The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford

December 19, 201520 Comments

I seem to have been under a bit of a misconception with this book; based on the title and the fact that it was published in 1915 I thought it would be a book about war. It isn’t, of course. I expect everyone else already knows that and I’ve just made myself sound stupid, but it’s really not a book I’ve ever considered reading or paid any attention to until recently. That’s my excuse! What is The Good Soldier actually about, then? Well, it’s a tale of marriage and adultery, of love and betrayal, and it reminded me of something F. Scott Fitzgerald might write (although Fitzgerald’s books would come several years later).

The Good Soldier is a deceptively simple story of two seemingly respectable couples who meet and get to know each other at a spa town in Germany in 1904. John Dowell, our narrator, is an American who has come to Bad Nauheim with his wife, Florence, whom he tells us has a weak heart. The other couple – Edward Ashburnham, another heart patient, and his wife Leonora – are British. Seen through John Dowell’s eyes, the story of these four people and the relationships between them slowly unfolds and we gradually discover that there is more to each of them than meets the eye.

I don’t think I really need to say much more about the plot – and to do so would run the risk of spoiling the book for future readers. This is a story built around lies, deceptions and secrets, things which are only revealed when John Dowell decides to reveal them. It’s an interesting structure, consisting of a series of memories and flashbacks told in non-chronological order, moving backwards and forwards in time. Interesting, but not very easy to follow, at least on a first read! This is the sort of book you would really need to read more than once to be able to fully appreciate it, but I don’t think I’ll be reading it again – at least not in the near future – because, although I did like the book, I didn’t like it enough for a re-read.

It’s a clever and intriguing novel, though, with a narrator who is certainly not a reliable one. We can never be sure how much of what Dowell says is true, as he often makes a statement or describes a sequence of events only to contradict himself later in the book. I was constantly having to change my mind about the characters and reassess what I thought I knew about them. The question is whether Dowell is deliberately trying to mislead us or whether he himself is deluded or confused. Even the opening line is curious: “This is the saddest story I have ever heard”. Why does he say it’s a story he’s ‘heard’ when he is one of the main participants in the story? This is a book that left me with many more questions than answers!

Have you read anything by Ford Madox Ford? I think I would like to try Parade’s End at some point.

The Sea-Hawk by Rafael Sabatini

December 11, 201512 Comments

I love Rafael Sabatini! I can always count on him when I’m in the mood for a good old-fashioned adventure story (which is often) and The Sea-Hawk has it all: treachery, betrayal, revenge, duels, kidnapping and piracy on the high seas. It’s a similar story in some ways to his later pirate novel, Captain Blood, but I think I enjoyed this one slightly more.

Published in 1915, The Sea-Hawk is set in the sixteenth century during the reign of Elizabeth I. Our hero is Sir Oliver Tressilian, a gentleman and former sailor from Cornwall who has worked hard to restore his family’s reputation which had been tarnished by the behaviour of his late father. Sir Oliver is betrothed to the beautiful Rosamund Godolphin who returns his love despite the fact that her brother Peter hates the Tressilians due to a family feud. When Peter is killed in a duel the blame falls on Oliver – and while the reader knows that Oliver is innocent, Rosamund does not. Things quickly go from bad to worse for Oliver and he finds himself sold into slavery and sent to the Barbary Coast at the oars of a Spanish galley.

At home in England Rosamund continues to believe Oliver to be the murderer of her brother, while the real culprit stays quiet and benefits from Oliver’s absence by claiming his estates, as well as the woman he loves. Several months later, in Algiers, we meet a Muslim corsair known as Sakr-el-Bahr, or ‘hawk of the sea’. Sakr-el-Bahr’s pirating skills have won the admiration of Asad-ed-Din, the Basha of Algiers, who claims to love him as a son – but this has made him a target of the Basha’s Sicilian wife, the scheming Fenzileh, and her jealous son Marzak. I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler to tell you that Sakr-el-Bahr is, of course, Sir Oliver, who is preparing to return to Cornwall to take his revenge…

Having read three of Sabatini’s other novels, I’ve come to know what to expect from him – and The Sea-Hawk definitely lived up to my expectations. I’m finding that his books all follow a similar pattern (at least, the ones I’ve read do) in which the hero suffers a betrayal or injustice of some kind, undergoes a transformation and plots his revenge/attempts to clear his name, while being completely misunderstood and misjudged by his love interest. Sir Oliver is a great character; he’s not always easy to like, but considering everything he is forced to endure, it would be difficult not to want things to work out for him in the end. Rosamund is a frustrating heroine, though, being so quick to think the worst of Oliver – but to be fair, she doesn’t share the reader’s knowledge that he is innocent.

