The Women’s Classic Literature Event

October 14, 2015October 14, 201520 Comments

The Classics Club have announced an exciting new reading event: The Women’s Classic Literature Event! Between now and December 2016 we will be reading and writing about classic works by female authors. There are no other rules and there’s no upper or lower limit to the number of books we need to read – as long as a book is written by a woman and (preferably) published before 1960, it counts towards this event. By ‘book’ I don’t just mean novels, because letters, poetry, plays, essays, journals, short stories and biographies all count too.

I will definitely be participating, but I’m not sure how I want to approach this event. I still have a lot of classics by women left to read on my Classics Club list, which I’m listing below:

Shirley by Charlotte Brontë
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (re-read)
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (re-read)
My Antonia by Willa Cather
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (re-read)
Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne du Maurier
Mary Anne by Daphne du Maurier
The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
Excellent Women by Barbara Pym
The Romance of the Forest by Ann Radcliffe
Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
The Heir of Redclyffe by Charlotte M. Yonge

I’ll take this list as a starting point and read some of these books for the event, but I would like to do more than that. I would like to also read books by women who are not on my list, by women who are new to me, by women I’ve never thought about reading before – and maybe some children’s classics by women too.

The Classics Club have also posted an introductory survey. Here are my answers to the questions:

1. Introduce yourself. Tell us what you are most looking forward to in this event.
I’m Helen and I joined the Classics Club in 2012. I’m looking forward to discovering some new female authors through this event and I’m also hoping it will encourage me to pick up some of the books on my existing list that I’ve been putting off reading.

2. Have you read many classics by women? Why or why not?
Yes, I’ve read quite a lot of classics by women (including some of my absolute favourite classics) – but probably not as many as I’ve read by men.

3. Pick a classic female writer you can’t wait to read for the event, & list her date of birth, her place of birth, and the title of one of her most famous works.
I’m looking forward to finally reading Charlotte M. Yonge. I’ve been meaning to read The Heir of Redclyffe for such a long time, but for some reason have never got round to doing it. Yonge was born in Otterbourne, Hampshire, England on August 11, 1823. As well as the title I’ve already mentioned, her other works include The Daisy Chain and The Clever Woman of the Family.

4. Think of a female character who was represented in classic literature by a male writer. Does she seem to be a whole or complete woman? Why or why not? Tell us about her. (Without spoilers, please!)
I’ve chosen a character from a classic I read earlier this year and who I certainly didn’t consider to be a whole or complete woman: Dora Spenlow from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. I often find Dickens’ female characters irritating (although there are a few exceptions) and Dora is probably the worst – a woman who is happy to describe herself as ‘a silly little thing’.

5. Favorite classic heroine? (Why? Who wrote her?)
I can think of lots of great heroines in classic literature, but one of my favourites is the wonderful Marian Halcombe from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. I know Collins has been criticised for making Marian unattractive and unfeminine while the beautiful but much less interesting Laura Fairlie is the romantic interest of the novel, but I still think it’s great to see a male Victorian author create such a strong, intelligent, courageous heroine.

6. We’d love to help clubbers find great titles by classic female authors. Can you recommend any sources for building a list? (Just skip this question if you don’t have any at this point.)
This list of Virago Modern Classics should be a good place to start (be careful as there are a few male authors on there too).
http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/User:Christiguc

7. Recommend three books by classic female writers to get people started in this event. (Again, skip over this if you prefer not to answer.)
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

8. Will you be joining us for this event immediately, or will you wait until the new year starts?
I’ll be joining immediately. I’m sure I’ll be reading some classics by women during the remainder of this year and I would like those to count.

9. Do you plan to read as inspiration pulls, or will you make out a preset list?
Apart from reading some of the remaining books on my current Classics Club list, I’m not planning to make any other preset lists. I never stick to them anyway, so I’m just going to read whatever I feel like reading.

