A Work in Progress

How Many Miles to Babylon? (Revisited)

Last fall I read Jennifer Johnston's How Many Miles to Babylon?, a story of friendship, love and honor set in Ireland and on the battlefields of Flanders during WWI.  It was one of my favorite books of the year, so when Caroline choose it as one of the reads for her Literature and War Readalong, I was happy to return to it once more.  You can read her thoughts on the story here, as well she links to other reviews of the book.  I wrote about it very briefly already, but I thought I might mention a few things that struck me the second time around.  Even knowing the outcome, it was as heartwrenching this time as the first.  I still regard it as an excellent story and a second read only emphasizes in my mind what a good writer Johnston is. 

Jennifer Johnston is an author who can tell a story with much depth but with few words.  As a matter of fact, that is one of the things that stood out as I was reading.  There is nothing excessive about her storytelling.  There are no unnecessary words or descriptions yet her characters are very rounded and deeply nuanced and interesting.  Alec and Jerry couldn't be more different, as they come from different sides of the political divide in Ireland.  Alec is the only son of a wealthy landowner and Jerry one of several children from a poor Catholic family.  They share a love of horses, however, so they find common ground and their friendship flourishes.  It is a friendship that must remain secret however, as neither family would welcome it. 

The story is narrated by Alec, who at the beginning awaits disciplinary action for something that occurs during the war.  I have a stronger sense of what Alec is like (or maybe only his situation) yet there is still something enigmatic about him.  In many ways he seems a much more passive character than Jerry, yet I think to say that somehow simplifies him, and I don't think there is anything really simple about him.  Perhaps he is only a product of his circumstances.  It's obvious his parents have a strained relationship, and there is a question of why they married in the first place.  Alec's father loves the land and considers himself only a temporary caretaker, yet he tends to be ineffectual--at least in his wife's eyes.  Alec's mother is beautiful and cold and cares for appearances and propriety.  Alec is educated at home and when it's time to send him off to school she refuses--calling his health fragile.  The real reason is she doesn't wish to be left alone in her grand house with her husband where their dislike for one another is palpable.  Alec hates her, or at least doesn't understand her or her motives.

"She had a contrived radiance which strangers took for reality, but which to me seemed to be a thin shell covering some black burning rage which constantly consumed her.  When she played the piano she played with an anger that made me uneasy, made me have to leave the room out of some kind of fear, listen from a safe distance.  I think she loved me, but wanted for me something about which I had no comprehension.  It angered her more and more as the months passed, to watch the mutual pleasure given and received between my father and myself."  

She had taken Alec to Europe to finish his education and hoped on their return that he would be able to participate in cultivated conversations yet he seems to become more and more like his father as he learns how to manage the estate.  She deplores this fact, and as soon as war is declared and the first young man from their community dies, she's ready to shuttle him off to battle as well.  Alec's father thinks it's insanity, but his mother believes it's Alec's duty to fight for country and King, and no doubt it would be an embarrassment for him to remain at home.  By this time Alec has essentially been separated from Jerry.  Jerry's responsibilities are clear--he leaves school to get a job to help his family financially, so the two young men go their own ways, but will be reunited through war.

Each young man has his own reasons for joining up.  For Jerry he believes it will toughen him and train him for the real fight at home in Ireland later.  Alec doesn't want to go, but his mother pushes him into it.  The idea of war becomes more bearable than remaining at home.  Jerry ends up as an enlisted man and as expected Alec is made an officer.  The Major in charge of their regiment finds the men under him a sorry lot and ensures them he will make men of them--particularly of Alec.  Neither Jerry nor Alec makes a very good soldier.  Jerry is small for his age, his growth almost stunted, and Alec has a lackadaisical sense about him.  It's his emotions that seem stunted.

"In the life that I had always known, spontaneity and warmth were unknown, almost anarchic, qualities. Dangerous."

Alec's problem is that he is too gentle.  Another officer says about him, that he never expected to admire gentleness in another man.  And perhaps it is this gentleness and ability to empathize with the men (even though he is an awful leader and no one listens to him) that will ultimately come to the aid of his friend Jerry.  This is a story filled with contradictions.  Of course that is the problem with trying to get inside the head of a character who is so complicated and perhaps conflicted.  Perhaps that is why I like this book so much, it's a story simply told yet not simple at all.  There is much to appreciate and think about in this story.  Next up for March is Rebecca West's The Return of the Soldier.

