A Work in Progress

September 30: Reading Notes

Can you believe that tomorrow is October 1?  Not too long ago I was complaining about the heat (and for the record we've had some really lovely weather here lately, which is why I've been so quiet on the subject), and in the near future I will probably be complaining about the cold.  Best not to think about these things until absolutely necessary.  I only ask Mother Nature to take it easy on us this year, as last year was hell!  Sadly I need to go shopping for snow boots soon.  Sigh.

On a happier note, the Slaves of Golconda will be discussing May Sarton's The Small Room at the end of October.  So mark you calendar for Oct. 31 and please consider joining in.  The story is set on the campus of a New England college, where Lucy Winter has taken a position as a professor and finds herself immediately in the middle of a crisis.  It seems a perfect fall read.  If you would like to join in and post on the blog, please send me your email address and I can send out an invite.  Actual discussion takes place at our forum, where anyone can register and join in.

I'm going to take part in the Eco-Libris 2nd Annual Green Books Campaign this year, which will take place on November 10.  My book arrived in the mail recently--I'll be reading Margaret Sweatman's The Players, which is published by Goose Lane Editions.  The story is set in Restoration England and Canada's northern wilds.  More about all this later.

I'm in the midst of several really good books including William Nicholson's The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life that I've already mentioned, as well as an Agatha Christie novel written in the 1960s that is one of her few (only?) forays into Gothic storytelling.  Of course I am reading Wilkie Collins's No Name, which is moving along at a nice clip (Norah and Magdalen have been orphaned and are now on their own and must plan on some sort of way to earn their living, but Magdalen has run off to try her hand at acting in the theatre).  Mysteries (The Crime at the Black Dudley and Bad Penny Blues) seem to be what I reach for mostly, but have the Nicholson to balance it all out.  And for something completely different I've just started Through Charley's Door by Emily Kimbrough, which I think is going to fit nicely in the 'charming read' category.  It was written in the 1950s but is about the author's job at Chicago's Marshall Fields in the 1920s--I love her humorous writing style.    

Once again library books have taken a slight precedence over my other books as those due dates are creeping up on me, but I've actually not accumulated a single library book this week, so progress is being made even if it doesn't feel like it!

They Knew Mr. Knight by Dorothy Whipple

Had it not been for the orange peel, none of it might ever have happened.  Call it fate, or maybe even destiny, but when Thomas Blake stopped wealthy financier Lawrence Knight from slipping and falling, his life and that of his family changed course, though it's hard to say if it was for the better.  Of course the other part of the equation is a life filled with discontent, which only fuels the fire.  For Thomas it comes in the form of dissatisfaction in his work, an engineering firm that was once owned by his father, but now is run by someone else and where he finds himself only a common employee. 

Having read two other novels by Dorothy Whipple I shouldn't be at all surprised, but I found They Knew Mr. Knight an engaging story that was hard to put down.  Who would have thought a story about financial loss and gain and all the pains and pleasures that accompany it would be so entertaining.  Although it was written in 1934, only a few details would need to be changed to make it as contemporary and fresh as a novel written today about current financial woes.

The Blakes are not a particularly unhappy family, at least no more so than any other middle class family making ends meet.  That doesn't mean they don't have problems.  Thomas works hard as an engineer, leaving early every day.  Celia takes care of the house and her family and works in her garden.  Three school age children--two daughters and a son round things out.

"Since the War, almost a decade now, the Blakes had been, like a happy country, without history.  They had lived in the Grove, holding together.  The growing children were dependent on their parents; their parents were bound to each other by affection and interests which were perhaps made mutual by lack of money.  Thomas could not afford a car, a club, or golf; he therefore spent his spare time with his family."

There are two things that burden Thomas, however--the loss of the family firm, which he believes rightly should belong to him, and a layabout brother who isn't able to hold down a steady job and provide for their mother and sister, all of whom are unappreciative of Thomas's endeavors.  Thus it falls to Thomas pick up the slack on top of caring for his wife and children.  And so the seeds of real discontent are sewn.