The setting is great too. I particularly loved the chapters set in Algiers, in which Sabatini immerses us in the culture, religion and history of the Barbary coast, with some vivid descriptions of the labyrinths of narrow streets, souks and slave markets, and the courtyards, archways and orchards of the Basha’s palace. The focus on the Barbary corsairs rather than the pirates of the Caribbean gives the book a different feel and a different atmosphere from Captain Blood – and I was pleased to find that there was plenty of land-based action as well as ship-based (as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, I’m not usually a big fan of books set at sea).

As I’ve now read the four novels which are probably Sabatini’s most popular – Scaramouche, Captain Blood, The Sea-Hawk and Bellarion – I would appreciate any recommendations as to which of his books to read next.

The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson

December 2, 20159 Comments

My experiences with the work of Robert Louis Stevenson so far have been mixed. I liked Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, although knowing the basic plot beforehand spoiled it slightly; I gave up on Kidnapped halfway through (but would like to give it another chance); and while I did read Treasure Island as a child, it was an abridged version for children, and I have no idea what I would think of the book as an adult. I wasn’t sure what to expect from The Master of Ballantrae, then, but I’m pleased to say that I enjoyed it.

Published in 1889, The Master of Ballantrae: A Winter’s Tale is set much earlier, opening in Scotland in 1745, just before the Jacobite Rising. When news of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s arrival in Scotland reaches the Duries of Durrisdeer and Ballantrae, the family must decide what to do. There is no question of Lord Durrisdeer himself joining the rebellion, but his two sons – James Durie (the Master of Ballantrae), his eldest son and heir, and Henry, his younger brother – are both keen to go. A coin is tossed and it is decided, to Henry’s disappointment, that the Master will join the Jacobites while Henry stays at home and remains loyal to King George. This way, the family titles and estates will be safe no matter which side wins.

As history tells us, the rising will fail – and it is not long before the Duries receive reports that James has been killed. Henry becomes heir in his brother’s place and, at his father’s urging, marries the Master’s grieving fiancée, Alison. These are difficult times for Henry: his neighbours see him as a traitor for not taking part in the rising, and he knows that his father and wife will never stop mourning for James, always the favourite son. But things are about to get a lot worse for Henry – it seems that the Master of Ballantrae is not dead after all and is about to come home to Durrisdeer to take his revenge.

The Master of Ballantrae has all the elements of a typical adventure story – duels, pirates, sea voyages, buried treasure – but it is also a fascinating psychological novel about the relationship between two very different brothers. James, the Master, is the charming, charismatic brother whom everyone seems to love, yet he is also devious, scheming and manipulative. Henry is his opposite – quiet, responsible and dutiful, but less glamorous and less popular. At first it seems that this is another Jekyll and Hyde story, with one character representing good and the other evil, but it soon becomes obvious that it is not as simple as this and Henry’s personality begins to change as his obsession with his brother starts to rule his life.

We get to know these two men from the perspective of Ephraim Mackellar, a family servant at Durrisdeer, but I couldn’t help thinking that Mackellar is not a very reliable narrator. It is clear from the start that he is loyal to Henry and his narration is definitely biased towards the younger brother, but whenever he spends time alone with the Master his opinion seems to change slightly and he is able to acknowledge that the elder brother also has some good points as well as bad.

Not all aspects of The Master of Ballantrae worked as well for me as others: the purely ‘adventure’ scenes, such as the encounters with pirate ships at sea and the treasure hunts in the American wilderness, became a bit tedious, especially whenever the narration switched away from Mackellar while another narrator took his place. But I loved the central storyline and the rivalry between the two brothers; I particularly loved the Master, who may have been the devilish brother, but was so much more interesting to read about than poor Henry! I will read more by Robert Louis Stevenson, though I’m not sure whether to move straight on to one of his other books, maybe The Black Arrow, or to try re-reading Treasure Island and Kidnapped first.

