I read this because it was the book for my Victorian Literary Society meeting.  I had recently watched the latest BBC adaptation (with Clarie Foy) and so was quite keen to read the novel.

It is very long – my copy went to 900 pages.

Here’s the synopsis from Wikipedia …

The novel begins in Marseille with the notorious murderer Rigaud informing his cellmate that he has murdered his wife. Also in the town is Arthur Clennam, who is returning to London to see his mother following the death of his father, with whom he had lived for twenty years in China. As he died, his father had given Arthur a mysterious watch, murmuring, “Your mother.” Naturally Arthur had assumed that it was intended for Arthur’s mother Mrs. Clennam, whom he and the world supposed to be his mother.

Inside the watch casing was an old silk paper with the initials D N F (Do Not Forget) worked into it in beads. It was a message, but when Arthur shows it to harsh and implacable Mrs. Clennam, a religious fanatic, she refuses to reveal what it means, and the two become estranged.

In London, William Dorrit, imprisoned as a debtor, has been a resident of Marshalsea debtor’s prison for so long that his children — snobbish Fanny, idle Edward (known as Tip), and Amy (known as Little Dorrit) — have all grown up there, though they are free to pass in and out of the prison as they please. Amy is devoted to her father and through her sewing, has been financially supporting the two of them.

Once in London, Arthur is reacquainted with his former fiancée Flora Finching, who is now overweight and simpering. Arthur’s mother, Mrs. Clennam, although paralysed and a wheelchair user, still runs the family business with the help of her servant Jeremiah Flintwinch and his downtrodden wife Affery. When Arthur learns that Mrs. Clennam has employed Little Dorrit as a seamstress, showing her unusual kindness, he wonders if the young girl might be connected with the mystery of the watch. Suspecting that his mother played a part in the misfortunes of the Dorrits, Arthur follows the girl to the Marshalsea. He vainly tries to inquire about William Dorrit’s debt at the poorly run Circumlocution Office and acts as a benefactor to her father and brother. While at the Circumlocution Office, Arthur meets the struggling inventor Daniel Doyce, whom he decides to help by becoming his business partner. The grateful Little Dorrit falls in love with Arthur, much to the dismay of the son of the Marshalsea jailer, John Chivery, who has loved her since childhood; Arthur, however, fails to recognize Amy’s interest. At last, aided by the indefatigable debt-collector Pancks, Arthur discovers that William Dorrit is the lost heir to a large fortune and he is finally able to pay his way out of prison.

William Dorrit decides that as a now respectable family they should go on a tour of Europe. They travel over the Alps and take up residence for a time in Venice, and finally in Rome, carrying, with the exception of Amy, an air of conceit at their new-found wealth. Eventually after a spell of delirium, Mr. Dorrit dies in Rome, and his distraught brother Frederick, a kindhearted musician, who has always stood by him, also passes away. Amy is left alone and returns to London to stay with newly married Fanny and her husband, the foppish Edmund Sparkler.

The fraudulent dealings (similar to a Ponzi scheme) of Mr. Merdle who is Edmund Sparkler’s stepfather leads to the collapse of Merdle’s bank after his suicide, taking with it the savings of both the Dorrits and Arthur Clennam, who is now himself imprisoned in the Marshalsea. While there, he is taken ill and is nursed back to health by Amy. The French villain Rigaud, now in London, discovers that Mrs. Clennam has been hiding the fact that Arthur is not her real son, and Rigaud attempts to blackmail her. Arthur’s biological mother was a beautiful young singer with whom his father had gone through a ceremony of sorts before being pressured by his wealthy uncle to marry the present Mrs. Clennam. Mrs. Clennam had agreed to bring up the child on condition that its mother never see him. After Arthur’s real mother had died of grief at being separated from her child and its father, the uncle, stung by remorse, had left a bequest to Arthur’s mother and to “the youngest daughter of her patron”, a kindly musician who had taught and befriended her—and who happened to be Amy Dorrit’s uncle, Frederick. As Frederick Dorrit had no daughter, the legacy goes to the youngest daughter of Frederick’s brother, who is William Dorrit, Amy’s father.