Lawrence Knight is a well known man in their small town.  He's a man who makes and loses fortunes yet always comes out on top, a savvy businessman who is not afraid to take risks that more often than not pay off, and pay off big.  A chance encounter with Knight in a railway station and a lucky save by Thomas is just the meeting he needs to make Knight take notice.  Just a little advice on how to get the Works back into his own hands, and Thomas knows he can make a success of it.   Knight takes an instant liking to Thomas and the two men begin a friendship that eventually will extend to their families.  A little advice, a little cash backing and some serious scrimping means Thomas is able to buy back the firm his father owned, and he does make a success of it.  It becomes so successful as a matter of fact that the family is able to move to increasingly larger homes with servants and an idle lifestyle.   Idle for Celia perhaps, but Thomas finds he's away from his family more than ever in order to keep the business going. 

It's a fine line Thomas walks, however.  He must appease Knight and keep his lifestyle afloat, which means he finds himself deeper and deeper in debt.  It's not hard for him to make easy cash off speculations on the stock market, but only with Knight's help.  We all know what's going to happen, though.  The bubble gets bigger and bigger, but eventually it's going to burst.  And Mr Knight will tire of his pet project that is Thomas Blake, and like a house of card that has no real foundation everything is going to come tumbling down. 

So the story follows the rising fortunes of the Blakes over the course of a number of years and their subsequent fall from the moneyed class.  The children leave school and in some cases make bad choices in love and relationships.  Elder daughter Freda is a proud and foolish girl and takes for her example Mrs Knight who is herself a frivolous and unhappy woman.  Freda moves in more privileged circles yet never feels their equal.  Douglas likewise falls for a protégé of Mr Knight's who proves to be of uncertain morals.  Only young Ruth seems to come through fairly unscathed.   And Thomas and Celia?  I think they both realize in the end that money doesn't buy happiness, though don't worry, in Whipple's very able hands the story never descends into mere clichédom.

Dorothy Whipple once again turns a shrewd eye on the foibles and shortcomings of her characters and once again they fall from grace, learn from their mistakes and find a sense of redemption by story's end (well, some of them anyway--the ones you care most about).  Her cast of characters are always well defined and developed no matter what mistakes they may make.  With every new Whipple novel I read I seem to find a new favorite, so compulsively readable are her stories.  They are never mere entertainments, though entertaining they are, but show a surprising depth and weight.  Three novels read, two more on my shelves yet to be read, and hopefully Persephone Books will continue reissuing her books until they are all once again in print.

Teaser Tuesday: The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life

As much as I love mysteries, I seem to have been reading quite a lot of them lately.  Some have been darker than others, but there is only so much murder and mayhem a person can take before a little diversion is necessary.  I certainly got a diversion with the shenanigans in Happy Valley, but now something a little more quiet and thoughtful is what I need.   It's thanks to Litlove that I have crossed paths with William Nicholson's The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life, which seems to have been published here in the US this past summer without much fanfare. 

I started reading yesterday and have fallen very easily into the story, which I think is just what I need a the moment.  It begins with Laura Broad receiving a letter from a former love, which starts her wondering what life would have been like had she stayed with him rather than become the mother and wife she is today.  Laura lives in a little Sussex town and other residents have their say as well--each reflecting on their own lives.   It seems nicely balanced moving from person to person, and though it's early days yet, I am happy to settle in with this one for the coming week.

My teaser is actually not from Laura's point of view.  Instead her son's teacher is an aspiring screenwriter who seems to collect rejection slips for his plays.  I like his dry sense of humor and his thoughts usually elicit a chuckle or two from me when he enters the scene.  Taken out of context this probably won't be as funny, but you'll get a sense of Nicholson's writing style anyway.  Alan Strachen is marking compositions here:

"Funny old room.  The French windows rattle in the slightest breeze and the desks are never straight.  Not that I care.  At least there's a view over the playing field to the Downs.  So, Alice Dickinson.  My Journey.

My mother takes me in the car to the station were I catch the train to London were my father lives.  he is always bisy so when I go to visit him its only for an hour really and all the rest of the time is my journey.  my journey is not very interesting not like when mum comes in the train with me so I dont know what else to write.  coming back on the train is just like going  out on the train except all the stations happen backwards and sometimes its dark.  if my mother is still at work my gramma meets me and so my journey is over.