Death in Venice and Other Stories by Thomas Mann

November 26, 201518 Comments

When I decided to participate in this year’s German Literature Month (hosted by Caroline and Lizzy) I discovered that I already had two books by German authors unread on my shelves: Death in Venice and Other Stories by Thomas Mann and Wolf Among Wolves by Hans Fallada. I chose the Thomas Mann simply because the book was a lot shorter and I could be sure of finishing it before the end of the month, but now that I’ve read it I wish I had gone with my heart and chosen Hans Fallada, whose books I have read before and loved. I did find a lot to like and appreciate in Mann’s writing, but I’m not convinced yet that he’s really an author for me.

As well as the title novella, Death in Venice (1912), this edition includes six other stories by Thomas Mann. I read all of them, but will concentrate here on Death in Venice as it is by far the most famous story in this collection and the one I was most interested in reading.

Death in Venice tells the story of Gustav von Aschenbach, an ageing author suffering from writer’s block. He decides to travel in the hope that it will clear his mind and provide inspiration and the destination he settles on is Venice. Mann’s descriptions of Venice are beautifully written, even though at the time of Gustav von Aschenbach’s arrival the weather is dark, gloomy and oppressive, matching the overall mood of the story. I have been to Venice myself, so I found the descriptions of Aschenbach’s approach over the lagoon, his ride in the gondola and his trip across to the Lido particularly vivid.

While in Venice, von Aschenbach becomes intrigued by Tadzio, a beautiful young Polish boy who is staying with his family in the same hotel. Day by day, his infatuation with Tadzio grows; he finds himself watching out for the boy entering the breakfast room each morning and then tries to secretly follow him around Venice. Even when he learns that it may not be safe to remain in the city any longer, von Aschenbach is unable to tear himself away from Venice and Tadzio…and eventually, as the title suggests, his obsession will lead to a death in Venice.

Reading Death in Venice in 2015, it’s difficult not to feel disturbed by the story of a middle-aged man’s infatuation with a teenage boy – although I should point out that Aschenbach never touches or even speaks to Tadzio. The focus is on Aschenbach’s private feelings for the boy and how he chooses to deal with those feelings. I think at least part of his obsession can be attributed to an appreciation of beauty and the despair of a man who is growing older, knowing that his own youth is lost forever (towards the end of the novella, we see Aschenbach dye his hair and cover his wrinkles with make-up in an attempt to look younger). I found out after finishing the story that it was based on Thomas Mann’s real-life experiences and this made me think again about what he was trying to say and how he may have wanted it to be interpreted.

I found the other six stories in this collection a bit uneven, but they are all worth reading. Little Herr Friedemann (1897) – one of the earliest examples of Mann’s work included in the book – is a sad story of a man who was dropped on the floor as a baby and grew up with physical disabilities. Herr Friedemann has learned to cope with his lot in life and things aren’t going too badly for him…until he falls in love. The Joker (also 1897) has some similar themes, but I have to admit the details of this particular story have faded from my mind just a few days after reading it.

The Road to the Churchyard (1900) is a very short story about a widower who sets out to visit the churchyard and becomes irrationally angry with a boy (referred to only as ‘Life’) who is riding his bicycle along the path. This is followed by Gladius Dei (1902), in which a man called Hieronymus enters an art gallery in Munich and loses his temper when he sees a piece of immoral artwork displayed in the window.

Tristan (1903), one of the longer stories in the book, is a love story set in a sanatorium. It contains allusions to the legend of Tristan and Iseult, as well as some musical references and an exploration of attitudes towards life and death. Finally, Tonio Kröger (1903), another novella, follows the course of a man’s life from childhood to adulthood and, like Death in Venice, has some autobiographical elements.

I’m pleased to have finally read some of Thomas Mann’s work, but I found this an interesting book rather than an enjoyable one. I am not a huge fan of short story collections, though, so now I’m wondering whether I would have a better experience with one of his longer novels.

The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles

November 21, 2015January 6, 201923 Comments

I feel I’ve been making a lot of progress with my Classics Club list recently. I have just finished two books from the list – one by Thomas Mann and another by Robert Louis Stevenson – but before I tell you about either of those, I wanted to post my thoughts on a book I read almost a month ago. It has taken me a while to motivate myself to write about The French Lieutenant’s Woman because I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to say. I didn’t dislike it but I certainly didn’t enjoy it as much as I hoped I would or as I feel I should have done.

