Moby-Dick or The Whale - Herman Melville

How can I possibly write about Moby-Dick? It's such a famous story but also one of those classics that I've always been daunted by. I've had a copy on my tbr shelves for several years now. Then, I bought another copy, this beautiful Penguin Deluxe Classics edition. I'd heard how difficult the book was, how elusive the language, how monumental the digressions. Finally, I borrowed the audio book from our e-library. Listening to William Hootkins' wonderful reading of Moby-Dick made me fall in love with the story & for the last six weeks, I've been listening to one of the most exciting, engaging & funny books I've ever read.

The story is well-known. Ishmael, a young man tired of working on merchant vessels, decides to give whaling a try. Arriving on Nantucket Island, he meets harpooneer Queequeg, a tattooed Pacific Islander, the son of a High Chief, with cannibal tendencies who worships an idol called Yojo. They are taken on by the owners of the Pequod, & are not deterred even when they are warned about the odd behaviour of the captain of the vessel, Ahab. They don't see much of Ahab during the fitting out of the Pequod but they meet the other mates, Starbuck, Stubb & Flask, & the rest of the crew, men from all over the world. It's not until they're at sea that the captain emerges from his cabin.

Captain Ahab has his own reasons for undertaking the voyage to the whale hunting grounds & it has nothing to do with procuring precious whale oil for the boat's owners. Ahab has lost his leg to the great white whale, Moby-Dick, & has sworn revenge. His obsession with Moby-Dick has become madness & he incites the crew's greed by nailing a gold doubloon to the mast with the promise that the man who kills Moby-Dick will have the coin as his prize. The Pequod sails from Nantucket to South America, round the Cape of Good Hope to South-East Asia & Japan. Whales are chased, caught & slaughtered but Ahab's only question to the other boats they encounter is "Hast thou seen the white whale?" Nothing else matters but his revenge & they sail towards the encounter with Moby-Dick that is the climax of Ishmael's story.

No mere retelling of the plot can give an idea of the flavour of this book. The language is heightened, convoluted, Biblical in cadence. Here's Captain Ahab telling the crew about Moby-Dick,

"Aye, Starbuck; aye, my hearties all round; it was Moby-Dick that dismasted me; Moby-Dick that brought me to this dead stump I stand on now. Aye, aye," he shouted with a terrific, loud, animal sob, like that of a heart-stricken moose; "Aye, aye! it was that accursed white whale that razeed me; made a poor pegging lubber of me for ever and a day!" Then tossing both arms, with measureless imprecations he shouted out: "Aye, aye! and I'll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition's flames before I give him up. And this is what ye have shipped for, men! to chase that white whale on both sides of land, and over all sides of earth, till he spouts black blood and rolls fin out. What say ye, men, will ye splice hands on it, now? I think ye do look brave."

Ishmael's narration is intimate & confiding. The long passages about the history of the whale & the whaling trade, the detailed descriptions of hunting, harpooning & catching whales are exciting if also a bit mind-numbing at times. When Ishmael describes the sperm whale's head, he takes several chapters to do it as well as describing every variety of whale & disputing the stories told of whales by every historical writer from the Bible & Aristotle to Beale & Bennett. But then, there are the tales of other ships that Ishmael tells along the way & the many funny incidents such as Ishmael's first meeting with Queequeg when he is terrified of sharing a room with a cannibal but ends up sitting up in bed with him confiding their life stories to each other as the best of friends. Or Stubb's determination to have a steak from the first whale they catch & making old Fleece the cook preach to the sharks scavenging on the gigantic corpse of the whale as it floats by the side of the ship because his steak was badly cooked & tough.

There are also some reflective moments of great beauty as when the Pequod comes across a pod of whales protecting the females & their calves,

But far beneath this wondrous world upon the surface, another and still stranger world met our eyes as we gazed over the side. For, suspended in those watery vaults, floated the forms of the nursing mothers of the whales, and those that by their enormous girth seemed shortly to become mothers. The lake, as I have hinted, was to a considerable depth exceedingly transparent; and as human infants while suckling will calmly and fixedly gaze away from the breast, as if leading two different lives at then time; and while yet drawing mortal nourishment, be still spiritually feasting upon some unearthly reminiscence;- even so did the young of these whales seem looking up towards us, but not at us, as if we were but a bit of Gulf-weed in their new-born sight.

