Dear Life – Alice Munro

I do like Munro’s short stories – here, here and here.

Here is the blurb …

Alice Munro captures the essence of life in her brilliant new collection of stories. Moments of change, chance encounters,the twist of fate that leads a person off the accustomed path and on to a new way of thinking and being: the stories in Dear Life build to form a radiant, indelible portrait of just how dangerous and strange ordinary life can be.

Many of these stories are grounded in Munro’s home territory – the small Canadian towns around Lake Huron – but there are departures too. A poet, finding herself in alien territory at her first literary party, is rescued by a seasoned Newspaper editor, and is soon hurtling across the continent, young child in tow, towards a hoped for but completely unplanned meeting. A young soldier, returning to his fiancee from the Second World War steps off the train before his stop and onto the farm of another woman beginning a life on the move.

The book ends with four powerful pieces, ‘autobiographical in feeling’, set during the time of Munro’s own childhood, in the area where she grew up. Munro describes this quartet as ‘not quite stories’ but ‘the first and last – and the closest – things I have to say about my own life’. Suffused with Munro’s clarity of vision and her unparalleled gift for storytelling, these and the other stories in Dear Life are cause for celebration.

Munro is the master of making the ordinary extraordinary. Her stories are about small lives – mostly living in rural communities – but they grapple with ‘big’ emotions: loneliness, betrayal, despair, unexpected kindness.

This book consists of 14 stories (I had read one before Amundsen) and the cover a range of themes – love, aging, adultery, society expectations. Munro’s prose is simple, but compelling I didn’t want any of the stories to finish – particularly Corrie (how could everything continue as before after such a betrayal). Munro highlights what most people (the majority of people) will and do put up with in their lives. These aren’t grand sweeping epics, but finely detailed miniatures.

I especially enjoyed the references to L M Montgomery’s work – there is this in The Eye…

And in my interpretation of the picture that hung at the foot of my bed, showing Jesus suffering the little children to come unto him. Suffering meant something different in those days, but that was not what we concentrated on. My mother pointed out the little girl half hiding round a corner because she wanted to come to Jesus but was too shy.

Reminds me of this in Anne of Green Gables …

 ”That,” she said, pointing to the picture—a rather vivid chromo entitled, “Christ Blessing Little Children”—”and I was just imagining I was one of them—that I was the little girl in the blue dress, standing off by herself in the corner as if she didn’t belong to anybody, like me. She looks lonely and sad, don’t you think? I guess she hadn’t any father or mother of her own. But she wanted to be blessed, too, so she just crept shyly up on the outside of the crowd, hoping nobody would notice her—except Him. I’m sure I know just how she felt. Her heart must have beat and her hands must have got cold, like mine did when I asked you if I could stay. She was afraid He mightn’t notice her. But it’s likely He did, don’t you think? I’ve been trying to imagine it all out—her edging a little nearer all the time until she was quite close to Him; and then He would look at her and put His hand on her hair and oh, such a thrill of joy as would run over her! But I wish the artist hadn’t painted Him so sorrowful looking. All His pictures are like that, if you’ve noticed. But I don’t believe He could really have looked so sad or the children would have been afraid of Him.”

And there was references to Anne of Green Gables and Pat of Silver Bush in Dear Life and how Anne must have ignored the manure as she did.

More reviews …

http://cgblake.wordpress.com/2013/05/20/book-review-dear-life-by-alice-munro/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/nov/25/dear-life-alice-munro-review

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/books/review/dear-life-stories-by-alice-munro.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

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Daniel Deronda – George Eliot

Reading this novel was definitely a marathon rather than a sprint! I read it on my Kindle and the percentage was slow to grow! Plus I still have to read Mill on the Floss and Middlemarch for my Victorian book group.

