Wodehouse and Kay - two short reviews

I decided to write short reviews of two books I've read recently - The Code of the Woosters by P G Wodehouse & The Youngest Lady in Waiting by Mara Kay. I enjoyed them both but I know that if I don't write down a few thoughts now, it won't happen at all. I'm writing this on Sunday & the weather is warming up here as Spring begins. I spent the morning weeding the garden (my triumph was digging out an enormous spider plant. It took ages & then once it was out, it was so heavy, I didn't think I'd be able to heave it into the recycling bin. Phoebe enjoyed jumping out at me from her "hiding" places as I worked my way along the fence & it was lovely to see bees enjoying the lavender & geraniums after all the horror stories recently about the demise of bee populations all over the world) & once the soil warms up properly & I start planting my veggies, I know I'll be spending more of my weekends in the garden than writing reviews. All of which is a long-winded way of saying that short, sharp reviews may be the norm for the next little while.

The Code of the Woosters is one of the most famous of all the Jeeves & Wooster novels. It has everything - Aunt Dahlia, soppy Madeline Bassett, lovers parted over misunderstandings, a menacing dog, vengeful magistrates & the attempted theft of a cow creamer. Bertie wakes one morning after another night on the tiles to be summoned by his Aunt Dahlia, who has a proposition for him. Uncle Tom has his eye on a silver cow creamer & he's devastated when his rival, Sir Watkyn Bassett, father of Madeline, snaffles it from under his nose. Aunt Dahlia needs Tom to be in a good mood when she asks him for more money for Milady's Boudoir, her financially challenged magazine. Sir Watkyn has offered to trade the cow creamer to Tom in exchange for his French chef, Anatole. Aunt Dahlia's solution is to ask Bertie to go down to Totleigh Towers, the Bassett country seat, & steal the cow creamer. Bertie is horrified at the thought of losing Anatole but, as Sir Watkyn hates him after fining him (in his capacity as magistrate) for stealing a policeman's helmet, Bertie isn't keen. Then, his friend, newt-fancier Gussie Fink-Nottle, asks for help as his engagement to Madeline Bassett is in peril. Madeline has always imagined that Bertie is in love with her so Bertie is keen to see their engagement continue as it lets him off the hook.

Bertie finds himself at Totleigh Towers, planning to steal a cow creamer, keep Gussie's engagement to Madeline on the rails & also help Madeline's cousin Stiffy Byng in her endeavours to get her uncle Watkyn to approve of her engagement to the local curate. I can't remember how many attempts at blackmail & theft (including the theft of another policeman's helmet) occur in just 250pp but there are a lot of them. As always, Jeeves is the one to extricate Bertie from all his troubles even though he's not above a little blackmail himself in the cause of persuading Bertie to take a round the world cruise. There's even some satire at the expense of Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists in the form of the Black Short wearing would-be dictator Roderick Spode. It's all reliably funny & very hard to keep track of the plot, which is half the fun of reading Wodehouse. I'm always amazed at how he managed to keep track of the plot himself.

I'm not going to be able to give an objective, reasoned review of The Youngest Lady in Waiting by Mara Kay because it was one of my favourite books as a teenager & I'm just so thrilled that Margin Notes Books have reprinted it so I can read it again after over thirty-five years.

This was the book that I discovered in my High School library that sparked my love for Russian history, especially the story of the Romanovs. That would have been in the late 70s & I've been reading about it all ever since. The edition I read has been long out of print & very expensive second-hand but, in a way, it didn't matter because I'd read it so many times that I hardly needed the book. Having said that, I was very happy to be able to get hold of a copy & slightly apprehensive as to how I'd feel about the book after so many years. Would it live up to my memories? I sat down on a cold Sunday evening a few weeks ago, put on some Russian music (Glinka & Tchaikovsky) & read the whole book in one sitting. I loved it & I was amazed that so much of the story came back to me, even down to scenes & phrases. I had forgotten that Glinka himself makes an appearance in the book during the St Petersburg floods so it was lovely to be listening to his music as I read.

Masha Fredericks (first introduced in Masha, also reprinted by Margin Notes Books) is an orphan who has been educated at the Smolni Institute, a school for the daughters of the military & nobility, in St Petersburg. Masha has been noticed by Grand Duchess Alexandra, wife of Grand Duke Nicholas, brother of Tsar Alexander I, & is about to leave school & become the Grand Duchess's lady in waiting. Her best friend, Sophie, is going home to a father she barely knows. Masha & Sophie have been inseparable at school & are determined not to lose touch. Masha falls in love with Sophie's dashing cousin, Sergei, & is swept up in the excitement of first love. She also meets Sergei's quieter, more thoughtful brother, Michael, & they become friends. Sergei is part of a group of young nobles who want to push for reform in the authoritarian Russian state. When Tsar Alexander suddenly dies & Grand Duke Nicholas becomes Tsar, there is unrest, exploited by the Army who wanted Nicholas's brother, Constantine, to succeed, & Sergei & his friends, including Sophie's fiancé, Mark. Masha is horrified by Sergei's plans & stays loyal to the new Tsar, bound by loyalty to the family. Sergei rejects her & rushes out to join his friends, called the Decembrists, in their rebellion.