William Hootkins' narration won an Audie award in 2006 & it's a wonderful performance. He contrasts Ishmael's lightheartedness at the beginning of the story with the more serious passages describing whales & explaining every aspect of the whale hunt. Ahab's mad mutterings build to a crescendo as he becomes more obsessed with his hunt for the white whale & his monomania puts everyone's lives at risk. I usually listen to audio books in the car on the way to & from work but I was listening to this one when I was ironing, cooking & any other time I could find. It was the perfect way to get in to this mythic story & I'm so glad that I finally read it.

Books & Cats miscellany - Part 1

Or should that be cats & books miscellany? I'm sure Phoebe & Lucky would prefer it that way around.So, I'll begin with a photo of Lucky, sitting on the arm of a chair in the evening light one night last week.

I'm writing this post instead of a proper review because I haven't finished a book in the last week or so. I did finish reading The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade (cover picture from here) with my 19th century bookgroup but I'm not going to post about it. It was a very long book &, while I enjoyed the beginning & the end, the middle was just so discursive & so interminable that I can't even summarise the plot. I'm glad I've read it, if only because I won't get it mixed up in my mind with Dickens's Cricket on the Hearth, ever again. Cricket on the Hearth is much shorter, for one thing.

Very briefly, The Cloister and the Hearth is the story of Gerard & Margaret, 15th century lovers who are separated by the Church, an evil Burgomeister & Gerard's own family. Margaret stays at home in Holland while Gerard goes to Rome to avoid prison & earn enough money through his talent as an illuminator of manuscripts to take Margaret away & start a new life. Many hundreds of pages later, they are reunited but not in the way you might expect. The book is based on the true story of the parents of the philosopher, Erasmus, who was a friend of Sir Thomas More & lived in England for a time. If only I'd known about the 44 page comic book version (click on the link for the picture credit & you can read the whole story)! No, I'm joking, I did enjoy it, it kept me reading over six weeks, & I'm really pleased it was chosen for the bookgroup.

Next, we'll on to Inevitable by Louis Couperus. I loved The Hidden Force by Couperus which we read last year so I'm looking forward to this.

I've just started listening to Moby-Dick on audio, read by William Hootkins. I bought this lovely Penguin Deluxe edition a few months ago & thought that listening to the book on audio would be a good way to get me into the story. Well, it worked because I'm loving it. I didn't expect Ishmael to be so funny & William Hootkins' narration is excellent (the recording on Naxos won an Audie Award in 2006).

I also listen to a lot of podcasts & the one that has me, & millions of other people around the world, glued to their iPads, iPods & PCs at the moment is Serial. I heard about Serial on another podcast I listen to, Books on the Nightstand. Serial is an investigation into a murder that happened in Baltimore in 1999. 17 year old Hae Min Lee was murdered & her ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed, was convicted of the crime & is serving a life sentence. Journalist Sarah Koenig was alerted to some of the inconsistencies in the prosecution's case & has been re-investigating it, talking to Adnan & the witnesses, friends of Adnan & Hae, retracing the steps of the police, reading the trial transcripts & listening to the tapes. The podcast has been running 9 weeks with another 3 to go & it's addictive. It's like reading an in-depth article into an investigation or watching a TV series one week at a time. It's suspenseful & brings up so many issues about justice, & our perceptions of guilt & innocence. Sarah Koenig's narration is so engaging as she takes the listener with her through all the twists & turns.  She often confesses that she doesn't know what she thinks about Adnan's guilt or innocence. The music score is also haunting & is now stuck in my mind. There's an article in the Wall Street Journal here & the website is here. If you decide to listen to Serial, you really need to begin at Episode 1.

I have a lot of DVD box sets waiting to be watched (there's another list I could create, tbw instead of tbr) & at the moment I'm watching An Age of Kings. This is the 1960 BBC production of Shakespeare's history plays from Richard II to Richard III. It was originally screened fortnightly in 15 episodes. Each play (except Henry VI Part 1) was spread over two episodes. It's wonderful. Shot in black & white & obviously shot in a studio, the performances have been wonderful with some well-known names among the cast. That's Eileen Atkins as Joan of Arc on the cover & Robert Hardy plays Prince Hal/Henry V. Sean Connery is a very effective & charismatic Hotspur & Judi Dench has one of her first roles as Princess Katherine in Henry V, which I've just finished watching. There are also lots of character actors in minor roles, from Hermione & Angela Baddeley as Mistress Quickly & Doll Tearsheet to Julian Glover as the Earl of Westmoreland (& I see that he also plays Edward IV later on) & Cyril Luckham as Archbishop of Canterbury.

Well, this post is much longer that I planned & I still haven't mentioned the short stories I've been reading or posted the latest photos of Phoebe. I'll have to leave you in suspense for a couple of days - although nothing like the level of suspense I experience between episodes of Serial - & post Part 2 on Thursday.

