This is a collection of short stories, some of which were originally published in an earlier book called Nothing Missing But the Samovar (the title of the first story). This collection, with additional stories, came out eight years later, in 1986.
I've read, I think, all but one of Penelope Lively's adult books, as well as two other collections of her stories. I had an idea of what to expect with these stories, and as I read them, I found familiar Lively scenes and settings. "Interpreting the Past" is set amid an archaeological dig in an English cathedral city, with a mixed staff of amateurs and professionals. "A Clean Death" features Carol, a girl like Lively herself sent home to war-time England and a girls' school where she is very much the square peg. Two of the stories involve time-crossing, and I'm still not sure what exactly is going on in the last story, "Black Dog," but it may be a haunting.
What really surprised me is how funny some of them are. I can't remember ever laughing out loud over her stories before. "Servants Talk About People: Gentlefolk Discuss Things" has a nephew lunching with a most unobservant and self-satisfied uncle and aunt. "Customers" features a jolly couple brazenly shoplifting. "A Long Night at Abu Simbel" leaves me disinclined to ever sign up for a package tour of Egypt. "Bus-Stop" takes you on a ride through London with a brisk conductor, until a passenger boards who is horrified to find him working such a menial job. And "The Emasculation of Ted Roper" - well, that's a masterpiece of misdirection.
I really enjoyed this collection. It has everything I love in Penelope Lively's books, in a wonderful variety. Next to Nature, Art is the last book of hers that I haven't read. I still have some of her children's books to find as well, and I'm looking forward to her new book, on gardens.
Showing posts with label Penelope Lively. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Penelope Lively. Show all posts
Thursday, January 4, 2018
Saturday, June 29, 2013
A hot, fraught summer
Heat Wave, Penelope Lively
I think if Penelope Lively hadn't already won the Booker Prize for Moon Tiger in 1987, this book would have been a strong contender in 1996. In my opinion, it is one of her best, with The Photograph (and much better than Moon Tiger). Re-reading this week, I kept putting the book down to savor its richness, to consider the tangle of relationships past and present at its center, and to marvel at Penelope Lively's genius.
On the surface, this seems a simple story. Pauline is spending the summer at her cottage, World's End, "a grey stone building set on a hillside somewhere in the middle of England." It is actually a conversion of three workers' cottages into two. She lives in the smaller, where she works as a free-lance editor. In the larger, her daughter Teresa is staying with her husband Maurice and toddler son Luke. Maurice is a well-known author of "books on quirky aspects of history that flattered the reader by being simultaneously scholarly and inviting." He is currently writing a history of tourism, which "will discuss the ways in which the natural and the manmade environments have been exploited in the interests of commerce." It is expected to be provocative and controversial, and so it may lead to a TV series based on the book. He has retreated to the country to finish writing and editing.
Thus, World's End, on this May afternoon which shades off now into evening, as Pauline tidies her desk, leaves her study and goes down that odd precipitate staircase to see what she has got in the fridge for supper. And thus also Pauline, Teresa, Maurice. Mother, daughter, son-in-law and husband. Neighbours, relatives, poised for this agreeable summer of industry and companionship.
Into this agreeable summer comes James, Maurice's editor, driving down from London with his partner Carol, to spend weekends at the cottage working on the book. Most of those weekends include a visit to a local tourist site, a stately home, a medieval theme park offering a "Robin Hood experience," all material for Maurice's book. The weekend visitors bring a new element, changing relationships and upsetting the balance of the group. Soon Maurice is traveling up to London, for more research and additional meetings on the book. Pauline watches in growing dismay, concerned first for her daughter and grandson, seeing disturbing parallels to her own marriage to Teresa's father Harry, which ended long ago in divorce.
At the heart of the story is Pauline, and I found her a completely sympathetic character. We see the events of the story through her eyes. Frequently in fact she is literally watching, looking out of the cottage windows, standing back from the group, observing, detached. She is not really detached, though. She loves Teresa and Luke with fierce maternal love. She does not love Maurice, whom she knew casually for years before he met and married her daughter, fifteen years his junior. In addition to her present observations, Pauline is often caught up in sudden memories, sparked by some word or sight, flashing back to her own parents, her marriage, Teresa's childhood. In one of the early chapters Pauline remembers visiting Teresa in the hospital just after Luke's birth, which segues into her memories of Teresa's birth. The past and present run constantly together, as often happens in Lively's books.
Penelope Lively weaves together so many elements in this book, keeping them balanced, each adding rich layers to the story she is telling. Marriage and parenthood are at the heart. We see Teresa and Maurice's marriage (through Pauline's eyes), while through flashbacks we gradually learn about Pauline's to Harry. Pauline sees Teresa with double vision, both as her child, with all the memories of their life together over 29 years, but also now as a mother herself. Luke, at 15 months, is constantly exploring the world around him, absorbing everything, changing daily, in a process that seems to fascinate Lively. There is also Pauline's work: she is editing a high fantasy novel, which she thinks a good book but not one likely to do well in the current market (which may reflect Lively's own reading tastes). There are discussions of editing and writing, of the publishing world, mixed in with Maurice's discourses on the historical tourism industry, all of which I enjoyed. As always, Lively considers too the history of place, in this case the cottage that once housed the workers who worked the surrounding fields. From her windows, Pauline watches the growth of the summer wheat, musing on agriculture down through the ages, and the reality of life in the country, too often idealized by city dwellers.
From her windows, she can see the crops suffering over the long slow months, in an unprecendented heat wave that threatens the harvest and the farmers' livelihood. The temperatues rising outside parallel the increasing tension within. Lively builds this up slowly but relentlessly, and you cannot help but share Pauline's unease, watching with her from the sidelines. The ending comes like a thunderclap, irrevocably changing all the lives at World's End. I would love to read a sequel, to know where these people are now. Then I would know how to interpret that final ambiguous paragraph.
