The Spinster Book - Myrtle Reed

Image source, and online text

There has been a bit of a theme on SiaB this year, hasn't there?  Lots of books for, and about, unmarried women - because of the research I've been doing.  You'll be hearing more about metamorphosis and talking animals later in the year, so get ready for that... Anyway, The Spinster Book by Myrtle Reed is the earliest of the books I've read this year - published, as it was, in 1901.  Myrtle Reed was only my age (26) which is perhaps too young to be penning anything with 'spinster' in the title - and, indeed, she never became an old spinster, or an old anything, as she committed suicide when she was 36.  I learnt all this after reading the book; it would, perhaps, have coloured my view of what is a witty and exuberant examination of men, women, and marriage.

Quite why it is called The Spinster Book I'm not sure, unless it is intended to act as a guide for the uninitiated.  It certainly doesn't linger on the single state for long - instead, leaping headfirst into a discussion about men.  This was perhaps the most openly satirical chapter - if I had read some of the others first, I might have thought Reed serious (if misguided) for 1901 is a long time ago, and her 'advice' might well have been current.  I couldn't tell whether the beautiful lay-out of the book, with bordered margins and notes at the side to tell you the main topic of the page (none of which, I note, is available in the free ebook edition - just sayin') was itself part of the satire, or simply a throwback to design which was not, in 1901, particularly distant.  But nobody could read this and imagine Reed's tongue to be anywhere but in her cheek:

How shall a girl acquire her knowledge of the phenomena of affection, if men are not willing to be questioned on the subject?  What is more natural than to seek wisdom from the man a girl has just refused to marry?  Why should she not ask if he has ever loved before, how long he has loved her, if he were not surprised when he found it out, and how he feels in her presence? 

Yet a sensitive spinster is repeatedly astonished at finding her lover transformed into a friend, without other provocation than this.  He accuses her of being "a heartless coquette," of having "led him on," - whatever that may mean, - and he does not care to have her for his sister, or even for his friend.

The Spinster Book is something akin to a satirical exploration of men, women, and love - not really in the style of an advisory guide, but closer to natural history.  Reed writes of men and women as though she were neither, and merely watching them at an amused, or concerned, distance.  She is full of sage, simple advice:

In order to be happy, a woman needs only a good digestion, a satisfatory complexion, and a lover.  The first requirement being met, the second is not hard to obtain, and the third follows as a matter of course.

And who can blame her if the contemplation of mankind in the throes of romance makes her somewhat cynical?

The average love letter is sufficient to make a sensitive spinster weep, unless she herself is in love and the letter be addressed to her.  The first stage of the tender passion renders a man careless as to his punctuation, the second seriously affects his spelling, and in the last period of the malady, his grammar develops locomotor ataxia.  The single blessedness of school-teachers is largely to be attributed to this cause.

Although Reed is being tongue-in-cheek throughout, The Spinster Book is still interesting as a window on society in the early 1900s.  True, affections and engagements were probably not bestowed and withdrawn quite in the manner Reed suggests, but it is taken as read that a man will barely know a woman before he proposes, and that a woman ought to turn down a few men before she settles upon one (in contrast to the post-WW1 supposed mentality of grabbing any man one can.)  Cynicism about marriage is a trope of comic writing which has been around since Chaucer's Wife of Bath, and doubtless before, but through this cynicism one can always discern a portrait of contemporaneous marriage and relationships - through a glass darkly, but it's there.  Failing that, The Spinster Book - though not satire at its most sophisticated or thorough - is still good for a giggle.

(As usual, clicking on the sketch will give you a larger, more readable, image... enjoy!)

The Spinster Book
Lesson No.1: Get lots of cats.
Lesson No.2: errr...

Hearing Marilynne Robinson

I mentioned on Twitter a while ago that I'd attended a talk by Marilynne Robinson at Blackwell's (in Oxford) and promised to write about it.  And now, finally, I am!  I've waited for too long to write this, so I'm having to rely on my dodgy memory...

Last year I did hear Marilynne Robinson give a lecture, and wrote about how star-struck I was then (and you also told me all the exciting authors you'd met).  Back then she spoke about philosophy and politics, and I didn't understand the title of the lecture let alone anything that followed.  So it was lovely to hear her give readings from her latest collection of essays, When I Was A Child I Read Books, as well as my beloved Gilead, and then answer questions from the floor.

Oh, but it was wonderful!

She reads undramatically - calmly, sensibly, perhaps.  If I call hers a flat voice, then please don't read that as a criticism - somehow it works, and there is a slight rise and fall at the end of each sentence, which prevents it from becoming monotonous.  It is exactly right for the unsensational, intelligent prose which Marilynne Robinson writes, and Gilead would have been ruined in an overly-expressive reading.

Afterwards there were questions.  When she is talking spontaneously, rather than from a prepared lecture (a different category, of course, from a reading), she is warm and witty and so very interesting.  There were a few questions at the previous talk, and I remember wishing that she'd done more of that - so the event last week was perfect for me.  Even though Robinson was still talking about theology and philosophy, alongside her own experience as a novelist, I found it easier to understand.  I didn't make notes, but I'll try to remember some of it... She spoke eloquently and passionately about the false divide set up between science and religion, and the very reductive models of both which are used in media debates: she is almost as passionate about the wonderful discoveries of science as she is about theology.  And in philosophical discussions, she said something I thought very wise, in response to a question about sorrow.  (I was a bit confused for a moment, misremembering that a baby in Gilead had been called Sorrow, pace Tess of the D'Ubervilles.)  Robinson inveighed against the misdiagnosis and over-diagnosis by doctors, arguing that sorrow is a valid part of human, and just not medical, experience.  (Sorrow, of course, is far from being the same thing as depression.)

But this is a book blog, and I shouldn't be getting too out of my depth.  Hearing Robinson speak about writing Gilead was overwhelmingly wonderful - although she spoke about Home and Housekeeping too, it was Gilead which got by far the most attention (thankfully for me, since it is still the only one I've read.)

What most interested me was the development of the character John Ames - or, rather, the lack of development.  Robinson said that one day his voice simply came into her head, more or less fully-formed.  Her comment was that, though she wasn't surprised that the character was a Christian in Iowa, it was rather more surprising that he was a man who loved baseball...