My Family and Other Animals - Gerald Durrell

I often say this, but I can't believe it has taken me so long to get around to reading Gerald Durrell's memoir of his childhood in Corfu, My Family and Other Animals. It's been on my tbr shelves for a long time & I eventually listened to it as an audio book, so beautifully read by Nigel Davenport. It was actually Nigel Davenport who led me to the book. I'd watched the 1970s TV series, South Riding, in which he played Robert Carne. I loved it but I especially loved Davenport's voice & wondered if he's narrated any audio books. When I saw that he had read this one, I knew what I would be listening to next. So, I've spent the last few weeks listening to the adventures of the Durrell family as I drove to work, cooked & ironed.

The Durrells - Mother, Larry, Leslie, Margo & 10 year old Gerry - are suffering through a miserable winter when Larry decides that they should move to Corfu to get away from the awful English climate. The decision is no sooner made than they set off through Europe, eventually arriving on Corfu with a mountain of luggage & Gerry's dog, Roger. They are taken over almost immediately by Spiro, a giant of a man who thinks he speaks perfect English & who protects the Durrells from being robbed or taken advantage of during their stay on the island. They find a strawberry-pink villa with a bathroom (Mother's main requirement) & settle in. Larry is a writer & fills his room with books. Leslie is gun-mad, hunting anything that moves while Margo spends her time sunbathing & reading fashion magazines.

Gerry is mad on natural history & he & Roger explore the island observing & collecting the animals, mainly insects, that they come across. Unfortunately the rest of the family aren't as excited about scorpions in matchboxes as Gerry is & there are regular eruptions when his latest specimen is discovered in the fridge or the bathtub. Every so often, Mother becomes concerned about Gerry's education & employs a tutor for him, all of them lovable in varying degrees but none of them very useful as tutors. Gerry's best friend on the island is Theodore, a lovable man who is just as absorbed by natural history as he is. Every Thursday, Gerry has tea with Theo & they discuss Gerry's latest acquisitions or go on expeditions themselves to look for new animals to observe.Gerry's animals & his observations of the natural world are one of the many delights of the book. The adventures of Achilles & Cyclops the tortoises, Ulysses the owl, & especially the Magenpies (Spiro's mispronunciation of magpies) are very funny. As well as the mad adventures, there are also the quiet moments when the island truly seems a paradise.

Though I spent many days voyaging in the Bootle-Bumtrinket, and had many adventures, there was nothing to compare with that first voyage. The sea seemed bluer, more limpid and transparent, the islands seemed more remote, sun-drenched, and enchanting than ever before, and it seemed as though the life of the sea had congregated in the little bays and channels to greet me and my new boat. A hundred feet or so from an islet I shipped the oars and scrambled up to the bows, where I lay side by side with Roger, peering down through a fathom of crystal water at the sea bottom while the Bootle-Bumtrinket floated towards the shore with the placid buoyancy of a celluloid duck. As the boat's turtle-shaped shadow edged across the sea-bed, the multi-coloured, ever-moving tapestry of sea life was unfolded.

The Durrells moves from the strawberry-pink villa to a daffodil-yellow villa when Larry invites hoards of people to stay without considering where they're to stay then, later, to a snow-white villa to avoid a visit from a miserable old aunt. Mother just calmly tries to keep the peace as all she wants is for everyone to be happy. She's remarkably calm when Gerry brings yet another creature into the house or Larry, in his superior, sarcastic way, invites his literary friends to stay for indefinite periods. She calmly goes along to chaperone Margo on a date with a very unsuitable young man & seems able to cater for a large party at a moment's notice. Eventually, after five years, the family reluctantly decide to return to England for the sake of Gerry's education, & their final farewell to Corfu is incredibly poignant as the boat takes them away from this little paradise.

The success of the book is partly due to the picture of Corfu before tourism made the Greek islands so popular. To a child like Gerry, it seemed to be a paradise where he could spend whole days wandering through the olive groves & on the seashore exploring & observing. The descriptions of the natural history are fascinating but really, it's the eccentricities of the Durrell family that make it so very funny. I laughed out loud many times as I listened to stories of Larry's pomposity being squashed by the puppies Widdle & Puke destroying his room, or Margo's forlorn lovesickness over one of Gerry's tutors leading to her taking the puppies out on a boat trip that nearly ends in tears. Every time Leslie appeared with a gun, I laughed over his complete obsession with firearms over everything else. To Leslie, Corfu was just somewhere to hunt, he couldn't see the natural beauty of the place at all.