Stone in a Landslide by Maria Barbal

I finished reading Maria Barbal's Stone in a Landslide mid-month, but I've been putting off writing about it and now as February quickly winds down I had better do so before the story goes completely hazy in my mind.  This is one of a trio of books (actually now a quartet as their first of 2011 has recently been released) that has been published by Peirene Press.  Peirene is a relatively new small publisher which translates contemporary European fiction into English, and the books are all under two hundred pages.  I believe they focus on bringing out award winning novels, so I've an expectation that they will be quality stories and while I have a certain ambivalence about this one, it was beautifully told and a very good introduction for me to Peirene's authors.

Maria Barbal is, according to the biographical information, considered the most influential living Catalan author.  She's won a number of awards for the eight novels she's written.  Stones in a Landslide was published in 1985 and is now in its 50th edition.  In a mere 126 pages Barbal brings to life a remarkable heroine whose life stretches across the tumultuous years of the twentieth century.  Despite the hardships she must endure, it is always her quiet voice that is felt beyond everything else.

At the age of thirteen Concepció, or Conxa as her family calls her, is sent from her small village in the Pyrenees to her aunt's home a day's journey away.  One of six children, someone must go as there are too many mouths to feed, and Tia has no children of her own.  Life in her native village is difficult and her mother knows not one idle hour, so perhaps it is a mixed blessing for Conxa as she can live in a large house in a town.  And while her aunt is not demonstrative she shows affection in her own way and Conxa easily falls into the rhythms of her new life.  Relatives come from the city to stay, there is much work to do outside, mass on Sundays and in good times festivals for celebrating.

As time passes Conxa no longer misses her family and she comes to see these years as the happiest period of her life--"the bad times were just waiting behind all the laughter".  Then she meets Jaume, "so open and full of charm that I quickly forgot my shyness".  As a second son he could not make his living off the land so he becomes a builder and carpenter and after obstacles put forth by her aunt and uncle are overcome the two marry and start a family.  Jaume must travel from place to place whenever and wherever his skills are needed.  For Conxa daily life is fairly regimented but Jaume hears stirrings from larger places outside of their mountain village.  The world is changing and Jaume gets caught up in the turmoil of the civil war to tragic ends.  As a mother who deeply loves her children Conxa must get up and carry on even though she would rather stay still, unmoving and unthinking. 

Conxa begins her life in a tiny Pyreneean hamlet and will end it in the beautiful city of Barcelona, where she didn't want to go, but her children wouldn't allow her to stay on the mountain.  So, with modernity comes the exodus from the rural areas to the cities and once again an upheaval for Conxa--a re-imagining or rather reinvention of her life yet one more time. 

This was a beautifully told tale, though bittersweet as well.  It was sparsely written, but still Barbal conveys so much in so few pages.  Conxa is described in the book as indomitable, and she is that.  I do feel slightly ambivalent about it, however, but I'm not sure I can explain why.  This is a book I really enjoyed, though perhaps can't say I loved, but it is definitely a matter of my own taste rather than any shortcomings of the author.  Somehow, something about it felt very thin and maybe it is only due to the economy of words.  I wanted to know more--more about everything.  In thinking about Conxa, maybe 'more' would have ruined the characterization, I'm not sure.  Still, this is a book I would recommend and seems to be well regarded by other readers.  I have Beside the Sea by Véronique Olmi and Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman by Friedrich Christian Delius on my pile of library books to read soon.   

Lost in the Stacks: The House in Vienna

My latest library find (book rescue?) is a novel that I came across, as I so often do lately, when I was looking for something else entirely.  I had never heard of Edith de Born before, but as I love anything about Vienna, the title on the spine of this one caught my eye.  The House in Vienna is actually the second book of a trilogy (we only have this title by her), which was published in 1960.  Edith was born in Vienna and had a varied education--private tutoring, a progressive school, a convent, and a Gymnasium, finishing her studies at Vienna University.  According to the biographical information about her she started writing in English during the German Occupation.  And very interestingly she and her husband worked for the Resistance in Paris.  I do wish I could find out more about her.

The bad thing about the books in my library is they no longer have their dust jackets.  Occasionally the blurb from the jacket will have been trimmed down and glued into the back cover, but not so in this instance.  The good thing, I should mention, about these books is that they might be in fragile or worn condition, but almost always they are clean otherwise.  This one is fairly pristine despite having been around for more than half a century.