Incidentally, I know nothing about American geography, nor the stereotypes of these regions.  I didn't know where Iowa was (indeed, the only state I know the location of is New Jersey, and that's only because a friend at school almost moved there.)  In her reading from When I Was A Child I Read Books, Robinson said ‘I find that the hardest work is to convince the world – in fact it may be impossible – is to persuade Easterners that growing up in the West is not intellectually crippling.’  A student newspaper (linked below) mentioned that 'turning the "middle West" into great literature may seem like an impossible task', which strikes me as strange.  I can't imagine any location in Britain being considered ill-fitting for great literature - surely the location a book is set has absolutely nothing to do with its literary merit?  I'd love to hear what Americans think of this debate...

My memory is terrible.  I don't seem able to recall anything else she said about Gilead, even though I know it was substantial.  Apparently Semi-Fictional was also there, so you can read her report, or you can read what the Cherwell student newspaper had to say.  (I was once a section editor on the rival student newspaper, OxStu, but they don't seem to have written about it.)

I'll finish with one of the funniest moments of what was often a funny evening:

"This girl is wondering why I haven't published any poetry.  That's because she hasn't read my poetry!  I would if I could."

Cover Story: How My Book Got Its Face

by Melanie Thorne

I'm a sucker for pretty book covers. I always have been. As a kid in libraries, I’d scan the shelves for anything that caught my eye. I picked up Twilight in a bookstore knowing nothing about it other than it was a vampire story—I fell in love with vampires in 6th grade—and that the cover was beautiful. The striking red of the apple against the stark white of the cupped hands and angled forearms, the black background and silver title sold me in about two seconds. I didn’t love the book and didn’t read any of the sequels, but every time I pull Twilight out to get rid of it, I end up admiring the cover like a work of art and put it back on my shelf. 

My bookcases are filled with pretty books. I mean, all books are beautiful, but those with pretty faces as well as words are likely to go far in our visual culture. It may not be fair, but it’s true: people judge books by their covers all the time. So we authors cross our fingers that we’ll get a good one, because the thing is, we don’t have much control over the cover.

When I sold my novel, it was a Word document on my computer; a manuscript I hadn’t printed out in its entirety for years. It wasn’t yet a physical object, or rather its physicality was blank. When I pictured my book as a thing, it looked like a pile of papers, a faceless body of words.

Then one day, an image magically appeared in my email inbox. No one had told me exactly when I’d see my cover, or what it might look like. No one had asked me for any ideas or input, though I suppose, if I’d had strong opinions about my vision, I would have said so. I know other authors who sent photos or drawings, or other covers they loved. I did none of that and yet there it was as an attachment from my editor. I held my breath as I waited for it to load. Suddenly, my book was looking back at me.

I didn’t immediately fall in love. At first, I didn’t know what I thought. How do you react to finally seeing the face of a being you know so intimately? My book and I were like one of those couples who meet online or through the paper and write to each other and talk on the phone for months, revealing every detail about themselves without having seen any photos, the internal so familiar and the external only imagined. A face-to-face encounter changes the whole relationship in a second.

Generally, an author is shown a cover from the designer. She then has three options: reject, accept, or request changes. Of course, there are always those horror stories of authors who had no say at all and hated their covers, but I have also heard of authors going through three or five versions to find one that’s exactly right. For good reason—a book’s cover is how it presents itself to the world. It’s important. Like you’d choose an outfit based on your activity, your cover should fit your audience, should give a sense of the book’s mood, should make people want to pick it up and hold it in their hands.

It’s a partnership, working with a publisher, so you may not get exactly what you envisioned all those years as you built a relationship with your book. And some authors have told me that was a good thing: that the design their publisher presented was so much better that what they’d asked for; better than they’d imagined. The designers are, after all, designers. Try to be open-minded.

When you do see her face for the first time, it’s less complicated than meeting your internet boyfriend in person because, unlike his, the book's face isn't permanent. You can change it. If you hate your cover or you really feel that something isn’t working, speak up! Be polite and respectful, but say something. Your cover is what everyone will see, what your book will wear out in the world, her shining face. It should be something that feels right for her, and for you.

Isn't she pretty?

I know I was lucky with my cover. After the initial shock wore off, I decided I liked it. I really liked it. I asked for a few changes—small adjustments to colors, lightening the girls’ hair which was originally black and my characters are blond—and now I’m head over heels in love with it. I love the colors and the font and the ragged edges. I love the interesting composition, eye-catching photo, the feeling of protectiveness between the two girls, and their vulnerability. It captures the "tough and tender" tone of Hand Me Down perfectly. Now, I can’t imagine my book without this beautiful face.

Find out more about Hand Me Down at www.melaniethorne.com

Five From The Archive (no.1)

Whilst I was away from blogging, I came up with a fun idea (which you're welcome to borrow, if you like it)...  One of the anomalies I've noticed about blogging is that we all put a lot of time and effort into reviews - creating really great, extensive resources about incredible books - and yet these reviews are only likely to be read for a week or so, and then disappear into the hazy mists of the blog archive.  I thought it would be fun, and maybe useful, to highlight and group past books.

Since I've now celebrated my fifth blogging anniversary, I'm going to start an ongoing series Five From The Archive, where I post excerpts and links to five reviews from my past five years, grouped in some way.  That might be something obvious -  like 'books in translation' - or something a bit wackier.  And then I'll ask you to contribute your own suggestions.  I'm even hoping to post a (new) relevant sketch with each one - but you know how slack I get at that - kicking off with one of me and Colin.

They'll be appearing on Wednesdays, but probably not every week.

I'll start with a very Stuck-in-a-Book topic...  


Five Books Featuring Twins or Doubles

1.) Christopher and Columbus (1919) by Elizabeth von Arnim

In short: Half-German/half-American twins are exiled to America during the war.  They meet a friendly young American man on the boat, and the three embark on rather mad travels.  Somehow both wickedly cynical and totally heart-warming.

From the review: "The most delicious thing about this novel (and it is a very delicious novel) is undoubtedly the twins' dialogue.  It's such a delight to read.  [...] They both have such a captivatingly unusual outlook on life.  Their logic swirls in circles which dizzy the listener; their conversations would feel at home at the Mad Hatter's Tea Party - and yet they are lovely, kind, fundamentally good people - and without being remotely irritating."