Here is the plot summary from Wikipedia …

Daniel Deronda contains two main strains of plot, united by the title character. The novel begins in mid-story in late August 1865[1] with the meeting of Daniel Deronda and Gwendolen Harleth in the fictional town of Leubronn, Germany. Daniel finds himself attracted to, but wary of, the beautiful, stubborn, and selfish Gwendolen, whom he sees losing all her winnings in a game of roulette. The next day, Gwendolen receives a letter from her mother telling her that the family is financially ruined and asking her to come home. In despair at losing all her money, Gwendolen pawns a necklace and debates gambling again in order to make her fortune. In a fateful moment, however, her necklace is returned to her by a porter, and she realises that Daniel saw her pawn the necklace and redeemed it for her. From this point, the plot breaks off into two separate flashbacks, one which gives us the history of Gwendolen Harleth and one of Daniel Deronda.
In October 1864,[1] soon after the death of Gwendolen’s stepfather, Gwendolen and her family move to a new neighbourhood. It is here that she meets Henleigh Mallinger Grandcourt, a taciturn and calculating man, who proposes marriage shortly after their first meeting. At first open to his advances, she eventually flees (to the German town in which she meets Deronda) upon discovering that he has several children with his mistress, Lydia Glasher. This portion of the novel sets Gwendolen up as a haughty, selfish, yet affectionate daughter, admired for her beauty but suspected by many in society because of her satirical observations and somewhat manipulative behaviour. She is also prone to fits of terror that shake her otherwise calm and controlling exterior.
Deronda has been raised by a wealthy gentleman, Sir Hugo Mallinger. Deronda’s relationship to Sir Hugo is ambiguous and it is widely believed, even by Deronda, that he is Sir Hugo’s illegitimate son, though no one is certain. Deronda is an intelligent, light-hearted and compassionate young man who cannot quite decide what to do with his life, and this is a sore point between him and Sir Hugo, who wants him to go into politics. One day in late July 1864,[1] as he is boating on the Thames, Deronda rescues a young Jewish woman, Mirah Lapidoth, from attempting to drown herself. He takes her to the home of friends of his, and it is discovered that Mirah is a singer. She has come to London to search for her mother and brother after running away from her father, who kidnapped her when she was a child and forced her into an acting troupe. She ran away from him finally because she discovered he was planning to sell her into prostitution. Moved by her tale, Deronda undertakes to help her look for her mother (who turns out to have died years earlier) and brother and through this, he is introduced to London’s Jewish community. Mirah and Daniel grow closer and Daniel, anxious about his growing affection for her, leaves for a short time to join Sir Hugo in Leubronn, where he and Gwendolen first meet.
From here, the story picks up in “real time,” and Gwendolen returns from Germany in early September 1865[1] because her family has lost its fortune in an economic downturn. Gwendolen, having an antipathy to marriage, the only respectable way in which a woman could achieve financial security, attempts to avoid working as a governess by pursuing a career in singing or on the stage, but a prominent musician tells her she does not have the talent. In order to save herself and her family from relative poverty, she marries the wealthy Grandcourt, whom she believes she can manipulate to maintain her freedom to do what she likes, despite having promised Mrs. Glasher she would not marry him and fearing that it is a mistake.
Deronda, searching for Mirah’s family, meets a consumptive visionary named Mordecai. Mordecai passionately proclaims his wish that the Jewish people retain their national identity and one day be restored to their Promised Land. Because he is dying, he wants Daniel to become his intellectual heir and continue to pursue his dream and be an advocate for the Jewish people. In spite of being strongly drawn to Mordecai, Deronda hesitates to commit himself to a cause that seems to have no connection to his own identity. Deronda’s desire to embrace Mordecai’s vision becomes stronger when they discover Mordecai is the brother Mirah has known by the name Ezra and has been seeking. Still, Deronda is not a Jew and cannot reconcile this fact with his affection and respect for Mordecai/Ezra, which would be necessary for him to pursue a life of Jewish advocacy.
Gwendolen, meanwhile, has been emotionally crushed by her cold, self-centered, and manipulative husband. She is consumed with guilt for disinheriting Lydia Glasher’s children by marrying their father. On Gwendolen’s wedding day, Mrs. Glasher cursed her and told her she would suffer for her treachery, which only exacerbates Gwendolen’s feelings of dread and terror. During this time, Gwendolen and Deronda meet regularly, and Gwendolen pours out her troubles to him whenever they meet. During a trip to Italy, Grandcourt is knocked from his boat into the water and drowns. Gwendolen, who was present, is consumed with guilt because she had long wished he would die, although after some hesitation she jumped into the Mediterranean in a futile attempt to save him. Deronda, also in Italy to meet his Jewish mother (whose identity Sir Hugo has finally revealed), comforts Gwendolen and advises her. In love with Deronda, Gwendolen hopes for a future with him, but he urges her onto a path of righteousness in which she will help others in order to alleviate her suffering.
Deronda meets his mother and learns that she was a famous opera singer with whom Sir Hugo was once in love. She tells him that her father, a physician and strictly pious Jew, forced her to marry her cousin whom she did not love, despite her resentment of the rigid piety of her childhood. Daniel was the only child of that union, and on her husband’s death, she asked the devoted Sir Hugo to raise her son as an English gentleman, never to know that he was Jewish. Upon learning of his true origins, Deronda finally feels comfortable with his love for Mirah, and on his return to England in October 1866,[1] he tells Mirah of his love for her. Daniel commits himself to be Ezra/Mordecai’s disciple, and shortly after Deronda’s marriage, Ezra/Mordecai dies with Daniel and Mirah at his side. Before Daniel marries Mirah, he goes to Gwendolen to tell her about his origins, his decision to go to “the East” (per Ezra/Mordecai’s wish), and his betrothal to Mirah. Gwendolen is devastated by the news, but it becomes a turning point in her life, inspiring her to finally say, “I shall live.” She sends him a letter on his wedding day, telling him not to think of her with sadness but to know that she will be a better person for having known him. The newly-weds are all prepared to set off for “the East”, with Mordecai, when Mordecai dies in their arms, and the novel ends.

