This month I’m still not up to reading anything very challenging, but that doesn’t mean to say I haven’t read some excellent books.
Special Topics in Calamity Physics, by Marisha Pessl (reread)
Still seeking something to quench my The Secret History thirst, at the beginning of this month I turned to a novel with some similarities in its set-up. Blue Van Meer’s life with her professor father has been peripatetic, with never more than a term or two in any one town. But then they arrive in Stockton, NC, where Blue is to spend her final year of school preparing for Harvard. Lonely Blue is flattered to be invited to join the Bluebloods, a group of students favoured by the film studies teacher, Hannah Schneider, who hosts them at her house every week. And then on a camping trip in the forest, Blue finds Hannah hanged from a tree. I enjoyed this novel a great deal more than when I first read it and it was massively hyped: now I can see it more clearly. Blue’s narrative is precocious, snobbish and perceptive, and the story twists satisfyingly, though I could have done with a lot fewer of the mainly invented bibliographical references with which the text is increasingly unconvincingly and annoyingly peppered. Also features probably the most insufferable father figure in literature.
The Little Friend, by Donna Tartt
Finally had the chance to fill the void left by The Secret History when this arrived in the post. Lacking the narrative drive of TSH, The Little Friend is a very slow and immersive novel to read, but I alone perhaps of all readers everywhere think it’s a better book, stuffed with extraordinarily vivid writing. When she was a baby, Harriet’s brother was murdered and his killer never caught. This summer, twelve-year-old Harriet intends to avenge him, a journey that takes her to dark places and dangerous people. Tartt explores the effects of the original traumatic event on Robin’s family and friends, and the deeply unequal society in which they live. Awful and amazing.
The Edible Woman, by Margaret Atwoord (reread)
Marian is engaged to be married but her subconscious seems to have doubts. An entertaining look at the life prospects of a young female graduate in 1960s Toronto, it was Atwood’s first published novel and impresses with its wry, pragmatic humour. In some ways, life has improved so much for us since then. In some ways, it hasn’t changed at all.
Barbara Comyms: A Savage Innocence, by Avril Horner
I have been waiting for years for this, a life of one of my favourite writers, and this is a good solid biography. Comyns drew closely on her own life for some of her fiction, and that life was pretty colourful, which makes for an interesting biography: a childhood filled with animals and eccentric, neglectful parents; early artistic ambition blighted by extreme poverty and a useless husband; racketeering in World War II; marriage to a second husband who was suspected of being a spy; ex-patriot life in Spain. Even in the middle of the last century, publishing was fickle and it wasn’t until Virago championed Comyns’s works in the 1980s that her talent was properly recognised. Time to reread her novels again…
The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler (reread)
Read this first so long ago that I had forgotten most of it but odd whiffs came back to me, usually minor details. What a smart writer Chandler was, how ably he constructs his world, every word really works for its place. Not always convinced by his female characters, if I want to carp.
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, by John le Carré
My first le Carré! Not what I was expecting, very cynical, very sordid, very good.
In the Forests of Serre, by Patricia McKillip
In every way, the diametric opposite of le Carré. McKillip’s fiction, especially her later works, are what I read when I am sad. They are magical, ambiguous, beautiful and hopeful. Even the villains are noble. It is quite hard to describe them, as they tend to have a chorus of characters rather than a central character, who must somehow achieve harmony together in order to resolve a problem which they may not even understand after it has been resolved. A big wallow in loveliness.
Cinderella is Dead, by Kalynn Byron, and A Study in Drowning, by Ava Reid
In Cinderella is Dead, a cruel king oversees a society where the legend of Cinderella is used to oppress women. In A Study in Drowning, a student of architecture is commissioned to design a house by the sea for the heir of her favourite writer. I’ve chosen to put these two YA novels together because I thought they both had lots going for them, considered theme both flawed, yet felt more forgiving of the flaws of one than of the other. And I have been wondering why that was, and yes it depends on the flaws. I suppose that it always comes down to a quality of the writing, that it does a bit more than just tell you a story but creates a mood or atmosphere, or conveys more than just what is on the surface. And secondly I suppose that if you have a mysterious dead author, Welsh mythic vibes, fairies and a vast, mouldering house, I am always going to cut you more slack.
Tidemagic: The Many Faces of Ista Flit, by Clare Harlow
There’s a lot of really good children’s fantasy being published at the moment and this is a prime example. In Shelwich, people have been being snatched by monstrous grilk, including Ista Flit’s father. And magic, which is fuller when the tide is high, is growing stronger. Can Ista and her friends find the missing people and discover the secrets hidden in the caverns under Shelwich before it’s too late? I think you know the answer, but it’s a fun adventure getting there.
October, October, by Katya Balen
Have been wanting to read this since it was first published and it was absolutely worth the wait. October lives an idyllic life in the woods with her father until he has an accident and she has to go and live in London with her mother, from whom she is estranged. Magical and astoundingly written in a child’s stream of consciousness, so hard to do well and this was just perfect.