Month: April 2018

My Commonplace Book: April 2018

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A selection of words and pictures to represent April’s reading:

commonplace book
noun
a book into which notable extracts from other works are copied for personal use.

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There are no friends at Whitehall. Only allies and enemies. Among the great, power ebbs and flows according to their conjuctions and oppositions. And the rest of us are tossed about in the current, helpless to direct our course, let alone navigate our way to safety.

The Fire Court by Andrew Taylor (2018)

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Alexander frowned. ‘I am sure you exist, John, for I can see you here praying to God. But say this: a man may wake up one day and feel happy, and wake up the next and feel as if he cannot go on, though his life remains exactly the same. Or, to take another example: two men may lose their sight. One man quickly adjusts to it and continues to lead a useful life, the other falls into despair. What does that tell us? That the mind is all! If we can control the mind, it does not matter the circumstance.’

The Pharmacist’s Wife by Vanessa Tait (2018)

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“Circe” from Boccaccio’s De Claris Mulieribus, 1474 edition

When I was born, the name for what I was did not exist. They called me nymph, assuming I would be like my mother and aunts and thousand cousins. Least of the lesser goddesses, our powers were so modest they could scarcely ensure our eternities. We spoke to fish and nurtured flowers, coaxed drops from the clouds or salt from the waves. That word, nymph, paced out the length and breadth of our futures. In our language, it means not just goddess, but bride.

Circe by Madeline Miller (2018)

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The universe about you is charged with opposing forces – angels and devils, good and evil, light and darkness – you can call them what you will, and as you think of things and people, you invite into them one or the other. Think evil things of a man, and you’ve done your poor best to make a devil of him.

Gentian Hill by Elizabeth Goudge (1949)

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I do believe I begin to grasp the nature of miracles! For would it be a miracle, if there was any reason for it? Miracles have nothing to do with reason. Miracles contradict reason, they strike clean across mere human deserts, and deliver and save where they will. If they made sense, they would not be miracles.

A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters (1977)

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If the sixty years seemed full of brilliance and adventure to a few at the top, to most they were a succession of wayward dangers; of the three galloping evils, pillage, plague and taxes; of fierce and tragic conflicts, bizarre fates, capricious money, sorcery, betrayals, insurrections, murder, madness and the downfall of princes; of dwindling labor for the fields, of cleared land reverting to waste; and always the recurring black shadow of pestilence carrying its message of guilt and sin and the hostility of God.

A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara W Tuchman (1978)

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London in the 16th Century

I usually like being by the river. I like the noise: the bellowing between ship and dock, the raucous squabbling of gulls, the shoving and shouting, the creak and groan of ropes and the slap of palms as bargains are struck. The quays reek of the scent of fish and salt air, and the refuse stranded on the beaches at low tide. Beggars pick over the debris in the mud, or snatch at scraps around the stalls. Tall ships and sturdy cogs jostle at the quays, sailed in from who knows where, destined for somewhere far from here. They set sail across the wide seas, the seas I have never seen, ploughing through the waves, bucking and rearing like horses in the wind…

The Cursed Wife by Pamela Hartshorne (2018)

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“Patience is the capacity to endure all that is necessary in attaining a desired end. The patient man is master of his fate. The submissive man has handed his fate over to somebody else. Patience implies liberty and superiority. Impatience nearly always involves a loss of liberty. It causes people to commit themselves, to burn their boats, to put it out of their power to alter or modify their course. Patience never forsakes the ultimate goal because the road is hard. There can be no patience without an object.”

The Feast by Margaret Kennedy (1950)

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There were men who would take the sword and with it conquer the world for their countrymen or themselves. Such men were a nuisance always, and in a world of high-explosive they were a calamity. But always History – a sentimental jade – would give them a little glory: that amid an ocean of tears and blood.

The Daffodil Affair by Michael Innes (1942)

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Flag of Grenada

As we drew closer to Grenada, her forest summits became more sharply defined and green patches began a glimmeration among the inky blues. The distant mountains of the interior were veiled in grey mist, whiles to the west – as the afternoon gathered in – the sun melted the sky into the sea, turning them both pale-pale lemon.

Sugar Money by Jane Harris (2017)

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Of the four only Letty used the library for her own pleasure and possible edification. She had always been an unashamed reader of novels, but if she hoped to find one which reflected her own sort of life she had come to realize that the position of an unmarried, unattached, ageing woman is of no interest whatever to the writer of modern fiction.

Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym (1977)

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Favourite books read in April:

Circe and The Feast

Where did my reading take me in April?

