O Beloved Kids

Synopsis: From 1906 to 1915, Rudyard Kipling wrote a series of letters to his children, his "dear people" as he called them. For Josephine, his daughter, who died at the age of six, the grief of whose loss almost stopped him from continuing with the stories; for his son John, who would become a young officer and be lost in the trenches of World War I (Kipling could not forgive himself for having pushed the lad into the service); and for his second daughter, Elsie, who would marry but had no children of her own.Displaying the same verve and wit as the "Just So Stories", the letters are peppered with many impromptu pen and ink sketches, stories and poems, as well as brilliantly graphic descriptions of travel in Europe, Egypt and Canada. Perhaps most moving are the letters between father and son written by Kipling to his son John, who was to be killed in 1915, just a few weeks before his eighteenth birthday.

Review: Rudyard corresponds with his children exactly as you would expect, it's a bit like reading his Just So Stories .. they're humorous, sometimes moralistic and occasionally dictatorial. You can't help thinking that Elsie (or Bird) got the best of it, being a girl, not much was expected of her and although she features much less in this book than John does (for the simple reason that Bird was more often at home) when she is sent letters it's usually because she's off skiing or on a jaunt. It's Rudyard's letters to John that the book is mainly concerned with. Whilst John is off boarding at school, Rudyard sends him news from home .. including little humorous stories with sketches to match but often there's a little lecture included (this is when Rudyard puts on what he calls his 'Mr Campbell' persona) and John is urged to study harder and basically buck up and be a good chap. At first I was inclined to be a bit resentful on John's behalf but then I realised that Rudyard only wanted him to be the best that he could be and instill some decent manners into him. These lectures apart, Rudyard writes to his son very much as you would to a friend, treating him almost as an equal (though at the same time despairing of his spelling.) Until I read the foreward (which I never do until the end) Rudyard's allusions to John avoiding 'beastliness' completely washed over me .. I thought he was alluding to the sort of beastliness that went on sometimes at Malory Towers (you know, someone cheating in exams, or stealing someone's pocket money) but apparently he was alluding to homosexuality. Well, again, I guess he was only trying to steer him in, what he thought was, the right direction given the times he was writing in. There's also a few unpalatable racial terms such as you might read, in Mark Twain's work of the same era.

Rudyard was a great patriot and believed fervently in men doing their duty, he wrote pamphlets and made speeches promoting recruitment. As John approached seventeen he was instrumental in pulling strings to get him a commission in the Irish Guards (John had been rejected already by both navy and army, due to his chronic short sightedness) with devastating results. John was killed in the Battle of Loos, during torrential rain, on his first day of combat. His body was never recovered and Rudyard was broken hearted ... 'he did not need the many gloating letters he received holding him accountable for his son's death to consider the possibility of his personal guilt.' In the last part of the book we are able to read John's letters home .. which always start 'Dear old man' or 'Dear old things' and this touch makes the book all the more affecting. Although I'm sure that Rudyard did continue to write to Bird after John's death, John's last letter home, written the evening before his death, is the last letter in the book. He ends it with ... 'You have no idea what enormous issues depend on the next few days. This will be my last letter most likely for some time as we won't get any time for writing this next week, but I will try and send Field post cards. Well so long old dears, Dear love John.' Rudyard wrote an epitaph for John a couple of years later which said .. 'If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied.'

I was all the more ridiculously affected by having Daniel Radcliffe in mind whilst reading about John. Daniel played the part of John in the drama My Boy Jack which was on TV a couple of years ago.

The letters are full of fun and, though they are at times a little censorious, it's clear that they were written by someone who loved his children deeply and wanted only the best for them.

Day Twenty One

Day 21 – Favourite book from your childhood

I loved Enid's Malory Towers and St Clares books and would have given my eye teeth to have gone to a boarding school (in theory that is .. in practice I used to have a panic attack if my Mum was more than five paces away!) .. the girls always seemed to have such fun and I was just desperate to have a secret midnight feast and fry sausages by moonlight *sigh* ... but the book that I really fell in love with was Mary Norton's The Borrowers .. I was just fascinated by them and used to be very liberal with my toast crumbs, pencil sharpenings and birthday candle stubs. Whenever an odd sock went missing I had visions of a little borrower unravelling it and making blankets for winter. I did look around the house for Borrowers but never saw them .. they're too clever for that of course but I thought I detected signs of them everywhere.

Day Twenty

Day 20 – Favourite romance book

It would be too easy and too predictable to say Pride & Prejudice and in any case, for me, Persuasion was more romantic. Who hasn't blubbed their way through the following passage?
"You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight and a half years ago. Dare not say that a man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in F. W." I melted like a malteser on a sunbed when I read that.

The Hand that First Held Mine

Synopsis: When the sophisticated Innes Kent turns up on her doorstep, Lexie Sinclair realises she cannot wait any longer for her life to begin, and leaves for London. There, at the heart of the 1950s Soho art scene, she carves out a new life. In the present day, Elina and Ted are reeling from the difficult birth of their first child. Elina struggles to reconcile the demands of motherhood with sense of herself as an artist, and Ted is disturbed by memories of his own childhood that don't tally with his parents' version of events. As Ted begins to search for answers, an extraordinary portrait of two women is revealed, separated by fifty years, but connected in ways that neither could ever have expected.

Review: I thought this one started better than it ended but nevertheless it was an enjoyable and absorbing read. I have no idea why but I find I'm struggling with contemporary stories at the moment, especially those true to life, I'm finding it a struggle to keep interested. This story is split into separate chapters, alternately focusing on Lexie and Innes in the 1950's and Elina and Ted in the present day. You know that eventually the two worlds are going to collide and, unusually, I worked it out well in advance, which put a bit of a damper on the reveal. Rather like the Hotel du Lac there were times when I couldn't put this book down and times when I was bored and wanting it to finish. I was more drawn to the story of Lexie than of Elina (which is always the problem with multiple storylines, there is always one story that you prefer and it makes the other storylines irksome) but I suspect that was more to do with the 1950's setting because I didn't particularly like her or anyone else for that matter. It sounds as if I'm being ultra critical and I'm not meaning to be because I suspect this is probably one of the better contemporary stories out there. It starts with 'Listen. The trees in this story are stirring, trembling, readjusting themselves. A breeze is coming in gusts off the sea, and it is almost as if the trees know, in their restlessness, in their head tossing impatience, that something is about to happen' and I was hoping it would continue in the same vein which it did, but not consistantly. The characters must have got under my skin because I found myself wanting to give them all a good kick in the pants at various times but, for all that, I still felt intrigued enough by them to want to know how their stories played out.

Hotel Du Lac

Synopsis: Into the rarefied atmosphere of the Hotel du Lac timidly walks Edith Hope, romantic novelist and holder of modest dreams. Edith has been exiled from home after embarrassing herself and her friends. She has refused to sacrifice her ideals and remains stubbornly single. But among the pampered women and minor nobility Edith finds Mr Neville, and her chance to escape from a life of humiliating spinsterhood is renewed...This book is the winner of the Booker Prize in 1984.

