It certainly was no Christmas Carol – but many of us were expecting great things of this month’s choice, Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith. As the first thriller to be longlisted for the Booker (in 2008), it was obviously going to be a very literary example of the genre. Indeed it was – but the general consensus was that the final 80 pages or so rather spoiled the rest of the book.
Where Tom Rob Smith excelled was in his sense of place and description of the pitiless Stalinist Russia of the 1950s. This had particular resonance for one reader, whose mother was born in a part of Estonia which borders with Russia – her more recent visits there suggest that many grim aspects of this landscape can still be seen today. For this Book Group member, the descriptions were highly authentic. Tom Rob Smith also raises some fascinating questions – how a relatively good man can be so faithful in serving a rotten and corrupt regime and how fear can infiltrate all parts of society, including personal relationships. Yet it seemed that these issues were not fully developed and were sacrificed for a racier plot, particularly towards the end of the book.
Ann summed up the problem of the ending very nicely: “I could almost hear the machinery creaking as the cogs strained to bring the two brothers full circle.” For many of us, the ending was just too contrived and implausible – from the identity of the serial killer and his motive to the escape scenes and the final attempt at redemption (or a sequel, depending on how cynical you are). We wondered how much pressure the author was under to write this way, which Margaret described as rather like an Indiana-Jones scenario. And that feeling that we were reading more of a screenplay than a novel bothered several of us. And our resident crime/serial killer expert Janet found it had so many conventions that it seemed to her like “a thriller by numbers.”
So although some of the writing was well above the average in the genre, we were surprised that it made it onto the Man Booker longlist.
There was, however, something of a split – some readers found it so gripping and realistic that they rated it very highly. So – an interesting choice that did prompt a lively discussion.
And just so that I don’t sound too much like Scrooge, I have to give an honourable mention to Kim at Doolally’s and her fabulously festive mincemeat shortbread. The new book list should be out in the next few days and Kim has also promised her brilliant 3-for-2 deal again for the new choices, which is a fantastic offer. Kim offers the Doolally’s cafe and the book discounts entirely out of goodwill – so it’s important that we support our local bookshop in return.
Look out for the new book choices shortly and if it’s not too late, see if Santa can swing past Doolally’s to pick them up for you. Merry Christmas to everyone – and may all our stockings bulge with books!
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Birdwatching thriller wins over Berwick’s bookworms
Published 4 November 2009 Uncategorized Leave a CommentWhat a great turnout for this month’s book group! The big draw for the November meeting was the visit by the author Sally Hinchcliffe, who came to talk about her first novel Out of a Clear Sky. This book not only received great critical acclaim when it came out but was also a Radio4 Book at Bedtime last year. So as readers we were expecting great things – and we weren’t disappointed.
Sally’s talk gave us some great insights into the writing and the publishing process. She began by telling us the source of her idea for the dark and highly literary thriller, which began with her image of a raven with its carrion. A keen bird-watcher herself, she had been struck by the idea of how twitchers effectively ’stalk’ birds and how interesting it would be if someone was also ‘watching the watcher. ‘ The novel was started when Sally was doing her Creative Writing MA at Birkbeck and although she wrote the first draft in just five months, it took a further three years of revision and rewriting before the final draft became the novel on the shelves today.
For anyone who hasn’t read it, it follows birdwatcher Manda, whose life begins to unravel when her boyfriend leaves her. Not only does she lose her circle of friends but she discovers that she is being stalked. We soon learn that Manda is an unreliable narrator with a very troubled past.
The questions then flowed for a good hour! Readers were interested in how the character of Manda was formed into this untrusting person who the readers in turn cannot trust. Sally told us how readers often tell her that they worked out who the real ‘baddie’ was early on – which she finds interesting, because she herself hadn’t worked it out until quite a long way through writing the book! We enjoyed the bird imagery and the way these were used to form the chapters. Sally Hinchcliffe has shown quite a rare talent in being clearly very knowledgeable about bird-watching, but not allowing that to intrude too far into the narrative itself. For some of us, Manda’s back-story, of her troubled childhood and relationships with her parents, worked particularly well.