England, Scotland, Wales, Ancient Greece, France, the Amazon, Grenada and Martinique

Authors read for the first time in April:

Vanessa Tait and Barbara W. Tuchman

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Have you read any of these books? What have you been reading in April?

Elizabeth Goudge giveaway winner

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Thanks to everyone who entered my Elizabeth Goudge giveaway earlier in the week. I have used RandomResult.com to select a winner at random – and the winner is…

Allison M

Congratulations Allison! You’ve won a copy of The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Goudge.

I hope you enjoy the book. I haven’t read it myself yet but I’m sure it will be lovely. Thanks again to Hendrickson Publishers for making this giveaway possible.

The Scarlet Lion by Elizabeth Chadwick

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This is the second of Elizabeth Chadwick’s two novels covering the life of William Marshal, knight, soldier, statesman and adviser to four kings of England. I read the first book, The Greatest Knight, seven years ago but it was only when I discovered that Chadwick’s newest book, Templar Silks, was also about William Marshal that I remembered I still needed to read this one. Despite leaving such a long gap between the two novels, I was pleased to find that, as soon as I opened The Scarlet Lion, I was able to get straight into the story – in fact, if you wanted to read this book without having read the first it wouldn’t be a problem at all, although I would still recommend reading both.

The Scarlet Lion, which is as much the story of William’s wife, Isabelle de Clare, as it is of William himself, covers the period between 1197 and 1219. Early in the novel, King Richard I dies with no legitimate children of his own, leaving the succession to the throne of England in doubt. William supports the claim of Richard’s only surviving brother, John, ahead of Richard’s nephew, Arthur of Brittany, but as soon as John becomes king he begins to repay William’s loyalty with hostility and cruelty.

Tensions increase following negotiations over William’s lands in Normandy, for which he has to pay homage to the King of France. No longer as welcome at court as they once were, William and Isabelle retreat to Leinster in Ireland, only to find that John’s justiciar, Meilyr FitzHenry, has been sent to invade their Irish lands. John also asks for their two eldest sons as hostages and Isabelle is devastated when William agrees, putting their marriage under real strain for the first time.

I enjoyed this book as much as I remembered enjoying the first one and it was nice to finish William’s story at last! Having recently read The Autumn Throne, the third of Chadwick’s Eleanor of Aquitaine trilogy which covers roughly the same period and in which William appears as a secondary character, it was interesting to read about some of the same events again, this time with a focus on William’s family rather than Eleanor’s. The different perspective means that John, who was given a more balanced portrayal in The Autumn Throne, is very much the villain in this book and it’s easy to see why Isabelle is so worried about her sons being sent into his care. The fact that William is willing to let them go provides the first real test for their otherwise happy marriage.

William is a great character, but I already knew that from The Greatest Knight, so I particularly enjoyed getting to know Isabelle in this book. Being much younger than her husband, a lot of her time is taken up with giving birth to their ten children, but we also see her develop into a strong, independent woman who, during William’s absences, is able to make decisions and defend their Irish lands. Despite their disagreement over the hostage situation they have a wonderful partnership and a deep understanding of each other.

The Scarlet Lion takes us right up to final hours of William’s life, which as you can imagine, is a sad and poignant conclusion to the novel, but nobody could say that he hadn’t had an eventful and fulfilling life! I have just started Templar Silks and am looking forward to learning more about William’s pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1183.

Gentian Hill by Elizabeth Goudge

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For the last few years Lory of The Emerald City Book Review has been hosting a celebration of Elizabeth Goudge’s work on the author’s birthday and as a result I have read three wonderful novels, one every April since 2015 – The Child from the Sea, The White Witch and Towers in the Mist. This year Lory has taken a break from hosting this event, but I was pleased to find that it has a new home at Howling Frog Books and Jorie Loves a Story. Even before I knew that there would be an Elizabeth Goudge Day 2018, I had already decided to mark the day myself by reading another of her books. I still had plenty of unread Goudge novels to choose from, but Gentian Hill was the one I felt most drawn to this year.

Gentian Hill, first published in 1949, is set in Devon during the Napoleonic Wars. It opens on a peaceful August evening with a Royal Navy fleet arriving at Torbay during a glorious sunset. On board one of the frigates is fifteen-year-old Midshipman Anthony Louis Mary O’Connell, who has been in the Navy for eight weeks and has had all he can take of the seasickness, the brutal treatment, the punishments, and the taunts of the older, more experienced sailors. Escaping from the ship during the night, he deserts and disappears into the countryside where, taking the name of Zachary, he wanders from place to place looking for work until, eventually, fate takes him to Weekaborough Farm near Gentian Hill.