I think if Penelope Lively hadn't already won the Booker Prize for Moon Tiger in 1987, this book would have been a strong contender in 1996. In my opinion, it is one of her best, with The Photograph (and much better than Moon Tiger). Re-reading this week, I kept putting the book down to savor its richness, to consider the tangle of relationships past and present at its center, and to marvel at Penelope Lively's genius.
On the surface, this seems a simple story. Pauline is spending the summer at her cottage, World's End, "a grey stone building set on a hillside somewhere in the middle of England." It is actually a conversion of three workers' cottages into two. She lives in the smaller, where she works as a free-lance editor. In the larger, her daughter Teresa is staying with her husband Maurice and toddler son Luke. Maurice is a well-known author of "books on quirky aspects of history that flattered the reader by being simultaneously scholarly and inviting." He is currently writing a history of tourism, which "will discuss the ways in which the natural and the manmade environments have been exploited in the interests of commerce." It is expected to be provocative and controversial, and so it may lead to a TV series based on the book. He has retreated to the country to finish writing and editing.
Thus, World's End, on this May afternoon which shades off now into evening, as Pauline tidies her desk, leaves her study and goes down that odd precipitate staircase to see what she has got in the fridge for supper. And thus also Pauline, Teresa, Maurice. Mother, daughter, son-in-law and husband. Neighbours, relatives, poised for this agreeable summer of industry and companionship.
Into this agreeable summer comes James, Maurice's editor, driving down from London with his partner Carol, to spend weekends at the cottage working on the book. Most of those weekends include a visit to a local tourist site, a stately home, a medieval theme park offering a "Robin Hood experience," all material for Maurice's book. The weekend visitors bring a new element, changing relationships and upsetting the balance of the group. Soon Maurice is traveling up to London, for more research and additional meetings on the book. Pauline watches in growing dismay, concerned first for her daughter and grandson, seeing disturbing parallels to her own marriage to Teresa's father Harry, which ended long ago in divorce.
At the heart of the story is Pauline, and I found her a completely sympathetic character. We see the events of the story through her eyes. Frequently in fact she is literally watching, looking out of the cottage windows, standing back from the group, observing, detached. She is not really detached, though. She loves Teresa and Luke with fierce maternal love. She does not love Maurice, whom she knew casually for years before he met and married her daughter, fifteen years his junior. In addition to her present observations, Pauline is often caught up in sudden memories, sparked by some word or sight, flashing back to her own parents, her marriage, Teresa's childhood. In one of the early chapters Pauline remembers visiting Teresa in the hospital just after Luke's birth, which segues into her memories of Teresa's birth. The past and present run constantly together, as often happens in Lively's books.
Penelope Lively weaves together so many elements in this book, keeping them balanced, each adding rich layers to the story she is telling. Marriage and parenthood are at the heart. We see Teresa and Maurice's marriage (through Pauline's eyes), while through flashbacks we gradually learn about Pauline's to Harry. Pauline sees Teresa with double vision, both as her child, with all the memories of their life together over 29 years, but also now as a mother herself. Luke, at 15 months, is constantly exploring the world around him, absorbing everything, changing daily, in a process that seems to fascinate Lively. There is also Pauline's work: she is editing a high fantasy novel, which she thinks a good book but not one likely to do well in the current market (which may reflect Lively's own reading tastes). There are discussions of editing and writing, of the publishing world, mixed in with Maurice's discourses on the historical tourism industry, all of which I enjoyed. As always, Lively considers too the history of place, in this case the cottage that once housed the workers who worked the surrounding fields. From her windows, Pauline watches the growth of the summer wheat, musing on agriculture down through the ages, and the reality of life in the country, too often idealized by city dwellers.
From her windows, she can see the crops suffering over the long slow months, in an unprecendented heat wave that threatens the harvest and the farmers' livelihood. The temperatues rising outside parallel the increasing tension within. Lively builds this up slowly but relentlessly, and you cannot help but share Pauline's unease, watching with her from the sidelines. The ending comes like a thunderclap, irrevocably changing all the lives at World's End. I would love to read a sequel, to know where these people are now. Then I would know how to interpret that final ambiguous paragraph.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Past and present crossing
A Stitch in Time, Penelope Lively
After finishing Penelope Lively's The House in Norham Gardens, I wanted to read more of her children's books, and I was glad to find that our city libraries have quite a few. Just from the brief description in the catalogue, I put A Stitch in Time at the top of the list: "A quiet lonely child spending her holidays by the sea is changed by an inexplicable link with people and events of one hundred years ago and also by the very real and lively family next door." I love stories of the sea, and even more I love books where the past intersects the present (time shadowing, perhaps, rather than time travel).
The "quiet lonely child" is Maria, the only child of a sedate older couple who didn't plan to have children. In fact, Maria once overheard her mother telling a friend that they almost decided not to have the baby, though now they're glad they did. But they don't quite seem to know what to do with her, even how to talk to her, and they really don't listen well. Maria doesn't have many friends; instead, she carries on imaginary conversations with the things around her, seeking some kind of connection.
The story begins with Maria driving with her parents from their home in London to spend their summer holiday by the sea. They arrive in Lyme Regis to find that their holiday house is a large Victorian full of ornate old furniture, stuffed birds, and china knick-knacks (at least the kitchen is up-to-date). Maria's father settles down with his paper, probably just as he does at home, while her mother dutifully takes Maria off to the beach, though she would much rather sit comfortably in the house too, working on her patchwork quilt. On the beach, Maria finds fossils, ammonites, and like Howard in Cleopatra's Sister, she is immediately entranced. She takes some of them back to the house, to compare them with a cabinet of fossils in her room and a book that she finds in the library downstairs.
From her room at the back of the house, Maria can watch the ocean. She has a different view from the branches of an old oak in the garden, over the wall of the hotel next door. One day she meets a boy, Martin, who is staying there with a large family group, mother and aunt, brothers, sisters and cousins. Maria meets him again on the beach and finds that he too is fascinated with fossils. Through this shared interest, Maria is gradually drawn first into friendship with him and then into the circle of his boisterous, casual family, who simply absorb an extra child with no fuss. It is lovely to watch Maria expand, like Anne Elliot does at Lyme, finding her voice, gaining confidence to speak - and having fun, for the first time as part of a gang of kids. This is a coming-of-age story in the sense that Maria finally learns to act her age, she becomes child-like (and even occasionally childish).
