bwl 13 - April 2002
Fiction
| Margaret Atwood - The Blind Assassin
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| This is really three books in one: a woman's memories of her younger years with her sister; her life now as a frail old lady and the separate story of The Blind Assassin. They are interwoven, which can confuse, but despite that this is a moving story of two sisters, mental illness, thwarted love and the frustrations of old age. Aficionados of Atwood say it's not her best work but, as a newcomer, I loved it. (Annie Noble)
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| Maeve Binchy - Light a Penny Candle
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| This is a light novel with very serious and interesting overtones. A deep and lasting friendship is made between two young girls when one, an evacuee from London's blitz, goes to stay with a turbulent Catholic family in Ireland. The Catholic background presents most interesting moral and religious problems. Written with wit and warm compassion, it is a fine story, entertaining, worth while and just the thing for travel and vacation. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| Marguerite Duras - The Lover
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| This is a very short, but touching love story, which plays in S.E. Asia, while France still 'ran the show' there. Well worth reading. (Charles Moncreiffe)
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| Jonathan Franzen - The Corrections
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| A book that has caused much hype being labelled by some as the great American novel. Franzen draws the reader into the relationship dynamics of the Lambert family. A dysfunctional family with all the neuroses modern life can provide. Cleverly written and amusing although Franzen gets too complex in some passages for his own good. Perhaps not a masterpiece but certainly a grand achievement capturing the stark reality of American society today. (Claire Bane)
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| Michael Frayn - Spies
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| 'Spies' is the retrospective view of a Second World War childhood. Whilst creating a very real atmosphere of the 1940s it explores many apparently unsolvable dilemmas of the young in the same way as L.P. Hartley does in 'The Go-Between'. We begin to see through some of the mysteries early in the book but Frayn's novel is compulsive reading and it is not until the end that our suspicions are finally confirmed. (Judith Peppitt)
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| Charles Frazier - Cold Mountain
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| A first novel by this young American about a man who deserts - after being badly wounded on the Confederate side in the American Civil War. Partly based on fact and quite one of the best novels I have read in years. We read it in our Reading Club recently and everyone commented favourably on it, without exception, which is rare!. The language, the descriptions, the history, the lack of sentiment, the characterisation all impressed us. (Charles Moncreiffe)
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| Pamela Jooste - Frieda and Min
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| It's summer, 1964, in Johannesburg, two young girls are thrown together. Jewish Frieda, secure in her family, accepts everything because that is how things are. Min brought up in the bush, withdrawn and traumatised after her brother's death, questions everything and finds herself in terrible trouble with the authorities. Told with warmth and humour, this is the story of their friendship and how through its strength they cope with the cruelties of their country's regime. (Jenny Baker)
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| Pamela Jooste - Like Water in Wild Places
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| Bleaker than either 'Frieda and Min' or Jooste's first book, 'Dance with a Poor Man's Daughter' (bwl 4), this is both an indictment of apartheid and a lament for the fate of the Bushmen. Told through the eyes of Conrad and Bicky, children of a white senator, it's a heartbreaking story ending on a note of hope, brilliantly written with strong characters and vivid descriptions of the beautiful country that is South Africa. (Jenny Baker)
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| David Leavitt - While England Sleeps
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| Leavitt didn't fight Franco in Spain nor was he a young, upper-class English writer in the 1930s but his talent, and he's got plenty of it, is to make us believe that he really took part in all that! A very convincing book. (Laurence Martin Euler)
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| David Lodge - Thinks
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| The principal setting for this ingenious novel is the imaginary University of Gloucester (UK) and the protagonists the philandering head of the Centre for Cognitive Sciences and a recently widowed woman novelist temporarily resident and teaching creative writing. Will she, won't she succumb to his advances? Much wit as well as speculation into the nature and workings of human consciousness. An entertaining and highly readable satire on contemporary British academia. (Jeremy Swann)
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| Sàndor Màrai - Embers
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| In a Carpathian castle, over one night, an elderly General engages in a duel of words with the friend who disappeared 41 years ago after a hunt, an incident with a gun and a dinner shared with the General's wife. Parrying and counter-parrying, they gradually reveal their histories, the truth about their friendship and confront the events that determined their futures. Originally published in 1942, Embers has only recently been translated into English. It's mesmerising! (Jenny Baker)
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| Lily Prior - La Cucina - a novel of rapture
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| From childhood Sicilian Rose Fiore has been passionate about food but now middle-aged and overweight, exiled from her village, working as a librarian and nursing a broken heart, she meets an enigmatic Englishman who is researching the history of the island's cuisine and who awakens all her latent sensuality. It's funny and raunchy, sometimes frightening, sometimes sad but mostly it's a celebration of the earthy pleasures of cooking and eating, living and loving! (Jenny Baker)
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| Marcel Proust - Swann's Way - A la recherche du temps perdu - Volume 1
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| Unlike most of us, Proust was an acute observer: an observer of himself when recalling how as a boy he tricked his mother to come and kiss him good night over and over again; an observer of human behaviour when describing Swann and his love for Odette, 'a woman who was not even his kind'! and lastly an observer of nature as is revealed in his depiction of the countryside and the world around him. (Laurence Martin Euler)
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| Graham Swift - Last Orders
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| An unforgettable plunge into the lives of ordinary men who set out on an extraordinary task, taking the ashes of their deceased friend, Jack, to the sea. This is no sad story of death, however: at the end I felt as though I had personally experienced all the moments of jealousy and friendship, joy and despair, that subtly link Jack's circle of friends. Vibrant language. A beautiful, moving story. (Pamela Jaunin)
