The Girls by Lori Lansens

The groupie who chose The Girls for our September book group meeting said she did so because the novel is, in her opinion, an amazing feat of imagination. And very well written too. Like the subject or not, there can be few who dispute either of these statements.

Rose and Ruby are born naturally but emerged joined at the head. Their teenage mother – who must have been in a terrible state after such a birth – disappears and the saintly nurse, Lovey, who delivered them, wins guardianship. With her Slovakian husband, Stash, she raises them on her Ontario farm to live as independent and normal a life as is possible.

A potential reader could be forgiven for wondering:
a. Who wants to read about craniopagus twins
b. Do I want to read what can only be a heart-rending and possibly mawkish story
c. Can such an extraordinary tale end in anything but grief.
I know I thought these things.

But Lori Lansens manages to pull it off: the story begins when the girls are 29 years old, and Rose (the clever one) about to start her autobiography. She convinces Ruby (the pretty one) to write her side of the story too and this is the way the novel is structured: Rose’s romantic chapters interspersed now and then with Ruby’s down-to-earth ones.

The twins share a major artery and can never be separated. Rose has to carry her sister on her hip making Ruby appear to be more reliant on Rose than vice versa. But Lansens manages to convey how much the girls rely on each other - spiritually as well as physically - and how both have to compromise to survive life as a conjoined twin. Eventually, the weaker of the twins emerges as the stronger.

The theme of the novel could be seen to be all about connections and dependency: that of Rose and Ruby is of course obvious but there is also their dependency and connection to Aunt Lovey and Uncle Stash, and theirs for each other; their neighbour Mrs Merkel and her lost son Larry, Stash and his lost family in Slovakia, their ‘cousin’ Nick and the girls.

Lansens throws in some surprising – and not altogether successful extras – Rose has a child and Stash takes the family to a weird family gathering in Slovakia; Mrs Merkel and Stash have an affair. And when the character Nick – a useless ex-con – undergoes a complete character change when he begins to care for the twins it seems a rather obvious tale of rehabilitation.

But Lansens manages to convey that Rose and Ruby, with their separate brains, personalities, interests and views are like any pair of sisters could be. And what she also convinces us of is the deep love they have for each other, for their adoptive parents, the parents love for the girls and the deep feelings they all have of belonging and caring for the landscape they live in.

Soon we are convinced that the lives of these conjoined twins are lives that have been worth the living, that pity is not part of it and that humour, love and achievement is. It is, finally, a difficult book to put down.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Summer End

We have had a rotten summer here in the UK. It must be the wettest on record. We did make the most of the odd week of sunshine and grasped greedily at the occasional sunny day, only too aware that summer can be elusive. And we were right.

With an economic turndown and a growing awareness of carbon footprints – well carbon wings – many families took their annual holiday in dear old Blighty this year. By now they will remember why they usually holiday somewhere the weather is more predictable and reliable.

The only benefit has been that the garden has not needed watering. In fact it is looking very, very green. However, the blowsy and pastel colours have now gone from most of the beds and borders: a few roses throw up a welcome colourful bloom and one or two perennials soldier on but that’s about it.

But thank goodness I’ve got my hot bed which has really come into its own: I developed it about five years ago using shrubs from around the garden, interspersing them with perennials. In a year it looked established, now it looks really mature.

The backbone is a purple hazel (Corylus avellana purpurea) which has grown to quite a tree. The purple leaves are a great foil for the green border that is its backdrop and a marvellous foil for the orange and yellow flowering perennials in front of it. A Golden Elder (Sambucus aurea), and Pheasants Eye (Leycesteria formosa) provide dramatic deciduous colour and an evergreen Strawberry Tree (Arbutus unedo) and Mahonia complete the shrubs.

Tall grasses (Miscanthus sinensis, Stipa gigantea and Calamagrotis) and low bronze mounds of Carex comans add movement and lightness whilst a large claret phormium and smaller rust-red cordyline provide strong vertical elements.

In July, in between yellow and orange daisies of rudbeckias and heleniums, orange day lilies and red hot pokers provided bright splashes of colour. For ground cover there were mounds of flowering geraniums and Lady’s mantle and a very thick layer of wood chippings, weathered to a pleasing dark brown.

But now, when everything else in the garden is looking faded and sad, the dead-headed daisies and geraniums in the hot border are beginning to flower again and the silver feather grass has beautiful silky heads. And suddenly some bright beacons burst into flower too, warm enough to cheer a failing heart: bright flame coloured crocosmia makes a stunning statement, lime green eucomis looks wonderfully exotic and a beautiful late-flowering toffee coloured kniphofia is elegant and unusual.