10. Are you pulling to any particular genres? (Letters, journals, biographies, short stories, novels, poems, essays, etc?)
I expect that I’ll be reading mostly novels (there’s a reason why I didn’t call my blog She Reads Letters or She Reads Journals) but I would like to be adventurous and read some other formats as well, particularly short stories and poetry.

11. Are you pulling to a particular era or location in literature by women?
No, not really. I’ve already read a lot of classics from the Victorian era, though, so I’m going to try to read more books from the twentieth century for this event.

12. Do you hope to host an event or readalong for the group? No worries if you don’t have details. We’re just curious!
I don’t think so, but I haven’t ruled it out.

13. Is there an author or title you’d love to read with a group or a buddy for this event? Sharing may inspire someone to offer.
Nothing in particular, but I’ll look out for any group reads that interest me.

14. Share a quote you love by a classic female author — even if you haven’t read the book yet.
“And certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it.” – George Eliot, Middlemarch

Will you be taking part in the Women’s Classic Literature Event?

A God in Every Stone by Kamila Shamsie

October 12, 201516 Comments

When choosing what to read for this year’s #Diversiverse event, A God in Every Stone was the obvious choice as it also counts towards my Reading the Walter Scott Prize project (it was shortlisted for the 2015 prize). It’s the sixth novel by Pakistani author Kamila Shamsie, but the first one I have read.

The novel opens in July 1914 in Turkey, where twenty-two-year-old Vivian Rose Spencer is working on an archaeological dig led by Tahsin Bey, a friend of her father’s. Vivian is intrigued by tales of Scylax, the ancient Greek explorer who sailed down the Indus River from the city of Caspatyrus (now Peshawar in modern-day Pakistan) and was rewarded by King Darius I with a circlet decorated with figs. As Tahsin Bey tells her of his mission to find the legendary circlet, she finds herself falling in love with him, despite the age difference. Soon, though, she and Tahsin Bey are separated; war has broken out in Europe and Vivian must return home to serve as a VAD nurse in a London hospital.

Another thread of the novel follows a young Pashtun soldier from Peshawar, Qayyum Gul, who has been injured while fighting with the British army at Ypres in 1915. Qayyum is on his way home when he briefly meets Vivian on a train. Having been traumatised by her experiences of wartime nursing, Vivian has decided to travel to Peshawar to continue Tahsin Bey’s search for the Circlet of Scylax. In Peshawar, she gets to know a twelve-year-old boy called Najeeb and awakens in him a passion for archaeology and ancient history.

The stories of these three people – Vivian, Qayyum and Najeeb – come together again fifteen years later in 1930s Peshawar. I think I’ve said enough about the plot now, so I won’t tell you how their characters have developed in the intervening years or the circumstances that lead to their paths crossing again. What I will say, though, is that 1930 is a very significant year in the history of Peshawar, as a group known as the Khudai Khidmatgar campaign to end British rule in India through non-violent means. The novel reaches a dramatic conclusion on the Street of Storytellers during one of the defining moments of the Indian independence movement – and one that I confess to knowing nothing about before reading this book.

A God in Every Stone is an ambitious book, spanning three decades, crossing two continents and tackling some big themes, such as the rise and fall of empires and the loyalties of the people living within those empires. The settings – which include Turkish archaeological sites and the old walled city of Peshawar – are vividly described and I loved the way in which the story of Scylax was worked throughout the novel, its relevance not immediately clear but soon becoming obvious.

Although I found a lot to admire about A God in Every Stone, I still felt that there was something missing: an emotional connection to the characters. I found that the only one I really cared about was Najeeb – his innocence and enthusiasm as a twelve-year-old meant he instantly became my favourite character – but I struggled to feel anything for Qayyum and Vivian, despite the ordeals they both go through. It didn’t help that towards the end of the novel they are pushed into the background as two more characters – Zarina and her sister-in-law, Diwa – are introduced. Choosing to focus on new characters at such a late stage of the book meant that the final scenes set on the Street of Storytellers lacked the impact they should have had.

