Title:

Author: John Fowles

Published: Pan Books, 1987, pp. 399.  Originally published 1969.

Genre: Historical fiction

Blurb:In this contemporary, Victorian-style novel Charles Smithson, a nineteenth-century gentleman with glimmerings of twentieth-century perceptions, falls in love with enigmatic Sarah Woodruff, who has been jilted by a French lover.  (Goodreads.com)

When, where and why: I think my mother picked this book up for me to take on holiday when we went to Charmouth, just along from Lyme Regis, one May half term.  However, as my primary focus while on holiday was revision for the upcoming exams this book was neglected in favour of Latin verbs endings (although not by choice).  It’s sat on my shelves ever since and I discovered it when I was reorganising some books, an activity I find almost as satisfying as reading them.  This OAP definitely qualifies for book 30/50 for my Books Off the Shelf Challenge.

What I thought: The first thing I have written in my reading journal for The French Lieutenant’s Woman is, “I love this book.  I’ve only read the first few pages and already I’m completely hooked.  I can’t believe I waited to long to read this”.  My initial enthusiasm remained undimmed throughout the whole course of the book and it turned out to be one of my favourite reads of this year.

The French Lieutenant’s Woman at times reads exactly like a Victorian novel; Fowles is able to mimic the style impeccably and I often forgot I was reading a modern piece of writing.  However, the text is peppered with dry observations on the characters, the Victorians or the process of writing a story that come from such a modern perspective that they jolted me out of this false sense of period and made me aware of what the author was doing.  Fowles has a very knowing, self-conscious narratorial voice in these passages which can put some readers off, particularly as they often interrupt the flow of the story.  He does like to draw attention to just how clever he is being, but as I whole-heartedly agree with him it’s very difficult to find this an irritating trait.  In fact, I thought that Fowles observations and reflections on being Victorian, something obviously impossible in contemporary novels, added an extra layer of richness to the text.  He uses the distance and perspective provided by time to make explicit the cultural points of view latent in these Victorian novels and provide commentary on them.  I think it’s great that he doesn’t just write a historical novel butinstead uses a historical style and setting to produce something so lucid and clever.

The story centres around Charles Smithson, who is staying in Lyme Regis visiting his fiancee, Ernestina, prior to their wedding.  There he meets Sarah Woodruff, also known as Tragedy or, less kindly, as the French Lieutenant’s Woman.  As he becomes increasingly fascinated by Sarah he is forced to reexamine his own values as his forthcoming marriage is threatened.  Charles is a thoroughly intriguing central character: although not always likeable, he is so open and honest with himself that it is impossible not to sympathise with him as he struggles with doing what is morally right but socially unacceptable.  At one point Fowles says:

You will see that Charles set his sights high.  Intelligent idlers always have, in order to justify their idleness to their intelligence.  He had, in short, all the Byronic ennui with neither of the Byronic outlets: genius and adultery.  (p. 19)

I got the impression that Fowles rather likes him even though he may not approve of him.  His ‘sinister fondness‘ (p. 17) for spending time in the library, so frowned upon by his uncle, is another trait designed to make him appeal to the reader.

Fowles employs a similar tactic when talking about Sarah and her days at boarding school:

Thus it had come about that she had read far more fiction, and far more poetry, those two sanctuaries of the lonely, than most of her kind.  They served as a substitute for experience.  Without realising it she judged people as much by the standards of Walter Scott and Jane Austen as by any empirically arrived at; seeing those around her as fictional characters, and making poetic judgements on them. (p. 50)

I know I can identify with this statement, and I’m fairly sure it’s designed to make Sarah appeal to the reader (who, it’s reasonable to assume, has probably read a few books before) and makes her relatable rather than aloof, as she initially appears.  I felt I was manipulated into liking her, just as Charles is, while Ernestina on the other hand, the woman with a legitimate claim to affection, is not a sympathetic character at all.  She is constantly shown playing games and acting rather than being sincere, a trait which continues even during moments of what should be genuine emotion.

Considering Fowles’ frequent interruptions of the narrative and drawing attention to the fictionality of the characters, I was surprised at how invested I was in Charles and Sarah and what happened to them.  Shortly before the end of the novel, Fowles observes:

Fiction usually pretends to conform to the reality: the writer puts the conflicting wants in the ring and then describes the fight — but in fact fixes the fight, letting the want he himself favours win.  And we judge writers of fiction both by the skill they show in fixing the fights (in other words, in persuading us that they were not fixed) and by the kind of fighter they fix in favour of: the good one, the tragic one, the evil one, the funny one, and so on.  (p. 348)

This explicitly states that there is no ‘real’ ending in fiction, just the author making things work out in his own way, yet still I cared about what ‘really’ happened.  This year I’ve discovered that it takes a lot for me to forgive an author messing around with the story: it has to have a point and it has to be well executed.  The French Lieutenant’s Woman exhibited both of these qualities and so was a fantastic book from beginning to end.