Weekaborough Farm is home to the Spriggs and their ten-year-old adopted daughter Stella. Stella is a gentle, sensitive girl whose time is divided between caring for the animals on the farm and attending lessons with Dr Crane, the village doctor, a man who values the importance of a thorough education for girls as well as boys:

Reading, writing, and elementary arithmetic were all the child needed to learn of the doctor, Mother Sprigg maintained. This, combined with the arts of housewifery that she herself could teach her, was all the education required by a farmer’s daughter. Doctor Crane disagreed; the education required by any individual, he maintained, was just exactly all the knowledge the individual could possibly assimilate.

When Zachary arrives in Stella’s life, an instant connection forms between the two of them which quickly blossoms into love, but soon Zachary must go to sea again…and there is no guarantee that they will be reunited.

I enjoyed Gentian Hill; as with all the other Goudge novels I’ve read, the writing is beautiful and there are some truly lovely descriptions of the Devon countryside. Here are the words she uses to bring Torbay to life:

The last light of the sun was streaming over the rampart of green hills to the west, brimming the leafy valleys with liquid gold, then emptying itself in a sort of abandonment of glory into the vast domed space of sky and sea beyond. There were ripples on the water, and a fragile pattern of cirrus clouds above, and these caught the light in vivid points of fire that were delicate as filigree upon the fine metal of the gold-washed sea and sky.

However, this is probably my least favourite of the four books I’ve read so far. With the hero and heroine being ten and fifteen (and they only age slightly over the course of the novel), I couldn’t really believe in the romance between them – it felt more like the love between a brother and a sister. I also found the characters a little bit too good and too pure, even for a Goudge novel; I feel sure there were characters in her other books who were more complex – unless I was just in the wrong mood this time.

I did find plenty of things to love, though. I particularly liked the way Goudge weaves local legends into the story, such as the legend of St Michael’s Chapel in Torquay, as well as all the customs and traditions that formed part of 18th century rural life: Christmas wassailing, the Ploughing Chant, harvesting, corn dollies, and the ancient instrument known as the bull-roarer. I also enjoyed following the story of the Abbe de Colbert, chaplain of Torre Abbey, who lived and suffered through the recent French Revolution. And although the plot is predictable, what I was hoping would happen is exactly what did happen, so I was happy with that!

Gentian Hill is a lovely story, but if you have never tried one of Elizabeth Goudge’s historical novels before I would recommend starting with either Towers in the Mist or The Witch Witch. She also wrote several contemporary novels including The Scent of Water…don’t forget to enter my giveaway if you would like to win a copy of that one!

Win a copy of The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Goudge

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This giveaway is now closed. Thanks to all who entered. The winner has been announced here.

It would have been Elizabeth Goudge’s birthday today – and to celebrate, Hendrickson Publishers are kindly offering a giveaway of her 1963 novel The Scent of Water.

From the Hendrickson website:

A captivating story filled with English charm, luminous wisdom, and astounding spiritual insight

Goudge’s singular gift is the depth and insight she brings to her characters. Mary Lindsay is a born and bred Londoner who has enjoyed her city life — a prestigious job, and friends with whom she takes in the city pleasures of theatre, art and music. But fleeting memories of a childhood visit to her father’s elderly cousin out in the country are revived with the news that the woman has willed her home, the Laurels, to Mary. She makes an uncharacteristically sudden and life-changing decision to leave London for the country. The gradual unfolding of her understanding of herself, of the now-deceased woman who has bequeathed her home to Mary, and of the people of Appleshaw, all weave together in a most memorable story of love’s redemptive power.

Elizabeth Goudge is an author I have come to love over the last few years. You can see my reviews of some of her novels here. Although I haven’t read The Scent of Water yet, I think it sounds lovely!

To enter the giveaway simply comment on this post telling me why you would like to read The Scent of Water. The winner will be chosen at random on Saturday morning (28th April). Good luck!

The Feast by Margaret Kennedy

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It would have been Margaret Kennedy’s birthday today and she is the next author to be featured in Jane’s Birthday Book of Underappreciated Lady Authors. Having only read three Margaret Kennedy novels – The Constant Nymph, Lucy Carmichael and Troy Chimneys – I still have a lot of her books to choose from, but I decided on The Feast for this year’s Margaret Kennedy Day as I’ve seen several people name it as a favourite. Now that I’ve read it myself I can understand why!