The story is set in the 1860s in the English coastal town of Lyme Regis (which Jane Austen readers will know as the place where Louisa Musgrove fell down the steps in Persuasion). Sarah Woodruff, the ‘woman’ of the title, spends her days standing alone on The Cobb, the town’s harbour wall, staring out to sea. Nicknamed ‘Tragedy’ by the people of Lyme, Sarah is considered to be a disgraced woman following a brief relationship with a French naval officer who abandoned her and married another woman on his return to France.

Charles Smithson, who is staying in the town with his fiancée Ernestina Freeman, encounters Sarah while out walking one day and is intrigued when he is told about her background. The more he learns about Sarah, the more fascinated he becomes, but as he is still engaged to Ernestina, he will soon be faced with making some important decisions.

The French Lieutenant’s Woman is an unusual novel and I can definitely understand its appeal. Published in 1969 but set in 1867, there are times when it feels almost like an authentic Victorian novel and others when the author intrudes into the story to make an observation from a very contemporary perspective. In John Fowles’ own words:

“You are not trying to write something one of the Victorian novelists forgot to write; but perhaps something one of them failed to write. And: Remember the etymology of the word. A novel is something new. It must have relevance to the writer’s now – so don’t ever pretend you live in 1867; or make sure the reader knows it’s a pretence.”

This novel, then, is a mixture of old and new. It’s a book about the Victorian period – the culture, the science and literature, the conventions of society – as well as a book set in the Victorian period. The author (or the narrator – it’s difficult to distinguish between the two) plays an important role in the story, giving us his opinions of the characters and their actions, and even appearing as a character himself later in the novel. And this, I think, is probably why I had a problem with the book. It doesn’t bother me at all when a Victorian author stops to talk directly to the reader – Anthony Trollope in particular uses that technique a lot and it always seems very natural to me – but when a modern author does it, I don’t think it ever feels quite the same.

In addition to the narrative style, Fowles also incorporates other experimental or postmodern elements. The most intriguing of these, I thought, was his use of alternate endings. He gives us three to choose from: one traditional ‘happy ending’, another which offers some hope, and a third which isn’t very happy at all. By the time I had reached this stage of the novel, I had accepted that I wasn’t going to be drawn into the story emotionally and had no real preference as to how the story should end, so I found it interesting to read all of the endings and think about which might have been the most likely.

I don’t want to sound too negative about this book. I loved the early chapters, particularly the memorable opening scenes where we see for the first time the lonely figure of Sarah gazing out to sea, and I also enjoyed the subplot involving Charles’ servant, Sam, and Mary, Ernestina’s aunt’s maid. I’m sure The French Lieutenant’s Woman must be a fascinating book to study at university or to discuss with a group, but when I’m reading for pleasure I prefer a novel that I can lose myself in, rather than one like this where I am constantly being pulled out of the story. Despite this, I did like John Fowles’ writing and would be happy to try more of his books, but maybe someone who has read them can let me know if they are all like this one?

Non-Combatants and Others by Rose Macaulay

November 15, 20158 Comments

Rose Macaulay is an author I’ve been interested in trying for a while (since reading Dorothy Dunnett’s The Spring of the Ram, which is set in Trebizond, and discovering that Macaulay had written a book called The Towers of Trebizond). I don’t have a copy of the Trebizond book, though, and do have a copy of Non-Combatants and Others, so it made sense to start with this one.

Non-Combatants and Others, published in 1916, is set during the First World War and, as the title suggests, it tells the story of ‘non-combatants’ and other people who didn’t or couldn’t take an active part in the war. Our heroine, twenty-five-year-old art student Alix Sandomir, is the daughter of a Polish activist father who died in a Russian prison and an English mother, Daphne, who is a pacifist. As the novel opens, Daphne has gone to New York to promote peace, while Alix has remained in England, staying with family in the countryside.

At first Alix may seem to be a rather selfish character. She takes no interest in politics or in helping the war effort; unlike her aunt and cousins, she refuses to get involved in volunteering, nursing, driving ambulances, helping refugees or knitting for the soldiers. Instead she buries herself in her drawing, and at the first opportunity she goes to London to lodge with another set of cousins while she continues her studies at art school. She finds her new companions easier to live with, as they, like herself, are doing their best to ignore the fact that the country is at war.

