The Japanese Lover - Isabel Allende

Finished 19:10:2016

Reading Isabel Allende's Daughter of Fortune led me to another book by the same writer - The Japanese Lover.  This covers topics such as Jewish refugees from Hitler's Germany, the internment of Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor, child sexual abuse, and love, marriage and homosexuality, all wrapped up in a compelling story, with strong characters.

Daughter of Fortune - Isabel Allende

Finished  07:10:16.


Eliza Sommers is found as a baby on the doorstep of a wealthy English brother and sister, and brought up by them in their fine house in Valparaiso, Chile, and traces her story as she grows up, and falls in love and is deserted by her lover who goes to California to make his fortune in the gold rush.
She follows in search of him, smuggled into the hold of a ship, with the help of a Chinese cook Tao Chi'en. 
In the end what she finds is her own way in life.
This is a book with some great characters, and I learned a lot about nineteenth century Valparaiso and San Francisco.

Peaches for Monsieur le Curé - Joanne Harris

Finished in Leeds, 14:10:2016


In Joanne Harris's latest novel about Vianne Rocher Peaches for Monsieur le Curé, she deals with some current issues such as Muslim fundamentalism, alongside the personal stories of some of the characters you'll have met before if you've read  Chocolat and The Lollipop Shoes. Darker than the first of these, the ending is basically optimistic, in spite of two convenient, though perhaps essential deaths. Quite a page-turner.

The Remains of the Day - film, then book

We watched the film with Anthony Hopkins in the role of Stevens, the butler to Lord Darlington during the post World War I period, and later to his American successor.

A fascinating performance as Stevens rationalises his life in service to a man who becomes an apologist for Hitler's regime for the best of motives - promoting peace and understanding among nations. Alongside this runs the story of the unresolved relationship between Stevens and the housekeeper  Miss Kenton.

Voice of the Fire by Alan Moore - a review in episodes . . .

I downloaded this after visiting Thomas Tresham's unfinished summer lodge, Lyveden New Bield, earlier this month.

June 7 2013:
I started reading last night, and am finding the first section pretty hard going. The idiosyncratic representation of the language and thought processes of "a half-witted man-child",  as Neil Gaimann describes the narrator of this section almost gets in the way of what he is saying. I'm hoping it doesn't go on too long. So far it reminds me , but only a little, of Thursbitch by Alan Garner, which I love.

June 9th: I'm still struggling through this bit, and not sure how much of the story I'm following. Keep skipping pieces and getting annoyed with the syntax. 

June 10th:
I skipped all of that bit - not sure the next section is going to grab me either. Things can only get better - I hope.

September 15th:

I think I shall not return to read the book.

Dominion - CJ Sansom

The book follows members of the British Resistance in an alternate reality where Britain has surrendered to Germany, and is now a satellite state. The prime Minister is Beaverbrook. Churchill heads the Resistance.

As usual with Sansom's books we have strong sympathetic characters: David, a civil servant with marital problems, exacerbated by the accidental death of his two-year-old son; his wife Sarah;Günther Hoth, a German SS officer skilled in hunting down and capturing Jews, also with a broken marriage, and a genuine love for his adult son; Syme, a sycophantic pro-German Special Branch Englishman; Natalia, the Slovakian leader of the resistance cell.  There is a clear mission - to keep a scientist with a secret out of German hands, and arrange his escape to the USA.

Interestingly, at the end of the book Sansom explains his political views - from a conservative family, he became more left-wing.  His particular beef is the growth of nationalism in its many forms, which he considers to be the parent of "monster children: fascism, based on organised worship of the nation and Nazism, which worshipped not just nationality but race."  He fears that it is raising its head once more "in its rawest form: all across Europe, in France, Hungary, Greece, Finland, even Holland, and most worryingly perhaps in Russia, fiercely nationalist, anti-immigrant, and sometimes openly Fascist nationalist parties are significant forces in politics again."

He fears UKIP and the SNP are aspects of this, and lays out his evidence.

But aside from the politics, the book is well-written, and a very good story.

Sam Bourne - Pantheon

details later

The Arm of Coincidence - by Bill James

I read this book because I met the author on one of my Northamptonshire walks.  I’m amazed at how ready people are to share their knowledge and achievements with strangers.  The main character clearly owes at least something to the author, who has worked in agriculture, and created some splendid metal sculptures in Southwick.

This is Henrietta (Moraes), muse and lover of Lucian Freud, and model for Francis Bacon.

 Two sculptures representing the development of agriculture.

Bill James told me he regrets having had the book published by what he later found to be a vanity publisher, and I think that with a little tighter editing in places, this could have found a niche.  I found it online, secondhand.

The tale takes place in Halston, an imaginary village near Southwick, and part of its charm for me was in following the main character along some of the paths in the area, recognizing landmarks and routes.  Other villages are named, and accurately placed and described.

Our hero, Jim Evans, is perhaps a bit too clever to be true.  Adept at photography, operating farm machinery, and driving HGVs, he is also a motorcycle stunt rider and a musician, with very liberal ideas about sex, and he soon makes himself indispensable to almost everyone in the village.

No story is complete without a good villain, and a love story, and as the title tells us, a few good coincidences.

I could have done without some of the technical details about farm machinery and tractors, but no doubt these would appeal to an enthusiast. 