Apparently the book takes some liberties with the facts (Larry was married & living in another part of Corfu & the Durrells left because of the outbreak of war rather than for Gerry's education) but it seems the essential truth of the book was recognized, even by Larry (the writer Lawrence Durrell) who later said "This is a very wicked, very funny, and I'm afraid rather truthful book – the best argument I know for keeping thirteen-year-olds at boarding-schools and not letting them hang about the house listening in to conversations of their elders and betters." I just think it's one of the funniest books I've read in a very long time.

Naturally I'm going to find myself collecting copies of this book as I seem to collect copies of all my favourite books. I already own one paper copy & the audio book & next month, I'll have another copy as My Family and Other Animals is the new Slightly Foxed Edition & I collect those too.

There are also secondhand copies available from Anglophile Books.

The Jackal Man - Kate Ellis

Kate Ellis’s new novel, The Jackal Man, is the latest in her series featuring DI Wesley Peterson & DCI Gerry Heffernan. Set in Tradmouth, a fictional town on the south coast of England, this is one of my very favourite mystery series. I’ve been reading them since the first novel, The Merchant’s House, was published in 1998. The initial attraction for me was the mix of contemporary crime with history & archaeological. I love history & I’m an unashamed fan of archaeological TV shows like Time Team & Meet the Ancestors, so this series grabbed my attention. I still love the mix of crime & history but I’ve grown to love meeting up with Wes, Gerry, their families & friends. I settled down last Sunday afternoon, eager to catch up with the characters & be swept away by an absorbing mystery.

The Jackal Man is a breathless ride. I started it on Sunday, read 100pp without moving from my seat & finished it on Tuesday night. A teenage girl is attacked as she walks home from the pub. The attacker tries to strangle her but he’s disturbed by a passing car & she survives. All Clare can remember of the person who grabbed her is that he had a dog’s head. A few days later, another young woman is not so lucky. Analise, a Norwegian girl working as an au pair, is found murdered. She too had been strangled but this time, the killer was not disturbed. Her body had been mutilated, her organs removed & laid beside the body & her body wrapped in a linen shroud. A small figure of a dog was laid on the corpse. D I Wesley Peterson studied archaeology at university & he recognizes the dog as a jackal, the likeness of Anubis, the ancient Egyptian god of the dead. He suspects that the murderer, wearing a mask of the god Anubis, was trying to replicate the Egyptian rituals of mummification by removing the organs & wrapping the body in linen.

Wes’s friend, archaeologist Neil Watson, has also become interested in Egyptology. He’s been called in by Caroline Varley to assess the collection of her great grandfather, Egyptologist Sir Frederick Varley. Caroline has just inherited his home, Varley Castle. She wants to give it to the National Trust to be kept as a museum but needs to know what’s there & what it’s worth. Neil soon realises that he needs to consult an expert at the British Museum but he’s intrigued by Caroline & the castle, especially after she tells him that her great-uncle, Sir Frederick’s son, John, was a madman who murdered & mutilated four women 100 years before. Neil is also wary of Robert Delaware, a writer working on a biography of Sir Frederick, who seems to be making himself quite at home. Then, there are the alternate chapters written in the form of a diary by a governess who comes to Varley Castle & becomes emotionally involved with Sir Frederick.

When another woman is murdered in the same disturbing way, Wes & Gerry have almost too many suspects from the ex-boyfriend of Clare’s mother who had a grudge against her, to Analise’s employer who fancies younger women. As Neil & Wes recognize the similarities between the modern murders & those committed by John Varley 100 years before, more suspects emerge. Who could have known of these earlier crimes? Is there a copycat on the loose? Will the murderer feel compelled to match or exceed John Varley’s crimes? Throw in Wesley’s ex-boss from the Arts & Antiques Squad at the Met coming down to Tradmouth on the trail of a group of forgers smuggling in fake Egyptian antiquities & you have more subplots, motives & suspects than I could hope to keep straight!

The Jackal Man is an absorbing thriller with enough tension to keep any lover of crime fiction up until the small hours. The personal relationships of the police team are also involving. Wes is a young man who joined the police after his university studies. He’s calm, intelligent & compassionate. Married to Pam, a harassed teacher who complains about the hours he works & juggles her work with looking after their two young children & coping with her tearaway mother, Della. Gerry Heffernan has settled in Tradmouth after living in Liverpool. His children are grown & he’s recently found love with Joyce, a widow who shares his love of choral singing. Wes & Gerry have a great friendship & working relationship. Wes’s friendship with Neil often provides clues to the case of the moment & the historical & archaeological threads of the plot are well-balanced.