Where this book goes: I’m definitely keeping this book as it’s one of my favourite books of 2010.  However, my copy has been annotated (with the blindingly obvious, which is annoying, rather than with insightful comments which would be quite interesting) so I’ll be on the lookout for a replacement copy as I prowl the charity shops.  There’s a particularly attractive Vintage version which I’m hoping to spot.

Tea talk: I’ve been on the Lapsang Souchong again, as it’s been so cold recently.  Now that we have heating again (for which I am eternally grateful) I don’t spend my evenings huddled in front of the fire any more, but this tea brings back that lovely smokey smell which I’m missing, surprisingly.

Author: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, trans. Gregory Rabassa

Published: Penguin, 1998, pp. 422.  Originally published 1967

Genre: Latin American fiction

Blurb: One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the magical story of the Buendia family, who love, lie, fight and rule for a century in Macondo, their settlement in the South American jungle.  Part exotic paradise, part nightmare, Macondo is a fantastic world of miracles and mirages where nothing is as it seems.  Its secrets lie hidden for years in an encoded book, and only Aureliano Buendia, the last in the dynasty, can unlock its mysteries and discover the fate of this strange land…

When, where and why: This is yet another book from my charity shop university days when it would seem my eyes were considerably bigger than my reading stomach (plus ca change and all that).  I’ve had it kicking around on the shelves for ages now, so it definitely qualifies for book 28/50 for my Books Off the Shelf Challenge, and finally decided to read it to continue to explore areas of literature which are new to me.

What I thought: When a book is as well known and as widely read as One Hundred Years of Solitude it’s hard to approach it without certain expectations.  In this case, I was anticipating a magical and mysterious story written in beautiful, evocative prose and while I eventually came to enjoy the book it never quite lived up to these expectations.  It’s entirely possible that this was my fault for wanting something out of the book that it just wasn’t, but I found it slow, confusing and, although it had its moments, described in fairly sparse, mundane terms.

The book started out promisingly: I enjoyed the fairytale style of the narrative, as the father trades increasingly large amounts of money and produce with the visiting gypsies for increasingly bizarre and useless items.  Had the book continued in this vein I would probably have enjoyed it far more than I did, but as I read on I realised that I was getting further and further into the book without any idea of where it was going, or if it was going to go anywhere at all.  I found myself getting frustrated with the book as things happened but nothing ever seemed to change: characters would marry and die, wars would take place, time moved on but everything remained the same.  Part of me thinks that this sense of constancy as things change around the Buendia family and they remain unaffected was what Marquez was aiming for (the novel is, after all, called One Hundred Years of Solitude) and that I didn’t get it, but nonetheless I found this made the first two thirds of the novel feel stagnant and it wasn’t something I enjoyed.

Part of the problem is that nearly every male character in the novel is called either Jose Arcadio or Aureliano (or possibly, just for a bit of exciting variety, some variation thereon), making it very difficult to tell them all apart.  At one point, the author refers to ‘several of the Aurelianos’ (p. 222), and if even he can’t keep them all straight there’s no hope for the reader.  This issue was compounded by the fact that none of them had any distinctive characteristics and so, because they all blurred together, it was hard to get to know any of them.  Again, this may have been a deliberate choice on the part of the writer to make the Buendia family feel separated from everyone else including the reader, in which case it was very effective, but that doesn’t mean that I enjoyed the effect.  This was combined with the vast majority of events being reported to the reader rather than experienced directly, resulting in everything feeling a bit vague.  Being told about apparently insignificant events which happen to characters you neither know nor care for does not an engaging read make.

I don’t know whether it was because the writing improved, or I finally got into the peculiar rhythm of the book, or I just gave up and stopped caring that it was so odd, but I found the final third of the book to be much better than all that had come before and I think this was because the episodes of this section felt more complete and also centred around the female characters, who are much more distinct that the men.  I really enjoyed reading about Remedios the Beauty and her sudden flight, Ursula and her clever ways of coping with growing old and losing her sight, Amaranta’s deal with death as she sews her own shroud, and Meme and her love affair accompanied by yellow butterflies.  Of course, it was still decidedly odd but, like the initial few pages, it was an oddness with a fairytale logic to it that somehow made sense.  However, this section of the book also yielded the biggest eyebrow-raise and snort of laughter in the whole novel, courtesy of this sentence:

…she would play with Aureliano’s portentous creature as if it were a doll and would paint clown’s eyes on it with her lipstick and give it a Turk’s moustace with her eyebrow pencil, and would put on organzi bowties and little tinfoil hats.  (p. 411)

Need I say more?  I’m sorry, I just had to share that piece of awfulness.