Review: This is a quiet sort of a book, nothing much happens, it's just a day to day recounting of Edith's stay at the Hotel du Lac. Edith is a novelist and she has gone to the hotel to escape a rather embarrassing and messy situation at home, a situation that is relayed to us in snatches throughout the book. At first she only casually observes the other guests but bit by bit they begin to intrigue her and she starts to interact with them. Among the guests is Mr Neville who offers Edith the sort of marriage that most women would run a mile from (the 'we don't love each other but we do like each other, and if you put on an appearance of being the perfect wife, and turn a blind eye to my dalliances, then I'm prepared to do the same for you' type of marriage) but Edith is tempted as the last thing she wants to become is an old maid and in any case, wouldn't this sort of marriage be more comfortable and less exhausting?

The book is only short and although not exactly riveting, Edith does get under your skin and you do find yourself caring about what becomes of her. There are some well depicted secondary characters, I liked Mrs Pusey and her daughter Jennifer - a couple of snobby shopaholics who, to all intents and purposes, are attractive, young and devoted to each other but on closer acquaintance are not perhaps as young, or as devoted, as first appears but I was unsure about Mr Neville, he seemed a bit cardboard and I couldn't quite believe in him. It's humorous, not in a side splitting way but in a smiling often way and it's beautifully written too but a little patchy, on the whole I loved the writing but there were bits where I drifted.

Day Nineteen

Day 19 – Favourite book turned into a movie

Again, I couldn't pick an out and out favourite there are too many. I love the old b&w Pride & Prejudice with Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson (I didn't like the Keira Knightley version,) the old b&w Rebecca, again with Larry and Joan Fontaine. I love Breakfast at Tiffany's with Audrey Hepburn but didn't like the book so perhaps that doesn't count (ditto Bridget Jones.) Lord of the Rings .. I loved both the three books and the three movies. I Capture the Castle with Romola Garai, Sense & Sensibility with Emma Thompson and Kate Winslett, To Kill a Mockingbird with Gregory Peck, The animated Coraline, The Lion the Witch & the Wardrobe with Tilda Swinton and James McAvoy and nearly every version known to man of A Christmas Carol. I've got an especially soft spot for the Harry Potter movies, the books are far superior to the films but the films are still magical .. and I love the cast.

If we can count TV adaptations as movies then there are loads more .. Love in a Cold Climate with Elisabeth Dermot Walsh, Rosamunde Pike, Celia Imrie and Alan Bates, Pride & Prejudice with the gorgeous Colin Firth and the equally gorgeous Jennifer Ehle, Wives & Daughters with Keeley Hawes and Justine Waddell, almost all Dickens adaptations especially Martin Chuzzlewitt (Tom Wilkinson, Julia Sawalha and Paul Schofield,) Our Mutual Friend (Steven Mackintosh, Anna Friel, Keeley Hawes, Paul McGann & David Morrisey,) Bleak House (Anna Maxwell Martin, Carey Mulligan, Gillian Anderson & Johnny Vegas) & Little Dorrit (Claire Foy, Tom Courtenay, Russell Tovey & Matthew Macfadyen.)
& Poppy Shakespeare (Anna Maxwell Martin & Naomie Harris.)
& Jane Eyre (Ruth Watson)
& Cranford (Judy Dench & Dame Eileen Atkins)
& Sense & Sensibility (Hattie Morohan)
and practically all BBC costume drama's

Flush

Synopsis: First published in 1933, "Flush" is the lively story of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's cocker spaniel. Although Flush has adventures of his own, he is also the means of providing us with glimpses of the life of his owner and her days at Wimpole Street as an invalid, her courtship by Robert Browning, their elopement and life together in Italy.

Review: Another one that I loved and wished I still was reading because it's the sort of read you need when you've got the 'mean reds'. I know I'm easing myself in a bit by making this my first Virginia Woolf read but it more or less came about by accident, I saw it at a local bookshop, bought it and the size of it (short) made it perfect for a sunny afternoon spent in the garden. This is a fictional reconstruction of the life of Flush .. Elizabeth Barrett Brownings spaniel and I though it was just adorable. I am a bit of a sucker for animal stories anyway and who doesn't love a spaniel? The book starts ... 'It is universally admitted that the family from which the subject of this memoir claims descent is one of the greatest antiquity. Therefore it is not strange that the origin of the name itself is lost in obscurity. Many million years ago the country which is now called Spain seethed uneasily in the ferment of creation. Ages passed; vegetation appeared; where there is vegetation the law of Nature has decreed that there shall be rabbits; where there are rabbits, Providence has ordained there shall be dogs.' and we are soon with Flush as he travels to Wimpole Street to become the beloved pet of the invalid Elizabeth. Obviously the story is a simple one but it's told with great intelligence and wit. Life isn't all plain sailing for Flush, his first disappointment comes in the shape of Robert Browning ... Flush is not at all amused by Robert's attentions to his mistress and feels rather neglected and usurped ... his behaviour is perhaps a little unworthy of a noble dog but life as he knows it is changing and he feels threatened. He then falls foul of the dognappers and spends a miserable few weeks chained up in a hovel waiting for a ransom to be paid (in actuality this happened several times to Flush but is only accounted for once here.) The vengeance exacted by the dognappers, should their ransom demands remain unheeded, was a gruesome parcel sent to the owner containing the head and paws of their beloved pet. Flush's life hangs in the balance as Elizabeth's family and Robert try to persuade her against paying these murderous louts.

Eventually, with Flush returned and Elizabeth's health much improved, she elopes with Robert to Italy taking her maid and Flush along too. Flush soon discards his old sedate London ways and becomes quite rakish, wandering the streets of Pisa and Florence, availing himself of the ladies, getting home late and sunning himself on the rocks. The most idyllic retirement in other words. Virginia gleaned most of her information from two of Elizabeth's published poems and plucked the rest from her imagination.

It's not typical of Virginia's writing so I'm not getting carried away but it's a great start and the other Virginia Woolf books on my bookshelf immediately look more inviting and less daunting (deluded fool!) If it was allegorical it completely went over my head .. which I knew it would .. it's nice not to be troubled by intellect :-)

I couldn't find any pics of Elizabeth with Flush but here are some gorgeous pics of other famous ladies with their pets.

Audrey Hepburn & Famous

Daphne du Maurier

Dorothy Parker & Misty

The Queen & Susan

Marilyn Monroe & Maf

Doris Day

Elizabeth Taylor

The Journals of Sylvia Plath

Had one of the worst weeks ever .. Alan was made redundant last Monday and we have been panicking around revising his CV and making phone calls etc. I've had to brush up on my extremely rusty typing skills. In any case it has made us both feel a bit Eeyoreish and one of the side effects has been that I can't read a thing .. my mind is just not in it. Anyway, enough of my woes, I'm dreadfully behind with reviewing so I'll just write some thoughts down here ..

