Other people's books
Jul. 17th, 2019 02:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustI went through a phase, this spring and early summer, of reading books that were loaned to me by other people: to call them books that I had borrowed makes my part in this sound more active than it was. Does that mean I didn't enjoy them? Not at all, I never thought Oh, I wish I hadn't wasted my time reading that! But I certainly felt overwhelmed by a small flood of books. Look on this post as an attempt - long in preparation - to assert control.
It began, I suppose, with D., who returned from a visit to his sister bearing a copy of Patrick Leigh Fermor's A Time of Gifts: he had given it to her for Christmas and she, having read it, had returned it to him. Had I read it, he asked, and since I hadn't, he said, I should. There's a logic to this. I enjoy books about travel, especially those that are well written and not too modern, and A Time of Gifts is notoriously a classic of this very specific genre. But, that being the case, there must be a reason why I hadn't read it already: it wasn't that I hadn't come across it. I recognised as an old friend the golden arcadian cover, by Leigh Fermor's friend John Craxton, which I still think is the book's best feature. Yet somehow I had never read it.
I may have been deterred by the persona of Leigh Fermor himself, the well-connected scapegrace who became a wartime hero and alleged model for James Bond - and certainly as I read the book, I wanted to shake him. Having committed a series of misdemeanours which saw him expelled without rancour from a series of schools, he decides that the thing to do is to walk across Europe to Constantinople, setting off in winter. In 1933. He was 18, which may explain why this looked like a good idea, but not why no-one tried - or at any rate, was able to - dissuade him. Declaring that he will sleep in hostels and hay barns, he finds himself invited to a number of castles and manor houses, passed from branch to branch of the families of his aristocratic hosts. He keeps a diary, whose careful composition occupies many of his evenings, but this book is not that diary, which was lost along the way. It was written many years after (published in 1977) and the author's introduction makes this clear, tracing it in part to time spent in the interim recounting his adventures orally. The freshness, the lack of reflection, these are beautifully done, but they are artificial, literary choices. The reader is invited to indulge the young adventurer not by his own unselfconsciousness, but by his indulgent older self, and I continued to be irritated by this.
Nonetheless, when I reached the end, with Leigh Fermor about to cross into Hungary, I was curious to read about his adventures there, and the completion of his journey - though less so when I realised this involved not one but two more books! Discussing the book one rainy afternoon in Yell, I was rash enough to admit this to D., who has since kindly brought me those next two books. Back onto the roundabout, then!
But first: visiting A., I told her that I had been reading Peter Pan in Scarlet, hoping, because I know she is a great admirer of Geraldine McCaughrean, for a conversation which would help me to straighten out in my mind what it was doing and whether I liked it. Instead she loaned me no fewer than four books by Geraldine McCaughrean (and I came home and had that conversation with myself in this journal). The books were three early historical novels for adults, two short and one very long, and her latest book, Where the World Ends, which won the Carnegie Medal (based on a story from St Kilda, it looks grim reading. but I'm looking forward to it). I have so far read the two short novels.
The thing about The Maypole is that - well, the cover copy says that it is "a love story, drawn from the old ballad tradition..." The language is a joy. It begins "Day came in like Joshue, with ramshorn blasts of sun..." and carries on to describe the village waking up, gaudy as a scene from a Book of Hours. I could enjoy this a lot, if I weren't distracted: on the next page we meet two young men, one of whom is Robin Musgrave, and on the next they are discussing the local castle, which belongs to someone called Barnard. So we know where we are, and it seems likely that this will not tuen out well. This story of Little Musgrave follows the ballad quite closely (I liked the suggestion that only the very wealthy slept between sheets, and that others would find it a novel sensation). This makes Lady Barnard a difficult character to like, and although McCaughrean moves away from the obvious interpretation (listening to the ballad, I can only conclude that she's a psychopath), I didn't find her alternative (she's very young) entirely convincing. Other characters were more sympathetic; I even felt sorry for Lord Barnard. But for once I felt thoroughly spoilered; though there's no guarantee I'd have enjoyed the book more if I hadn't.
Reading Fires Astonishment was the opposite experience: I had no idea where the story was going to go, or what kind of story it was going to be. For one thing, there are reports of a dragon: will this be a story with room in it for a dragon? Yes, it turns out, it will, though the dragon may not be what it seems. Then for much of the way I had no idea whether things would end happily or unhappily. Blame my notorious blind spot for humour, and the fact that comedy is just tragedy that happens to someone else (and vice versa). Regard this not as a spoiler, but as a Public Service Announcement: this is a comedy, and it has a happy (though often unexpected) ending. If I had been confident of that earlier, I'd probably have enjoyed it more as I was reading it, rather than saving my enjoyment for hindsight.
