May Books

[callmemadam]

Not many books this month and the one on the left is what I enjoyed most. I love Sandi Toksvig but I didn't much like Whistling for the Elephants or Flying Under Bridges, so this one was a joy. It is set in a remote Italian village where a bunch of wild eccentrics gather at an art school. Frances is not really there to paint but to investigate, rather reluctantly, the tragedy of her early childhood in that same village. Full of jokes but also sad and you really want to learn the truth. And I will tell you what. I bet you anything Sandi has read Saffy's Angel by Hilary McKay.

Publishers are nuts. On the back cover, Toksvig's book is described as 'rip-roaringly funny'. As I said, there are plenty of jokes but there's a much darker thread in the book as well. The same goes for Margaret Forster's have the men had enough?, advertised as 'excellently funny'. There is a lot of humour in the book. Grandma, the central character, is very funny but as the story is about how her family cope with Grandma's senile dementia you would hardly call it a load of laughs, although a good read. Reminds me of when we went to see a production of The Seagull. It was billed as a comedy and half the audience walked out during the interval.

Forster's novel the memory box seems based on such a good idea. The heroine's parents have both died and at last she is going to open the box which her birth mother put together for her before she died. Unfortunately I found it extremely slow and repetetive and was constantly muttering 'Get on with it!'

Kate Adie's excellent Women and War I have already written about. Also read Charlotte Fairlie by D E Stevenson. I can see why this is one of her most popular novels as I enjoyed it more than most. I fell with glee upon another Isabel Dalhousie novel by Alexander McCall Smith, The Right Attitude to Rain. How wise he is to spare us any details at all of the moment when at last- No! I won't spoil it. For bedtime comfort I am reading all the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency books straight through in order. Lovely.

Comments

[land-girl.livejournal.com]

I don't know whether I have said this before, but I think that The Memory Box is my least favourite Margaret Forster novel; like you say, an excellent idea, but it failed for me on different levels. Like the heroine, I was raised by an absolutely excellent step-parent, and wished in every way that my own father hadn't existed, or been part of who I was in any way. I'm sure that I am not alone in this situation, and felt that she described the situation with enormous insight. In that sense, that the novel failed to answer any of the questions it raised was a huge blow. I had been lured by the promise of answers and felt there were none ...

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

It is disappointing. The only reason I have been having something of a Forster-fest lately is that I happened to pick up several of her books at once. I did enjoy Have the Men had Enough? but I had an alternative ending in mind, in which Hannah realises that Bridget, being so like Grandma, may one day in the future become her responsibility.

[land-girl.livejournal.com]

Mother Can You Hear Me? is the best, imo, by far the best : )

Blurb and Forster

[(Anonymous)]

Its frustrating when the blurb on the back tries to make the content of the book unneccessarily mysterious. I have just finished Forster's Over, the account of what happens to relationships within a family when one of the children dies. The account is a first peson narrative by the mother. The blurb suggests that there is some twist or mystery that is unveiled towards the end. There wasn't really; just that the mother wasn't quite as well adjusted as her narrative would suggest. But ignoring the blurb it was an enjoyable book.
Regards
apprentice-brick-counter.blogspot.com

Re: Blurb and Forster

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Welcome apprentice-brick-counter. I've had enough Forster just for the moment. I'm currently reading Saturday by Ian McEwan, which puts her firmly in her place, that is, a long way down the pecking order. The only part of the blurb I have bothered to read is 'Number1 Best Seller' and you can't really argue with that!