Category: british authors

#71 – Middlemarch

What more can I possibly add to decades upon decades of criticism about George Eliot’s masterwork, Middlemarch, one of the best novels ever written? Nothing original, I’d have to say. All I think I can do is comment upon why I enjoyed the novel so very much. Set against the “provincial community” of Middlemarch, England, a group of intertwining stories create a pastoral-like landscape peopled by the (somewhat) upper classes. This isn’t the territory of The Duchess per se, but more an extension of Austen’s kind, good, solid people from good, solid backgrounds trying to better their lives.

Eliot’s broad strokes and epic storylines hold all the characters in check. There’s Dorothea, a beautiful girl with a mind of her own who marries poorly and is then trapped into a terrible codicil by her ridiculous husband, Casaubon. Dorothea’s somewhat silly sister Celia, their Uncle Brooke, a landowner, and his “pet project,” Will Ladislaw, a young man of great curls and not much else, who is a cousin of Dorothea’s husband. There’s the doctor, Lydgate, his wife Rosamund (silly, silly girl), her brother Fred and his beloved, Mary (will she ever accept his hand in marriage; will he ever stop being foolish?). And then all the parents and rectors and other doctors and clergymen and their mothers and aunts and so on and so on. Goodness, their stories intertwine almost as much as their bloodlines, indeed. And it’s amazing to me how the author kept it all straight. The ways in which the novel progresses, the scope of the story, and her consistent and unwavering narrative voice all combine for an utterly delightful (there’s really no other way of putting it) reading experience.

But what I enjoyed most about the book is Eliot’s heightened, almost philosophical prose. Her pages of snappish, witty dialogue, the lovely way she has of creating a character by broad, sweeping strokes and then allows the reader to get to know them even better as the 800+ pages trundle on like a good walk through the countryside. Happiness finds some people, but not all of the characters. Distressing, even traumatic events happen, but it all works out in a way as it ultimately should, with grand love stories and well-intentioned elders making way for the next generation to carry on. Leave many hours in front of you if you want to tackle this book — it’s perfect for long days with nothing to do except read so your imagination can picture the dresses, the landscape, Ladislaw’s curls, the horses, Raffles, and everything else in Eliot’s world. It’s a book for the dreamers among us, that’s for sure.

READING CHALLENGES: Another one for the 1001 Books challenge, of which I am going to come in woefully incomplete before year’s end…

NOTES ON MY EDITION: The physical edition I read was the Penguin classic, but I also read a great deal on my Sony Reader with files from Project Gutenberg.

#58 – Ritual

Oh, Mo Hayder, I should not read your books when I am at home alone with only two cats for protection. But once I picked up Ritual, I could not put it down and if that’s not the sign of a great, plot-driven book, I don’t know what is.

When a hand washes up unannounced and with no body attached, Sgt. Flea Marley, a member of the police dive unit in Bath, and her CID (I think?) Caffrey unravel a complex and shocking case founded in the immigrant experience in England. Their investigation uncovers an underground market for muti that soon becomes focus of their policework. Muti, African rituals brought from the continent to England that broker in human body parts and fear (among the believers), forms the basis for Hayder to bring race, class and colonialism into her work, and the book is all the better for it.

Yesterday I had the distinct pleasure of sitting down with Ms. Hayder for an interview that’ll appear on The Savvy Reader later this week. A self-described autodidact, Hayder researches carefully but not without really great instincts, and in Ritual she’s written a daring and addictive thriller that has echoes of Henning Mankell. When I walked into the room, I said, “Your book scared the pants off of me!” She laughed and replied, “Good!” And it’s true, there’s an element of fear that pervades the entire novel: people (even the police) are being watched, stalked even, and no one seems untouched by tragedy. Both main characters are broken in some way from major life events that alter their perspectives; Flea’s parents are dead and Caffery lost a brother at a very young age. Yet, as ‘outsiders’ in a way (they’re also lonely and have little true human contact with other people), the tragedies are exactly what make Flea and Caffery good at their jobs.

Subtitled “A Walking Man novel,” Ritual introduces a character who will appear in upcoming books. He’s a man who lives outside, cooks his own food, follows his own path, and is kind of a sooth-sayer for Caffery. Yet, the Walking Man also has a past. He committed one of the most heinous crimes the district has ever seen and now that he’s paid his debt to society, he’s determined to stay at its edges. Captivating, creepy, smart and ridiculously readable, I loved Ritual. Although I have to say that the fellow standing next to me on the subway yesterday must have thought I was reading something utterly disturbing. Every time I’d look up from my book he’d give me a sweet little smile trying to make me feel a bit better because I was honestly scared out of my wits and it must have shown on my face.