Another book I mentioned during my ramblings in Neverland, was the first volume of Gillian Cross's The Lost, which J. loaned me with the promise that if I liked it, she'd lend me the rest of the trilogy: and I did like it, so she did. But there is very little I can say about it. Not so much a trilogy as a novel in three parts, each volume ending at a point of rest, something achieved and more mysteries opening before the reader. By the end, most of the questions have been answered, and many of the answers are very satisfying: questions I thought were mine alone had in fact been planted for me to wonder about, and provide important plot points. I was fortunate to read it with absolutely no idea what it was about, or where the story was going, and this gradual revelation was a large part of my enjoyment, which I'd hate to spoiler by writing about it. So this is a fairly minimalist account, but here goes:
The Dark Ground opens with Robert and his sister on a plane, flying home from holiday - and then Robert finds himself somewhere else. If you poke about the internet for more information, it will tell you what has happened, but even that revelation, a half dozen pages into the book, is more than I want to give away. But since those half dozen pages have a 'thrilling adventure, survival' flavour which is not my thing, I will point out that there is a prologue, there are other characters, and it is their interactions which I found irresistible.
Although Robert remains a central charater, there is a major shift in perspective with The Black Room and The Nightmare Game. I read them thirstily, to find out what happens next, but I didn't find them quite as wonderful as The Dark Ground. And I came away with the suspicion that points had been stretched in the treatment of Robert: there is a contradiction between his character and his eligibility of inclusion in the story which felt as if something had been retrofitted. When I returned J.'s books to her, we talked about this: she was inclined to blame the character, rather than the author, for what we both saw as an error of judgement. Which is a more interesting reading of the character, assessing him for himself where I had seen him as pure plot device.
Don't be put off: for all my reservations, the trilogy is an impressive and spellbinding piece of work.
Closing the circle with one more borrowed book, what I picked from the pile that D. had brought was not the next instalment of Patrick Leigh Fermor but Elly Griffiths' The Stone Circle: he had spent another of those wet afternoons in Yell reading the Ann Cleeves I had taken with me, and thought that if I liked that sort of classic detective story, I'd probably like this. And I did: The Stone Circle is not necessarily the ideal introduction, as it's the eleventh book in a series. I had n - well, very little -o problem keeping track of the people in the current investigation, but there are many references back to earlier cases, and I did have to keep turning back to remind myself who was who in those. I didn't like it as much as Ann Cleeves, it didn't feel as solid as her books: there was something flimsy about the characters and the plot, a sense of playing for effect (chapters ending on dramatic statements which a turn of the page reveals as misleading, for example). Take the cover image, for example: from the start, a stone circle plays a major part in the story (Elly Griffiths uses archaeology the way Ann Cleeves uses birds, which is fun), but it isn't the classic standing stones shown on the cover. "Publishers!" I thought, not for the first time. But, quite late in the day, a group of characters do go chasing across the entire breadth of England to visit Stanton Drew - which I had never heard of, but it's a real place, has standing stones as described, and looks looks well worth a visit.
An entertaining read, to be returned to its owner with thanks for the introduction.
And there's more where those came from...
It began, I suppose, with D., who returned from a visit to his sister bearing a copy of Patrick Leigh Fermor's A Time of Gifts: he had given it to her for Christmas and she, having read it, had returned it to him. Had I read it, he asked, and since I hadn't, he said, I should. There's a logic to this. I enjoy books about travel, especially those that are well written and not too modern, and A Time of Gifts is notoriously a classic of this very specific genre. But, that being the case, there must be a reason why I hadn't read it already: it wasn't that I hadn't come across it. I recognised as an old friend the golden arcadian cover, by Leigh Fermor's friend John Craxton, which I still think is the book's best feature. Yet somehow I had never read it.
I may have been deterred by the persona of Leigh Fermor himself, the well-connected scapegrace who became a wartime hero and alleged model for James Bond - and certainly as I read the book, I wanted to shake him. Having committed a series of misdemeanours which saw him expelled without rancour from a series of schools, he decides that the thing to do is to walk across Europe to Constantinople, setting off in winter. In 1933. He was 18, which may explain why this looked like a good idea, but not why no-one tried - or at any rate, was able to - dissuade him. Declaring that he will sleep in hostels and hay barns, he finds himself invited to a number of castles and manor houses, passed from branch to branch of the families of his aristocratic hosts. He keeps a diary, whose careful composition occupies many of his evenings, but this book is not that diary, which was lost along the way. It was written many years after (published in 1977) and the author's introduction makes this clear, tracing it in part to time spent in the interim recounting his adventures orally. The freshness, the lack of reflection, these are beautifully done, but they are artificial, literary choices. The reader is invited to indulge the young adventurer not by his own unselfconsciousness, but by his indulgent older self, and I continued to be irritated by this.
Nonetheless, when I reached the end, with Leigh Fermor about to cross into Hungary, I was curious to read about his adventures there, and the completion of his journey - though less so when I realised this involved not one but two more books! Discussing the book one rainy afternoon in Yell, I was rash enough to admit this to D., who has since kindly brought me those next two books. Back onto the roundabout, then!
But first: visiting A., I told her that I had been reading Peter Pan in Scarlet, hoping, because I know she is a great admirer of Geraldine McCaughrean, for a conversation which would help me to straighten out in my mind what it was doing and whether I liked it. Instead she loaned me no fewer than four books by Geraldine McCaughrean (and I came home and had that conversation with myself in this journal). The books were three early historical novels for adults, two short and one very long, and her latest book, Where the World Ends, which won the Carnegie Medal (based on a story from St Kilda, it looks grim reading. but I'm looking forward to it). I have so far read the two short novels.
