Category: Reviews

Nonfiction Journeys: Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes by Robert Louis Stevenson #NovNov26 #ReadingScotland26 #RLSDay

14 Comments

This week’s Nonfiction November topic is Nonfiction Journeys, hosted by Frances of Volatile Rune, who has set the following challenge:

This week choose a book that reflects a journey for its author/protagonist or for the reader or both. This can be a physical journey, an emotional, psychological or spiritual journey or a combination of these. Any nonfiction title that leaves its author/protagonist and/or reader in a different place at the end from the start point is good for this challenge.

I’ve just finished reading a nonfiction book which fits this theme perfectly – and this seems the appropriate day to post my review, as today is RLS Day, an annual celebration of Robert Louis Stevenson’s life and work which takes place on the anniversary of his birth. It’s also a title from my current Classics Club list, it’s a short book so counts for Novellas in November (short nonfiction is allowed, as well as fiction), and Stevenson is a Scottish author which also makes it ideal for Reading Scotland Month!

Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes was published in 1879 and describes Stevenson’s twelve day journey through the Cévennes mountains in southern France. Stevenson was in his twenties at the time and still financially dependent on his parents, so planned the trip hoping to gather material for a book that would establish him as an author and enable him to earn his own living. He also wanted the money so he could pursue his relationship with Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne, an American woman of whom his parents disapproved (and who would later become his wife).

Stevenson undertakes the journey alone, with only a donkey for company. Her name is Modestine and he purchases her to carry his hiking equipment, which includes a very large and cumbersome sleeping bag. Modestine proves to be stubborn and temperamental, often walking very slowly, going round in circles or refusing to move at all, which is a constant source of frustration for Stevenson. Although he finds that by the end of the journey he’s sorry to part with her, there are times when he and others don’t treat her very well, so it’s worth being aware of that before you start.

As you would expect from a travel book, there are lots of descriptions of the beautiful scenery – the hills, rivers, forests, small villages and ruined castles – as he makes his way through the Cévennes. I’ve never been to that part of France but enjoyed looking up pictures online of the places Stevenson visits. Apparently you can recreate his journey by following the 140 mile footpath known as the Robert Louis Stevenson Trail, starting in Le Monastier-sur-Gazeille and ending in Saint-Jean-du-Gard.

Finding somewhere to sleep each night is one of the challenges Stevenson faces on his journey. In one of my favourite parts of the book, he describes camping outdoors in a glade surrounded by pine trees:

Night is a dead monotonous period under a roof; but in the open world it passes lightly, with its stars and dews and perfumes, and the hours are marked by changes in the face of Nature. What seems a kind of temporal death to people choked between walls and curtains, is only a light and living slumber to the man who sleeps afield.

Stevenson finds spending the night in the pine glade such a moving experience, he leaves some money behind the next day to thank the natural landscape for its hospitality. On other occasions, he stays overnight at a village inn and once at a Trappist monastery, Our Lady of the Snows. Religion forms an important part of the book – as well as the monastery chapters, Stevenson also passes through villages which are either Catholic or Protestant, and spends some time reflecting on the differences.

Stevenson wrote several other travel books. I would like to try some of them after finding this one so interesting!

Book 10/50 from my third Classics Club list.

The Puppet Maker of Prague by Eliza Graham

2 Comments

One of the things I remember from my visit to Prague, more than twenty years ago now, is seeing so many places selling traditional Czech puppets, so I was drawn to this book as soon as I saw the title.

The novel follows the story of a family torn apart during the Nazi occupation of Prague, which begins in March 1939. Petr Doubek is the puppet maker of the title and has been making a name for himself in Prague with his clever, entertaining puppet shows featuring his own beautifully made marionettes. Since the Nazis marched into the Sudetenland the previous year, Petr’s shows have become increasingly satirical, mocking Hitler and his politics, something Petr greatly regrets when the rest of Czechoslovakia, including Prague, also falls under Nazi control. He flees to Poland, leaving behind his wife, three-year-old daughter Jana and nineteen-year-old stepdaughter, Elsa. When their mother makes the difficult decision to join her husband in exile, it is left to Elsa to raise her little sister alone in the occupied city.