And these all remind me so much of days out at Kirstenbosch - the South African world famous botanical garden in Cape Town - that I find my spirits lifting despite the wet and grey skies. Summer is ending with a splash - in every way!

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Favourite Books

It’s August; holiday time. Our book group doesn’t meet in the school summer holidays. This is historical. In fact, as our children are no longer young, we can actually sometimes manage to finish a book at a sitting even though they are at home. We don’t really need that break any more. So when one groupie invited us all for a social evening – albeit with a literary theme - we were all up for it. And everyone did their homework.

The suggestion was that we all note down our favourite books. I was one of those who was actually up against it time-wise and so cheated by reading out my blog (The 3 R’s: reading, reading and re-reading) of February 2007. Strangely – or perhaps not - most people mirrored my views. Nearly everyone chose books that reflected different stages in their lives.

Enid Blyton came out as a clear winner in the childhood choice: today it would be Rowling for much the same reasons. They were books with a clear structure, a story that was full of excitement with a good moral underlying it all. Many said that it was the Enid Blyton books that got them reading: the plots are sequential – not too many time shifts - so it’s not necessary to re-read great sections every time the story is picked up again.

A few of the same books cropped up as ones we enjoyed as teenagers: The Catcher in the Rye and To Kill a Mocking Bird for example. And then most of us seemed to have enjoyed books such as The Great Gatsby and Gone With the Wind, and easily digestible books such as those by the Mitfords, Laurie Lee or H E Bates.

I was surprised, though, at how many of us chose Thomas Hardy as a favourite author. So many people immediately dismiss his works as too lengthy and descriptive. Perhaps it’s because Hardy was often the exam choice when we were at school and maybe because we had to read the whole book we got a taste for it.

On the other hand, no-one mentioned Dickens: another author who often gets a bad press as ‘difficult’ to read. Nothing could be further from the truth. His novels are a doddle, amusing and colourful. George Elliot, on the other hand, cropped up in several groupies’ choices.

Overall, Midnight’s Children – which had been one of our book group choices - was the clear favourite. Others that several groupies chose were My Name is Asher Lev, The God of Small Things, Wuthering Heights, anything by Margaret Attwood or Jane Austen.

For re-reading Dorothy Dunnant was mentioned by a few, as was The Alexandria Quartet, Music & Silence by Rose Tremain and The Mill Stone by Margaret Drabble. Latterly – so it must be an age thing – several groupies are enjoying biographies: two we’ve read in the group - Georgina, Duchess of Devonshire and Samuel Pepys – were both mentioned by more than one member.

It was a very interesting exercise and a great way to remind each other of books we had loved, those that we should read and those we intend to: a very successful evening altogether.

Lammas festival

What a lovely word, Lammas; it’s derived from Anglo-Saxon and means ‘loaf-mass’, and it was one of the four agricultural festivals. Held on the first Sunday in August it was when loaves made form the first ripened corn would traditionally have been consecrated.

Lammas was a heathen Anglo-Saxon festival, which ebbed and flowed in popularity but completely disappeared at the Reformation. Many believe that prior to that Lammas was the Celtic festival of Lughnasadhl – the festival of the Sun God. Latterly, the Church of England has begun to celebrate agricultural festivals such as this one again.

But in all farming communities the harvest, cutting of the corn, the in-gathering, has always been an event to celebrate. Up until the middle of the last century harvest manikins - corn dollies – were still made from last ears of cut corn to lament the Corn Spirit. This corn dolly was then ploughed back into the soil the following year to ensure a good crop. We are less superstitious now.

Now that the wheat is grown in enormous, hedge-less fields and cut by one man in a giant machine all the community involvement and romance of the harvest has disappeared. Up until a hundred years ago there would have been no serious work on the farm for a week after the harvest was brought in. It was Harvest Home: time to give thanks for the safely gathered crop after all the hard work and worry that the weather might spoil it.

Bringing in the crop involved everyone on the farm, other farms, and villagers too. The hay had to be reaped, tied, loaded, carted and stored. The wagon and horses used to carry the corn would have been decorated with ribbons and flowers, with the children lifted on top, and the journey home accompanied with songs and laughter. At home there would be beer and cake before the corn was taken to be stacked.

In the evening it was time to celebrate at length: a supper of roast beef and plum-pudding with plenty of beer and cider to wash it down would have been followed by an evening of speeches and songs, rhymes and ballads. When men worked the land with their hands and their horses, when they relied on what they reaped to keep them for the coming year, they appreciated the results and celebrated their accomplishments. I’m all for progress but we’ve lost a lot of joy in the process.

