Regeneration: War Books [7/15]

So, I’m back to war! I actually finished this book just before starting Ulysses but didn’t get around to writing about it until now – I’m currently finding my opinions of Ulysses too difficult to summarise! Regeneration is a fantastic book and I’ll definitely read the rest of the trilogy when I allow myself to buy some more books. Surprisingly, a lot of the same people from Goodbye To All That  appeared as characters in this book which was a nice link – Graves himself, Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen being a few.

The story revolves around Sassoon and his decisions to write his Soldier’s Declaration, which was a kind of open letter that stated why he didn’t want to fight in the war anymore. Sassoon didn’t object to soldiering in principle, but he disagreed with what he saw as the prolonging of war and needless sacrifice of young lives. He is sent to a military hospital called Craiglockhart (which was a real hospital) specialising in healing soldiers with mental traumas like shell shock, loss of speech, and psychological distress. It raised lots of interesting questions about what a ‘normal’ reaction to the horrors of war would be, and why some soldiers couldn’t carry on when others did. It was moving to read about how much the survivors were suffering, but they were only being recuperated so they could be sent back to die.

I enjoyed the mix of historical fact and fiction and liked the emphasis Barker placed on war as a psychologically damaging experience, which is something Louisa Young did with My Dear I Wanted To Tell You. Is healing more of a modern preoccupation? The books I have read recently that have been published in the last twenty years or so have tried to continue the story past the end of the war, which I have found fascinating.

I bought this book from a charity shop a couple of weeks ago, and when I picked it up to start reading I found an old photograph inside. If finds like this aren’t a good reason to buy second-hand books, I don’t know what are. I’m slightly obsessed with wanting to find out when the photo was taken, and who the boy is, who left it in the book and why.

Birdsong: War Books [1/15]

The reading project has officially begun: I am reading the WWI books first, and have started with Birdsong  by Sebastian Faulks.

Birdsong  is written with three story lines that intertwine: It begins in 1910 with a love affair, travels underneath the trenches over 1916-1918, and ends with a granddaughter in the 1970s. From reading around, this book seems to be one that divides opinion. However, I loved it and think it is a very accomplished modern story about the war.

I was surprised when the book began with a budding relationship but I think it helped to understand the characters before they were thrown into some very extreme circumstances. Giving an insight into people’s lives before the war helped me to imagine the sort of thing men might have been fighting for and I liked how Faulks included the men’s letters home. What separates this novel from others I have read before was the focus on the tunnels underneath no man’s land. There were miners on the British and German sides tunneling towards each other with mines to plant. Reading these parts of the book was so uncomfortable – Faulks is really good at making you feel completely claustrophobic.

There is a really moving paragraph written about the aftermath of Battle of the Somme:

Stephen had noticed nothing but the silence that followed the guns. Now, as he listened, he could hear what Weir had meant: it was a low, continuous moaning. He could not make out any individual pain, but the sound ran down to the river on their left and up over the hill for half a mile or more. As his ear became used to the absence of guns, Stephen could hear it more clearly: it sounded to him as though the earth itself was groaning.

‘Oh God, oh God.’ Weir began to cry. ‘What have we done, what have we done? Listen to it. We’ve done something terrible, we’ll never get back to how it was before.’

The book, like All Quiet on the Western Front, contrasts the fighting on the battlefields with elements of nature like the birds singing. I think this technique is so effective because it highlights war as an aberration in nature. It is these bits that stick in my mind as being particularly sad.

The only part of the book I wasn’t too keen on was the 1970s story. In it, Elizabeth is starting to learn about her family history around wartime. It seemed almost false, because Elizabeth seems to be pretty stupid – I mean, we learned about WWI at school, surely they did in the seventies as well? On the other hand, whilst I know bits about the war and have visited some of the battlefields in France and Belgium, I don’t know as much about what my own great grandparents did. This is something I would like to find out more about.

Next I am moving on to another WWI classic: A Farewell to Arms.

Now the Sun is Finally Shining, How About Some Books About War?

After my Tudor reading, I fancy a mini reading project based around War literature. There are obviously lots of brilliant books about a lot of wars around the world so I’ve narrowed my selection down to books written about WWI and WWII, as I find this period of history interesting.

I’ve picked eight books that are all on my Classics Club list. Two birds, one stone and all that, and this way I can also stick to my attempt to stop buying new books and read the ones I already have.

