Wild Strawberries by Angela Thirkell

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Wild Strawberries is the second book in Angela Thirkell’s Barsetshire series and the book chosen for me in the last Classics Club Spin. I had mixed feelings about the first book, High Rising, which I read nearly two years ago, but still wanted to try this one as I knew it was about a different set of characters and I thought I might get on better with it.

Published in 1934, this book introduces us to the Leslie family who live at Rushwater, their estate in West Barsetshire. The family consists of Henry Leslie and his absentminded wife, Lady Emily, their two sons John and David, and their daughter Agnes, who is married to Robert Graham and has three young children. There was also another son, the eldest, who died in the Great War, and his sixteen-year-old son Martin is now the heir to Rushwater and lives with his grandparents. As the novel opens, Robert Graham has gone to South America on business so Agnes and the children are spending the summer with the Leslies and so is a niece of Robert’s, Mary Preston.

This probably all sounds straightforward enough to you, but for some reason it took me ages to remember who was who and I wished I had drawn a family tree at the beginning! Anyway, once I started to settle into the story and get to know the characters, I found it quite enjoyable. The plot mainly revolves around Mary Preston and the question of which of the Leslie men she’ll marry – David or John. David, the younger brother, is charming but selfish and thoughtless (he promises to bring Mary the ‘wild strawberries’ of the title, then forgets them), while John is quiet, kind and considerate. I knew which of them I wanted her to choose but Thirkell keeps us in suspense until the end of the book!

There’s also a subplot involving a French family, the Boulles, who move into the vicarage for the summer. Keen for Martin to improve his French, the Leslies arrange for him to study with the Boulles’ children, but instead he becomes involved in a plot to restore the French monarchy. Meanwhile, the lovely but irritating Agnes spends the entire book fussing over her children, and Mr Holt, an acquaintance of Lady Emily’s who talks about nothing but gardens and his titled friends, keeps imposing himself on the family, oblivious to the fact that nobody wants him there.

I enjoyed this book once I got into it; although it doesn’t have much more substance than High Rising, I found it funnier and can see now why people praise Thirkell for her humour and wit. There are also touches of poignancy when the Leslies remember their lost son, killed in the war, and when John, who is a widower, grieves for Gay, his late wife. Some of the characters, such as Mr Holt and the Boulles, are clearly there for comedy purposes, but the family themselves, annoying as some of them were, felt realistic to me. I liked John and Martin, while I found Mary’s infatuation with David, who treats her carelessly, frustrating but all too believable. I should mention, though, that there are a few instances of racism, mainly in the first half of the book, that even though I’m used to it in books of this era, I found more jarring than I normally would.

I still haven’t been completely won over by Angela Thirkell but I liked this better than the first book and will probably continue with the series at some point. However, the third book is about Tony, the teenage boy from High Rising whom I found almost unbearable, so I don’t know what I’ll think of that one!

This is book 35/50 read from my second Classics Club list.

The Giant, O’Brien by Hilary Mantel

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Having finished Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell trilogy last year, I knew I wanted to read more of her books. A Place of Greater Safety, her novel about the French Revolution, has always sounded appealing to me but the length is off-putting, so I decided to try a shorter one first.

The Giant, O’Brien, published in 1998, is based on the true story of the 18th century Irish giant, Charles Byrne. Also known as Charles O’Brien and claiming descent from the High Kings, but usually referred to by Mantel as simply ‘the Giant’, Byrne and his friends leave Ireland in 1782, fleeing ‘cyclical deprivation, linguistic oppression and cultural decline.’ The Giant has previously been able to make a living by entertaining his neighbours with stories and songs but, sensing that things are changing, he knows he needs to find a new way to earn money. The solution seems obvious, so after arriving in London with his entourage, the Giant appoints the unscrupulous Joe Vance as his agent and agrees to exhibit himself as a freak, to be stared at, pointed at, poked and prodded, in return for money.

The story of another man unfolds in parallel with the Giant’s. His name is John Hunter, a Scottish surgeon and anatomist – like Charles Byrne, a real historical figure. Mantel describes Hunter’s early years in Long Calderwood and how he came to be in London, first as an assistant to his brother William, another famous anatomist, and then on his own, conducting autopsies in the name of scientific research. Before the Anatomy Act of 1832, it was very difficult to obtain bodies for medical study in the UK, a problem which led to body snatching and the illegal digging up of graves. In one fascinating, if slightly gruesome scene, Hunter lectures a group of newly recruited body snatchers on the best ways to get hold of fresh corpses without being detected. Naturally, the bodies of most interest to Hunter are those that are unusual in some way – so when he hears news of the Giant currently being exhibited in London, he decides to make him an offer, despite the fact that the Giant is not yet dead.

