March Books

[callmemadam]

How Green are my Wellies?*, Anna Shepard
Lilies That Fester, Hazel Holt
Mary Todd’s Last Term, Frances Greenwood
Teatime for the Traditionally Built, Alexander McCall Smith
The Murder on the Downs, Simon Brett
The Mysterious Benedict Society, Trenton Lee Stewart
The Cipher Garden, Martin Edwards*
Silent in the Grave, Deanna Raybourn
Singled Out. How two million women survived without men after the first world war, Virginia Nicholson
Green Grass, Raffaella Barker
Nella Last’s Peace


How Green are my Wellies?* Anna Shepard.
I picked this shiny new book by mistake in the library, thinking it was about gardening. Had I looked inside and seen the ‘Bridport. Green Issues’ sticker, I would never have taken it home. Anna Shepard writes (wrote?) the Eco-Worrier column for The Times; the column name and the punning book title hint that the idea is to be amusing as well as green. I can’t really count the book for the Library Challenge as I only dipped into it but it’s a dipping sort of book, with handy hints for greener living presented seasonally. It’s a pretty book and the author seems nice, so why does it make my hackles rise?

The truth is, I’m rather anti-green. I try to conserve energy in the house (The bills! The bills!). I use bicarbonate of soda to clean the fridge and microwave and wipe the windows with vinegar. I recycle dutifully and keep a compost pot by the kitchen sink. I garden almost completely organically. I refuse to buy organic garlic flown in from Argentina or Israeli carrots when we can grow both crops here. I do these things from choice and common sense, not because I imagine for one moment that switching off a light or allowing nettles to grow in the garden will save the planet. And I think anyone who measures their own carbon footprint is the most arrant prig who has found a substitute for religion.

Lilies That Fester, Hazel Holt. Already reviewed. The best I’ve read yet.

Mary Todd’s Last Term, Frances Greenwood. Charismatic Mary is given the responsibility of being head girl in spite of previous wild behaviour. She carries out her duties capably while at the same time breaking rules herself in a most outrageous way; new girl Pen is her nemesis. An interesting character study.

Teatime for the Traditionally Built, Alexander McCall Smith. This series just can’t go wrong, in my opinion and I loved the book. The TV series is rather a let down, I find. Mma Ramotswe is the problem; not fat enough, not kind enough, showing a petulance we don’t find in the books. It’s all too much Lark Rise to Gabarone for me but Mma Makutsi (Anika Noni Rose) is PERFECT and I’m rather in love with Mr J L B Matekoni (Lucian Msamati).

The Murder on the Downs, Simon Brett. Not one of his best, as already mentioned.

The Mysterious Benedict Society, Trenton Lee Stewart. Top! Already reviewed.

The Cipher Garden, Martin Edwards*. Unfinished.

Silent in the Grave, Deanna Raybourn. Unfinished

Green Grass, Raffaella Barker. I’ve already written
about how much I enjoyed her Summertime but none of the others has lived up to that title. One sympathises with Venetia and loves her children but in Green Grass it’s harder to like spoiled Laura. Her husband and children are irritating: huh? Sounds normal to me, not a reason to go off the rails. I suppose I just don’t care for rich, discontented women. The book is set in London and Norfolk and Barker writes well about both. She’s now moved back to London herself; I wonder if this book was a way of working out which to choose? BTW, in one of those weird coincidences that crop up between here and Letters from a Hill Farm I was just finishing this book when Nan posted about it.

Singled Out. How two million women survived without men after the first world war, Virginia Nicholson. I’ve been reading this on and off all month and very interesting it is, too. Virginia Nicholson has obviously done a huge amount of research for the book and has produced potted biographies of numbers of women; some famous, like Elizabeth Goudge, a few one feels ought to be famous and many completely obscure until now. I was particularly interested in the section on ‘business girls’ as the unfortunate secretarial wage slaves were known. Anyone familiar with between-the-wars novels and The Girls’ Own Paper & Woman’s Magazine knows already the horrors of the room-with-gas-ring.