2.) The Icarus Girl (2005) by Helen Oyeyemi

In short: Introverted eight-year-old Jessamy meets TillyTilly, seemingly her double, whilst in her mother's native Nigeria.  Their friendship grows gradually more unsettling...

From the review: "What starts as a novel about loneliness and isolation becomes infused with issues of obsession, possession, power and, most sophisticatedly, doubleness."

3.) Alva & Irva (2003) by Edward Carey

In short: One twin helps battle the other's agoraphobia, even as their bond is challenged, by building a scale replica of their town through plasticine - and it's all presented as a travel guide.  Surreally brilliant, and surprisingly moving.

From the review: "It is a novel filled with grotesque characters (in the sense of exaggerated and strange) - the father who is obsessed with stamps, for example. The novel is actually, in many ways, about obsession - whether with objects or people or tasks."

4.) A Lifetime Burning (2006) by Linda Gillard

In short: A compelling, involving novel about the dramas and conflicts within a tempestuous family - including twins whose relationship is far from normal.  Sadly my review was far too brief - I must re-read!

From the review: "Though the novel jumps all over the place, I never found it confusing - rather a path towards illumination and comprehension of the characters, understanding (rather than sanctioning) the way they act. Linda Gillard writes with lyrical intensity."

5.) Identical Strangers (2007) by Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein

In short: An autobiographical account of twin sisters only meeting at age 35 - and how they cope with this shift in their lives, and their different needs and responses.

From the review: "We follow Paula and Elyse through a couple of years - the joy, the excitement, the bickering, the discovering of their extraordinary relationship. [...] A fascinating topic, well told by engaging, honest people experiencing a rollercoaster of events."


Over to you!

Which title (or titles) would you add for this category?  Let me know!

Spinster of this Parish - W.B. Maxwell

I'm back!  Did you miss me?  I suspect a lot of people barely noticed, since I wasn't away for all that long - but I usually try to post at least five times a week, so it felt like a lengthy holiday for me.  Sometimes a break is needed to keep blogging fresh for me - and my week-and-a-bit was enough to get me raring for more.  Let's kick things off with a review to fill the 1922 slot on A Century of Books, eh?

It was in this article by Sarah Waters (an introduction to Sylvia Townsend Warner's Lolly Willowes) that I first heard about Spinster of this Parish by W.B. Maxwell.  (A William, it turns out, but not that William Maxwell.)  It was only mentioned in passing, alongside F.M. Mayor's The Rector's Daughter (which sadly underwhelmed me) but it was enough to pique my interest.  Luckily Oxford library has a copy in its store, and eventually I got around to reading it.  It's rather extraordinary.

The action kicks off in 1920, with Mildred Parker (age 25) visiting 'old maid' Miss Emmeline Verinder (age 50) in the hopes of receiving some advice.  Mildred is 'that mixture of shrewdness and innocence which makes the typical modern girl seem at once so shallow and so baffling.'  She has fallen in love with a man of whom her parents do not approve - and is bewailing this state to Miss Verinder when she stops suddenly, and suggests that Mildred might not be able to help her, as she has never experienced 'the passions'...

Rewind to 1895, and Emmeline's youth.  We're still in the third person, so it's not entirely Emmeline Verinder's perspective, but she is certainly taking centre stage.  She is engaging in the late-Victorian social whirl, when she happens to meet celebrated explorer Anthony Dyke... and yes, dear reader, Emmeline is smitten.

How had he captivated her?  She did not know.  Was it only because he was the incarnate antithesis of Kensington; because he was individual, unlike the things on either side of him, not arranged on any pattern, not dull, monotonous, or flat; a thing alive in a place where all else was sleeping or dead?  Neither then nor at any future time did she attempt mentally to differentiate between the impression he had made upon her as himself all complete, with the dark hair, the penetrating but impenetrable eyes, the record, the fame, and the impression she might have received if any of these attributes had been taken away from him.  Say, if he had been an unknown Mr. Tomkins instead of a known Mr. Dyke.  Absurd.  The man and the name were one. [...] He was Anthony Dyke.  He was her lord, her prince, her lover.

In other words, he is about equal measures Tarzan and Mr. Rochester.  Indeed, he borrows more than a penetrating stare from the world's most beloved bigamist - for Dyke [er, SPOILERS!], like Rochester, has a madwoman in the attic.  Like poor Rochester (for we can't our brooding heroes being too cruel, can we?) Dyke was tricked into marrying a madwoman (variety of mental illness not mentioned) who is now not, actually, in an attic but in an asylum.

This is where things start to get a bit daring.  Dyke is rather more honest than Rochester, and tells Emmeline about his wife.  She, in turn, decides that their love is more important than society's morals and her parents' approval - and becomes, as it were, his mistress.  This was pretty daring for the time, wasn't it?  Shunned by her parents (although, to do Maxwell justice, Mr. Verinder 'was not in any respects the conventional old-fashioned father that lingered in the comic literature of the period') Emmeline takes her maid Louisa and lives elsewhere.

Being an explorer, Dyke must explore - and he's high-tailing it off to South America.  They have rather a rushed emotional goodbye and he sets sail... only... wait... Emmeline has sneakily crept onboard!

This, blog-readers, is where everything goes mad.

The next section of the novel takes place in South America - and I highly doubt that Maxwell had ever gone nearer to it than Land's End.  They go emerald-hunting, get lost in caves, involved in duels... it's insane, and entirely different from the novel I was expecting.  Had I seen the cover (below) then I might have been better prepared for the excesses of Spinster of this Parish, which were in no way betrayed by the novel's title.

The Sheik by Ethel M. Hull was published in 1919, and was wildly popular into the 1920s - although Spinster of this Parish involves none of the disturbing rape fantasies of The Sheik, it's clear that Maxwell (and many others) were influenced by the popularity for exoticism.  I, however, found this section rather tedious, and flicked through it...

Finally we are back in English society - Emmeline grows gradually less shunned, and Dyke's adventures continue abroad without her.  He is determined to succeed in his quest to get to the South Pole... will he survive or not?  Maxwell has rather calmed down by now, and Dyke's activities take place off stage, thankfully - instead, we see the changing views of upper-class society, and Emmeline's unwavering loyalty to her absent lover.