I did enjoy this book but I couldn’t help feeling that the author had tried to include too much in what is really quite a short novel. I think I would have preferred a longer book giving the characters more emotional depth and exploring the themes in more detail – or maybe a shorter book concentrating on just Vivian’s story or just Qayyum’s. Looking at other reviews of this novel, it was possibly the wrong Kamila Shamsie book for me to have started with; I’m looking forward to trying one of her earlier books and I think Burnt Shadows will be the next one I read.

Historical Musings #7: Exploring Africa

October 11, 201517 Comments

It’s very easy to find historical fiction set in Europe or America. If you’re looking for a book on the wives of Henry VIII, the Italian Renaissance, the US Civil War or the French court, there are literally hundreds of novels to choose from – but historical fiction set in other parts of the world is not as well represented.

I’m participating in A More Diverse Universe at BookLust this month and will have two books to tell you about soon: the first is Kamila Shamsie’s A God in Every Stone, set partly in 1930s Peshawar, and the other is Flood of Fire, the final part of Amitav Ghosh’s Ibis Trilogy set in India and China during the First Opium War. Last year, for the same event, I read The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng, set in Malaya in the 1940s and 1950s, and The Twentieth Wife by Indu Sundaresan, a story of Mughal India. It seems, then, that when I do choose to read more diversely within the historical fiction genre, I tend to pick up books set in Asia (particularly in India and China) rather than in other areas of the world.

A quick look through my blog archives has shown me that I have read a very small number of historical novels set in Africa over the last few years – and even fewer that were actually written by African authors. Several of Dorothy Dunnett’s novels are set partly in Africa (the journey to Timbuktu in Scales of Gold is particularly fascinating), Wendy Wallace’s The Sacred River is set in 19th century Egypt – and of course, there’s Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody series which is set in Egypt too. I can also recommend three novels set partly or entirely in Morocco: Linda Holeman’s The Saffron Gate (1930s), Jane Johnson’s The Sultan’s Wife (17th century) and Laila Lalami’s The Moor’s Account (16th century).

If we can include the 1960s as historical fiction, then I have also read The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna (Sierra Leone) and Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria) – and Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese, which covers the history of Ethiopia from around 1950-1980. I do prefer to stick to Walter Scott’s definition of historical fiction, though, which would rule out anything set less than sixty years before publication! Before I started blogging, I read Roots by Alex Haley and the Ramses series by Christian Jacq, but beyond these I’m struggling to think of anything else.

Can you recommend some good historical fiction novels set in Africa? Which are your favourites?

The Moor’s Account – and a Shiny New Books Q and A

October 8, 2015January 18, 20225 Comments

Just a quick post to let you know that Issue 7 of Shiny New Books is out today!

Shiny New Books is an online magazine for book lovers and is packed with book reviews, news and other features. In this issue, I have provided a Q & A with author Laila Lalami. Below you can read my review of her Man Booker longlisted novel The Moor’s Account.

In 1527, the Spanish conquistador Pánfilo de Narváez embarks on an expedition to the New World. With five ships and six hundred men, there’s every reason to hope that the voyage will be a success and will result in the area now known as the Gulf Coast of the United States being claimed for Spain. Within a year, however, most of the men have succumbed to disease, lack of food, extreme weather and encounters with Native American tribes. Eventually, only four of the original party remain: the treasurer of the expedition, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca; the nobleman Alonso del Castillo Maldonado; Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, an explorer; and finally, Estebanico, a Moroccan slave in the service of Dorantes.

The story of the disastrous Narváez expedition is told in a chronicle written by Cabeza de Vaca, yet Estebanico – one of de Vaca’s three fellow survivors – is only very briefly mentioned. Laila Lalami’s The Moor’s Account gives Estebanico a voice of his own and an opportunity to tell his side of the story, including details which were omitted from the ‘official’ records.

As well as his account of the expedition, Estebanico also tells us about his early life in Azemmour, Morocco, and how his fortunes rose and fell. Born Mustafa ibn Muhammad ibn Abdussalam al-Zamori, he was once a trader, selling men into slavery – before, ironically, becoming a slave himself. The two threads of Estebanico’s narrative are told in alternating chapters and I found that as I learned more about his background I gained a deeper understanding of the sort of person he was and of the qualities which helped him to survive when so many others did not.