But in literature we still come across the stories of bringing in the harvest, take Thomas Hardy’s novels for one. And in art we have plenty of reminders, Constable immediately springs to mind. And the Corn Spirit of pagan times has been called John Barleycorn, celebrated in ballads throughout Britain.

Robert Burns wrote a song based on old ballads to John Barleycorn – barley of course was used to brew beer which is why so many pubs are called The John Barleycorn and why the teetotal Burns was agin him – and here are the first and last verses.

There were three kings into the east,
Three kings both great and high,
And they hae sworn a solemn oath
John Barleycorn should die.

Then let us toast John Barleycorn,
Each man a glass in hand,
And may his great prosperity
Ne’er fail in old Scotland.

In many parts of the country there are John Barleycorn festivals again – perhaps we are trying to get back to our roots after all and celebrate our crops again. I’ll drink to that!

Lucy
lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

The Death of Vishnu, by Manil Suri

One of our book groupies has been to India and fallen in love with it. Now, back in grey skied England, she enjoys books about India instead, revelling in their colourful, magical quality. And The Death of Vishnu- her choice - certainly gets that across.

Vishnu – in this case no God – is homeless and lives on a landing of a small block of flats. He relies on the owners – four families – to keep him alive in return for errands. Unfortunately, they are not very successful because he lies dying on the landing. As he lies comatose he relives, as in a dream, his past: his mother, his lover and his life.

In alternating chapters of the book we are introduced to the families and how they interact with each other, and how they react to Vishnu in his dying state. Apparently, in Indian mythology, the God Vishnu is there to establish order when there is friction: in this story the man Vishnu – or rather his imminent demise – creates disorder where there is friction.

The inhabitants of the apartments represent a microcosm of life in Mumbai: Hindu and Muslim living in close proximity to each other, with all those unable to afford a flat living wherever they can, doing whatever they can to survive.

Mrs Asrani and Mrs Pathak share a kitchen but this close-proximity causes tension. They are arch rivals and vie for one-upmanship but their efforts are doomed. Both have ineffectual, hen-pecked husbands who constantly have to subjugate their finer feelings to agree with the petty demands of their wives. These are comedy characters, and although Sunil illuminates the small time mentality of these people and their lives it is difficult to empathise with them.

Their respective offspring, looking for romance and escape, rashly decide to elope. Their disappearance causes much speculation and leads to the most interesting part – and denouement - of the book. Mr Jamal, the boy’s father, is a Muslim but has a Hindu vision. This religious awakening leaves him more oblivious than ever to his wife’s feelings, which eventually has serious results.

The Death of Vishnu was not badly written but the characters were stereotypical caricatures that did not develop: it read like a TV sitcom. No-one felt any warmth towards the characters and many felt this was because they were not well drawn. However, the novel did give the reader a glimpse of how the different castes and religions rub along in India and, to its credit, ‘politics’ were refreshingly missing.

It was the dream sequence chapters – steadily more surreal and lurid as the book progressed – that annoyed many of the book group. They were rambling – as many dreams are of course – and some thought too odd to bear any resemblance to what Vishnu’s life could have been. Fortunately, those who did quite enjoy this aspect of the book reassured our host – who was feeling a little unsure of the wisdom of her choice - that the book had been worth reading!

The Death of Vishnu had certainly been wildly hyped: it is a poor man’s Midnight Children, a pale God of Small Things. Perhaps in Manil Suri’s next novel he will manage to balance creativity with believability and pull it off. I hope so.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Summer: picnic and open air concert time

Only the Brits would do something this daft: I ask you, would any sane person pay good money to sit in the open air - freezing cold, rain drizzling down their necks – to eat a picnic and listen to music? Are we a nation so in love with the idea of al fresco music and meals that we will suffer for it? I’ve been to two operas and a jazz concert this summer so I should know.

Going to these concerts is like embarking on an artic expedition and takes at least half a day to organise all the gear necessary, even if you’ve decided to cheat and just buy the food already prepared. It takes all day if you’ve decided to show-off, prepare the dishes from scratch and serve them in style.

Firstly all the stuff you’ve been storing in the car boot (a suit for the cleaners, several sample tiles to return, various M&S articles of clothing too small or too large to go back when you next pass the store, a soggy box of éclairs that must have fallen out of the supermarket bag and some old shoes for the re-cycle bin) has to be taken out.

Then in go the wellies, brollies, waterproofs and plastic sheet: that’s just the ‘cater for all eventualities’ weather bit. Next it’s folding table (if they’re allowed), collapsible chairs, picnic rug and rubbish bag. An ice box to hold all the food and a bag for the picnic set and cutlery, paper napkins and glasses are next. If you’re showing off, its lanterns, tablecloths and china too.