I have to say upfront that I really struggled through this novel – it was wordy, philosophical and religious. I think it is very much of it’s time and won’t appeal to many modern readers.

Having said that I found Gwendolyn and Mirah’s stories intriguing – their stories are reasonable similar, but their lives follow very different paths because of the choices they make. By a different author Gwendolyn would be a heroine and would live happily ever after, but Eliot doesn’t allow her the easy option she must live with the consequences of her actions and choices.

To me this novel seemed almost two in one; the English country manners tale (Gwendolyn, Grandcourt, etc) and the Jewish tale (Mordecai, the Cohens, etc). And I don’t think they mesh together well. I admire the breadth of scholarship in this novel, but couldn’t enjoy it.

Where Did You Go Bernadette – Maria Semple

I have been meaning to read this novel for a long time. I keep a list of interesting books in Evernote for whenever I am out and about and feel like buying a book and this one was very near the top. I finally bought a copy from the book depository when they sent me a 10% of voucher. I’m glad I read it.

Here is the blurb …

Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she’s a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she’s a disgrace; to design mavens, she’s a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom.

Then Bernadette disappears. It began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette’s intensifying allergy to Seattle–and people in general–has made her so agoraphobic that a virtual assistant in India now runs her most basic errands. A trip to the end of the earth is problematic.

To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, secret correspondence–creating a compulsively readable and touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter’s role in an absurd world.

It is a modern take on an epistolary novel; emails, reports, letters, however, there is a bit (Bee’s section) written in first person narrative. Some sections are hilarious the whole section about encouraging more Mercedes parents (as opposed to Subaru parents) to send their children to Bee’s alternative school is laugh out loud funny ( it might be a bit too close to the bone for some parents!).

Bernadette doesn’t want to leave the house – she outsources everything to a personal assistant in India including handing over important and secret information such as bank details, passport information, etc. you can imagine how that goes!

I loved this novel, but I am in the ‘school run’ years – Bernadette would call me a gnat! – I know people like Audrey and other people who keep track of who has volunteered and who hasn’t! Plus I know people in the IT world – even at Microsoft. I’m not sure how it would work for people at a different stage of their lives, but I found the characters believable and the plot quite plausible.

Here is a link to the transcript of the ABC First Tuesday Book Club episode where they discussed Where Did You Go Bernadette.

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/firsttuesday/s3583251.htm

The Rosie Project – Graeme Simsion

I read a review in The Australian and then a friend recommended, so I had to read it. And I am glad I did – it is hilarious!

Here is the blurb …

Meet Don Tillman.

Don is getting married.

He just doesn’t know who to yet.

But he has designed a very detailed questionnaire to help him find the perfect woman.

