These are the final books I read in 2022 – that I haven’t blogged about until now due to my life being interrupted by Cancer Redux which I’ve started to write about here, although much more has taken place. Just to prove how anal retentive I am, I felt I must finish my blogging about books in 2022!
Three, Valerie Perrin
I’d really liked the earlier novel by this French writer mentioned on the cover here. But didn’t enjoy this one as much. About three very close friends from school age onwards – two boys and a girl. The girl gets married and they drift apart. One boy becomes a successful writer, the other boy marries and has children. It all gets a bit contrived I thought. There is a transgender subplot. It’s very good on the insidious process of coercive control but the ending was fanciful. Nice writing and I like to read European novels.
The Waste Land: A Biography of a Poem, Matthew Hollis *****
I loved everything about this. I thought it would be more about the structure etc of the poem and there was a narky review in the Times Literary Supplement by the poet Craig Raine complaining that it wasn’t in fact what the title claimed! It was more about the personalities and the context in which it was written. I’ve read a great deal about this period and the people involved but there was a lot in this that I didn’t know or which helped me understand it all better. He does include drafts and revisions made to the poem. I was interested to see Vivienne Elliot’s contributions – quite savvy and important to the tone. I also got a better understanding of why Ezra Pound was so influential – pestering and bullying all the modernists, so absolute in his opinions. Certainly his judgements about what should come out of this poem were on the money! At the same time he was pestering publishers and reviewers to promote them. Which he did so successfully. A pity he went mad – or bad! They were all a bit mad.And Elliott certainly, along with Pound anti-Semitic.There was so much information crammed into this book I started reading it a second time as soon as I’d finished it the first time – which I also did with Wagnerism by Alex Ross.
It also took me back to Eliot’s poems. Which I understood better!
The Hyacinth Girl, Lyndal Gordon ***
Another book about Eliot. He was mad as a hatter. This was written after the letters of his long time American confidante and correspondent Emily Hale were finally published. The exact nature of their relationship has long been a matter of contention amongst Elliott scholars who have downplayed it. She has always been acknowledged as ‘the hyacinth girl’ referenced in the poem. But did he really intend on has used extensively show them to be wrong! She rightly expected him to propose when Vivienne died and he was a cad! Not only to Emily but to Mary Trevalyan who he also adopted a strange marriage-like (minus the sex) life after Vivienne died and while he was still stringing Emily along. I found it all enthralling.
The Bullet That Missed, Richard Osman *
I quite liked this but fear the series about a group of retirement home oldies solving murders has run out of puff.
Instructions For A Heatwave, Maggie O’Farrell *
I loved Maggie Farrell’s ‘I Am, I Am, I Am’ which is a memoir about her experience of near-misses – of dying, being a victim of crime (Jimmy Saville gets mention – she was saved from him by a diligent nurse who refused his request she leave the room). I think this is an earlier book – about a rumbuctious Irish family living in London (the author’s own background). I wasn’t that interested in the characters.
Exiles, Jane Harper **
I must have been feeling curmudgeonly reviewing this list but I stand by the judgement. Also running out of puff I think. In her other books the setting has played a crucial role. Not so here, set in the South Australian vineyards. I had McLaren Vale in mind but I think her research was in the Barossa. Anyway except for lots of looking at orderly rows of vineyards it didn’t matter much. The plotting was good – more coercive control – but it was all a bit too pat. And she’s moved Aaron the AFP officer out of the picture in very unlikely circumstances.
Bulldozed, Niki Savva*
More disappointment! I felt it was poorly written and executed. Going back and forth in time and mostly the same characters. A lot of repetion. If you read and enjoyed (as I did) the articles you’ve read the book.
Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, Benjamin Stevenson ****
Didn’t take a picture of the book, but here I am reading it while in hospital – I think for the biopsy on my lung.
I quite enjoyed this. A silly thing really but holds your interest – which is what I wanted / needed on the day. The narrator is a crime writer and I think from memory has writers block. Anyway he’s unsuccessful and presents himself as a bit of a no-hoper. He’s at a family reunion up in snow country with assorted relatives, including an ex-wife, who regard home as the black sheep of the family. I can’t quite remember it. There are a number of murders – one at least in the past and them more in the present. It’s an isolated spot. It all churns along quite nicely.
Gaudy Night, Dorothy L Sayers *****
I loved this. I only read it because Dorothy is one of four women featured in ‘Hanover Square’ by Francesca Wade (I wasn’t particularly keen on this and haven’t completed it) and I’d never read any of her work. Afficiandos will know the set up although I didn’t know anything about Lord Peter Wimsey. He sort of takes a back – though, of course, critical – seat to Harriet Vane in this one. Set in a women’s college at Oxford where they are intent on proving women’s worth as scholars. I loved the characters of the different professors. And I like detective stories with a touch of romance!
The Green Fool, Patrick Kavanagh *****
Having read Finton O’Toole’s history of Ireland from the 1950’s onwards (which is another 5* book I’ve been pressing on everyone) I was finally tempted to read this much earlier autobiography and I loved it. Kavanagh is a self taught poet born into the bog Irish poverty O’Toole alludes to. It covers a turbulent period but set in a context of bucolic (albeit desperately poor) communities. We’re in the early 20th century and see the impact of First World War on Irish peasants (not much), the Black & Tans, the bitter conflict about the establishment of the Irish Free State – the whole lot. All the while he’s thinking and writing poems. While digging potatoes, planting turnips, ploughing fields. He walks to Dublin disguised (or not) as a traveller and we get an inkling into the rules of hospitality on the road. All conversations in the vernacular. He doesn’t immediately fit into the literary scene so walks back from whence he came. Fantastic. Then I read the poems some of which are very beautiful.
Beauty Before Comfort, Allison Glock ***
I can’t remember anything about this except I noted it was published in 2003. I’ve put it back in the community library across the road. Lack of memory not a strong recommendation but I gave it ***!
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