Dear God why don't I shoot myself now?  How can I go on living in this vale of unshed tears?  No parent would ever send their child to school if they knew what they reveal daily, hourly, about their monotonous egotistical cruelties.  Pretend not to notice.  Correct the spelling, urge the use of capital letters, instil some sense of punctuation.  And all the time before our eyes the hearts harden and the wonder dies." 

Although I am not far yet into the story, I like how the connections between the varying characters are so subtly made.   This seems to be a nice drama that is not overly dramatic and with a dash of humor.

The Temptress, or Alice de Janzé

Paul Spicer's biography of Alice de Janzé, The Temptress, is a very breezy, gossipy read that chronicles the sad life of American socialite and heiress Alice Silverthorne and her involvement with the wealthy and aristocratic circle in Kenya's Happy Valley in the 1920s.  A life that began with so much promise that ended in tragedy.  The portrait Spicer creates of Alice is somewhat impressionistic based on stories, letters and journals as well as the reminiscences of his own mother's friendship with her.  And at the heart of the story, which really does read like fiction, is the murder of famous Happy Valley resident, Joss Hay, Lord Erroll, who was on again-off again lover of Alice.  A crime Spicer purports may well have been committed by Alice de Janzé.

Alice was born in Buffalo, New York in 1899 into a very privileged and wealthy family.  Her father, William, made his money in the lumber trade and her mother was from one of the wealthiest and most distinguished families in America.  The union was frowned upon by Alice's maternal grandparents and it was to end unhappily with the early death of her mother, Louise Silverthorne.  Alice was raised by her father, who doted on her and gave in to her every whim, which may well have caused some of her relationship problems later in life.  She traveled extensively with him on business and was often mistaken for a traveling companion rather than a daughter, which caused much consternation among Louise's relatives. 

Silverthorne eventually lost custody of her and her teenage years were spent with her grandparents, which Alice found stifling after such an extravagant upbringing.  She went from feeling the center of her father's life to feeling as though she was abandoned by him, which probably didn't help much later either.  When she was old enough she become involved in the debutante scene in Chicago, but quickly tired of it and moved on instead to the city's more exciting and seamier side filled with jazz clubs and speakeasies.  Alice was a striking young woman and had no end of suitors and supposedly was even involved with a gangster.  Her family worried about her and sent her to Paris to try and rein her in, which would not only give her a sense of independence but change the direction of her life completely.

In Paris she would meet Count Frédéric de Janzé who fell in love with Alice.  He was a quiet intellectual who loved reading and would be calming influence on her.  His family approved of the match and they were married and had two daughters.  Despite Frédéric's deep love for Alice she could never reciprocate his feelings and felt no more than close friendship with him.  Alice suffered from a form of bipolar disorder which would plague her throughout her life and worsen as she got older.  Frédéric was willing to do anything for her to lessen the effects of her illness, so in 1925 they travelled to Kenya where the intense sunlight and altitude would would be beneficial for her moods and outlook.  Their daughters remained in France with their grandparents.  Alice fell in love with the country and would spend most of the rest of her life there.

Kenya would have another effect on her as well.  It's there that she met Joss Hay who would become a significant person in her life as well several other men with whom she would fall in love or have relationships.  I've already mentioned Kenya's Happy Valley and the louche lifestyle enjoyed by so many of the expatriate community there.  There are all sorts of stories about the debauchery that went on--spouse swapping, parties lasting well into the night and attended by guests wearing their PJs, and a few others that I would turn red telling you about here, so those will remain between the book's pages. 

Infidelity doesn't seem to have been much of a problem in Happy Valley and I wondered as I was reading if there were any happy and successful marriages.  Although Frédéric was deeply in love with Alice, he agreed to a divorce.  She likely only married him in the first place to get out from under the thumb of her family, but she wanted to pursue happiness elsewhere.  Joss Hay was a known womanizer, and Alice was only one of his conquests, though it was an affair that would last for over two decades.  Alice had met another man, Raymund de Trafford, who she believed to be her true love.  It would take five years before they would marry, five very obsessive years, but in the end they were only married for a matter of months before Alice realized her mistake.  He was a gambler and a drinker and Alice found his behavior untenable.  They eventually divorced as well, and in the end she remained alone in Kenya.