In spite of the writing generally not living up to my expectations, there were moments when it was beautiful and insightful.  I thought the tongue-in-cheek explanation of the difference between Conservatives and Liberals was very well done, but possibly my favourite passage describes Pilar Ternera:

Pilar Ternera had lost the trail of all hope.  Her laugh had taken on the tones of an organ, her breasts had succumbed to the tedium of endless caressing, her stomach and her thighs had been the victims of her irrevocable fate as a shared woman, but her heart grew old without bitterness.  (p. 156)

On the whole though, this book didn’t work for me.  I enjoyed parts of the end section, but found the greater part of One Hundred Years of Solitude unappealingly vague.  It is considered by many to be a great work of literature though, so I’m perfectly willing to accept that the fault is probably with me rather than the book.

Where this book goes: This book is staying put for now.  I have Love in the Time of Cholera by Marquez on my bookshelf and I think I’ll give that one a try in the new year to give him a second chance.  If that one is equally disappointing though, both will be off to BookMooch.

Tea talk: As I was reading a Latin American book I thought that now would be the time to try some Latin American tea, so out came the Bolivian Chaimate Esmeraldo from Char in Winchester.  I’ve loved all of their teas that I’ve tried so far, so I suppose it was only a matter of time before one came along that broke that trend and this was it.  I thought it tasted oddly like the fried crispy seaweed you get in Chinese restaurants, and while I enjoy that taste with fried rice and shredded duck I am less fond of it in a cup of tea.

Title:

Author: Anthony Burgess

Published: William Heinemann Ltd. for the Independent’s Banned Books series, 2007, pp. 158

Genre: Dystopian fiction

Blurb: It’s the near future.  In an unnamed city (London?  Berlin?  Prague?) Alex and his teenage droogs are on the prowl, spending their evenings looking for ultra-violence, rape, even murder.  There’s a price to be paid, though, when Alex is jailed and subjected to the chilling Ludovico Technique that will turn him into a good citizen.  But is it morally right to deprive someone of his capacity for evil?

Told with breathtaking economy, written in the bravura Anglo-Russian slang called Nadsat, Anthony Burgess’ dazzling study of violence and human choice is as fresh and relevant today as when it first appeared in 1962.

Where, when and why: I got this book free with the Independent (or technically, I got the Independent free with this book as that’s the only reason I bought the paper) when they were promoting their Banned Books series back in 2007.  This book has been on the shelf for far too long and I got the feeling that it’s the type of book that would do nasty, violent things to me if I didn’t obey its wishes and read it right now.  It also counts towards my Books off the Shelf Challenge

What I thought: When I started this book, I thought I was going to hate it, neither casual violence nor slang ever having held any appeal for me.  By the time I finished it, I still didn’t like it, but I could appreciate it.  What Anthony Burgess does in this novella is clever and insightful and, like my last read, it is a book with an Idea.  It is impossible to discuss the book and the Idea without giving some of the plot away though, so you have been warned.

The Idea in A Clockwork Orange is about the problem of free will.  The Ludovico Technique takes away Alex’s ability to react in a violent or negative manner towards anyone.  Even contemplating the hideous acts in which he would happily engage at the beginning of the story cause him to be physically sick.  The process and the results are undeniably barbaric and inhumane, and impossible to support.  It reminded me a little of Brave New World in that what should be an ideal situation in which everyone is happy and no one causes harm appears to the reader as a dystopia because there is no free will.  It’s the same reason that readers will always get behind Satan in Paradise Lost: we will always choose the right to be wrong and unhappy and violent over not having the freedom to choose.

What puts the reader in so awkward a position in this book is that Alex is so undeniably evil prior to the Ludovico Technique; there are no mitigating factors to any of his actions.  He has both parents and a stable home life, so can’t claim the usual get out clause of an unhappy childhood.  He doesn’t steal because he needs the money — in fact, Burgess explicitly states that Alex and his gang deliberately spend their money to give them an excuse to go and rob a shop — he does it because he enjoys it.  Perhaps the most chilling moment in the book is when Alex admits simply:

But what I do I do because I like to do (p. 38)

I found myself wincing whenever he encountered another character because I knew something awful was going to happen.  As the prison chaplain debates to himself:

What does God want?  Does God want Goodness or the choice of goodness?  Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in some way better than a man who has the good imposed upon him? (p. 81)

That is the question this book asks, and there is no comfortable answer.