In 2016, we meet Christa, an elderly woman who has found a princess marionette in the attic of her London home. Although Christa grew up in Germany, an antiques dealer tells her that the puppet appears to have Czech origins. Deciding to investigate further, her search leads her to Prague and the old Doubek puppetry workshop. But what is Christa’s connection with the Doubek family and why did the princess puppet end up in her attic?

The Puppet Maker of Prague is yet another dual timeline novel, which seem so popular these days. However, it’s an example of the format working very well, with both narratives forming an important part of the overall story. The present day timeline is directly linked to the historical one, without bringing in extra subplots or unnecessary characters. Obviously, though, most of the action takes place in the wartime sections of the novel – and I have to confess, I knew very little about what happened in Prague during the war, so I found these parts of the book particularly interesting. Lots of key events are covered, including the student protests of 1939, the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich (the senior Nazi in charge of Prague), the Nazi retaliation on the village of Lidice (Graham uses a fictional village in its place), and the eventual liberation of Prague in 1945.

Although there’s a romantic interest for Elsa, when she falls in love with a member of the Czechoslovak Resistance (ÚVOD), the most important relationship in the book is the one between the two sisters. As an older sister myself, I found myself identifying with Elsa as she tries her best to protect Jana and keep her safe. It’s a lot of responsibility, with their parents gone and the city under Nazi control, and some of the decisions Elsa makes are questionable, but there’s never any doubt that she’s doing what she thinks is the right thing to do.

This is a very emotional book – wartime stories often are, of course, but I found this one particularly moving and had tears in my eyes on more than one occasion (always a sign that the author has done a good job of getting me invested in the characters and the story). I’ll have to try more of Eliza Graham’s novels. She seems to have written a lot of them!

Thanks to Boldwood Books for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Great Granny Webster by Caroline Blackwood – #NovNov26

9 Comments

My first book for this year’s Novellas in November is by an author I tried for the first time last year, when I read and enjoyed The Stepdaughter. I’d heard that Great Granny Webster, which was shortlisted for the 1977 Booker Prize, is considered her best book, so I was looking forward to reading it.

Great Granny Webster draws on Blackwood’s own memories and experiences and feels very like a memoir; in fact, the poet Philip Larkin, one of the Booker Prize judges, apparently voted against her, saying that the book was “autobiography, not fiction” – which I think was a bit unfair as I’m sure you could say the same about a lot of novels.

The book begins in 1947 with our fourteen-year-old narrator, who is recovering from surgery, being sent to stay with Great Granny Webster so she can benefit from the sea air. However, although Great Granny Webster lives only minutes away from Brighton with its beach and pier, the narrator experiences very little of the sea air because Great Granny Webster disapproves of it. In fact, she disapproves of everything. Her days are spent sitting upright on a hard chair in a dimly-lit drawing room drinking only water and doing nothing – apart from when she accompanies the narrator for a drive along the seafront in a chauffeur-driven black Rolls Royce with the window open just enough to let in a tiny breath of air. As the narrator observes, “I don’t think that I have ever since met a human being who smiled more rarely, who found less in life to amuse her”.

This visit to Great Granny Webster leaves the narrator curious about other members of her family, so she speaks to her Aunt Lavinia in the hope of finding out more. Lavinia, a glamorous, frivolous woman who lives only for pleasure and amusement, couldn’t be more different from Great Granny Webster. Beneath her fun-loving exterior, though, there’s a darkness and an emptiness leading to several suicide attempts. The narrator also listens to the memories of Tommy Redcliffe, an old friend of her father’s who had visited the family home, Dunmartin Hall, a crumbling estate in Northern Ireland. Tommy tells her about her grandmother (Great Granny’s daughter), a woman suffering from mental health problems who believes her children have been stolen by fairies and replaced with changelings.