So what's to be done when there is no description?  Just reading the first couple of pages gives a little taste, but doesn't tell much else.  Reviews are always handy places to look.  This is what the New York Times had to say on January 17, 1960.

"This third example of Miss de Born's  manner of recapturing past feeling, of re-creating a lost air, is nostalgic and witty and deft.  Her method recalls Elizabeth Bowen, who has more sinew, and Katherine Mansfield, whose style is more tenuous.  She is a novelist of light controls and sensitive manipulations of scene, who writes clear sentences and tells slight stories without strain.  She is all character, and her characters are shadowed over by imminent circumstance.  Over The House in Vienna the shadow of Hitler plays faintly--like a flag waving in the distance.  The shadow touches the uncertain lives of a family, the de Kailerns, who live in an ancient aristocratic house in Vienna which has remained a permanent set piece in a ruined empire."

I should mention the story is set in 1926 in Paris as the daughter of the family looks back at that summer many years later.  It must be good as the reviewer called it a "consummately finished little novel".   That seems very complimentary, doesn't it?

I'm in the market for a new library book as I've finished E.M. Delafield's excellent Gay Life (more about that one next week).  It's always hard when you finish a very satisfying (and the Delafield was) read to choose another.  Will it be this one, or something else entirely? 

Virago Goodness, or New Books

Since I've now read all the books by Elizabeth von Arnim that I own, I thought it was time to stock up on a few more.  Well, that and a general excitement about the Virago Reading Week last month made me want a few more.  I think I mentioned that I was 'inspired' to order a few Viragos and here they finally are. 

The top four are all by Elizabeth von Arnim, as she joins the ranks of authors whose work I now want to devour.  I've got:

Fraulein Schmidt and Mr Anstruther - "This enchanting novel tells the story of the love affair between Rose-Marie Schmidt and Roger Anstruther.  A determined young woman of twenty-five, Rose-Marie is considered a spinster by the inhabitants of the small German town of Jena where she lives with her father, the Professor.  To their home comes Roger, an impoverished but well-born young Englishman who wishes to learn German: Rose-Marie and Roger fall in love.  But the course of true love does not run smooth: distance, temperament and fortune divide them.  We watch the ebb and flow of love between two very different people and see the witty and wonderful Rose-Marie get exactly what she wants."

Mrs Skeffington - "With the delicate piquancy for which she is renowned, Elizabeth von Arnim here reveals the complexities of emotions involved in the process of ageing and in re-evaluating self-worth."

The Caravaners - "For the Major and his wife Edelgard, the idea of a caravaning holiday in Southern England seems perfect.  As they begin their leisurely progress through its green and verdant countryside, the holiday spirit sets in.  But England presents more than just a contrast of scenery to this German couple--amongst the company of their English companions Edelgard seems to undergo a change of temperament, revealing herself to be less biddable than the upright Major had believed.  The blossoming of the hedgerows is one thing, but the blossoming of his wife is quite another..."

Christopher and Columbus - This is set during WWII when two half-German orphan twins are packed off to America.  En route they are befriended by a wealthy engineer with tendencies toward motherliness.  "Many adventures ensue (and befall them) in this sparklingly witty, romantic novel in which Elizabeth von Arnim explored the suspicions cast upon the two Annas and Mr Twist in a country poised for war."  And I must share a quote by Penelope Mortimer (since I am reading her at the moment) that appears on the back of the book: "An extremely talented writer...Elizabeth von Arnim had a near wit, a wild sense of comedy, and a vision, continually thwarted as it was--of potential happiness."

Betty Miller, On the Side of Angels - "First published in 1945, this exploration of the crushing psychological effects of war is 'a sensitively and beautifully told story...perfectly drawn'--Stevie Smith."

Christa Wolf, The Quest for Christa T. - "Christa is a young girl in Hitler's Germany; she survives to embrace the new order but her enthusiasm and idealism wither as crass materialists corrode its splendid dreams.  A teacher in a village school, a student at Leipzig University, a wife and a mother, the life of Christa T., here recalled by her friend, is the life of an ordinary, intelligent, sensitive woman.  But this famous novel reveals much more: Christa's is the story of a whole generation, and a moving celebration of the unique value of each human being and all human life."