The thing about The Maypole is that - well, the cover copy says that it is "a love story, drawn from the old ballad tradition..." The language is a joy. It begins "Day came in like Joshue, with ramshorn blasts of sun..." and carries on to describe the village waking up, gaudy as a scene from a Book of Hours. I could enjoy this a lot, if I weren't distracted: on the next page we meet two young men, one of whom is Robin Musgrave, and on the next they are discussing the local castle, which belongs to someone called Barnard. So we know where we are, and it seems likely that this will not tuen out well. This story of Little Musgrave follows the ballad quite closely (I liked the suggestion that only the very wealthy slept between sheets, and that others would find it a novel sensation). This makes Lady Barnard a difficult character to like, and although McCaughrean moves away from the obvious interpretation (listening to the ballad, I can only conclude that she's a psychopath), I didn't find her alternative (she's very young) entirely convincing. Other characters were more sympathetic; I even felt sorry for Lord Barnard. But for once I felt thoroughly spoilered; though there's no guarantee I'd have enjoyed the book more if I hadn't.
Reading Fires Astonishment was the opposite experience: I had no idea where the story was going to go, or what kind of story it was going to be. For one thing, there are reports of a dragon: will this be a story with room in it for a dragon? Yes, it turns out, it will, though the dragon may not be what it seems. Then for much of the way I had no idea whether things would end happily or unhappily. Blame my notorious blind spot for humour, and the fact that comedy is just tragedy that happens to someone else (and vice versa). Regard this not as a spoiler, but as a Public Service Announcement: this is a comedy, and it has a happy (though often unexpected) ending. If I had been confident of that earlier, I'd probably have enjoyed it more as I was reading it, rather than saving my enjoyment for hindsight.
Another book I mentioned during my ramblings in Neverland, was the first volume of Gillian Cross's The Lost, which J. loaned me with the promise that if I liked it, she'd lend me the rest of the trilogy: and I did like it, so she did. But there is very little I can say about it. Not so much a trilogy as a novel in three parts, each volume ending at a point of rest, something achieved and more mysteries opening before the reader. By the end, most of the questions have been answered, and many of the answers are very satisfying: questions I thought were mine alone had in fact been planted for me to wonder about, and provide important plot points. I was fortunate to read it with absolutely no idea what it was about, or where the story was going, and this gradual revelation was a large part of my enjoyment, which I'd hate to spoiler by writing about it. So this is a fairly minimalist account, but here goes:
The Dark Ground opens with Robert and his sister on a plane, flying home from holiday - and then Robert finds himself somewhere else. If you poke about the internet for more information, it will tell you what has happened, but even that revelation, a half dozen pages into the book, is more than I want to give away. But since those half dozen pages have a 'thrilling adventure, survival' flavour which is not my thing, I will point out that there is a prologue, there are other characters, and it is their interactions which I found irresistible.
Although Robert remains a central charater, there is a major shift in perspective with The Black Room and The Nightmare Game. I read them thirstily, to find out what happens next, but I didn't find them quite as wonderful as The Dark Ground. And I came away with the suspicion that points had been stretched in the treatment of Robert: there is a contradiction between his character and his eligibility of inclusion in the story which felt as if something had been retrofitted. When I returned J.'s books to her, we talked about this: she was inclined to blame the character, rather than the author, for what we both saw as an error of judgement. Which is a more interesting reading of the character, assessing him for himself where I had seen him as pure plot device.
Don't be put off: for all my reservations, the trilogy is an impressive and spellbinding piece of work.
Closing the circle with one more borrowed book, what I picked from the pile that D. had brought was not the next instalment of Patrick Leigh Fermor but Elly Griffiths' The Stone Circle: he had spent another of those wet afternoons in Yell reading the Ann Cleeves I had taken with me, and thought that if I liked that sort of classic detective story, I'd probably like this. And I did: The Stone Circle is not necessarily the ideal introduction, as it's the eleventh book in a series. I had n - well, very little -o problem keeping track of the people in the current investigation, but there are many references back to earlier cases, and I did have to keep turning back to remind myself who was who in those. I didn't like it as much as Ann Cleeves, it didn't feel as solid as her books: there was something flimsy about the characters and the plot, a sense of playing for effect (chapters ending on dramatic statements which a turn of the page reveals as misleading, for example). Take the cover image, for example: from the start, a stone circle plays a major part in the story (Elly Griffiths uses archaeology the way Ann Cleeves uses birds, which is fun), but it isn't the classic standing stones shown on the cover. "Publishers!" I thought, not for the first time. But, quite late in the day, a group of characters do go chasing across the entire breadth of England to visit Stanton Drew - which I had never heard of, but it's a real place, has standing stones as described, and looks looks well worth a visit.
An entertaining read, to be returned to its owner with thanks for the introduction.
And there's more where those came from...
