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| Top of Scafell Pike |
Lots has happened since I last
posted: we've climbed Scafell Pike, Child 2 has graduated, Hubby has changed
his role at work and Child 1 has secured a permanent job. Daughter and son-in
law have spent a week on New Wine radio whilst Son has begun battle with
Teeline shorthand for his next venture into journalism. Meanwhile I have
painted my parents' hall, stairs and landing and this week, I submitted the
last piece of writing for my MA.
Studying at Warwick University has
been a great privilege— a year of incredible opportunity and learning. I have met many wise and talented people, and been greatly
encouraged by my fellow students. My next step is to complete a full-length
piece. Writing this intention publicly is a very scary thing! Taking more
time to write feels indulgent, as I had only given myself a year out of
"normal" life to concentrate on writing and study, but it also feels that it would be a waste of all that
learning if I don't give myself a chance to develop further. I see myself as a person
who is writing, rather than a writer. To be a writer, I need a book with
my name on the spine. That has been my dream ever since I was a little
girl. I will allow that dream to breathe a little over the next twelve
months—whilst acknowledging that it may never happen, it certainly won't if I
don't try.
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| At Blackwell's for Dorian Gray with a post-purchase glow! |
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| Passing her audition for bookshop cat |
One of my favourite things to do
whilst away on holiday is to get up before anyone else and curl up, undisturbed
with a good book. I began on the balcony overlooking the ghyll, (I learnt
lots of northern dialect words for water and hills whilst in the Lake
District), but the morning temperatures in Ambleside are not quite the Riviera,
and I settled for an expansive armchair next to an open window. There, I
finished Bodies of Light by Sarah Moss, and read Grace by
Paul Lynch from cover to cover.
This was the second novel I have
read from Sarah Moss, and I am hooked! I do however, need to issue a no-spoiler
apology to loyal readers. I reviewed Signs for Lost
Children in my last blog post but hadn’t realised it was the second
book in a sequel. Having read them out of order myself, I don’t
think I lost anything from the experience. Both books were
compelling, compassionate and resonating. The characterisation is wholly
convincing, and the time period subtly and accurately evoked. Bodies of
Light provided context for the second novel, but both really do stand
alone. If I spoilt book one for you by beginning with book two, then I
apologise.
Bodies of Light focuses
on Ally, and begins with her childhood under the stern and uncompromising
jurisdiction of her mother. Schooled to believe herself highly privileged, she
suffers deprivations of food and warmth so that her mother can teach her to
have empathy with the poor. Her artist father is more generous to his children,
but he is also self-absorbed, and doesn't appreciate the anxiety felt by Ally
as she strives to please her parents. She and her younger sister May are
educated first at home and then in a private house where the teacher encourages
women to believe in their own abilities. Her mother aspires for Ally to be one
of the first university-educated women in the country, and she wants her to use
her talents to become a doctor so that she can help to alleviate the suffering
of the inner-city poor.
This is a beautifully-evoked story
of two sisters and their responses to their upbringing. It tells of
pioneering education for women, and the specific difficulties associated with
being a trailblazer. It explores family life and attitudes, and is utterly
convincing in evoking people and place in a specific time.
It's not just me who is enthusiastic about Sarah Moss—the publishing world is also getting increasingly excited—her latest book has created waves when it became the subject of a 9-way bid, reported on in The
Bookseller. Hopefully, such a stir will make her more of a household name for those who love good, well-written fiction. Success that is well-deserved.
Grace, by Paul Lynch, is set in Ireland
during the potato famine. It is a lyrical, poetic text, that conjures up
ghosts of the past. Indeed, the line between the living and the dead is blurred
throughout the story, as the central character, Grace, continues to hear echoes
of voices long-dead and recently-passed, as she strives to find work and stay
alive in perilous circumstances. Turned from her own home, disguised as a
boy, her mother exhorts her to leave and find work, telling her, "You are
the strong one now." It is an act of love, a protection from violation,
but this is not something her mother can say, nor is it something Grace can yet
understand.
July reading also saw me
complete Rivers of Ink by Paul M.M. Cooper, An American
Marriage by Tayari Jones and Nora
Webster by Colm Toibin.