Synopsis: No other major contemporary American writer has inspired such intense curiosity about her life as Sylvia Plath. Now the intimate and eloquent personal diaries of the twentieth century's most important female poet reveal for the first time the true story behind "The Bell Jar" and her tragic suicide at thirty. They paint, as well, a revealing portrait of the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet whose stature has seldom been equalled.

Review: Firstly, thank you frankie (from BCF) for bookswapping this with me .. I adored it. This book made me ashamed of my own pathetic adolescent scribblings in the same way that Anne Frank's diary made me throw all my childhood diaries away .. they didn't actually tell me anything, it was just a list of what I wore and what I ate and who I fancied and who said what to whom .. terrible.

Sylvia doesn't just write an account of her day to day life, she pours out all of her thoughts and feelings into her journals and reading them is like reading her very troubled, unquiet, but oh so vivid and vital mind. She really was an all or nothing sort of person, she was fiercely ambitious about her future as a published poet/author and every rejection letter received was like a dagger to her. I was touched by the little self help lists she included in her diary entires .. stuff like (early on) 'don't drink too much ... keep troubles to self ... don't criticize anybody to anybody else' and later 'immerse self in characters ... forget saleable stories, write to recreate a mood' .... All her joys seem short lived, clouds form and demons lurk in the wings, you feel that she never really knew what it was to have a mind at peace with itself. She writes just beautifully .. this piece about Ted enchanted me ... 'and he sets the sea of my life steady, flooding it with the deep rich color of his mind and his love and constant amaze at his perfect being; as if I had conjured, at last, a god from the slack tides, coming up with his spear shining, and the cockleshells and rare fish trailing in his wake, and he trailing the world: for my earth goddess, he the sun, the sea, the black complement power: yang to ying' .. so glorious but of course, with hindsight, you ache for her when you read it.

She writes with her heart and soul, it's very raw and intense, and as such it can make you feel sad and exhausted but ultimately it's enormously rewarding and enlightening .. it makes you long to know more and, of course, I want to read the edition that was not edited by Ted now (because the omissions here can frustrate a bit) but also I'd like to read his letters to see if they can provide balance.

John the Revelator

Synopsis: John Devine yearns for escape. Stuck in a small town, he's worried over by his chain-smoking, bible-quoting single mother Lily and the sinister Mrs Nagle. So when Jamey Corboy, a self-styled boy-wonder, arrives in town, John's life suddenly fills with possibilities. But as they dream and scheme is John simply hiding from the reality of his mother's ill health, and the terrible dilemma that awaits him? Brilliantly evoking all the frustrations and pent up energy of a parochial adolescence, "John the Revelator" also gradually becomes the story of Lily herself, and the secrets of her past. Suffused with eerie imagery, black humour and told in hypnotic prose, "John the Revelator" is a novel to fall in love with.

Review: I don't know why me and this book didn't get on more, it has nothing to do with the writing which was superb, I think it was just that I wasn't in the mood for something fairly dark and depressing.

It's got a definite touch of the Roddy Doyle's about it (which under normal circumstances I would love,) it has his ironic humour and also his way with words, with short, punchy, matter of fact, sentences. I liked the way John's relationship with his mum Lily was played out and I loved Lily's dark Irish wit - she worries about him and he worries about her (with good cause as it turns out.) She says things like 'I knew you were a boy .. heartburn. Sure sign of a man in your life' and her answer for 'what's for dinner?' is 'pigs feet and hairy buttermilk'. They are protective of each other in a way that single parents and lone children often are .. they only have each other but Lily is unwell and increasingly so and John (who is fifteen) is naturally concerned. John is, by nature, a loner but when a new boy, James Corboy, comes to town, he recognises a kindred spirit and they join forces. John is happy to escape from his burdens for a while especially as James is cool and a little bit different and more daring than he, but he's not escaping, he's only hiding and sooner or later reality is back to claim him. James writes short stories and they, as well as John's nightmare dream sequences, are woven into the story supplying further insight and bolstering up a sort of creeping menace that builds as the story progresses.

Very melancholic and atmospheric, with a strong supernatural element weaving through. In a different frame of mind I might have loved this book but sadly as it got darker I began to wish for it to be over. I did love John and Lily and would have been happy to eavesdrop on their banter for ages ... but that probably wouldn't have made much of a story.

The Brontës Went to Woolworths

Synopsis: As growing up in pre-war London looms large in the lives of the Carne sisters, Deirdre, Katrine and young Sheil still share an insatiable appetite for the fantastic. Eldest sister Deirdre is a journalist, Katrine a fledgling actress and young Sheil is still with her governess; together they live a life unchecked by their mother in their bohemian town house. Irrepressibly imaginative, the sisters cannot resist making up stories as they have done since childhood; from their talking nursery toys, Ironface the Doll and Dion Saffyn the pierrot, to their fulsomely-imagined friendship with real high-court Judge Toddington who, since Mrs Carne did jury duty, they affectionately called Toddy. However, when Deirdre meets Toddy's real-life wife at a charity bazaar, the sisters are forced to confront the subject of their imaginings. Will the sisters cast off the fantasies of childhood forever? Will Toddy and his wife, Lady Mildred, accept these charmingly eccentric girls? And when fancy and reality collide, who can tell whether Ironface can really talk, whether Judge Toddington truly wears lavender silk pyjamas or whether the Bronte's did indeed go to Woolworths?

Review: I enjoyed this story even though half of the time I hadn't a clue what was going on and felt often that I wasn't being let in on the joke .. the penny does drop after a while but you haven't the foggiest to begin with who is real and who is not .. and I did keep wishing they would calm down a bit as their spirits were always feverishly high.

It's a story of the three Carne sisters (the book ironically starts with 'How I loathe that kind of novel which is about a lot of sisters. It is usually called "They were Seven" or "Three Not Out", and one spends one's entire time trying to sort them all, and muttering, "Was it Isobel who drank, or Gertie? And which was it who ran away with the gigolo, Amy or Pauline? And which of their separated husbands was Lionel, Isobel or Amy's?") Our narrator for the most part is Deirdre, who is a journalist and very high spirited, next in line is Katrine who is an aspiring actress and then little Sheil who's still in the schoolroom.

The girls have gone in for make believe in rather a large way, giving life to dolls and toys as well as pretending that their lives are inhabited by the real life people they admire. In particular the high-court Judge Toddington (or Toddy as they call him) who, though they've never met him, comes to dinner frequently and telephones them nightly. They make pets of these people and endow them with sayings and character traits of their own imagining. Mother is very much in on all of these fantasies (Father is long since dead) and participates in them every bit as much as the girls do. The one sane point of reference is Sheil's governesses (understandably, they come and go) who have the job of trying to check the fanciful imaginings of the impressionable Sheil. The two we read about here get it entirely wrong. In the first instance Miss Martin thinks the girls are just plain weird and tries to make them see reason, her replacement Miss Ainslee see's it as the joke it is and tries to join in with all the raillery but gets it all wrong. Essentially it's all just harmless fun but when Deirdre is actually introduced to Lady Toddington at a charity bazaar and invited home to tea, she's forced to confront reality.