Picture source

Ah, yes, their love.  I got a bit tired of that.  He is physically perfect and unimaginably manly; she is womanfully patient and devotedly passionate.  Hmm.  Not the most original of pairings.  A lot made sense to me when I found out that W.B. Maxwell is the son of none other than Mary Elizabeth Braddon - of Lady Audley's Secret fame.  He certainly inherited her love of sensation romance literature (did I mention the blackmail plot that's thrown in?)

And yet - I enjoyed an awful lot of it.  Maxwell's writing is, if not exceptional, consistently good.  He is quite witty throughout, and certainly writes better than most of the authors who would warrant a similar dustjacket image.  When we were in England, looking at the workings of society, it was very much my cup of tea - even if the characters were a little too good to be true.  At one point I even thought of suggesting it to Persephone Books.  But... I couldn't get past the insane section in the middle.  The bizarre trip through South America, duels-n-all, is what will make Spinster of this Parish so memorable - but also that which lets down the overall writing, and makes it feel rather silly.

So, a strange book with which to make me blog return!  If nothing else, it has taught be that one must not only forswear to judge a book by its cover - similar caution must be taken as regards a book's title.

The Next One

photo credit: woodsboard's Flickr photostream

By Julie Kibler

It's been a little over eight months since I sold Calling Me Home to St. Martin's Press, and it's about eight months until publication. (And in fact, it's only THREE months until publication in Germany!) Some days I find it hard to believe how quickly this time passed, yet I expect the next eight months will really race by.

And still, life goes on.

Things I found to be true before I sold the book, I still find to be true in all the months since. The kids still fight. The house still doesn't clean itself. My husband and I still get cranky with each other. The dogs … well, they're still stinky, ornery dogs.

And I still find myself terrified I'll never write a novel.

Wait, you say. You just sold a novel. You obviously wrote one.

It's true. I wrote well over 100,000 words on Calling Me Home to eventually cull it down to the 103K or so submitted first to agents, then editors. And now, after months of official edits and copy edits, the current incarnation is slowly making its way through the production process toward official publication.

In fact, I wrote another full manuscript before Calling Me Home. And most of one and parts of a few others before that.

But here I am again, back in the driver's seat. You'd think I'd be able to jump right in, take one of the ideas that has been floating around in the brain and pin it down, choose the right point of view character or characters, the perfect setting, the appropriate tense, and get right on it. That I would, to borrow an overused phrase, just do it.

But guess what? It isn't easy yet. If most of the authors I know are correct, it may never be easy. I feel a bit like I'm wandering in the wilderness and I'm trying to embrace it.

I suspect each and every novel I write will take on a life of its own, which is a good thing, but also means the process won't ever look exactly the same. What worked last time may be worthless this time. Or parts of the process may work just fine, but I may look at others and think, How on earth did I ever think it was a good idea to do it like that?

I suspect that the voices of self-doubt always waiting, right below the surface, will pop their silly heads up again and again, to say with smirks that there's no way I can write a whole book, there's no way anyone will be interested in what I have to say, there's no way I can get away with this idea … there's no way … there's no way …

I suspect there will be a few false starts, a few dead ends.

And I suspect that the new novel waiting to be told will reveal itself in new and surprising ways I never expected.

And so I listen and wait and dream and think …

I think I hear it. I think I see it. I think I smell it and taste it and feel it. I think it could work.

And I pray that the idea occupying most of the creative space in my mind today is the one. 

Again.

This post appeared originally May 16, 2012, on Julie's group blog, What Women Write. 

Edits, Edits, and More Edits!

By Erin Cashman

After six years and three manuscripts, I finally found an agent and an editor and sold my novel, The Exceptionals. I thought I’d polish the manuscript a bit, and it would soon be in stores.

Boy, was I wrong! Now came the editing. I edited, and edited, and then I edited some more. I cut words, scenes and whole characters! My editor did love my dialogue, which was funny to me, because I used to have a terrible time crafting dialogue. I want all my characters to speak beautiful, proper English. Unfortunately, people do not speak like that. To fix that problem, I always read my dialogue out loud several times before I’m satisfied with it. Now I’m told dialogue is one of my strengths. 

As I poured over my editor's notes, I saw that she scribbled in several places: your writing is so fresh -- you can do better than this, or too cliché.  Fixing that problem was much harder than I thought it would be.

Since much of my book takes place in the woods, I went outside with my pen and notebook, and like my protagonist, Claire, sat down on a rock and observed what I saw, heard and smelled. The colors and sounds were different than what I had thought.  In the morning I jotted down what the sunrise looked like (my children get up much too early for school!). I was surprised to discover that in winter months I often saw vibrant bands of violet at the horizon - rarely did I see the pinks and oranges I saw in my mind’s eye.  I paid attention to storms and the way the clouds moved. Every observation went in my notebook.

And then I worked on avoiding the same old tired expressions. Once I did that, I started to notice how other authors described things.  Now, whenever I read a book, I have my green 3 ring binder handy. As I come across a phrase or description that is beautiful or interesting, I stop and try to come up with my own unique way to express it – which I scribble down. When I’m writing – and I use it even more often during re-writes -- I have my notebook with me, and I reference it often.  

This system also works for descriptive words -- I jot down adjectives and verbs I like. In the back of the notebook I have a few pages devoted just to action verbs. How many times can I write ran, darted, bolted. . . ? But now I can quickly look and find thundered, side-stepped, squeezed, pranced, trundled along . . .

Through the long process from manuscript to the birth of the book, I realized that most authors have strengths and weaknesses. I’m so thankful that my editor showed me some of my weaknesses, because as I worked on correcting them, I became a much better writer.

Back next week...

Sorry to be absent for a while - since I signed off my last post with a cold, you might think that I'm suffering in some Swiss sanatorium (a la Katherine Mansfield) but... no, I just went away from blogging for a couple of days, and then decided that it would be nice to have a few more too.  So, I'll be back next week - hope you're all having lovely weeks!

Writing the Reader's Guide

by Priscille Sibley

I’m still in the pre-publication phase of this amazing endeavor. My substantive edits are done and accepted. As I write this, my copy edits are due to arrive within the next week. And I’m doing all the little last doodads: writing the dedication, acknowledgements, author picture – and my wonderful editor asked if I wanted to include a Reader’s Guide.