• Faulks, Sebastian, Birdsong
• Gibbons, Stella, Westwood
• Graves, Robert, Goodbye To All That
• Grossman, Vasily, Life and Fate
• Hemingway, Ernest, A Farewell to Arms
• Nemirovsky, Irene, Suite Française
• Vonnegut, Kurt, Cat’s Cradle
• Wells, H. G., The War of the Worlds

And will add to this list some novels written recently:

• Beauman, Ned, Boxer Beetle 
• Hollinghurst, Alan, The Stranger’s Child
• Kerr, Philip, Berlin Noir
• Littell, Jonathan, The Kindly Ones
• Young, Louisa, My Dear I Wanted to Tell You

So, thirteen books, six about the WWI and seven about WWII. I could read them chronologically, I could read the modern novels separately, I might read the two science fiction novels together. I’m not sure I’ll manage to read all of these in a row – I have an unspecified timeframe, but as you know I chop and change what my reading plans are whenever I feel like it. But if this works, I have similar lists for projects that I could start. I’m looking at you, gigantic stack of Edwardian novels…

The books have been moved to their new home – in an oppressive stack next to my bed. I’m feeling quite enthusiastic – it’ll be brilliant to have read all of these books. I am also quite curious to see if any of them will replace my current (I’m not sure ‘favourite’ is the right word) most admired war novel: All Quiet on the Western Front. If any of them even come close, I’ll be onto a winner because that book is truly astounding. Actually, make that fourteen books because I’ll have to re-read this one too.

Edit: I’ve just managed to get hold of a copy of Regeneration by Pat Barker so now there are fifteen books!

His children are falling from the sky.

I think I may have mentioned this every time I have written about Hilary Mantel or about a book by Hilary Mantel, but I’ll say it again: I LOVE HILARY MANTEL. I have to read all of her books or my life will be ruined. Bring Up the Bodies is about Thomas Cromwell and takes place during the nine months leading up to Anne Boleyn’s death. We all know Anne and Henry don’t live happily ever after tending to their enormous brood of sons so I’ll skip the plot and go straight for one of my favourite bits:

Once he had watched Liz making a silk braid. One end was pinned to the wall and on each finger of her raised hands she was spinning loops of thread, her fingers flying so fast he couldn’t see how it worked. ‘Slow down,’ he said, ‘so I can see how you do it,’ but she’d laughed and said, ‘I can’t slow down, if I stopped to think how I was doing it I couldn’t do it at all.’

This sums up what makes this book so fascinating – Mantel makes a point in Wolf Hall about the world not being run from where you think it is. Everyone is subject to scheming, underhand loyalties and bargaining; the Lords, the court and even the King. Cromwell seems to be right in the midst of it all and things always seem to be going his way, he controls court life with invisible strings. This book makes it seem like a dangerous time to be alive – even your thoughts can cost you your life.

I liked Bring Up the Bodies because it shows such a famous historical event from the perspective of a man we don’t pay much attention to. It also portrayed Jane Seymour with a focus she probably deserved, she was recognised by the King but a lot of modern historians keep her lost in Anne Boleyn’s shadow. I’m intrigued about the plot of the final book because my historical knowledge ends with the Kings and Queens and I’ve become quite attached to this version of Thomas Cromwell! There were times when I felt like Mantel didn’t add to what she’d achieved in Wolf Hall but the ending has left me completely desperate for more. In comparison with this book’s predecessor Mantel hasn’t lost her touch. She still controls language like no other writer, and builds up layer upon layer to a scene until it feels like you’re sitting on Cromwell’s shoulder.

Totally worth the wait.

The Light Between Oceans

As promised, I have finally had a chance to sit down and write about The Light Between Oceans. A slight deviation from my usual reading (actually published this century!) I was extremely surprised by this debut novel. The book is set on a small island, Janus, off the coast of Australia. After the war Tom becomes Janus’ lighthouse keeper, marries a girl from the mainland – Isabel – and unsuccessfully tries to start a family. One day a (live) baby washes up on Janus with a dead man and everything changes. It is a difficult book to describe because I need to say things like it is a novel about relationships, what is right and wrong, how your past haunts your future without sounding like I’m talking about chick lit. But I’M NOT! That is a label that does such a disservice to this book.

Lighthouses do seem to have their place in literature (hello, Virginia), adding to a story in a way that another setting couldn’t. Personally, I have very fond not-quite-as-literary memories of reading The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch as a child. For the most part, the lighthouse enables Tom and Isabel to lead a charmed, idyllic, Adam and Eve kind of life. They are completely suited to their isolation but the tiny world they create gives them opportunity to make some pretty ridiculous decisions they never could have made anywhere else.

