A Work in Progress

Books Published (and Read) in 2008

I found this meme-ish list (actually it is a Weekly Geeks topic) at ReadingAdventures that I thought was kind of interesting, so I nabbed it. 

"Compile your list of favorites. Please be sure that books you choose actually were published in 2008, or at the very earliest in the winter holiday season of 2007. Sometimes books that come out then are left out."

I'm mostly just curious about how many of my reads have been new books.  I tend to like all the shiny new novels that I see in the library (or at the bookstore), but I'm not sure how many I actually end up reading.  So here's what I've read this year that have also been published this year (most recent reads at the top, moving back in time):

• Deception's Daughter, Cordelia Frances Biddle
• Star Gazing, Linda Gillard
• Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, Mary Ann Shaffer
• Red Leather Diary, Lily Koppel
• Sacrifice, S.J. Bolton
• The Loveliest Woman in America, Bibi Gaston
• The Sister, Poppy Adams
• Chez Moi, Agnes Desarthe
• American Priestess, Jane Fletcher Geniesse
• The Savage Garden, Mark Mills
• The Tenth Gift, Jane Johnson
• Bound, Sally Gunning
• The Dark Lantern, Gerri Brightwell
• Mistress of the Revolution, Catherine Delors
• Ice Land, Betsy Tobin
• A Fatal Waltz, Tasha Alexander
• Speaking of Love, Angela Young
• Child 44, Tom Rob Smith
• The Reserve, Russell Banks
• The Redbreast, Jo Nesbo
• The People of the Book, Geraldine Brooks
• An Incomplete Revenge, Jacqueline Winspear

That's 22 books, or about a third of what I've read this year that was also published this year--I thought it would be more.  I know the instructions said to choose your favorites, but I enjoyed nearly all of them, so I can't pare the list down more.  Can I mention my least favorite?  The Reserve and I just didn't get on well at all.  Banks is a talented writer, but this was just not the story for me.  Only eight of these were library books, so I guess I do read a few of my own occasionally!  And I have to say I've really enjoyed every nonfiction title I've read this year (even those few not listed), and nearly all of them were also published in 2008 and the rest were from 2007.  Now, how many newly published books I've bought but not yet read is another matter entirely! 

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Six years ago there were seven Blackwoods.  Now there are only three; elder sister Constance, uncle Julian and eighteen-year-old Mary Katherine, or, Merricat, as she's called by her sister.  It's generally accepted that Constance poisoned the family by putting arsenic in the sugar bowl.  But she was quickly acquitted.  Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a delightfully macabre tale, quintessentially Gothic in its portrayal of an eccentric family ostracized by local villagers, reminiscent of those I encountered in Jackson's famous short story, The Lottery. 

Merricat narrates the story, beginning with her weekly trip into the village for groceries and new library books.  Constance is a bit of an agoraphobe, never leaving the house, and uncle Julian is confined to his wheelchair, so it falls on the younger sister to attend to all the errands.  Merricat seems much younger than her years, but she copes as well as she can with the hostile villagers and taunting children who can't seem to forgive the family for their past misbehaviors.  It doesn't take long to figure out that quirky Merricat is not the most reliable of narrators.  But what an interesting character, strange as it may sound I have a soft spot for unreliable narrators.  Her coping mechanisms consist of game playing, much like a children's game board, to get from one street to the next and avoid interaction with the locals until she is safely out of the village and on Blackwood property where she can lock the world out.

Merricat also has a habit of burying or hiding things, small talismans, to keep the family and house safe from intruders.  When she discovers a book of her father once nailed to a tree now lying on the ground, it's as if the guard has been let down and they are all momentarily in peril.  Before she can decide what trinket can replace the book to keep them safe, someone comes knocking on their door.  Their carefully constructed world is about to come falling down around their shoulders.

Charles Blackwood, their cousin, has come to pay his respects.  When his father was alive he was not allowed to communicate with this branch of the family, but as his father has passed away, he's wasted no time to call on his remaining family.  Merricat doesn't trust his intentions as he worms his way into the household and questions all their firmly held beliefs on how to live.  He sees poor uncle Julian as a demented old man, yet its through his ramblings that we slowly learn the details of the crime.  And Merricat is simply unexplainable and troublesome to him.  The tension mounts as he tries to lure Constance away from her solitary yet comfortable surroundings. 