On January 24, 1941 Joss Hay was murdered in his automobile while driving home late at night.  Although Alice was cleared early on from any wrong doing, Spicer offers an alternative solution to the murder that has to this day remains unsolved, a solution that involves jealousy and anger.  Whether Alice de Janzé had anything to do with his death is purely supposition based on hearsay, as well as letters that no longer exist.  In any case the investigation of Hay's death was completely bungled from the beginning, so the truth may never be known.

I rarely read nonfiction so quickly, but this was a book that took me only a very few days to finish.  I'm not entirely sure what I think of Alice de Janzé, though she is portrayed in a reasonably sympathetic light.  Every life has extenuating circumstances, but I did feel sorry for Alice's daughters who seemed to spend so little time with their mother.  They remained in France while Alice was living the high life on another continent.  Just how many bad decisions in adulthood can be blamed on a bad childhood?   She seemed to care more for her many menageries (she collected wildlife while in Kenya) than she did for her children.  Spicer notes that the daughters never held a grudge and spoke only warmly of their mother, though much of the book is based on stories that may or may not be wholly factual, so it's hard to know where the truth actually lies.  Spicer's mother was a resident of Happy Valley for a time and friend of Alice's, so many stories were passed down to him, as well he interviewed many of the people who lived there. 

Where Spicer excels is in fashioning a snapshot of a particular time and place with all sorts of interesting details.  Complete accuracy I may not be able to vouch for, but The Temptress certainly made for interesting and entertaining reading. 

Two Ghost Stories by Contemporary Authors

It's been years since I've read anything by Mary Higgins Clark, so when Caroline read a short story by her that is in the same collection we both happen to be reading from, my curiosity was piqued, and I had to read it, too.  The story is in The Mammoth Book of 20th Century Ghost Stories edited by Peter Haining, which I am finding a handy collection to have on hand.  I am amazed by how many authors who I consider novelists also have written short stories.  Mary Higgins Clark is not one I would have pegged as a short story writer, though I think she is one of the authors who introduced me to the mystery/thriller genre.

I sometimes think I have too vivid of an imagination.  This can be a good thing, but it can also mean I worry needlessly over things that probably will never happen, but that race through my mind at the wrong moment.  For example, I live in an older house that has an unfinished basement with a few nooks and crannies and dark corners and all brick walls.  Normally it doesn't bother me if I need to go to the basement at night, but if I happen to be alone or have been watching too many unsettling movies, I might calmly go down and get what I need, but I might also race back up the stairs to the bright lights of the kitchen.  Now, don't ask what (or who) I think might be hiding beneath the stairs, because I know there is nothing there.  Silly.  I know, but what can I say.

So, when Mary Higgins Clark's story involved a coal bin in a cellar, it automatically made me think of my dank, dark cellar, which I already find creepy.  You'll be happy to know, I have no coal bin!  Technically there is no ghost, except what we carry with us in our imaginations (ahem) in this story, but it does have an unnerving ending.  Mike and Laurie, a young couple from New York, travel to Wisconsin in order to give Laurie some much needed rest.  Laurie is a singer, but she is becoming unhinged from recurring nightmares.  Mike spent summers with his grandmother in the cottage, but when they arrive he finds the house faded and shabby, not happy and warm as he remembers it from his youth.  Rather than finding rest, Laurie's nightmares are as real as ever.  Her psychiatrist believes the nightmares are due to frightening childhood experiences.  Laurie's grandmother had the tendency to tell her old wives' tales, and in Laurie's dreams they seem to be coming true.  When Laurie disappears, one of the first places Mike looks for her is the coal bin.  I won't tell you what he finds there.  Oh, by the way, the story is called "Voices in the Coal Bin."

Ruth Rendell is one of my all-time favorite authors.  She is a master of psychological thrillers and writes under her own name as well as the pseudonym of Babara Vine.  I think I've read nearly every Barbara Vine book  she's written and a number of them under her own name, though I have yet to read any of her Inspector Wexford mysteries.  Her story, "Compter Séance", is collected in The Mammoth Book of Haunted House Stories also edited by Peter Haining (yes, there is a whole series of these books).  To set the tone, her story begins:

"Sophia de Vasco (Sheila Vosper on her birth certificate) was waiting at the bus stop when she saw her brother coming out of a side turning.  Her brother looked a lot younger than he had before he died seven years before, but any doubts she might have had as to his identity were dispelled when he came up to her and asked her for money."