As she discovers the fossils on the beach, Maria is also finding reminders of more recent history. The first night, sleeping in her back room, she hears a small dog barking, and a swing creaking in the breeze. But there is no swing in the garden, and she never sees the dog. The table in her room has initials carved on it, "HJP." When she visits their landlady, whose family has owned the house for generations, she sees a sampler on the wall, with the inscription "Harriet Polstead aged 10 years her sample, Susan Polstead completed this work for her sister Sept 30 1865." The sampler shows the house, above a row of cross-stitched ammonites, with a swing and a small black dog. Walking on the cliffs, which show the destruction of slides, she hears the same dog barking, this time frantically, as if warning of danger. Later she and Martin discover the swing of the sampler, buried beneath the overgrowth. When they set it up again the garden, it is the sound of her dreams. When she takes her turn on it, as she swings higher and higher, suddenly she feels long skirts flying around her, she hears a small dog barking, and a voice from the ground crying, "Harry, it's my turn!" She tries to tell Martin about the peculiar things that have been happening, the dog, the swing, but he does not listen, does not hear. She wants to know, though, what happened to Harriet? Why didn't she finish her sampler? Harriet collected fossils too, did she venture too far on the cliffs one day, with her dog for company?
This is a lovely book, and I'm not surprised that it won the Whitbread prize. It has some familiar Lively themes, the roles of contingency and chance in people's lives and the constancy of change, but also the presence of the past, symbolized by the fossils that turn up everywhere. Lively puts these ideas in Maria's mind and in her words, expressing complex ideas in simple ways.
And here was she, Maria, standing looking at it on an August evening just as the girl who made the sampler - what was her name, Harriet? - must have done once, a long time ago. Harriet is like the ammonites in the rock, she thought, not here any more but here in a ghostly way, because of the things she left behind. The sampler, and the drawings in the book. And it came to her, as she turned to go into the house, that places are like clocks. They've got all the time in them that's ever been, everything that's happened. They go on and on, with things that have happened hidden in them, if you can find them, like you find the fossils if you break the rock.
I like the ambiguity of Maria's experiences. Has she really found a connection back 100 years, to Harriet, or is it just her imagination at work? I think it's a little crossing of time myself, like the stitches in the sampler, but then I always wanted something like that to happen to me. I also love the setting of Lyme Regis. Maria and her mother walk out along the Cobb, as I did on my last visit to England, and if there is no allusion to Louisa Musgrove, I'm sure that Maria will remember it, when she discovers Jane Austen.
After finishing Penelope Lively's The House in Norham Gardens, I wanted to read more of her children's books, and I was glad to find that our city libraries have quite a few. Just from the brief description in the catalogue, I put A Stitch in Time at the top of the list: "A quiet lonely child spending her holidays by the sea is changed by an inexplicable link with people and events of one hundred years ago and also by the very real and lively family next door." I love stories of the sea, and even more I love books where the past intersects the present (time shadowing, perhaps, rather than time travel).
The "quiet lonely child" is Maria, the only child of a sedate older couple who didn't plan to have children. In fact, Maria once overheard her mother telling a friend that they almost decided not to have the baby, though now they're glad they did. But they don't quite seem to know what to do with her, even how to talk to her, and they really don't listen well. Maria doesn't have many friends; instead, she carries on imaginary conversations with the things around her, seeking some kind of connection.
The story begins with Maria driving with her parents from their home in London to spend their summer holiday by the sea. They arrive in Lyme Regis to find that their holiday house is a large Victorian full of ornate old furniture, stuffed birds, and china knick-knacks (at least the kitchen is up-to-date). Maria's father settles down with his paper, probably just as he does at home, while her mother dutifully takes Maria off to the beach, though she would much rather sit comfortably in the house too, working on her patchwork quilt. On the beach, Maria finds fossils, ammonites, and like Howard in Cleopatra's Sister, she is immediately entranced. She takes some of them back to the house, to compare them with a cabinet of fossils in her room and a book that she finds in the library downstairs.
From her room at the back of the house, Maria can watch the ocean. She has a different view from the branches of an old oak in the garden, over the wall of the hotel next door. One day she meets a boy, Martin, who is staying there with a large family group, mother and aunt, brothers, sisters and cousins. Maria meets him again on the beach and finds that he too is fascinated with fossils. Through this shared interest, Maria is gradually drawn first into friendship with him and then into the circle of his boisterous, casual family, who simply absorb an extra child with no fuss. It is lovely to watch Maria expand, like Anne Elliot does at Lyme, finding her voice, gaining confidence to speak - and having fun, for the first time as part of a gang of kids. This is a coming-of-age story in the sense that Maria finally learns to act her age, she becomes child-like (and even occasionally childish).
As she discovers the fossils on the beach, Maria is also finding reminders of more recent history. The first night, sleeping in her back room, she hears a small dog barking, and a swing creaking in the breeze. But there is no swing in the garden, and she never sees the dog. The table in her room has initials carved on it, "HJP." When she visits their landlady, whose family has owned the house for generations, she sees a sampler on the wall, with the inscription "Harriet Polstead aged 10 years her sample, Susan Polstead completed this work for her sister Sept 30 1865." The sampler shows the house, above a row of cross-stitched ammonites, with a swing and a small black dog. Walking on the cliffs, which show the destruction of slides, she hears the same dog barking, this time frantically, as if warning of danger. Later she and Martin discover the swing of the sampler, buried beneath the overgrowth. When they set it up again the garden, it is the sound of her dreams. When she takes her turn on it, as she swings higher and higher, suddenly she feels long skirts flying around her, she hears a small dog barking, and a voice from the ground crying, "Harry, it's my turn!" She tries to tell Martin about the peculiar things that have been happening, the dog, the swing, but he does not listen, does not hear. She wants to know, though, what happened to Harriet? Why didn't she finish her sampler? Harriet collected fossils too, did she venture too far on the cliffs one day, with her dog for company?