The Feast was published in 1950 and is set three years earlier, in the summer of 1947. The novel follows a week in the lives of a group of guests who are staying at Pendizack Hotel on the coast of Cornwall. The week will end in tragedy when part of the cliff collapses on the hotel, killing everyone inside. This is not a spoiler because the book opens with a prologue in which we see the Reverend Bott attempting to write a sermon in memory of the dead. We also know that there will be some survivors – but the identities of those who will live and those who will die won’t be revealed until the end of the book.

The hotel is owned by the Siddals, although it’s Mrs Siddal who does all the work while her lazy husband does nothing at all and their three sons, now adults, make their own plans for the future. The housekeeper, Mrs Ellis, is a bitter, resentful woman who spends most of her time gossiping about other people, so the Siddals are relying more and more on the maid, Nancibel, a friendly, kind-hearted local girl.

The guests are a varied and not particularly pleasant group of people. They include Sir Henry Gifford, his selfish wife and their four children (three of whom are adopted); Mrs Cove, a cold and heartless woman who has very little affection for her three neglected daughters; the Paleys, a couple whose marriage has been strained since the loss of their child several years earlier; bad-tempered, overbearing Canon Wraxton and his long-suffering daughter Evangeline; Anna Lechene, an unscrupulous, irresponsible writer who is working on a new book about the Brontës, and her chauffeur, a handsome young man called Bruce who tells lies to make himself sound more interesting.

I was aware before I started the book that Margaret Kennedy had based the personalities of some of her characters on the Seven Deadly Sins and this added an extra layer of interest as I matched up different characters with different sins as I read. There are some obvious villains in the novel – Mrs Cove, Lady Gifford and Canon Wraxton are particularly nasty – but others have a mixture of good and bad qualities. I knew which characters I wanted to survive and which I didn’t, but life is not always fair and people don’t always get what they deserve, so there was still an element of suspense as the story moved towards its tragic conclusion.

I loved following the lives of the Siddals, their guests and their servants. Bearing in mind that the whole story takes place over the course of just seven days, there’s an impressive amount of character development with people making life-changing decisions, searching for happiness and taking control of their own futures. With over twenty characters all playing important roles in the novel, some authors would have struggled to make each man, woman and child different and memorable, but Margaret Kennedy succeeds and the result is a really enjoyable and absorbing read. It’s probably my favourite of her books so far – although I did love Troy Chimneys as well!

Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym #1977Club

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This is my second choice for this week’s 1977 Club (hosted by Simon and Karen) and the third book I’ve read by Barbara Pym. Having so far read only Excellent Women and Less Than Angels, I was surprised by how different Quartet in Autumn is. It’s a much darker, sadder, more poignant novel and, although I did like it, I found it a little bit depressing.

The ‘quartet’ are two women and two men – Letty, Marcia, Edwin and Norman – who work together in the same office in 1970s London. They are four very different people with different personalities, but they have two things in common: they are all in their sixties and they all live alone. Although Pym never specifies exactly what their jobs involve, it is implied that the four of them have been sharing an office for several years and have an understanding of each other’s personal circumstances and living arrangements. Despite this, and despite their loneliness, they never do anything together outside of working hours – they eat lunch separately and then go their separate ways again at the end of the day.

We learn very little about Norman, except that people consider him an ‘odd little man’ and that his social life consists solely of dentist appointments and occasional visits to see his brother-in-law, whom he dislikes. Edwin, a widower, is sometimes invited to stay with his married daughter and grandchildren, but otherwise tries to keep himself busy by taking part in as many church activities as possible. The two men seem to play slightly smaller roles in the novel, at least until halfway through when the women retire (not to be replaced) and the quartet is reduced to a duo.

Letty has always planned to move to the countryside with her friend Marjorie after her retirement, but when the unthinkable happens and Marjorie gets engaged, she is left facing a future in an old people’s home instead. But it’s Marcia who is the most tragic character – Marcia who has had surgery for breast cancer and looks forward to her trips to the hospital as ‘holiday treats’, who has developed an obsession with hoarding empty milk bottles in the garden and who attracts the unwelcome attention of a concerned social worker.

A book about four lonely people doing meaningless, unappreciated jobs and looking for ways to fill boring, empty lives does not make the most uplifting of reads, but Pym still manages to sprinkle some humour into the story and to leave us with the sense that there is some hope for our characters after all. Letty, at least, seems to want things to change and to be willing to take the first steps towards bringing about those changes.

Despite the sad, melancholic feel of the book, I think it is my favourite so far by Barbara Pym. Her observations are both witty and sensitive and I found myself really caring about Letty, Norman, Marcia and Edwin. Another good choice for 1977 Club and now I’m looking forward to reading Jane and Prudence, the other Pym novel I have on my shelf.