“Really enjoyable” an “a real page-turner” were just two of the comments about the novel – and any regular readers of this blog will know that the Berwick readers are not always easy to please! When I e-mailed Sally to thank her for her visit, she replied to say she had enjoyed it very much and found the questions and discussion “insightful and fascinating.”
We were delighted to welcome yet more new members to the Berwick group and hope they’ll also become regulars. Next month’s choice is another ‘literary thriller’ – the acclaimed Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith. Set in 1950s Stalinist Russia, this has also attracted hugely favourable reviews and should be an ideal December read. Put the date in your (Advent) calendar!
Next meeting: Tuesday December 1st. 6.30pm. Doolally’s, Marygate, Berwick. Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith.
Another “challenge” from New Writing North with this month’s choice, poet Jacob Polley’s first foray into novel-writing, Talk of the Town.
An off-putting cover and the realisation, on the first page, that this was another novel written entirely in dialect were just too much for some members. Two book group stalwarts failed to get through it and said the problem of wading through the dialect was the main issue. It probably wasn’t helped by the all-too-recent memories of Ross Raisin’s God’s Own Country, which employed a similar device. Polley’s decision not to use punctuation to mark out the dialogue also irritated some readers, although others said they got used to it.
Those of us who did make it to the end, however, were surprised by a numberof very impressive elements to the book. The first was Polley’s poetic language – not surprising, given his literary background, but often a joy to read in the text. Here’s quite a nice example: “I reckon his grey eyes can see clean through us, as if me face is shaller watter with me lie trapped in it, flickin its tail.” (P. 250).
This poetic language, however, sparked an interesting discussion about whether it was authentic for the voice of the 16-year-old narrator. We couldn’t all agree on this. For some, it was hard to believe that Chris would use such lovely phrases and imagery and this interfered with our ability to see him as a real character. Others, however, felt the use of the poetic imagery was in fact a deliberate distancing ploy by the author; also that Chris was in fact a lot more sensitive a soul than he tried to make out to his peers and therefore this use of language was not entirely out of character.
Most of us were taken along by the plot, which we found gripping, although there were mixed feelings about whether we cared what happened to Chris, Arthur and Gill (who we felt was a great character but under-used!). Personally I did want Chris to be okay – although the ending for Arthur was nicely ambiguous.
We also thought it gave a convincing portrayal of bored, disaffected young people and those groups who operate on the outside edge of society and the law. The use of landscape helped – waste ground, arcades, telephone boxes etc all added to the bleakness and the sense of time (1986). It made for an uncomfortable read but most of us thought it had much to commend it and that it was a very promising first novel.
It was great this month to welcome two new members – and also Catriona from New Writing North who dropped in to chat about the Read Regional project. Thanks again to Kim at Doolally’s for her top-notch bakes!
I always ask members what else they’ve been reading because their recommendations are often so interesting and inspiring. This month was no exception!
Margaret suggested Kate Atkinson’s When Will There Be Good News, which she says is very different to the writer’s earlier works. Mike enjoyed Alasdair Gray’s modern classic Lanark, while Keith has just re-read Robert Graves’ Goodbye To All That, which he says gives him new insights every time he picks it up. Maisie suggested Washington journalist David Boling’s Guernica and there was also praise for Ian Rankin’s new detective novel The Complaints, featuring a new detective character to rival the popular Rebus.
Finally – don’t forget next month’s meeting when we’ll play host to Scottish-based author Sally Hinchcliffe, who’ll give a short talk on her work and answer our questions.
Next meeting: Tuesday 3rd November, 6.30pm at Doolally’s on Marygate, Berwick upon Tweed. Out of a Clear Sky by Sally Hinchcliffe.
The Berwick Book group is a year old this month! Time’s flown – as it always does when you have your nose in a good book.
The September meeting got the autumn season off to a great start, according to Ann, who very kindly facilitated the group because I was still away on holiday. (Yes, I did read the book! It took quite a leap of imagination to feel the Greenland cold while lounging about in the Florida temperatures of around 100 degrees – but all credit to the author for doing such a good job in describing the landscape and conditions).