Yes, I said immediately because everyone is saying my novel is book club fiction. It stands to reason that a reader’s guide should accompany it to foster discussion.

My book has a few divisive issues floating around in it. (Isn’t there supposed to be conflict?) So I want  readers to question what is the right thing to do. I want them to wonder what they would do if they were in my protagonist’s situation.

And frankly, although my protagonist has a definite position, he struggles with his choice. And honestly I don’t know if he makes the “right” one.  Hardly any of his friends or family agree with him. I do hope though that he will make a solid enough case that a reader will go along with him on the ride.

So yes, I wanted to write a reader’s guide.

What to include? Let me preface this answer by saying it is not yet done. 

• Questions. Right now I have fourteen. One of my questions is: Elle says women are stronger because they can discuss their sadness and men have to mask their pain and insecurities. Do you think that’s true?
•  A paragraph or two about what prompted me to write about this topic.
• Supplemental material. There’s the adage about writing what you know. But there is also research. I had to learn things about law, medicine, the Perseid meteor showers, gardening, etc. As of now, I have included a few internet links if anyone wanted to learn more.
• Photographs from archives. I did not do this but I just picked up The Secrets of Mary Bowser by Lois Leveen. It is a historical novel based on the true story of a Civil War era woman who was born into slavery freed. She worked as a spy in the Confederate White House. Leveen includes pictures of some of the real people and places.
• Recipes. In some novels, food takes a place in the story and what the characters eat whet the appetites of readers. After all, we’re supposed to put all the senses on the page, right? How about putting some of those into the reader’s guide?
• Someone this weekend was telling me the version of The Da Vinci Code she read included photographs of the artwork mentioned.  
• Maps.
• Diagrams.
• Timelines. 
• Bibliographies. Yes, this is fiction but there may be a reader who wants to learn more.

I don’t know exactly what will end up in my reader’s guide.

What else have you seen that worked in a reader’s guide? 

A Trip to See Vanessa and Virginia

They weren't in, though.

My friends Shauna and Lauren (who were on the master's course I did 2008/9) and I have been intending to take a trip to Sussex for about three years, and on Saturday we finally organised ourselves and did it.  Our itinerary?  Monk's House and Charleston - being the homes of Virginia and Leonard Woolf, and Vanessa Bell et al respectively.  When I say 'et al' that includes luminaries as various as David Garnett, Duncan Grant, and John Maynard Keynes.

We took the train to Lewes (which is lovely and where, ahem, I bought a couple of books - Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky by Patrick Hamilton and Blaming by Elizabeth Taylor) and then had a beautiful walk along the river to Monk's House.  It really couldn't have been a better day for it - we kept stopping and marvelling at how beautiful it was.  Normally I do this sort of gasping next to my brother Colin, who doesn't care at all about views ("They're just things from further away") so it was a refreshing change to have people agree with my effusiveness.

Such a lovely walk to take!  Also oddly deserted.

Lauren and I get a bit too excited about it all...

After a picnic and some debate over the map (and me falling into a very deep rabbit hole for a moment - sadly no Alice-esque adventures) we arrived at Monk's House, and I used my National Trust membership for probably the last time.  And we were allowed to take photos!  Here follows lots of photos...

Table painted by Vanessa Bell!

Shakespeare volumes bound & labelled by VW

VW's writing shed

 It was so special.  I love Virginia Woolf, as you probably know, and I can't believe it's taken me so many years to visit Monk's House.  To be in the same rooms in which she lived, seeing her furniture and wandering around her garden, was a really wonderful, quite moving, experience.

But we didn't just go to one Bloomsbury Group home, oh no!  Next stop was Charleston, a few miles away.  We weren't allowed to take photographs inside, so here is just the outside.  If it was a beautiful home outside (and it was) than the inside was utterly breathtaking.  Every wall and item of furniture was decorated by Vanessa Bell or Duncan Grant - abstract patterns creating a sponged-on 'wallpaper', a rooster painted above the window to 'wake up' the occupant in the morning, etc.  Despite being a rented house...!  And paintings hung everywhere, too.  All so stunning, and all the more special because they had been done by one of the residents or their friends.  They included a portrait of Virginia Woolf by her sister, Vanessa Bell, which I hadn't seen before, and which I prefer to the famous portraits Bell did of Woolf.  I can only find a small part of it online (see right).

Our guide, called Angie, was exceptionally good.  She barely drew breath in the hour we had for the tour.  It would have been nice to have time to ask questions, perhaps, but I suppose then we'd have lost out on some of the prepared tour.  It catered to people who knew nothing at all about the occupants and their friends, whereas I think all seven of us on the tour already knew quite a bit, but it was still great to hear it from an enthusiastic expert.  I'm definitely intending to go back - and if you go on a Sunday, then you can roam freely.

Oh, and there was a man about my age in the gift shop who had a 1920s chair at home, and they were buying reproduction Vanessa Bell fabric (at £55 a metre!) to re-cover it.  I don't know whose life gave me greater life-envy - the Bloomsbury Group and their idyllic house, or the man who would have that beautiful chair...

If you get the chance to go to either of these wonderful properties, do take it.  I can also definitely recommend the walk from Lewes to Monk's House, which is exceptionally beautiful on a sunny day.  It was the most delightful day out imaginable, and I was rather worried that my impending cold would ruin it for me.  Luckily I managed to stave it off for a day - and it has come back now with a vengeance.  So it might be a day or too before you hear from me again, whilst I feel sorry for myself...

The Times piece (photographed)

I wrote yesterday's very quick post on my phone at Charleston, of all places, without actually having a copy of The Times myself at that point.  More on Monk's House and Charleston soon - but today I thought I'd pop up photos of my quotation in The Times for those of you who don't get copies.  I was so excited to be asked to contribute!