Mrs. Clennam has been suppressing her knowledge that Amy is the heiress to an estate. Overcome by passion, Mrs. Clennam rises from her chair and totters out of her house to reveal the secret to Amy and to beg her forgiveness, which the kindhearted girl freely grants. Mrs. Clennam then falls down in the street—never to recover the use of her speech or limbs—as the house of Clennam literally collapses before her eyes, killing Rigaud. Rather than hurt Arthur, Amy chooses not to reveal what she has learnt, though this means that she misses her legacy.

When Arthur’s business partner Daniel Doyce returns from Turkey a wealthy man, Arthur is released and his fortunes revived, and Arthur and Amy are married.

Like many of Dickens novels, Little Dorritcontains numerous subplots. One subplot concerns Arthur Clennam’s friends, the kindhearted Meagles. They are upset when their daughter Pet marries an artist called Gowan and when their servant and foster daughter Tattycoram is lured away from them to the sinister Miss Wade, an acquaintance of the criminal Rigaud. Miss Wade hates men, and it turns out she is the jilted sweetheart of Gowan.

The novel is split into two books and I found the first book interesting and compelling, but got completely bogged down in the second. Both books needed editing (can I say that about Dickens?), but the second seemed full on unnecessary padding.

In the BBC adaptation Andrew Davies shifted some of the events around in time and it all seemed much less muddled. I guess when you write it as a series of installments you can’t go back later and change the order of the events.

And what about the will? Leaving money for the second daughter of the brother of the benefactor (if the benefactor doesn’t have children) thus linking Amy and Arthur – all seems a bit far fetched to me.

Next up on my Dickens reading Bleak House (I hear it’s very bleak!)

Here’s someone else’s thoughts …

http://court-merrigan.blogspot.com/2009/02/book-review-little-dorrit.html

http://wmtc.blogspot.com/2010/07/what-im-reading-little-dorrit-finally.html

http://www.rulethewaves.net/blog/?p=1608

I picked up a copy of this novel from a second-hand book store while on holiday.

Here’s the blurb

Rickie Elliot, a sensitive and intelligent young man with an intense imagination and a certain amount of literary talent, sets out from Cambridge full of hopes to become a writer. But when his stories are not successful he decides instead to marry the beautiful but shallow Agnes, agreeing to abandon his writing and become a schoolmaster at a second-rate public school. Giving up his hopes and values for those of the conventional world, he sinks into a world of petty conformity and bitter disappointments.

The start reminded my of Brideshead Revisited …

I enjoyed this novel. It is a quiet story about the development of one character.

There is a fabulous interpretation here

Solaris Ian McEwan’s latest novel. It is the story of Michael Beard a physicist who in his youth discovered the Beard-Einstein conflation for which he was awarded the Nobel prize. Since receiving the prize he has done little physics choosing instead to use his fame to receive grants and positions. One of which is at the ‘National Centre for Renewable Energy’. Here he meets the young and enthusiastic Tom Aldous. 

Michael Beard has been married five times and his fifth wife, Patrice, is having an affair (in retaliation to all of his affairs) with their builder. Beard takes this defection hard and to try to take his mind off the situation he accepts a trip to a glacier in the arctic circle so he witness the effects of global warming for himself. This involves an hilarious (and painful) journey on a snow mobile. On his return he discovers that Patrice has moved on from the builder and is now having an affair with Tom Aldous. A series of events unfold from this crises (I won’t spoil it for anyone) which leads ultimately (and deservedly) to Beard’s downfall.

Michael Beard is a particularly unattractive character; always looking out for himself and treating people (particularly women) very badly.