There are two massive strengths to this book; Janus is a very realistic but completely unfamiliar world (that I’d really like to move to) and the characters are insanely well crafted. They’re continually off making terrible, flawed, very human choices, and left me siding with the wrong ones! The post war setting works really well in a book that is about morality in extreme human circumstances.

I got sent a proof copy of this book because M. L. Stedman was touring some bookshops and happened to be visiting the one I work in. EXCITING. Plus she signed my copy:

I got to ask M. L. the one question that got stuck in my head whilst reading The Light Between Oceans: Was it difficult to decide what the ending would be? She told me about her writing process: She doesn’t make lots of plans so when she began writing the book, she didn’t know exactly where it would go. It is a story that could have any number of endings and I didn’t know which one would be the one I wanted. Basically, the ending I really wanted would have ruined the book! M. L. said that the more she wrote, the more she just became certain about how it would all turn out. Incidentally I’m not going to spoil the ending but Fleur wrote a review of this book and sums it up really well: “The ending wasn’t obvious, it wasn’t perfect, but it was right.”

If I hadn’t been won over by the book itself (I was), then I would have been won over by M. L. She was very friendly, easy to talk to, and genuinely interested in the different reactions her book provokes. I loved talking to her about this novel and am really pleased I got the opportunity to do so!

A fantastic debut, a story that deserves to be told, and not easily forgotten.

Reading Schedules and Other Misadventures

I haven’t been posting very much because I have spent my time (productively) reading – probably one of my better excuses! I had three books to tackle for specific dates but I had forgotten how plans are more fun to make than to follow. The last eleven days or so have been working to this list:

• Clarissa, Letters 81-160, by April 30th, so as to not get left behind
• As I Lay Dying, for a book club meeting tomorrow
• Wolf Hall, by today, ready for the release of Bring Up the Bodies tomorrow

I’ve done it! The April chunk of Clarissa was finished at about 11.30pm on April 30th, I finished As I Lay Dying exactly a week ago, and I finished Wolf Hall about half an hour ago. Hurrah, now some writing to wind down / wrap up. Please excuse the mingling of books: I can’t face writing three separate posts.

Clarissa, Letters 81 – 160, April 6th – April 30th

Clarissa is finally out of the house! She had been kept inside being a disappointment to her family since I began the book back in January, which is a claustrophobic kind of feeling that I think I would have missed if I hadn’t been reading along with the dates. I don’t think I’d have been a very patient correspondent though, her attitude towards Lovelace and her tendency to miss what seems (to the modern reader) incredibly obvious is frustrating to say the least. I’m actually quite pleased to have a scoundrel in the book because otherwise the sheer good-naturedness of Clarissa herself would be a little too hard to bear. I’m pleased that there is a bit more action, but I think I need to devote a little bit more time to this book before it turns into a chore. Maybe I’m just not cut out for two timing my books!

Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel

This is my second read of Wolf Hall: I loved it the first time, but I adore it so much more now. I’m really glad I read this book again, not just so I’ll know where the second book will be picking up from, but because I got so much more from it. Yes, there were still a bajillion characters called Thomas but I was ready for them. I knew they were hiding in the woodwork so they didn’t catch me unaware.

I felt I really got to grips with the detail of the book and picked up on parts that completely overwhelmed me during my first read. There was more humour, more memories, more texture than I remembered from last time. I could just ramble about how brilliant a writer Hilary Mantel is – she’s up there as one of my absolute favourites. Read her books! Read them now!

You can have silence full of words. A lute retains, in its bowl, the notes it has played. The viol, in its strings, holds a concord. A shrivelled petal can hold it’s scent, a prayer can rattle with curses; an empty house, when the owners have gone out, can still be loud with ghosts.

Sigh.

The wait is nearly over. Bring Up the Bodies is out tomorrow, I’m SO EXCITED.

In other literary news, I have recently read (although not a classic) The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman, and was lucky enough to meet her last week! I solemnly swear to write about it properly very soon. But the book was great and M. L. was lovely and very interesting to talk to.

Brontë Country

The Taste of Sorrow by Jude Morgan

This is an unusually written insight into the lives of the Brontës. Jude Morgan has taken the bare bones of their history, with all the commonly known details, and given them flesh. I didn’t know much about their biographies previously, other than a couple of visits to Haworth so I found this fascinating.