One thing he already knows, though, is that it’s not Rosie.

Absolutely, completely, definitely not.

Telling the story of Rosie and Don, Graeme Simsion’s The Rosie Project is an international phenomenon, sold in over thirty countries – and counting.

Don Tillman is a socially challenged genetics professor who’s decided the time has come to find a wife. His questionnaire is intended to weed out anyone who’s unsuitable. The trouble is, Don has rather high standards and doesn’t really do flexible so, despite lots of takers – he looks like Gregory Peck – he’s not having much success in identifying The One.

When Rosie Jarman comes to his office, Don assumes it’s to apply for the Wife Project – and duly discounts her on the grounds she smokes, drinks, doesn’t eat meat, and is incapable of punctuality. However, Rosie has no interest in becoming Mrs Tillman and is actually there to enlist Don’s assistance in a professional capacity: to help her find her biological father.

Sometimes, though, you don’t find love: love finds you…

 I keep recommending this book to everyone – it is light and funny, but well-written. Don reminds me of Sheldon (from the Big Bang Theory). He obviously lies somewhere on the autistic spectrum and he is aware that he is ‘wired differently’. He embarks on a project to find a wife – he is intelligent, earns good money he should be able to find someone with whom to reproduce. He doesn’t want to waste any time meeting the wrong woman, so he devises a sixteen page questionnaire (that’s right 16 pages!) he wants to avoid previous mishaps like the ice cream flavour incident. Don thinks Rosie visits his office as part of the Wife Project and promptly asks her out to dinner. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth Rosie accepts on condition that they go to an expensive restaurant (this involves Don hacking into their reservation system to get a table at such short notice). Their adventure begins. As Don is so socially inept, the reader feels they know more about what is going on between him and Rosie than he does.

This is a really quick read and it’s lots of fun.

More reviews …

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/the-rosie-project-20130222-2ewaz.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/feb/23/aspergers-novel-1m-debut

Scenes of a Clerical Life – George Eliot

I’ve read Mill on the Floss and Middlemarch and would describe myself as a George Eliot fan. However, I must admit I struggled with this one. Scenes of Early Death would be a more descriptive title. It is three longish short stories (or maybe novellas) in one novel all featuring clergymen.

Here is the plot summary from Wikipedia

The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton

The titular character is the new curate of the parish church of Shepperton, a village near Milby. A pious man, but “sadly unsuited to the practice of his profession”,[19] Barton attempts to ensure that his congregation remains firmly within the care of the Church of England. His stipend is inadequate, and he relies on the hard work of Milly, his wife, to help keep the family. Barton is new to the village and subscribes to unpopular religious ideas; not all of the congregation accept him, but he feels that it is especially important to imbue them with what he sees as orthodox Christian views.

Barton and Milly become acquainted with Countess Caroline Czerlaski. When the Countess’ brother, with whom she lives, gets engaged to be married to her maid, she leaves home in protest. Barton and his wife accept the Countess into their home, much to the disapproval of the congregation, who assume her to be his mistress. The Countess becomes a burden on the already stretched family, accepting their hospitality and contributing little herself. With Milly pregnant and ill, the children’s nurse convinces the Countess to leave.

Milly dies following the premature birth of her baby (who also dies) and Barton is plunged into sadness at the loss. Barton’s parishioners, who were so unsympathetic to him as their minister, support him and his family in their grief: “There were men and women standing in that churchyard who had bandied vulgar jests about their pastor, and who had lightly charged him with sin, but now, when they saw him following the coffin, pale and haggard, he was consecrated anew by his great sorrow, and they looked at him with respectful pity”. Just as Barton is beginning to come to terms with Milly’s death, he get more bad news: the vicar, Mr. Carpe, will be taking over at Shepperton church. Barton is given six-months notice to leave. He has no choice but to comply, but is disheartened, having at last won the sympathies of the parishioners. Barton believes that the request was unfair, knowing that the vicar’s brother-in-law is in search of a new parish in which to work. However, he resigns himself to the move and at length obtains a living in a distant manufacturing town.

The story concludes twenty years later with Barton at his wife’s grave with one of his daughters: Patty. In the intervening years much has changed for Barton; his children have grown up and gone their separate ways. His son Richard is particularly mentioned as having shown talent as an engineer. Patty remains with her father.