This is not a book with a lot of plot; it feels more like a collection of anecdotes than a cohesive story. What it does very effectively, though, is show us how the three generations of this dysfunctional family are linked, with misery, mental illness and destruction being passed down from one woman to the next. All three women are interesting to read about, but it’s the cold, austere Great Granny Webster who is the strongest presence in this dark and unsettling book.

Here are some other novellas I’ve read and reviewed since last year’s Novellas in November:

Suspicion by Seichō Matsumoto
Travel Light by Naomi Mitchison
West by Carys Davies
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
Letter to My Judge by Georges Simenon
The Cat by Colette

The Last Handmaid by Clare Whitfield

12 Comments

I was drawn to this book for two reasons: first, it’s about Countess Erzsébet Báthory – I read about her in Sonia Velton’s The Nightingale’s Castle a few years ago and have been meaning to explore further – and also, I enjoyed Clare Whitfield’s previous novel, Poor Girls, and hoped this one would be just as good.

The Last Handmaid is set in the early 17th century and is narrated by Catalina, a young woman who finds herself alone in the world after losing first her mother and then Varga, the monk who raises her and whom she considers as close as an uncle. Rejecting Varga’s dying wish that she should become a nun and enter a convent, Catalina instead takes a job in the laundry of a castle belonging to Countess Erzsébet Báthory. No sooner has she begun to settle into her new position and make friends, her life is disrupted again when she plays a part in foiling an assassination attempt against the countess. This is the start of a close but uneasy relationship with the countess, who takes Catalina with her when she flees to Csejte Castle (now Čachtice Castle in Slovakia).

As you may know, Erzsébet Báthory – sometimes anglicised to Elizabeth Báthory – was allegedly a prolific Hungarian serial killer accused along with several of her servants of torturing and murdering hundreds of girls. She is also often said to have been an inspiration for the character of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, although there’s no direct evidence of this. In The Last Handmaid, we see Erzsébet through Catalina’s eyes, which can be frustrating at times as Catalina sees only what she wants to see and is determined that her beloved ‘Lady Erzie’ can do no wrong. It’s a good illustration of how easily people can be mistaken and how a vulnerable person who just wants to feel liked and valued can be manipulated and controlled, but still, it’s so obvious to the reader that the countess is a cruel, terrible woman that Catalina’s blindness becomes difficult to believe.

I found this book slightly different from The Nightingale’s Castle which portrayed Erzsébet more sympathetically and included some magical realism elements. This is a darker, more brutal novel and Whitfield doesn’t shy away from describing how the countess’s servants, Anna and Helena, beat and torture young women. The countess herself suffers from epilepsy, known as ‘the falling sickness’, and believes that drinking human blood is the cure. You can see where the comparisons with Dracula come from! It’s not a book for the squeamish or the faint-hearted, then. Even when Catalina begins a romantic relationship, it’s with the town executioner.

I enjoyed the book overall, apart from when I found myself losing patience with Catalina for continually making excuses for the countess and rejecting opportunities to escape and keep herself safe. I was interested to read in the author’s notes at the end of the book that she specifically chooses to write from the weakest, most vulnerable person’s perspective as they are the stories that most intrigue her. Now I need to find time to go back and read her first book, People of Abandoned Character.

Thanks to Head of Zeus for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Nightingale Hall by Rachel Burton

6 Comments

I loved Rachel Burton’s The Strawberry House, which I read earlier this year, so I was looking forward to reading her new book, Nightingale Hall. Like the previous novel, this one features a house at the heart of the story.

The book begins in 1969 with a party being held at Nightingale Hall, home of the baronet Sir Charles Nightingale, to celebrate the moon landing. During the evening, Sir Charles unveils a special painting, Moonlight on Nightingale, which he had commissioned from the artist Lex Cooper for the occasion.

In 2019, art gallery assistant Rosie Lopez has recently lost her beloved grandmother, Lauren, who had been closer to her than her own mother. Beginning to sort through Lauren’s possessions in her London flat, she finds a postcard tucked inside a book. The postcard depicts a painting of a full moon rising above a large stately home. When Rosie shows it to her mother and to Claire, the manager of the art gallery, they claim never to have seen either the postcard or the painting before, but Rosie is sure they’re lying. Convinced that there must be some connection between the painting and her own family, Rosie decides to find out more.