Encounters with dead relatives are not at all unusual for Sophia, but as she's a spiritualist that's not surprising.  What is, is that her computer is an indispensible tool for her trade.  Clad in fake fur and high-heeled boots with two carrier bags and a leather case in hand, she shakes off her feckless brother as she has a séance to perform, and a performance is what it is.  Sophia's a charlatan--her gig is to have a keyboard hidden where she can type the answers to her client's questions.  The joke is going to be on Sophia however, as after her "séance" she encounters her ghostly brother once more, only perhaps he's not so ghostly after all--this is a story with a twist on psychic phenomena.  

As much as I love Ruth Rendell, I think I prefer her story "The Haunting of Shawley Rectory", which I read a few years ago, over this one.  It had an interesting twist, but was a little weak in the execution, whereas her other story I thought quite clever.  Some ghost stories are definitely more effective than others.  Have you read a ghost story that has quite literally scared you?  For me, a successful story is one that gives me a surprise at the end I wasn't expecting.  I like a good twist, but I think it's hard in this day and age to give a really good scare.  But maybe I'm wrong?     

More stories read for the RIP Challenge: Miriam by Truman Capote, Sophy Mason Comes Back by E.M. Delafield, and Sloane Square by Pamela Hansford Johnson.  Next week, I think I'm ready for a good Victorian ghost story.

Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner

I finished reading Wallace Stegner's Crossing to Safety some time ago and have wanted to write about it ever since, but I've put it off feeling as though I couldn't possibly do justice to the reading experience I had.  When I finished it my initial feeling was one of awe and wonder.  I tend to consume books, but this is one that consumed me.  In some ways it was emotionally draining, but ultimately it was a profoundly moving experience.  How often do you come across books like that?  Stegner was truly a master storyteller, someone who gets into the hearts and minds of his characters and portrays them so sympathetically and sensitively, even when they might drive you mad by their actions.  These are people we know, people we recognize in ourselves. 

Crossing to Safety is an intimate portrait of two married couples who enjoy a very long and close friendship, though not one without its rocky moments.  Sid and Charity Lang have all the money and Larry and Sally Morgan have all the luck, or seemingly so at the beginning.  Larry narrates the story of their friendship beginning in the 1930s when both men are new professors at a midwestern university.  They are idealistic and ready to take on the world, both teaching English and both aspiring writers.  Sally and Charity become quick friends as they are both pregnant--Sally with her first child, and Charity expanding her growing family. 

Shortly after they meet Larry sells his first short story in what will eventually become a successful career.  The Langs are pleased for them and celebratory, but it's easy to see that Sid desires to be a published poet, his idea of fulfillment, which is always elusively and disappointingly just outside his grasp.  Charity's idea of success is for Sid to gain tenure at the university, and ever the one to plan and organize she urges him to do the sort of academic writing that will improve his chances yet doesn't inspire him and that he doesn't do well.

Perhaps the best thing that could have happened to Larry is when he is not offered a new contract to continue teaching.  Instead he takes the opportunity to write full time, an opportunity he wouldn't have been able to pursue were it not for the Langs.  They share their wealth and their home with the Morgans enabling them to live independently.  And when tragedy strikes, it is again the Langs whose friendship supports and uplifts them--always the first to help and always so selflessly.

Both couples are so vividly drawn and with a complexity that makes them seem solid and real.  Charity is the glue that keeps them all together, yet she is also the source of much antagonism.  She's a strong woman and strong-willed, not one to bend for anyone or anything but also generous and kind to the core.  Charity is the source of strength Sally draws from when she becomes ill.  Over the course of three decades the couples will share their lives, each with an eye into the private and sometimes painful world of the others. 

Wallace Stegner won all sorts of awards, including the Pulitzer, and if this novel is anything to go by, I am not surprised.  He's such a perceptive writer and one who can tell a story with such beautiful prose, particularly his lush descriptions of nature.  For me this was a powerful meditation on life and death, on the choices we make and the people we love and what they in turn ask of us.  It wasn't always easy reading, particularly when you can see inside these lives that have not perhaps turned out as hoped for and expected, but Stegner writes about emotions and experiences in such a universal way, it's impossible not to empathize and understand and feel what the characters feel--happiness and disappointments alike.  Crossing to Safety is easily one of the best books I've read all year.

