfish. Why should he have acted any different, what kind of role models were they? They didn't agree with how he wanted to live his life, and he didn't like the way they lived theirs. They didn't seem the kind of parents that would just accept what he wanted to do. Sometimes parents have to let their children make their own mistakes. The best thing a parent can do is tell them that they will support them not matter what. I'm not sure if he felt that they were......anyway...enough about that.

Another Anna Kavan book next week...