Mr. Gilfil’s Love Story

The second work in Scenes of Clerical Life is entitled “Mr. Gilfil’s Love-Story” and concerns the life of a clergyman named Maynard Gilfil. We are introduced to Mr Gilfil in his capacity as the vicar of Shepperton, ‘thirty years ago’ (presumably the late 1820s) but the central part of the story begins in June 1788 and concerns his youth, his experiences as chaplain at Cheverel Manor and his love for Caterina Sarti. Caterina, known to the family as ‘Tina’, is an Italian orphan and the ward of Sir Christopher and Lady Cheverel, who took her into their care following the death of her father. In 1788 she is companion to Lady Cheverel and a talented amateur singer.[20]

Arbury Hall, where Eliot’s father was estate manager, and the model for Cheverel Manor[21]

Gilfil’s love for Tina is not reciprocated; she is infatuated with Captain Anthony Wybrow, nephew and heir of Sir Christopher Cheverel. Sir Christopher intends Wybrow to marry a Miss Beatrice Assher, the daughter of a former sweetheart of his, and that Tina will marry Gilfil. Wybrow, aware of and compliant to his uncle’s intentions, nonetheless continues to flirt with Tina, causing her to fall deeply in love with him. This continues until Wybrow goes to Bath in order to press his suit to Miss Assher. He is then invited to the Asshers’ home, and afterwards returns to Cheverel Manor, bringing with him Miss Assher and her mother. Wybrow dies unexpectedly. Gilfil, finding a knife on Tina, fears that she has killed him, but the cause of death is in fact a pre-existing heart complaint. Tina runs away, and Gilfil and Sir Christopher fear that she has committed suicide. However, a former employee of Sir Christopher and Lady Cheverel returns to the manor to inform them that Tina has taken refuge with him and his wife. Gilfil seeks her out, helps her recover and marries her. It is hoped that marriage and motherhood, combined with Gilfil’s love for her, which she now reciprocates, will endue her with a new zest for life. However, she dies in childbirth soon afterwards,[22] leaving the curate to live out the rest of his life alone and die a lonely man.[3][20]

 Janet’s Repentance

Janet’s Repentance is the only story in Scenes of Clerical Life set in the town of Milby itself. Following the appointment of Reverend Mr Tryan to the chapel of ease at Paddiford Common, Milby is deeply divided by religious strife. One party, headed by the lawyer Robert Dempster, vigorously supports the old curate, Mr Crewe; the other is equally biased in favour of the newcomer. Edgar Tryan is an evangelical, and his opponents consider him to be no better than a dissenter. Opposition is based variously in doctrinal disagreement and on a suspicion of cant and hypocrisy on the part of Mr Tryan; in Dempster’s wife, Janet, however, it stems from an affection for Mr Crewe and his wife, and the feeling that it is unkind to subject them to so much stress in their declining years. She supports her husband in a malicious campaign against Mr Tryan, despite the fact that Dempster is frequently drunkenly abusive to her, which drives her to drink in turn. One night her husband turns her out of the house; she takes refuge with a neighbour, and, remembering an encounter with Mr Tryan at the sickbed of one of his flock, where she was struck by an air of suffering and compassion about him, asks he might come to see her. He encourages her in her struggle against her dependence on alcohol and her religious conversion. Shortly afterwards Robert Dempster is thrown from his gig and seriously injured. Upon discovering what has happened, Janet, forgiving him, returns to her home and nurses him through the subsequent illness until he dies a few weeks later. Tryan continues to guide Janet toward redemption and self-sufficiency following the death of her husband. She, in turn, persuades him to move out of his inhospitable accommodation and into a house that she has inherited. It is hinted that a romantic relationship might subsequently develop between the two. His selfless devotion to his needy parishioners has taken his toll on his health, however, and he succumbs to consumption and dies young.

There is a lot of religion in this novel (I guess I shouldn’t be surprised with a title like Scenes of a Clerical life) particularly in the final story Janet’s Repentance. I think a modern secular audience would struggle with the ideology. I was surprised to read in the introduction (to the Penguin edition) that George Eliot was herself an Atheist.

