Burying the Bones: Pearl Buck in China by Hilary Spurling

What a fascinating book. When I first heard we would be reading the biography of Pearl Buck for our book group choice I was less than enamoured. I started reading and thought my doubts confirmed. By the time I reached chapter two I realised I was totally mistaken. Hilary Spurling has written an excellent portrait of this prolific and accomplished writer's life.

Pearl Buck was born in America in 1892 but was brought up on the breadline in China by an eccentric missionary father and long suffering mother. Pearl spoke Chinese, lived like her Chinese neighbours and thought of herself as one of them. She was highly intelligent but when she finally went to college in America she felt totally out of place and her peers thought her strange.

Married to an able mission agriculturalist his lack of empathy, vision, passion and appreciation for literature drove them apart. Buck turned to writing and it was her salvation. Her first novel, The Good Earth, caused a sensation when it was published in 1931. At that time little was known of the way of life of Chinese peasants and that the communist party did all it could to stifle literacy. The Chinese communist party did not want the raw side of life in China told and the middle class American audience was unwilling to hear it.

However, The Good Earth portrayed the Chinese people, for the first time, as individuals with passions, fears and unusual ancient habits and went on to become a best seller. Buck left her husband and as a result had to leave her beloved China, never to return. Her wish for independence and achievement combined with the need to provide for herself and her only daughter, who was retarded, drove her on and she wrote nearly forty novels as well as short stories and articles.

She eventually married her publisher with whom she had a passionate relationship in which they were intellectual equals. They adopted several children but, although she had a close relationship with her own mother, she was not naturally maternal and became an oddly distant mother. She seemed to have adopted the children as replacements for her siblings that died before she was born and the healthy children she could not herself have.

Battling alone, always an outsider, Buck became towards the end of her life increasing idiosyncratic and dogmatic, a strong and strange woman. Eventually she cut herself off, looked after by equally odd companions, and assumed the mantle of an ancient inscrutable Chinese woman she had admired as a young woman.

Buck was a woman who had struggled and suffered much in her life and this comes through in her fiction as does her real understanding and love of China and the Chinese. The Good Earth – her most successful novel – charts an interesting period in Chinese history and did more to dispel the discrimination that surrounded the Chinese in western society than any of the more usual channels. Hilary Spurling's biography Burying the Bones: Pearl Buck in China is an illuminating and really fascinating read.

The Children's Book by A.S.Byatt

I view holidays as the perfect opportunity to devour a few lengthly books, the ones there is never enough time to get through in everyday life. I gave up reading novels during the day years ago when I realised that I was fobbing my children off in order to get to the end of the chapter. Since then it has been reading in bed but, after a very full day, the eyelids have a different agenda.

I would probably not have read this book by one of the Dames of modern English literature had I not been on holiday. I really enjoyed The Childrens Book by A S Byatt. I say that as a stand alone, qualified statement because when you hear what I also have to say about it you may well be forgiven for thinking that I did not. It may be beautifully written but it is, quite simply, too long. I cannot imagine a publisher allowing anyone but a well respected and accomplished novelist to get away with a book quite as wordy as this*.

Olive, a poor working class young woman, marries a middle class banker and becomes a mother and successful fairytale writer. Indeed the book is a fairy story right from the start, but possibly in the Grimm mould. Dark things lurk beneath the surface.

The scope is vast, with so many strands to the story, so many characters and ideas that it could quite easily have been a trilogy. And better for it at that. It would take me pages to describe this novel, suffice to say that each strand is so interesting in itself it could quite easily become several. Think DH Lawrence, Bloomsbury, Tolkein, Pre-Raphaelites, Nesbit, Edwardian philanthropists, history, politics, domestic life, sensuality, birth and death.

You can read the outline of the plot and characters on any site but you may not read anyone who admits that they left chunks out. Now I am the sort of boring reader who reads every single word. I like words. If they are lyrical, a sentence beautiful or an idea challenging I read it again. So for me to leave out 'bits' is not in character.

The Children's Book is interspersed with fairy stories that Olive wrote for her children (hence the title), among others, and these I found interrupted the flow of the novel and became tedious. They seemed an indulgence that made the book far too long.

I enjoyed the period in which the book was set, the social ideas, problems of being a working mother, the artistic and historical references. Some of the characters stretched credulity but it was all very colourful and interesting. In particular Byatt's references to WW1 and her portrayal of Germany just prior to it were fascinating. This was more than enough. But fairy stories too? Fairy stories I had not banked on.

Lucy

*A novel by another famous writer has just been released and the same criticism has been aimed at that.

PS So, Google has changed the format for downloading the blog - trouble is I have yet to work out how to Italicise on this new Blog format and how to download a photo! Please, could a fellow blogger could help me out? 

Wildflower Meadows

The sheep's in the meadows the cows in the corn; shades of the Olympic opening ceremony. It is now time to put on my smock, sharpen the scythe and dig out the old wooden hay rake. The native wildflower area in my garden is just about to be cut. We have left it until now because it was so wet in July we could not get it done and so decided to let the late summer flowers set seed with the additional benefit that an even greater number of insects and birds benefit.

Unfortunately it is now not a job we are looking forward too mainly because we have to rake up all the cut grass. A tiring and time consuming task but an absolutely essential one if we want to continue having a good mix of wildflowers.

I have seen the stunning wildflower areas at the Olympic Park – what a triumph their waterside planting is – but wonder how they will manage the various areas. Wildflower areas are perfect for masking the dying foliage of daffodils but after the end of June the dramatic landscape of grasses and wildflowers starts to look messy, especially if children and dogs have run through it. So in a domestic situation it is best to cut your wildflower areas then and not wait till the late summer flowers have set seed.

Wildflower areas need not be high maintenance but it is a common misconception that they look after themselves. They don't. The grass can either be cut in late June when the early flowering species have seeded or left until the end of August to allow the late flowering species to set seed; in either case the grass must be collected otherwise it will enrich the soil and wildflowers only flourish on impoverished soil. It is also necessary to remove or treat any patches of the most thuggish and invasive species and grasses or the better behaved native flowering plants will be unable to compete.

