South American novels divide book group!

The annual "plus other halves" book group dinner at Alison & Steve's last night was a lively affair which ended up with far too many glasses on the table than is decent for a Thursday evening. For the record, there had been a rebellion in the ranks and only two of the assembled company had finished Roberto Bolano's The Savage Detectives, a lengthy and challenging book featuring, we were told, more than 52 characters which others of us who had attempted it, found too confusing for words. According to the Wikipedia entry, the middle section alone has more than 40 narrators, the thought of which makes my head spin. Caroline and Ian, however, were obviously touched by it and spoke compellingly about its intricacies and pleasures, poets and politics in South America. Ian declared that it would be a book that would remain on his shelf for years to come.

Those of us with less application and stamina tackled Anne Patchett's State of Wonder which received a very positive reception; Caroline was the golden girl of the class as she was the only one of us to have read both books. We discussed Patchett's ability to draw us deep into the book, to recreate the heat and terrors of the Amazonian jungle (and indeed the blandness of Minnesota) to the extent that you could almost feel your skin crawling with insects. We spoke about the credibility of the science and the project in the jungle, the characters of Marina and Dr Swenson and the issues of medical ethics that arose; we missed the input of our resident expert on the subject. It was, we concluded, a cracking story well told although perhaps with too many themes. You can watch the YouTube clip of Patchett talking about the book here: Anne Patchett on YouTube

Alison challenged the men to come up with a book for our next read, I think in response to the suggestion that State of Wonder is a "girls" book (which I don't think it necessarily is). The result is, inevitably, a thriller of sorts: A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami. Of course, by the end of the evening we were stumbling badly over both the title and the name of the author.......too many glasses on the table.

Is there anybody there?

You can't imagine how thrilling it was this week to receive an email from a friend who has been following this blog and referring to it for reading ideas and thoughts. The thing about a blog, I have discovered, is that you have very little idea whether it is (a) any good or has any value; and (b) read, and perhaps more importantly, appreciated. So to receive some fan mail was the highlight of my week. It caused me to think about why I'm doing this and how I could do it better. My challenge for the autumn is to work out how to do a tag cloud (don't ask!) to make cross referencing easier. So if there is anyone else out there and interested in this blog, please let me have some feedback on what's good and what's not and pass on any ideas to make it better and more relevant.

Free fiction in Durham

A remote iPad entry from Durham (so no picture as its beyond me) where I have just dropped Angus off at his new home (how 6 sportsmen can cram themselves and their smelly kit into an extended two up two down former miners' cottage is a mystery but it will undoubtedly be fun). After some token unpacking and bed making, I have retreated to the comfort of the Raddison Blu Hotel on the river with a stunning view of the cathedral and castle. Here I have discovered an original reading initiative; in each lift lobby is an eye-catchingly displayed offering of books for guests to borrow along with multiple copies of a free paperback called "Read Regional 2011" which features tasters of works by writers from the north east - 5 novelists and 3 poets - complete with a short bio of each. This fabulous initiative is run by New Writing North which has a network of regional book groups run by facilitators each of which has a blog! Competition?.....I'll peruse and report back.

Constance Wilde: an ideal wife?

Constance Wilde was a fascinating creature; I had learnt a little about her this summer on my course on the Aesthetic Movement at the V&A, but much more from Franny Moyle's biography Constance: The Tragic and Scandalous Life of Mrs Oscar Wilde. Constance revelled in wearing aesthetic dress - loose, uncorseted clothing often in sludgy colours, with her hair unstructured and occasionally decorated with feathers; so shocking at the time. She decorated the Wilde family home in Tite Street along aesthetic lines complete with white walls, floors and ceilings, blue and white Japanese jars and motives of sunflowers, peacock feathers and lilies, so beloved of the aesthetes. She was a regular at the aesthetic temples of Liberty's in Regent Street and the Grosvenor Gallery. She had her own career as a leading light in the Rational Dress Movement; like many late Victorians she dabbled in spiritualism; unusually for her class and time, she spent time playing with and looking after her own children; she was active in the suffrage movement and wrote a book of children's stories. Indeed, Moyle suggests that Constance, rather than Oscar, was the true author of The Selfish Giant. They must have been the golden couple of the time..... at least for a few years.

This book is hugely enjoyable. I have rarely read a biography which has been quite so engrossing, colourful and well written. It is also a little frustrating since many of Constance's possessions and letters (including letters between the Wildes) were lost in the bankruptcy sale of the Tite Street house after Oscar's fall from grace; Constance's voice is largely heard through letters to her brother and to friends (usually women much older than her).

Moyle is inconclusive about the key issue of what Constance knew about her husband's activities and when; however, Constance's regular absences from London (and Oscar) suggest that there was a lot of denial going on. Like Jennie Churchill (whose biography the book group read in January 2009) Constance was the type of girl who, when cash was tight, took herself off to Italy or the south of France or friends in the country. And even though she was strapped for cash, what money the Wildes retained belonged to Constance which placed her in a position of power when Wilde was released from prison. Despite the fact that he never returned to her and their boys, we are left in no doubt about her enduring affection for Oscar and it is easy to conclude that, for several years, they had a fulfilling marriage. Constance was, in many ways, his ideal wife.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog in film

I'm a bit of a Front Row addict; Mark Lawson's smooth tones, straight after my nightly Archers fix, often capture my attention. Last night I was tipped off about the release of the film of Muriel Barbery's The Elegance of the Hedgehog which the book group read in September 2009. Inevitably, the title has been changed (why?) and so the film is The Hedgehog. The rather haughty Parisian reviewer was not enthusiastic; she had played in a concierge's apartment as a child and it was not gloomy, Paloma's precocity is hard to comprehend, the film "did not take off" and there was nothing to help the viewer understand the attraction between the concierge (Renee Michel) and the rich and enigmatic M. Ozu. If true, that has to be something to do with seeing the characters rather than imagining them. From the book we knew that Mme. Michel was ugly, fat, smelly (I think) and always wore the same clothes; I have in mind a sort of rotund Nanny McPhee warty face with sprouting hairs wearing a dull apron/dress combo. However, Mme Michel's physical appearance becomes insignificant as we discovers that she has a rich intellectual inner life. It is perfectly feasible, in print at least, for M. Ozu to be attracted to her and her to him. I think I may stick with the book.