'How could I tell her that I had lunched with her and helped her dress her stall, yesterday afternoon, and that Toddy had come in after the courts rose and given us both a cocktail? How convey the two years I had spoken to them both every day of my life? How blurt her own life to her, her daily round of dressmaker, telephone, at homes, and tiffs with Toddy. How describe to her her own secret difficulties: that she is privily aware that she is not his mental equal? That in the past there have been days when she would almost have welcomed his tangible infidelity as being a thing she could roundly, capably decide about, and no brains needed? That she has long ceased to love and notice him?'

There's a touch of the supernatural about it too, Father has been known to 'return' and, after a séance on a wet evening in Yorkshire, the Brontës come calling.

The thing, is though it's all frightfully silly and incredibly far fetched, there's an underlying sadness that makes you long for a more rational outcome especially for Sheil who is in danger of living entirely in a make believe world. You want something to anchor them back down to earth.

It's strange, mad, baffling, touching and funny all in equal doses. You will never have read anything quite like it.

Day Eighteen

Day 18 – A book that disappointed you

Rapture by Liz Jensen, and I was all the more disappointed because ordinarily I love her writing. To me it felt like she had one eye on the movie/TV adaptation. I was annoyed because I quite liked the premise but it started firing off all over the place and not being at all credible. I know books don't have to be credible but sometimes the plot calls for you to be convinced and I wasn't. I didn't like the characters either, one of them in particular needed a good shake, so that didn't help.
Another one is Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope which I've only lately listened to. I love Trollope's writing but this one was just a bit too political for my taste. I got bogged down in all the politics and was constantly wanting to be back listening to details of Phineas's complicated love life.

The Day of the Triffids

Synopsis: When a freak cosmic event renders most of the Earth's population blind, Bill Masen is one of the lucky few to retain his sight. The London he walks is crammed with groups of men and women needing help, some ready to prey on those who can still see. But another menace stalks blind and sighted alike. With nobody to stop their spread the Triffids, mobile plants with lethal stingers and carnivorous appetites, seem set to take control. "The Day of the Triffids" is perhaps the most famous catastrophe novel of the twentieth century and its startling imagery of desolate streets and lurching, lethal plant life retains its power to haunt today.

Review: I'm not one for science fiction, anything written in code gives me the horrors, but I am liking the classic sci-fi books very much and this one was no exception. The plotline was familiar, I think it's probably given birth to hundreds of disaster movies/TV dramas since, but this is the original and one of the best.
The concept of reducing the (almost) entire human race to little more than helpless, sightless, babies, staggering around and falling prey to a legion of carrion eating plants is a terrifying one, the real stuff of nightmares. Also terrifying was how quickly the people left acquired a 'dog eat dog' mentality, you can imagine that happening.

My mind did have little niggling doubts (it's amazing how the mind can find the notion of walking plants perfectly rational but have trouble with the details.) I thought, for a start, the likelihood was that there would have been a lot more sighted people - more children for instance, unconscious people, rock stars who always manage to lose a week every month and the inhabitants of Swindon sleeping off a three day bender - also I didn't think that people would have become suicidal so quickly .. is it likely that a doctor would throw himself out of a window just because he had gone blind? Human nature fights for survival usually and it's not as if he didn't know that there were still sighted people left .. and why would they ever allow the triffids to establish?, ok at first they were a curiosity and in typical greedy style we found a way to profit by them but to let them start walking around ... that's unwise .. get the DDT out (I'm not advocating this in general .. I've very much with Joni on this point but desperate times calls for desperate measures.) plus wouldn't they have been tripping over dead bodies eventually, there was only ever a handful of people outside but then, science fiction always calls for a huge amount of suspended disbelief, and I can do that when the story is as good as this one.

I liked the love story, it seemed convincing and natural in the circumstances. Though feisty, Josella wasn't the sort of of kick ass, kung fu type of heroine that sets my teeth on edge (the sort of woman.. not to be too indelicate .. that does cartwheels and climbs ladders in white trousers when Auntie Flo is visiting .. and doesn't sit in a corner hunched in a ball of misery with a knife clenched between her teeth like normal people.) She was a nice mix of capable and vulnerable.

The ending was a surprise because it was ambiguous. I was expecting a clear cut ending and actually had something in mind which I thought was going to sort the little wretches out, possibly I got this from a film version or something. It didn't spoil it for me though, if anything I preferred it, I liked the uncertainty of it all.

Of course it does make you eye everything in your garden with suspicion, and I'm definitely more wary of going out into it (bother .. why do I have to have hedges .. perfect camouflage for the blighters) ... the crash helmet is probably unnecessary but I can't afford to take chances.

Highly enjoyable in a shivery, hide behind your pillow, sort of way (I must just add here that I am quite capable of being scared by my own shadow .. allowances have to be made for me being a bit of a custard .. I have never ever watched any of the 'Nightmare on Elm Street'/'Scream' sort of films .... If I did sleep would be a thing of the past.)
The Midwich Cuckoos and The Chrysalids are also on my TBR's and if there anything like as good as this I'm in for a treat.

Day Seventeen

Day Seventeen – Favourite quote from your favourite book

This is a bit of a stinker, which favourite book does it mean?, my absolute favourite book? which is the answer to the very last question, my favourite classic?, my favourite book by my favourite writer??? all of them .. none of them ... or am I getting too technical. I don't suppose it matters.

This is the one question which may take me some time to answer as I have to rootle about finding the books and looking up the quotes.

Pride & Prejudice is an easy one to start with ... I could pick hundreds of quotes but the one's that I like best all have a sense of the ridiculous about them ...

"An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do."

"I like her appearance," said Elizabeth, struck with other ideas. "She looks sickly and cross. Yes, she will do for him very well. She will make him a very proper wife."

"Well, my comfort is, I am sure Jane will die of a broken heart, and then he will be sorry for what he has done."

Quotes from Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere ...

'Lovely fresh dreams. First class nightmares. We got 'em. Get yer lovely nightmares here.'

'Sir. Might I with due respect remind you that Mister Vandemar and myself burned down the City of Troy? We brought a Black Plague to Flanders. We have assassinated a dozen kings, five popes, half a hundred heroes and two accredited gods. Our last commission before this was the torturing to death of an entire monastery in sixteenth century Tuscany. We are utterly professional.'

'He abused my hospitality' boomed the Earl. 'I swore that ... if he ever again entered my domain I would have him gutted and dried ... like, like something that's been ... um ... gutted, first and then um dried ...''Perchance - a kipper my lord?' suggested the jester.

'Should have followed my idea.' said Mr Vandemar, 'Would have scared her lots more if I'd pulled his head off while she wasn't looking, then put my hand up through his throat and wiggled my fingers about. They always scream,' he confided 'when the eyeballs fall out.'