A Childhood Favorite Rediscovered

I loved this book as a child.  I even remember where it was purchased--in the Old Market section of town in an independent bookstore, and from what I recall the bookstore was all kid's books, so I must have been in heaven.  I can't quite remember how old I was, but I must have been pretty young, and like so many other things the memory of it remained, but the title faded away.  So all I was left with was an impression of a story and part of a title, but never enough to find it again.  Thanks to the beauty of the internet and book blogging, some kind soul came across a very old post where I mentioned this book and how I was looking for it, and they emailed me about it.  So I have found my favorite childhood book, Pop Corn & Ma Goodness by Edna Mitchell Preston and illustrated by Robert Andrew Parker (I found a cheap used copy from Better World Books by the way). 

It came out in the fall of 1969 and funnily the person who emailed me said they knew about the book about the "hippie farm family" book, which I had been looking for.  I had forgotten that aspect of it, but they are indeed a hippie family.  I think what I loved about it was the alliteration of the story and how it rhymed happily along--no doubt music to the ears for a small child.  Do you want to take a peek inside?

Here's Ma Goodness coming down the hill right before she literally falls head over heels and bumps into Pop Corn.  The verse reads:

Ma Goodness she's coming a-skippitty skoppetty
                                           skippitty skoppetty
                                           skippitty skoppetty
Ma Goodness she's coming a-skippity skoppetty
     All doon the hill.

Okay, so I realize that all sounds like a lot of nonsense, but when you're four or five you're (well I wasn't) much of a critic!

Of course the two marry and have kids and live on their farm with their animals happy as can be and rhyming away. 

But I must not have been too off target when it comes to reading good books, as this was a Caldecott Honor Book and the New York Times wrote, "The story of how Pa and Ma met and married, their joys, sorrow and contentment, told in alliterative, nonsense verse.  With handsome water-color illustrations the book is a near-classic rural American folk hymn."

In my young eyes it was totally a classic and I am happy to have it back in my hands.  What was your favorite childhood book?

A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor

I've never come across a travel narrative quite like Patrick Leigh Fermor's A Time of Gifts.  It's an amazing book and an amazing reading experience and one that is hard to describe.  I love nonfiction but I can only read it slowly, and this is a book you will want to read slowly in order to savor it, so packed is it of all sorts of knowledge and wonder.  In 1933, when he was only eighteen, Patrick Leigh Fermor set off from his home in England after being expelled for a flirtation with a local girl to travel on foot from the hook of Holland to Constantinople.  

Now I know people have done all sorts of adventurous things, and in all sorts of conditions, but there was something especially magical and romantic about Leigh Fermor's adventures, which are not completed in this volume by the way.  He begins in Holland, moves through Germany and down (or is it up?) the Rhine, to Austria, a short foray into Slovakia and then on to Hungary, and there we leave him, eager to hear more of his adventures.  They will continue in Between the Woods and Water (which I greatly look forward to reading), though they don't quite end there.  I've heard the final volume, which completes his journey is still to come and I wonder if it will actually ever arrive as Leigh Fermor is now 95. 

During his travels Leigh Fermor kept journals, one of which was stolen, though A Time of Gifts wasn't actually written until he was in his 60s, so the narrative was based on his writings and memories and later life experiences.  Perhaps what gives the book such a unique flavor is the sense of immediacy with which Leigh Fermor writes, yet it is also influenced by historical events he lived through.  At the beginning of WWII he joined the Irish Guards, but his skills with language meant his wartime work and adventures would take him to Albania and Greece.  His anecdotes may be firmly set in the Old World of Europe filled with "princes and peasants", but his experiences and knowledge are informed by a life very fully lived--four decades worth.  In her introduction Jan Morris writes "Leigh Fermor is not only remembering himself, he is looking at himself, too, as in one of those Cubist paintings in which we see profile and front face at the same time."

