Shadow Tag

Waterstone's no longer seem to stock the latest Louise Erdrich titles. Plenty of shelf space for charmless celebrity biographies, but no space for a fine contemporary American writer. I suppose it is market driven. Here in the UK I have to order Erdrich's latest novels when I find out about them from blogger friends who are also fans, such as Frisbee Wind or from the website for Erdrich's bookshop Birchbark Books.

If you are new to this writer I would suggest starting with Love Medicine or, my favourite, The Beet Queen. Her novels are not for the faint-hearted - I don't mean that they are gruesome - I mean that many of them examine the harsh realities of life for those living on and around the reservations. Shadow Tag arrived last week and I started reading on Sunday night. Something nice about beginning a much-anticipated novel on a Sunday - kind of sets you up for the week!

Finished The Historian. I thought it was very well-written but could have been edited by at least 200 pages for a sharper story. Too much travel and history and not enough character development for my tastes. That said, it genuinely made me jump a couple of times and there was some beautiful descriptive writing:

At farms along the road we stopped to buy picnics better than any restaurant could have made for us: boxes of new strawberries that gave off a red glow in the sun and seemed not to need washing; cylinders of goat's cheese weighty as barbells and encrusted with a rough grey mould as if they'd been rolled across a cellar floor.

The Historian

About time I rejoined the 21st century for a while with a contemporary novel. I do like novels set in academia so I was pleased when my reading group chose Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian for March.

I was immediately drawn in by the opening of this novel. An ancient book mysteriously appears on a student's desk and reappears when he returns it to the rare books section of the university library. There there is the mysterious disappearance of the charismatic professor who had been researching the history of Dracula and only a smear of blood is left on the ceiling of his study. The papers and letters he leaves behind are all addressed to 'My dear and unfortunate successor.'

I'm only a couple of hundred pages in - this novel is 700 pages long(!) - but I'm enjoying the elegance of the writing. I'm not particularly interested in the legend and history of Dracula per se but so far the novel is holding my attention.

I was sorry to see that Jane Brocket is wavering about whether to continue her inspiring blog. I have to say that I've never found the book blogging community to be anything other than positive and mutually supportive. Possibly because reading is a non-competitive activity?

Sense and Sensibility 200th anniversary post (1)

Have you read Sense and Sensibility? It is a clever novel. They were full of it at Althorpe, and although it ends stupidly I was much amused by it. Letter from Lady Bessborough to Lord Granville Leveson-Gower, 1811

Elinor Dashwood is my favourite Austen heroine and each time I read Sense and Sensibility I discover something new about her. Austen was possessed of what Elizabeth Jenkins refers to as 'the occult power of creating human personality - the rarest form of literary genius.' Depth and nuance of character which may not be apparent on first reading an Austen novel are revealed upon re-reading.

Surprisingly, Elizabeth Jenkins was not fond of Elinor. She describes her as 'too rational.' I would argue the Elinor is the only character who keeps it together and retains a sense of humour despite almost unbearable provocation. Marianne falls to pieces when she is abandoned by Willoughby and it is Elinor who supports her while she is simultaneously aware that the man she loves is secretly engaged to the loathsome Lucy Steele who never misses an opportunity to remind her.

Yet when Marianne goes into raptures about autumn leaves, Elinor can dryly remark. 'It is not everyone who shares your passion for dead leaves.' When Lady Middleton's noisy, spoilt children pull their mother and damage her clothes, Elinor remarks that she 'never thinks of tame and quiet children with any abhorrence.'

Whether the novel ends 'stupidly' depends I suppose on your opinion of Edward Ferrars. I still find him a bit of a sap and think perhaps Colonel Brandon would have been a better match for Elinor.

I know you all have busy reading schedules but if anyone gets the time to re-read S&S this year I'd love to know your thoughts!

Mostly Jane

Found Jane Austen by Elizabeth Jenkins in my local second hand bookshop. I'm intrigued by the handwritten inscription and very much hope that "H" was fond of Austen and delighted to receive this book as a gift from "J" on Christmas Day, 1948.