The writing is beautiful and I kept reading to the end despite loathing Beard. This novel isn’t about global warming and the need to find a clean energy source – it’s simply the frame used to portray a brilliant man whose won success seems to be his undoing.

I don’t think this is McEwan at his best, but I still think it’s worth a read.

Here are some other reviews

http://leekonstantinou.com/2010/05/08/beards-women-or-the-problem-with-ian-mcewans-solar-2010/

http://book-drunk.blogspot.com/2010/05/solar-by-ian-mcewan.html

I read about this novel on Cornflower Books – I can’t find the reference now it might even be in a comment somewhere – anyway I thought if I see it around I’ll grab a copy and then, on the very day, I find it in a second hand book store. I had no idea what to expect, but I loved it. It contains a wealth of domestic detail about raising three children and just how hard (and messy) that can be.

This is the description from Allen &  Unwin

In a novel reminiscent of the work of Penelope Lively, Anne Tyler, and Alice Munro, acclaimed author Marina Endicott gives us one of the most profound and most memorable reads of the year.
Absorbed in her own failings, Clara Purdy crashes her life into a sharp left turn, taking the young family in the other car along with her. When bruises on the mother, Lorraine, prove to be late-stage cancer, Clara – against all habit and comfort – moves the three children and their terrible grandmother into her own house.
We know what is good, but we don’t do it. In Good to a Fault, Clara decides to give it a try, and then has to cope with the consequences: exhaustion, fury, hilarity, and unexpected love. But she must question her own motives. Is she acting out of true goodness, or out of guilt? Most shamefully, has she taken over simply because she wants the baby for her own?
What do we owe in this life, and what do we deserve? This compassionate, funny, and fiercely intelligent novel looks at life and death through grocery-store reading glasses: being good, being at fault, and finding some balance on the precipice.

The writing is magnificent. Marina Endicott using free indirect style to great effect – we move in and out of the heads of most of the characters and therefore understand and sympathise with their lives.

Do we do our good deeds expecting gratitude or recognition? I think we probably do and I felt for Clara when things didn’t turn out quite how she expected.

I think this is domestic fiction at it’s best – it forces us to think about own motivations and assumptions.

Here are some other reviews …

http://kirbc.wordpress.com/2010/02/24/good-to-a-fault-by-marina-endicott/

http://www.bookslut.com/fiction/2009_05_014524.php

http://shereadsandreads.blogspot.com/2009/02/good-to-fault-by-marina-endicott-review.html

I read a review of this novel in The Australian and simply had to have it. Here is the description from Harper Collins …

What has happened to Ingrid?

Beautiful Ingrid inherits a fortune and leaves Australia, and her friends, and Ralph who loves her, to marry Gil Grey and set up home amid the New York art world. There she becomes the stepmother to Gil?s teenage artist daughter Fleur, a former child prodigy, and studies ancient curse scrolls at Columbia University.

But at 9am on September 11, 2001, she has an appointment downtown. And is never seen again.

Or is she?

Searching for clues about Ingrid?s life a year later, her friend Julia uncovers only further layers of mystery and deception.

Both an unputdownable mystery and a compelling meditation on the nature of art, truth, friendship and love, THE LEGACY announces the arrival of a major new talent.

This novel is a modern re-telling of James’s The Portrait of a Lady plus a bit of an extension. It’s been a long time since I’ve read The Portrait of a Lady but I remember after a couple of false starts that I loved it. This novel is in three parts and the first part closely resembles James’s novel (although obviously with a modern setting), part two and part three move into new territory. I really enjoyed reading this novel – I didn’t want it to end. The things that have really stuck in my mind was first how well she described an Australian university experience (it reminded me of my time at Uni), secondly the effect of the collapse of the World Trade Center on New Yorkers and thirdly the sense of place Ms Tranter created. The writing is spectacular (and unobtrusive). I didn’t once think it needed more editing (very unusual) and the characters are fabulous, completely believable. Here’s a reading guide, and a review and another review.