The Ghost - Robert Harris

Another page-turner from Harris - it's the 'Blair' autobiography one.   Makes you wonder how close it gets to the truth - of course Adam Lang ends up assassinated, but . . .

Joanne Harris - The Blue-eyed Boy

Dark parody of the goings on on an online writing site, plus a look into dysfunctional families and parent-child relationships.

The usual brilliant writing, word-play, sensual descriptions and the like.

Tamar - Mal Peet

Just finished this one - a story in two time frames - the present day, from the point of view of the teenage Tamar, who receives a box of clues and coded messages from her grandfather.  He has just committed suicide, but clearly intends her to find the box and solve the mystery.  The other story involves another Tamar, a man who was involved in the Dutch resistance to the Nazis in the 1940s.

Tangled relationships, the unravelling of the story and its consequences for Tamar, her father and her future make this a really absorbing read, and I learned a lot about the realities of World War II in Holland.

The Return - Victoria Hislop

(I finished this book by Nov 24th.)

The way this book starts it could be chick-lit - two friends go to Granada for a holiday, one to forget her latest romance, and the other to escape from her stale marriage for a while.  They go away for a course in dancing - salsa, and later flamenco.   For the first quarter of the book, we get 21st century local colour,  and some hints of why Sonia may be particularly interested in Granada.

Then we get the stories of people who lived through the Civil War and the times of Franco.  Well-written, and hard to put down - ok there may be some implausibilities in the plotlines, but the book gives a real picture of what it must be like to live in a civil war, and under a dictatorship. It left me with the thought that such things can go from feeling quite impossible, to happening before people realise.

It's only within the last decade or so that Spain has tried to come to terms more openly with some of the aftermath of the Civil War, and the Franco regime which followed, with the Law of Historical Memory of 2006-7.  Though that has also involved controversy.

Life:An Exploded Diagram, Mal Peet

Supposedly a Young Adult book.  A coming of age story, about Clem Ackroyd, a working class grammar school boy living in Norfolk,  who falls in love with the daughter of the local landowner. In parallel we follow his development as an artist/ illustrator, and the story of his parents/ grandparents is there as background.

Alongside this the Cuban missile crisis of 1963 threatens to end the world.

I'm still not entirely convinced about the ending, but I read the book at great speed, and never felt it was talking down to a YA audience.

Guernica - by Dave Boling

I recently read Winter in Madrid by C J Sansom, and it re-awakened my interest in the period of the Spanish Civil War and just afterwards.

This book, written by a Chicago journalist married to the descendant of Basque immigrants, brought a lot of local colour and knowledge of the area and its history to life.  The characters are presented in a sort of rural idyll - with their own quirks, such as the seasick fisherman Miguel,  the blustering Justo who has had to bring up his brothers after his mother's death and his father's disintegration, Miren, the magical dancer who wins Miguel's heart, blind Alaia, brought up in the convent, but finding independence, with the help Miren's friendship, the sale of home made soap and by becoming a kind of prostitute with a heart of gold.

Some of the tension comes from knowing that the bombing will happen, and not knowing how it will affect the families involved.

Afterwards we see the characters re-adjusting to life without those who died, and some of them become more involved in the politics of resistance.

I was not so keen on the interwoven threads about the Red Baron  planning the bombing raid, and about Picasso and the painting.

But all in all a very engaging book, with an ending that gives room for hope.

From the New Statesman

Peter HainHeart-rending yet enthralling, Guernica (Picador, £7.99) by Dave Boling is the story of the ordinary residents of Guernica whose lives and community were destroyed in 1937 by Nazi bombing, with the full support of Franco's Fascists. Where Picasso's painting so vividly captured the hellfire of the town's destruction, this book fills in the humanity. The characters, the culture and the landscape are all lovingly described, in direct contrast to the cold and clinical destruction of 1,500 inhabitants of a town that was central to the Basque identity.

Other reviews of this book can be found here
and
here

Winter in Madrid - CJ Sansom

I looked for this a couple of times last week after a friend mentioned Sansom's historical detective stories featuring Shardlake.  I couldn't find it. I wondered if I'd given it away.  Then, as usual, it turned up, just when I'd stopped searching.  So I'm reading it again.

I find myself involved with the characters in the way I used to be when much younger.

I finished it. The ending is sad in several ways, plus an odd twist at the end.   I find Sansom's writing impressive.


Guardian interview with the author

Shelters of Stone - Jean Auel

Good in parts, repetitive in parts - especially the mystical sequences and the song of the Earth's Mother.

I enjoyed the earlier ones, this was ok, but I've read many poor reader reviews of her latest - Land of Painted Caves - and I'm afraid they have put me off buying it.

The Eagle of the Ninth - Rosemary Sutcliffe

Another older children's book, about a Roman legionary who takes it on himself to investigate the fate of his father's legion, the Ninth, and to recover its standard.  He is injured, and although no longer an active soldier, he continues his quest. Along with this the book shows his relationship with various British natives - one of whom is his slave - he sets him free -  and another of whom becomes his wife.

It gave an extra dimension to our visit to the Roman Villa at Rockbourne , Hampshire,  in early May.

Mothers and Daughters - Kate Long

As usual, entertaining, not heavy going, but intelligent and well-written with a good story and dealing with some serious issues along the way.

Does this count as mumlit or even granlit? ;-)  See blog post link for 7th April.