Day Sixteen

Day 16 – Favourite female character

Not that I've said this before but my favourite female character is Thursday Next from the Jasper Fforde novels. She's just an ordinary girl but extraordinary things happen to her, she has a time travelling dad and a dodo for a pet. She gets to do all sorts of weird and wonderful things, fighting monsters and villains etc but is usually back at home again in time for tea. Best of all she hangs out in the bookworld and gets to chat to people like Heathcliff and Miss Havisham. She only lives down the road from me and so I feel I could be her for a day because I've had lots of experience of driving around the magic roundabout in Swindon.
Other favourite literary ladies are Elizabeth Bennet (Pride and Prejudice,) Cassandra Mortmain (I Capture the Castle,) Molly Gibson (Wives and Daughters,) Tiffany Aching (Terry Pratchett's Discworld,) Liesel Meminger (The Book Thief) and Miyuki Woodward (Gold) .. I don't seem to like the feisty females as much as I like the feisty men so Becky Sharp and Catherine Earnshaw do nothing for me but I do like comic creations so love characters like Lady Catherine de Bourgh (Pride and Prejudice,) Lady Montdore (Love in a Cold Climate) and Sairey Gamp (Martin Chuzlewitt.)

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas

Synopsis: For Gertrude Stein and her companion Alice B. Toklas, life in Paris was based upon the rue de Fleurus and the Saturday evenings and 'it was like a kaleidoscope slowly turning'. Picasso was there with 'his high whinnying spanish giggle', as were Cezanne and Matisse, Hemingway and Fitzgerald. As Toklas put it - 'The geniuses came and talked to Gertrude Stein and the wives sat with me'. A light-hearted entertainment, this is in fact Gertrude Stein's own autobiography and a roll-call of all the extraordinary painters and writers she met between 1903 and 1932. Audacious, sardonic and characteristically self-confident, this is a definitive account by the American in Paris.

Review: This one made my head ache, despite the blurb explaining all to me I really couldn't get the concept for ages. Eventually the penny dropped and I understood (eureka .. what's next .. Proust??) The books title is The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas but it's not about Alice, it's told from the viewpoint of Alice, but it's not by her either. It's a biography about Gertrude Stein written by her as if it's Alice (her friend and companion) talking .. oh my, my head hurts again thinking about it. This is a clever concept because of course you can get away with saying all sorts about how amazingly brilliant you are (as in 'The three geniuses of whom I wish to speak are Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso and Alfred Whitehead') and it looks for all the world as if someone else is saying it about you (though Gertrude does come clean in the last sentence.) Anybody who was anybody in Paris (or abroad) always wanted to be introduced to Gertrude, she drew artistic people to her like moths to flames.

The book went through phases for me of being really entertaining and a little dull, I like her style of writing (very spare with only essential detail) but sometimes there wasn't quite enough detail. Often a sentence you thought was leading somewhere ended up dead ended ... stuff like .. 'we thought she would go there but she didn't' .. 'we thought she'd like him but she never' ... Gertrude bought a lot of paintings, she also sat for a lot of painters and sculptors and was mixing constantly in their society especially Picasso, Apollonaire & Matisse, later it was writers such as Hemingway, Fitzgerald and some of the Bloomsbury Group writers but a lot of this was more or less just listed with little snippets that mischievously made you want to know more. There are times when she elaborates a little more and it's always very entertaining and funny. She's someone who speaks her mind so if she doesn't like a painting/sculpture/piece of writing then she'll say so, she'd see no point in flattery. Having said that I don't think she was fond of criticism when it was directed at her, but then who is? 'She reads anything and everything and even now hates to be disturbed and above all however often she has read a book and however foolish the book may be no-one must make fun of it or tell her how it goes on. It is still as it always was real to her.'

One of the paragraphs that I loved was (and the above sentence may give you a clue) ...'Haweis had been fascinated with what he had read in the manuscript of The Making of Americans. He did however plead for commas. Gertrude Stein said commas were unnecessary, the sense should be intrinsic and not have to be explained by commas and otherwise commas were only a sign that one should pause and take breath but one should know of oneself when one wanted to pause and take breath. However, as she liked Haweis very much and he had given her a delightful painting, she gave him two commas. It must however be added that on re-reading the manuscript she took the commas out.' .. I think I will use that forever more as an excuse for my atrocious punctuation. You should have known to put it in yourself I can't do all the work for you :o)

An insight into life in Montmartre, during the dawning of the Cubism/Surrealism art movement and the first world war and rather endearing in it's way, Gertrude has an uncanny way of getting straight to the point of every topic and furnishing it with her dry wit. She and Alice lived simple lives but moved in extraordinary circles. As you would expect, it's comma-lite.

Day Fifteen

Day 15 – Favourite male character

It's weird but a lot of my favourite male characters are not characters that I actually like ... there's Heathcliff, Scrooge and Uncle Matthew (from Love in a Cold Climate and The Pursuit of Love) .. all absolute monsters but great to read about. There's also lots that I admire like Atticus Finch, Jonathan Strange, Jeeves, Mr Rochester and Eugene Wrayburn (from Our Mutual Friend) but I think best of all is Bertie Wooster .. for the same reasons as I gave earlier .. he has such a 'sunny disposish', nothing is ever wrong in his world for long .. he's a twit it's true but then reading about twits is great fun and he is such a lovable twit. I did love him long before I saw Hugh Laurie playing him but Hugh just captures him perfectly.

Our Spoons Came From Woolworths

Synopsis: Marry in haste, repent at leisure. Sophia is twenty-one years old, carries a newt -- Great Warty -- around in her pocket and marries -- in haste -- a young artist called Charles. Swept into bohemian London of the thirties, Sophia is ill-equipped to cope. Poverty, babies (however much loved) and her husband conspire to torment her. Hoping to add some spice to her life, Sophia takes up with the dismal, ageing art critic, Peregrine, and learns to repent her marriage -- and her affair -- at leisure. But in this case virtue is more than its own reward, for repentance brings an abrupt end to a life of unpaid bills, unsold pictures and unwashed crockery.

Review: This is the sort of book I love relaxing with, it's not challenging but it's quirky. In a lot of ways it reminded me of A Diary of a Nobody as though not strictly written in journal style it is a day to day account of the life of Sophia Fairclough and she has an innocent 'Charles Pooterish' way of looking at life and hoping things will turn out alright. She gets herself into similar scrapes too. Written in 1950, it's the sort of book that Persephone or Bloomsbury would publish if it wasn't already in print.