Unlike most of his fellow explorers, Estebanico has not come to the New World in search of fame or fortune; all he wants is to be given his freedom and a chance to return to Azemmour. He is in a unique position, being part of the Castilian party yet not fully accepted as ‘one of them’ – at least until his intelligence and his gift for learning languages make him indispensable to the group and the barriers between slave and master begin to break down. His status as slave means that he offers a different perspective on events and also a more sympathetic view of the tribes of indigenous people they encounter.

Lalami very successfully conveys the strangeness and newness of the world in which Estebanico has found himself; the landscape, the plants and animals, the native tribes and their customs – all of these are described through the eyes of someone to whom everything is fascinating and unfamiliar. It would have been interesting to have been able to trace the progress of the journey on a map. On the other hand, this is a journey into the unknown and Estebanico and his companions only have a very vague idea of where they are headed, so I was happy to wait until I’d finished the novel before looking up more details of the expedition online.

Although Estebanico’s account does not really exist and Lalami is simply imagining how he may have chosen to tell the story, the novel is written in such a way that I could easily believe everything in the book happened exactly as described. I appreciated the author’s efforts to make the novel feel like an authentic sixteenth century manuscript – while it isn’t entirely convincing, it never feels inappropriately modern either and strikes a good balance between readability and historical accuracy. I also liked the names the Spaniards have for the places they pass through: for example, the Land of the Indians, the Ocean of Fog and Darkness, the Island of Misfortune and the Bay of Oysters. A strange reptile discovered near the beginning of the expedition is given the name El Lagarto because it looks like a giant lizard. Names, of course, are very important to Estebanico, having had his own name – and with it part of his identity – taken from him.

Another major theme of the novel is the power of storytelling and the right we all have to tell our own story and make sure our voice is heard. It’s fortunate, then, that Laila Lalami is such a talented storyteller herself. The Moor’s Account is an educational read (unless you’ve read about the Narváez expedition before, you should find, as I did, that there’s something new to learn on almost every page) but it’s also a fascinating travelogue and a gripping adventure novel which kept me turning the pages wondering where Estebanico’s journey would take him next.

Oswald: Return of the King by Edoardo Albert

October 6, 201515 Comments

One of my favourite reads from the first half of this year was Edwin: High King of Britain, the first in Edoardo Albert’s Northumbrian Thrones trilogy which tells the stories of three seventh century kings. On a visit to the library a few weeks ago I was pleased to find a copy of the second book, Oswald: Return of the King – and I was delighted to discover that it was just as good as the first.

It’s not necessary to have read Edwin: High King of Britain before starting this book – the key events of the previous book are given in a summary at the beginning of this one – but those of you who did read Edwin may remember Oswald as the young boy who fled into exile with his family after his father, Æthelfrith, King of Northumbria, was killed in battle.

During the years of Edwin’s reign, Oswald remains in the northern kingdom of Dal Riata, living amongst the monks on the island of Iona, where he is converted to Christianity. When news of Edwin’s death reaches the island, Oswald is reluctant to take action; he has no real desire to claim the throne for himself and would prefer to stay on Iona and enter the monastery. Abbot Ségéne, however, has other ideas – he wants Oswald to become king so that he can spread the new religion to his people – and a sequence of events follows which will leave Oswald with little choice other than to return to Northumbria and regain his father’s throne.

Oswald’s story is as exciting and engrossing as Edwin’s was. If the title, Return of the King, has made you think of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, that’s not a coincidence: Tolkien is thought to have taken the historical Oswald as the inspiration for his fictional character, Aragorn. Edoardo Albert lists Tolkien as a favourite author and there is a definite influence here, though it would be difficult to say how much. This tale of treachery and betrayal, stolen thrones and warring kingdoms does sometimes feel like fantasy – but of course, it isn’t; Oswald was a real person and Albert’s novel is based on historical fact (except where some imagination was clearly needed to fill in the gaps).