This is a wonderfully told story, and trust me, when you pick it up and start reading you won't want to put it down until you turn that last page.  And as you read all your assumptions of the characters and their motivations will come into question.  The ending was fairly neatly tied up, yet so many things were not at all explicit, leaving the reader to contemplate just why things happened as they did. This was Jackson's last novel, published in 1962, just a few years before her death.  I'm not sure how accurate this is, but I read that elements in the story were loosely based on Jackson's own agoraphobia and nervous conditions, and the sister's were based on her own two daughters.  Was it just me, or did there also seem to be a subtle and subversive humor to the story as well?  I think Jackson really is a master storyteller and I hope she is and continues to be widely read. I know I'll be reading more of her work.

This was my third R.I.P. Challenge read.  I'm racking them up this month as three out of the last four books I've finished have been R.I.P. books.  I may actually finish a challenge.  I will mostly likely pick up Wilkie Collins's The Law and the Lady, though I am also contemplating the shorter The Murdered House by Pierre Magnan.  Both look like wonderful reads. 

"The Haunting of Shawley Rectory"

I was very excited to get my hands on (mooch) a copy of The Mammoth Book of 20th Century Ghost Stories (edited by Peter Haining) recently.  I knew I would choose a story from the collection this weekend, it was just a matter of deciding which story to read.  I've been trying to alternate each weekend between male and female authors in order to get a variety styles and subjects.  Last weekend was M.R. James so who to choose this weekend?  Agatha Christie?  Maybe Muriel Spark or Daphne du Maurier?  Stevie Smith or Stella Gibbons?  Okay, I fell back on a trusted favorite, Ruth Rendell.  I read another of her short stories earlier this year, so I wondered how she would handle a ghost story.  She handles ghost stories very well I must say!

The little introduction to the story mentions, and I have heard this before, that Ruth Rendell is known as the "Queen of Crime".  I think she's deserving of the title.  I had no idea, however, that Agatha Christie was known by the same moniker previously.  Apparently Rendell is a "great admirer" of two masters of the ghost story, John Sheridan Le Fanu and M.R. James.  I've read one and plan on reading the other.  Of course now I have to read them since she admires them so.  Rendell lives in a Suffolk village where there is a famous twentieth-century haunting at Borley Rectory on the Suffolk/Essex border.  The editor writes that "he feels something of that legend in this story", which she wrote in 1979 for Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.

Although I really love ghost stories, I never expect to be terribly surprised or shocked or frightened by them (unless of course, we're talking about Joyce Carol Oates perhaps).  While I was reading Rendell's "The Haunting of Shawley Rectory" I was wondering if it was all going to be anticlimactic.  I really should know better.  She managed to slip a surprise in the story that I didn't see coming and made be think Hah!  when I read it.  Shawley Rectory was built in 1760 and occupied over time by various families.  It's a rather menacing building.

"...it's built of dun-coloured brick with plain classical windows and a front door in the middle with a pediment over it.  It's a big house with three receptions rooms, six bedrooms, two kitchens and two staircases--and one poky little bathroom made by having converted a linen closet.  The house is a bit stark to look at, a bit forbidding; it seems to stare straight back at you, but the trees round it are pretty enough and so are the stables on the left-hand side with a clock in their gable and a weathervane on top."

Over time there have been strange occurrences, but they don't seem to happen to all the residents.  Wheels rattling outside on the cobblestones, soft voices talking where no one is there.  Doors slamming.  All the usual things you expect with a haunted house.  One resident even went so far as to say that they observed the ghostly figures of a mother and daughter arguing.  It was only a quick vision.  It's not known when these 'ghosts' lived in the rectory.  If only their clothes could have been distinguished, the storyteller might have been able to look in the historical records and discovered who the ghostly residents were and when they lived and just what happened to them.  The narrator of the story, a neighbor of the rectory, along with a friend decide to spend an evening in the house, hoping to witness for themselves the ghosts... 