Isn't this a lovely stack?  I think I am going to make up for neglecting my Viragos last year.  I've got two on my current reading pile and when I finish those plan on picking out yet another one to start reading.  Something good to look forward to.

This Body of Death by Elizabeth George

With the exception of one recent non-Inspector Lynley novel, I've read all of Elizabeth George's mysteries.  She's one of the few mystery writers I can say I follow fairly religiously, and now that I've read her fifteenth Lynley mystery, This Body of Death, I'm back to waiting for her to write more, though she does have a number of short story collections I should really explore.  If you follow the series you'll know it's been a bumpy ride the last few times out.  After the murder of one of the main characters in the ongoing story, George has taken things in different directions to not always happy results.  I know a number of her readers have given up on Lynley, and while I agree there are maddening moments in her books, I like enough of the characters to keep returning to the stories.  Certainly her style has changed over time from her earlier novels, but many elements remain the same.  I was happy to see that although the story has again moved in a different direction, she has at least returned to her core cast of characters with a few new additions. 

It seems as though a signature Elizabeth George story includes a full cast of well developed characters and an often complicated storyline made up of disparate threads that seem to have little in common with each other but will in the end be nicely woven together.  This was the case with This Body of Death.  The main story revolves around the murder of a young woman in a London cemetery.   The investigation falls into the lap of acting Detective Superintendent Isabelle Ardery who is hoping to permanently fill the position that was vacated some time ago.  Detective Inspector Lynley had been temporarily filling the position until his own tragedy intervened and he has only lately returned to help on this case and only on a trial basis as it's unclear whether he'll continue his work at the Met.  Ardery is not an easy character to like.  Divorced with two children who live with their father, she is controlling, occasionally strident, a bit of a tippler, and a total micro-manager, and this case is meant to be a test of her abilities.  Not surprisingly the team working under her balks at her methods, but in characteristic Lynley fashion, he tries to very democratically smooth things over between Ardery and the other detectives.  

The victim is identified as Jemima Hastings, who had been living in a boarding house and working in a cigar shop.  Jemima was the sort of woman who was always in need of, or at least only happy when she had a boyfriend.  A native of Hampshire, Jemima seemed to leave her life there behind with no explanation of what exactly drove her to London in the first place.  She had been living with a man she had hoped to marry, as well she left behind an only brother and best friend.  Something or someone drove a wedge between her life there and her new life in London.  Once the connection between London and Hampshire is made, DS Barbara Havers and DS Winston Nkata (yay, they're both back) are ordered to the New Forest to suss things out.  New Forest is an idyllic spot where ponies roam free and the general quaintness of the area draws bus loads of visitors.  Behind the beauty of the area secrets lurk, however.  Secrets that are worth killing for. 

George offers ample clues (and red herrings) to the murder of Jemima Hastings as ongoing investigations in both London and the New Forest uncover a multitude of suspects.  Thrown into the mix is a seemingly unrelated typescript which is interspersed in the story.  The typescript is a detailed analysis of an investigation into the abduction and murder of a small child.  The crime is particularly heinous as it was perpetrated by three boys not much older than the victim.  For most of the story it's unclear what the two murders have in common, though as more and more of the story is revealed it's not difficult to understand the connection.  In consummate George style she brings it all together in one nice (albeit none too tidy) package.

Although not paired in the traditional manner, it was good to see both Havers and Lynley working together to solve the crime.  Isabelle Ardery does throw a spanner into the works and changes the dynamics considerably.  Her personality does often grate, but after watching so many episodes of Prime Suspect with Helen Mirren as a ladder climbing detective it's probably not so hard to appreciate the difficulties a woman would have in such a male dominated world trying to succeed.  I think she tends to overcompensate and ends up being hated for it, but she might prove an interesting character in the future.  That doesn't mean I like her, but I expect she'll be back in the next book.  She tries hard to remake Barbara Havers, but I think she succeeds.  Barbara and A-line skirts and heels just doesn't cut it.  Simon and Deborah St. James also make appearances in the story as do Hadiyyah and her father Azhar, and there are new developments on that front, though I don't like to give those away.