Mantel portrays the Giant as a gentle, intelligent man with a natural gift for telling stories and a seemingly endless knowledge of myth, folklore and fairy tales. This, as much as his height, makes him stand out from his friends. While the others succumb to London’s temptations – alcohol, women and gambling – the Giant saves his money in the hope of one day rebuilding Mulroney’s tavern, now a ruin but once the place where ‘Courts of Poetry’ were held and he was taught the art of storytelling. John Hunter, in contrast, is much less likeable; if the Giant represents tradition and a way of life that is about to be lost forever, Hunter represents progress and advancement and is portrayed as clever, ambitious and lacking in empathy.

In her author’s note at the end of the book, Mantel explains which parts of the story are based on fact and which are purely fictional. There’s more factual information available on John Hunter than there is on the life of Charles Byrne, but what we do know about Byrne is that he suffered from gigantism caused by pituitary tumours, his height was 7ft 7 (2.31m) and his skeleton has been on display in the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons for over two centuries, despite his own wishes to be buried at sea. The museum has been closed since 2017 for renovations and the future of Charles Byrne’s remains is the subject of an ethical debate.

I found both the Giant and John Hunter interesting to read about, particularly as I previously knew nothing at all about either of them, but I thought the book seemed slightly disjointed because of the way it kept switching between the two narratives. Until they began to converge very near the end, the two storylines felt completely separate and unconnected; I suppose Mantel’s aim was to show the contrast between the main characters and the different paths they followed through life, but I felt it didn’t flow very well as a novel. I also didn’t find the eighteenth century London setting as immersive as the Tudor world she creates in the Wolf Hall books. Still, there are some fascinating ideas in this novel and the Giant O’Brien himself is a character I won’t forget in a hurry!

This is book 1/50 read for the 2023 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.

Six Degrees of Separation: From Beach Read to A Hero of Our Time

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It’s the first Saturday of the month – and of the year – which means it’s time for another Six Degrees of Separation, hosted by Kate of Books are my Favourite and Best. The idea is that Kate chooses a book to use as a starting point and then we have to link it to six other books of our choice to form a chain. A book doesn’t have to be connected to all of the others on the list – only to the one next to it in the chain.

This month we’re starting with Beach Read by Emily Henry. It’s not a book I’ve read or plan to read, but here’s what it’s about:

Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.

They’re polar opposites.

In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they’re living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer’s block.

Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She’ll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he’ll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really.

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My first link this month is to Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie (1), a novel set on a beach. Published in 1941, this is a Poirot mystery which takes place on a private island belonging to the Jolly Roger Hotel. When a woman is found murdered on the island, almost all of the other guests become suspects – but luckily Hercule Poirot is also staying at the hotel and is able to begin investigating immediately!

My copy of Evil Under the Sun has a postcard on the front cover, which reminds me of a book I read just a few months ago: Blue Postcards by Douglas Bruton (2). Set in Paris and weaving together three different narratives, this is a very unusual novella. It’s written in the form of five hundred numbered paragraphs – and each one contains the word ‘blue’! Very cleverly done, but not really a book for me.

Paris is always an interesting and atmospheric setting. One of my favourite books set in Paris during the time of the French Revolution is The Way to the Lantern by Audrey Erskine Lindop (3). Audrey Erskine Lindop wrote more than a dozen novels between 1954 and 1978 and sadly all of them are now out of print, despite being successful at the time and, in some cases, adapted into films. I keep hoping her books will be picked up again by a publisher, but no luck yet!

My next link is to another book with a title beginning with the words ‘the way’: The Way of All Flesh by Ambrose Parry (4). The name Ambrose Parry is actually a pseudonym for the husband and wife team Chris Brookmyre and Marisa Haetzman, who worked together on this historical mystery set in the medical world of 19th century Edinburgh. There are currently three books in the series; I’ve enjoyed all of them and am hoping for a fourth.

I’ve read lots of novels with a medical theme, but the first one that comes to mind is The Country Doctor’s Notebook by Mikhail Bulgakov (5), which I read in an English translation by Michael Glenny. This is a collection of semi-autobiographical short stories based on Bulgakov’s own experiences of working at a small village hospital between 1916 and 1918. I loved this book, although it’s completely different from The Master and Margarita, the only other Bulgakov novel I’ve read so far (and also loved).