I really enjoyed this story and highly recommend it, if you can get your hands on a copy of this book (though I think it also appears in a Virago anthology of ghost stories as well).  Rendell is a great storyteller and this one had all the right elements in it to keep me wondering--just what I've come to expect when reading her work.  This was nicely told with a wonderful and surprising twist!  I hope the rest of the stories in this anthology are equally as good.   

More on Daphne du Maurier

Although I finished Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca a couple of weeks ago, it's a story that has stayed with me.  I would love to pick up another novel by du Maurier, but as I'm trying to catch up on other reading, I had better not let myself get distracted.  Instead I've chosen a good middle of the road read, The Rebecca Notebook & Other Memories.  It was du Maurier's last published work and gives insight into her writing of the novel.  I mentioned that the first draft of the story was discarded and she rewrote it.  I would love to have read that first draft, and this book lays out the original plans she had.  It also contains other writings on her family and life, and it happens to be a slim book, which should be a quick and interesting read.

Editor Alison Light talks in her introduction about some of the changes du Maurier made to the novel.  I really like seeing how the author progresses from a first draft to published novel.

"Typically she wrote the disillusioned epilogue first.  Mr. and Mrs. de Winter are introduced as a middle-aged couple of dull English 'expats' living humdrum lives in hotels abroad, a sad pair longing for news of cricket and pining for the English countryside.  The final published version made it less parochial, changing the stodgy-sounding 'Henry' to the more glamorous 'Maxim'.  Du Maurier also wisely cut those lengthy passages where her narrator snobbishly disparages the nouveaux riches who have turned Manderley into a country club with a golf course and cocktail lounge.  The melodramatic ending was dropped and eventually the epilogue became a prologue, tightening the psychological screws, as if the heroine were compulsively retelling the crime-story at the heart of the marriage.  'We can never go back' she says at the beginning of the novel, launching into retrospect."

And no need to worry, as these were some of du Maurier's first intentions which she changed in the finished novel, so I've not given away any spoilers.  In this book du Maurier actually shares the notebook entries she made for each chapter of Rebecca describing the action of each scene, which is what I am reading at the moment.

I never really thought about it, but Daphne was born in 1907, which means she grew up during the Edwardian period.  Apparently Edwardian girls "envied and adored their male peers", and it was no secret (and biographer Margaret Forster also writes about this) that Daphne would have been happy being born a boy (she referred to herself as the 'boy in the box').  She related better to the men in her family and preferred an adventurous life (learning to sail and fish, wearing trousers and wanting to set off exploring).  I think this comes through in her writing.  But Light notes that whatever masculine qualities she might have had, Daphne still had "old-fashioned views of men and women and and longed for a settled home life."

I love these sorts of books because they offer a good perspective on the subject plus du Maurier speaks for herself.  I'll share one more quote from Light's introduction about du Maurier's writing.

"Why do writers write?  What compels them to this strange self-absorbed, self-effacing life?  Du Maurier's stories take us into the shuttered places in human psychology where hidden or repressed feelings--jealousy, rage, lust, terror--threaten to overwhelm us, or like love and desire, to transport us into another dimension.  Like a medium at a seance, du Maurier felt taken over by writing, possessed by her plot and her characters.  That activity, leaving the world, as she calls it, meant losing one's boundaries and yet somehow retaining control.  We all fantasise and we all live in our fantasies, imagining we are the authors of our lives, but the novelist makes something lasting and shared of her daydreams.  A writer's memoirs or biography will always fascinate us because it offers tantalising glimpses of this mysterious process.  Yet however much we learn, the writing life remains a house of secrets.  We press our faces to the glass, frustrated and intrigued, seeing only shadows and our own reflection."

Very poetic, especially that last bit, don't you think?  She's right, though.  Knowing this extra stuff is indeed illuminating in many ways, but we'll never really know the full intentions of a writer.  I think that perhaps after this it will have to be du Maurier's autobiography.  Between her fiction and short stories I'll be kept busy for some time to come.