It makes sense to reproduce Ann’s report on how the group went – so here goes:
“It was a really interesting discussion. We all found Cold Earth an intriguing read and there was plenty of speculation about themes, motives and the psychological journeys of the characters.
Margaret can’t abide ghost stories, so she was pleased when the plot took a turn into psychological territory- but there was enough of a ghost story element also to please those of us who relish a good scare. Margaret also liked the food passages. Janet appreciated the coherence of the story and the clarity of the plot. Mike was the least impressed with the book. He felt that there was a good concept there but that the execution failed to deliver. We thought the characters were very well drawn – particularly Ruth and her pain – but that the author had created a bit of a rod for her own back by writing exclusively in the form of letters home. She just about got away with it, we felt, because the characters were academics and therefore, presumably, adept and expressive writers. We all thought the characters’ ‘voices’ weren’t different enough, however, in their speech patterns etcetera. There was much discussion about what was real and what was illusion. Maisie used the example of the soapstone chess piece – and we realised that everything could be explained logically, without Nina’s dreams. Paula in particular felt that the ending was only in Nina’s mind and that there was a good chance she was hallucinating the happy return home as she lay dying in her tent! We all enjoyed the lyrically horrific passages describing what had happened to the original Greenlanders. Jill had only read the first 30 pages but she enjoyed listening to the discussion – and she was very struck by the characters having to swallow their toothpaste! She said she would have to take a small bottle with her to spit into and then take it away with her. Other discussion subjects included Yianni and his hidden violence – how he turned out to be the most damaged and rigid, yet fragile, character in the end, whereas Nina turned out to be rather tough and maybe the most humane. We relished the irony of Yianni’s mother having his ashes scattered on the dig site when he had been so resolute about leaving nothing behind. We discussed whether the book was too short to explore both the initial ghost story and then the psychological drama, as they realised they were on their own and would probably die there. Survival tactics (or their lack of them!), the very convincing depiction of the bone-numbing cold and the growing hunger, landscape as character, the common humanity reaching across the centuries, why the ‘ghosts’ stopped appearing, were also explored. We finished off by speculating on what little luxury we would pack in our own rucksacks (the characters had packed items such as very good chocolate, a tin of anchovies etcetera). Suggestions included an ipod, champagne and chocolate, cake, a big bag of oats for porridge, and vodka and caviar!
Doollally’s had a 3 for 2 offer on books and quite a few of us took the opportunity to stock up on the next three books.”
(Back to me – can I just add a personal, snarky comment? If the character of Nina was such a linguistic pedant, how come she used the annoying and incorrect phrase “bored of” in the last chapter? Or was this supposed to be a subtle indicatation of some mental slippage on her part?)
Anyway, it sounds like a really interesting meeting and I’m sorry to have missed it. Looking forward to next month, however, when we’ll be reading Carlisle author Jacob Polley’s Talk of the Town. This is a choice which all the New Writing North groups are reading and it links with the author’s forthcoming event at the Durham Book Festival.
See you then – and don’t forget the new earlier monthly dates – first Tuesdays of the month from now on!
As I write, the sun is beating down, the air is full of those annoying litle black bugs and the weather experts are assuring me it all won’t last. It’s hard to even think of darkening autumn evenings – but they’re on their way! So it’s nice to know that we have a list of new books to see us through the chillier months.
Here are the dates and books – and I’ve done a bit of Googling to let you know a little about the selection.
Tues Sept 1st – Cold Earth by Sarah Moss. This is a debut novel set in a remote part of Greenland around an archaealogical dig. It gets great reviews on the web!
Tues 6th Oct – Talk of the Town by Jacob Polley. This is a New Writing North “Simul-Read” which all the groups are reading to give some momentum to an author event at the Durham Book festival. The author is a poet writing his debut novel and its narrator is a 14-year-old boy.
Tues 3rd November – Out of a Clear Sky by Sally Hinchcliffe. This is linked to the visit to the Berwick Book Group by the author. The book’s a psychological thriller featured as a Book of the Week on Radio 4 last year – and Hinchcliffe’s writing has been compared to Ian McEwan’s.