This is a dual timeline novel, moving between Rosie in the present day and Lauren in the 1960s. Although the more interesting parts of the story happen in the 1960s sections, I found I was more invested in Rosie’s chapters, maybe because she narrates hers in the first person whereas Lauren doesn’t. I also found Rosie a very easy character to like and had a lot of sympathy for her as she tries to deal with the loss of her grandmother despite the lack of support she receives from her mother, something Rosie doesn’t quite understand. Luckily, Rosie has several good friends who help her through her grief and it was nice to see her move forward with her life, gaining the confidence to work on her own art and develop her stationery business.

The two timelines weave together very well and I enjoyed seeing the characters in both periods celebrating the moon landings 50 years apart. However, the mystery element of the book is slightly disappointing and the secrets Rosie uncovers regarding Nightingale Hall, the painting and Lex Cooper are not very shocking or surprising. I also expected the Hall itself to play a bigger part in the story. The focus is much more on relationships, romance and the various ways in which decisions made in the past can affect the future.

Of the two Rachel Burton books I read, I definitely preferred The Strawberry House as I found the plot more interesting and the setting stronger, but this one was enjoyable enough, if not entirely satisfying. I need to find time to try some of her earlier novels, which also sound interesting.

Thanks to Boldwood Books for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Elidor by Alan Garner

19 Comments

I’ve been meaning to re-read this classic children’s fantasy novel for a long time and was motivated to move it further up the TBR pile after reading a wonderful review by Chris of Calmgrove Books earlier this year. I first read it at the age of about nine or ten – or rather, it was read by a lovely teacher who used to read aloud to us at the end of the day. I enjoyed it so much I got my own copy to read for myself a few years later.

Elidor was published in 1965 and has a strong 1960s feel which contrasts with the eerie, otherworldly nature of the fantasy land of Elidor. It begins with Roland Watson and his older siblings Nicholas, Helen and David wandering the streets of Manchester one cold afternoon, looking for something to do to pass the time. The post-war urban slum clearances are under way and the children stumble upon a church being prepared for demolition. When one of them accidentally kicks a ball through the church window, they go in one by one to look for it and don’t return, until only Roland is left.

Following his brothers and sister into the church, he discovers a portal to another land: Elidor, a world that was once beautiful but is now dying and decaying, under attack from the forces of darkness. Here, Roland meets the mysterious Malebron – a blind fiddle player, or is he a king? – who tells him that three of Elidor’s four golden castles have now become dark, but all hope isn’t yet lost. The Watson siblings must find the four Treasures – a stone, a spear, a cup and a sword – and keep them safe in their own world until light can be restored to Elidor.

For a fantasy novel, we spend a surprisingly small amount of time in Elidor itself. Most of the story takes place in Manchester, once the children have returned with the Treasures (which, away from Elidor, are transformed into everyday objects to make them easier to hide). However, the boundary between the two worlds is thin and the dark forces of Elidor begin to find their way through. There was a scene I found quite terrifying as a child, where the hidden objects begin to create static electricity, causing interference with all the electrical items in the Watson household. I still found it very unsettling as an adult! It’s this encroachment on the characters’ ordinary lives that makes Elidor darker than, say, the Narnia books. It reminded me a lot of Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising, which also features a battle between light and dark and the intrusion of evil forces on the real world.

Another thing this book and the Susan Cooper series have in common is a strong mythological background, with various allusions to myths and legends woven into the plot. Roland’s name, for example, is significant because the first part of the story has parallels with the folktale Childe Rowland, in which Rowland also has two brothers and a sister, Burd Ellen, who also disappear after kicking a ball over a church. Then there’s the title Elidor, inspired by a medieval Welsh folktale (Elidyr and the Golden Ball); the four castles and four treasures, which correspond to the Irish legends of the Tuatha Dé Danann; and the untamed unicorn, Findhorn, whose song is the key to saving Elidor. Don’t worry, though, if you’re not familiar with any of these myths – they’re not necessary to understanding the story.

