Elizabeth Von Arnim - The Enchanted April
Four Englishwomen, strangers to one another, come together to rent a castle in Italy for a month. Each brings her own emotional burden (two in loveless marriages, one a society girl haunted by her beauty and status, and an old woman with nothing but her memories to live for), but slowly, the castle works its magic on each. I'd be interested to see how they made a film of this, since the novel is almost entirely internal dialogue. Gentle, and genteel, escapism, a little marred for me by the abrupt ending. But don't buy the cheap Kindle version - it's riddled with typos.
Courtney Carver - Soulful Simplicity: How living with less can lead to so much more
I got this as soon as it was published, around Christmas, and read it straight through in a few days. And since I felt I needed some mental calm after last month's reading marathon, I decided to go back and re-read it more slowly, pencil in hand. I'm a long-time reader of Courtney's blog, Be More With Less. This is a gentler version of a self-help/minimalism book. Courtney tells the story of how an MS diagnosis was her wake-up call to reform her life step-by-step, not to reinvent herself, but to uncover the real person underneath the stress and stuff. At the end of each section, she offers plenty of suggestions for you to create your own road map to your true self. I'm tempted to put this in my suitcase instead of the shipping box when we move, so I can have it to hand to keep oriented in the stress of transitioning to a new life.
Octavia E. Butler - Kindred
When I taught literature, Butler's short story "Bloodchild" was a staple on my syllabus. It's a story about humans who are refugees on a planet inhabited by insectoid aliens, and the accommodation that humans make to stay there. I wanted to read more Butler, but I'm not big on sci-fi, so her time-travel novel seemed a better bet, and appropriate to read before I left America. Dana is a black woman living in 1976, who suddenly - and repeatedly - finds herself thrown back in time to pre-civil war Maryland to rescue the son of a plantation owner. It quickly emerges that they have a connection which means saving his life preserves her own. Like "Bloodchild", Kindred addresses inter-racial issues in an intelligent and thought-provoking way and lays bare some uncomfortable and realistic answers to the question: what would you really have done if you were living in a slave state in the nineteenth century? Butler was a rare phenomenon - a black, female science fiction writer - and a very good one at that. Her untimely death was a loss to literature.
Sigrid Undset - The Snake Pit (Vol II of Master of Hestviken)
It's difficult to say much about this without spoiling the first volume, but here goes: After many years of separation, Ingunn and Olav are finally able to wed and make their home in Hestviken. But Olav's years of outlawry have incurred terrible consequences that seem to have cursed their future. A brooding Nordic novel (even too brooding for me at times, and I'm a professional at it) with a stark portrayal of a man forced to live by the rules of one culture (pagan) but be judged by another (Christian).
Sigrid Undset- In the Wilderness (Vol III of Master of Hestviken)
I wanted to go ahead and read this so I didn't have to ship it. Necessary spoiler alert: after his wife's death, Olav finds himself in an emotional and spiritual wilderness. He leaves his homestead for England, half hoping to recapture the years of youth he lost to caring for an ailing wife, but still he is haunted by the acts he committed to protect them both. His chance finally comes in a bloody reckoning to protect all he tried to run from. There´s a fourth book in the series, but, frustratingly, the library sale room only had the first three.
Jacqueline Woodson - Brown Girl Dreaming
Winner and finalist in several awards, this is a memoir in free verse of growing up in both the north and the south during the civil rights era of the 60s and 70s. It was in our library's juvenile section, but it's pretty ageless in terms of audience. Woven into memories of Woodson's life is also the story of how she became a writer. Coming to the end of twenty years in Mississippi, the stories of the south were both familiar and uncomfortable to me, a way of life I recognized, but an oppression and racism I can honestly say I've never seen.
Barbara Pym - Excellent Women
Pym is a mid-twentieth century author, usually a good bet if you prefer your novels without strong language or extraneous sex scenes. This comedy of manners explores the life of Mildred Lathbury, one of the excellent women of the title: the genteel, unmarried woman with the genteel, part-time job who is always on hand to arrange things for the genteel men of her world, and is assumed to be in love with the local vicar unless she is his sister and is keeping house for him. This is Mildred´s world, until a new young couple move into the flat below her, the husband a smooth-talking, flirtatious naval officer, and the wife a career woman – a trouser-wearing anthropologist, no less. Then Mildred´s best friend (the vicar´s sister, naturally, keeping house for her brother) offers lodgings to a pretty clergyman´s widow, and the network of relationships is thrown into a chaos that, of course, the excellent women are supposed to resolve. Seen through Mildred´s eyes, the story is both funny and poignant, a portrait of a way of life and class of women that was slipping into oblivion after the Second World War. I enjoyed it from the first page.
Leo Lionni - A Color of His Own
This short book got the adults in the house debating. Is is a story about finding your own tribe? A coming-out fable? A manifesto for magic mushrooms? Regardless, it has simple, appealing pictures and text, and our toddler liked it. If you're okay with books about chameleons who may or may not be seeking same sex relationships or recreational drugs, then this is for you.
Jill Murphy - A Quiet Night In
I was surprised and glad to spot this British book on our library shelves. Murphy's humorous stories about the elephant family Mr and Mrs Large and their four children manage to show both the adults' and children's perspectives on family life. All In One Piece sits on the shelf of grandchildren's books in my parents' house and has been delighting children, parents and grandchildren for years. In this one, Mrs Large is planning a romantic dinner at home for her husband's birthday with the children in bed early, but all goes - well, pretty much as you might expect for exhausted parents of four young children.
Lesley Harker - Annie's Ark
A cute retelling of the Noah story through the eyes of his granddaughter, in lyrical prose. Life on the ark is busy for little Annie, rocking lambs to sleep, rescuing Uncle Shem from the monkeys, disentangling the snakes from her Grandma's knitting. And, for secular readers, without any religious references.
Robert Kraus - Leo the Late Bloomer
The story of a little tiger who can't do anything right, but whose mother has faith in him. Apart from the funky 70s illustrations, what struck me in reading this was that you don't get to hear about children being allowed to be late bloomers much any more. They're all probably diagnosed with developmental disabilities, whether or not they actually have them. (That, and puppy fat. Does any kid have puppy fat any more?)
The Enchanted April was enjoyable for the Italian Riviera landscape and imagining renting a castle for a month, but the characters were pretty unlikable in my opinion. And yes, the ending was rushed and not very believable. I saw the movie version and it was OK but kinda awkward at times because it includes some of the internal dialogue.
ReplyDeleteI thought the whole novel needed more development, and I agree the landscape was a big part of the appeal.
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