We soon find, though, that this is just Alix’s way of trying to cope. Her health is not good – she walks with a limp following a childhood illness, and she has a very sensitive, nervous disposition which means she has trouble handling stressful situations. She is also worried about her younger brother, Paul, and the man she loves, Basil Doye, who are both fighting on the front line. Although Alix would love to be able to help in some way, she is frustrated by her own uselessness and decides that the solution to this is simply not to think about it. It is only when she learns the truth about Paul’s experiences in the trenches that she finally has to face up to reality – and when her mother returns from her latest conference, Alix must decide whether she too should join the battle for peace.

Non-Combatants and Others is an unusual novel but a very interesting one. I think what fascinated me the most about it was that it was published in 1916! With hindsight, we know that in 1916 the war would continue for another two years; when Rose Macaulay wrote this book she had no idea how much longer it would last or what the outcome would be. The novel is only two hundred pages long but manages to touch on a wide range of issues which affected those involved – or not involved – in the war: the role of women, the work of the VAD nurses (there’s a very moving chapter set during a visit to a London hospital), the reintegration of wounded ex-soldiers back into society, and the effects of shell shock.

I read an edition of this book published by Capuchin Classics which has a foreword by Sarah LeFanu. When I turned back to read the foreword after I finished the novel I was surprised to find that LeFanu was also discussing a short story called Miss Anstruther’s Letters as if it should have been included in the book. It seems there must have been another edition which included both Non-Combatants and Others and Miss Anstruther’s Letters, but this one does not, which was slightly disappointing. I hope I’ll have a chance to read that short story at some point in the future. I also mentioned a few weeks ago that I was looking for historical fiction novels written by classic women authors and I have since discovered that Rose Macaulay wrote a book called They Were Defeated, set in the seventeenth century. Has anyone read it?

Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell

November 10, 2015November 10, 20156 Comments

For a long time I only associated George Orwell with Animal Farm and 1984 and it never occurred to me to look into what else he may have written…until last year when I read Coming Up for Air and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I wanted to read more of his books, so a few weeks ago I picked up his 1936 novel Keep the Aspidistra Flying.

Keep the Aspidistra Flying is the story of Gordon Comstock, a struggling poet who gives up a secure job at an advertising agency to escape from what he calls “worship of the Money God”. Determined not to live a life ruled by money and capitalism, Gordon takes a poorly-paid job in a bookshop in the hope that this will free his soul and allow him to concentrate on his poetry. In reality, all that happens is that he finds himself living in a squalid lodging house with no money for food or cigarettes, unable to afford to go out with his friends or his girlfriend, and failing to make any progress with his masterpiece, London Pleasures.

Even as he begins to feel disillusioned and depressed, Gordon still insists that he is doing the right thing and refuses to even consider going back to his old, well-paid job. In the corner of his room he keeps an aspidistra, a house plant popular in the 1930s, which he views as a symbol of the middle-class respectability and conformity he is trying to avoid. Eventually, though, he receives some unexpected news that will force him to make an important decision about his future and to decide what is most important to him.

Gordon is the sort of character some readers will be able to identify with while others will find him completely infuriating! I did have some sympathy for him at first; I admired his principles and could understand his desire to escape from convention and the worship of money. But as the story progressed, I found him more and more frustrating (my sympathies quickly shifted to his long-suffering girlfriend, Rosemary). Far from freeing himself of money-dependency, he was more obsessed with it than anyone else in the novel, blaming every negative thing that happened in his life on his lack of money. The world is full of people doing jobs they would rather not be doing just so that they can make ends meet; I couldn’t feel sorry for someone who was choosing to impose poverty on himself while taking money from his hardworking sister, knowing that he would never pay it back.

I don’t know much about George Orwell as a person, but I guessed that parts of Gordon Comstock’s story were probably autobiographical and I confirmed this when I turned back to read the introduction after finishing the book. I also discovered that Orwell himself didn’t rate this novel very highly and I do certainly think it was the weakest of the four books of his that I’ve read so far – although I did still enjoy it. As well as telling Gordon’s personal story, Orwell also paints a vivid picture of life in 1930s London and I really liked this aspect of the book – and I loved the opening chapter in which Gordon describes the customers who come into the bookshop where he works.

I still have two of Orwell’s novels left to read as well as his non-fiction; I’m looking forward to reading more of his work, especially Down and Out in Paris and London and The Road to Wigan Pier.