Whether you choose to scatter a wildflower seed mix on bare raked earth or put plug plants into established grass you will find that many wildflowers – naturally occurring or not – will not all appear the following year unless the soil is disturbed. The wheatfield poppies appeared annually because the soil was ploughed and other wildflowers reappeared because grassland was grazed. Grazing sheep kept down the thuggish species and cows feet disturbed the earth: hence the nursery rhyme, 'the sheep's in the meadow the cows in the corn'.

So, after cutting your wildflower meadow, collect the grass (home made hay) and if you cannot get somebody's sheep to graze it for a few months keep it cut and get a team of very energetic children to play sports on the area kicking the stuffing out of the grass. A few tents pitched on it or some kids on cross country bikes might also give the same effect but putting some pigs on it may be going too far. They will plough it to such an extent that it is only good enough for planting potatoes.

However small our plot we can all do our bit to encourage bees and other insects as pollinators and increase the bird and wildlife generally - it doesn't have to be on the grand scale of an Olympic Park. Even if it is only small areas of native wildflowers around trees or along garden boundaries, cultivating wildflowers will help counteract the sad loss to our wildlife now apparent by over-manicured hedges and verges and pesticide sprayed fields.

Come on, time to go wild! Lucy

The joys of English gardening in July

The garden is a jungle this July. The warm weather and all the rain we have had has produced growth that makes a tropical rain forest look as if it's underperforming. Quite apart from the stupendous growth spurt that most greenery has produced there are various thugs that threaten to overpower everything in sight.

Have you noticed that the most awful of weeds are often the most delicate or pretty? Bindweed is one of the worst culprits. The leaves are small and beautifully formed. The arrow like spades teeter on delicate sinuous curling stems that coil perfectly around any tall plant in their neighbourhood. Turn your back for a moment and there are several sinuous curling stems all coiling around each other like a great rope choking every living thing in their path. Reaching the extent of their host, elegant ethereal white spathes appear on the creepers. White, pure, innocent looking flowers. The bees may love them but what a deadly development this is. Beauty that conceals the beast's seeds. Even if you cut these off before they do their damnest, every inch of stem and root that clings to the plant or stays in the soil will produce a hundred sneaky, suffocating, crawly creepers. No wonder Sleeping Beauty escaped detection for so long. In a twinkling of an eye bindweed totally smothered her castle.

Japanese knotweed is a similarly snake-like interloper. First you don't notice it at all. Mistake number one. By the time you do notice, it has been joined by several siblings. These are all medium height plants with the prettiest most delicate and exotic flowers. Pea-like, pretty and pink. They are far too attractive to do any harm. They add a certain elegance to the border. You decide to let them stay. Mistake number two. Soon, you are aware that these plants have multiplied rather alarmingly and are dotted about between the perennials. Nevertheless, they do look so lovely, now tall and stately. They add rather than detract from the border display. Mistake number three. Because one day – just when you are congratulating yourself for having acquired such ethereal additions to your border - everything changes. Their delicate pretty pink pea-like flowers explode. Yes, EXPLODE. They burst open with such ferocity and force that the seeds are expelled like exocet missiles across the entire bed, border, path, hedge and lawn within a ten meter radius. They will forever populate your garden and ensure that you will be pulling them out for the rest of your gardening lifetime.

Finally there is that attractive little leaf that pops up in the bare earth between your burgeoning perennials. Is it the angelica you planted last year. Yes, the leaf looks familiar. You leave it to develop. You do love angelica. Soon there are several leaves. So attractively shaped, such a fresh green, and they are doing no harm. Soon enough a shoot appears surmounted by a delicate white frothy flower. It IS angelica. Just wait until the stem grows into something worth preserving. Stangely, this takes longer than expected. The leaves now totally cover all the bare earth between every single plant in the bed. A kind friend commiserates: what a shame it is that you have ground elder. You do a little research and realise that you have been nurturing one of the most invasive weeds in existence in the western world. And now it is here and well established, it is with you forever.

That's gardening for you! Lucy

The Rotter's Club by Jonathan Coe

What do we recall from our own schooldays – not always a great deal in detail. However, reading Jonathon Coe's novel set in the 1970's, which draws on his own teenage schooldays, all those characters we knew – the pupils, their parents, prefects and teachers – come back to us because it seems that whatever school we went to there are inevitable types.

The bully, a wise-cracker, the swot, an arty one and so on; parents who were easy going, ones that were tough, others who were wild or incredibly straight. Teacher types, too, have not changed; some we liked, hated, admired or fooled. The Rotter's Club has them all and so memories of one's own schooldays cannot help but come flooding back.

And, if you lived in the 1960's, it is the descriptions of the places, rooms, cars and so on that bring back fond memories of bedrooms and living rooms, journeys, clothes and food. But also come less comfortable memories of the embarrassments, insecurities or disappointments of teenage years.

Coe starts the novel with two young people remembering a tale told by their parent. Unfortunately this is not believable although, fortunately, reading it one forgets until suddenly brought back to this device at the close.

The idea Coe had that the school could be portrayed as a microcosm of the world may have worked had not the antics of the parents also been included. In addition, looking back in hind-sight is not always an easy thing to achieve in literature and, at times, Coe falls into the trap of his characters 'knowing' things they could not, of setting up historical references or of including other events of the time to beef up a point. On the other hand, momentous events that happen to his characters – death, its aftermath, bullying, terrorism - are oddly minimised or left unexplained.

Jonathan Coe is a good writer and a well written book is an easy to read book. But the structure of this novel is a bit choppy, some events too far-fetched and it is way, way too long. Nevertheless, there is real humour - in some places laugh out loud funny - although now and then it dissolves into slapstick. The dialogue is also often very well observed and the descriptions, here and there, excellent.

Those of our group who enjoyed the book most were those who were at school in that era – to a great extent because they could reminisce – whilst others only enjoyed some aspects of it. Personally I think of it as a good holiday read – not perfect but readable and light. Other's, however, did not enjoy it one bit. So, it is a Curate's Egg sort of book and, perhaps, if one wants to start reading Coe, not the best of his to start with.

Brooklyn, Colm Toibin

Toibin, born and raised in Ireland , was brought up in Enniscorthy, the town he describes in the novel. It is therefore no surprise that he gives the story such a sense of time and place. Brooklyn is set in the 1950's and if the reader feels that the central character, Eilis, is a little unreal it is necessary to remember that women's choices then were limited and their expectations of freedom lower.