I quite like fictional history, although I appreciate it is a tricky genre to get right. I think what made this book so successful was the unusual writing style. The story is narrated by someone completely omniscient, who mixes description with glimpses into people’s thoughts. If you can imagine doing stream of consciousness whilst also writing in the third person… its like that. It really emphasised the close knit community the Brontë siblings established for themselves. There is a lot of focus on their stories about imaginary lands and early writing games that helped explain their need to write as they grew up.

The beginning of the book focuses on the early years sent away at school. These were some bleak times (!) and provided a lot of material for Jane Eyre. The poor treatment of the children at school resulted in the deaths of the two eldest siblings: Maria and Elizabeth. The effect of this on Charlotte ‘s personality was so believable, she had gone from the middle child to the eldest in just a couple of months and never really adjusted to the idea that she was capable of handling the responsibility this brought.

I loved the descriptions of the Parsonage and yorkshire landscapes. The Taste of Sorrow, like the latest cinematic version of Jane Eyre made me want to stride out across the moors! The harshness and bleakness played a big part in the forming of Emily’s personality: In this story she was strong, content alone and inwardly wild – the only possible author of a book like Wuthering Heights. It isn’t often I have the urge to read poetry (or at all really) but after reading this I would be interested to read some poetry by Emily Brontë.

The Taste of Sorrow didn’t leave out Anne or Branwell, which considering the literary heights of Charlotte and Emily could have been easy to do. In fact, an american version of the book is called Charlotte and Emily: A Novel of the Brontës. Scandal! What about Anne? Morgan describes Branwell as opressed by the weight of the family’s expectations for him; as the heir, he has to secure means to support his sisters. However, his inability to find an occupation, combined with being unlucky in love, lead him into a downward spiral of depression and alcoholism. The later parts of the book include the writing of The Professor, Wuthering Heights,  Agnes Grey, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Jane Eyre and Vilette.

There were, of course, tragic endings and deaths. The Brontë children died young and many within a few pages of each other. Morgan tried to end the book on a happy note – Charlotte’s marriage – but the general themes of barren landscapes and death at the end of the book was inescapable. In the most basic of summaries Emily was the most interesting, Anne was overlooked and Charlotte was the one who survived. The Taste of Sorrow is a really good introduction and I would be quite happy to read nothing but Brontë novels for a little while.

The Night Watch

The Night Watch, Sarah Waters

You can’t be let down by a Sarah Waters book, can you?

The best part of this novel is the use of time: set in three parts the book works backwards through 1947, 1944 and 1941. I can’t think of another book I’ve read that manages to do this so successfully – I was completely hooked on finding out why characters acted the way they did, and what secrets their pasts contained.

The war time setting is executed perfectly: you get a very vivid sense of what the raids and fire storms were like for the people living in London at the time. There is also a medical scene I read during my lunch break at work that made me feel like I was going to faint because it was so realistically written. I also enjoyed the focus on women’s roles during WWII – there is a real mix of jobs and relationships beyond the surface.

I loved the characters, their stories mingled together in a way that didn’t seemed really natural, the affairs were brilliant… After a slightly slow start this turned out to be a great book.

Nuns on the Loose

Sacred Hearts, Sarah Dunant

My summer reading tastes have taken a beating! Do you like historical chick lit? Because apparently I do. Sigh. This books makes nuns (yes, nuns) appear incredibly interesting. It is set in an italian nunnery in the 1500s.

My favourite parts:

• The old school medicine practice – lots of herbs and folklore
•  Finding out apparently lots of women were sent to join nunneries because families couldn’t afford dowries for marriage
• The psychology behind religious rapture and hysteria

The Distant Hours

The Distant Hours, Kate Morton

I picked this up as a bit of a summer concession, a little treat for myself. I was expecting it to be a bit, well, rubbish… but in an enjoyable way. So with these staggeringly low expectations I was pleasantly surprised. While The Distant Hours does seem to be a loving tribute to some excellent english gothic novels (Rebecca, Wuthering Heights, Bleak House, anything by Susan Hill) it doesn’t quite measure up. Mainly because its too slow. Sure, there are a lot of stories going on and there is a lot of switching between the 1939-1941 and 1992 (which was done really well) but it needed much more momentum.

There are however, some things that Morton does really well that does make the novel worth reading:

• Characters – I grew quite attached to the sisters sitting up in the castle, and I did like the bookish main character.
• Castles – Excellent gothic setting, crumbling, creaking, mad writers in the attic. The war time setting was obviously a real interest to Morton and was very convincing. Well done.
• Twists – I was guessing what was going to happen all the way through, and normally I am content to just sit and read my way to the end. And despite guessing about a billion different endings, I was still surprised.

She spins a good yarn.