The Victorian Chaise-Longue by Marghanita Laski

It’s a couple of years now since I read my first couple of novels by Marghanita Laski – Little Boy Lost and then The Village. Two very different books and I loved them both.

Yet I hesitated to read The Victorian Chaise-Longue. Could it possibly live up to such high expectations? Wouldn’t it be awful to not have something new by Marghanita Laski still to read?

The second problem was solved when Persephone Books kindly reissued To Bed with Grand Music. It was time to open the pages of The Victorian Chaise-Longue.

Could it live up to my expectations?

“Will you give me your word of honour,” said Melanie, “that I am not going to die?”

It is the middle of the twentieth century. Early in Melanie’s pregnancy her doctor found a patch on her lung – an early sign of tuberculosis. She now has a son, but she hasn’t been allowed to leave her bedroom or be in close contact with her child since the birth.

But now Melanie’s health is improving, and the doctor accedes to her wish to go downstairs and lie upon the Victorian-Chaise Longue.

It’s a strange piece of furniture. Old, worn and out of keeping with the rest of the house, and yet Melanie was drawn to it. She had to have it.

Melanie is spoiled, but she has charm and I couldn't help sympathising with her situation. And wondering to what degree her upbringing, her family and society had taught her to behave as she did.

She falls asleep on her chaise-longue. And she wakes up on it. But she wakes up a hundred years earlier, in Victorian England. Where is she? Why is she being called Milly?

Melanie thinks she is in a nightmare. She tries to wake up, but she can’t. This is real. She is trapped and helpless.

Marghanita Laski conveys her feelings quite perfectly. The atmosphere is claustrophobic, and deeply unsettling. And the more you think the more unsettling it becomes.

Melanie gradually finds out more about Milly’s life. The similarities in their lives and their circumstances are extraordinary, but the consequences in their different times are starkly different.

“We seem to be together now, she explained, you and I, both hopeless. I think we did the same things, she told her, we loved a man and we flirted and we took little drinks, but when I did those things there was nothing wrong, and for you it was a terrible punishable sin.”

It would be unfair to say too much more, but the situation and Melanie’s emotions intensify as the story build to a conclusion.

The Victorian Chaise-Longue works on more than one level. It is a fine piece of storytelling and it is also a striking analysis of the changing position of women in society.

And while many authors would make a lengthy novel out of this material, Marghanita Laski distils it perfectly into just 99 pages.

The writing and the characterisation is as wonderful as my previous experiences with her writing had led me to expect.

And, once again, Marghanita Laski has come up with a stunning final sentence. How does she do that?!

The Victorian Chaise-Longue definitely lived up to my high expectations.

The Tales of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo

This John Newbery Medal Award book was so much fun to read out loud to my son.  Despereaux, a little mouse with big ears, is born. We watch this mouse grow up. His big ears are not the only thing that separates him from the rest of his kind. He hears music, he reads books, he dreams of the Princess Pea...he just is NOT your typical mouse. But as the story unfolds little Despereaux seems to grow in size. This is due to his bravery and "the quest" set before him....he must save the Princess Pea from the dungeon, from the rat who took her to the dungeon, and he must do it alone.
But, this story doesn't just follow Despereaux.  It also follows a young servant girl named Miggery Sow and a rat named Roscuro.  And you see how these three lives intertwine with the Princess Pea and the dungeon.  It is really quite a clever story with lots of depth in character development.

I loved the voice in this book. There are many stops and the "Narrator" speaks to the "Reader".  This "Narrator" had questions for us to ask ourselves, which usually were answered a few lines after the question. This really drew us into the storyline as we watched it unfold.

The drawings in the book are well done and add a depth to the reading.