Toibin writes using the third person, in the past not the present, because he believes that memories give greater depth. Themes of his previous novels have covered personal identity, Irish society and alienation, and all these are embraced in Brooklyn.

Eilis, born in a small southern Irish town, is expected to emigrate to America as the only way to better her prospects. Her loss and homesickness come as a surprise to her but, for a mild character who sleepwalked into emigrating, she seems to embrace American culture with the determination of most émigrés and gains professional qualifications. However, she continues for the most part to maintain her sense of Irish respectability and religious beliefs.

Until she meets Tony, an Italian-American, who has an energy and optimism that Eilis admires and whom she grows fond of. He introduces her to his warm family life, a family unlike her own, that speaks its mind and shows outward affection. All looks set for a hopeful life of steady improvement. Then her elder sister, Rose, who has kept her ill health secret, dies and Eilis feels she must make a trip home to see her mother.

The simplicity of Toibin's style – no long fancy descriptions and a very spare writing – is an attractive facet of the narrative. But it is not easy for a novelist to write so simply whilst still getting across depth of character and events. And in this case it is a style that is not always successful. Dialogue - which is brillaint - and situation drives the story forward but the story has no clear plot and little emotion.

A poet and journalist, Toibin was the son of a frustrated writer and nephew of a poet. They were a family who liked writing down feelings and thoughts but apparently not one that spoke about them. It is that sense of what is felt but not mentioned that informs this novel. It is what is not said that is important.

Belonging is perhaps the over-riding theme of the novel – Eilis does not feel she belongs in Brooklyn – she is alienated; eventually comes to feel she does belong; returns to Ireland where she thinks she belongs then finds she no longer does – she is alienated once more. So returns to Brooklyn.

Another theme is loss – the loss Eilis feels for her home, her siblings, for her mother, later for her sister and finally for her previous life and the life she might have lived had she married an Irishman.

A further theme is that circumstances determine the decisions we make in our lives – that very often the course of action we take is decided for us - time and tide decide where we will end up. Eilis is portrayed as a girl with no will of her own, a strong work ethic and a sense of duty.

But themes do not make a book, characters can. Eilis does not come over as a wholly believable character or, at times, a particularly warm one. She displays no passion and drifts into life changing decisions. Yet, Eilis did make some decisions and not always the right ones. It is one of these decisions – to return to Ireland - that constitutes the most disappointing and unreal part of the story.

The deceit that she exhibits on her return may be meant to reflect the deception of her sister, and later that of her mother. Or, possibly, it is an example of her less than perfect character? On the other hand, the deceit may be just another example of how the family concealed their feelings and refused to accept the undesirable.

Earlier in the story there are also some other odd and annoying facets: the severe sickness and awfulness of Eilis' journey over to America were accentuated yet led to no revelation. When she returns to Ireland the privations and discomforts of the passage are never mentioned. Another unanswered and unnecessary point is that on occasions it is mentioned that Tony is blond, quite unlike his dark Italian brothers. This is left as a tenuous hint at a doubtful parentage in the mind of the reader, but there is no reference to why or how this could be.

And it is this enigmatic writing that instead of stimulating the reader, annoyed many of our reading group. The denouement of the story was flagged as a dilemma but failed to live up to its promise, whilst the end left many dissatisfied. The book was easy to read, there was some lovely writing, great dialogue, mild humour and some touching scenes but only one or two of these really stirred the emotions. I quite enjoyed Brooklyn but, eventually, the novel that promised much, delivered much less than expected.

Lucy

No literary agent, no publisher - no book.

Literary agents are rare creatures. The official definition for a Literary Agent is: a person who manages business, financial, or contractual matters for a writer. Or, as the free online dictionary defines agent:  1. One that acts or has the power or authority to act. 2. One empowered to act for or represent another: an author's agent; an insurance agent.

But in my book the definition is: Author's agent - an individual or ever dwindling group of individuals with sufficient clients who are very unlikely to take on further clients unless they are famous. Which rather leaves me out in the cold. I understand their reason: a great deal of time has to be invested marketing a new, or relatively unknown, author and if it reaps no rewards who pays the agent's bar bill?    

So, having contacted a few agents and having some kind encouragement but no-one biting my hand off, I am starting to widen my circle. At the same time as approaching agents who may just find my book so riveting that they are willing to take my work on, I thought I would look into contacting book publishers direct. 

Book publishers are difficult creatures to corner. The definition of a book publisher is roughly: a company that pays to acquire, develop, design, produce and publicize a book. But the definition should probably include 'after which outlay there is no guarantee of return'. I understand the economics. 

Unfortunately, since my novel, A Little Blue Jacket, was published, few book publishers accept unsolicited manuscripts. An agent wants a best selling author, likewise, a publisher wants a best seller. Like an agent they know these are one in a million. So how do they wade through a slush pile the size of a Swedish forest. And what are their chances of finding JKR II in all that pulp.

It's for this reason that most book publishers only accept manuscripts through a literary agent. By using an agent to do their sifting they have cut their costs and increased their chances of success. I know that literary agents and book publishers are bombarded with requests from wanna-be published authors. I know that neither agent nor publisher can ever hope to cope with it all.

But now you see my dilemma without my really having to spell it out: no agent, no publisher. No book. So, tell me, how do I, a modest and talented writer (like all hopeful authors) with a highly individual manuscript ready and waiting to go, solve this conundrum. How is it to be overcome. Please give me a contact. Or just practical advice. Even a teensy weensy clue would help ….anything?  

Lucy

Trees in the Landscape

Now, in the south-east of England at the end of March, when our many native and naturalized deciduous trees are not in leaf, it is still possible to see far and wide across the fields and hills.


We all love trees in glorious leaf but the Hockney exhibition reminded me of the structural contribution that trees devoid of leaves make to the landscape. It is now in their unclothed form that we can see their bones - their silhouette - clear against the sky. And the overlapping canopies of tree belts, like medieval or Art Nouveau tracery, can be quite beautiful.

Tree identification is usually taught when trees are in leaf but, in fact, when trees are bare it is sometimes easier to appreciate their habit and identify them: how their branches divide, their twigs grow and the position of their buds or seeds is clearer.