I picked this book us from the library (in large print! – I quite like large print I wonder if that means I need reading glasses?).

I liked Anne Tyler. I like how her novels focus on more domestic themes – everyday life with all of its complexities.

Here is the book description …

The characters in this novel are wonderfully portrayed – they all seem to be real (and completely ordinary). This novel is about guilt and atonement, but also about family and where individuals fit into a family and what is required to be part of a family. Ian sacrifices greatly to atone for his brother’s death (which he thinks he caused). He raises his brother’s children (with some help from his parents) which involves giving up college and the life he might have imagined for himself.

‘Right,’ Ian told her. ‘I had both my parents helping, and still it wasn’t easy. A lot of it was just plain boring. Just providing a warm body, just being there; anyone could have done it. And then other parts were terrifying. Kids get into so much! They start to matter so much. Some days I felt like a fireman or a lifeguard or something – all that tedium, broken up by little spurts of high drama.’

I think that’s a fantastic quote about parenting. Sometimes it is boring – admiring the thirtieth picture of a dinosaur for that day, reading yet another Princess story and yet it does matter.

Having said that, I was a bit disappointed with the ending. I wanted something better for Ian – not just more of the same – still living at home (albeit with his wife), looking after another baby and his aging father.

Here’s a study guide …

http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-saint-maybe/

and it was made into a TV movie

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168156/

Atwood is one of my favourite authors. I was amazed I found one of her novels that I hadn’t read. This is one of her earlier works – her second novel first published in 1972.

Plot summary from Wikipedia …

The book tells the story of a woman who returns to her hometown in Canada to find her missing father. Accompanied by her lover and another married couple, the unnamed protagonist meets her past in her childhood house, recalling events and feelings, while trying to find clues for her father’s mysterious disappearance. Little by little, the past overtakes her and drives her into the realm of wildness and madness.

This novel has a wonderful sense of place – I can picture the lake and the cabin. The characters are beautifully portrait, but they are people of a definite era (I can imagine the men with hairy chests and medallions). The sexual revolution has started – both women took the pill and then stopped – women are beginning to be emancipated, but not quite.

The descent into madness is fabulous to read and it all seems quite logical.

I think this is a fabulous novel, but Atwood goes onto greater things with Cat’s Eye, Handmaid’s Tale, Alias Grace and Oryx and Crake. If you’re an Atwood fan, then it’s worth reading to see where she came from, but otherwise I probably wouldn’t bother.

Here are some other (and better) reviews …

http://silverseason.wordpress.com/2009/12/17/margaret-atwood-surfacing/

http://amandasrandombookthoughts.blogspot.com/2009/10/surfacing-margaret-atwood.html

http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2009/09/best-thing-i-read-recently-surfacing-by.html

I got this book from the library – I’m not sure why I chose it. I think I felt that she was a novelist that one should read.

A lay community of thoroughly mixed-up people is encamped outside Imber Abbey, home of an order of sequestered nuns. A new bell is being installed when suddenly the old bell, a legendary symbol of religion and magic, is rediscovered. And then things begin to change. Meanwhile the wise old Abbess watches and prays and exercises discreet authority. And everyone, or almost everyone, hopes to be saved, whatever that may mean. Originally published in 1958, this funny, sad, and moving novel is about religion, sex, and the fight between good and evil.

This novel isbeautifully written, but I think it has dated. I don’t think a gay man in the twenty-first century would spend so much time soul-searching about his sexuality. The characterisations are fabulous – I didn’t like any of them, but I thought they were convincing.

The narrative switches between characters and we get insights into thoughts of the characters – Michael and Dora. It is clear that was is appearing on the surface is not what is going on in the depths – a bit like the old bell being hidden in the lake. Things do come to the surface (including the bell) and the characters need to face their true selves and then move forward.

One quote that stands out for me is from Michael’s sermon

One must perform the lower act which one can manage and sustain; not the higher act which one bungles.