I remembered so much of this story - the scene where Masha & Sergei stand on a plank over a puddle on a St Petersburg street & she realises that he cares for her; Sophie's Aunt Daria & her old country dacha, Rodnoye, with the household spirit, the Domovoy, flitting about the house, just out of sight. Masha's encounter with an old man who may or may not be Tsar Alexander, rumoured to have faked his own death & to be living as a holy man in Siberia. In some ways, The Youngest Lady in Waiting is just a historical romance, full of the cliches of Tsarist Russia - the glittering parties, the sleigh rides though the snow with the bells on the troika tinkling, the aristocrats on their dachas & the downtrodden serfs. But, seeing it through Masha's eyes, a shy young girl with no advantages & no expectations, is quite wonderful. This was probably the first book I'd ever read about Russia & I went on to read many more historical romances by Constance Heaven, Catherine Gavin, Cynthia Harrod-Eagles' Kirov trilogy & Victoria Holt. I also picked up Anna Karenina & Robert K Massie's Nicholas and Alexandra (the Readers Digest condensed version first), which started me on a reading journey that continues to this day.

Bookish ramblings

I thought I'd highlight a few bookish links & some news about one of my favourite series. The British Library Crime Classics have been one of the publishing successes of the last couple of years. I love them. I've always enjoyed Golden Age mysteries & these books are so beautifully produced & attractively presented. It's a real treat to be discovering new authors from this period. After all, what do we do when we've read all of Christie, Sayers, Tey, Marsh & Allingham? I've bought nearly all of the Crime Classics & have reviewed several of them here, here & here. Martin Edwards has become the consultant for the series which means that future titles will be interesting, sometimes surprising & always well worth reprinting. I've just started reading Capital Crimes, a collection of short stories set in London & I was very excited to read on Martin's blog that there are another half dozen books in the series to be published before the end of the year. The British Library also have another series of Spy Classics which I haven't investigated as yet.

The latest edition of Shiny New Books is available to read here. I've just finished reading a gorgeous book about the artists Rex Whistler so I was very interested to read the review of A Curious Friendship by Anna Thomasson, about the friendship between Whistler & Edith Olivier. There's also an article by Anna Thomasson about her research for the book, which I always find fascinating. I was also interested to read Desperate Reader's review of George Gissing's The Whirlpool, just reprinted by Penguin. I love Gissing & I've only read a couple of his books. There are lots of other reviews & interviews, including a review of Capital Crimes & an interview with Robert Davies, the publisher of the British Library Crime Classics. There's another interview with Davies here, on a blog I've just discovered, Past Offences.

Margin Notes Books have just reprinted one of my favourite books, Mara Kay's The Youngest Lady In Waiting. This is the book that first interested me in Russian history. It's about a young girl who becomes lady in waiting to Grand Duchess Alexandra, wife of the future Nicholas I. It's set at the time of the Decembrist revolt in 1825. I borrowed it from my school library so often that they should have just let me keep it. I'd never seen a copy since (the cover above is the edition I read) so I was beside myself when I read than it was to be reprinted. I've bought the first book, Masha (also just reprinted by Margin Notes Books) which, funnily enough, I only read once all those years ago

& The Youngest Lady In Waiting arrived yesterday! I've been dipping in & reading bits & pieces & I can't believe it's 35 years since I last read it, it's all so familiar. I have a feeling I'll be dropping everything to read this next.

Bill Bryson is one of the funniest writers in the world. I know that's quite a bold statement but he makes me laugh so I'm prepared to go out on a limb. One of my favourite Bryson books was Notes from a Small Island, about the UK. Well, after many years & a diversion into books on science & his childhood, Bill Bryson has written another travel book about Britain, The Road to Little Dribbling which will be published later this year. If I'd been keeping up with reading The Bookseller at work, I'd have known about this weeks ago. I'd also have known that Bryson has sold 8,648,774 books in the UK (exactly). As it is, I read about it on Elaine's blog & this article in The Guardian.

Also in The Guardian was an article celebrating the 200th anniversary of Anthony Trollope's birth. Writers nominated their favourite Trollope novel. I'm currently rereading Miss Mackenzie with my 19th century book group & I started reading Cousin Henry at the weekend after reading about it here as it was the only Trollope in the list I hadn't yet read. Books and Chocolate is celebrating Trollope's anniversary with giveaways & reviews here.

Has anyone read The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu? I enjoyed reading about Japanese history so much in Judith Gautier's The Usurper that I've just ordered this lovely Penguin Deluxe edition on a whim. All 1,216 pages of it... I could have dipped my toe in with the abridged edition but I couldn't resist a Penguin Deluxe. However, I feel completely justified in buying yet another book because I've read this article where Umberto Eco tells us why unread books are more valuable in our lives than read ones. Thank you Rose for sending me the link. Eco calls these books the antilibrary & describes them as the repository of all the knowledge that we don't yet have. So buying a huge novel about 11th century Japan is completely justified because I know absolutely nothing about the subject. This theory may not justify the purchase of my 100th book about Richard III (The Bones of a King by the Greyfriars Research Team, ordered this week) or the 3rd or 4th copy of a favourite book because I love the cover (Testament of Youth, Cold Comfort Farm, The Return of the Soldier...) or it's a Folio Society edition (Possession, Lord Peter Wimsey novels, The Daughter of Time, Excellent Women), but it justifies a lot of my other book buying decisions & I'm adopting it immediately!