Trees bare of leaf should of course be an important consideration when designing a landscape but so seldom are. Quite clearly, leaves are very important factor when choosing a species of tree. The colour of the leaf, the habit of its growth, the leaf size and shape and its texture will all form part of the decision.


Trees in our gardens and surroundings form boundaries and screens, views, enclosure and shade and there are species to suit them all. Their form or shape, habit and scale all contribute to the suitability of the choice. But it is, after all, for half the year that deciduous trees are bare and therefore this should be as important an aspect of the design as when they are in leaf.

There is only one book I have that celebrates bare trees in winter and that is a wonderful American publication, Trees in a Winter Landscape, and it is inspirational. Most books I have major on trees in leaf: some of them are beautifully photographed, others aspirational, most give good solid advice but, when you think of it, a tree in leaf is only half the story.


It is in winter that the wonderful peeling silver bark of the birch really makes an impact, that the rich red textured bark of the cherry adds such interest. The dramatic flowers of the magnolia stand out against its bare branches in our gardens, palest pink almond blossom - so delicate that it would be overwhelmed by leaves - covers the bare branches of the trees along our suburban streets. In the rural lanes, on bare hazel limbs, catkins already hang like lamb's tails while soft furry yellow and grey catkins glow on pussy willow branches.

With April just around the corner, the leaves have begun to unfurl and, given a few more sunny days, they will soon be out in all their cheering bright freshness. But please spare a thought for the bare old bones of the trees and remember to love them in winter too.

Lucy

David Hockney exhibition 'A Bigger Picture' at the Royal Academy, London

WOW! What an amazing exhibition. Right from the start the visitor has an over powering sense of positivity – it's as if Hockney has brought all the colour of California that he loves back to old England and washed the grey away with it.

The tree is his central motif, running through the whole exhibition, and the landscape of his Yorkshire youth is the subject. The first rooms lay the background for Hockney's new paintings, showing how from his earliest works he was interested in landscape painting.



His photocollages – the term conjures up school art projects but these are slick use of modern technology - clearly show how he builds up and later portrays wide panoramic views. Later paintings, almost naïve in style, show the patterns of fields and hedges, ploughed surfaces, houses and lines of hedges and trees. In these all traditional perspective is skewed and the sky is reduced to form a thin strip quite unlike the proportion usually adhered to in a classical landscape painting.

However, in the next room Hockney reverts to a study of the style of the old masters – the paintings hung en masse in a block - and here the classic proportions hold sway. After studying these in oil he returns to watercolour – the effect quite different of course.

A room devoted to his interest in 'tunnels' shows masterly perspective and one devoted to 'woods' is truly architectural in feel. I loved his charcoal sketches displayed in these rooms because they show his ability as a real draughtsman and how he used these quick sketches to work from – giving rein to his imagination - on the final oil paintings in his studio.

Throughout, Hockney demonstates how he has divided his large panoramas into separate 'blocks' to build up the whole. Allied with this is his use of the camera. But this is not to be sniffed at – he is merely reflecting history. The old masters used such tricks as the camera obscura to perfect their perspective and divided their canvases up in much the same way as Hockney does. The difference is that Hockney leaves us the signs.

The hangings entitled 'Trees & Totems' is a culmination of all that has gone before. These are painted in such vibrant colour that they have quite an electrifying, exuberant effect. The show was packed, so many visitors that we were forced into closer proximity than normal and this produced it's own dynamic: a woman next to me turned and said – unable to contain herself, wanting to share her feelings – "It's so exciting, so life-affirming, isn't it?" I had to agree.

His painting, 'The Arrival of Spring', is vast and very graphic in traditional Hockney style. It was produced after many sketches on his ipad and, hung all around, these form the basis for the final work. What a marvellous use of modern technology and what a wonderful tool it is – the 'brushes' facility is not technology subsuming the artist but technology aiding him - able to sketch quickly using the tablet is a bonus in such changeable weather as ours.

In a couple of rooms near the end of the exhibition there is film to show how Hockney engineered the recording of the landscape – concentrating on the close-up of the grasses and the hedges and lanes, it made me think of Thomas Hardy's novels - and a collection of his sketchbooks gives a fascinating insight.

Throughout, Hockney is celebrating the English countryside - it is landscape with a capital L – and those well trod lanes and hedges, tree lined fields and pitted roads that we all know in our locality take on a new persona – a different character – when we use his vision. With this show, Hockney has introduced a fresh way of looking at them for many of us – these landscapes are not all boring brown and grey in winter, not all the same old green in summer.

Do see this exhibition for yourself: it is COLOUR, it is TREES, it is BRILLIANT!

Lucy

Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

As an English classic, the story of Tess of the d'Urbervilles is well known. It is, I acknowledge, not one of my favourite Hardy novels (not that you would guess from the well thumbed copy you see below!) There is an over-riding sense of doom right from the start, and it makes me uneasy. However, that was not what made its original audience uncomfortable. The story draws attention to the hypocrisy of Victorian times and the behaviour of the heroine made it a very controversial story.

To sum the novel up in a few words, Tess of the d'Urbervilles is a romantic tragedy. The central character is shaped by her landscape: her moods and her pleasures are rooted in the countryside and the landscape plays a large part in what befalls her. There is passion and there is pain in Tess' story but - as in most of Hardy's novels – there always seems to be more of the latter.


Tess is the original tragic heroine but a very complex one: simple yet knowing; unspoiled but eventually quite spoiled; sometimes victim sometimes not; innocent yet sensual. What happened to Tess, Hardy shows us, was due to her naivety and looks: a beautiful but good natured, simple woman was at the mercy of those men who had no morals and no forgiveness. This was asking a lot of his readers and not surprisingly the novel was not an instant success.

But it is, for me, in the descriptions of the landscape and of the vanishing rural life that Hardy excels. He was a poet, and his descriptions throughout the novel are testament to this. Those relating to landscape – the countryside of Dorset he loved – are particularly moving and evoke a sense of beauty but also a real understanding of not only the minutiae of nature – the grasses and insects – but also the larger aspect of woods, forests, vales, moors and skies that give the reader of Tess such a true sense of place.

Many find Hardy a bit heavy – I will admit his descriptions are rather long-winded – but I love his work for not only the poetry of his descriptions but also for the realism of his settings: life was hard for the working country man and nature had an over-powering influence.