There are beautiful descriptions of scenery and the characters and dialogue are spectacular. The world of Milby and its environs seems very real – the characters leap of the page (I’m sure we recognise some of our acquaintances or ourselves). There is a bit of authorial intrusion, which I found annoying and a bit patronising. For example, here is the start of Chapter Five of  The Sad Fortunes of Amos Barton.

The Rev. Amos Barton, whose sad fortunes I have undertaken to relate, was, you perceive, in no respect an ideal or exceptional character; and perhaps I am doing a bold thing to bespeak your sympathy on behalf of a man who was so very far from remarkable,—a man whose virtues were not heroic, and who had no undetected crime within his breast; who had not the slightest mystery hanging about him, but was palpably and unmistakably commonplace; who was not even in love, but had had that complaint favourably many years ago. ‘An utterly uninteresting character!’ I think I hear a lady reader exclaim—Mrs. Farthingale, for example, who prefers the ideal in fiction; to whom tragedy means ermine tippets, adultery, and murder; and comedy, the adventures of some personage who is quite a ‘character’.

But, my dear madam, it is so very large a majority of your fellow-countrymen that are of this insignificant stamp. At least eighty out of a hundred of your adult male fellow-Britons returned in the last census are neither extraordinarily silly, nor extraordinarily wicked, nor extraordinarily wise; their eyes are neither deep and liquid with sentiment, nor sparkling with suppressed witticisms; they have probably had no hairbreadth escapes or thrilling adventures; their brains are certainly not pregnant with genius, and their passions have not manifested themselves at all after the fashion of a volcano. They are simply men of complexions more or less muddy, whose conversation is more or less bald and disjointed. Yet these commonplace people—many of them—bear a conscience, and have felt the sublime prompting to do the painful right; they have their unspoken sorrows, and their sacred joys; their hearts have perhaps gone out towards their first-born, and they have mourned over the irreclaimable dead. Nay, is there not a pathos in their very insignificance—in our comparison of their dim and narrow existence with the glorious possibilities of that human nature which they share?

Depend upon it, you would gain unspeakably if you would learn with me to see some of the poetry and the pathos, the tragedy and the comedy, lying in the experience of a human soul that looks out through dull grey eyes, and that speaks in a voice of quite ordinary tones. In that case, I should have no fear of your not caring to know what farther befell the Rev. Amos Barton, or of your thinking the homely details I have to tell at all beneath your attention. As it is, you can, if you please, decline to pursue my story farther; and you will easily find reading more to your taste, since I learn from the newspapers that many remarkable novels, full of striking situations, thrilling incidents, and eloquent writing, have appeared only within the last season.

 However, I can see a progression from these stories (her first) to Middlemarch.

More reviews …

http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/classrev/clerical.htm

http://tonysreadinglist.blogspot.com.au/2009/08/61-scenes-from-clerical-life-by-george.html

Here is a letter Dickens wrote to Eliot on reading Scenes of a Clerical Life

http://theamericanreader.com/18-january-1858-charles-dickens-to-george-eliot/

Light Between Oceans – M L Stedman

This novel was highly recommended by a number of my friends. I’ve delayed writing about it because, even now, I’m not sure what I think. I am certainly thinking about it, which must be a sign of a well-written novel, but I find the plot disturbing.

Here’s the blurb …

This is a story of right and wrong, and how sometimes they look the same.

1926. Tom Sherbourne is a young lighthouse keeper on a remote island off Western Australia. The only inhabitants of Janus Rock, he and his wife Isabel live a quiet life, cocooned from the rest of the world. One April morning a boat washes ashore carrying a dead man and a crying infant – and the path of the couple’s lives hits an unthinkable crossroads. Only years later do they discover the devastating consequences of the decision they make that day – as the baby’s real story unfolds …

M L Stedman’s debut is a mesmerising novel of love and loss and unbearable choices.

 Being Western Australian, I enjoyed all of the references to place and I think Ms Stedman creates a wonderful sense of place – Janus Rock, the bush around Partageuse, the workers’ cottages. There are some wonderful characters as well – steadfast Tom feeling guilty for having survived World War 1, the police officer who didn’t enlist and now needs to prove he is as much a man as those that did, and flighty Isabel.