Although I enjoyed reading Elidor again after so many years, I didn’t find it an entirely satisfying book. There’s not much worldbuilding regarding Elidor itself; we only get a brief glimpse of it early in the novel and we never really learn exactly why it is being destroyed, who the evil forces are or what their aims are. Everything is kept intentionally vague and although this does add to the general eeriness of the book, I would have liked to have known more. We aren’t told the ages of the children either – we just know that Nicholas is the oldest and Roland the youngest. I found it surprisingly frustrating not knowing how old they were! Of course, none of this bothered me the first time I read it and it is a children’s book, after all.

I’m not sure if I ever read any of Alan Garner’s other books and can’t remember them if I did. Maybe I should try some of them now that I’ve reminded myself of this one.

The Country Schoolmaster by Kate Grenville

13 Comments

This book wasn’t what I was expecting at all. It was listed as fiction on NetGalley but feels much more like non-fiction, although I can understand why the author and publisher could be hesitant to describe it that way as there is a lot of imagination involved! Regardless of the label, I found it absolutely fascinating.

Kate Grenville begins by describing a visit she made to the NSW State Archives to research her mother’s life. During this visit she came across a file relating to Currabubula Public School and was immediately intrigued by a collection of letters written by or about the teacher Joseph Connor implying that he was abusive towards the children. Deciding to dig deeper, Grenville read all eighty-eight letters in the file, dating from the 1880s to 1890s, changing her mind back and forth about Connor with each new piece of information. Were the allegations against him true or was he the victim of a vendetta pursued by a group of parents for reasons of their own?

Stories floated up but then sank again. Characters came forward as one thing but on a second look turned into something else. Meanings took shape, then evaporated. My sympathies, like a school of fish, wheeled towards Joseph Connor. With the next letter, they gathered, regrouped, wheeled the other way.

Currabubula is a rural village in New South Wales where Kate Grenville’s grandmother, Sarah Catherine Maunder, grew up (her story is told in Restless Dolly Maunder). In 1884, Joseph Connor was appointed sole teacher of Currabubula Public School, responsible for up to seventy children at a time. The recent Public Instruction Act had made school attendance compulsory in NSW and teachers willing to go and work in small rural communities were in high demand. Grenville’s first impression of Connor, as she worked through the letters and other documents in the file, was of “a straightforward, honest fellow doing his guileless best”, a man trying to educate children in an overcrowded classroom, having to virtually beg for money from the Department of Public Instruction to purchase new chairs or get the toilets cleaned, while also dealing with the needs of his own rapidly growing family.

Some of the complaints against Connor seem malicious and spiteful, but others are more convincing. Grenville examines the complaints, along with the responses given by Connor and the School Inspector and the outcomes of inquiries and court hearings and tries to decide what was really going on. Was he really beating the children and punishing them excessively? Was it true that he was keeping livestock in the schoolyard where the children played? Was he being unfairly strict in enforcing the rules regarding non-attendance? With no evidence beyond the documents in the file, Grenville tries to read between the lines, studying the choice of words and phrases and filling in the gaps by imagining how the people involved may have felt.

Grenville doesn’t reach any real conclusions about Connor or any of the mysteries surrounding him – for example, the cause of a rift with his eldest daughter Bridie, also a teacher, is never revealed – but she encourages us to form our own opinions from the limited clues available. She explains in her author’s note that due to the assumptions she makes about Connor and the other residents of Currabubula and the possible theories she builds around them, she decided to change the names of Joseph Connor and the other key players in the story.

I think how much you enjoy this book will depend on whether you’re interested in historical research, archival information and interpreting sources. It won’t appeal to everyone, but for the right reader it’s a wonderful read. I loved it, partly for the glimpses into the history of education in Australia and the daily lives of people in a small village like Currabubula, and partly for the exploration of how stories can be made from a mixture of fact and fiction.

Thanks to Canongate for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.