The historical murders in The Jackal Man are inevitably compared to the Whitechapel murders of Jack the Ripper & coincidentally I’ve just finished listening to an audio book on a similar theme. It’s surprising really as I don’t enjoy books about serial killers, fiction or non-fiction, so to find myself reading two at once was unusual. The Last Sherlock Holmes Story by Michael Dibdin is a pastiche of the stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The story takes the form of a manuscript by Dr Watson, embargoed until 50 years after his death. When the manuscript is revealed in the 1970s it proves to be an account of the Jack the Ripper killings with Holmes on the trail of the murderer. Narrated by Robert Glenister (one of my favourite narrators), this is a wonderful story. Dibdin has reproduced the tone, language & atmosphere of the original stories perfectly. There are enough details of the Holmes stories to satisfy the purists & Dibdin has done a fine job of recreating Victorian London & the character of Watson, as well as the style of Conan Doyle. Robert Glenister’s narration was terrific, as always. I haven’t read any of Dibdin’s Aurelio Zen thrillers but I’ve had another of his novels, A Rich Full Death, set in 19th century Florence & concerning Robert & Elizabeth Browning, on my shelves for far too long. I’ve moved it a bit further up the tbr pile now.

Blood in the Water - Gillian Galbraith

This seems to be the time of year when I find myself reading mysteries. Well, I always enjoy a good mystery but in the last week I've read The Attenbury Emeralds, Convent on Styx, listened to Blood in the Water on audio book & I've started Murder in Bloom by Lesley Cookman. I first came across Gillian Galbraith's novels at Dani's blog, A Work in Progress. The series sounded intriguing & I enjoy books with Scottish settings so I borrowed Blood in the Water, the first in the series, on audio & I've spent some very enjoyable hours in the car listening to it. At times it was hard to get out of the car, I wanted to listen to just a little more. Part of the enjoyment was that it was read by Hilary Neville, one of my favourite narrators. She reads a lot of Scottish books & to my unScottish ear, does a wonderful job with the accents. She has read quite a few D E Stevenson novels as well.

Blood in the Water introduces DS Alice Rice. Alice is in her 30s, lonely, unattached, devoted to her dog & obsessive about her work. The first chapter of the book takes us into the life of Dr Elizabeth Clark, a gynaecologist, & her work at various clinics & hospitals. I was just becoming fond of her when the doorbell rings while she's in the bath, talking to her mother on the phone about Christmas presents. At the beginning of the next chapter, Alice & the team are investigating Dr Clark's murder. Dr Clark's throat has been cut & the obvious suspect seems to be her ex-lover, an artist who broke off their relationship when he felt betrayed by Dr Clark's actions.

This theory starts to look a little tenuous when the next murder occurs. The victim, Sammy McBride, is a labourer with no obvious connection to Elizabeth Clark. The MO is the same & a piece of paper has been left by both bodies with a single word printed on it. Unreliable, Untrustworthy. Is there a connection & what could it be? Then, a prominent QC is murdered in the same way. Desperate to find a connection before the press start creating a panic about a serial killer on the loose, Alice relies on old fashioned legwork to find a pattern to the murders. Until she can find a pattern, she won't know how many victims the killer has their sights on.

I was intrigued by the plot right from the beginning. It was fascinating to follow the victim through their final day, trying to work out how they could be connected. The police interviews with friends, famillies & suspects slowly brought out more & more of the story with a few red herrings to throw the reader off the track. Although the setting is completely modern, this was a traditional police procedural with very little of the flashy forensics that seems to be the fashion these days. I've reserved the second book in the series, Where the Shadow Falls, also on CD read by Hilary Neville. I can't wait!

The Monarch of the Glen - Compton Mackenzie

I listened to most of The Monarch of the Glen on audio, narrated by the wonderful David Rintoul. But, I haven’t been at work this week so I haven’t been in the car listening to my audio book of the moment. I was having Monarch of the Glen withdrawal symptoms so, as I also had a copy of the book, I read the last 60pp or so on a cold afternoon earlier this week. I was seduced by the lovely Vintage reprint of Monarch of the Glen a few months ago when I read Desperate Reader’s enthusiastic review.

