Thursday, January 14, 2016

Book report: holiday reading (pre-, mid-, and post-) (part 1)

Well, here goes—my first attempt at a reading catch-all post that (hopefully) won't be the length of a Dostoevsky novel—though there are quite a few books to mention…


I did a bit of reading before the holidays that I think I can actually sum up briefly. For example, I read RC SHERRIFF's Greengates (1936), newly reprinted by Persephone, which I had been looking forward to for months before it arrived. I have to report that I was just a bit underwhelmed, but this is probably because The Fortnight in September, his earlier novel about an ordinary family's quiet holiday by the seaside, is one of my all-time favorites. I may therefore have had unrealistically high hopes that Greengates, about a middle-aged couple coming to terms with the extra time they have together after the husband retires, would provide similar delights. If I had read Greengates first, I might have loved it—and how unfair for me to be disappointed that it's not another Fortnight. I wonder just how often one book or another is ruined simply because one has read another book first? Or, for that matter, because one hasn't read another book first. Has this happened to you?


On a similarly disappointing note, I was so excited to have tracked down a copy of WINIFRED DUKE's Death and His Sweetheart (1938), which was apparently a bestseller in its time and one of Duke's most successful and well-known novels (and I won't resist sharing the cover with you, as I think it's a rather nice one). But my original assumption that this was one of her mysteries turned out to be quite incorrect. It is, in fact, a ghost tale, set—as per Duke's norm—in a rather ominous Scottish village. There is a framing story set more or less in the present time, with the arrival of a new minister in the village, then a flashback to around the turn of the 19th century, when a previous minister and his wife seem to have scandalized the village and met their doom.

Book club advert from back of Duke's
Death and His Sweetheart

My problem with the novel—which, sadly, I chose not to finish reading—may have been a slight variant on my problem with the Sherriff. I had already read Duke's later novel, Dirge for a Dead Witch, which uses a very similar structure and setting, and that might well be the source of my slight "been there, done that" feeling when trying to get engrossed in Sweetheart. I'm certainly not giving up on Duke, however. There are some other titles which should be available via Interlibrary Loan, and I'm determined to find more of her mysteries, since The Dancing of the Fox was such an odd little pleasure. Let's hope that that one, her final work, wasn't the only really high point in her long and prolific career.


Then there was COMPTON MACKENZIE's Extraordinary Women (1928), which I had long meant to read because of its links to gay and lesbian literature and to modernism, but it took finding a lovely (and cheap) copy of the Hogarth Press edition to make me finally commit. It doesn't entirely fit the main topic of this blog, but I'm mentioning this rather over-the-top portrayal of a whole slew of eccentric lesbians staying on the Isle of Capri around the time of World War I because some of you (especially fans of an E. F. Benson type of comedy) might happen to enjoy it. It was also published the same year as Radclyffe Hall's scandalous The Well of Loneliness, and, interestingly, aroused no particular controversy with its subject matter, while Hall's book was famously the target of censorship and outrage. Was this because Mackenzie was straight while Hall was—definitively—not? Or was it because Hall's portrayal of lesbianism (or, more accurately in the language and understanding of today, a transgendered man) was deadly serious, while the romantic trials and tribulations of Mackenzie's lesbians are unquestionably played for laughs?

Whatever the reason, I approached the novel a bit ambivalently, expecting perhaps a condescending or mocking attitude (straight modernist men were rarely known for their tolerance), but I was surprised how even-handed the comedy actually was. The women portrayed certainly behave in ridiculous ways, but no more ridiculous than characters in numerous novels by gay and lesbian authors (see Carl Van Vechten's Parties or Angus Wilson's Hemlock and After, for example), and indeed it seems clear that Mackenzie's attitude is that love makes fools of everyone, straight and gay alike—perhaps particularly when they are too wealthy and spoiled for their own good. For that matter, many of the characters Mackenzie portrays are thinly veiled versions of real women, such as Romaine Brooks, Mimi Franchetti, and Radclyffe Hall herself, and from what biographers tell us of them, Mackenzie's portrayals might actually be rather restrained! At any rate, I found it all to be great fun.


Then, just before the wonderful holiday break, I finally, finally got round to reading two more JOSEPHINE TEY novels, The Singing Sands (1952), the final Alan Grant novel, and The Franchise Affair (1948), in which Grant also appears, though only in a supporting role. I enjoyed both, and was (as I have been the other two or three times I've read something of Tey's) bewildered at why I hadn't read them before. Tey has easily become one of my handful of absolute favorite mystery authors, and yet there are still a few of her books I have yet to read. Too many books, yada yada yada…


Of these two, Franchise was my favorite, and I'm also adding it to my World War II book list in the Postwar section, as it makes frequent references to the war and evokes a strong atmosphere of the immediate postwar period. But that's not the only reason I liked it. It's also interesting because the main character is a small town barrister trying to defend two women charged with a far-fetched kidnapping, and our beloved Alan Grant is actually on the other side of the fence (more or less—he does have his doubts). As much as I missed Grant's more frequent presence, and being privy to his ponderings, Tey's experiment worked for me. Neither of these books has unseated Daughter of Time or Miss Pym Disposes as my favorite Teys, but that standard is reached by very few books by any author, and these were still fascinating and unputdownable. Now what should I read next by Tey?