Library Queue

Yesterday after work I stopped by the library and picked up my lone hold.  It's not often that I only have one book to pick up, but I have been trying hard to be more selective in what I request as I always end up with more than I can possibly read (and you know what that's like).  Joining the three library books I have at home (I'm also trying to keep my checked out library books to very a dull roar) is Norwegian author, Linn Ullman's A Blessed Child.  The inside flap calls it "bold and starkly beautiful" and "a haunting parable of innocence lost".  The title doesn't really appeal to me, but the story does.  It's about three sisters, all with different mothers, whose lives changed irrevocably one summer when they were young.  I know I shouldn't start it right now, but this is one I would really like to read.

I also found the most recent edition of BookPage, which happens to be their 20th anniversary edition.  Lately I've felt really starved for new books (another sign I need to go to the bookstore to browse and pick up a book magazine or two), so I snapped a copy of this up.  I found several new books to add to my library queue.

A Partisan's Daughter, Louis de Bernieres.  Corelli's Mandolin has been one of my favorite books, and I always mean to read more by him.  This is his newest.  It's "a story of impossible love, ethnic conflict and the whims of history, played out through the inevitable fates of ordinary, if compelling characters."

Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World, Vicki Myron.  How can I resist a book about the orange cat, Dewey Readmore Books, who made his home in a small Iowa library?!  There is a long line for this one. 

Lulu in Marrakech, Diane Johnson.  Years back I went through a big Diane Johnson phase.  Her books are always fun if a little quirky, and she's been up for many awards.  I didn't realize she had written another book.  BookPage calls this "espionage light" but completely absorbing.

To Siberia, Per Petterson.  Another happy discovery--I loved his Out Stealing Horses.  This is described as reminiscent of Raymond Carver for his  taut prose.  "Both the harsh beauty of the Scandinavian world, from thick blankets of fog to ice-choked seas, and the inner lives of his characters are probed in a language that doesn't waste a word."

Dark Water: Flood and Redemption in the City of Masterpieces, Robert Clark.  The 1966 flood in Florence, Italy is the subject for this book.  It sounds like a fascinating read--art and history all mixed together.

French Milk, Lucy Knisely.  This is a graphic memoir, which I heard about ages ago and am happy to finally see it published here in the US.

I'm impressed by the selection of books they reviewed this time around.  I've not found many books to tempt me in recent past issues, but I will probably find a few more when I have a chance to read everything.  Of course there are usually lots of books published in the Fall, so maybe this is just a first peek and there will be even more good books to look forward to.   

Mooching and Other Stuff

Okay, so this wasn't the post I was planning, but I have yet more computer woes so everything has been thrown a little off balance.  (If you're tired of hearing about computer difficulties, please scroll down to the bookish news instead--I totally understand!).  This time I think they are mostly my fault.  Yesterday DHL tried to deliver a package, but as no one was home they left a note instead.  I should mention that this happened on Tuesday, too.  The package could be retrieved from the DHL office, which happens to be located close to the airport.  Off we went to get my new (and free I might add) printer.  I might be spoiled as it looks like a laser printer no less.  How did that happen?  And I almost said no to the printer (I already have two).  Anyway, I called and discovered that it was my new computer tower.  I had thought that they would email me with the shipping information first, and that it wouldn't come until next week!  What a nice surprise, right?

So we loaded up the defective computer and all the components that came with it into the box.  I understood from the customer service agent that that was what I was meant to do.  It made sense to me anyway, that they would want all the stuff back.  The "stuff" was all the CDs that come with it, and the keyboard, mouse, and any other miscellaneous cables.  Do you see where this is headed?  When I was at DHL, I opened the replacement box, checked and saw the computer was there, and the white box was there as well that I assumed had all the other stuff.  Filled out the paperwork and sent the defective box on its merry way.  I was so happy coming back home thinking I would probably not be able to play much with my new computer (it being a work night), but that was okay.  Everything was all straightened out.  Arrived home, unpacked all the boxes, and discovered that the white box had the CDs, but there was no mouse or keyboard.  ACK!  It makes sense that they wouldn't bother to replace those parts, but how was I to know.  Originally I thought the monitor had to be returned, too!  So once again everything is back in their respective boxes.  I thought I might be able to fudge things and use the mouse and keyboard I have from the HP computer, but the cables/ports are different.  And do you want to know what the kicker is?  I emailed my Dell representative (the lady taking care of my problem) and received an out of office reply until 9/29!  I have no luck with computers obviously. 