Walking with Freddie today in the rain, mud underfoot, wind through the trees, I could just imagine what it must have been like to have to battle with such elements everyday. Reading Tess one is aware of the physical discomforts of country folk then and fully appreciative of the mundane things we take for granted such as waterproofs and wellies and the luxury of being able to sit in the warm and read a well written book.

Italian Shoes by Henning Mankell

This is surely the time to read Mankell's 26th novel, Italian Shoes. Firstly, because the book is shortly to be made into a film starring Judi Dench and, possibly, Anthony Hopkins. (There, you have the main characters of Harriet and Welin drawn for you.) And, secondly, like his Kurt Wallander series, Mankell's story is set in the Swedish archipelago and the wintry sense of place is spot on: the reader can positively see and feel the snow laden countryside and the people that are moulded by this harsh environment.



The central character, Fredrik Welin, is a retired surgeon fleeing from a particularly harrowing professional error. Indeed, abandonment is the central theme of the novel. Welin is also fleeing from his personal life – what there was of it – and from himself. He had already abandoned his mother, his former lover, Harriet, and will come to abandon even his closest relation.

Welin is an outsider, an unsympathetic character with no empathy. He cannot tell the truth but admits to himself that he is a shit whilst he continues to be one: snooping, abandoning, lying. This is the psychological insight that Mankell has come to be known for in his Wallander books. Welin is so estranged from society and so isolated on his island that he has to cut a hole in the ice every day and swim in the frozen water to prove to himself that he is still alive.

When, twelve years on, the dying Harriet arrives looking for him to fulfil a promise, Welin reluctantly has to face his former life with all its painful reminders and start to interact with others. Physical contact is difficult for him. When he finally has close family contact he still makes the sort of wrong decision that has characterized his life to date.

Almost too late, when he is ill, Welin comes to realise that he has wasted his time cutting himself off from society, that he has lost the chance of precious relationships. The secondary characters in the book are all as odd as Welin but while Mankell makes him a fully formed character, they somehow remain marginal. And as it unfolds the story to some extent loses its credibility: belief is stretched too far.

The central character comes into contact with the political beliefs and hobby-horses of the author: the break-down of Swedish society; refuges and asylum seekers; foster families and suicides; the parlous state of the ecology; how pollution is affecting cave paintings in France; the sad fact that no-one treasures the artisan (those hand-made Italian shoes) any longer.

Similarly, the work of the violent and talented artist, Caravaggio, is a theme - the dark and light of his paintings an analogy for those of his character. Unfortunately these factors are too obviously something that the author wants to make a point of and sit uncomfortably with the narrative.

Yet this light book, this occasionally unsatisfactory story, is so well-written (and it is very well translated) that it is a pleasure to read. The descriptions are wonderful, the prose spare, the structure good. Suspense is built up although usually to no end. The possibility of redemption is there, but in true Mankell style there is no reassuring happy ending. This is a book for real Mankell fans but not, I think, one that will automatically convince the uninitiated.

Lucy

Brazzaville Beach by William Boyd

I did not realise that Brazzaville Beach was a real place in the Congo until I heard it mentioned on the radio the other day. So much for my geographical knowledge. However, it is a slightly confusing title because the story is really set in Angola.

Few who have read Golding's other novels would fail to agree that he is a good writer. Indeed, Brazzaviile Beach, written in 1995, was nominated at the time for the James Tait prize. I can see why he is popular: his books are easy to read and appeal to both sexes. I too liked the book. Mostly. Although, sometimes it jarred, occasionally it disappointed.


The main character, Hope, leaves her floundering maths whiz husband and goes off to study chimpanzees in Angola. Soon, Hope discovers that the group of chimps she is studying show aggression. Her boss, Eugene, refuses to believe her theories or findings: funding for further research is dependent upon the publication of his book about the passive chimps.

The denouement of the novel comes when there is a murderous fight between the two chimpanzee groups in the study. This part of the story is most certainly based upon the findings of Jane Goodall, whose famous and expert research in Tanzania (circa 1965) showed that chimpanzees could be very aggressive, killing other chimpanzees if necessary to maintain their social group. And, generally, the theme of the novel is the parallel between how the chimpanzees and the researchers behave.

Allegory is played upon: apart from the fighting chimpanzees being an allegory for the war torn setting of Angola, so it is that Eugene's behaviour towards Hope is as unpleasant as that between the groups of chimps. Then there is the break up of Hope's marriage as an allegory for the crumbling politics of the region.

Obsession is another theme that runs through the novel: Hope is obsessed with her research, to such an extent that she leaves her husband for months to pursue it. Her husband is so obsessed with his mathematical theories that he goes crazy; her boss so obsessed with his theories that it leads to violence and his assistant is obsessed with him to such an extent that she abets his attempts to doctor research.

This is all very well, and the chapters about the chimpanzees (surprisingly for a person like myself not naturally drawn to chimpanzees) was interesting and very readable, but there were some annoying facets to the book. Some of our groupies did not like the way the book jumped between fist person and third person, which was used to differentiate the past and present. Nor did they enjoy the time-switch itself, back and forth between former married life with nutty professor husband in England and current chimp research.

This did not worry me in particular but I did agree that Hope's husband was a conceptual character and agreed that we could have done without the married bit altogether: it added nothing and did not hang together. We would all have preferred hubby's (nonetheless interesting) maths theories as a separate novel altogether.

However, we were all in complete agreement that the most unconvincing part of an otherwise entertaining read was the characterization of the heroine, Hope. Why on earth did Golding have to make the main character a woman? She was not only unbelievable as one (too masculine and unemotional) but difficult to like. Her love for her husband and her lover did not ring true and her self-sufficiency and obsessions took a very male form.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed Brazzaville Beach more than I expected and will read one of his novels again, whenever I happen across one.

Lucy

The Turner Contemporary, Margate, Kent

The idea of a new modern art gallery in an east coast less-than-fashionable British seaside town was viewed with caution, disbelief, suspicion, if not considered by many as a downright waste of time. Would anyone go there? Could it bring people into the town in the winter season? Would it be appreciated by those who live out in the sticks?