Another author who shares a name with Mikhail Bulgakov is Mikhail Lermontov, who wrote A Hero of Our Time (6). This entertaining Russian classic was published in 1840 and consists of five stories which combine to produce a portrait of a young army officer, the flawed but fascinating Grigory Pechorin. I really enjoyed it and can recommend Nicolas Pasternak Slater’s translation.

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And that’s my first chain of the year! My links included: beaches, postcards, Paris, ‘the way’, doctors and the name Mikhail.

In February we’ll be starting with Trust by Hernan Diaz.

Shadows and Strongholds by Elizabeth Chadwick

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I had intended to read this book for last year’s 20 Books of Summer but when it became clear I wouldn’t be able to finish it before the deadline I decided to save it to read later. With nearly 600 pages in my paperback edition it wasn’t a book that could be rushed!

Shadows and Strongholds, published in 2004, is a prequel to Lords of the White Castle, which I haven’t read yet, and tells the story of Fulke FitzWarin, known as Brunin due to his brown eyes, and Hawise de Dinan, youngest daughter of Joscelin de Dinan of Ludlow Castle. As the events of this book come first chronologically, I hoped it wouldn’t matter that I was reading the books out of order and that it might actually make things easier.

The novel opens in 1148 with ten-year-old Brunin attending a fair in Shrewsbury with his father, also Fulke FitzWarin, the lord of Whittington. That day, two things happen that will change the course of Brunin’s life. First, he is attacked by Ernalt de Lysle, a young squire who takes pleasure in bullying younger children, and this marks the beginning of a lifelong rivalry between Brunin and Ernalt. Then, Brunin discovers that his father has arranged for him to join the household of his friend Joscelin de Dinan to begin his own training as a squire.

Arriving at Ludlow Castle, the sensitive, awkward Brunin finds his new duties challenging but learns quickly and is soon accepted as part of the family, befriending de Dinan’s daughters Hawise and Sibbi and his young ward, Marion de la Bruere. As the years go by and the children grow into adults, de Dinan and FitzWarin begin to arrange a marriage between Brunin and Hawise – but this is not the time to lead a peaceful married life, as both Whittington and Ludlow are about to come under attack.

As always, Elizabeth Chadwick brings the medieval world vividly to life, from her descriptions of the duties of a squire and the running of a 12th century castle to the risks of childbirth and how to buy a horse at a fair. This novel is set during the Anarchy, the period of civil war that followed the death of Henry I, with his daughter, the Empress Matilda, and nephew, Stephen of Blois, battling for the English throne. Our protagonists and their enemies are forced to choose one side or the other – and some switch sides at least once – but their loyalties seem to count for very little after the war ends and Matilda’s son takes the throne as Henry II. While the changes in the monarchy and the wider issues affecting England as a whole play out in the background, the FitzWarins and de Dinans are understandably more concerned with the threat to their own castles – particularly as there seems to be a traitor within the de Dinan household.

The main characters are all loosely based on people who really existed, although not much is known about some of them and in her author’s note Elizabeth Chadwick explains that a major source for her novel was a rhyming romance written by a 13th century chronicler. There’s obviously a lot of focus on the relationship between Brunin and Hawise, but I have to admit I didn’t find them particularly appealing as the hero and heroine and some of the secondary characters interested me more. I loved Joscelin de Dinan, who remains a good and honourable man during this time of brutal war and shifting loyalties and to whom Fulke FitzWarin entrusts the care of his son, and I was intrigued by the story of Marion de la Bruere, whose ghost is said to haunt the ruins of Ludlow Castle to this day.

Because I wasn’t fully invested in the central romance, this hasn’t become a favourite Elizabeth Chadwick novel but I did enjoy it. I will read Lords of the White Castle soon, but I also have two more of her books on my shelf, The Love Knot and The Marsh King’s Daughter.

The Reckoning by Edith Wharton

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The last book I read in 2022 was this slim collection of Edith Wharton short stories from Penguin’s Little Black Classics series. There are only two stories in the book and at just under 50 pages in total, they can be read very quickly. Despite being so short they are still substantial and satisfying and I enjoyed reading both of them.