Tues 1st Dec – Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith. This is a thriller set in 1950s Stalinist Russia.
Tues 5th January – The Clothes On Their Backs by Linda Grant. Set in the 1970s, it’s the story of Vivien, the daughter of Hungarian-Jewish immigrants, and her struggle for identity.
New Writing North will be asking Kim to stock the books as soon as possible, and do remember that she offers a 5% discount on the choices to Book Group members. I think it’s important we support the shop as we’re really lucky to have such a great venue for our meetings.
I’m really looking forward to getting stuck into these books! Ann will be kindly facilitating the September meeting as I’ll still be away on holiday on 1st September, but I’ll keep on top of the blog and hope to see everyone in October! Have a great summer.
Barbara
There’s something about summer, isn’t there, that can make otherwise sensible people throw caution to the wind. And that definitely happened with this month’s Book Group – resulting in a weird but definitely wonderful outdoor evening.
Ann had the inspired idea to hold the July meeting on the beach at Spittal. That was back in the day when the Met Office had rashly predicted a “barbecue summer” – and we all know how accurate that’s turned out to be. The other part to Ann’s plan was to bring along a piece of writing about food and even some of the food itself. It was a wonderful idea – but anyone who’s arranged an outdoor event this month may have already spotted the slight potential for disaster!
In fact, we may have ended up with the strangest meeting ever, but it truly worked well. The rain held off – but the brisk breeze threatened to cover our literary picnic with a fine layer of sand. Undeterred, we took our recommendations and chosen readings down to the prom and arranged our blankets in the 1930s stone shelter. (We’ll leave aside the possibility that the wine may have put us in breach of a few local bye-laws. And we pay tribute to the considerate dog owners of Berwick who veered their pets away from us every time they showed interest in the food).
Clustered around a picnic that my son would describe as “random,” we each read out a piece of food-related writing that we’ve enjoyed. I was so impressed by the variety of these selections and the way everyone rose to the challenge so well.
What was on our Menu for the Mind? Mike started with the wonderful poem by William Carlos Williams, ‘This Is Just To Say:’
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast.
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.
Then he read a chunk of James Joyce’s Ulysses – and I think everyone was grateful he didn’t actually bring along the giblet soup, gizzards, hearts etc that the passage described! Staying with the Irish influence, next up was a reading from Beckett’s short stories, More Pricks Than Kicks, with a fantastic description of Gorgonzola cheese – which Mike did provide.
Margaret took many of us back to our own childhood with her choice of Jack Common’s Kiddar’s Luck. This was a great description of Sundays in turn-of-the-century Heaton and what would be cooked and eaten on those days. They were traditions that certainly were kept until the 1960s and early 1970s on many parts of Tyneside. And she made a mouth-watering lemon cake which gave many of us a real taste of our own youth again (with apologies to Proust!).
My choice returned to the cheesey theme with the part of Three Men In A Boat when the author gives his reasons why they should not take cheese on their boat journey. I ignored his advice and brought a selection of cheeses along!
Jill was the only one of us who found a section of very good writing by a real cookery writer. Her reading from the excellent Elizabeth David had everybody drooling.
Ann chose a sure-fire winner with her reading from Joanne Harris’ Chocolat. The extremely chocolately cake that she made lived up to the expectations created by the reading!
Paula also brought a cake – but a very different one. She told us the story of her grandmother’s recipe for what she called Egg Cake (served sliced with butter) and then read a lovely passage from Virginia Woolf’s Night and Day which ended with the perceptive little sentence: “She was a person who needed cake.” (How many of us recognise ourselves there!)
Maisie read a wonderful short story by Helen Dunmore. It was the title story from the collection Ice Cream. And yes, she truly did bring along a coolpack full of a selection of enough ice-creams to put Mr Forte to shame.
The evening wasn’t over. To the background of the crashing waves on the Spittal shore, we then all gave some recommendations for summer reads. I’ll list them all, along with some of the reasons why the group members put them forward!