This is a lovely book, and I'm not surprised that it won the Whitbread prize. It has some familiar Lively themes, the roles of contingency and chance in people's lives and the constancy of change, but also the presence of the past, symbolized by the fossils that turn up everywhere. Lively puts these ideas in Maria's mind and in her words, expressing complex ideas in simple ways.
And here was she, Maria, standing looking at it on an August evening just as the girl who made the sampler - what was her name, Harriet? - must have done once, a long time ago. Harriet is like the ammonites in the rock, she thought, not here any more but here in a ghostly way, because of the things she left behind. The sampler, and the drawings in the book. And it came to her, as she turned to go into the house, that places are like clocks. They've got all the time in them that's ever been, everything that's happened. They go on and on, with things that have happened hidden in them, if you can find them, like you find the fossils if you break the rock.
I like the ambiguity of Maria's experiences. Has she really found a connection back 100 years, to Harriet, or is it just her imagination at work? I think it's a little crossing of time myself, like the stitches in the sampler, but then I always wanted something like that to happen to me. I also love the setting of Lyme Regis. Maria and her mother walk out along the Cobb, as I did on my last visit to England, and if there is no allusion to Louisa Musgrove, I'm sure that Maria will remember it, when she discovers Jane Austen.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
The House in Norham Gardens
The House in Norham Gardens, Penelope Lively
I saw a review of this recently that intrigued me, reminding me that Penelope Lively wrote children's and young adult novels before turning to adult fiction. I have only read one of those early books, The Ghost of Thomas Kempe, which I enjoyed. It's about a boy, James Harrison, living in an old cottage in an Oxfordshire village, who discovers that it is being haunted by the ghost of the title, accidentally released from a magical confinement and wreaking havoc. I was expecting something along the same lines with this book, but it is very different, closer I think to her adult fiction.
In this book, published in 1974, Clare Mayfield, aged fourteen, lives in an old Victorian house in Norham Gardens, in Oxford. An orphan, she has been raised by her great-aunts Anne (aged 78) and Susan (aged 80), in a warm, loving home. The aunts, born in the Victorian era, rejected the traditional roles of wife and mother to make independent lives for themselves as scholars and tutors, and they have high hopes for Clare. Retired now to quiet lives in Norham Gardens, they are growing frail, particularly Aunt Anne, who is often ill. At a young age, Clare has now become their caretaker. With the daily help, Mrs Hedges, she does the shopping and the cooking, and the two conspire to eke out the family's dwindling funds. One of their solutions was to take in a lodger, Maureen, an office worker. This is no Sarah Crewe story of drudgery and poverty, though, but one of loving care and service.
The house, which has been their family home since the 1890s, is constantly in need of repairs. Too many rooms are unused, full of now-antique furniture, and the attics are crammed with generations of clothes and books and family albums. The attics also contain artifacts brought back to England by Clare's great-grandfather, an anthropologist, who was among the first Europeans to travel deep into New Guinea and study its most isolated native peoples. One day, looking for an extra blanket for Maureen, Clare finds a piece of wood, carved and painted, an abstract-looking human figure. She learns that it is a tamburan, a stylized representation of the ancestors who guard a village in New Guinea, which her great-grandfather acquired in 1905.
That night, Clare dreams of a village and its people. The dreams continue, growing increasingly vivid and urgent. The figures in the village, who initially seemed to be waiting, now seem to be demanding something. Mixed in with these dreams are others, equally disturbing, where her home has changed or been abandoned. The aunts, Clare's friends and teachers, all notice that she seems tired, stressed, not her usual self; she loses interest in her school work.
I don't know how I would have read this book at Clare's age. Even then, I think I would have loved the setting, the old family home with its history and its treasures, and even more the family itself, Clare and her wonderful aunts. I might have read the story of the tamburan simply as a magical one, of a tribe that lost its ancestor and reached across time to seek for it. Maybe that is what's happening; in the end Penelope Lively doesn't tell us one way or another, though she suggests that there is something eerie about the tamburan. But maybe Clare's dreams are less about the native peoples than about herself, maybe this is the only way that she can face the changes, the profound losses that are coming. She is only fourteen, with a tiny inheritance from her parents. Her aunts will not live forever. What will happen to her, what will happen to their home, to the family treasures that she loves? Again, we are given no answer. But Clare, who copes so capably with so much, will cope with that too when it comes.
I think this is an amazing book, with the multiple layers of stories that Penelope Lively weaves together. I want to be adopted by the Aunts, free to wander around that amazing house. But I would take care what trunks I opened.
I saw a review of this recently that intrigued me, reminding me that Penelope Lively wrote children's and young adult novels before turning to adult fiction. I have only read one of those early books, The Ghost of Thomas Kempe, which I enjoyed. It's about a boy, James Harrison, living in an old cottage in an Oxfordshire village, who discovers that it is being haunted by the ghost of the title, accidentally released from a magical confinement and wreaking havoc. I was expecting something along the same lines with this book, but it is very different, closer I think to her adult fiction.
In this book, published in 1974, Clare Mayfield, aged fourteen, lives in an old Victorian house in Norham Gardens, in Oxford. An orphan, she has been raised by her great-aunts Anne (aged 78) and Susan (aged 80), in a warm, loving home. The aunts, born in the Victorian era, rejected the traditional roles of wife and mother to make independent lives for themselves as scholars and tutors, and they have high hopes for Clare. Retired now to quiet lives in Norham Gardens, they are growing frail, particularly Aunt Anne, who is often ill. At a young age, Clare has now become their caretaker. With the daily help, Mrs Hedges, she does the shopping and the cooking, and the two conspire to eke out the family's dwindling funds. One of their solutions was to take in a lodger, Maureen, an office worker. This is no Sarah Crewe story of drudgery and poverty, though, but one of loving care and service.