While I think that Claire Tomalin's Jane Austen -A Life is the definitive Austen biography, Elizabeth Jenkins' uses her experience as a novelist to provide a unique insight into Austen's genius and her polished style makes this book a real pleasure to read.

When Jenkins' describes 'the brilliant perfection of Pride and Prejudice, sixteen years maturing in the mind of an unequalled artist' and the 'peculiar loveliness of Sense and Sensibility' it makes you want to immediately re-read them.

Talking of which, this year is the 200th anniversary of the publication of Sense and Sensibility. Anyone planning a re-read?

North and South

Described by Jenny Uglow as 'sexy, vivid and full of suspense' North and South is a compelling novel with magnetic central characters.

Margaret Hale's father has a crisis of faith and removes his family from their beloved New Forest to Milton, a manufacturing town in Manchester. Dismayed by the smoky industrial landscape Margaret's mother becomes ill. Her father takes in students and one of them is the powerful cotton-mill owner John Thornton.

Hypnotised by Margaret's dark beauty, dignity and scornful disdain of capitalism he falls in love with her. Margaret befriends a local girl, Bessy, who is dying as a consequence of breathing in the dust when she worked at the cotton mills:

'Fluff,' repeated Bessy. 'Little bits as fly off fro' the cotton, when they're carding it, and fill the air till it looks all fine white dust. They say it winds round the lungs and tightens them up. Anyhow there's many a one as works in the carding room, that falls in a waste, coughing and spitting blood, because they're just poisoned by the fluff.'

After Margaret protects him during a riot by the workers on strike and is injured in the process, Thornton declares his love and is refused. Her mother succumbs and dies, so does Bessy and suddenly Margaret's father. (Charles Dickens once said that much as he admires Elizabeth Gaskell he wished her characters were a little more steady on their feet!)

During this time, Thornton begins to doubt Margaret's virtue after he sees her walking out after dusk with a young man (who turns out to be her brother, but that's another story.) Margaret's stoicism and compassion see her through and after some clever plot twists she comes to appreciate the true value of the man she once disdained and the industrial town she once disliked.

Thank you so much to Make Do and Read, Shelf Love, A Few of My Favourite Books, Potter Jotter, Lilacs in May and Iris on Books for recommending this marvellous novel and I very much enjoyed this post about Victorian embroidery and art by Jane Brocket.

Cathy

Wuthering Heights is the first Victorian novel I ever read and I'm always moved by its final poetic paragraph:

I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass and wondered how anyone could imagine unquiet slumbers, for the sleepers in that quiet earth.

The complex and sophisticated structure of the novel means that our first impressions of Cathy are pieced together by Lockwood when he spends the night in her old bed. The three versions of her name - Catherine Earnshaw, Catherine Linton and Catherine Heathcliff scratched into the ledge represent the identities that she will inhabit or may inhabit.

Her old text books with a diary scrawled as marginalia is the only time in the novel we hear Cathy's own voice, without it being represented through a narrator and even the nervous Lockwood is drawn to her when he sees the wickedly funny caricature of the curmudgeonly old servant Joseph that she has sketched on a blank page.

Each time I re-read Wuthering Heights it becomes more apparent to me that Catherine dominates the novel and is by far the most interesting character. As Lockwood observes ' the air swarmed with Catherines.'

Azkaban

Get too near a Dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory will be sucked out of you. Remus Lupin

I'm collecting these handsome new editions of the Harry Potter series for my daughters and I couldn't resist a quick re-read of my favourite Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I believe that the evil hooded Dementors and the way they operate - sucking all positive thoughts from the body - are based on J K Rowling's own experiences of post-natal depression. Evidence, if it were needed, of the sophistication of her writing and how it can appeal on many levels.

I was reading a transcript of JK's interview with Oprah and I was struck by her comment 'writing is essential for my mental health.' Now I don't write but I do believe that reading is essential for my mental health. Browsing through book blogs I suspect that the same is true for others - we don't read as a hobby, we read as an essential part of our well-being. I'd be interested in your thoughts whether you read, write, create, craft or bake.