By no means a perfect novel, I am happy to see George is once again on familiar terrain.  I think her best work is still her earlier novels, but I have hopes that she might pull it all together again and produce some vintage Lynley stories.  I should mention there are a number of disagreeable scenes in this book, which I hate to think might have been a little too gratuitous and unnecessary.  I do expect nastiness in a crime novel, but where is the line drawn?  Apparently the murder of the small child bears a very strong resemblance to an actual murder case in the UK from the early 90s, about which I had no idea as I was reading.  I generally like details and the painting of scenes but sometimes a little goes a long way.  I liked reading about Hampshire and thatching and all the other small things that she incorporates into the story, but with an already very complex plot the book gets very long and with well over 600 pages, that's an especially long detective story.  A little extra editing might not have been remiss.  In the end I suppose this was a bit of a mixed bag, but despite having a few quibbles with the execution of the story, Elizabeth George almost always manages to grab me and keep me reading.  It was good to see Lynley and Havers working together again.  I know authors like to shake things up a bit and make it all feel fresh and new, but hope things are back on track again.  I do think I am ready for something a little less intense, so Agatha Christie's Tommy and Tuppence are the perfect alternative.

Teaser Tuesday: The Secret Adversary

I'm afraid today's going to be a lazy posting day for me.  I've just started reading Agatha Christie's The Secret Adversary, which features sleuths Tommy and Tuppence.  This was published in 1922, so I'm back to my post-WWI era reading and am very much in the mood for a nice cozy mystery.  I like the idea of a crime fighting couple, though I believe this pair is only good friends.  My teaser is from the opening section of the book to give you a taste of what the two look like.

"Tommy sat down opposite her.  His bared head revealed a shock of exquisitely slicked-back red hair.  His face was pleasantly ugly--nondescript, yet unmistakably the face of a gentleman and a sportsman.  His brown suit was well cut, but perilously near the end of its tether."

"They were an essentially modern-looking couple as they sat there.  Tuppence had no claim to beauty, but there was character and charm in the elfin lines of her little face, with its determined chin and large, wide-apart grey eyes that looked mistily out from under straight, black brows.  She wore a small bright green toque over her black bobbed hair, and her extremely short and rather shabby shirt revealed a pair of uncommonly dainty ankles.  Her appearance presented a valiant attempt at smartness."

It looks as though despite good breeding the two haven't much in the way of money between them, so they hire themselves out as "willing to do anything".  Their first job includes an all-expense paid trip to Paris for Tuppence where she'll pose as an American.  Easy money never really comes easy and it looks as though Tuppence will get more than she bargains for.

Has anyone read the Tommy and Tuppence series?  So far Miss Marple is my favorite, but anything by Agatha Christie is likely to be good!

February 21: Reading Notes - Distractions

Last month was a really good reading month for me.  Not only did I read a number of really excellent books, but I read more than I normally can manage in a month.  This month, however, as much as I seem to be reading it feels as though I'm not making any progress with anything at all.  As a matter of fact I did a bit of book switching on my side bar (and night table) to reflect just what I actually have been working on.  I think the difference has been that last month I had a set reading plan and particular books that I needed to concentrate on and this month I've just been reading bits and pieces of whatever strikes my fancy.  It makes for entertaining enough reading, but there's little to show for it all at the end of the month.  I'm definitely spoiled for choice and want to try and read everything at once.  Sometimes this works for me, but apparently not this month.

Here are a few of the books that have been distracting me.  Library books and a few galley copies of forthcoming books have nosed their way into my reading pile and upset things a bit.  I have been lusting after Michelle Paver's Dark Matter ever since Cornflower wrote about it last year.  When my library got a copy I snapped it up and have just started reading.  I do love a good ghost story, and from what I hear this is a very good one.  It's set in the 1930s when a group of men--several very posh gentlemen (well students at least) and one working class fellow decide to travel to the Arctic on a scientific expedition.  Whatever they find there is enough to scare the lot of them away save for the working class fellow who keeps a journal of his experiences.  I'm not far enough in to get to any of the 'juicy' parts, but doesn't the dark, brooding cover set a creepily atmospheric tone? 

At the end of last year I went on a mystery reading binge but have only just finished my first mystery of this year, This Body of Death by Elizabeth George.  I'll only say that I think George is back in form and I'll write about it properly soon.  It is a long one and I almost grabbed another shorter mystery to read 'on the side' but now am glad I waited, as I soon hit the point of no return and had to read through to the end.  Now for something a little different I've picked up Agatha Christie's The Secret Adversary.  This is the first Tommy and Tuppence mystery.  I've not yet read about these Christie characters, though they seem a little like adventurers who get mixed up in murder.  The Secret Adversary was published in 1922, and I'm very much in the mood to get back to that era mystery-wise.