The house, which has been their family home since the 1890s, is constantly in need of repairs. Too many rooms are unused, full of now-antique furniture, and the attics are crammed with generations of clothes and books and family albums. The attics also contain artifacts brought back to England by Clare's great-grandfather, an anthropologist, who was among the first Europeans to travel deep into New Guinea and study its most isolated native peoples. One day, looking for an extra blanket for Maureen, Clare finds a piece of wood, carved and painted, an abstract-looking human figure. She learns that it is a tamburan, a stylized representation of the ancestors who guard a village in New Guinea, which her great-grandfather acquired in 1905.
That night, Clare dreams of a village and its people. The dreams continue, growing increasingly vivid and urgent. The figures in the village, who initially seemed to be waiting, now seem to be demanding something. Mixed in with these dreams are others, equally disturbing, where her home has changed or been abandoned. The aunts, Clare's friends and teachers, all notice that she seems tired, stressed, not her usual self; she loses interest in her school work.
I don't know how I would have read this book at Clare's age. Even then, I think I would have loved the setting, the old family home with its history and its treasures, and even more the family itself, Clare and her wonderful aunts. I might have read the story of the tamburan simply as a magical one, of a tribe that lost its ancestor and reached across time to seek for it. Maybe that is what's happening; in the end Penelope Lively doesn't tell us one way or another, though she suggests that there is something eerie about the tamburan. But maybe Clare's dreams are less about the native peoples than about herself, maybe this is the only way that she can face the changes, the profound losses that are coming. She is only fourteen, with a tiny inheritance from her parents. Her aunts will not live forever. What will happen to her, what will happen to their home, to the family treasures that she loves? Again, we are given no answer. But Clare, who copes so capably with so much, will cope with that too when it comes.
I think this is an amazing book, with the multiple layers of stories that Penelope Lively weaves together. I want to be adopted by the Aunts, free to wander around that amazing house. But I would take care what trunks I opened.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
A chain of cause and effect
How It All Began, Penelope Lively
This has been a year of reading Penelope Lively - books I'd had unread for years, and other books (new to me) that I came across. And now there is her latest, which I've been anticipating ever since I saw it announced earlier in the year. How It All Began is vintage Lively. It is a story of cause and effect, of chance and choice, of the connections between people, and how a person's actions can affect more than just his or her own life. The book opens with a quotation from James Gleick's Chaos: "The Butterfly Effect was the reason . . . Errors and uncertainties multiply, cascading upward through a chain of turbulent features . . ."
As the story begins, Charlotte, an elderly woman, has been mugged. The attack leaves her with a broken hip, and she must move in with her daughter Rose and son-in-law Henry while it heals. Rose has to cancel a business trip with her employer, Lord Peters, a retired but still busy historian, and he recruits his niece Marion to accompany him instead. To go with him, Marion has to break a date with her married lover; the text she sends him goes to his wife instead, who immediately throws him out. This isn't one story, it's a chain of stories, and the characters move in and out of the different chapters, continuing to affect each other's lives.
In addition to the Butterfly Effect, Lively also uses the stories to explore the nature of history, one of her frequent themes. Lord Peters belongs to the Great Man school of history (which features few women), arguing "that events are governed entirely by politics and persons," not by impersonal forces or by chance and choice. We come to see how out of touch and in fact marginalized he has become, and there is a pathos in his attempts to reconnect and reinvent himself, though there is a satiric edge to Lively's portrait of him. He stands in contrast to Charlotte, who is for me the heart of the stories. She has been forced into dependence and the uncomfortable intimacy of living with her daughter. Reading is her natural refuge:
"For ever, reading has been central, the necessary fix, the support system. Her life has been informed by reading. She has read not just for distraction, sustenance, to pas the time, but she has read in a state of primal innocence, reading for enlightenment, for instruction, even. She has read to find out how sex works, how babies are born; she has read to discover what it is to be good, or bad; she has read to find out if things are the same for others as they are for her - then, discovering that frequently they are not, she has read to find out what is it that other people experience that she is missing."
I can't remember another Lively character with such a passion for reading. And Charlotte has always shared her love of books. A gifted teacher of English before her retirement, she now volunteers as a literacy tutor. Her own reading and her sessions with one student, Anton, allow Lively to explore different books as well as the idea of reading itself, while also bringing Anton into the chain of cause and effect. I was amused at the nods to P.D. James and Ruth Rendell, among others, and I think I now know a little about what Lively herself likes to read.
I really enjoyed this book. It may not have the emotional weight of some of her books, like The Photograph or Perfect Happiness, but it is an engaging story (or set of stories), told with Lively's style and wit, with a cast of characters that draw you in. I have to wonder, though, at Lively's American publishers. The UK version (left, rather blurry) has the most attractive cover, one that I just want to sink down into, and it's a teaser for things that happen in the book. To my mind, the American cover is garish, and the uneven lettering looks silly. Maybe they thought Americans would buy a book with a picture of London on it, but not one with books and flowers and tea. I decided to splurge on the UK edition, and I'm so glad I did, however shallow that makes me.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
A family and a house
Family Album, Penelope Lively
I bought a copy of Family Album back in January of last year, and I read the first couple of chapters before I got distracted by something else and set it aside. I don't know why it took me so long to pick it up again, when I've read and enjoyed so many of her other books this year (Perfect Happiness, Oleander, Jacaranda, The Ghost of Thomas Kempe, The Road to Lichfield, and Cleopatra's Sister).
Family Album is, as the name suggests, the story of a family, the Harpers, Charles and Alison, their six children, and Ingrid, originally an au pair and now engrafted into the family. It is also the story of their home, Allersmead, a large and rather shabby Edwardian house. As the story opens, Gina, the second child and eldest daughter, is returning for a weekend visit with her partner Philip. This is Philip's introduction to both the family and the home, and he is curious about both. Though Alison, who chatters like Miss Bates, is happy to tell him all about their years in the home and their large happy family, Gina is more evasive. The narrator takes us on a tour through the house, sketching out relationships and hinting at complexities, before the story returns to Gina and Philip.