Well, one hopes that these doubts have been dispelled: the building and facilities have been completed in the best possible taste. I like the clean lines of the structure and the mass of it is in scale with its surroundings. The inspiration, it seems to me, was to be that of the bulk of an ocean liner and it certainly sits comfortably in its landscape: the outline is simple and pleasing and does not jar with either the Georgian buildings on the esplanade nor the coastline.

The expectations of those who had the vision have surely been vindicated. Residents should have pride in a forward looking and classy development and well as having a cultural icon at its centre.


I admit that I went to see the building: it was the structure and its setting that drew me to visit. I also admit that I did not expect much of the exhibition, Nothing in the World But Youth. But I did the exhibition and youth in general a disservice. I was reminded of the creativity of those teenage years: we so often see the ability to take risks and the need for experimentation as negative aspects of youth. They can sometimes be but they were, and are, more often the years that shape tastes in fashion and music and teach the value of friendship or spirituality.

As ever, some youths are rebellious whilst others are saddled with responsibilities in advance of their years. Many are overcome by fears others by fantasy; some agonize over their bodies and sex, others celebrate it. Whilst some youths are bent on destruction others are idealistic and embrace our ecology, feeling passionate about sustainability.

All of these aspects of youth were demonstrated in the exhibition and what struck me most is that none of this is new. Photographs of gangs of street youths in the 1950's looked surprisingly familiar; similarly, sadly, girls gave birth to illegitimate babies. Conformity in the uniform of the gang or the need to be different and make a statement were no different than they were when adolescents were first called teenagers in the 1940's. In between the works of young people were dotted paintings and drawings by such well-known artists as Peter Blake, Daivd Hockney, Andy Warhol and even Turner himself: nothing could illustrate the point better.

Some visitors found several of the images disturbing but I prefer to think of them as challenging. What is the point of an exhibition that is merely window dressing; we all love to see something pretty, to appreciate a beautiful image or a sublime sculpture. But surely we need to question, just as we did as teenagers, and seeing the world through the eyes of a youth can remind us all that we too were once both fearful and brave, experimental and yet desperate to be one of the gang. And in showing the complexities and contradictions of youth I think the exhibition, Nothing in the World but Youth, succeeds.

Lucy

PS The café is excellent – better than those in most London Art galleries – so treat yourself to brunch or a delicious Catalan fish soup for lunch. If the soul is a little less than uplifted I often find good food helps!

Testament of Friendship by Vera Brittain

Winifred Holtby was not a well-known figure until a couple of years ago when her novel, South Riding, was televised. This catapulted her into the Austen/Bronte romantic novel stratosphere although of course she was a very different figure writing at a very different time.

I first came across Holtby when reading Vera Brittain's autobiography, Testament of Youth. This book covered the heartrending period of the First World War and highlighted the appalling loss of life. Most particularly it chronicled the loss that Brittain personally suffered – her brother, fiancé and their close friends – and gave a very personal account of the contribution made by women during the war.

This was the war that was to lead eventually to the emancipation of women, not only by their gaining enfranchisement but also respect for the role they played and could play outside the home. Brittain and Holtby met at Oxford just after the war: both extraordinarily bright young women who had a mutual interest and ambition to write.



Testament of Friendship is Brittain's homage to Holtby, who tragically died of Bright's Disease at the age of 34. Both women had a strong ethos of public service, a desire to further women's equality and to work towards peace. Both not only dedicated their lives to writing about the peace movement but also their time to supporting and furthering its causes.

The book tells us as much about Brittain, the author, as it does about Holtby, the subject. Both women were committed, industrious and passionate but where Brittain comes across as intense and serious, Holtby appears inspired and larger than life.

Young Holtby is portrayed very much as the Principal Boy of pantomime. Brittain was devastated by the death of her brother, Edward, her closest and almost only childhood companion. She was desperate for someone to admire and to take his place and Holtby seems to have willingly stepped into this role.



It is as an Adonis that Winifred Holtby is portrayed in Testament of Friendship. She is tall, attractive, confident, kind and clever and - if we are to believe Brittain - there is nothing she cannot do. Nothing except get the man she loves to propose to her. Brittain's style is probably too florid for our taste today, and one wonders if her superlatives regarding Holtby are an attempt to assuage any guilt she may have felt because she often ignored the seriousness of Holtby's illness.

There is no doubt that Holtby packed a lifetime of achievements into a very short span of years and it is fascinating to read of the famous historical figures she met and the places she visited. There is one major flaw to this book, however, and that is its length. Too long by half, it can bore and bog the reader down. This is a shame because there are few books that give us such a picture of life at that time.

Nevertheless, I think the book worth reading (for the second time as I first read it about 15 years ago) if for nothing else but as a sequel to the women's movement: a snapshot of life for the educated middle class woman of the 1920's and 1930's. These inter-war years - after WW1 and before the role of women would change yet again with the advent of WW2 - deserve a closer look and Testament of Friendship goes some way to plug this gap.

Lucy

Rudyard Kipling 1865 – 1936

Who hasn't read Rudyard Kipling? Many of us did as a child, some as an adult, but even those who have never read Kipling will probably have heard of him and his stories. The few who have not may be unaware that some phrases used by us all are actually those coined by Kipling ("You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din").

Visiting Bateman's last week-end - Kipling's house in Sussex now owned by the National Trust – we were delighted to be treated to a lecture of his life and work given by one of his knowledgeable fans. Even knowing a fair bit about the life of an author – or any historical figure – it always delights me to learn little known facts only the expert has wind of.



Knowing the desolate childhood Kipling had I am still surprised that he appears to have grown into a fairly balanced adult: the fact that he was also a spectacularly successful author and self-made man by the age of 25 is positively amazing. Read his short stories, his histories and poetry and marvel at the breadth of this man's ability and talent.

So much a part of popular culture was Kipling's work that even today bits keep cropping up all over the place. Take the story, .007, for instance. Can some expert tell me, is this where Fleming picked James Bond's code name from? And perhaps, could it be, this little tale written in 1908 was the inspiration for the Thomas the Tank Engine stories too?

When researching my novel, A Little Blue Jacket, set in South Africa, I inevitably came across Kipling as he was a great supporter of the Boer War, a friend of Cecil Rhodes and champion of Jamieson, Rhodes' nemesis. Many years previously I had been given Kipling's Barrack Room Ballads (thought it odd at the time but weird how things come to pass), mainly dramatic monologues written in the London vernacular, the third series of which dealt with the Boer War.