Oswald himself is a fascinating character and I thought his internal struggle between his desire to become a monk and his duty to become king was very well written. I also loved the portrayal of his relationship with his younger brother, Oswiu, who is going to be the subject of the third book in the trilogy. The brothers have very different temperaments, and while the loyalty and love they have for each other is plain to see, there’s also a tension which is always there below the surface.

Other characters include friends such as the monk, Aidan, who brings Christianity to the island of Lindisfarne, and enemies such as Cadwallon, King of Gwynedd, and Penda, King of Mercia – and I was pleased to see the return of Coifi, the pagan priest whom we first met in Edwin: High King of Britain, now a lost and lonely character having had his faith in the old gods shaken. I should also mention Oswald’s wonderful pet raven, Bran, who seems to have a personality all of his own (I wasn’t aware until after finishing the book that there are stories associating the real Oswald with a raven).

Before reading this book I had very little knowledge of Oswald or this period of history, so I found it a very informative novel as well as an entertaining one. Albert includes a lot of useful additional material: there’s a map showing the various kingdoms that made up Britain in the year 635, a character list, a glossary of unfamiliar words and a pronunciation guide – which was very helpful as I would otherwise have had no idea how to pronounce a name like Rhieienmelth!

I’m now looking forward to the third book in the trilogy – and while I await its publication I think I would like to read The King in the North by Max Adams for a non-fiction view of Oswald.

Upcoming reading events

October 4, 201521 Comments

Beginning today, Aarti of BookLust is hosting A More Diverse Universe, her annual reading event designed to encourage people to read more diversely. There’s still plenty of time to join in – the sign-up post is here and you’ll find lots of suggestions and recommendations on Aarti’s blog.

I’m currently reading A God in Every Stone by Kamila Shamsie, which I chose because it was also on the shortlist for the Walter Scott Prize this year (I am slowly working my way through all of the shortlisted titles since the prize began). Two other books I’ve been considering reading are Flood of Fire by Amitav Ghosh and The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende. I haven’t read anything by Allende before but received a review copy of The Japanese Lover through NetGalley and am looking forward to trying it. Flood of Fire is the third book in Ghosh’s Ibis Trilogy and I enjoyed the previous two when I read them earlier this year.

The 1924 Club is being hosted by Karen of Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings and Simon of Stuck in a Book and the idea is for everyone to read and review books originally published in 1924. I was sure I must have something on my shelves from that year, so I had a look and found two books: Precious Bane by Mary Webb and Beau Geste by P.C. Wren. I’m going to try to read both of those for the club – I think I’ll probably enjoy Beau Geste and I’m curious about Precious Bane, having seen very mixed opinions of it!

Simon and Karen (and others) have provided plenty of other suggestions: it seems that a lot of great books were published in 1924 and I’ll look forward to seeing what everyone chooses to read.

From October 31 to November 6, Lory of The Emerald City Book Review will be celebrating Witch Week. Her theme this year is New Tales from Old, which involves reading fiction based on fairy tales, folklore, myths and legends – not necessarily including witches! I’m thinking of reading The Last Enchantment, the third of Mary Stewart’s Arthurian novels. Lory will also be hosting a readalong of The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter, though I won’t be taking part as I’ve already read it.

November is also German Literature Month at Beauty is a Sleeping Cat and Lizzy’s Literary Life. This event is now in its fifth year but it will be the first time I’ve participated. I haven’t decided what to read yet, but I do have two Hans Fallada books on my TBR (Wolf Among Wolves and Once a Jailbird) as well as Death in Venice by Thomas Mann. There will also be some themed weeks and readalongs throughout the month of November.

Will you be taking part in any of these events? Do you know what you’ll be reading?