This pattern is repeated through the book, as we are introduced to the family members in sections that alternate between the omniscient narrator and the different characters' points of view. The story moves back and forth in time, as people remember and reminisce, and their discussion reshapes our understanding of what happened and of the characters themselves. In both the present of the story and in the remembering, we return always to Allersmead and to Charles, Alison and Ingrid. Two family secrets are revealed, with varying effects on the people involved. Gradually we come to see each person, in his or her own right, which may differ greatly from the self-perception of each; but also how they fit together into the family.
I enjoyed this book, though I think it lacks the emotional weight of Lively's best books. With the constant shifts in perspective, there is no central character to follow, though we spend the most time with Gina. Some of the POV sections are shorter than others, which is understandable when there are nine characters to follow, ten if you count the house itself. The title is apt; this book does seem like an album, with snapshots of the family members at different times in their lives, pictures that tell a story of their lives, of the family's life, but can never completely capture its complexity.
I bought a copy of Family Album back in January of last year, and I read the first couple of chapters before I got distracted by something else and set it aside. I don't know why it took me so long to pick it up again, when I've read and enjoyed so many of her other books this year (Perfect Happiness, Oleander, Jacaranda, The Ghost of Thomas Kempe, The Road to Lichfield, and Cleopatra's Sister).
Family Album is, as the name suggests, the story of a family, the Harpers, Charles and Alison, their six children, and Ingrid, originally an au pair and now engrafted into the family. It is also the story of their home, Allersmead, a large and rather shabby Edwardian house. As the story opens, Gina, the second child and eldest daughter, is returning for a weekend visit with her partner Philip. This is Philip's introduction to both the family and the home, and he is curious about both. Though Alison, who chatters like Miss Bates, is happy to tell him all about their years in the home and their large happy family, Gina is more evasive. The narrator takes us on a tour through the house, sketching out relationships and hinting at complexities, before the story returns to Gina and Philip.
This pattern is repeated through the book, as we are introduced to the family members in sections that alternate between the omniscient narrator and the different characters' points of view. The story moves back and forth in time, as people remember and reminisce, and their discussion reshapes our understanding of what happened and of the characters themselves. In both the present of the story and in the remembering, we return always to Allersmead and to Charles, Alison and Ingrid. Two family secrets are revealed, with varying effects on the people involved. Gradually we come to see each person, in his or her own right, which may differ greatly from the self-perception of each; but also how they fit together into the family.
I enjoyed this book, though I think it lacks the emotional weight of Lively's best books. With the constant shifts in perspective, there is no central character to follow, though we spend the most time with Gina. Some of the POV sections are shorter than others, which is understandable when there are nine characters to follow, ten if you count the house itself. The title is apt; this book does seem like an album, with snapshots of the family members at different times in their lives, pictures that tell a story of their lives, of the family's life, but can never completely capture its complexity.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
All roads lead to Callimbia
Cleopatra's Sister, Penelope Lively
I've mentioned before my great enthusiasm for Penelope Lively's books. In the last few years I've read each new book of hers at publication (and there is another one to look forward to in November). At the same time I've been looking for her previous books. Somehow I missed Cleopatra's Sister, which was published in 1993, just after my favorite City of the Mind.
This book is very different from the last Lively I read, The Road to Lichfield, which I posted about back in June. It seems very different from any other Lively that I have read. I knew the basic plot elements going in: a British passenger plane en route to Nairobi is forced to make an emergency landing in the African nation of Callimbia. A military coup has just taken place, and some of the passengers are held as political hostages. The story focuses on two of them, Howard and Lucy, strangers up to that point, who fall in love in the midst of the chaos and uncertainty.
The first part of the book traces the history of Howard, Lucy, and Callimbia itself in alternating sections leading up to the fateful flight. Callimbia, a fictional country, lies on the north coast of Africa, west of Egypt and Libya. Lively creates a credible and fascinating history for this country, starting like James Michener sometimes does with the dawn of time and the shifting of the tectonic plates. The sister of the title, Berenice, was supposedly executed by their father Ptolemy (not to be confused of course with her two brothers named Ptolemy) in one of their many family quarrels, but according to an alternative account, she was rescued by a love-struck guard captain and fled with him to Callimbia.
All three of these stories, of Howard, Lucy, and Callimbia, are presented as examples of one of Lively's frequent themes:
The second part of the book is a straightforward account of the flight, the forced landing, and all that ensues with the group held hostage. They have no idea what is going on, and neither do we, and the tension rises steadily. I said in my post on The Road to Lichfield that Lively's books are not action-driven, and here she proves me wrong. I admit that I grew so concerned over the hostages' fate that I finally gave in and read the last two pages. Lively brings the story to a neat and satisfying conclusion, though as with The Road to Lichfield, I was left wanting to know more, to know what happens next, not least to Callimbia itself. In these days, this story of a fictional north African country, under a military coup, perhaps resonates differently than it did in 1993.
I've mentioned before my great enthusiasm for Penelope Lively's books. In the last few years I've read each new book of hers at publication (and there is another one to look forward to in November). At the same time I've been looking for her previous books. Somehow I missed Cleopatra's Sister, which was published in 1993, just after my favorite City of the Mind.
This book is very different from the last Lively I read, The Road to Lichfield, which I posted about back in June. It seems very different from any other Lively that I have read. I knew the basic plot elements going in: a British passenger plane en route to Nairobi is forced to make an emergency landing in the African nation of Callimbia. A military coup has just taken place, and some of the passengers are held as political hostages. The story focuses on two of them, Howard and Lucy, strangers up to that point, who fall in love in the midst of the chaos and uncertainty.