When he set off Leigh Fermor had planned on roughing it and he literally did live hand to mouth at times.  Eventually his meagre funds were supplemented by occasional checks from home.  Mostly, though he got by thanks to the kindness of strangers who would happily take him into their home for a night or let him bed down in their barn.  Somehow being a student, as noted on his passport, meant an easy entrée into various places and meant not only a free bed for the night but also dinner--one time he even slept in a small town prison cell.  Often one letter of introduction would lead to another friend and place to stay--as humble as a sofa or as grand as a schloss.  He was a happy-go-lucky sort of traveler, quite content with whoever he might meet--blue blooded aristocracy or someone barely getting by.  

Leigh Fermor was not only a scholar but an artist, too, in terms of his prose style and craftsmanship.  The book has a bit of everything--travel narrative, history, art, literature, religion, politics and philosophical meditation.  To be honest there were times his references flew above my head, and I could only enjoy the way he tells his story but it never lessened the pleasure I had in reading this book.  What is so amazing is that his formal education ended early, before he set off on his adventures, yet he writes in such a sophisticated and erudite manner.  This is someone who has lived and experienced life to the very fullest taking every opportunity to take whatever knowledge is on offer.

I've been slowly trying to collect his other books and look forward to reading not only his other travel narratives but his fiction as well, which I am very curious about.  A Time of Gifts is highly recommended.

Teaser Tuesday: The Temptress

I'm not really what you might call a fan of true crime books, but Paul Spicer's The Temptress: The Scandalous Life of Alice de Janzé and the Mysterious Death of Lord Erroll caught my eye when I was browsing on Amazon recently (note--my copy is a library book, I didn't cave in and buy anything--patting self on back).  I do like a good biography, however, and anything about the 1920s through the war years often will be of interest to me.  This happens to be not only a biography of an American socialite and heiress but also a recounting of a crime that occurred in 1941 in Kenya.

"Happy Valley" (happy referring to the high altitude of the Wanjohi Valley) was quite the hotspot in the 1920s.  All sorts of partying and decadence went on there during the off hours from farming.  Josslyn Hay, the earl of Erroll, was a well known fixture and a serious womanizer in the valley.  He arrived in Africa in 1923 with his slightly older and already twice-divorced wife, Lady Idina Gordon.  She's the topic of The Bolter by Frances Osborne, which I have on my shelves but hadn't realized the connection when I started reading the Spicer book.  By the time Joss was murdered in 1941 he had been divorced and widowed and had been playing the field for some time.  It was assumed that a cuckolded husband was the most likely murderer and someone was tried for the crime but not convicted.

Paul Spicer spent his childhood in Kenya and now divides his time between Kenya and England.  His connection and interest in Alice's life comes through his mother, also an American, who was a close friend of Alice's.  Although the murder of Joss Hay remains unsolved, Spicer offers his own solution, and guess who is the culprit?  I think I am less interested in the murder and who killed Hay and more curious about reading about such an intriguing woman and the period and place in which she lived.  I'm sure I'll write more about this book as I go, but I wanted to share a little teaser about the "temptress" herself:

"She was a woman who suffered throughout her life from the demons of melancholy, and who tried to take her own life on a number of occasions.  Alongside this dark streak, however, was a vein of impetuous and often reckless daring.  As a young heiress, she quickly tired of the Chicago debutante scene and began to explore the Jazz Age nightclubs of the city, starting up an affair with a local mobster.  After being banished to Paris by her family, she took a job at a French fashion house by day, cutting a swath through the city's clubs and cafés by night.  It was in France that she won her independence from her family when she married Frédéric, the sensitive, intellectual count who took her to Africa to help cure her of her unhappiness.  After only a few months in Kenya, she decided to build a home there, leaving her two young children in France, too fearful of being a bad mother to grace them with more than the occasional visit.  In Africa, her marriage to Frédéric fell apart after she started affairs with the two men who would become her great loves, Joss and her second husband, Raymund de Trafford."

Seriously scandalous dealings, wouldn't you say?  There's much to be said about living the quiet life, but it's always a little interesting to see how the other half lives.