Stieg Larsson’s The Girl who Played with Fire (the second in a trilogy; very well-plotted Scandinavian crime fiction);
Home by the American writer Marilynne Robinson;
The Leopard by Guiseppe de Lampedusa;
another Sicilian writer, Andrea Camilleri’s The Scent of the Night (a crime novel);
C J Sansom’s novel about the Spanish Civil War, Winter in Madrid;
Wally Lamb’s She’s Come Undone ( a long-time favourite of the recommendee);
Thackeray’s classic Vanity Fair;
Paul Auster’s Oracle Night;
Helen Dunmore’s short story collection Ice Cream (recommended to be read alongside a box of Cornetto or Magnum);
Carol Shields’ Dressing Up for the Carnival;
Sadie Jones’ The Outcast;
Crow Lake by Mary Lawson;
Stef Penney’s The Tenderness of Wolves;
Anya Seton’s historical novel set neat Hexham, Devil Water;
Gary Paulsen’s non-fiction book about observing a sledding race, Winter Dance (exciting and adventurous);
Mal Peet’s keeper, written for the 12-plus age group but a great story about football, ecology and a quest;
Lorrie Moore’s Collected Stories;
Justin Webb’s Have a Nice Day (about America and challenging the European’s lazy habit of criticising the nation).
Wow – that’s quite a list! – and we only have a month before the next season of Book Groups gets under way!
In September the meetings will be back in the safe and wonderful little oasis that is Doolally’s on Marygate in Berwick. The new books for the autumn are being considered now, so watch this space!
Remember, the group is open and new members are welcome, so do recommend the meetings to anyone who may be interested. But be warned – joining the Berwick Book Group may seriously affect your waistline!
The usual smooth running of the Berwick Book group took quite a knockback this month – with a bit of confusion over dates. It meant a last-minute change of venue – and apologies to Kim at Doolally’s and anyone else who ended up affected by this little chapter of accidents.
The short version of the story is that we found a pleasant seat and some coffee in the beer garden at the Kings Arms – and attempted to leave a note on the Doolally’s door for people to find. Colin (clearly a former boy scout!) tracked us down, but some people didn’t spot the piece of paper and assumed the meeting had been cancelled. In the manner of a Government inquiry, we won’t apportion blame – but I will try to ensure nothing like this happens again!
Onto the book itself, which was Alice de Smith’s Welcome to Life. The book was chosen by New Writing North as part of its Read Regional promotion of local authors. It’s set in 1989 and told from the viewpoint of 14-year-old Freya as she describes her unconventional family and the troubles of adolescence.
For me, this was an original and enjoyable book, although I found it rather lightweight. On the whole, however, it wasn’t well received by the Berwick readers who e-mailed me their thoughts. “Didn’t enjoy it”…”Couldn’t get into it”…”Didn’t think much of it…” Even Jill, who’s usually able to find something positive about all the choices, failed with this one!
Having said that, when the small number of us who did meet this month held our discussion, we found rather a lot to talk about. The character of Millie, Freya’s mother, was fascinating (the men, we thought, were rather less well drawn). We thought the writer did a great job of evoking the late Eighties era and some of the events, such as the housing market crash and the recession, are, of course, very topical for us today.
I also thought her teenage voice, using the popular slang of the time, was very accurate. I loved the sentence on P.34: “I wanted to fall asleep and wake up when I was eighteen.” I’m sure every teenager feels like this at some point!
This Sleeping Beauty image was one of a number of fairytale allusions, as Ann pointed out. The “false mother” figure of Mrs Glinka is reminiscent of the witch in Hansel and Gretel, with her enticing kitchen and her promise of gingerbread. The vain mother who seems almost threatened by her growing daughter is of course a fairytale standard (Snow White, perhaps also Cinderella?).