Friday Night Lights by HG Bissinger

I choose to read this because I like football. I did see the movie but that was a determining factor in reading this. I chose to read this because I like football and I wanted to read a good story about one season in the life of a football team. But that wasn't this book. Bissinger is an amazing writer. He won the Pulitzer Prize for a good reason. The prose flowed like poetry. But there was too much about the town and politics of Odessa, Texas. I wanted more about the team, the games. Bissinger gave away the ends of the game too soon. He's not a sports writer. But I wanted to be taken through the game.
If you've never experienced a high school football game in a town where football is king then you might wonder why an entire town would go to a high school football game. Why a town would treat 16 & 17 year old kids like gods. And those are the questions Bissinger is trying to answer. Not how 30 odd kids survived a season and made the playoffs. But what compels adults to crowd into a stadium on a September Friday night and watch said kids play against other kids. Friday Night Lights examines that phenomena. Gives us outsiders a peek at what it's like to live in Odessa, Texas and cheer for the Permian Panthers.

Three Cups of Tea

Talk about an inspiring story...this is one of them.  I read the Young Reader's Edition adapted by Sarah Thomson, which has a great interview in the back of Amira, Greg's daughter. She is just as inspiring as her father, which is so great to see in one so young...she was 12 at the time of this interview.  She challenges kids of all ages to do something and has ideas of ways that they can. 

Greg Mortenson was separated from his climbing buddies as they descended down K2.  He was found by his porter, but then he lost his way again. He came upon a poor village where they took him in and took care of him.  From gratitude, he left with a promise to return to build them a school for their children.  Tree Cups of Tea tells Greg's story of how a poor boy from the US raised money to build a school for this village and how that promise turned into something bigger than he had planned.

This was so inspiring for me on so many levels. I won't go into them all, I promise.  But, this quote from Greg is so relevant in my life and speaks so much..."We Americans think you have to accomplish everything quickly....Haji Ali taught me to share three cups of tea, to slow down and make building relationships as important as building projects."  It is so true in my life. How quickly do I worry and work on the project and forget about the relationship.  

Now to go and have a cup of tea (or coffee) with a fellow friend or co-worker....how about you, you up for it?

Jo's list

My list is mostly classic books I should have read, those by favourite authors that I haven't read, and some which have been on my TBR pile for far too long.  I'll be blogging about them at my book blog, Book Jay.