'The next free afternoon we had, we went to the address in Haverstock Hill she had given us. A woman with very fuzzy black hair came to the door. She had a huge silver belt round her waist, and arty, messy clothes. She kept saying "ger-ger" after every few words, rather like a giant cat purring. She showed us the flat, which consisted of a large basement room with an old fashioned dresser, and a small kitchen and use of bath and lav. When we had seen it she said we had better meet her sister "ger-ger", so we went upstairs and met the sister who had even more fuzzy hair, but it was fair, and her eyes were round and blue and her face like a melting strawberry ice cream, rather a cheap one, and I expect her body was like that, too, only it was mostly covered in mauve velvet. She spoke to us a little and said we were little love-birds looking for a nest. She made us feel all awful inside. Then she suddenly went into a trance. We thought she was dying, but her sister explained she was a medium and governed by a Chinese spirit called Mr Hi Wu. Then Mr Hi Wu spoke to us in very broken English and told us we were so lucky to be offered such a beautiful flat for only twenty-five shillings a week; it was worth at least thirty-five. So when she had recovered we said we would have the flat, and left the first week's rent as a deposit.'

I liked Sophia enormously, she's very funny and naive. She has a nice bright chatty way of telling you things even though sometimes the things are heartbreakingly sad (the first line reads 'I told Helen my story and she went home and cried') she's baffled by circumstances but seems to think that this is all she can expect. Later on she finds ways to spice up her life a bit but makes the same foolish decisions there too and things end badly. Sophia's husband Charles is a totally self absorbed, puffed up idiot who thinks, even though he isn't that good, that he will become a famous painter one day and practically leaves Sophia and the babies to starve whilst he dabbles with his paintings. He has a mother who puts him on a pedestal - she thinks Sophia is unworthy of him and believes she has trapped him into marriage. Charles doesn't want to have children, he's quite put out when Sophia becomes pregnant and suggests all sorts of hideous 'remedies.' You do want to shake Sophia at times but then you realise that this was set in the 1930's and not all women were wordly wise (Sophia originally believed that birth control was a matter of telling yourself 'I won't have babies' ... ahhh bless.) The narrative is a mix of ordinary life blended with the absolutely bizarre and madcap.

'I asked Charles what he wanted the baby to be called, and after a little thought, he said "Pablo" after Picasso, would be a good name, I thought "Pablo" sounded rather impressive, but could imagine how tired one would get hearing people say "Why do you call you baby Pablo? Is it a boy or a girl?" The other babies in the ward were all called Maureen, if they were girls, and Peter and John for the boys. They called mine "Ginger", which I did not like very much. Next time Charles came he suggested Sandro and Augustus. I was so happy he was taking an interest in the baby, I did not want to hurt his feelings, although I didn't like any of these names much. I felt you couldn't call a tiny thing that grew smaller every day Augustus, so I said it had better be Sandro. the next day a registrar visited the hospital and the mothers who had chosen their children's names had them registered, so I had mine registered Sandro Thomas Hardy Fairclough. I added Thomas Hardy because he was my favourite author at the time. I was not sure if Charles expected Botticelli after Sandro or not, but left it out because of spelling difficulties.'

It is said to be semi autobiographical ... Barbara says 'the only things that are true in this story are the wedding, Chapters 10,11 and 12 and the poverty' .. and it does read like a series of very unfortunate events. You hope for a happy outcome for Sophia - and in fact you know there will be one because it's written at the start - but oddly when it came it seemed too pat for me and I couldn't quite believe in it. However, taken as a whole I enjoyed it, Sophia's not your ordinary heroine, she's quite foolish and childlike and probably, left to her, womens lib would never have happened .. but she has a loving heart and a Mitfordesque spirit (newts in her pocket and a penchant for painting everything sea green) which made me warm to her.

Day Fourteen

Day 14 – Favourite book of your favourite writer

Well that would be Neverwhere, I just adored it. Very, very inventive writing from one of the very best writers of fantasy fiction .. but it's not the sort of stuff that addles your brain and makes you turn the book around to see if you've been reading it upside down for the last half hour. It's clever and imaginative but also really, really readable and also enormous fun.

Synopsis: Under the streets of London there's a world most people could never even dream of - a city of monsters and saints, murderers and angels, and pale girls in black velvet. Richard Mayhew is a young businessman who is about to find out more than he bargained for about this other London. A single act of kindness catapults him out of his safe and predictable life and into a world that is at once eerily familiar and yet utterly bizarre. There's a girl named Door, an Angel called Islington, an Earl who holds Court on the carriage of a Tube train, a Beast in a labyrinth, and dangers and delights beyond imagining...And Richard, who only wants to go home, is to find a strange destiny waiting for him below the streets of his native city.

Tale of Two Cities

Synopsis: Lucie Manette has been separated from her father for eighteen years while he languished in Paris' most feared prison, the Bastille. Finally reunited, the Manettes' fortunes become inextricably intertwined with those of two men, the heroic aristocrat Darnay and the dissolute lawyer Carton. Their story, which encompasses violence, revenge, love and redemption, is grippingly played out against the backdrop of the terrifying brutality of the French Revolution.

Review: I've been wanting to read this book for ages, my own copy (a Puffin) turned out to be abridged which made me :-( and there was absolutely no point in reading it. I wanted to get the full experience and drink in every word ... luckily the library came to my rescue.

'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way- in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.'

It does have a slow start (despite it's great first paragraph), which is the case with nearly every Dickens story, he doesn't often do explosive starts, he always does a huge amount of scene setting and character introduction which can make you wander off a bit, but what it lacks at the start it makes up for tenfold with a fantastic plotline and an absolutely thrilling ending .. probably one of THE best endings ever.

I loved the contrast between the gentle love story being played out on this side of the channel and the shockingly bloody and vengeful revolution going on in France. In London we have the lovely Lucie Manette and her father Dr Manette now back at home after being incarcerated in the Bastille for eighteen years. We have the handsome Charles Darnay, and the equally handsome (and in fact astonishingly alike) but dissolute lawyer Sydney Carton. Both men are in love with Lucie. But Sydney sees that it will never do, (this is in contrast to what the female reader sees .. the female reader, or this female reader anyway, immediately sees that Sydney has all the charisma, who cares if he's dissipated and disreputable? he's by far the most interesting man in the book and if Lucie had any sense she'd be begging to rehabilitate him,) he sees that Lucie loves Charles (fool) and in any case he is glad of it, because he knows that if she did love him, he would only cause her misery and disgrace (no! no! no!) He confesses all to her and pledges (in a speech to make you melt) that he will do anything for her, or anyone dear to her and goes on to say ... "The time will come, the time will not be long in coming, when new ties will be formed about you- ties that will bind you yet more tenderly and strongly to the home you so adorn- the dearest ties that will ever grace and gladden you. O Miss Manette, when the little picture of a happy father's face looks up in yours, when you see your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you!" - of course this pledge turns out to be prophetic.

In Paris, we have the revolutionaries Madame and Monsieur Defarge. Madame Defarge (and actually, though I forgot her, she's another one of literatures great villains) has vengeance in mind, she has a hatred of the French aristocracy, particularly as she has suffered personally at their hands. She is intent on revenge and sits knitting a secret register of the accused. There's a quiet menace about her that's chilling, she seems to watch nobody but see's everything. Her husband, though equally committed to the cause, is a more just and honest revolutionary, he was once servant to Dr Manette and was instrumental in his care after he was liberated from the Bastille.