The first part of the book traces the history of Howard, Lucy, and Callimbia itself in alternating sections leading up to the fateful flight. Callimbia, a fictional country, lies on the north coast of Africa, west of Egypt and Libya. Lively creates a credible and fascinating history for this country, starting like James Michener sometimes does with the dawn of time and the shifting of the tectonic plates. The sister of the title, Berenice, was supposedly executed by their father Ptolemy (not to be confused of course with her two brothers named Ptolemy) in one of their many family quarrels, but according to an alternative account, she was rescued by a love-struck guard captain and fled with him to Callimbia.
All three of these stories, of Howard, Lucy, and Callimbia, are presented as examples of one of Lively's frequent themes:
"[the] uneasy balance between the operation of contingency and decision, with the subject tottering precariously between the two from the cradle to the grave. Which is the stuff of history itself, a conjunction so capricious that it hardly bears contemplation by those unfortunate enough to get mixed up in the process."Howard becomes a paleontologist because when he is six years old, his parents can't afford a vacation abroad. On a beach in Somerset, he discovers an ammonite, and from his fascination with it his career is born. Lucy, a journalist, gets an important job because she falls getting off a bus, pops into the nearest Boots to buy new tights, and meets an acquaintance who knows of an opening. Howard is on the flight because he learns of a new collection of fossils at a museum in Nairobi, Lucy because she accepted an assignment to write a travel piece. Both elements, contingency and decision, are there, and woven throughout this book.
The second part of the book is a straightforward account of the flight, the forced landing, and all that ensues with the group held hostage. They have no idea what is going on, and neither do we, and the tension rises steadily. I said in my post on The Road to Lichfield that Lively's books are not action-driven, and here she proves me wrong. I admit that I grew so concerned over the hostages' fate that I finally gave in and read the last two pages. Lively brings the story to a neat and satisfying conclusion, though as with The Road to Lichfield, I was left wanting to know more, to know what happens next, not least to Callimbia itself. In these days, this story of a fictional north African country, under a military coup, perhaps resonates differently than it did in 1993.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
The road to Lichfield
The Road to Lichfield, Penelope Lively
I have loved Penelope Lively's books ever since I first read City of the Mind, more than 20 years ago now. It is still my favorite book about London. Over the years I've managed to collect most of her other novels, as well as her two autobiographical works, but The Road to Lichfield lingered on the TBR pile.
I would never have guessed that this was her first published novel. It is written with the confidence and balance of her later books, though it is lighter than some like The Photograph. I generally find Lively a grave writer, not sombre, with touches of humor and lightness but not comedy. I also find in her sometimes a distance, a detachment from her characters, which reminds me of P.D. James and Ruth Rendell, both friends of hers I believe. Like them she is also very interested in the psychology of her characters, and she is an astute observer.
The Road to Lichfield opens with Anne Linton driving from her home in Cuxing, Berkshire, to Lichfield in Staffordshire, where her father has placed himself in a nursing home. On her arrival, she is startled by his decline, and the realization that he will not recover. She meets a neighbor, a fishing companion of her father's named David Fielding, to whom she is immediately drawn. In the process of sorting out her father's things, she learns a secret about her father, one her brother Graham has known but never shared. Anne returns home to her husband and two children, and to a neighbor who involves her in a campaign to save a 15th-century cottage, threatened with demolition. For much of the book, Anne divides her time between Cuxing and Lichfield, though in Lichfield she is taken up more with David Fielding than with her father.
One of Lively's great strengths, to my mind, is her characters. She has the gift of creating people, complex, flawed, fully human, about whom we come to care (and in some cases, like Anne's husband Don, to dislike). She manages shifting points of view that reveal facts, emotions, personalities, to the reader, which may be hidden from other characters. For much of the book Anne's father James is silent, lost in delusions or dreams, but Lively gives us his thoughts, his perceptions, in beautifully-written sections, keeping him very much part of the story.
In almost all of Lively's books one of the characters is working in history, as a teacher, a researcher, a writer, reflecting her own background. In this book, Anne teaches history at a local high school, though she loses her job when a new headmaster decides that history, especially narrative history, is irrelevant to teenagers. This allows Lively to explore, through the different characters, idea that frequently come up in her books: the role of history, why is it important, how we learn and teach history, how humanity has shaped and been shaped by the land. The preservation campaign brings another angle to this exploration, with debates over what is worth preserving.
There are elements of detective fiction in some of Lively's books, like The Photograph, which revolves around a man's investigation of a photo showing his now-deceased wife with another man. Generally, though, her books are not action- or plot-driven. In The Road to Lichfield, however, there is a loose end left hanging nearly til the end, when it suddenly becomes a trip wire, one that caught me completely by surprise. Just as Anne's discovery of the family secret means that she sees her parents and their family life through different eyes, so this little bombshell changes much of what has gone on before. It completely changes the ending of the story, and leaves me unsure what will happen next to these people. As so often with characters to whom I have become attached, I wish there were a sequel.
Penelope Lively has a new book coming out in the fall, and I can't wait to see what she gives us next.
I have loved Penelope Lively's books ever since I first read City of the Mind, more than 20 years ago now. It is still my favorite book about London. Over the years I've managed to collect most of her other novels, as well as her two autobiographical works, but The Road to Lichfield lingered on the TBR pile.
I would never have guessed that this was her first published novel. It is written with the confidence and balance of her later books, though it is lighter than some like The Photograph. I generally find Lively a grave writer, not sombre, with touches of humor and lightness but not comedy. I also find in her sometimes a distance, a detachment from her characters, which reminds me of P.D. James and Ruth Rendell, both friends of hers I believe. Like them she is also very interested in the psychology of her characters, and she is an astute observer.
The Road to Lichfield opens with Anne Linton driving from her home in Cuxing, Berkshire, to Lichfield in Staffordshire, where her father has placed himself in a nursing home. On her arrival, she is startled by his decline, and the realization that he will not recover. She meets a neighbor, a fishing companion of her father's named David Fielding, to whom she is immediately drawn. In the process of sorting out her father's things, she learns a secret about her father, one her brother Graham has known but never shared. Anne returns home to her husband and two children, and to a neighbor who involves her in a campaign to save a 15th-century cottage, threatened with demolition. For much of the book, Anne divides her time between Cuxing and Lichfield, though in Lichfield she is taken up more with David Fielding than with her father.