A book lovers idea of Heaven

First, some very exciting news. I mentioned in this post on Pushkin the other week that one of my favourite books when I was young was Mara Kay's The Youngest Lady In Waiting (cover photo from here). It was the book that began my lifelong interest in Russian history. It's the sequel to Masha, the story of a young orphan's life in early 19th century Russia. Both books were published around 1970 & are incredibly hard to get hold of. I read the copies in my school library & have always wanted to reread them. Well, Karoline, who commented on the post, asked if I knew that Margin Notes Books were reprinting both books later this year? Well, I didn't but I'm so excited! There's nothing on the website just yet but I'm so looking forward to ordering these. Hooray for another small publisher bringing back beautiful books. I have the Margin Notes Books edition of Five Farthings by Monica Redlich on the tbr shelves & I'm looking forward to reading it while I wait for the Mara Kays. Also, have a look at the publisher's blog, there's a link on the website. I'll be monitoring both blog & website very closely for the next few months.

I'm not sure if I should be mentioning this next fact as it could be evidence of serious derangement when it comes to book buying. I'm closing in on 1000 books on the tbr shelves (maybe I should have written 1000 books, does that make it seem less obvious?). Should I be whispering with shame or shouting with glee? I'll never be short of a book to read, that's for sure. I'm up to 968 (according to Library Thing) with several more books on the way even now. The trouble is, I'm seeing the magic 1000 books as a challenge that I must complete by the end of the year so there's definitely more glee than shame in my unrepentant attitude! I'll just mention quietly that this is only the number of physical books. The ebooks are also out of control but they're also invisible.

One book I bought recently was Summer's Day by Mary Bell. I'd been reading admiring references about it on Scott's blog, Furrowed Middlebrow, for some time now. From the original review to his search for the real identity of the author, to the most recent mention, when my resistance broke & I searched for a second hand copy (the Greyladies edition is out of print). Searching Abebooks sent me to Anglophile Books, where there were several copies of the Greyladies edition. I've been an occasional customer of Anglophile Books for some years now (unfortunately the postage costs from the US to Australia are quite high but I wasn't going to let that stop me on my quest for this book & may I say, it hasn't stopped me in the past).




Anglophile Books has the most wonderful selection of books for lovers of the middlebrow novel. Lots of my favourite authors - D E Stevenson, Dorothy L Sayers, Barbara Pym, Josephine Tey, Vera Brittain, E M Delafield - & many more. The owner, Laura, is also the convener of the D E Stevenson Yahoo group I've recently joined & she has very kindly linked to my blog on the website. If you have a look here, there are links to any books by my favourite authors that Laura has in stock. I'm not making any money out of the link, I'm just happy to point potential customers in the direction of a great secondhand bookshop.

Edited to add: Laura from Anglophile Books has created that little button which I am thrilled to say I have just successfully added to the post (thanks for the instructions, Laura). So, I'll add the button to my post if Anglophile Books has a copy of a book I'm reviewing (& gradually go back through the archive) & you'll be taken straight to the homepage if you're interested in buying a copy. I feel quite technologically competent all of a sudden!

Two themed reading weeks are coming up in the next few months that I'm very excited about. Anbolyn at Gudrun's Tights is hosting a Mary Stewart reading week from September 14th to 21st in honour of the novelist who died earlier this year. I've been planning to reread Mary Stewart ever since the last lot of reprints were published but I haven't gotten very far. However, I have lots of her novels on my shelves (no excuse there for buying more books), & I plan to read at least one for that week.

Margaret Kennedy is an author who has been on the periphery of my reading world for quite some time. I've only read The Constant Nymph but I have a couple of others on the tbr shelves & I've ordered a few of the Vintage reprints that are to be published soon. Fleur Fisher is hosting the reading week from October 6th to 12th. You'll find a comprehensive reading list on her blog. I'm leaning towards Lucy Carmichael, which seems to be a universal favourite but there are several others that look interesting. Kennedy was one of the group of novelists who went to Somerville College, Oxford in the 1920s. Vera Brittain, Winifred Holtby & Dorothy L Sayers are the most famous names but maybe Margaret Kennedy is about to join them? It won't be for want of trying if Fleur has anything to do with it.

I'm a big fan of Delphi Classics who produce complete collections of the work of out of copyright authors as very reasonably priced ebooks. They're beautifully formatted & always include some rare gems or additional material about the author. Series Five has just been announced. These titles will be published in coming months & I'm especially excited about Margaret Oliphant & Frances Hodgson Burnett. As I said above, at least they're invisible...