Charles has French ancestry and has adopted his mother's surname in order to disassociate himself with his barbaric ancestors. On the morning of his wedding to Lucie, Charles tells Dr Manette his real surname, this confidence shocks Dr Manette, his worst fears are confirmed and he spirals down into madness once more, obsessively making shoes, just like in his former days in the Bastille. The knowledge is kept from Lucy and when she returns from honeymoon things are back to normal. With an aristocratic French heritage the last thing Charles Darnay should do is return to France but he is appealed to by a former servant, now imprisoned and, being a man of honour and integrity, he secretly decides to make the journey (with the reader shaking their heads in disgust at his folly.) This sets in motion a chain of events which brings practically all of the characters to Paris.

There is less comedy in this book than is usual with Dickens which is not surprising given the subject matter, his two main comic creations being the bank porter, Jerry Cruncher - who has an aversion to his wife floppin' (praying) and the fantastic Miss Pross, Lucie's governess and companion, who is an absolute gem of a character. There is also a lot of morbid humour being enjoyed by the revolutionaries.

His descriptive writing is just delicious - wine flowing like blood and blood flowing like wine - the rumble of the death carts - the constant clicking of the knitting needles - the headache curer (La Guillotine of course) and he is a vivid conjurer of images (some of which you'd rather he would not.) Just reading about this particular time in history was both fascinating and appalling.

The ending as I said earlier is phenomenal, and it's hard to say anything here without giving the plot away. What I liked about it so much was the build up which was nail bitingly thrilling. When you come to the final chapter with all it's poignancy and beauty, all you can do is sob quietly and think that there never was a literary hero as heroic as Sydney. Dickens considers it to be one of his best and it is.

Day Thirteen

Day 13 – Your favourite writer

Another difficult one, I haven't got an out and out favourite writer. I go through phases, but top candidates would be Jasper Fforde, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, PG Wodehouse, Nancy Mitford, Dan Rhodes, Jonathan Safran Foer and JK Rowling but if I pick the writer that I have read the most books by over the past couple of years it would probably be Neil Gaiman. I love his style, I love the weird and twisted way his mind works .. I don't always love his stories .. some of them freak me out but he's always worth reading .. he transports me to magical places and terrifies me half to death .. but in a good way. I think he is quite simply the best storyteller out there.

The Bluest Eye

Synopsis: The chronicle of the tragic lives of a poor black family in 1940s America. Every night Pecola, unlovely and unloved, prays for blue eyes like those of her white schoolfellows. She becomes the focus of the mingled love and hatred engendered by her family's frailty and the world's cruelty.

Review: This book was slightly easier to read than Beloved, easier in writing style (though still beautifully poetical and mystical) but not easier in subject matter because it's every bit as harrowing.

Central to the story is 11 year old Pecola Breedlove and her family ... a family beset by poverty and hardship.

'You looked at them and wondered why they were so ugly; you looked closely and could not find the source. Then you realized that it came from conviction, their conviction. It was as though some mysterious all-knowing master had given each one a cloak of ugliness to wear, and they had each accepted it without question ... And they took the ugliness in their hands, threw it as a mantle over them, and went about the world with it.'

The story is narrated partly by an unknown third person and partly by Claudia (now looking back as an adult,) a girl living in the same town as the Breedloves and observing events as they unfold.

Pecola leads what can only be described as a dogs life, she is spat at, ridiculed, ignored, wrongly accused of crimes, she's not loved or admired, she's deemed ugly and worthless. Her home is a home of poverty, violence and hostility and her parents, who have themselves been similarly knocked about by life, don't seem to care about her. If that wasn't bad enough, her father has raped her whilst drunk and she is carrying his child. She prays every day for beauty, and in her mind, that means a pair of blue eyes.

To read about her was one of the hardest things, her spirit was absolutely crushed and everytime I thought a ray of light had appeared, it was snuffed out.

At the beginning of the book there's a paragraph taken from a child's reading book ‘Here is the house. It is green and white. It has a red door. It is very pretty. Here is the family. Mother, Father, Dick and Jane live in the green and white house. They are very happy. See Jane. She has a red dress. She wants to play. Who will play with Jane? See the cat. It goes meow-meow. Come and play. Come play with Jane. The kitten will not play. See Mother. Mother is very nice. Mother, will you play with Jane? Mother laughs. Laugh, Mother, laugh. See Father. He is big and strong. Father, will you play with Jane? Father is smiling. Smile, Father, smile. See the dog. Bowwow goes the dog. Do you want to play with Jane? See the dog run. Run, dog, run. Look, look. Here comes a friend. The friend will play with Jane. They will play a good game. Play, Jane, play.’ and this passage is repeated randomly throughout the book but fractured now, without spaces or punctuation. It's a safe and cosy world this Shirley Temple world, one of innocence and comfort but what if it's not your experience of the world? what then? it's just a world that you don't fit into, a world of reproaches and taunts.

There's little hope in this book, what hope there is lies with Claudia and her sister Frieda, but not with Pecola. It's brutal and harsh and it contains scenes that will repulse you and make your heart sink but it's a really powerful piece of writing, you can feel Toni Morrison's anger and sorrow pulsing through the pages.

Day Twelve

Day 12 – A book you used to love but don’t anymore

Hmm this is a difficult one, I can't really think of any books that I used to love but don't now. I've probably blocked out all the really awful one's. The nearest I can get to answering the question is to say that now when I read Little Women by Louisa May Alcott the story seems a little too twee and the girls, especially Jo, a little too self righteous. I still like the story a lot though but it's the best answer I have.

Mr Vertigo

Synopsis: The story of Walt, an irrepressible orphan from the Mid-West. Under the tutelage of the mesmerising Master Yehudi, Walt is taken back to the mysterious house on the plains to prepare not only for the ability to fly, but also for the stardom that will accompany it.

Review: I got a bit annoyed with this book, it was well on it's way to a 10/10 but halfway through it went off the boil a bit and lost a lot of it's early impetus. It did pick up again but I just felt frustrated that a book with so much spark and imagination could wander off like that.

It has a great cast of characters, especially early on. Walt is a bit of a rascal, a Huck Finn character, he's been sold by his uncle to Master Yehudi, he doesn't know why, all he knows is that Master Yehudi says he has 'the gift'. Master Yehudi takes Walt to Kansas .. 'and a flatter more desolate place you've never seen in your life ... there's nothing to tell you where you are. No mountains, no trees, no bumps in the road. It's flat as death out here, and once you've been around for a while, you'll understand there's nowhere to go but up.' Walt finds it all very strange 'if someone had told me I'd just entered the Land of Oz, I don't think I would have known the difference.' The other inmates of the house are Mother Sue (the Queen of the Gypsies with no more than three teeth jutting from her gums) and Aesop (a frail, scrawny black boy who is learning to be a scholar.) Though the conditions aren't bad and he isn't being treated cruelly, Walt is a city boy at heart and his first thought is to run away, he tries it several times but however far he goes and however secretly, Master Yehudi is always waiting for him at the other end to bring him home again.