The first story, Mrs Manstey’s View, was my favourite. It was actually Wharton’s first published story, appearing in the July 1891 edition of Scribner’s Magazine. It’s a simple but very moving story about a widow, Mrs Manstey, who lives alone on the third floor of a New York boarding house. As her health begins to fail and visits from friends and family become less frequent, Mrs Manstey’s sole pleasure in life is observing the view from her window:

Mrs. Manstey’s real friends were the denizens of the yards, the hyacinths, the magnolia, the green parrot, the maid who fed the cats, the doctor who studied late behind his mustard-colored curtains; and the confidant of her tenderer musings was the church-spire floating in the sunset.

When Mrs Black, the owner of the house next door, announces that she’s planning to build a large extension, Mrs Manstey is devastated. Her view is the only thing that keeps her going from one day to the next; if the view is lost, she feels there will be no point in living at all. The construction work must be stopped, but will Mrs Black be prepared to listen?

The title story, The Reckoning, is much longer, but I found it less powerful. First published in 1911, it deals with an unconventional marriage between Julia and Clement Westall, who have both agreed that marriage should be a voluntary arrangement between two people which either can break off at any time if they become unhappy. Julia has already put this theory into practice when divorcing her previous husband, but when she begins to suspect that Clement has his eye on another woman she starts to wonder whether it’s such a good idea after all.

The Reckoning is an interesting story and when you consider the stigma still attached to divorce in the early 20th century, the depiction of the Westalls’ marriage is very progressive for its time. However, I didn’t find it as appealing as Mrs Manstey’s View, with its theme of seeing the beauty in the small everyday things that others take for granted.

Apart from these two stories, I have only read Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton so far. I’m sure I’ll be reading more of her books now that I’ve been reminded of how good her writing is.

Reading Resolutions for 2023

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Happy New Year! I hope your 2023 reading is off to a good start. As I do every January, I have listed below some reading resolutions for the year ahead. I don’t do very well with numerical targets and goals or anything that restricts my reading choices too much, so these are just some loose plans to help shape my year of reading.

* Finish my Classics Club list. There are only sixteen books left on my list and I’ll be reading at least one of them this month (Wild Strawberries by Angela Thirkell) so I think this is very doable! My deadline for completing the list was actually last November, but I’m not really bothered about that; I would just like to finish the remaining books and have already started to prepare a new list!

* Re-read some old favourites. I say I’m going to do this every year and then hardly ever do it! I used to re-read a lot, but now, with my endless TBR, there always seems to be something else that needs to be read first.

* Resist the temptations of NetGalley. After a lot of hard work I have finally got the number of review copies waiting on my NetGalley shelf down to single figures! NetGalley is a great source of new books, but you can very quickly find yourself requesting more than you can keep up with. While I’m sure I’ll still request some, now that I’m down to a manageable number I want to focus more on books I already own.

* Make some progress with my Reading the Walter Scott Prize project. I did quite well with the 2022 shortlist, reading three out of the four shortlisted titles, as well as some others from the longlist. However, there are still lots of books from previous years’ shortlists that I haven’t read yet, so I’ll try to read some of them this year. I’ve already discovered lots of great new books and authors through this particular prize and am looking forward to discovering more.

* Continue with some of the series and trilogies I’ve started and never finished! There are so many of these I couldn’t even begin to list them all here, but a few I would particularly like to go back to are Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series, Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series, Ellis Peters’ Cadfael mysteries and Elizabeth Jane Howard’s Cazalet Chronicles. There are many, many more!

* Take part in the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge and Read Christie 2023 (although I won’t do the Christie challenge every month as it can become too much). Apart from these two year-long challenges, I will be joining in with any shorter reading events and themed weeks/months that appeal to me.

* My final resolution is the same every year – make every book I read a potential book of the year! That means being more ruthless about abandoning books I’m not enjoying (something I find very difficult) and being more selective about which books to pick up in the first place.

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What about you? Do you have any reading resolutions or plans for 2023?

My Commonplace Book: December 2022

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For the last time this year…

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

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

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His eyes invited me to say more. No one ever had. Whether mortal or immortal, people did not like the sight of grief. They feared it.

The Witch and the Tsar by Olesya Salnikova Gilmore (2022)

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“Where there is no hope left, you may draft in as many soldiers as you wish, but you will still not be able to implement any restrictions, and once you have failed to persuade people of the benefits of such restrictions, you will find that you are unable to enforce quarantine at all. Quarantine is the art of educating the public in spite of itself, and of teaching it the skill of self-preservation.”