A Couple of Wrap Ups

I've been spending a lot of time lately reading mysteries and thrillers.  They are a nice form of escapism--there's nothing like taking yourself outside your own life and problems and getting involved in those of others and all the better that they are simply fictional characters in situations that may be on occasion heart stopping but no real harm is done, and if you (or rather the characters) are lucky the ending will be happy, or at least satisfying.  The best part is often they involve some sort of conundrum.  I'm pretty bad actually at figuring out who the culprit is with standard mysteries, but it is still a fun intellectual puzzle to try and sort things out.  My two most recent finishes, however, aren't really standard mysteries, though they might fit in peripherally with the genre.  Mostly they were just easy, entertaining reads, and both turned out to be fairly gripping stories that saw me racing to the end.

The subtitle on James McGee's Ratcatcher reads "You don't send a gentleman to catch vermin.  You send Hawkwood".  A ratcatcher is a deprecatory name for a Bow Street Runner, which in the Regency period was an elite police officer, or what would become a police officer.  Set against the Napoleonic Wars, Ratcatcher was a fun romp through London's dark underbelly and a rather surprising sort of thriller.  I wasn't sure what to expect, though I had heard about Hawkwood's dark good looks and suave demeanor.  Matthew Hawkwood is an ex-military man turned Bow Street Runner who can be as ruthless as he can be compassionate. 

Hawkwood is resourceful, and he needs to be in the places his job takes him--places like the Rookery with its labyrinthine passages filled with cutthroats and thieves.  A place you wouldn't want to become lost in.  A seemingly simple case of a stagecoach being robbed and the deaths of a passenger and driver sends Hawkwood through these dark, dangerous streets to find the men responsible.  The case turns out to be anything but simple, however, as it's not a matter of theft alone but of a possible assassination attempt that reaches across the channel to Napoleon's spies in France.  And the means by which it is rumored to be achieved is both nefarious and shocking--by a device never seen before.  This was a colorful read and McGee is very successful in painting a vivid (and am guessing fairly historically accurate) picture of late 17th/early 18th century London--at least the darker and nastier side.  I was expecting a straightforward mystery, but this turned out to be more of a thriller with hints that Hawkwood's further adventures will take him farther afield and into the upper echelons of government.

I've already mentioned how much I had been enjoying Janet Evanovich's One for the Money, which is Stephanie Plum's first adventure in the business of becoming a recovery agent, a.k.a. bounty hunter.  In the opening pages of the novel Stephanie is driving to her parent's house for dinner when two cars behind her a repo man, and former high school classmate, is ready to remove the keys from the ignition and take the car back to the lot.  He gives her a reprieve of one day, and when she wakes the next morning the car is gone.  A former lingerie buyer, she's living a down and out existence as she slowly sells off the contents of her apartment to get by.  She falls into the job as bounty hunter thanks to her cousin Vinnie who has a bail bond business.  At least at the beginning, she's not especially suited for the job, but when she sets her mind on something she is nothing if not tenacious.

If we're talking about resourceful characters, Stephanie Plum is certainly resourceful.  Her first FTA (failure to appear) happens to be Joe Morelli, "Stephanie's childhood-nemesis-turned-hunky-vice-cop", who has somehow gotten caught up in a murder.  He's jumped bond and if Stephanie can bring him in she'll be $10,000 richer.  Armed with a Smith & Wesson .38 Special, a can of pepper spray, cuffs and a Jeep Cherokee that she "commandeered" from Morelli's house she's ready for action.  She quickly discovers this is dangerous business, however.  After an almost deadly run in with  psycho boxing champ, and getting cuffed (naked no less) to her own bathroom shower she decides that serious business requires equally serious training, which comes in the form of fellow recovery agent, Ranger.  Ranger is every bit as attractive as Joe Morelli, and I foresee sparks igniting somewhere along the line.  Stephanie's a great character--fearless, wisecracking, beer-swilling, never takes herself too seriously and is very savvy when the moment requires.  Evanovich had me cracking up over the situations Stephanie found herself in.

Neither book was what you would call highbrow, but if you are looking for something fast paced and entertaining both authors are worth investigating.  James McGee has not been published in the US, but I found a library copy to read.  And Janet Evanovich is very readily available, as a matter of fact I picked up my copy while grocery shopping.  Both were a nice change of pace and both authors will remain on my reading list, but I think I am ready to turn to something a little cozier next...maybe a country house murder!