1. Pyramids - Terry Pratchett  

2. Eric - Terry Pratchett 

3. Small Gods - Terry Pratchett 

4. The Last Continent - Terry Pratchett

5. Wintersmith - Terry Pratchett

6. Making Money - Terry Pratchett 

7. Unseen Academicals - Terry Pratchett

8. Nation - Terry Pratchett

9. American Gods - Neil Gaiman

10. Anansi Boys - Neil Gaiman

11. The Marlows & The Traitor - Antonia Forest

12. The Player's Boy - Antonia Forest

13. The Players & The Rebels - Antonia Forest

14. The Subtle Knife - Philip Pullman

15. The Amber Spyglass - Philip Pullman

16. Looking For Alaska - John Green 

17. I Capture the Castle - Dodie Smith

18. The Night Watch - Sarah Waters

19. The Little Stranger - Sarah Waters

20. The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton

21. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

22. 1984 - George Orwell

23. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess

24. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote

25. Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut 

26. Evelina - Frances Burney

27. Redgauntlet - Walter Scott

28. Tristram Shandy - Laurence Sterne

29. Tom Jones - Henry Fielding

30. Belinda - Maria Edgeworth

31. The Monk - Matthew Lewis

32. Clarissa - Samuel Richardson

33. Les Liaisons Dangereuses - Choderlos de Laclos

34. Bleak House - Charles Dickens

35. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Bronte

36. Middlemarch - George Eliot

37. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

38. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

39. War & Peace - Leo Tolstoy

40. Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson

41. The Portrait of a Lady - Henry James

42. Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain

43. Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain

44. Swallows & Amazons - Arthur Ransome

45. Skellig - David Almond 

46. Crime & Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky

47. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

48. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

49. I, Claudius - Robert Graves

50. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

51. Orlando - Virginia Woolf

52. The Waves - Virginia Woolf

53. Where Angels Fear to Tread - E.M. Forster 

54. The Longest Journey - E.M. Forster

55. Howards End - E.M. Forster

56. A Passage to India - E.M. Forster 

57. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

58. Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys

59. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Suzanna Clarke

60. On Beauty - Zadie Smith

61. The Bell - Iris Murdoch

62. The Sea, The Sea - Iris Murdoch

63. The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst

64. The Little Friend - Donna Tartt

65. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

66. North & South - Elizabeth Gaskell

67. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

68. Another Country - James Baldwin

69. Moon Tiger - Penelope Lively

70. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie

71. Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger

72. The Quincunx - Charles Palliser

73. Perfume - Patrick Suskind

74. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

75. Possession - A.S. Byatt

76. The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver

77. Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

78. Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel 

79. Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier

80. The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood

81. Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell

82. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

83. Lord of the Flies - William Golding

84. Atonement - Ian McEwan

85. 100 Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

86. Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follet

87. Wonder Boys - Michael Chabon

88. Master & Commander - Patrick O'Brian

89. The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

90. Villette - Charlotte Bronte

91. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

92. Troubles - J.G. Farrell

93. The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje

94. Master & Margharita - Mikhail Bulgkov

95. Holes - Louis Sachar

96. Tom Brown's Schooldays - Thomas Hughes

97. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami

98. Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery

99. Moby Dick - Herman Melville

100. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

A Spot of Bother. . .

Finally another book off my list!

I also have finished others but haven't gotten round to reviewing them (will do so soon)!

A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon was described by The Times as a 'humane novel' and I think that is perfect description for this book.

A Spot of Bother tells the story of retired 57 year old George, who just happens to be slowly losing his mind. But this isn't a bleak story, like Haddon's previous work, he mixes sadness with humour in a heart warming and entertaining way. This isn't just the story of George though, it is also story of his wife Jean and her having an affair, of her daughter Katie and her wedding crisis and of Jamie who can't seem to invite his lover Tony to the wedding.

Haddon does a remarkable job of changing perspectives with each chapter and portraying each characters unique story and insight. The writing is simple but magnificent with meaning, which draws you in and keeps you reading. I enjoyed reading this book, but also could appreciate the complexity and work that went into writing it. Of all the stories, I found Jamie's to be the most enjoyable to read, and I absolutely loved him, with Ray as a close second.

My only fault with the story was the handling of Katie & Ray's relationship and Jean's affair. Not going into specifics because I don't want to spoil, but I felt that the end/resolving of both the issues surrounding these relationships seemed to just be resolved. Compared to the indepth and understanding shown earlier, I felt a little disappointed on how these worked out. Perhaps the resolutions were down to the actually characters and their final understanding but I don't know if that was set up were properly done for the reader?I agree with the outcomes, but I felt that the workings of the characters' decisions might have been more indepth?

Despite this very small fault, I give this book 9 out of ten. The writing was really remarkable, and totally drew me in and put me in George's and the other characters' mindsets and over all did wonderful job of showing the dynamics of a dysfunctional (i.e. normal) family.

Highly recommend it!

Lament By Maggie Stiefvater

Wow, I couldn't put this one down. I finished in a day. It's been a while since I read a book I couldn't put down.
Lament is the story of Deirdre, a 16 year old girl. She plays the harp. One day at a competition, she meet a boy, Luke and her story goes from ordinary to damn interesting quickly. Oh I love fairie folk. I especially like dark fey and their trickery. The story was engrossing. I wanted to know what the fey wanted with Deirdre, about her bizarre aunt, Delia, and the gorgeous boys in her life, Luke and James. Parts reminded me of Wicked Lovely and Except the Queen, but Lament was different. Just the right parts magic, mystery and romance for me.  I'm looking forward to continuing the series.