That's enough for now. I think I've actually succeeded in reining myself in a bit, have I not? But there's still more holiday reading to catch up on.

15 comments:

  1. Brat Farrar, of course. Have you read it? I am hurrying this morning - no time to search - shouldn't even be commenting. Anyway, Brat Farrar is wonderful - morally ambiguous in all sorts of ways, the damage of deception and secrecy, fascinating psychology, a very English setting as usual. I rate it alongside Miss Pym and Franchise and find it impossible to pick my favourite from these three.

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    1. Thank you, Grace. No I haven't read Brat Farrar yet, and I think I've had it at the back of my mind as the next choice. I'm curious about some of her earlier works too--The Expensive Halo and such. I wonder if they're as good as her later work?

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  2. Well, my favorite Tey is Brat Farrar, and I love the linked book by Mary Stewart, The Ivy Tree, which I usually read just after reading Brat Farrar. The US version doesn't play up the connection as much, the UK edition has an extra chapter or two. And, after I read Daughter of Time, I have to read Elizabeth Peters's The Murders of Richard the III.

    By the way, the covers for Death and His Sweetheart and The Franchine Affair are great!

    Jerri

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    1. Some of my post-holiday reading has been Patricia Moyes. I finished her first two mysteries, Dead Men Don't Ski and Down Among the Dead Men, and enjoyed them both. I like the balance between Inspector Tebbett and his wife, the only comparable fictional couple I can think of is Inspector Felse and his wife in the series Ellis Peters (a woman, I forget if she qualifies for your list Scott). While I enjoyed the mysteries, I enjoyed the period background on snow skis resorts and techniques and sailing probably more. I am half way through her third, Death on the Agenda, and liking it less, perhaps because the meeting in Geneva background has less appeal to me and the detective as prime suspect who needs to clear his name also has less appeal.

      Jerri

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    2. I'll have to keep both of those related reads in mind, though I'll have to make sure I get a British edition of Ivy Tree somehow. I hate when they release different versions.

      Re Moyes, I haven't read Death on the Agenda yet, though I may have a copy. Certainly I prefer when she has Henry and Emmy travelling to interesting places or, as you say, learning about something. The Coconut Killings, set on a Caribbean island, was also less appealing for me.

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    3. About The Ivy Tree, the UK edition has 20 chapters, the US only 18. One of the easiest ways to get the UK edition in the US is in a "four in one" volume with The Moonspinners, Nine Coaches Waiting and Madam Will You Talk? I found it on the shelves in a public library and one also can often find it in used book stores. Rather heavy, but it does have the extended version. Or, you might find a copy on your upcoming trip! Just check for 20 chapters!

      Jerri

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    4. I'm making a note of that, Jerri. Thanks for the information!

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  3. I know you don't really do newer crime fiction but as you've written about Josephine Tey I wonder if you know that Nicola Upson has written several crime fiction using Josephine Tey as the main character. The first written in 2009.

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    1. I think I did read the first of Upson's novels, though I don't think I mentioned it here. I recall enjoying it, but have somehow gotten round to the others. Thanks for reminding me of them!

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  4. Scott - a Tey theme! I just yesterday finished "The Daughter of Time," which was an unusual book, in that there is no murder, but really a historical quest to learn what really happened about Richard III and the little Princes in the Tower. I LOVE the Franchise Affair, and if you can track down EITHER version of the movie, do so!
    Tom

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    1. Good to know about the movies, Tom. You always remind me that there's more to life than just books! And yes, Daughter of Time is certainly unusual, and I don't think it could work nearly so well if Grant wasn't such an interesting character--I find it so interesting to follow his thoughts, and also his restlessness at his restricted movements, and in what other situation would a practical man like him decide to "solve" one of the biggest historical murder mysteries of all time?

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  5. I felt exactly the same way about the two Sherriff books, but I don't think it is necessarily because I read Fortnight first. I think that for me, the subject matter was more interesting, and that I personally could relate to it better. I loved the idea in Greengates that they were starting afresh, but their activities were so far away from anything I would ever want that I couldn't connect that well. Fortnight has such depth, and had such a feeling of time and place that I don't think anything could really top it!

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    1. Thanks, Nan, I'm glad to know you felt the same way. I quite liked the first part of the book, but then it seemed to get bogged down in their involvement in the community center. Interesting in capturing a point in housing history, I suppose, but rather dry as a novel topic.

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  6. I love, love, love the new format! But it is going to cost me oodles of money as I want to read everything you describe! I am a Northern Californian Anglophile Reader, as well as a fan of Furrowed Middlebrow.

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    1. Thanks, Jessica! I'm still experimenting again, and I have a feeling there will be times when I still get too wordy about some book I particularly like, but I definitely feel like this format works better for me!

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