literature

All posts tagged literature

To blog or not to blog

Published 08/06/2016 by damselwithadulcimer

For months I’ve been acutely aware that I’ve neglected my blog. Why pay for a domain name and not post? Life seems to be so busy with family, volunteering and continuing to work part-time. Not to mention the prevarication brought on by just sitting at your laptop, reading emails and posts, responding to them and then uploading items that you think will interest others. What on earth happened to all the leisure time we were promised for the 21st century? Or perhaps it’s more a case of employing better time management skills.

Six months ago – I can’t believe we’re almost halfway through 2016 – I realised that I’d allowed myself to fall into some kind of semi-hibernation. Mum had been gone for well over eighteen months, and it seemed to be taking a long time to adapt to a life that didn’t involve worrying about, and caring for, her; a period spent constantly on tenterhooks, wondering when the next phone call would alert me of another fall, or an urgent summoning of the paramedics.

So, since the beginning of this year I have made attempts to get out more into the world, or more precisely to go to London, on my doorstep. Of course I’ve kept up with friends (well, to a certain extent) and continued with my volunteering, almost as if I need to care for others as I no longer have mum. But I’ve also made a point of visiting more galleries and exhibitions, especially when I realised that I was paying annually for my Arts Pass card, but never using it and therefore not saving myself the money that I could. I’ve got partially involved with a theatre going group, so am able to see plays about once a month, and now actually have others to chat to during the intervals. But I’ve also managed to get myself back into reading: my first and forever love. If I’d never acquired a passion for reading I would never have improved my own writing skills.

Currently I’m working my way through Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels. With only about 100 pages to go before I finish the final book, The Story of the Lost Child, I’m in an ambivalent state. I can’t wait to get to the conclusion, but will also feel bereft to have reached the end of a saga, spanning some five decades, that examines the friendship of two young girls as they grow and mature into older women, as well as painting a broad sweep of Neapolitan life with its background of politics and social change.

So the evolving Sandra is now going out to meet one of her daughter’s for a bite to eat, and will then be attending a thank you party for one of her volunteering groups. I promise to come back very, very soon.

Review: Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell

Published 29/01/2014 by damselwithadulcimer

Instructions for a Heatwave

I’ve never ready anything by Maggie O’Farrell before, but tend to find myself drawn to contemporary Irish literature.  O’Farrell was brought up in Wales and now lives in Scotland, but she draws on her Irish roots in introducing us to the family in Instructions for a Heatwave.

The Riordans live in London, where they have raised their three now adult children.  The novel begins very precisely on 15 July 1976 with the announcement of the Drought Act of that year.  The weather had remained exceptionally dry over the previous twelve months, but the above average temperatures that began in June of that year, prompted the government to introduce the Act referred to above, and to appoint a Minister for Drought, Denis Howell. 

The novel begins with Gretta, the family’s matriarch, making the same soda bread that she has prepared three times a week throughout her married life. The precision with which she bakes the family loaf echoes the precise elements of the Drought Act.  But on this July day her life will change: her husband Robert leaves to buy a newspaper and does not return. Her search for Robert means that she will have to get in touch with each of her children and enlist their help in tracing their father.

O’Farrell teases out the tensions between the siblings.  There is Michael Francis, a schoolteacher with marital problems who never completed his PhD; Monica, stepmother to Peter’s young daughters and harbouring a painful secret; and Aiofe, the youngest daughter (whose pregnancy has impacted on Gretta’s health) trying to conceal a skeleton within her own cupboard.  With all these buried secrets is it no wonder that Robert’s disappearance will lead to the uncovering of even more hidden truths? 

The need to for Gretta to contact her children forces her to confront the past and provides O’Farrell with the perfect opportunity to fill in the younger Riordans back stories.  She takes the siblings back to shared events in their childhoods and to episodes from their adult lives and enables us to build up their psychological backgrounds and to learn how their lives impact on the family and on each other.  We all come with our own baggage, and the Riordan children are no exception.  All three are forced to face the past and mend bridges, both within and without their immediate families.  Gretta too, pieces together what has happened to Robert and travels back to Ireland with her offspring and grandchildren to reveal a deeply buried truth. 

O’Farrell will seduce you with her prose, force you to turn the pages to reach the conclusion, and make you empathise with the problems and dilemmas encountered by the Riordans, a truly modern family with its fractures and reconciliations.

Review of Nemesis by Philip Roth

Published 19/11/2011 by damselwithadulcimer

It was difficult to read this novel without a growing sense of foreboding. The very title can mean retribution, or it can also mean an enemy in North American usage. The very ambiguity of the interpretation of the title feeds into Bucky’s feelings of guilt and makes the reader question why Bucky feels he must shoulder so much blame for the polio epidemic that is raging through New Jersey while World War II is being fought in Europe and the Pacific. Is he really an agent of doom, or can he never forgive himself for not being fit enough to fight in the armed services? Bucky can run, but he can’t hide. The novel also questions the existence of a cruel or a caring God and leaves you feeling unsettled and angry and upset for Bucky, the life thrust upon him, and the choices he has made.

Penelope Lively’s Moon Tiger

Published 10/11/2011 by damselwithadulcimer

I’ve been a Penelope Lively fan for years, so I jumped at the opportunity of attending a radio recording of her talking about her Booker prize winning novel, Moon Tiger.   I’ve been to the BBC Radio Theatre several times, but this was a World Service programme, so it took place at Bush House.


The experience was a completely different one.  We were taken down a couple of flights of stairs and across a courtyard then down a further couple of flights, ending up in the bowels of Bush House.  Having started out at the Kingsway entrance to the building, we were now over on the Strand side.  In a highly civilised manner we were offered glasses of wine before going into the studio, where Penelope was already seated with Harriett Gilbert.  There were only about 30 of us in the small studio, and I was told that mine was to be the second question of the programme. 

After Harriett introduced Penelope, the writer read a short passage from the novel before taking the first question.  The pattern of the programme was a series of questions, some taken from the audience, others put to Penelope by Harriett, who had received them by email, and a couple more came in by phone from around the world.  It was interesting to take into account the questions posed by others and to learn of some of the writer’s insights into her working processes and the building up of character. 

My question was on the conflicting perspectives given in the novel, others asked about the research put in to build up a story, why the story didn’t have a necessarily happy ending and how much of the writer was in the protagonist.

It will be interesting to listen to the programme when it is broadcast in a few weeks, especially as our hour and ten minutes in the studio will be edited down to 53 minutes.  After that the programme will remain in the BBC’s archives indefinitely.