To look on the positive side of things, though, I have had some good luck mooching books.  I need to find a silver lining somewhere.  I came across the best collection of ghost stories, The Mammoth Book of 20th Century Ghost Stories edited by Peter Haining.  I love these "mammoth" collections and need to see what else they publish.  This is divided up into three sections; "The Golden Era", "The Phantom Army" and "The Modern Tradition".  It has an excellent selection of authors, including: Julian Barnes, Agatha Christie, Henry James, Daphne du Maurier (a new story--I've not heard of the one they include), Ruth Rendell, John Steinbeck, H.G. Wells, and P.G. Wodehouse to name just a few.  Needless to say I will be reading one of these this upcoming weekend.

I've enjoyed listening so much to The Alchemist's Daughter by Katharine Mcmahon (more about that later), that I had to look for the book.  Now I want to read everything by her.

It's been too long since I've read anything by Anita Brookner, but I've been in the mood for some of her thoughtful prose.  I lucked out and mooched a copy of A Friend from England.  I used to buy (and read) everything by her I could get my hands on, but then I think I overdid it.  It's been long enough that I think I would enjoy getting back to her work, and I have very few of her recent works.

Although Joyce Carol Oates's work is not really easy going, I really do want to explore more of her novels.  She's written so much, I'm not sure which to choose, but I decided to mooch a copy of The Falls.  I still want to read We Were the Mulvaneys, but it's always good to have other books in reserve.

I've managed to get by with my old computer all summer long, so what's another week or so?  I'm going to ignore the teasing looks those Dell boxes are giving me, and just concentrate on my books.  I wonder what else I can mooch.  I've been in a mooching mood, though I am pretty selective (and like to hoard my points).  I think Bookmooch is pretty popular, though I know there are other services out there.  What have you mooched (or gotten as a freebie) lately?          

New Mysteries

I'm really in a mood to dig out a pile of mysteries and dive in, though that's not really anything new.  I've been in a mystery/crime mood for a good part of the year.  Tempted though I might be, I will stick to reading one mystery at a time, though.  I've just started a new mystery by French author Claude Izner called Murder on the Eiffel Tower.  Actually Claude Izner is a pen name for two sisters who are "second-hand booksellers on the banks of the Seine and experts on 19th-century Paris."  I received this as a freebie through Library Thing's Early Reviewer Program.  It's set during the 1889 World Exposition in Paris and features a young bookseller by the name of Victor Legris who gets caught up in murder.  I'm not entirely sure what I think of it so far.  It's sort of quirky, but then it's a first mystery (I understand several more have been published in France, and they are being translated into English now), and other than Georges Simenon, I've not had any experience reading French mystery or crime novels, so I can't really compare.  I'd be curious to hear if anyone has read anything by Izner.  I do like the historical details, though, so I will see where the story leads.

I've already decided that I have to read Tana French's In the Woods next.  I meant to read it ages ago, but a few other books got in its way.  Although I had already heard good things about it by several other bloggers, Ann's recent post about French's new novel and a reference to In the Woods being the "best crime novel she read last year" was enough to convince me I need to read it soon.  Maybe I can just take a little peek at the first chapter?  I wouldn't mind reading some more Ruth Rendell while we're at it.

And then I have a running list of new mysteries to look out for.

The Serpent and the Scorpion, Clare Langley Hawthorne.  I've been waiting a while for the new Ursula Marlowe mystery.  The first book introduced Ursula who is a suffragette.  The series is set in Edwardian England and I can't wait until the end of the month when the next book is released.  This one is set in Egypt.

Winter of Her Discontent, Kathryn Miller Haines. I can't remember where I read about this author (maybe Iliana?).  Her sleuth is an aspiring actress and the books are set in the 1940s.  This is a second book.  I really do need to get to a bookstore and check out the new mysteries and get her previous book to read first.