It is the verses of these series that many remember and repeat with affection (If, A Father's Advice to his Son or Mandalay perhaps) and it is the simplicity and general appeal of them that has to some extent caused many to view Kipling's work as 'popular' dum-de-dum poetry. But, in other poetry of his one cannot help but admire the more sophisticated and understated touches not obvious in the ballads.

I think his poem My Boy Jack illustrates just how he can get an emotion over without sentimentality or heavy handedness. Kipling's son, John, was killed in the First World War (even the rich and famous have tragedy in their lives: his beloved daughter – for whom he wrote The Jungle Book - also died prematurely aged six) and this poem is about his loss. Search it out and I defy you – knowing the facts – not to be moved to tears.

Whether interested in the exotic setting of India, the fate of the simple soldier or life of the jungle, there is a Kipling story out there for you. Search it out, read it and understand why so many of the best English authors – including Americans - think Rudyard Kipling was the greatest storyteller of all time.

Lucy

The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunnant

A mysterious and arresting start, an historical and action packed narrative and an enjoyable read. There we are. That's it in a nutshell. A novel dripping with historical details with a bit of sex thrown in. But the sign of an ex-thriller writer is there right from the start.

Preparing the corpse of an elderly nun for burial, two sisters find she has not only a stinking mass of rotting intestines strapped to her and not the tumor they supposed, but also an erotic snake tattoo around her torso!

As it is almost impossible to guess how this could possibly come about the reader simply has to read on. Transported to Florence in 1492, we meet the fourteen year old heroine, Allessandra. Dunant has done her research and describes the setting in the most colourful way. We see the beauty of Florence, we smell it, touch it, sense it and eventually are shocked by the historical turn of events.

The narrative is in the first person so it is through Allessandra's eyes that we understand the restrictions – not allowed to leave her house un-chaperoned, to be alone with a man, to be employed in anything other than household skills – that were current in the merchant and upper classes at the time and that she felt so keenly. Her passion was to paint and that was definitely not a suitable occupation for a girl.

Historical knowledge of the banking dynasty of the Medici family is well known. We are aware of the beautiful architectural structures they built, the wonderful paintings and art they commissioned and we are aware in a cardboard, factual way of the political machinations of the time. But what Dunant does is to bring it and the other Florence alive too, the one that is peopled by the lower echelons, one in which by the side of beauty and knowledge is pestilence and the fear of persecution. Where rabbles jostle to hear the mad monk, Savonarolla, preach Christian restraint and similarly jostle to witness torture and death and the original bonfire of the vanities.

This novel has been published for some years now and many readers will have read it or read the reviews so I won't repeat the plot. Because, for me, it is the sense of place that Dunant conjures up that is the most impressive feature of the novel. Read it if you intend to travel to Florence and, when you stand in front of a piece of stunning architecture or a beautiful painting, conjure up Dunant's description of the city at that time and be even more amazed.

I mention the mystery in the opening scene and Dunant continues to feed us clues throughout the story: "He will give you the freedom you desire"; "For Tomaso a silver belt rather handsome I thought". But, eventually, it is as if the author having thought of a great opening chapter, and having taken us back to the start of it all, cannot then quite complete the circle convincingly: the dead nun cannot be elderly, the tattoo has no authenticity, the method of faking the disease is improbable, her female life companion could not possibly have travelled to find those she sought.

Those are my only criticisms, and it sounds churlish to mention them when there is so much that is excellent about this novel. Dunant has very successfully changed her genre to historical novelist – she writes well, fluidly and colourfully – so the quality of the ending of The Birth of Venus is a mystery.

Lucy

Birds of a Feather

It is always a lovely surprise to look out of the window, often soon after dawn, and see some unusual visitor on the bird table. Greenfinches are one of them, as are the other finches: chaffinches and goldfinch. Their beaks are a little too wide for the wire on the nutfeeder but once they have cracked it (terrible pun) they make short work of the contents.




Our regulars, however, as if aware of the competition, have managed to come up with a pleasant new angle: their chicks. Obviously to date we have only watched the parent birds having a feeding frenzy in order to satisfy their hungry brood. But now the chicks are nearly reared they accompany their parents to learn table etiquette. Basically this is: give way to anyone bigger and more threatening than yourself. As one of our largest visitors - with a very big beak to make the point - is the woodpecker. When the chick first appeared I could not believe it was one. Nearly as big as its parent, only the fluffly feathers gave it away.

At first it hung on the nutfeeder with mum or dad by its side: a bit for me a bit for you. But by day two the exhausted parent absented itself and Woody soon managed to feed himself. Not as nervous as his parent - he still has to learn to be wary - he
managed to cling on and finish off most of the feeder.




Our second best nut eater is probably the nuthatch owing to its long narrow very effective beak. And today, with a thrill, I noticed that it was a nuthatch chick that was feeding. Again, only the last few remaining fluffy baby feathers give it away and, again, it was not nearly as nervous as its parents would be as it allowed me to creep right up to the window before it flew away.




But perhaps the most exciting birds to visit the table again have been a pair of long tailed tits. I have yet to see their offspring, but to know that they have survived the winter is a very cheering and wonderful sight. Their bodies are so very small that one wonders just how they did manage to stay warm thrugh our below freezing temperatures this year.




Lucy

Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro

"I really love Ishiguro's books", several of the groupies opined when Never Let Me Go was chosen as out book group novel. I had only tried to read one of his before - not successfully – I had obviously not tried hard enough.

So it was with a positive and determined attitude that I tackled it. He's a good writer. No doubt about it. The novel is set in the closed world of a school, one in which little of the outside world ever impinges. It is the story of three childhood friends (Kathy, Ruth and Tommy) who have a destiny – slowly this unfolds – that they will have no choice but fulfil.

In a nutshell there is a sinister aspect and definite exploitation in this story. It raises ethical questions about medical science – trying not to give the story away here - and how far a society will go in order to benefit from it.