Claire at Paperback Reader is hosting a Persephone Reading weekend next weekend, and I've already started my book.  It isn't the one I planned on reading, but no matter as it came across my desk at the library, I had to have it and am now enjoying it--another novel by Penelope Mortimer, Daddy's Gone A-Hunting.  Last year I read The Pumpkin Eater which was such a curious and interesting read.  It's very much domestic fiction though not a happily domestic sort of novel and unsurprisingly Daddy's Gone A-Hunting is proving to be very similar.   The women in these novels lead lives they see as pointless and empty and bleak as the stories may be it's all very riveting and maddeningly understandable.  Their sense of being unfulfilled is palpable.

I am nearing the end of E.M. Delafield's Gay Life about a group of merry-makers, who mostly behave badly, on France's Côte d'Azur.  This is definitely closer to Delafield's Thank Heaven Fasting than The Provincial Lady.  The Gay Life has its charms, but is also quite satirical in it characterizations.  I'm reading along with Simon at Stuck in a Book, though he's already finished so I'm trying to catch up quickly.

One more mention--I'm rereading Jennifer Johnston's How Many Miles to Babylon? for Caroline's Literature in War Readalong.   Since it's not been too long since I first read it, I am hoping to read more closely and see how much more I take in. 

So, now perhaps I do have a little direction in my reading for this last week of February, and maybe this will help me stay on task rather than continue to 'book graze'.

The Solitary Summer by Elizabeth von Arnim

I finished two summery books in a row at what was the coldest time of the year.  First Tove Jansson's very charming The Summer Book at the end of January, and then just a few days later I finished the very delightful Elizabeth von Arnim's The Solitary Summer.  Unfortunately I've let several weeks pass without writing about it properly, though I did mention what a pleasure it was reading the book.  You'll have to forgive me if my post is somewhat brief now, since it seems my mind goes very fuzzy on the details far too quickly after I finish a book (must learn to take better notes).  Suffice it to say, however, I loved the book and it is truly a keeper--one to revisit when I need a little intelligent escapism.  And no cold weather necessary, as this is a book that wears well in all seasons.

Three of her novels under my belt and I've decided (had decided this before already, really) that I love her work and am adding her to my "must read all her books" list.  To that end I've made a few purchases, which I'll share with you soon.  All those Virago posts last month left me wanting more, and I seem to be in good company: here, here, and here!  It's funny, last year I read only one or two Viragos, but this year I can't seem to get enough of them.  One has led to another and I've got yet another lined up for later.   And it's thanks to Virago that someone like Elizabeth von Arnim is still in print and readily available for all to enjoy.

The Solitary Summer is a sequel to her hugely successful Elizabeth in Her German Garden, which ran into twenty-one reprints in the first twelve months after it was published in 1898.  It was then regularly reprinted until 1914.  And those first books were written anonymously and to critical acclaim.  It's no wonder she set out so quickly to write a second book after her first did so well.  Although The Solitary Summer was written "patchily", she became a compulsive writer writing one right after another.

"She turned her life into fiction as she went along, both simplifying and exaggerating the things that happened to her.  Wherever she lived (and she was to live in many different houses and several different countries) there was always a little garden house where she worked, usually with a forbidding inscription over the door."

Written very loosely in diary format, The Solitary Summer, covers the months of May to October. There is no plot to speak of here.  What she writes is a series of meanderings wending her way from one subject to the next, and many times unrelated to each other, but she does it so seamlessly that the reader doesn't even realize it.  She may wax poetical about the beauty of her roses or how her favorites (next to roses, as no one can deny the supremacy of the rose) are sweet peas, and only a few pages later she's discussing the habits of country doctors, or a graveyard in the middle of a pine forest.  Although Elizabeth wishes nothing more than to spend her summer quietly in her garden with no visitors, much of the book is not actually spent there. 

This is a woman who desires solitude but spends so much of her day surrounded by people.   And sometimes it's a lot of people--swarms of soldiers as a matter of fact.  At the end of the summer she must "quarter" officers who are on "manoeuvres".  They fill her farm--men and horses--in temporary sheds, the stables and officers billeted in the house. 

