The Song Before it is Sung by Justin Cartwright

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This is the first book I’ve read by Justin Cartwright. I was looking forward to reading it because, with my interest in World War II fiction, it sounded so interesting and also had so many glowing reviews. Unfortunately it didn’t live up to my expectations at all and I thought it was one of the most disappointing books I’ve read this year.

The Song Before it is Sung is based on the true story of the friendship between the British philosopher Isaiah Berlin and the German diplomat Adam von Trott zu Solz, who was involved in Claus von Stauffenberg’s failed attempt to assassinate Hitler in July 1944. Cartwright has changed their names to Elya Mendel and Axel von Gottberg.

Mendel and von Gottberg first get to know each other as students at Oxford in 1933. Their friendship is put to the test when Axel writes a letter to the Manchester Guardian denying claims that Jews are being badly treated in Germany. Elya, who is Jewish himself, is offended and confused by this. Their relationship is strained from this point – until von Gottberg is arrested and sentenced to death for his part in the Stauffenberg plot.

I enjoyed Axel and Elya’s story, but like many of the historical fiction novels I’ve read recently, the historical storyline is framed by a contemporary one and in this case, it just didn’t seem necessary. The present day protagonist is Conrad Senior, who met Elya Mendel many years later during his own time at Oxford. When Elya dies he leaves all his private correspondence to Conrad with the desire that he will use them to tell the story of his friendship with von Gottberg.

For me, this book would have worked better as a piece of straightforward historical fiction. The chapters about von Gottberg and Mendel were interesting and compelling, but every time I started to become immersed in their story, we were abruptly pulled back to the modern day and Conrad’s marriage problems which didn’t interest me at all. The one part of Conrad’s story that did interest me involved a piece of film showing footage of the trial at which von Gottberg was sentenced to death for his part in the conspiracy. Conrad believes that film of the actual executions still exists and decides to track it down.

Axel von Gottberg is an interesting character, but sadly Cartwright didn’t manage to bring any of the others to life for me. I couldn’t help but feel that reading this book was a lot of effort for very little reward. It wasn’t quite what I was expecting and to be honest, I probably wouldn’t have finished reading it if it wasn’t for the fact that it was the only book I had at work with me for a couple of days. Don’t let me put you off reading this book though, because I can see that a lot of people would love Cartwright’s quiet, contemplative writing style.

Have you read any of Justin Cartwright’s other novels? Maybe you can convince me that I need to give him another chance!

Temporary absence…

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Just a quick note to let you know that I’ll be away for a few days. I’m going to Dublin tomorrow (the first time I’ll have been to Ireland) and will be back on Friday.

I won’t be able to respond to comments or emails, but I’m scheduling one or two posts for while I’m away. See you at the weekend!

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

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North and South is the story of Margaret Hale, a young woman who lives with her parents at their parsonage in the idyllic village of Helstone in the south of England. When Margaret’s father decides to resign as parson and takes a new job as a tutor in the northern manufacturing town of Milton, the Hale family initially find it difficult to adapt to their new environment. It is not until Margaret meets some of the inhabitants of Milton that the town begins to feel like home. She forms a close friendship with the Higgins family – the invalid Bessy, her younger sister Mary and their father, Nicholas, who works at the cotton mill. But when the Hales also get to know Mr Thornton, a wealthy mill owner, Margaret finds herself caught in a conflict between the poor mill workers and their rich masters.

There’s also a romantic element to the novel: Mr Thornton falls in love with Margaret who unfortunately is prejudiced against what she calls ‘shoppy people’. She seems to make up her mind to dislike him before she even gets to know him because he’s a tradesman who has earned his money rather than inheriting it and is not her idea of a real gentleman. And to make things worse, Mr Thornton’s mother thinks Margaret is haughty and wants to stop her son from becoming involved with her.

Although there were also a lot of things to like about Margaret, her attitude towards Mr Thornton prevented me from really warming to her until the second half of the book when after meeting different types of people and being exposed to important social issues she begins to reassess some of her views and starts to grow as a person. By the end of the book I didn’t find her the annoying character I did at the beginning. It was interesting to see how both Mr Thornton and Nicholas Higgins also changed due to Margaret’s influence. There’s a lot of character development in this book, which was one of the things I loved about it.