Bright Hair About the Bone, Barbara Cleverly.  This series features 1920s archaeologist Laetitia Talbot as an amateur sleuth.  Again, I've yet to read the first  (though it is in my pile!), but I'll be getting this second novel when its released.  I guess I've got some catching up to do. 

I've also been hearing some good things about Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, a Swedish thriller, so I'll be checking this out out as well. 

My trip to the bookstore is long overdue, and I think I'll spend a good chunk of my next visit browsing the mystery section.  I think I am actually in the mood for a mystery (after the couple of books already lined up...) set in the Medieval period.  Female protagnist preferred.  Any suggestions? 

Beasts by Joyce Carol Oates

Is it possible to be extremely disturbed by something you've just read, so disturbed that you feel sort of nasty and a little dirty, and when you turn the last pages and close the book all you want to do is go and take a shower.  Yet at the same time you appreciate the story the author was telling and how she managed to get there?  And she elicited all these feelings in less than 150 pages.  That's pretty much how I feel about Joyce Carol Oates's Beasts, a very aptly titled book considering the type of characters the story is peopled with. 

Probably this story could have happened at any time in recent history, but it fit in well with the reckless abandon of the mid-1970s.  The story begins, however, with Gillian Brauer in Paris some thirty years later coming across a primitive wooden totem figure of a female with her child in the Louvre.  And Gillian thinks, "so it wasn't burned  after all..." drawing the reader right away into the story and making us wonder what fire?  And Gillian tells us this is not a confession, as she has nothing to confess.  There's no turning back now, as Gillian tells us her story.

I'm coming to discover that Joyce Carol Oates's work has a dreamlike (or nightmarish) quality to it, and you're never really sure whether any of it's real.  The story takes place over the course of several months in 1975 and into the new year of 1976.  Set in a small college in New England, Gillian, like most of her peers is captivated by Andre Harrow, an English professor who's a 1960s anti-establishment holdover.  Talented but shy Gillian has one of the few coveted spots in Andre's poetry seminar.  He's intelligent, and sensual and a little decadent, and his students lust after him.  It's not just Andre, but also his wife, Dorcas, a sculptress of primal totems that Gillian secretly obsesses over.  They are a very bohemian couple in this little town, so they have a sort of cachet with the students.  It's assumed that Andre and Dorcas occasionally will take a student under their wings, but it's never discussed amongst the women.  If you're lucky enough to be chosen to be mentored or serve as an intern to Dorcas, you don't share your experiences with the others, as if it's bad luck to tell. 

Why is it that it's often the people in power that you're meant to trust who are the people most likely to take advantage of you?  It doesn't take long to see how manipulative Andre is.  He asks his students to keep journals with their most private thoughts, experiences, and fantasies in them.  Only when they "go for the jugular" will they be able to write anything of significance.  And when the reader sees the sort of lascivious pleasure Andre takes in this task without regard to the student's well being, you know that something is seriously wrong at this small New England College.  Gillian will find herself in the middle of it all, and what's so disconcerting she almost seems a willing accomplice or a willing victim. 

Beasts is a disturbing tale but a riveting read nonetheless.  It's a story that would be great to read in a group.  I know I still have questions about the story.  I think I'd like to read We Were the Mulvaneys as my next Joyce Carol Oates novel (though not right away).  I'm wondering if it is a little more 'mainstream' and hopefully less distressing?  Beasts is my second R.I.P. Challenge book (The Ivy Tree was my first--two down and two to go).  Now I am trying to decide between We Have Always Lived in the Castle (which I am sure will be good) and The Law and the Lady (which I'm sure will also be good, plus it comes with Victorian goodness!).  Decisions, decisions.         

Computer Maintenance in Progress...or, Maybe Not

It's here.  And I hope everything is in one piece. If the monitor is cracked (I think it's okay), I will know who to blame--I elicited an "eep" as I watched the DHL man whip the boxes onto my porch!  This will probably be my last post on my very slow and very old HP computer.  Now to get it all set up and running smoothly.  Normal bookish posts will hopefully resume tomorrow on a much faster, new computer!