This book could definitely be read more than once with more and more connections becoming apparent, however, I don’t think I will read it again.

More reviews …

http://blacksheepbooks.blogspot.com/2009/11/bell-by-iris-murdoch.html

http://mindywithrow.com/?p=360

A reading guide …

http://us.penguingroup.com/static/rguides/us/bell.html

I received this novel as a Christmas gift. I’m a keen Kingsolver fan so I did suggest it as a present idea.

From the publisher …

In her most accomplished novel, Barbara Kingsolver takes us on an epic journey from the Mexico City of artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo to the America of Pearl Harbor, FDR, and J. Edgar Hoover. The Lacuna is a poignant story of a man pulled between two nations as they invent their modern identities.

Born in the United States, reared in a series of provisional households in Mexico—from a coastal island jungle to 1930s Mexico City—Harrison Shepherd finds precarious shelter but no sense of home on his thrilling odyssey. Life is whatever he learns from housekeepers who put him to work in the kitchen, errands he runs in the streets, and one fateful day, by mixing plaster for famed Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. He discovers a passion for Aztec history and meets the exotic, imperious artist Frida Kahlo, who will become his lifelong friend. When he goes to work for Lev Trotsky, an exiled political leader fighting for his life, Shepherd inadvertently casts his lot with art and revolution, newspaper headlines and howling gossip, and a risk of terrible violence.

Meanwhile, to the north, the United States will soon be caught up in the internationalist goodwill of World War II. There in the land of his birth, Shepherd believes he might remake himself in America’s hopeful image and claim a voice of his own. He finds support from an unlikely kindred soul, his stenographer, Mrs. Brown, who will be far more valuable to her employer than he could ever know. Through darkening years, political winds continue to toss him between north and south in a plot that turns many times on the unspeakable breach—the lacuna—between truth and public presumption.

With deeply compelling characters, a vivid sense of place, and a clear grasp of how history and public opinion can shape a life, Barbara Kingsolver has created an unforgettable portrait of the artist—and of art itself. The Lacuna is a rich and daring work of literature, establishing its author as one of the most provocative and important of her time.

I found this novel slow going at first and I stopped reading it a couple of times and moved onto something else. However, by the end I was captured. This novel contains an abundance of information about Mexico, Communism and America during the ‘reds under the beds’ debacle. This book is beautifully written and contains an enormous amount of research. I found the characters compelling, in particular Violet Brown. Not being at all familiar with American history (or Mexican) I enjoyed the social history aspects of this novel.

Here are some other reviews …

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/books/review/Schillinger-t.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-lacuna-by-barbara-kingsolver-1811038.html

http://mylifeasseenthroughbooks.blogspot.com/2010/01/redux-12-lacuna-by-barbara-kingsolver.html

 While reading this novel I got the feeling that I’ve read it before, but I couldn’t remember what happened so I kept going.

This is the story of Jeanette, adopted and brought up by her mother as one of God’s elect. Zealous and passionate, she seems destined for life as a missionary, but then she falls for one of her converts. At sixteen, Jeanette decides to leave the church, her home and her family, for the young woman she loves. Innovative, punchy and tender, “Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit” is a few days ride into the bizarre outposts of religious excess and human obsession.

This is a beautifully written story – I do like first person narratives – the characters are fabulous. What an amazing first novel. In amongst the narrative are fairy tale vignettes about the search for the holy grail and a girl Winnet escaping from a wizard trying to find the magic city. These stories within a story highlight Jeanette’s mental state.

This is a quick read and well worth the effort. I’ll definitely be looking for more of her works.

http://andthenireadsomemore.blogspot.com/2009/11/jeanette-winterson-oranges-are-not-only.html

http://serendipityteacher.blogspot.com/2009/08/oranges-are-not-only-fruit-by-jeanette.html

There are even SparkNotes

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/oranges/