Master Yehudi's plan is to teach Walt to fly like a bird and what's more he promises Walt that if he can't fly by his next birthday, then he can chop off Mr Yehudi's head with an axe. But first he must learn the technique and the technique doesn't involve any of the things you might imagine, no jumping from great heights, no flapping of arms, no trampolining, but sheer physical endurance of a terrifying nature (or an 'unremitting avalanche of wrongs' as Walt puts it) almost as if Walt's spirit needs to be broken before change can happen (a theory inspired by Master Yehudi's love of Spinoza,) the fact that we're taught to think a thing impossible means that we will never achieve it, hence why Walt is chosen because intellectually he's a bit of a blank page. He is flogged with a bullwhip, thrown from a galloping horse, lashed to the roof of a barn for two days without food or water, he has his skin smeared with honey in the midst of a swarm of flies and wasps, he sits in a circle of fire, is dunked for six hours in a vat of vinegar, drinks cow p*ss, eats horse sh*t, is buried alive, cuts the tip off of his own finger (you're getting the picture right? ... life isn't a bowl of cherries) and eventually, after some time has passed, Walt finds himself levitating - only a few inches at first but gradually more and more.

To say what happens next would be giving too much of the plot away, suffice it to say that though fame and fortune are awaiting them, tragedy and disappointment are too and Walt has a very bumpy ride ahead of him. On the whole I thoroughly enjoyed it, of course the whole thing requires an awful lot of suspended disbelief but that wasn't a problem at all, my only gripe with it was that it didn't sustain it's absolutely electric beginning but I still thought it was a fantastic piece of storytelling.

Mad World : Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead

Synopsis: A terrifically engaging and original biography about one of England's greatest novelists, and the glamorous, eccentric, debauched and ultimately tragic family that provided him with the most significant friendships of his life and inspired his masterpiece, "Brideshead Revisited". Evelyn Waugh was already famous when "Brideshead Revisited" was published in 1945. Written at the height of the war, the novel was, he admitted, of no 'immediate propaganda value'. Instead, it was the story of a household, a family and a journey of religious faith -- an elegy for a vanishing world and a testimony to a family he had fallen in love with a decade earlier. The Lygons of Madresfield were every bit as glamorous, eccentric and compelling as their counterparts, the Marchmains, in "Brideshead Revisited". William Lygon, Earl Beauchamp, was a warm-hearted, generous and unconventional father whose seven children adored him. When he was forced to flee the country by his scheming brother-in-law, his traumatised children stood firmly by him, defying not only the mores of the day, but also their deeply religious mother. In this engrossing biography, bestselling author Paula Byrne takes an innovative approach to her subject, setting out to capture Waugh through the friendships and loves that mattered most to him. She uncovers a man who, far from the snobbish misanthropist of popular caricature, was as loving and complex as the family that inspired him. This brilliantly original biography unlocks for the first time the extent to which Waugh's great novel encoded and transformed his own experiences. In so doing, it illuminates the loves and obsessions that shaped his life, and brings us inevitably to a secret that dared not speak its name.

Review: Evelyn Waugh has got a difficult reputation to say the least, he is often portrayed as a nasty, spiteful piece of work, but this biography shows another side. That's not to say that he's not capable of being waspish and snobby, but that's not the whole picture. He could be incredibly supportive and kind to his friends, and was very loyal and loving.

It's not a full biography, what this book sets out to do is show the links between Evelyns private life and his fiction, concentrating particularly on his great friendship with the Lygon family who are undoubtably the models for the Marchmain family in Brideshead Revisited (though Evelyn always denied it.) You get the feeling that the Lygons were far more important to Evelyn than he ever was to them. Although they were obviously fond of him, they were rather haphazard at keeping in touch etc and for the most part, and especially early on, Evelyn did most of the running. It also details his marriages (his first wife was also called Evelyn and they were known as She-Evelyn and He-Evelyn. Bizarrely she left him for a man who came within a hairs breadth of also being called Evelyn .. he was named after the writer John Evelyn and his parents deliberated for some time between the two names .. thankfully Waugh was spared the jibe 'Evelyn left Evelyn for Evelyn'.) This marriage wasn't successful, which doesn't come as much of a surprise to the reader because they seemed woefully mismatched. Evelyn though was devastated, he wrote that he 'did not know it was possible to be so miserable and live.'

The most interesting part of the book focuses on Evelyn's time at Oxford, where he met the men who were to become his lifelong friends, and also embarked on several homosexual relationships. It's here that he meets Hugh Lygon and is eventually invited to spend time at the family house Madresfield Court (or 'Mad' for short) which is a place every bit as steeped in ritual and scandal as Brideshead. Hugh Lygon was so obviously the model for Sebastian Flyte (with Evelyn taking the part of the infatuated Charles Ryder) but it's with his sisters that Evelyn forms the strongest bonds. When their father, Earl Beauchamp, is forced to flee the country in disgrace (he was afflicted with a galloping and insatiable passion for footmen) the girls stand by him and take it in turns to stay with him in his various homes abroad. Again this is mirrored in 'Brideshead' with subtle changes made. although, in this case, the real story was far more scandalous and fascinating than the fictional one (as it was Earl Beauchamps Brother in-law, the 2nd Duke of Westminister, who set about trying to ruin him .. and did so in a very underhand and spiteful way.) Evelyn was a great observer of character and many friends and acquaintances found themselves written into his fiction, with not altogether flattering results. They always recognised themselves which is hardly surprising as he described them so accurately, and he was often in trouble with them and called upon to make changes or give explanations (though he secretly enjoyed it and would sometimes write 'your turn next' in his letters to friends.)

It's not only a captivating account of the life of one of Britains best known 20th century novelists, but it's also a fascinating snapshot of life in the 1920's/30's especially life at Oxford which is described in all it's glory, with all the fights, the plays, the beautiful clothes, the jokes, the drinking, the homosexual encounters, the friendships, the jealousies, the painful love affairs and the scandal .. the one thing that they didn't seem to worry about was getting a decent education.

Day Eleven

Day 11 – A book you hated

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. I read it a while ago but the sheer dullness of it left it's mark. I can't remember why I hated it so but the words tedious and boring come to mind. Plus I just didn't give a fig for anyone in it, I didn't like them, love them or hate them .. just nothing, no feelings whatsoever one way or another (except for a very slight irritation like an itch that can't be scratched away.) It's my own personal opinion that there are two versions of Madame Bovary, the one that nearly everyone else reads and enjoys and the bogus one that was foisted on me. All I thought at the end of it was .. 'I can never get that time back again' .. I could have read at least two far more interesting books, I could have learnt to play an instrument or done something worthwhile like sampled every ice cream that Ben & Jerry's make but no, it's too late, and there's a Madame Bovary shaped hole in my life, somewhen around 2003, where time stood still and the only sound heard was that of my brain crumbling.