I don’t want to reveal too much of the story, but my sympathies lie with Hannah (the infant’s mother) and I wonder what on earth were they thinking? I don’t think it is ‘a story of right and wrong, and how sometimes they look the same’. It was wrong. I do have sympathy for Isabel and Tom, but sometimes life is hard and you need to get on with things. As you can see, I find the story conflicting.

More reviews …

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/the-light-between-oceans-20120414-1x05y.html

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/firsttuesday/s3470207.htm

A French Affair – Katie Fforde

Katie Fforde’s new book is out. She has even won an award.

I have read all of Ms Fforde’s novels (like this one or this one) – they’re a light, fun, easy read, but still well-written. This one, to my mind, seems a return to her best form. My copy arrived on Friday and I finished it on Sunday (perfect lazy Sunday reading).

Gina and Sally Makepiece have inherited a stall in the French House – an antiques centre nestled in the heart of the English countryside.

Gina is determined to drag the French House and its grumpy owner into the twenty-first century. Bearing all the attributes of a modern-day Mr Rochester, Matthew Ballinger is less than happy with the whirlwind that has arrived on his doorstep.

The last thing either of them want is to fall in love.

But will a trip to France change their minds?

If you like romance novels (without graphic sex scenes), then this novel is for you.

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian – Marina Lewycka

This novel has been sitting in my tbr pile for a very long time and I finally decided to read it – I was looking for something fun.

There were a few laugh out loud moments and the tractor history was quite informative (I learnt about the dust bowl crisis in America – caused by too much ploughing and drought).

Here is the blurb …

For years, Nadezhda and Vera, two Ukrainian sisters, raised in England by their refugee parents, have had as little as possible to do with each other – and they have their reasons. But now they find they’d better learn how to get along, because since their mother’s death their aging father has been sliding into his second childhood, and an alarming new woman has just entered his life. Valentina, a bosomy young synthetic blonde from the Ukraine, seems to think their father is much richer than he is, and she is keen that he leave this world with as little money to his name as possible. If Nadazhda and Vera don’t stop her, no one will. But separating their addled and annoyingly lecherous dad from his new love will prove to be no easy feat – Valentina is a ruthless pro and the two sisters swiftly realize that they are mere amateurs when it comes to ruthlessness. As Hurricane Valentina turns the family house upside down, old secrets come falling out, including the most deeply buried one of them all, from the War, the one that explains much about why Nadazhda and Vera are so different. In the meantime, oblivious to it all, their father carries on with the great work of his dotage, a grand history of the tractor.

There are themes that run through my reading – usually coincidentally – at the moment I seem to be reading about children of holocaust survivors - Lola Bensky - and now this one. Although the holocaust only had a minor role in this novel – it explains Vera’s disdain for her father (but I won’t spoil the story for you). Valentina wants to move to England and become a citizen and she sees the sisters’ dad as the means to achieve this desire. He is a bit confused, a bit secretive and captured by her breasts! Valentina demands a western lifestyle – new car, new cooker, etc. The sisters want her deported, the dad swings between wanting her gone and wanting her to stay and then there are the ex-husband, the publican and the neighbour all who appear to be in love with her.

I can imagine this novel as a quirky film. Most of the comedy arises from Valentina’s broken English – “Ýou no good man. You plenty-money meanie. Promise money. Money sit in bank. Promise car. Crap car.” Alongside these hilarious moments are dark events – the work camps and the interrogation of the sisters’ grandmother, which is brought about by the dad inventing a dodgy brother in law.

More reviews …

http://www.theage.com.au/news/Reviews/A-Short-History-of-Tractors-in-Ukrainian/2005/05/19/1116361670048.html

http://karenrbrooks.com/blog/?p=768

Lola Bensky – Lily Brett

This was recommended by several people, but I did have a couple of false starts. It took me a while to appreciate Ms Brett’s writing style – not a criticism just a personal preference – in the end I enjoyed the novel.

Here’s the blurb …

Lola Bensky is a nineteen-year-old rock journalist who irons her hair straight and asks a lot of questions. A high-school dropout, she’s not sure how she got the job – but she’s been sent by her Australian newspaper right to the heart of the London music scene at the most exciting time in music history: 1967.