Rivers of Ink is set in
Sri Lanka in the thirteenth century. Asanka has risen to wealth and status as poet to the king, but when the regime is overthrown by an invading monarch from the mainland, he is left vulnerable. The new king is keen to utilise Asanka's talents to translate the lengthy poem "Shishupala Vadha into
Tamil [for] the people of this land." Magha, the new Maharajah, wants to
give his conquered people the great poem in their own tongue to unite them
under his reign. Asanka finds himself compelled to do the new King's
bidding, despite the horrors that he witnesses, and the revulsion he feels at
Magha's violence. He begins the novel thinking that poetry "is just
my trade... it makes us forget our lives for a few minutes - but that is
all." His courageous lover, Sarasi, feels differently, and is appalled at
Asanka's narrow view, "Is that what you've always thought? All the time
you have been teaching me?"
The novel works on many
levels—opening an ancient culture to a reader, exploring the possibilities and
limitations of translation, the beauty and power of the written word, and
creating a plot that weaves through traditional literature, oral culture and
relationships. It is a hopeful book, characterising the bravery of
ordinary people in the face of oppression, and showing how someone who perceives themselves to be weak and without influence can discover that they are much more than that.
American Marriage won
the Women's Prize for
Fiction this year, and it is easy to see why. Set in Georgia, the
backdrop of racial tension is apparent throughout. The central characters are
newlyweds Celestial and Roy, and a miscarriage of justice puts Roy at the mercy
of a court that finds it too easy to convict him of a crime he did not commit.
Finding herself on her own when she had expected to be part of a couple puts
strain on Celestial as her uncle battles with appeals on Roy's behalf.
The plot is compelling, but it is
the characters who make the story. Written from various first person points of
view through narrative voice and a series of letters, readers gain empathy with
both key characters and the third wheel in their relationship, Andre. A
close friend of Roy's from college, he is also a longtime ally of Celestial,
having grown up as her boy-next-door. Faced with twelve years alone, Celestial
turns to Andre for the friendship she has always had from him.
The opening section of the novel is
written in the forms of letters between prison and the outside world.
They trace the hopes, fears and suspicion that incarceration breeds, and Tayari Jones is very skilful in
communicating the state of relationships through these necessarily one-sided
missives. Without giving any spoilers (the blurb on the novel reveals this
bit), the second half of the novel is narrative in form; Roy has been freed and thus is able to communicate more fully than the more restrictive
letter form allowed. He is ready to pick up his marriage. His life has
been on hold, but Celestial's has not. They are starting again from very
different points.
This forms the heartbeat of the
novel—how to rebuild lives when they have been broken. It is full of warmth,
compassion and gritty realism. The author has created characters that you will care about, against contemporary issues of racism and
justice in modern America. This is a truly excellent read.
We all have labels. Immediately we are born we are someone's son or daughter, we are grandchildren and nieces or nephews. As we grow we are students, girlfriends, boyfriends, husbands and wives. These labels define us in very real ways. When Nora Webster has to swap wife for widow then her life changes. She has to work, she has to parent on her own and she has to learn to understand her place in a community where she is no longer part of a couple, no longer Maurice's wife.
This is not a morbid book, nor is
it depressing. It is more about the the resilience of Nora, and her
resounding ordinariness. She is not heroine material, she is not an archetypal eponymous hero, and yet readers will be rooting for her as if she were.
Like American Marriage, this book has characterisation with
soul. Colm Toibin invites
you into Nora's home, into her life, and you take residence, walking alongside
her, urging her on. He is also unafraid to insert the political—a book set in
Ireland in the early seventies cannot avoid the Troubles. References
to Charles
Haughey and gun-running to the paramilitary organisations in the north
forms cultural background to Nora's life. Increased unionisation is also
apparent, alongside quiz nights and close-knit families, and communities which
make reinvention of oneself impossible to achieve without scrutiny.
I am certainly going to be buying
more Colm Toibin and Tayari Jones... but I will endeavour to resist waving my
credit card until I have dented my tbr shelves a little more.
Thank you for hanging in there, and
reading to the end of this long post. Hopefully, I've whetted your
appetites for your late summer reading—there's still time!