We spent most of the discussion, however, on the troubling final chapter or Epilogue. (NB: Spoiler Alert! If you haven’t finished this book, I’m about to give away a wholly unpredictable ending!) We simply couldn’t understand why the author had done what she did to her best character, Millie, who is left devoid of all her personality and her ability to do anything. So she was no longer destructive – but she also was no longer herself in any recognisable way. It’s the sort of thing that would make me snort with indignation if the writer had been a man – but given that this author is a young woman, we were all baffled as to why she felt the need to contain Millie in this way. The description of this virtually brain-dead woman as “more beautiful than ever” was very disturbing. Ann was reminded of The Stepford Wives and also of a short story by Ursula le Guin, set in a world which is perfect but depends upon the regular sacrifice of a child. She was also reminded a little of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
We weren’t sure what Alice de Smith was trying to say with this rather devastating ending – or whether she was simply (to use Ann’s wonderful phrase) “dropping an alligator through the skylight,” which is a writerly way of saying that something totally out of keeping or beyond expectation was allowed to happen. Either way, we all felt that the book would have been a lot more satisfying if it had finished at the end of the preceding chapter, with Millie’s final note to her daughter.
Other aspects of the Epilogue were irritating too – we were not convinced the father and Millie’s lover Edward would have set up home together and it just felt like the need to tie up all the loose ends was rather patronising to the reader.
If you like the “adolescent struggling with unconventional family” thing, I would recommend Barbara Trapido’s Brother of the More Famous Jack. And for a really detailed evocation of the (earlier) 1980s and a very powerful description of a boy growing up in this time, I loved David Mitchell’s Black Swan Green.
Ann also alerted us to a non-fiction book which sounds absolutely fascinating, written by Daniel Pennac about his struggle to persuade his children to read. It’s called The Rights of the Reader and the little paragraph she read out was really interesting.
We spent the rest of the meeting talking about how the book groups should go in the future – thanks to everyone who’s given me their views on this, which are being fed back to New Writing North. Any further comments happily received!
And finally – don’t forget our final meeting before the autumn, which will be on Tuesday July 28th at the usual time of 6.30pm. This will be an unconventional meeting in which we will be bringing along our favourite passages of writing about food – and also bringing along a related edible, to form a little picnic. It promises to be what my 12-year-old would describe as “random.” Weather permitting, we’ll be holding this meeting on Spittal Beach but with a Plan B to adjourn to my house if the weather’s atrocious! I’ll be putting the full details in an e-mail very shortly.
Fingers crossed for sunshine … and no more evidence of Murphy’s Law!
Next meeting: Tuesday 28th July. 6.30pm. Venue: Spittal Beach. Theme: Recommending summer reads and food-related writing!
Another sparky meeting at the end of May, when we discussed Valerie Laws’ crime novel set in the North-East, The Rotting Spot.
Laws is famous for spray-painting poetry onto sheep (yes, I know she has done other things too!) and so this novel is quite a departure for her as a writer.
I was very glad to have Janet at the meeting because she was able to give her wealth of knowledge and experience of both reading and writing crime fiction. It was great, because it put this work into a context for those of us who only dip into the crime genre now and again. Janet (and others) enjoyed the novel on the whole – she felt it was very fresh and original. Lots of us enjoyed the humour and we also found there were little giveaways that the writer has a background as a poet – for example, in some of her language. For me, some of these turns of phrase didn’t work: I thought, for example, that the description of a puffin as “like Proust’s madeleine, only she wouldn’t be dunking it in her tea” (P.74) was both laboured and pretentious at the same time as being plain daft. Others liked the poetic bits, so it just goes to show how we all get different things out of each book we read.
I found the plot rather predictable – apart, of course, from the ending. None of us saw the last page coming, but we thought what happened was nevertheless implausible. I also felt the writer gave far too much in the way of lengthy explanations at the end of the novel, but Janet has pointed out that this is probably a necessary convention in crime fiction.
For Margaret, who was brought up around where the novel is set, Laws also did a good job of evoking the landscape.
Many of us felt the novel had the potential to be a little better than it was and that it might just have benefited from a little tougher editing. We thought some of the characters (Erica and Will) had potential for a sequel – which is so often a requirement for crime writers now, although given that this is published with the independent Red Squirrel Press it may not have to bow to the same market pressures.