Ishiguro always writes in the first person and so the reader does not get much description. There is – he planned it this way – no colour and no sense of the outside world in the story. The setting feels like the 1950's – right from the start it felt like I was reading the Midwich Cuckoos for the first time. Used as we readers are to appreciating rounded description the lack of it lends a very sci-fi clarity – some may say bleakness – to it.

It is all about the here and now of experience, about emotion and about people and the setting is filtered out. Ishiguro would argue that by filtering out the setting he is allowing his readers to get to know the characters. However, the only character any of us felt any empathy for was Tommy. Possibly because he was not like an automaton – he did have feelings.

The characters often fail to act and Ishiguro uses pathos to good effect. His structure and slow revelation is masterful and his craftsmanship – that almost sounds like a criticism but far from it – to slowly let the reader in on the sinister secret is impressive.

All of us appreciated that it was well written – clever in fact - but many of us found much of it repetitive and the detail mundane. In a nutshell, we liked the way Ishiguro writes but did not necessarily like the story.

For my part I would not have chosen the book if it had not been a book group choice and I would never have read it all if we had not been going to discuss it (it did, however, give rise to much interesting and informative discussion). I appreciated the author's undoubted talent – to a great extent it is always a pleasure to read a well written novel – but I guess it is just not my sort of book!

Lucy

Dreamy Garden Borders in April

When March turns to April I know the time has come when I can procrastinate no longer: my herbaceous borders need me. The seed heads and sheltering dead foliage have done their bit for the wildlife over winter.

Now is the time to get out there, chop it all down, dig out the odd weed and mulch like crazy. Leave it another week or two and the weeds will have taken hold and the plants grown too large for much to get in there.

But as I clip and snip, gather and discard the border looks more bare with every action. Where are all those perennial goodies? Have they died? Been eaten? There is still the odd clipped evergreen certainly, the occasional rose bush. And the lime trees to pleach on the nearby path.


These thoughts fester as the clearing goes on and the mulching with compost is done bit by bit. But by the time I'm finished the odd inch of rain and even odder days of sunshine have worked their magic. Suddenly the phlox and tradescantia, the aqualegia and bistort have burgeoned.

Geranium phaem and Bleeding heart is flowering prettily; Heuchera and Alchemilla mollis seem to have doubled in size overnight. What was I worried about. I had forgotten that every year – cradling some purchase bought in a weak willed moment at a plant stall – I walk around the garden searching for a spot in which to squeeze it in.


By now the purple beech tree has been through its wondrous leaf opening cabaret. First small leaf buds tentatively open, salmon pink, soft and ethereal. After a day or so of sun they stretch out their leaves and with more confidence start to turn that glorious shade of copper. Another few days of good weather and, overnight, every branch is covered in the richest of copper leaves.

In fact a few days of absolutely glorious weather has fast forwarded spring to such an extent that plants and flowers normally performing in May are out now. And blossom that usually lasts a week or two is over in a couple of days. The lilac is in flower but the blossom of the weeping pear has already faded.


If I work like crazy from now until June getting all the worst weeds out, then it should set me up for the summer. In the wall border the plants grow until they are cheek by jowl. The idea is that they will choke out the weeds and I won't have to do anything for the rest of the summer. But that remains a theory for now.

There is one border so overgrown with ground elder that we have had to take all the soil out, burn it, and start again. Cow parsley self seeded to such an extent under the beech and Judas tree last year that its going to take days to dig it out. And the nettles! How come they have colonized every corner? Another digging job, I'm afraid.

I am happy for pockets of nettles – similarly buttercups – to grow in the wild garden, I'm trying to do my bit for conservation by encouraging habitats. Why else was I down on my hands and knees trying to balance rotting logs into a tidy pile like nature never intended? But nettles, buttercups and dandelions in my herbaceous borders are a step too far.

So I better keep at it. There's a long way to go. But it's hot. Too hot to garden. I better sit down – it's tiring this gardening – have a rest in the dappled shade of the beech tree and dream of manicured lawns, meticulous flower beds and..........

Wanting by Richard Flanagan

Was this going to be another one of those books about the aboriginies of Tasmania? We've read Secret River and The English Passenger and didn't need more of the same. Wanting was promoted as something quite different: a novel to "show how the colonized and the home territories are inextricably linked."


The two strands run side by side in the novel. Mathina, a young orphaned aboriginal girl, is adopted by Lady Jane Franklin who seeks to experiment with civilizing the natives. She never gets close to the child but appears to be achieving her aim of civilising – but not educating – her when unexpectedly the child's natural desires break out. Unfortunately so do those of her husband, Sir John Franklin.

Sir John had been the governor of Tasmania, still living on his reputation as an arctic explorer. Finally expelled from his post he journeyed once more into the arctic where he disappeared. Back in England Lady Jane tries her best to rescue his reputation – and her own – by exonerating him from the slur of cannibalism. And to do this she employs the help of Charles Dickens.

Mathina was cast out before the Franklins left Tasmania and let us just say that her life thereafter was all downhill. Her story mirrors the plight of the natives and the dramatic irony of the tale – and the true story - was that the savages were more humane and civilized that the Westerners that chose to subjugate and civilize them.

This aspect is personified in the character of Dickens far away in civilized England. He champions family life in his books and in his outward persona but is not happy with his lot. He has fame, he has family. The first he relishes, the second he finds disappointing and eventually betrays.

It seems to me that Flanagan said to himself: I can't write yet another one of those books about the aboriginies of Tasmania. What can I do to give it a new twist? I know, think of a well known character and link them in some way. And up he came with Dickens and desire. But the result feels contrived. The two stories do not sit comfortably together; although the form is cleverly constructed it is a clumsy concept.

Flanagan is quite obviously a good writer and it is an easy book to read because it is deceptively well written. Like the curate's egg, it is good in parts. When Mathina's desire finally gets the better of her and she dances as she feels, the writing is as passionate as the act. The same could be said of the desire that Dickens finally succumbs to. In fact the groupies found the part about Dickens so interesting they thought it deserved to be enlarged as a stand-alone book.

Those who had read Flanagan's other books and loved them were perhaps disappointed and this coloured their criticism. But none of us enjoyed the novel for various reasons. No-one was drawn to any of the characters in the book. None would recommend it. And yes, the part concerning Mathina was yet another one of those books about the aboriginies of Tasmania. And a pretty depressing one at that.