Booze is a category all its own – insulated bags are essential with plenty of water for the lucky person who draws the short straw and has to drive back. Forget a bottle opener at your peril. When you get there you have to lug all this stuff at least a quarter of a mile and do battle to find a space where you can see the stage. Because all this takes so long you will probably only have time to eat one course before the music begins.

During the interval you will pick your way to the loos and, if the queue was not too long, find some of the second course left when you get back to your party. When the music starts again you and every other person there will spend the first five minutes donning every article of clothing they have with them, finishing off with the picnic rug.

With luck the sound system is man enough to cater for an enormous space with nothing to bounce off and you can actually hear it. And perhaps your luck is really in and its clap-along music, which will at least keep your hands warm: this is an English summer. What fun!

Picture this: a day out in the country in the 1960’s. A green Morris Minor pulls up on a roadside verge, just beside a farm gate. Dad gets out, and from the boot comes a folding melamine topped table, two low canvas fold-up chairs, a rug, a thermos flask and a picnic basket. Mum gives instructions and everyone gives a helping hand to construct a little picnic scene.

Mum and dad drink tea, the children sip squash and everyone tucks into the fish paste sandwiches whilst the wind flaps the corners of the rug that the children now sit on and grey clouds scud over head. Every now and then a cow moos, a horse whinnies and they hear a bird sing. The portable radio is tuned in to family favourites. It is downright uncomfortable and the quality of the country chorus and the music is dubious but they sit it out. Our parents weren't quitters.

For several years my daughter went to Glastonbury: I don’t think there was one year when it didn’t rain – it usually poured - but it didn’t put her off. She just took her tent and kettle, her gumboots and lots of black plastic sacks. What was a little bit of rain and a river of mud when you could listen to bands all day and all night and eat on the hoof.

Thus are the next generation of ‘open air concert and picnic’ lovers born. The reason we keep going to open air concerts in spite of the weather may just be the triumph of hope over adversity or it could be plain old tradition. Either way, only the Brits who would do something so daft.

Lucy
lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

The green, green grass of home

I’ve just spent a wonderfully lazy week in the south of France and it was great. I loved the picturesque sea views, the craggy coastline, the neat vineyards and colourful flowers. But arriving back I realise one of the things I love most about England - the green landscape. And after all the rain we’ve had here it’s a very GREEN landscape.

One of the pleasures of travel for me is to see the gardens of the area I’m visiting. We were staying about half an hour from St Tropez but, although well known for its lavender and olives, it's not an area well known for gardens.

In the small hillside towns you can glimpse the most charming little courtyards – all the more intriguing for having to peer over walls to see them. Clipped evergreens grow in containers, geraniums on doorsteps or in window boxes, bougainvillea smothers walls, oleander bushes line the roads, plumbago tumbles over fences and wisteria clothes facades: all very colourful and pretty.

But there are few, if any, gardens open to the public, unlike further along the coast near Nice. Before I left I did check in my little book on the gardens of France if there was anything close that we could visit and the only thing that came up was a garden on the Iles de Porquerolles, close to Hyeres.

Of course we did visit it and an excellent day out it was too: very worthily the French State has bought up most of the island of Porquerolles and it is now a Parc National. The island – which has woods, orchards and vineyards as well as beaches, a marina and village with a beautiful place and lots of restaurants and cafes - allows no cars and no development. The Conservatoir Botanique National de Porquerolles protects the environment and also the ecology of the island. They are doing everything they can to be as ‘green’ as they can, including using only organic methods of weed and pest control.

The island is on the same latitude as Cap Corse (daily sunshine and very mild winters) and a ‘Mediterranean Garden’ has been established there to show what plants can be grown in such a climate. If you want to find out what plants will survive and flourish then this is the place to find examples of them. But, although of horticultural importance, it is not a pleasure garden that anyone would visit to see how beautiful French gardens can be.

It’s the bare, brown earth - parched and dry - that leaves me cold, that and the lack of lush greenery. But it doesn’t have to be green underfoot: I can happily live with only gravel instead of grass but there has to be plenty of other green - whether on trees, plants or hedges - to fill the space. I’m obviously conditioned to green.

Before I went away I was desperate for some sunshine, it’s so very cheering as well as warming. And I got plenty of sun - recharged my battery – and loved opening the windows each morning to a beautiful blue and cloudless sky. But, returning to the inevitable rain I gave a very Gallic shrug, tans pis, this is why it’s so very refreshingly green here. There’s nothing quite like the green grass of home.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com