Lola spends her days planning diets and interviewing rock stars. In London, Mick Jagger makes her a cup of tea, Jimi Hendrix (possibly) propositions her and Cher borrows her false eyelashes. At the Monterey International Pop Festival, Lola props up Brian Jones and talks to Janis Joplin about sex. In Los Angeles, she discusses being overweight with Mama Cass and tries to pluck up the courage to ask Cher to return those false eyelashes.

Lola has an irrepressible curiosity, but she begins to wonder whether the questions she asks these extraordinary young musicians are really a substitute for questions about her parents’ calamitous past that can’t be asked or answered. As Lola moves on through marriage, motherhood, psychoanalysis and a close relationship with an unexpected pair of detectives, she discovers the question of what it means to be human is the hardest one for anyone – including herself – to answer.

Drawing on her own experiences as a young journalist, the bestselling author of Too Many Men has created an unforgettable character in the unconventional and courageous Lola. Genuinely funny and deeply moving, Lola Bensky shows why Lily Brett is one of our most distinctive and internationally acclaimed authors.

This novel had a bit of the Forrest Gump’s about it – being in the right place at the right time or maybe Lola is just very modest and worked very hard to be at the right place. There are some laugh out loud moments during the interviews with the rock stars, but there is a sadness to Lola as well. Her parents are holocaust survivors and struggle as parents. The usual vicissitudes of childhood must seem quite petty when you’ve survived Auschwitz. Renia, Lola’s mother, is obsessed by Lola’s weight – she is too fat. In fact Lola’s weight is almost another character in this novel – Lola is constantly thinking about diets and her weight.

The story is told from Lola’s perspective and she lives through interesting times and in interesting places. Knowing what happens to some of the people – Janis Joplin, Mama Cass is poignant and adds an extra element to the novel.

More reviews …

http://thatbookyoulike.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/rock-and-roll-hang-ups-lola-benksy/

http://blogcritics.org/books/article/book-review-lola-bensky-by-lily/

The Beginner’s Goodbye – Anne Tyler

I’m a Anne Tyler fan – a review here and here - I like how she can make the ordinary extraordinary.

I picked this one up from the library and it was quite an easy read (shorter than other Tyler novels).

Here is the blurb …

Anne Tyler gives us a wise, haunting, and deeply moving new novel in which she explores how a middle-aged man, ripped apart by the death of his wife, is gradually restored by her frequent appearances–in their house, on the roadway, in the market.

Crippled in his right arm and leg, Aaron has spent his childhood fending off a sister who wants to manage him. So when he meets Dorothy, a plain, outspoken, independent young woman, she is like a breath of fresh air. Unhesitatingly, he marries her, and they have a relatively happy, unremarkable marriage.

But when a tree crashes into their house and Dorothy is killed, Aaron feels as though he has been erased forever. Only Dorothy’s unexpected appearances from the dead help him to live in the moment and to find some peace.

Gradually he discovers, as he works in the family’s vanity-publishing business, turning out titles that presume to guide beginners through the trials of life, that maybe for this beginner there is a way of saying goodbye.

A beautiful, subtle exploration of loss and recovery, pierced throughout with Anne Tyler’s humor, wisdom, and always penetrating look at human foibles.

This was an intriguing premise – right from the start we know Dorothy is dead and that she is visiting Aaron. It does take her a while to come back and at first she is just there not speaking, but then she talks and then they argue. This was a lovely way to show the progress of grief – at first Dorothy (and their life together) is perfect, but then he starts thinking other things – like how nice it is to sort his cupboards and know they will stay sorted, how Dorothy wasn’t very interested in food and how she didn’t pay much attention to how she looked.

The great thing about this novel is the fine detail – almost a series of vignettes of Aaron and Dorothy’s life together is portrayed. The first date – where Dorothy wears her white coat, the wedding – very small, the search for the triscuits, which ended so badly. Through all of these incidents character is revealed and the plot moves slowly forward.

Aaron’s publishing company publishes beginners guides to things – The Beginner’s Dinner Party – and this novel is a beginner’s guide to goodbye.

More reviews…

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/books/review/the-beginners-goodbye-by-anne-tyler.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/apr/20/beginners-goodbye-anne-tyler-review