Another point to admire was Laws’ very attuned ear for the Geordie dialect, which was so accurately written. As one reader pointed out, it was also refreshing to hear such a young-sounding voice.
The discussion led, as it often does, to a chat about other crime writers and what else we’ve enjoyed reading. The crime expert’s recommendations are novels by Christopher Brookmyre (for example, Quite Ugly One Morning ) and works by Mark Billingham (his first is called Sleepyhead), who’s a crime writer as well as a stand-up comedian! Another great-sounding recommendation is Booker Prize winner John Banville, writing as Benjamin Black (try Christine Falls). Two readers have been working through Richard T.Kelly’s Crusaders, set on Tyneside in the 1990s, but weren’t sure whether they wanted to recommend it!
I recently went to a reading in Luton by comic crime writer L.C.Tyler and as a result I bought his first novel, The Herring Seller’s Apprentice. I read it in one sitting on the train home and thought it was really funny and clever, so I’d certainly recommend that one.
Next month we’re discussing the second of the Read Regional choices, Alice De Smith’s Welcome to Life.
Next meeting: Tuesday 23rd June. 6.30pm. Doolally’s, Marygate, Berwick.
‘Horses’ proves a favourite in the Book Group stakes
Published 30 April 2009 Uncategorized Leave a CommentOne member of the Berwick group came up with a summary of this month’s choice, Per Petterson’s Out Stealing Horses, which I thought was an excellent observation. She said it was like reading a long, lyrical poem. What a lovely way to think of this novel, with its strong sense of atmosphere and its detailed, rich language. It’s all the more impressive considering it’s in translation – and of course the translator (Anne Born) is a poet.
There was a smaller than usual number at Doolally’s this month (partly due to holidays and work commitments – and partly, probably, due to a grey, drizzly evening!). But the discussion was as animated as ever. One person (who wasn’t able to attend) did say Out Stealing Horses was one of the best books he’d ever read and another member said it was her favourite of our choices so far. I think I’d go along with that.
For those of us who came to the novel knowing nothing about it, the title lacked promise (it suggested cowboys!). But most of us were genuinely captivated by the beauty of the writing. We were impressed by the way Petterson could conjure pictures of great, snowy landscapes and also intricately detailed images, such as the goldcrest’s nest. Only one reader wasn’t keen on the overall novel, but she too found the writing very skillful. It’s hard not to be moved by Petterson’s description of the peaceful evening “blue hour” (pg 100) or this heightened memory of a summer day:
“ …it smelt hot and from everywhere in the forest around us there were sounds; of beating wings, of branches bending and twigs breaking, and the scream of a hawk and a hare’s last sigh, and the tiny muffled boom each time a bee hit a flower.” (Pg 30).
The author said in a newspaper interview that he didn’t plot the story from the beginning, but had just started off with “the boy, the father and the summer.” This may account for the way the story itself was so unpredictable as well as tragic.
We talked about the fascinating relationship between Trond and his father and how we would have loved to know more about Trond’s relationship with the women in his life, from his mother and wives to his daughter. We wondered how much the contained character of Trond with his reserve and apparent inability to express emotion was a product of its time (ie, the 1940s, when the novel is set) or the Norwegian culture. One review said the book “lacked closure” and we chatted about this – but for most readers this was simply true to life. Unlike the central character’s favourite writer, Dickens, Petterson has left us never knowing what happened to Trond’s father.
Next month’s choice probably couldn’t be more different: we’re reading Northumberland writer Valerie Laws’ The Rotting Spot as part of New Writing North’s ‘Read Regional’ event. I’m really hoping it will appeal to the group member who made this great remark at the meeting: “I haven’t enjoyed most of the choices so far. But I get a perverse pleasure out of that. And I do think reading them is doing me good!”
We also briefly discussed how to celebrate summer in July (and yes, the long-term forecast is pretty good – we may actually get a summer!). For this meeting, rather than reading a set book, we’re thinking about members recommending some good reads for the holidays. The thought is to do this on Spittal beach – with the option of adjourning to my house around the corner if the weather is very “Berwick.” One brilliant idea (from Ann) is to bring food or drink that’s mentioned in a favourite book to form a very unusual picnic! (I do like this idea. Lashings of ginger beer, anyone?). But it’s a couple of months away so it is still open for discussion!