Nights of Plague by Orhan Pamuk (2022)

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Garden with rhododendrons

‘I say,’ he began apologetically, ‘you mustn’t mind Aunt Cecelia. It’s only her manner. She’s terrifically pleased to see you.’

‘It must be awful if she isn’t,’ said Ann sincerely.

Rhododendron Pie by Margery Sharp (1930)

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Just a few common words; and yet common things can sometimes be sublime, or, at the very least, delightful.

The Looking-Glass by Machado de Assis (2022)

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She laughed then and rose up, beginning to pace, as though her feet were seeking the boards. ‘You see, now, the beauty of tragedy? It has so many faces. Not all doom and gloom, but nobility, honour and a hundred other qualities. You may laugh at a comedy, but you’ll forget it in time. Tragedy has burrs. It sticks to your heart. You remember what it made you feel, always.’

The Whispering Muse by Laura Purcell (2023)

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He stopped and pulled her round to face him. “You’re talking nonsense, Sara. Wars are not won on soldiers, sailors or airmen, they are won on the temperament of the people. Nobody can beat a people who don’t mean to be beaten.”

The Winter is Past by Noel Streatfeild (1940)

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Ludlow Castle

“You always take for granted what you have until it is gone. And then you realize how much value it truly held in your life.”

Shadows and Strongholds by Elizabeth Chadwick (2004)

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The sky boiled until, with a grace that even now left Shay breathless, the birds became a single entity. What were they? They were the shape of candle smoke or that twist of stars that lights clear nights. They were black silk. Patterns dissolved seamlessly into one another as they took on a form that was older than the earth itself, from an age before men’s straight lines.

The Ghost Theatre by Mat Osman (2023)

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Most of the novels are by female authors – Daphne du Maurier, Angela Carter, Virginia Woolf. In the last month, she has read Rebecca, The Bloody Chamber, Orlando. It’s been a long time since she’s derived such pleasure from it, from the stories spun of other people’s dreams.

Weyward by Emilia Hart (2023)

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He was struck again by the strangeness of people, their mystery, but also their recognisability. He felt he knew these people immediately, which to him suggested a certain homogeneity among humankind. A general familiarity. As if there were only ten different varieties of soul after all.

Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry (2023)

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Christmas pudding

‘Rather a waste of your time, isn’t it?’

‘If one has an opportunity to observe human nature, time is never wasted,’ said Poirot quietly.

The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding by Agatha Christie (1960)

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‘Oh, the sort that are rather looked down on, I suppose,’ she replied, and laughed – though not, I rather thought, at herself, but at those who might dare to disdain her. ‘Which is to say I write stories about adventurers and forbidden love and the occasional dastardly plot for revenge, and the critics bemoan my lack of moral virtue. But people read them, and I think I should find it rather dull writing long, moralizing works.’

The Secrets of Hartwood Hall by Katie Lumsden (2023)

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She loved, at twilight, when the distant brown-stone spire seemed melting in the fluid yellow of the west, to lose herself in vague memories of a trip to Europe, made years ago, and now reduced in her mind’s eye to a pale phantasmagoria of indistinct steeples and dreamy skies. Perhaps at heart Mrs. Manstey was an artist; at all events she was sensible of many changes of color unnoticed by the average eye, and dear to her as the green of early spring was the black lattice of branches against a cold sulphur sky at the close of a snowy day.

The Reckoning by Edith Wharton (collection published 2015)

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Favourite books read in December:

The Whispering Muse, The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding and The Winter is Past

Authors read for the first time in December:

Orhan Pamuk, Olesya Salnikova Gilmore, Machado de Assis, Mat Osman, Emilia Hart, Katie Lumsden

Places visited in my December reading:

The fictional island of Mingheria, Russia, Brazil, US, England, Ireland

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December reading notes: In December, I managed to read Rhododendron Pie for Liz’s Dean Street December and The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding for Read Christie 2022, but otherwise I’ve mainly spent this month trying to get ahead with next year’s NetGalley review copies! Unfortunately that means you’ll have to wait a few months for the reviews, but they are all written and scheduled and I feel as though some pressure has been lifted. I don’t have any specific plans for January, apart from needing to read Wild Strawberries by Angela Thirkell, which was chosen for me in the last Classics Club Spin.

What about you? Have you read any good books in December – and what do you think your first book of 2023 will be?

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Happy New Year!