The book takes place during the industrial revolution, an important and interesting period of history. It was a time of progress, allowing the factory owners to develop great wealth and the country’s economy to grow. However, the factory employees were working under appalling conditions, with absolutely no regard for their health and safety. Bessy Higgins is one example of this: she is only nineteen years old and has already developed a lung disease which she blames on inhaling ‘fluff’ from the cotton in the mill where she used to work.

Most of this industry was concentrated in the north of the country, in towns and cities such as the fictional Milton. Gaskell herself was born in London but spent most of her childhood in Cheshire and then settled in Manchester after her marriage (the town of Milton is thought to be based on Manchester), so she would have had first-hand knowledge of the northern way of life and how it may have differed from life in the south. Even today many people still have certain views and misconceptions about the differences between northern and southern England and even more so at the time when Gaskell was writing this novel, so I did appreciate the way she showed both the positive and the negative things about both regions.

North and South hasn’t become one of my favourite classics, but I did still enjoy it, although I was slightly disappointed by the way the book ended – not because I was unhappy with the outcome but because it seemed too abrupt. After reading The Moorland Cottage in February, I’ve now read the required two books to complete the Gaskell Reading Challenge, but as I’ve enjoyed both of my choices I’m sure I’ll be reading more of Gaskell’s work in the future!

May Reading Summary

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Here we are at the end of another month! I didn’t read as many books as I have in previous months, but where books are concerned, quality is more important than quantity and I loved almost everything I read in May.

Favourite books read in May

Choosing my favourites was difficult this month because, as I said, I enjoyed all nine books that I read. However, there are two that stand out from the rest: the first was Gillespie and I by Jane Harris (I posted my review yesterday) and the other was The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, which I hope to be posting about soon.

Other books read in May

Touch by Alexi Zentner
The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens
Ghost Light by Joseph O’Connor
Death in the Clouds by Agatha Christie
The Report by Jessica Francis Kane
A Word Child by Iris Murdoch
Orlando by Virginia Woolf

I’ve also been reading Dr Thorne by Anthony Trollope, a few chapters per week, and although I’m only halfway through I’m enjoying it as much as the other Trollope books I’ve read.

How was your month? Did you read any good books in May?

Gillespie and I by Jane Harris

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I was lucky enough to win a copy of Gillespie and I through LibraryThing Early Reviewers but even if I had paid the full price for this book I would have considered it money well spent. I thought it was brilliant. It seems I’m one of the few people not to have read the first book by Jane Harris, The Observations, and I’m not sure how I managed to miss that one as it sounds like something I would love. I’ll certainly go back and read it now that Jane Harris has been brought to my attention.

But this post is about Gillespie and I. Or, I should say, Gillespie and Harriet Baxter. We first meet Harriet in 1933 as an elderly woman looking back on her life and promising to share with us her recollections of Ned Gillespie, a talented artist who was never able to fulfil his true potential. Harriet then proceeds to tell us the story of her acquaintance with the Gillespie family, whom she met in the 1880s during a trip to Scotland to visit the International Exhibition in Glasgow. She quickly becomes a friend of Ned, his wife Annie, and the other members of the family – but then disaster strikes and the lives of Harriet and the Gillespies are thrown into turmoil.

After a leisurely start, the story soon picked up pace and became very gripping. But as well as the compelling plot there were many other things that made this book such an enjoyable read. I connected immediately with Harriet’s sharp, witty and observant narrative voice. The other characters were vibrantly drawn, though the only one who never really came to life for me was Ned himself, which was the only disappointment in an otherwise excellent book. I also loved the setting. I’ve read many, many books set in Victorian London and it made a refreshing change to read one set in Victorian Glasgow instead.

Halfway through the story something happened that made me start to question everything I’d read up to that point – and even after I’d finished the book I still had questions. I was very impressed by how cleverly Jane Harris managed to control what I believed and didn’t believe at various points in the novel. I can’t really explain what I mean without spoiling the story but suffice to say there are some stunning plot twists that leave you wondering whether things are really as they seem – and this doesn’t happen just once, but several times throughout the second half of the book. At times it even felt like a Victorian sensation novel to me, which probably explains why I enjoyed it so much! Gillespie and I has been one of my favourite reads so far this year.