This is what was printed (I'd like to point out that, when I wrote it, it didn't end on a preposition!):

Simon Thomas, a postgraduate student at the University of Oxford and author of the Stuck-in-a-Book blog at Stuck-in-a-book.blogspot.com, says: “For the unrepentant bibliophile, being in a charity shop is like being a kid in a sweetshop — except you don’t have to get a parent’s permission to buy far more than is good for you.
“I am always willing to brave mountains of Danielle Steels and Dan Browns, not to mention entirely arbitrary shelving systems, in the hopes of finding something special. It was in a charity shop shelved entirely by colour that I found an amusing 1950 novel by Mary Essex, Tea Is So Intoxicating. It cost me 10p, but the cheapest I have ever seen it online is £70.
“It is not only stumbling across scarce books that has been rewarding. I daresay there are plenty of copies out there of The Love-Child by Edith Olivier [a 1927 novel, reprinted in the 1980s by Virago], but I probably wouldn’t have read it if I hadn’t found it by chance in the basement of a dingy charity shop. That serendipitous purchase ended up helping to determine the topic of the doctorate I am currently studying for.”

The Times, p.60...

...has me quoted on it today, talking about charity bookshops! Check it out...

Stuck-in-a-Book's Weekend Miscellany

By the time you read this, I'll either be in London or Sussex - a couple of my friends and I are off to Charleston and Monk's House (the homes of Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf respectively) for a literary jaunt.  At least that's the plan - right now I feel deathly with one of my oh-so-common colds.  But I am determined to enjoy myself!  I am equally determined to tell you about a book, a link, and a blog post... so make yourself comfortable, and enjoy.

1.) The book -  I can't remember how I found this title, but it's been waiting in a draft post for many months: David Batterham's Among Booksellers.  Read all about it here, but essentially it's the letters of a bookseller travelling Europe, meeting the eccentric booksellers of the world on his way.  It sounds great fun.

2.) The link - apparently the French isn't very good in this clip (I watched it silently with the subtitles, and also wouldn't notice poor French anyway) but cat-lovers will find this amusing, I think...

3.) The blog post - is a little silly, and not entirely for the faint-hearted.  You've probably heard of Fifty Shades of Gray/Grey and have probably the same level of desire to read it as I have (i.e. none whatsoever) - well, Book Riot have read it so that you don't have to!  Their review is very funny...

4.) P.S. - if you're in the UK, make sure you're watching the documentaries Chatsworth on BBC and 56 Up on ITV - both are brilliant so far.  And, guess what?  They're on at the same time.  Of course.  9pm on Mondays - started last week, and have a couple more episodes to come.

Book Pregnant Meet-Up in North Carolina

Whenever possible, our group members like to meet up and support each other's events, so we can put not only faces to the names but strange facial ticks, an odd choice of shoe style, or a silver minivan to the names as well. Those of us over here on the East Coast have been moaning and groaning about how we never have a chance to meet up, and shaking our little fists at the sky in envy of the West Coast people, who have had so many meet-ups, they're practically a political party.

Then our group's newly annointed NYT best selling member Wiley Cash came to North Carolina on his tour, and all members in southern Virginia and northeast North Carolina converged on Quail Ridge Books and Music in Raleigh, NC for an all-night jamboree and hootenanny. Or a book signing. One of those things.

I coerced my favorite book blogger, Andrea Kinnear of Faulkner 2 Fibonacci, to drive along with me, for a pre-event planning session with Barbara Claypole White, Brenda Bevan Remmes, and Anne Clinard Barnhill, over vegan chili and tofu sprouts at the Whole Foods next to the bookstore. Our task was to plan a panel we're going to be presenting at an upcoming conference, but when we were done my notes featured the phrase "Telling people not to use paper is like telling people not to eat potatoes." We still have work to do on that panel presentation! Here we are:

Next door at the book event, Wiley killed on stage.

Brenda and I made sure to document everything for the internet. 

Here we are waiting for Wiley to get done signing.

Brenda and Barbara getting books signed by himself. 

Wiley and our book blogger Andrea. She doesn't have to review us positively. We just pinch her if she doesn't. 

Brenda, Wiley, me (Lydia), and Barbara, who's standing in front of a huge pile of preorders waiting to be signed.

It was a delightful evening, a great reading from A Land More Kind Than Home, which is grooving its way into literary history, and a nice break from real life to hang out with girlfriends real and virtual. 

Our "Book Pregnant" group has been an experiment in collaborative marketing, a social outlet to vent and brag, a place to learn from others' triumphs and mistakes, a way to share information and insider news, and a way to make friends in the business. I marvel that these people who I barely even know in real life are so solidly on my tribe (and I on theirs) as we all try to successfully bring our books to market in this changing industry and evolving internet landscape. I'm grateful we had the chance to meet, online and in North Carolina! 

Moominpappa at Sea - Tove Jansson

You probably know that I love and adore Tove Jansson.  She is, indeed, one of my all-time favourite writers, and the only author whose books I eagerly await.  (Yes, she's dead, but they're being steadily translated - a newly translated collection of short stories coming soon from Sort Of Books!)  Until now, though, I hadn't read any of the Moomin books for which she is best known.  Aware of this, Margaret Szedenits very kindly gave me a copy of Moominpappa at Sea (1965) which is actually the final book to feature the Moomin family, except some picture books.

Only the beginning of Moominpappa at Sea takes place in Moominvalley, and only the Moomin family appear.  Apparently there are lots of other characters, but I got to know thoughtful, adventurous Moominpappa, wise, diligent Moominmamma, anxious, imaginative Moomintroll, and fearless, feisty Little My.  They have a map on their wall, a dot on which marks an island (or perhaps, Little My suggests, some fly-dirt) with a lighthouse - Moominpappa decides that the family will move there.

"Of course we run the risk of it being calm tonight," said Moominpappa.  "We could have left immediately after lunch.  But on an occasion like this we must wait for sunset.  Setting out in the right way is just as important as the opening lines in a book: they determine everything."

After a wet and windy journey across the sea, they arrive on the island - deserted, except for a taciturn fisherman - and head towards the lighthouse.  Everything is not quite as they hoped.  The beam of the lighthouse doesn't work, there is no soil for Moominmamma's garden, and worst of all - the lighthouse is locked and they can't find the key.  Without being too much like an educational TV programme, Tove Jansson incorporates many different responses to change - whether it intimidates, infuriates, or energises people.  Moominmamma is definitely the family member who most wishes they had never left.

In front of them lay age-old rocks with steep and sharp sides and they stumbled past precipice after precipice, grey and full of crevices and fissures.

"Everything's much too big here," thought Moominmamma.  "Or perhaps I'm too small."

Only the path was as small and insecure as she was.