"Eighty pfennings a day is added for the soldier's food, and for this he has to receive two pounds of bread, half a pound of meat, a quarter pound of bacon, and either a quarter of a pound of rice or barley or three pounds of potatoes.  Officers are paid for at the rate of two marks fifty a day without wine; we are not obliged to give them wine, and if we do they are regarded as guests and behave accordingly."

To Elizabeth this means they should leave the house early and return late, which of course they do not do, or at least not all at the same time!  Imagine.  

Although I've marked lots of passages, I have two that I'd like to share.  Elizabeth had a great love of literature and read widely, which shows in her work.

"Thoreau has been my companion for some days past, it having struck me as more appropriate to bring him out to a pond than to read him, as was hitherto my habit, on Sunday mornings in the garden.  He is a person who loves the open air, and will refuse to give you much pleasure if you try to read him amid the pomp and circumstance of upholstery; but out in the sun, and especially by this pond, he is delightful, and we spend the happiest hours together, he making statements, and I either agreeing heartily, or just laughing and reserving my opinion till I shall have more ripely considered the thing."

It's been ages since I've read Thoreau, and even then it was only excerpts (another hole in my reading), but when I do, I'll try and read him by a pond like Elizabeth.  And I think I agree with her that every book has its time and place and even best place to be read,

"Books have their idiosyncrasies as well as people, and will not show me their full beauties unless the place and time in which they are read suits them.  If, for instance, I cannot read Thoreau in a drawing-room, how much less would I ever dream of reading Boswell in the grass by a pond!  Imagine carrying him off in company with his great friend to a lonely dell in a rye-field, and expecting them to be entertaining.  'Nay, my dear lady,' the great man would say in mighty tones of rebuke, 'this will never do.  Lie in a rye-field?  What folly is that?  And who would converse in a damp hollow that can help it?'  So I read and laugh over Boswell in the library when the lamps are lit, buried in cushions and surrounded by every sign of civilisation, with the drawn curtains shutting out the garden and the country solitude so much disliked by both sage and disciple."

There is so much to like about this book.  I've really only touched on a few things, and I've left much for you to explore.  Do take a look at it if it's caught your fancy.  It definitely caught mine.

Lost in the Stacks: A Little Learning

I have Lyn to thank for finding this little gem of a book in my library.  Persephone Books publishes one of Winifred Peck's novels, House-Bound, which I have in my pile and started reading quite a while ago but got distracted so am hoping to pick it up again some other time.  Lyn was actually writing about Anna Katharine Green's The Leavenworth Case, but there was a comment in her discussion thread about Winifred Peck, who also wrote a few detective novels.  I only associate her with the Persephone title so was very surprised.  Knowing my love of mysteries it's probably not surprising that after reading Lyn's post I went to my library's online catalog to see if we had any of Peck's novels or detective stories.  Unfortunately we only have one book, which is a memoir of sorts (reminiscences she calls them) of her education, A Little Learning, or A Victorian Childhood. 

I've not been able to find out much about Winifred Peck so far.  A Little Learning was published in 1952 and was one of her last books.  This is from the Persephone website:

"...she was brilliant, like her brothers, was one of the first forty pupils at the pioneering (and still outstanding) Wycombe Abbey School and went to Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford to read History. She married when she was 29 and over the next forty years, as well as having three brilliant sons, wrote twenty-five books, mostly novels."

Penelope Fitzgerald was her niece and was instrumental in getting Persephone to publish what was her own favorite novel of Winifred's.  A Little Learning is about her education at Wycombe Abbey School.  This is a bit longish, but I wanted to share an excerpt:

"But of these days I only wish to try to recapture one particular aspect.  I should have no justification for writing down my general memories unless I wrote of near relatives who would shudder at the suggestion.  Nor have I the sort of eventful career which justifies such a book.  I have never travelled with rod and gun in the far reaches of the Amazon, nor hob-nobbed with head-hunters or the vanished Courts of the Continent.  Nor have I that best qualification of being either over eighty--when few contemporaries remain to feel annoyance--or under forty, when your contemporaries can, and often do, answer back.  No, these recollections are confined only to the one department in my life which was unusual, if not unique.  In education I can claim the privilege, the doubtful prestige, of a centenarian."