The Heart of Midlothian by Sir Walter Scott

October 2, 2015October 2, 201515 Comments

In 2012 I read my first Walter Scott novel, Ivanhoe, and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Having found Scott less difficult to read than I’d expected, I decided to add another of his books to my Classics Club list and something drew me to this one – possibly memories of the Scottish football results being announced on the television on a Saturday afternoon (Heart of Midlothian is the name of an Edinburgh team).

The novel – which predates the football team, being published in 1818 – takes its title from the Old Tolbooth Prison in Edinburgh, which was in the heart of the county of Midlothian. Scott based his plot on two real historical events: the Porteous Riots of 1736 and the story of a young woman who walked all the way to London to obtain a royal pardon for her sister who had been wrongly charged with infanticide. In Scott’s version, the young woman’s name is Jeanie Deans and she lives on a dairy farm at St Leonard’s Crags with her father, Davie, a strict Cameronian (a Presbyterian faction).

Jeanie’s younger sister, Euphemia – known as Effie – is in the Tolbooth facing the death penalty, having been accused of giving birth in secret and murdering her newborn child. Jeanie is sure Effie is innocent, but with no witnesses to the pregnancy or the birth and no way to prove what happened to the baby, she is guilty in the eyes of the law. If Jeanie would only tell the court that she had known her sister was pregnant, Effie could be freed, but she is unwilling to tell a lie and instead she decides to go to London to ask Queen Caroline for a pardon. Armed with a letter of introduction to the Duke of Argyll and some money borrowed from an admirer, the Laird of Dumbiedikes, Jeanie sets off on foot to save her sister’s life.

The first half of the novel sets the scene, describing a riot that breaks out in Edinburgh during a protest over the hanging of two smugglers. When Captain John Porteous orders the city guard to fire into the crowd, causing the deaths of several people, he himself is imprisoned in the Tolbooth. The prison is then stormed by a mob and Porteous is lynched and killed. These events become entwined with Effie’s story and provide the historical backdrop for the novel. The second half of the book concentrates on Jeanie’s journey to London, which includes encounters with some characters we previously met in Scotland: George Robertson, the father of Effie’s child; and Meg Murdockson and her mentally ill daughter, Madge Wildfire, two women who could hold the key to the mystery of the missing baby.

Well, The Heart of Midlothian was not the relatively easy read that Ivanhoe was! I found it much more challenging, for several reasons. First, as the novel is set mainly in Scotland, the dialogue is written almost entirely in Scots. I wouldn’t normally have a problem with this, but added to the fact that the book was written in the early 1800s, it did slow down the pace of my reading quite a lot. I find that whenever a book uses a large amount of dialect – even one you’re familiar with – a little more effort is required to read it and that was definitely the case here. If you think you might struggle with the dialect, I would recommend choosing an edition of the book with a good glossary!

Also, unlike Ivanhoe, which is a medieval adventure story packed with sword fights, sieges, villainous knights and feuding noblemen, this is a very different type of novel. While Jeanie’s personal story was gripping, I have to admit I had very little interest in the long passages describing the religious situation in eighteenth century Scotland and the discussions between Jeanie’s father, Davie Deans, and his neighbours on their different moral beliefs. I also thought the plot relied too heavily on coincidence, with Jeanie meeting people from her own small community in Scotland hundreds of miles away in England – and I felt that the final few chapters of the book were unnecessary as the story had already reached a more natural ending point.

I did enjoy parts of The Heart of Midlothian, though. Jeanie is a strong heroine who behaves with honesty and integrity throughout the novel, and although some of her choices were frustrating, I did like her. There is a romantic interest for Jeanie too – the schoolmaster, Reuben Butler – but this only forms a small part of the story. I was also interested in the descriptions of eighteenth century life and the relationship between Scotland and England in the years following the union of 1707. And there are plenty of memorable scenes, from the storming of the Tolbooth near the beginning to Jeanie’s meeting with Queen Caroline, wife of George II, towards the end.

I certainly didn’t love this book the way I loved Ivanhoe, but I’ll still read more of Scott’s novels and will hope that the next one I pick up is more to my taste than this one was!