And then it all gets a bit surreal.  Not only is are they followed by the Groke - a curious creature which fills them with fear and turns the ground to ice - the island itself seems to be alive.  The trees move, the sea itself has a definite, often petulant, character.  The Moomins take this in their stride - they almost seem to expect it.

Moominpappa leaned forward and stared sternly at the fuming sea.  "There's something you don't seem to understand," he said.  "It's your job to look after this island.  You should protect and comfort it instead of behaving as you do.  Do your understand?

Moominpappa listened, but the sea made no answer.

So, what did I make of it all?  I definitely enjoyed it, and I especially liked Tove Jansson's deceptively simple illustrations throughout - they enhanced the story, and also softened its edges, as it were.  The emotions and actions of the Moomins are often quite human, and the illustrations remind us that we are in a different world - they give the prose a warm haze.

And yet I never felt I quite knew what Jansson was doing.  I was expecting that it might all be a sort of allegory, in a way, for how humans respond to change.  But the Moomins aren't simply there to represent types of response - they form a family unit as valid as those in any novel, even if there isn't quite the same depth of development in these relationships (in this book, at least.)  The characters certainly often speak wisely, or demonstrate their feelings through actions (as Moominmamma does with her painting), but I couldn't ever forget that this was a children's book - and that, in this case, the children's book really did feel like a watered-down version of the adults' novels.

I wasn't sure how Tove Jansson's books for children would relate to the wonderful novels and stories I've already read.  It seemed to me, after reading Moominpappa at Sea, that it was like the skeletal equivalent of something like Fair Play.  Janssons' great talent is her deeply perceptive descriptions of everyday interactions between people - incredibly nuanced and yet subtle.  She only gives the bare bones of this in Moominpappa at Sea.  Well, more than the bare bones - more, I daresay, than a lot of adult novelists - but not with the finesse of which I know her capable.  I still loved reading it, and I'm very grateful to Margaret for giving me the book and the opportunity, but I now feel comfortable that I have not been thus far missing Jansson's greatest work.  She may be best known for the Moomin books but, based on what I have read of her oeuvre so far, she saved her finest writing for elsewhere.

National Flash Fiction Day

As the clock has just ticked past midnight, I'm afraid you've just missed National Flash Fiction Day...

If case you don't know, flash fiction is, essentially, very short fiction.  There's no accepted definition or stated length, but usually it's fewer than 1000 words.  And it's something the internet gets on board with!

My friend and housemate Mel co-runs a British flash fiction site called The Pygmy Giant, and they've had a competition in honour of the day, inviting flash fiction with the theme 'flash' - and today announced a very worthy winner.  See it here.

I went for the less competitive The Write-In, where every contribution was published.  They had set aside 11am-3pm for people to write flash fiction, inspired by one of the 200 words and phrases which they'd created as prompts.  More info about that here.

The two I chose (and clicking on the prompt takes you to my piece of flash fiction) were 'The Sun Is Not Our Friend' and, for a bit of light relief, 'The Smell of Warm Bread'.  It was fun - and, of course, quick!

Do you read any flash fiction?  By virtue of reading my blog post, I'm going to assume that you're (a) interested in fiction, and (b) not averse to reading things online - but I don't see flash fiction mentioned much in the literary blogosphere.  I hardly ever read it myself - perhaps because I steer fairly clear of modern fiction altogether, but maybe there are other reasons too.  Over to you - do you write it or read it?  What is your opinion of it all?  Or had you simply never heard of it before?

The Outsider - Albert Camus

Somehow, through some sort of mental osmosis, I find that most avid readers know the broad outline of classics long before they've read them.  I certainly found this with Rebecca, To Kill A Mockingbird, Jane Eyre etc.  The simple explanation, of course, is that conversations, articles, blog posts and films have, over the years, given us this foreknowledge.  So it is something of a rare joy to read a classic without any prior understanding of the contents.  That was the experience I had with Albert Camus's The Outsider (1942), translated by Joseph Laredo.  (Laredo, apparently, opted to translate L'Etranger as The Outsider rather than The Stranger, under which title the first English translation appeared.)  My striking copy was kindly given to me by the Folio Society.

My experience with French literature - always in translation - has been mixed.  I have found some of it rather too philosophical for my liking, and there is always the spectre of ghastly French theorists I have tried, and failed, to understand.  The title didn't encourage me - I thought it might be very existentialist or, worse, in the whiney and disaffected Holden Caulfield school of writing.  It was thus rather a delight to find The Outsider more in the mould of the detached, straightforward English novelists I love - Spark, Comyns - but perhaps most of all like my beloved Scandinavian writer Tove Jansson.  A lot of that style is due to the protagonist - Meursault - and the first-person presentation of his life.  Meursault sees the world through a haze of emotionless indifference.  He is not cruel or unkind, he is simply emotionless.  Actually, that's not quite true.  He feels things to a moderate amount - the novel opens with his mother's death, and the most he can muster up is that  he would rather it hadn't happened.  His honesty is unintentionally brutal...

That evening, Marie came round for me and asked me if I wanted to marry her.  I said I didn't mind and we could do it if she wanted to.  She then wanted to know if I loved her.  I replied as I had done once already, that it didn't mean anything but that I probably didn't.  "Why marry me then?" she said.  I explained to her that it really didn't matter and that if she wanted to, we could get married.  Anyway, she was the one who was asking me and I was simply saying yes.  She then remarked that marriage was a serious matter.  I said, "No."  She didn't say anything for a moment and looked at me in silence.  Then she spoke.  She just wanted to know if I'd have accepted the same proposal if it had come from another woman, with whom I had a similar friendship.  I said, "Naturally."

When I thought that The Outsider would be simply a very well-written character portrait - an unusual and unsettling pair of eyes through which to view the world - things become more complicated.  In case others of you have the same lack of foreknowledge I had, I won't give away the details - but the second half of the novel (novella? It's only 100pp.) concerns a court case...

Albert Camus writes in his Afterword that the defining characteristic of Meursault (which is obvious early in the story) is that 'he refuses to lie.  Lying is not only saying what isn't true.  It is also, in fact especially, saying more than is true and, in the case of the human heart, saying more than one feels.'  Meursault cannot lie; he cannot exaggerate the emotions he feels - and he feels them to a lesser degree than most.  The fallout from this honesty is slightly surreal, but at the same time entirely possible within the narrative.  It's a brilliant piece of writing, and a brilliant outworking of an idea.  So, perhaps, like many of the French novels I couldn't quite enjoy, Camus's is concerned with ideas and philosophies - but he prioritises the execution of a believable, complex, and consistent character, and that is the triumph of this exceptional book.