"For from an old-fashioned home I was sent, at the end of the last century, to a school which in outlook and atmosphere had never changed since the period of 1850 or 1860 at least.  From that school my devious way led me three years later to a girls' public school which was at least twenty years ahead of its time.  I went to Oxford in the days when we still had to take a chaperon for so dangerous a festivity as tea with a brother.  I married, so to speak, into the Education Department, and it was not till 1939 that my husband, who was Permanent Secretary to the Scottish Education Department, left that office, though not his interest in the changes which have taken place, and are always taking place in that endless process of education." 

This book is just under two hundred pages and seems like it would be quite an interesting read.  I'm adding it to my ever growing library stack (I don't want to just bring these books back into circulation but really do want to read them).  It's a pity we only have one of her books, as I wouldn't mind seeing what her other fiction is like apart from House-Bound.  Still I fully expect to find more hidden gems in my library's stacks in the upcoming weeks.  I wonder when the last time Winifred Peck was pulled off the shelf and taken out of the library? 

New & Noteworthy

Is it just me, or does it almost feel as though spring is in the air?  I expect I'm getting ahead of myself, but with the nicer weather it's hard not to think about it.  And with spring somewhere on the horizon, there are also new books to think about, too.  I keep a little notebook handy for book lists and thought I'd share a few new titles that I'm looking forward to.

Naming the Bones, Louise Welsh - I've yet to read this author but I do have a couple of her earlier books on hand.  I've heard good things about her so it is only a matter of time.  She's been compared to Ruth Rendell, and I do love a good psychological thriller.

A Dark Dividing, Sarah Rayne - I tried one of Rayne's earlier novels and didn't get on as well with it as I would have liked, but as she is yet another author I've heard good things about I am very willing to give her another try.   This one does sound appealing: "Rayne writes in a semiformal style that evokes turn-of-the-last-century England and lends the novel an appropriately gothic atmosphere."

You: A Novel, Joanna Briscoe - "Sensual, unnerving, and gripping, You is a novel about the lives we think we want, the choices we can't unmake, and the loves and losses we never forget."

Game of Secrets, Dawn Tripp - Tripp has written two earlier novels, both of which I loved.  I never seem to see anything written about her, which is a pity (though maybe I'm looking in the wrong places?), so I was happy to discover she has a new book coming out this summer.  This is a novel of "small town secrets".  To be honest she is an author who I will read whatever she writes, so this one is already on my wish list.

The Dogs of Rome: A Commissario Alec Blume Novel, Conor Fitzgerald - I was eyeing this when it first came out and now that it'll soon be in paper I'll be buying a copy.  Blume is an American expatriate living in Rome for over two decades and now a commissario with the police.  It sounds like an interesting twist to the normal detective story and with an Italian setting, I have to give it a try.  Fitzgerald's second book will be coming out soon, too, Fatal Touch.

When We Were Strangers, Pamela Schoenewalt - This is an immigrant tale of a young woman traveling from Italy to the American midwest in the 1880s.  It seems to have gotten positive reviews and as the heroine is a needleworker it sounds right up my alley.

The Girl in the Blue Beret, Bobbie Ann Mason - "Inspired by the wartime experiences of her late father-in-law, award-winning author Bobbie Ann Mason has written an unforgettable novel about an American World War II pilot shot down in Occupied Europe."  I know this is a story that has been done before, but it still appeals to me.

The Sea Captain's Wife, Beth Powning - "An exciting, adventurous story about a woman’s hidden strength."  And a seafaring tale set in the mid-19th century!

Season of Light, Katharine McMahon - Yay.  I love her books.  I'm not sure when this one is actually due out, but I am watching her blog for information.  I only know the story was inspired by the French Revolution.  McMahon is another author whose books I'll just buy when they come out no matter the story!

A side note--you've probably already heard about Borders filing bankruptcy?  To be honest Borders has never been my favorite bookstore, but to me it seems to bode ill for the bookselling (and publishing) industry that this has happened.  Fewer bookstores mean fewer choices even with the internet.  Their selection has always been slightly different (at least in my own experience) than their neighbor across the street (locally that is exactly how things are set up--I have both a Borders and B&N just down the street from my work).  I've not heard that my local store is closing, but their shelves and tables did seem fairly spare the last time I was there after the holidays, so it makes me wonder.  Maybe I should pull out the gift cards I was hoarding and use them now to be safe, though I've read that they will continue to honor them.  It looks like the book industry is in for a shake up and it will be interesting to see how the "books" land.