#49 – Petite Anglaise

In all honesty, I don’t know what to say about Catherine Sanderson’s Petite Anglaise. Written in the chatty, blog-like style the writer developed on her enormously successful blog of the same name, her memoir covers a tumultuous period where Sanderson makes sweeping changes in her life. Having spent the last eight years with her partner, whom she identifies in the book as “Mr. Frog,” the British ex-pat now finds her life as a working mom somewhat lacking. While trying to reclaim her identity, she starts her blog, and it opens up a whole new world to her. And when a mysterious man starts leaving comments that cut to her romantic core, Catherine is forced to make some very hard decisions about what she wants out of her life.

The writing was all a little too Eat, Pray, Love for me, and for the most part I found that blog-style writing doesn’t always necessarily transfer to a larger book format as well as one would expect. The never-ending descriptions of Paris grow weary after a while (Sanderson never met a view of the Eiffel Tower she didn’t love and/or want to describe) and, despite her obvious talents, the whole book felt like it was lacking maybe a bit of an emotional core? I mean, it’s not as if Sanderson didn’t describe her emotions, but somehow reading Petite Anglaise felt like work. If I was truly engaged (like I was with Kerry Cohen’s excellent memoir, Loose Girl), the pages would have flown by.

That said, there’s a lot to like about it as well, and I’m so impressed with the story behind the book — her rags-to-riches blog success, how she made a life for herself and for her delightful daughter (Tadpole) in Paris (a city I adore too and would give my right arm to live in any day), and how she gets swept up in a moment that may have not been the best decision, but takes it all in stride, dusts herself off, and carries on with the same tireless spirit she displays throughout the book.

Chicklit readers will appreciate the passion in the memoir, and I’d suspect the package too, with its pretty brown and pinks, the lovely sillouette on the cover. Maybe it’s just me and the fact that I love a little more meat in my memoir, something slightly juicer and far darker than Petite Anglaise can provide. This, of course, is no fault of the author and utterly all my own subjective ideas about the kinds of truth I like uncovered between the pages.

PHOTO IN CONTEXT: The book on my kitchen table in exactly the spot where I finished reading it this morning. What you can’t see in the shot are the twenty-odd tomatoes surrounding it.

WHAT’S UP NEXT: Marilynne Robinson’s Home, which I started this week too and am already loving.

#63 – Tipping the Velvet

Let me get something straight, I have nothing against velvet, nor do I fear any tipping of it, but lord, this is the first book in a long, long time I really didn’t like. The story felt so contrived and soap-opera-inspired that I was bored mid-way through. And considering Sarah Waters’s epic is over 400 pages, that’s a lot of trudging to get to the end.

Generally, I love a good Victorian thriller, but this is neither thrilling nor purely Victorian. Oh, it’s chalk full of great historical tidbits—if I truly wanted to know that dildos existed in 1985, which I really didn’t need to know. And if tons of hideously cliched sex scenes get you off, well Tipping the Velvet is the book for you. Because it certainly wasn’t for me.

I don’t like it when books feel contrived. When they set out to prove a point more than tell a story. The story itself was a good one, a young girl in Victorian England leaves home when she falls in love with a music hall singer named Kitty Butler. When Kitty can’t face what life would be like coming out in that century, she betrays Nan, the protagonist, who then runs away.

A lot of other things happen to Nan before the story comes full circle toward the end as Nan joins a burgeoning socialist movement at the behest of her ‘sweetheart,’ a very noble and dedicated woman named Florence. But in the end, it felt too much like the author’s voice was interfering with Nan’s story. That characters were simply devices for her to explore the lesbian community in the 1890s, which I think is a fabulous goal, and if it felt organic, I’d be the first one to cheer from the rafters.

All in all I finished the book because it was a book club choice and I’m looking forward to debating why I hated it so much at our next meeting! After loving Fingersmith so much I was convinced I couldn’t go wrong suggesting the book, whew, how wrong was I.

Edited to add: Is a sex scene any less contrived because it takes place between women? Just because the sex in the novel is lesbian sex should I hold it to different literary standards? I don’t think I should, but this book, if you look at it in terms of shows like Queer as Folk where the point of the matter was to bash the viewer over the head with the idea of gay sex until they came to accept it, maybe I should be more sympathetic to the book. But if it’s badly written with ‘torn bodices’ and ‘panting’, it’s bad writing, regardless of its subject matter. However, the fact that it was her first novel might be worth mentioning. And Sarah Waters’s Fingersmith is truly excellent; there’s not a cliche in sight.