Finally – the discounted hardback copies of the choice for the end of June – Alice de Smith’s Welcome to Life – are now in my possession. I’ll bring them to the May session but if anyone wants theirs earlier, drop me an e-mail and we can liaise! If anyone forgot to ask me to get one for them, it’s not too late to have one posted out to you from New Writing North (just let me know).
Here’s to the lighter evenings and the faint possibility of reading the May book outdoors…!
I knew Ross Raisin’s God’s Own Country was going to be controversial as soon as I’d read the first page! In fact, I was in the middle of reading it when we held the February book group and the curl of my lip when I passed it round may have indicated what I felt about it. But this is the Berwick Book group and you can never expect a total consensus.
It’s had an astonishing amount of hype and it’s won awards that would surpass expectations for a first novel, so I realised I was going to have to justify my dissastisfaction with the book. For me, the plot was terribly predictable and the unreliable narrator (a device which I love, when it’s done well) also seemed too cliched and obvious. I wasn’t alone in this opinion – but several people did enjoy it and for them the rather thin plot didn’t matter. They enjoyed the portrait of Sam Marsdyke, as well as the issues the book raised about how Sam had clearly been failed at every step of his life, by his parents, the school system, psychologists and eventually the penal system.
In an interview which a number of us had found, Ross Raisin said he wanted to write about two things he ”knew nothing about:” farming and mental illness. This led us down the path of a fascinating discussion on the differences between a psychopathic personality (which we felt Sam had) and the definition of mental illness, which didn’t seem to apply to Sam. We discussed the ambiguity of elements of the plot – because we only heard events through Sam’s voice, some things were left to interpretation and we couldn’t agree on what had actually happened, which is probably what the author intended.
Some enjoyed the language. It was undoubtedly quite a feat to write this entire book in the Yorkshie dialect. This was something I really struggled with, however - not so much the Yorkshire or made-up words (nimrods, blutherment, powfagged, etc) because they seemed easy to interpret, but the construction of the sentences. I kept having to re-read them, which I found frustrating! But one reader who worked in Yorkshire for many years fell comfortably back into the speech pattern and enjoyed it. Others also found the acerbic portrayal of the townies and the ramblers very funny.
But one of the most telling comments of the evening came from the person who said it read like the kind of novel which would come out of an MA Creative Writing course. Which indeed it did!
And we discussed the ways that some of these ideas (unreliable narrators, pyschopathic personalities) had been done by other writers – often better. One reader recommended Sebastian Faulks’ Engleby and another Russell Hoban’s Ridley Walker. Some of us also were reminded by Raisin’s book of John Fowles’ The Collector. (This is something I really enjoy about the group. They’re always up for a literary session of “If you liked that, you’ll love this!”).
Hexham is a bit of a trek from Berwick, but if anyone’s interested, Ross Raisin is appearing at the Hexham Book festival on April 30th. He’ll be with Richard Milward, the young author from Guisborough whose first novel Apples has been highly praised, and they’ll be talking to New Writing North’s director Claire Malcolm. Patrick Gale (Rough Music, among others) and Philip Hensher (The Northern Clemency) will be doing the same on Saturday 2nd May. Details can be found on are www.hexhambookfestival.co.uk .
If you’re quick to press the Listen Again button, you can hear a discussion about our last book, Things Fall Apart, on BBC R4’s A Good Read, with Sue MacGregor.
Finally – some mutterings about the fact that we haven’t finalised the next few books. Will do as soon as possible – honestly. Looking forward to next month’s group when we’ll be discussing Per Petterson’s Out Stealing Horses.
Oh – PS. How was the spurious mention of chocolate eggs justified? Lovely Kim from Doolally’s wowed us with her Easter crispie-and mini-eggs cakes. If there’s no other reason to go to the group….!
Next meeting: Tuesday 28th April, 6.30pm. Doolally’s, Marygate, Berwick upon Tweed. Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson.