Two million ‘surplus women’. Not very pleasant, to be regarded as surplus and a problem because there weren’t enough men to go round. Jane Austen pointed out that a single woman could only avoid ridicule if she were rich (look at the example of Miss Bates) and it’s obvious to anyone that it was easier to be a lone woman if you had resources. Living alone just wasn't respectable. Interestingly, Nella Last touches on this when writing of an elderly relative. After the aunt was widowed, two other family members immediately offered to ‘take her in’. She refused but only escaped censure because a (male) cousin came to share her house. For me, the heroine of the book is Florence White, a doughty working class woman who campaigned for pensions for spinsters at fifty five. After fifty years working in a factory single women faced destitution; Florence’s organization succeeded in getting pensions for spinsters at sixty.

I could have done with more conclusions in this book. It’s not clear whether one is supposed to feel sorry for the women unable to find a man or to admire those who managed so well without one. Both, I suppose, but it rather clouds the issue to include Radclyffe Hall and other women who would never have married anyway.

Nella Last’s Peace Already discussed.

Comments

[dozydormouse.livejournal.com]

I found Singled Out thought provking partly ebcause I am feeling fairly surplus - just now yet another friend has announced her engagement...

It paints a terribly bleak picture of women's lives and while one applauds those who got up got on with it and enjyed life anyway I was left with an overall impression of a generation who'd made the best of bad circumstances and tried to live a life they would never have chosen well.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Your friends don't think of you as surplus!

It was tough and I found it interesting that the author makes out a case for good having come out of it; better doctors, teachers, welfare workers and so on because the women gave all their energies to their jobs. Thought provoking, as you say.

[lethe1]

Is Mma Makutsi the secretary? I gave up after the first episode (your "Lark Rise to Gabarone" sums it up perfectly), but I thought she was fun.

I'm still planning on reading the books though!

Your books

[(Anonymous)]

Honestly, I just want to come over and sit down in your new kitchen and listen to you talk about books! How about tomorrow morning? :<) Everything you talk about I want to read. Funny about the rich thing with Laura. I didn't even think about it because she is just so running in place doing all the stuff for that damn Inigo. I felt like she got caught up in a life that she wasn't meant to be in. His criticisms of her drove me nuts, though I could believe they loved one another. It was nice seeing The Beauty again, wasn't it? Have you visited any sites about her? There is lots and lots more info than when I first began reading her. Then I couldn't find anything at all. She is now divorced and the kids are older as well as the move to London so I can't help but think her books will change. Reminds me of Margaret Drabble who I read religiously when she and I were both younger. I hung on every word. But I haven't been able to read her for years now. I don't think I'll even watch the Mma Ramotswe when it comes on dvd. Thank you for the warning. Petulant?! Now really! Thanks for all the great writings about books.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Yes, she's the secretary. I love the books and I don't like the liberties the TV series has taken with them: introducing a gay hairdresser, for instance. Given African views on homosexuality it's strange he's so accepted! I think they're looking at the American market.

Re: Your books

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Oh, I want to visit *your* kitchen! :-)
Inigo is awful and I think men who need looking after have been a part of Raffaella Barker's life; I believe her father was like that. I've looked at her web site but didn't find anything interesting. The Beauty is getting rather a handful!

As I've just said in another reply, I think the TV Ladies' Detective series is aimed at Americans. They've sentimentalised it, bringing in cute children who aren't in the books.

Like you, I don't read Margaret Drabble any more but Jerusalem the Golden is still a favourite of mine. A great rite of passage book.

[gghost.livejournal.com]

It looks as though you had a good month as well! 'The Cipher Garden' catches my eye. I'll be interested to know what you think of it.

Re: Margaret D.

[(Anonymous)]

'Like you, I don't read Margaret Drabble any more but Jerusalem the Golden is still a favourite of mine. A great rite of passage book.' Please remind me of the plot. There's a section in one of her old books which reminds me of the Pink Floyd song: 'far away across the field, the tolling of the iron bell' - do you have any memory of what I mean? It seems like there was a country house and a church across the field. Gee, the stuff that stays in one's mind. Anyhow it's an image that hasn't left.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I couldn't get on with The Cipher Garden at all! The series has had so much praise that I may give it another go.

Re: Margaret D.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Jerusalem the Golden. Clever working class girl Clara, from a repressive background, meets upper middle class Clelia and falls in love with her whole family. ISTR Margaret Drabble said she had been influenced by Rosamund Lehmann's A Dusty Answer. The book won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. I know whole sentences off by heart, I've read it so often.

Your Pink Floyd reference means nothing to me, sorry!