The Monarch of the title is Donald MacDonald of Ben Nevis (known as Ben Nevis). He’s the Laird of Glenbogle Castle & a vast estate in the Highlands. He’s married to Trixie, has two hefty daughters, Catriona & Mary & three sons, Hector, Murdoch & Iain. Ben Nevis is playing host to a distant relation from Canada, Carrie Macdonald & her immensely wealthy American husband, Chester Royde Jr. Chester’s sister, Myrtle, is also in the party & Ben Nevis decides that Myrtle would be the perfect wife for one of his sons, preferably the eldest, Hector. Carrie’s ancestors were driven from their croft during the Clearances, but she doesn’t bear a grudge & is learning Gaelic from a book called Gaelic Without Tears as she wanders soulfully over the estate looking for the ruins of her ancestor’s croft. Chester is just as enthusiastic about everything Scottish as Carrie & decides to buy a hunting lodge for future holidays. Ben Nevis & his impoverished neighbour, Hugh Cameron of Kilwhillie, decide that Knockmacolly, Kilwhillie’s dilapidated lodge would be perfect. Chester also decides to surprise Carrie by wearing a kilt of his own design to the Glenbogle Gathering, the local Highland Games hosted by Ben Nevis every year.

However, everything could be upset by the war between Ben Nevis & the hikers, members of the National Union of Hikers, who ignore the many signs around Glenbogle forbidding camping & frighten the birds on the Glorious Twelfth of August with the loud music from their radios. As well as the hikers, Ben Nevis has to defend his property from the Scottish Nationalists roaming the Highlands. Carrie meets up with two of these renegades on her solitary walks & is especially taken with Alan Macmillan, a handsome young poet. The scene is set for scenes of culture clash between brash Chester & his hosts – Chester’s first experience of stalking is very funny. The great stag, the Muckle Hart of Ben Glass, is elusive & Chester finds himself crawling on his belly for miles across bog & heath. Ben Nevis & his retainers capture & imprison the hikers who have ruined their sport but this leads to a great meeting of the NUH at the Astrovegetarian Hall in London, where revenge is planned by the free-spirited hikers against the oppressive landed gentry, represented by Ben Nevis. Ben Nevis’s plans for Myrtle to marry one of his sons may also be thwarted when she meets the handsome poet.

This is such a funny, witty book. Mackenzie pokes gentle fun at everyone from brash American millionaires to soulful poets to egalitarian hikers. I think I enjoyed it even more because David Rintoul’s narration was fantastic. He handles the varied accents beautifully. Ben Nevis’s barking, Trixie’s booming & Duncan the ghillie’s gentle Highland accent were perfect. I especially loved his rendition of the Hikers’ Song as sung by the Secretary of the NUH, Mr Prew. Vintage have also reprinted Whisky Galore, Compton Mackenzie’s most famous book. But, my library has the audio book read by Ken Stott. I don’t think I can resist that!

A Busman's honeymoon & the delights of audio books

I’ve just finished listening to Ian Carmichael reading Dorothy L Sayers’ Busman’s Honeymoon, the last of the Lord Peter Wimsey books. This post isn’t really about the book or Sayers or Wimsey, but about the delights of audio books. The book is wonderful, the culmination of the relationship between Lord Peter Wimsey & Harriet Vane, the woman he saved from the hangman in Strong Poison & pursued for five years until they finally came together in an equal, loving relationship at the end of Gaudy Night. Busman’s Honeymoon is really one for the Wimsey fans though. It’s been described as a love story with detective interruptions which pretty much sums it up. The book begins with Peter & Harriet’s wedding & takes them on their honeymoon to Tallboys, a Tudor farmhouse in the village where Harriet grew up. The bliss of the honeymoon is disturbed by the discovery of the body of the former owner in the cellar & the Wimseys investigate. There’s a wonderful cast of eccentric villagers, from Mr Puffett the chimneysweep to Miss Twitterton, the victim’s niece, a spinster who keeps Buff Orpington hens. I’ve read the book probably half a dozen times & listened to the audio book at least as often.

My library had all the Wimsey books read by Ian Carmichael on cassette & recently they’ve been released on CD so I’m taking the chance to listen to them again. To me, Ian Carmichael is Peter Wimsey. Whenever I read the books, I hear his voice. He played Wimsey on television in the early 70s & you can see a photo of my old video copies of some of the series above. That series didn’t include any of the Harriet Vane books & in the 80s, Edward Petherbridge & Harriet Walter starred in a new TV series of Strong Poison, Have His Carcase & Gaudy Night, all excellent adaptations. Ian Carmichael died at the great age of 90 earlier this year & I was interested to read that he had also played Bertie Wooster on TV in the 60s. As a recent Wodehouse convert, I think he would have been perfect in the role.