At Mrs. Lippincote's - Elizabeth Taylor

I intended to read At Mrs. Lippincote's (1945) back in January, in its rightful place for Elizabeth Taylor Centenary year, but somehow it didn't happen... and then I went to a wonderful Celebration of Elizabeth Taylor in Reading, and one of the book groups was discussing this title.  I would have written about the day in Reading properly (where I got to meet lots of lovely ladies from the LibraryThing Virago group) but it happened just before Muriel Spark Reading Week, so I had other things to take blog prominence!

Well, better late than never - I'll give you my thoughts on At Mrs. Lippincote's.  The short review is that this is my favourite, of the five or six Elizabeth Taylor novels I've read.  My usual confusion over characters didn't occur, and I didn't even have that tiny this-feels-like-homework response I sometimes get with Taylor.  Instead, I just enjoyed her beautiful writing and intriguing characters, and only had one misgiving - which I'll come to later.

The Mrs. Lippincote of the title has gone to a residency not unlike Mrs. Palfrey's at the Claremont, and has let her house to Roddy Davenant (an RAF airman) and his wife Julia, for the duration of the war.  The idea of living in somebody else's house is a very rich vein for a novelist, and it is mined (can one mine a vein?) beautifully by Taylor.  Mrs. Lippincote is very present through her absence, and the constant possibility of her visitation and judgement.  All her possessions are still in the house, and Julia makes her home amongst them, treading the line between running her family's home and living in a stranger's house.  She looks at an old photo of Mrs. Lippincote's family at an elaborate wedding:

"And now it's all finished," Julia thought.  "They had that lovely day and the soup tureen and meat dishes, servants with frills and streamers, children.  They set out that day as if they were laying the foundations of something.  But it was only something which perished very quickly, the children scattered, the tureen draped with cobwebs, and now the widow, the bride, perhaps at this moment unfolding her napkin alone at a table in a small private hotel down the road."

While Taylor is great at delving into characters and relationships over the course of a novel, she is also fantastic at painting complete portraits with a few imaginative details.  A bit like synedochal snapshots of people's lives.

Roddy's cousin Eleanor is also living with them, and anybody who has read Rebecca West's excellent novella The Return of the Soldier will be familiar with the dynamic of the wife/husband/husband's cousin.  (It is a cousin in The Return of the Soldier too, isn't it?)  Eleanor, indeed, does think that she would make a better wife for Roddy - and she is probably right.  Roddy and Eleanor aren't on the same wavelength - neither are the 'bad guy', but our sympathies are definitely with Julia, who is a wonderful character.

I would be confident that you'd all love Julia, or at least empathise with her, but I've just reminded myself of Claire's review: 'Julia is an odd character and certainly not a very likeable one."  Re-reading her post, I'm starting to change my mind a bit... but I'll stick to my guns and explain why I did love Julia.  She is intelligent and artistic, coping with the dissatisfactions of her life with stoicism and wit.  She hasn't been handed the home or husband that she would ideally choose, but makes the best of the situation she is in - as well as being sensitive and thoughtful about the wider conditions of the country.  When talking to the Wing Commander (Roddy's boss), she argues the point for education for his daughter Felicity:

"They will try to stuff her head with Virgil and Pliny and Greek Irregular Verbs."

"All Greek verbs are irregular," Julia murmured.

"I think it nonsense.  What use will it be to her when she leaves school?  Will it cook her husband's dinner?"

"No, it won't do that, but it will help her to endure doing it, perhaps.  If she is to cook while she is at school, then there will be that thing less for her to learn when she's grown-up: but, if she isn't to learn Greek at school, then she will never learn it afterwards.  And learning Greek at school is like storing honey against the winter."

"But what use is it?" he persisted.

"Men can be educated; women must be trained," she said sorrowfully.

A little heavy-handed perhaps, but a point worth making - and, incidentally, a battle subsequently won (although neither girls nor boys are likely to study Greek irregular verbs now... at least not at the sort of school I attended.)  The Wing Commander is another really intriguing character.  He has all the firmness and professionalism you'd expect of a Wing Commander, but also a literary side which baffles Roddy.  He's a bit awkward with children, but manages to engage Oliver Davenant in a discussion about the Brontes - a theme which runs throughout the novel, potential mad-woman-in-the-attic and everything.  Oh, I've not mentioned Oliver before, have I?  He is Julia's ten year old son, and which of us could fail to greet a fellow bibliophile?

Oliver Davenant did not merely read books.  He snuffed them up, took breaths of them into his lungs, filled his eyes with the sight of the print and his head with the sound of words.  Some emanation from the book itself poured into his bones, as if he were absorbing steady sunshine.  The pages had personality.  He was of the kind who cannot have a horrifying book in the room at night.  He would, in fine weather, lay it upon an outside sill and close the window.  Often Julia would see a book lying on his doormat.

He is incredibly sensitive and fairly weak, in a determined-invalid sort of way, but his friendship with Felicity is more or less the only straightforward one in the novel.  Which brings me onto my sticking point with At Mrs. Lippincote's - the ending, which I shan't spoil, is a crisis between two characters which comes rather out of the blue, and doesn't feel very consistent with the rest of the narrative.  At Mrs. Lippincote's, like all the Taylor novels I've read, is more concerned with characters than plot - nothing hugely unbalancing occurs, and the focus is upon the way people live together and communicate.  Until the end, which feels a bit as though Taylor wasn't sure how to conclude a novel, and decided, unfortunately, to end with a bang.

I shall take a leaf out of her book (not literally, that would be vandalism) and end in a manner which I usually do not - with a quotation.  At Mrs. Lippincote's is thoughtful, clever, and perceptive, but it's also often very witty - and I'll finish with a quotation which amused me.

Eleanor, whom he [Oliver] did not really like, set sums for him every morning and corrected them when she came home for tea.  Occasionally, he had a right answer, in much the same manner as when one backs horses a great deal, now and the one of them comes in for a place.

(See all the Elizabeth Taylor Centenary Celebration reviews for this title here.)