A Word Child by Iris Murdoch

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Iris Murdoch is not a writer I’m very familiar with. A few years ago I read her Booker prize-winning novel, The Sea, The Sea, but have never investigated her other books. And so I’d like to thank Open Road Media for making A Word Child available through Netgalley and re-introducing me to Murdoch’s work.

The ‘word child’ of the title is Hilary Burde, our narrator.  Following an unhappy childhood Hilary’s future prospects looked bleak, until he discovered a passion for words and languages and embarked on a promising academic career at Oxford. However, when we first meet Hilary at the beginning of the novel, he is working as a low grade civil servant in London. We don’t know at first why he left Oxford, but we are given hints that he had been involved in some kind of scandal there – and when Gunnar Jopling, a figure from his past, comes to work in Hilary’s office building, everything starts to become clear.

The book has an interesting structure, with each chapter headed by a day of the week. Hilary has tried to establish order and routine in his life by having certain things that he always does on certain days of the week (dinner with friends on Thursday, visiting his sister on Saturdays, for example) and the novel follows him as this monotonous cycle of events is gradually thrown into disarray. Murdoch’s writing never becomes over descriptive or flowery, yet she manages to convey vivid images of the stations on the London Underground, the yellow fog that hangs over the Thames, the Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens. She also gives an amusingly accurate portrayal of daily office life, where Hilary is relentlessly teased by two of his colleagues, and there are other moments of humour involving Hilary’s lodger, Christopher.

Hilary himself is not an easy character to like. He controls every aspect of his sister Crystal’s life and the way he behaves towards his poor girlfriend, Thomasina, is even worse. And yet I could still empathise with him at times because his dysfunctional relationships and desperate attempts to stay in control are signs of the unhappiness and inner turmoil from which he’s suffering. I really wanted Hilary and the other main characters to have a happy ending and although I’m obviously not going to tell you whether they did or not, I did think the ending was stunning: dramatic, surprising and very satisfying.

I enjoyed this book very much and loved Murdoch’s insights into topics such as redemption, forgiveness and moving on after a tragedy. It was such a surprise because I wasn’t expecting something so accessible and readable. I’d recommend A Word Child to anyone who may be wondering where to begin with Iris Murdoch.

Room by Emma Donoghue

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It’s been more than a month since I read this book but it has taken me until now to find the inspiration to post about it. That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy the book, but as I’ve said before I find it difficult to write about a book that has attracted so much attention and already been raved about by such a lot of people.

I’m sure most of you will already have seen so many reviews of Room that you won’t need a synopsis, but for those of you who do, the plot can be summarised very quickly. The story is narrated by Jack, a five-year-old boy who has spent his whole life living with his mother in a converted shed measuring eleven foot square. His mother had been kidnapped seven years ago and Jack was born in captivity. He has no idea that a world exists outside Room and apart from Ma and Old Nick, the man who is keeping them captive, he has never seen another human being.

The story could have been very harrowing, but I was surprised to find it was less upsetting than I thought. There are a lot of aspects of the plot that are very disturbing and uncomfortable to read about but there are also some positive things that come out of the story: the strong mother/son bond, for example, and the way Jack’s mother uses her imagination to keep him busy and entertained. Being told from a five-year-old’s point of view, there’s nothing very graphic but there are always dark undercurrents beneath the surface. The trauma of Ma’s kidnapping and the abuse she suffered at the hands of Old Nick are only lightly touched on; we know they happened but aren’t given many details because those are things Jack is too young to really understand.

When I first started reading I found Jack’s narration very irritating and I had an awful feeling I was going to have to abandon the book after a few pages. Luckily though, it seemed that I just needed to get used to it. Once I got further into the story I didn’t have a problem with Jack’s voice and even stopped noticing his unusual language after a while. I can see why Donoghue chose to use a child narrator to show the situation through the innocent eyes of a child born into such an unnatural environment. Jack doesn’t know that a different way of life is possible so is quite content with how things are and when Ma finally decides to ‘unlie’ and tell him about Outside, he finds it almost impossible to believe that such a place really exists. His mother was of course fully aware of what had happened and it would have been interesting to have read the same story from her perspective as well, but of course it would then have been a completely different and probably much more traumatic book.

I’m not sure this is a book I would want to read again, but it did keep me completely gripped and I’m glad I’ve finally read it, as it hadn’t really appealed to me when everyone seemed to be reading it last year.

Have you read Room? Do you think I would like any of Emma Donoghue’s other books?