I’ve ended up writing about the book after all but it’s the fortunate combination of book & narrator that I really want to emphasize. Elaine’s post at Random Jottings about the delights of listening to Richard Armitage reading Georgette Heyer led me to reflect on my own love of audio books. I always listen to an audio book in the car on my daily drive to work. My library has a great collection of unabridged audio books & I look forward to each new delivery. Abridged vs unabridged is another point. I prefer unabridged recordings because I wouldn’t want to read an abridged version of a book so why listen to only part of the book? I’m lucky to have had access to a wide collection of unabridged audio as I certainly couldn’t afford to buy them. I also enjoy radio productions. The BBC have done hundreds of full-cast recordings of classics, Shakespeare, fiction, mysteries, anything you could think of. But, I mostly listen to unabridged audio books read by one narrator.

Some of my favourite listening experiences have been Harriet Walter reading Olivia Manning’s Balkan Trilogy, Gwen Watford reading some of the Miss Read books, Christian Rodska reading the C J Sansom Shardlake mysteries, Cornelius Garrett reading Anne Perry’s WWI series (I loved his reading so much that I would wait for the audio book to come out rather than reading the book), Bill Wallis’s gruff, smoky voice reading the Ruth Dudley Edwards mysteries, Samuel West reading Mary Wesley & Iris Murdoch, Robert Glenister reading The Fall by Simon Mawer. My absolute favourites though are the Barbara Pym recordings done by Chivers Audio many years ago. I listened to the cassettes until they were nearly worn out & I do hope they release them on CD as part of their current program of Bestsellers on CD. Juliet Stevenson reading Excellent Women, Susan Jameson reading A Glass of Blessings & Julia McKenzie reading Some Tame Gazelle were my favourites. I still hear their voices when I reread the books.

Of course, not every listening experience is a stand-out. There are some narrators I avoid like the plague because their reading is so dull it puts me to sleep. Not a good idea when driving! Audio books are another way of reading for me. I never have enough reading time but at least I can have a book read to me when I’m driving, ironing or cooking. Now if I could only work out a way to read in my sleep, I might have a chance at getting through my tbr shelves before my 100th birthday.

Reading 4 books at once

This week I’ve started three books plus a new audio book. I’ve had a really busy week at work, the weather has been mostly hot & humid although we had some wonderful thunderstorms on Thursday which blew away the humidity, & I’ve found it hard to concentrate on just one book when I have so many lovely choices. I started the week with Joanna Trollope’s new book, The Other Family. I love Joanna Trollope, I’ve read all her books & I always look forward to a new one. This is the story of Chrissie & her three daughters, a middle class family living in London. Chrissie’s partner, Richie, dies suddenly, &, although Chrissie always felt married & wanted to be married, Richie had left behind a wife & son in the North. He refused to divorce Margaret although he’d had no contact with his first family for over 20 years. Problems arise when Richie’s will is read. Chrissie will have legal & financial difficulties but the real shock is the bequest Richie leaves to Margaret & his son, Scott. Chrissie & her two eldest daughters are spoilt & petulant. Amy, the youngest daughter, is the most sympathetic to Margaret & Scott. She finds some photos of her father’s life in Newcastle & makes contact with Scott. I love the beautifully observed domestic details of Joanna Trollope’s writing & I’m looking forward to the resolution of the tension between the families. I only read about 70pp of this on Monday because when I got home, it was gazumped by a tempting package on the doorstep. But, last night, I picked it up again & I’m more than halfway through. I’m totally absorbed & I think I’ll finish it this afternoon.

The tempting package on Monday contained Lyndall Gordon’s new book on Emily Dickinson, Lives Like Loaded Guns. I’ve had this book on preorder for over a year & I couldn’t resist flicking through it, looking at the photos, index etc. I read a lot of Dickinson’s poetry when I was young & I suddenly found myself remembering lines & phrases. Soon I was looking up all my favourite poems & I started the book in bed that night. It’s a biography of Dickinson but it goes further. It looks at the family feuds that erupted over the poet’s manuscripts & reputation after her death. This is something I know very little about & I’m looking forward to discovering more. Although I love Dickinson’s poetry, I’ve always found it difficult to get an idea of who she was as a woman. The white dresses, the seclusion. Was she pining away from unrequited love? Was she ill? Was she just very clever at creating the life she needed to write? Gordon dismisses the traditional explanation of unrequited love. Her theory is that Dickinson suffered from epilepsy which was a shameful disease in the 19th century, linked to mental instability. It’s a fascinating theory, & I look forward to reading more about it when I get back to Emily.