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| Meera Syal - Anita and Me
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| A 1960's Indian child born into an isolated Black Country village before it is gobbled up by urban sprawl. A fertile little mind, she cannily bridges the gap between two cultures, finding truth, lies and reality. Tenderness and love flow around her - also the world's cruelties - yet many laughs for the reader. I'd say Syal calls 'a spade a spade', but that could be one of her own jokes! Clever, feeling writing, not told. (Joan Jackson)
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| Colin Watson - The Naked Nuns
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| The Flaxborough Novels (of which this is one) are ostensibly mysteries, but I think that is the least of their pleasures. The writing is delicious - my favourite line concerns a waitress leaning over to collect glasses: 'A white liquidity of breast swung lazily in the dark tent of her dress.' On every page there is an elegance of language which is both clever and funny. There are 13 Flaxborough novels - read them all! (Julie Higgins)
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Non-Fiction
| Stephen E Ambrose - Band of Brothers
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| It would be a mistake to think the television adaptation of Band of Brothers makes reading this book superfluous. If you did follow the series, it means warm recognition of the characters, useful and knowledgeable additions and explanations of the context and provides, for the historian, details not readily found in other books. For those who haven't yet seen it on TV or video, the book provides a marvellous introduction. A great and gripping read. (Kathie Somerwil Ayrton)
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| Aemon Collins - Killing Rage
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| From terrorist to supergrass, Collins takes us step by step from his entry into the IRA through years of terrorist actvity to his capture and the pressures which led him to turn Queen's Evidence. A chilling but courageously honest account of the mindless and strangely banal reality of systematic violence, but at the same time an evolving tale of reclamation and, ultimately, of hope. (Annabel Bedini)
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| Tom Courtenay - Dear Tom - Letters from Home
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| Part autobiography, part letters mostly from his mother, from the time Courtenay went to USC and then on to RADA. I wasn't as moved by the letters as I should have been, I suppose, but did like the autobiographical bits - especially when he tells us (often) of bursting into tears at the least provocation. It gives me licence to do the same (which I do anyway!). He comes across as a very nice man. (Julie Higgins)
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| William Dalrymple - The Age of Kali
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| This - the fourth of the author's books - is largely a collection of magazine travel articles recycled, but none the worse for that. He covers places in India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan including the North West Frontier so much in the news recently. The pictures he draws are fascinating though often dominated by violence, political corruption and disintegration, suggesting sadly that there is little reason to be optimistic about the future in that part of the world. (Jeremy Swann)
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| Francine du Plessix Gray - At Home with the Marquis de Sade
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| How would you react if your daughter married the infamous Marquis de Sade? Drawing on remaining correspondence this excellent, absorbing study features his devoted wife, implacable mother-in-law and dissolute relatives. The complexity of his character is compelling - his charm, love of theatre, unfashionable abhorrence of capital punishment and views on the sanctity of marriage are balanced by arrogance, selfishness and intolerance. The author reveals unexpected and surprising aspects of the man and his time. (Clive Yelf)
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| E H Gombrich - The Story of Art
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| Using the word story in the title of this deservedly, universally popular book and by resisting words like history or meaning, Gombrich makes this formidable read accessible to everyone and as a master storyteller, he gently guides us through every facet of this vast subject from cave painting to post-modernism. One Egyptian word for sculptor was 'he-who-keeps-alive'. Gombrich helps all his readers keep art alive. The full colour illustrations that accompany the story are excellent. (James Baker)
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| Christina Lamb - The Africa House
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| In the 1920s Stewart Gore-Brown built a feudal paradise in a remote corner of Northern Rhodesia complete with uniformed servants and port after dinner. He loved and idealised three women: Edith, his Aunt, twenty years older, Lorna who he wanted to marry and her daughter, also called Lorna, who became his wife. Champion of black Rhodesians, friend of Welensky and Kaunda, he played an influential role in the country's politics. This is his extraordinary story. (Jenny Baker)
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| Frank Muir - Oxford Book of Humorous Prose
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| This is truly a great work: over 1,100 pages containing extracts from humorous writings collected and introduced by the scriptwriter of well-known BBC radio shows. From William Caxton in the 15th century to the late 1990s anyone who was anyone in this field is represented here: Dickens, Saki, the whole New Yorker crowd, Richard Gordon, both Waughs, Private Eye and P.G. Wodehouse to name just a scattering. Worth every penny (or euro)! (Jeremy Swann)
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| Claire Tomalin - Mrs Jordan's Profession
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| The gripping biography of a renowned 18th century actress of poor Irish origins who had to learn to fend for herself and her family in an age when women who worked professionally were disdained. Although she achieved fame and bore no less than ten (!) children as the mistress of the Duke of Clarence (later King William IV), Dora Jordan's life ended in bitter disappointment. Her sense of duty, her struggles and her courage are unforgettable. (Pamela Jaunin)
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| Garry Wills - John Wayne - The Politics of Celebrity
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| Less a conventional biography than a study in the development of a cultural icon showing how Wayne developed his career from B-movie cowboy to the mythic embodiment of the American male ideal. The focus is placed on his symbiotic (and turbulent) relationships with two directors - John Ford and Howard Hawks, but you are left to ponder how Wayne could safely lambaste those who avoided Vietnam, having himself successfully ducked out of World War Two. (Clive Yelf)
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