Moving on to less philosophical musings, I want to address the two things that I thought I would dislike about A Clockwork Orange: the slang and the violence.  Much of the book is written in nadsat, an English-Russian hybrid slang language.  My copy of the book had a handy glossary in the back and for the first page I looked up every single word.  However, I very quickly found that the language was perfectly understandable from context and repetition, and I very rarely needed to refer to the word list.  Far from being a distraction, it added to the sense of Alex’s world and I enjoyed its effect.  The violence was more of an issue, and is the main reason why I still don’t like this book in spite of its cleverness.  Yet there wasn’t nearly as much as I was expecting, nor was it very graphic.  In fact, the violence was appropriate and effective.  Yes, it is horrible, particularly when it is described so casually and Alex and his gang take such glee in it, but Burgess has to show how unpleasant Alex is in order for the Ludovico Technique to be an effective plot device.

Ignore any prejudices you may have about this book and you will find that, underneath the expectations of slang and violence, there is an intelligent story with a surprisingly erudite and expressive anti-hero.

Where this book goes: When I started this book, I felt sure I would be getting rid of it as soon as I was done with it.  However, I think I’m going to keep it on my shelves even though I found it quite unpleasant, because it has some interesting things to say and it isn’t the torture porn book I had been expecting.  I’m pretty sure that nothing could ever persuade me to watch the Stanley Kubrick film adaptation though.

Tea talk: After reading this book I felt I needed a pot of real strong horrorshow chai (p. 35) as Alex puts it, so I counteracted the disconcerting nature of this book with a reassuring pot of English Breakfast tea.  This particular packet of leaves was brought for me by some friends when they went to Clifford’s Tower in York.  I’m not sure what that has to do with tea either, but there you go.

Title:

Author: Gerald Durrell

Published: Fontana, 1971, pp. 220

Genre: Autobiographical wildlife fiction

Blurb: All Gerald Durrell’s books are extremely enjoyable.  My Family and Other Animals is the best, spun from his family’s five-year sojourn, before thewar, when he was in his early teens on Corfu.  In Birds, Beasts and Relatives, returning to the same place, he has done it again…  He effortlessly immerses us in the glittering bays and sun-shined olive groves, teeming with weird astonishments.

Where, when and why: This book was another find from the Winchester Cathedral book stall earlier this month.  I picked it up because I recently read Gerald Durrell’s A Zoo in My Luggage and it reminded me how much I enjoy his writing.  Talking about him when reviewing Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day made me decide to reach for this book now.

What I thought: There are few writers who are as skilled at relating an anecdote as Gerald Durrell.  His writing has a way of capturing the people, animals and situations that he encounters perfectly; reading this book was almost as good as being in Corfu with Durrell and his madcap family.  Reading about the family again was a welcome return after their absense in A Zoo in My Luggage.  As the people that Gerals Durrell knows best, they all have well-developed and entertaining personae within the book and are funny and embarrassing in the way that only family can be.  Seeing them again was a bit like revisiting old friends and I thoroughly enjoyed laughing with them at their own follies.

As always with Gerald Durrell’s writing, the book was a careful balance of human drama and encounters with local wildlife, containing just enough detail to be interesting without being too scientific.  These books are, after all, primarily fun.  However, as excellent as Durrell’s grasp of the anecdote is, they aren’t very well strung together in this book.  As it contains stories which were left out of My Family and Other Animals rather than being a continuation of the novel, there are large time gaps between the events which are related and they are presented in a random order without any thematic or chronological links.  I still enjoyed this book and I would recommend it to anyone else, but I would have preferred the book to have a bit more structure.

Where this book goes: This book joins my other Gerald Durrells on my shelves as they are all perfect quick, light reads for bad days.

Tea talk: This book was accompanied by honeybush tea from Whittards.  I don’t put sugar or milk in my tea, so I tend to favour leaves or blends which are naturally sweet and this one did not disappoint.  Definitely a good tea to perk me up on a chilly, rainy summer day.

This book was a quick read but an enjoyable one, and is far more than a typical school story. There was a slightly sinister edge to the story at times, as Miss Jean Brodie attempts to direct the thoughts and actions of her ‘set’ of girls to transform them into the ‘creme de la creme’, but as the book progresses we see her assertion ‘Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life’ both develop and fail spectacularly. The main narrative following the Brodie set at school is cleverly interwoven with brief exerpts from the girls’ futures, allowing the reader to see how the girls will develop and transform through the influence of their teacher.

Throughout the book, the narrative style is witty and humorous, and statements are written in such a way as to allow the reader to tell immediately whether they are from the perspective of the girls or the teacher. A great deal of this reminded me of my own experiences at the girls’ school I attended, and so I often found myself smiling as I recognised things that we did or thought. I can see how this book would make an excellent film, and I’ll definitely look out for it.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark.  Published by Penguin, 1973, pp. 128.  Originally published in 1961.

N.B. This is an old review written in 2010 and posted on Goodreads and LibraryThing before I started keeping track of all the books I read here at Old English Rose Reads.  I’ve decided to keep copies here so that this remains a complete record of my reading since I started reviewing books for my own pleasure.