On Tuesday, I took Emile Zola’s The Ladies’ Paradise to read at lunchtime because the other two books were too big for my bag. My online reading group is reading Dorothy Whipple’s High Wages over the next couple of months. It’s the story of a young girl’s life as a shopgirl in the North of England & some of us are reading the Zola as a companion read. It should be quite a contrast as Zola’s novel is about a great department store in Paris. I expect much lushness & extravagance in contrast to the Northern austerity of Whipple. I’ve barely begun the Zola so I’ll say no more at the moment.

My new audio book is Sarah’s Cottage by D E Stevenson. I’ve only discovered Stevenson in the last year or so. There’s a devoted following for this author out there but most of her books are out of print. In the last year or so, this has started to change. Persephone reprinted Miss Buncle’s Book & Bloomsbury reprinted Mrs Tim of the Regiment as part of their wonderful Bloomsbury Group imprint. I’ve also listened to several books on audio. Stevenson writes gentle, domestic stories. Nothing dramatic or thrilling happens except maybe to the emotions of her characters. Sarah’s Cottage is set just after WWII. Sarah & Charles Reid are recently married & starting life together in Scotland in a house they’ve built on land given to them by Sarah’s grandparents. Life in a Scottish village, gentle & very satisfying with just enough plot detail in Sarah’s horrible sister & her neglected daughter, & ideas for Charles’ future career to keep me interested.

Jane & Prudence - Barbara Pym

Barbara Pym is one of my favourite authors so I’m very glad that Virago has started reprinting her books. After a successful career in the 40s & 50s, she was out of fashion for most of the 60s & 70s until Philip Larkin & Lord David Cecil named her as an unfairly neglected author in a newspaper article & her novel, Quartet in Autumn, was published & shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Her novels came back into print & after her death in 1980, unpublished work, diaries & a biography by her friend & literary executor, Hazel Holt, was published. Virago has so far reprinted Excellent Women, Jane & Prudence, A Glass of Blessings, No Fond Return of Love, & Some Tame Gazelle. Less Than Angels is coming out in a couple of months. It seems Barbara Pym’s time has come around again. I think it’s because of this renewed interest in middlebrow fiction. Publishers like Persephone, Virago, Greyladies, Capuchin Classics & Vintage have been reprinting authors who were popular in the 30s & 40s but then faded from view. The strengths of these novels are the emphasis on the domestic, the involving plots, the characters & the details of lives that are different enough from ours to be fascinating.

I’ve just reread Jane & Prudence, one of my favourite Pyms. I sat down yesterday afternoon looking for a change from Queen Victoria, & before I knew it I was deep into the story & up to the scene where Jane, a scatty, not very successful vicar’s wife, is standing in a department store looking longingly at the terrines of foie gras & asking a resplendent shopman in uniform how a vicar’s wife can possibly afford such luxuries? Of course, the answer is that she can’t, so she goes off to have lunch with her friend Prudence instead. Barbara Pym’s humour is in such moments. She shows us the silly moments of ordinary life, especially in characters like Jane, who’s fond of quoting bits of 17th century poetry to herself & quite unconcerned that her housekeeping skills are practically non-existent. Prudence is a former student of Jane’s, almost thirty, & fond of unsuitable love affairs which really don’t disturb her emotions very much at all. Jane & her family have moved to a country parish & she decides that there are several eligible men suitable for Prudence so she decides to do a little matchmaking.

Pym’s men are often unsatisfactory, actually, they always are. I can’t think of one man in any of the books who she isn’t poking fun at. That’s what is so attractive & funny about her books. Her women are often the neglected ones, the spinsters, the widows, the unattractive, “holy fowl” as Helena Napier describes them in Excellent Women. But, their lives are as happy & fulfilled, sometimes more so than their married sisters. Belinda & Harriet Bede in Some Tame Gazelle are happy spinsters, each rejecting truly awful marriage proposals. At the end of the book, Belinda is relieved that their lives will go on as always. She will mildly love Archdeacon Hoccleve as she has for the last 30 years & Harriet will have a new curate to fuss over, “...they would hardly realize the difference, except that he was rather Italian-looking & had had a nervous breakdown.” I won’t go on, I could quote something from nearly every book.

Barbara Pym is an author I can reread with pleasure & used to listen to on audio. Chivers Audio (now BBC Audio) recorded audio books of all the Pyms on cassette, but they’ve long since been withdrawn from my library. When I read the books now, I hear Susan Jameson reading A Glass of Blessings, Julia McKenzie reading Some Tame Gazelle & Juliet Stevenson reading Excellent Women. I hope they release them on CD as part of the Classics on CD range. I love audio books, I always have one on the go in the car. A subject for another post.

There's a copy of Jane & Prudence, and many other books by Barbara Pym, available at Anglophile Books.