One of Lively's great strengths, to my mind, is her characters. She has the gift of creating people, complex, flawed, fully human, about whom we come to care (and in some cases, like Anne's husband Don, to dislike). She manages shifting points of view that reveal facts, emotions, personalities, to the reader, which may be hidden from other characters. For much of the book Anne's father James is silent, lost in delusions or dreams, but Lively gives us his thoughts, his perceptions, in beautifully-written sections, keeping him very much part of the story.
In almost all of Lively's books one of the characters is working in history, as a teacher, a researcher, a writer, reflecting her own background. In this book, Anne teaches history at a local high school, though she loses her job when a new headmaster decides that history, especially narrative history, is irrelevant to teenagers. This allows Lively to explore, through the different characters, idea that frequently come up in her books: the role of history, why is it important, how we learn and teach history, how humanity has shaped and been shaped by the land. The preservation campaign brings another angle to this exploration, with debates over what is worth preserving.
There are elements of detective fiction in some of Lively's books, like The Photograph, which revolves around a man's investigation of a photo showing his now-deceased wife with another man. Generally, though, her books are not action- or plot-driven. In The Road to Lichfield, however, there is a loose end left hanging nearly til the end, when it suddenly becomes a trip wire, one that caught me completely by surprise. Just as Anne's discovery of the family secret means that she sees her parents and their family life through different eyes, so this little bombshell changes much of what has gone on before. It completely changes the ending of the story, and leaves me unsure what will happen next to these people. As so often with characters to whom I have become attached, I wish there were a sequel.
Penelope Lively has a new book coming out in the fall, and I can't wait to see what she gives us next.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Ghost Stories
The Small Hand, Susan Hill
The Ghost of Thomas Kempe, Penelope Lively
One of the books that had the biggest impact on me last year was Susan Hill's Howards End is on the Landing, which had been recommended through a Dunnett group. Every page felt like part of a conversation about books and reading that I never wanted to end - even though we disagree about Jane Austen and Terry Pratchett, but at least she properly appreciates Trollope. And Hill introduced me to two other authors, the Rev. Francis Kilvert with his amazing diaries from the 1870s; and Patrick Leigh Fermor and his travel narratives, possibly the best writer I have ever read. She also reintroduced me to Nancy Mitford - and from there I've discovered Deborah Devonshire and her collaborations with Charlotte Mosely, especially a book of the "Mitford girls'" letters over 50 years.
Last week an email from MBTB announced that they had Hill's new book, The Small Hand, subtitled "A Ghost Story." The main character, Adam Snow, is an antiquarian book dealer. One evening, lost in country backroads, he stops at an overgrown garden, where he feels a small hand slip into his. Adam uncovers more about the garden and its designer, and the hand leads him into the past (literally, I think, though I was a bit confused by that bit). His work as a book dealer leads him to a Trappist monastery in France that holds a First Folio - and that section reflects Hill's great admiration for PLF's A Time to Keep Silence. This is well-written, a fast read with some chilling moments and a couple of major twists, the ending of which left me with some questions (was the old woman in the house real?).
The second ghost story is a children's book, one that won the 1973 Carnegie Medal - and I can see why. I have loved Penelope Lively's books since I came across City of the Mind, which is my favorite book about London. I had recently read her autobiography Oleander, Jacaranda (too long on the TBR pile), and was reminded that her early books were children's books. The Ghost of Thomas Kempe was the first one I could get from the library. Like Hill's it is a ghost story rooted in history - and very much a Lively book, from the characters and the dialogue to the awareness of the layers of history, of other lives lived before us, which always hits me so clearly in England. I thought this was a marvelous book - without the grues of Hill's book, but a rich story.
The Ghost of Thomas Kempe, Penelope Lively
One of the books that had the biggest impact on me last year was Susan Hill's Howards End is on the Landing, which had been recommended through a Dunnett group. Every page felt like part of a conversation about books and reading that I never wanted to end - even though we disagree about Jane Austen and Terry Pratchett, but at least she properly appreciates Trollope. And Hill introduced me to two other authors, the Rev. Francis Kilvert with his amazing diaries from the 1870s; and Patrick Leigh Fermor and his travel narratives, possibly the best writer I have ever read. She also reintroduced me to Nancy Mitford - and from there I've discovered Deborah Devonshire and her collaborations with Charlotte Mosely, especially a book of the "Mitford girls'" letters over 50 years.
Last week an email from MBTB announced that they had Hill's new book, The Small Hand, subtitled "A Ghost Story." The main character, Adam Snow, is an antiquarian book dealer. One evening, lost in country backroads, he stops at an overgrown garden, where he feels a small hand slip into his. Adam uncovers more about the garden and its designer, and the hand leads him into the past (literally, I think, though I was a bit confused by that bit). His work as a book dealer leads him to a Trappist monastery in France that holds a First Folio - and that section reflects Hill's great admiration for PLF's A Time to Keep Silence. This is well-written, a fast read with some chilling moments and a couple of major twists, the ending of which left me with some questions (was the old woman in the house real?).
The second ghost story is a children's book, one that won the 1973 Carnegie Medal - and I can see why. I have loved Penelope Lively's books since I came across City of the Mind, which is my favorite book about London. I had recently read her autobiography Oleander, Jacaranda (too long on the TBR pile), and was reminded that her early books were children's books. The Ghost of Thomas Kempe was the first one I could get from the library. Like Hill's it is a ghost story rooted in history - and very much a Lively book, from the characters and the dialogue to the awareness of the layers of history, of other lives lived before us, which always hits me so clearly in England. I thought this was a marvelous book - without the grues of Hill's book, but a rich story.
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