Update:  Guess what I'm typing on?  If you said a brand spanking new Dell, I'm sorry but you're wrong. My trusty though very slow HP is back in it's usual place.  I disconnected everything, dusted off my desk and made room for the new computer.  I followed the instructions (and they even had pictures for some non-technical like me) and set up the new computer.  Hit the power button, ready to be impressed and got only a back DOS screen telling me it couldn't boot up.  Not a good sign.  Checked all the cords, made sure everything was in the right spot, and turned on the computer again.  More black screen.  I dialed customer service and hoped they could get things set right.  Alas, no.  When the man asked me if I felt comfortable opening up the tower to look inside, I had a sinking feeling that I was not going to have luck with this computer.  Screw driver in hand, I thought this is insane.  They are trusting me to open up an expensive computer and attempt minor surgery.  I don't think that would be wise. 

So the new Dell is back in its boxes and ready to go back.  I asked for an exchange.  It's really irritating to take a day off from work and have nothing to show for it.  Other than a very well dusted desk.  Needless to say I am very disappointed.  I don't know what was wrong with the computer, but surely I should have gotten something more than a black screen when I turned on the power button?  Fingers crossed that the new one will work.  Perhaps I'm doomed to use my old computer forever.  If I'm lucky I will have the new (newer) Dell in a week.

Canon Alberic's Scrap Book

I love really detailed and informative introductions, which I found in Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories, the first of two volumes of collected ghost stories by M.R. James.  You'll have to excuse me if I seem to be borrowing heavily from what I read, but it was all fascinating and very new to me.  M.R. (Montague Rhodes) James led an interesting life.  A lifelong bachelor, he was not only a distinguished scholar of medieval manuscripts and early Christianity, but he was a professor and administrator at Cambridge University and Eton College, and he also managed to write ghost stories in his spare time.  It's his ghost stories that he is known for today.  He was a busy man, and I loved this description,

"How exactly James found the time for all this work, let alone the writing of ghost stories, was a puzzle to friends and colleagues alike, especially when one considers James's other interests--his devotion to Dickens, P.G. Wodehouse, and Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories; his interest in card games and crossword puzzles; and of course, the abundant conviviality he showed to friends, students, and almost any others who came within his horizon."

He also traveled widely, which served him well in his writings.  In 1892 he took his first bicycle tour of the Continent, and later he took at least one trip a year to France where he studied Medieval cathedrals, visiting nearly all those there were to see.

James would often read drafts of his stories to friends and collegians, usually at Christmastime.  Although his earliest couple of stories had been published in magazines, he probably wouldn't have considered publishing them in book format had not a friend wanted to do the illustrations for them.  It seems  as if James's work can be seen as a bridge between Gothic novelists of the 18th and 19th centuries to a more modern tradition of ghost stories.  Writers of Gothic novels liked to set their tales firmly in the Medieval period, but James wrote about more contemporary subjects.  James used an "antiquarian background" (or as the editor describes it--he wanted to create a "patina of verisimilitude"--I love the way that sounds) in his tales.  His stories usually are set in a small village or seaside town, or an abbey or university, involve a gentleman scholar (no doubt his stories were somewhat autobiographical) and there is usually a discovery of an antique book or artifact that is in some way supernatural or menacing.

All interesting stuff and I didn't even touch on everything I read about him.  But what about the story?  I read "Canon Aleric's Scrap-Book", which was one of James's earliest stories. He uses his own travels in this story.  The real French town of St.  Bertrand de Comminges was the setting for this tale of the supernatural.  An unnamed narrator shares with us what happened to Dennistoun while he was researching and photographing a local abbey.  There is the usual church with it's chilly interior, strange muffled sounds and voices, even laughter.  But it's an antiquated book, a real find for the protagonist, that will bring upon him strange and unusual occurrences when he buys it.  It has the strangest illustrations inside. Like an earlier story I read by James this year, it wasn't particularly hair raising, but it was creepily atmospheric.  I've now got two volumes of James's work, and while I'm not going to attempt to read it all by the end of the year, I do hope to revisit it as I like what I've read.