The Hanging Wood ~ Martin Edwards

The Hanging Wood, Martin Edwards' fifth novel set in the Lake District featuring DCI Hannah Scarlett and historian Daniel Kind, was sent to me via NetGalley for pre-publication review.  And as I'm an avid follower of the series, I was more than grateful to have the opportunity to read it before anyone else in my equally enthusiastic library group can get their hands on it.  This probably makes me a very nasty person, but at least I am an honest one.  Which is more than can be said for most of the characters in this book - the honest bit, that is - a fair few of them come under the heading of very nasty indeed!

Hannah's cold case unit is brought in to examine the disappearance twenty years earlier of  fourteen year old Callum Hinds, when his sister, Orla, apparently commits suicide in the grain silo on their father's farm.  At the time it was assumed that Callum had been killed by their uncle, who was found hanging shortly afterwards.  However, no body has ever been found and conversations between Orla and Daniel shortly before her death raise the possibility that not only may Callum still be alive but also that there may be something suspicious about her own death.

But, (there is always a but in the best crime fiction) Orla and Callum are linked to a family grouping that is involved in bringing a great deal of wealth and business into the area.  Even better, the family is offering to sponsor a local police project.  Hannah is under strict instructions not to rock the boat with her investigation and to make sure that it is all wrapped up within the week.  Fortunately (well, maybe not fortunately, but you get the picture) there is another death, after which no one can hide from the fact that there was something very wrong with the conclusions reached two decades earlier and that there is a very live investigation needed now.

As usual, it is through the careful deliberations of Daniel, the son of Hannah's ex-boss, who brings his academic historians mind to bear on the evidence, that Hannah is handed the key that solves the mystery.  Working on a new book in the idyllic surroundings afforded by a residential library, Daniel has to hand the details of the family needed to shed light on what it was that Callum discovered twenty years earlier which meant he had to disappear.  When the past is clear, the present falls into place.

I really enjoy Edwards Lake District books.  While they may not have the same grittiness as those set in Liverpool, neither do they ever pretend that the Lake District is simply a chocolate box location.  The farm that provides much of the setting for this book is clearly a place where those who live struggle for survival; it is also a place where there is constant potential for danger, either accidental or premeditated.  In The Hanging Wood, this is set against the beauty of a residential library and yes, you read that correctly, a residential library.  Given that anyone reading this is likely to be a book fanatic can you imagine anything more idyllic: a library where you can go and stay and not have to go home in the evening.  I am still reeling with the joy of discovering that although the institution in Edwards' novel does not exist, it is based on a real place.  I promise you, I am going to stay there at some point, just as long, that is, as there are no cold cases that need solving in the vicinity.

If you enjoy a good crime thriller along the lines of those written by Peter Robinson and Reginald Hill then I'm pretty sure you will enjoy Edwards.  As usual, I'm going to say that I think you should go back to the beginning and read the series in order, but if you are already acquainted with these books then this one will not disappoint.

David Lodge ~ Author, Critic and Teacher

I've just come in from listening to David Lodge talk to our creative writing undergrads.  Unless you're an English graduate yourself, you're most likely to know of David as a novelist.  His campus trilogy, Changing Places, Small World and Nice Work led to frantic attempts on the part of local academics to try and pin just which of them had contributed to the works as models for particular characters and I know of at least one individual in a very senior role who read all three of them in preparation for her interview in the department so that she would have a flavour of what the university was like and the type of people she might possibly be working with.  David, of course, strenuously denies that Rummidge University is based in any way on the institution in which he taught for almost three decades or that there is any link at all between his characters and the people with whom he worked.  No one believes him for an instance!

Latterly, his novels have had a less academic background, although the most recent, Deaf Sentence, did return to the topic if somewhat indirectly.  Today, however, he came to talk to the students about his forthcoming book, A Man of Parts, which is published at the beginning of April.  Like his novel Author, Author, A Man of Parts is biographical fiction, in this instance concerning the novelist H G Wells, and I want to return in a later post to what he had to say about writing in this particular genre when I've had more time to think about it because, as those of you who are English graduates will appreciate, what he said was theoretically very sound but also very complex.

Because, David Lodge's other writing reflects his career as one of our major literary critics.  His work ranges from that very accessible set of essays, The Art of Fiction, to seminal texts such as Modern Criticism and Theory: a Reader and Consciousness and the Novel.  When David talks about fiction you are always aware that what he has to to say is underpinned by a depth of knowledge and understanding that leaves most other people gasping.  Our creative writing students may have been drinking in every word concerning the shaping of a mass of research into a novel, but those in the audience who study literature from a more theoretical standpoint were also busy taking notes and rapidly making links between what he was saying about the way the novel is now moving and the development of other strands of modern culture.

However, what wasn't mentioned by the person who introduced him, but which must by the end of the session have been apparent to everyone in the room, was the fact that David Lodge is simply the most brilliant teacher I have ever known.  As I said earlier, he taught at the University for a very long time and is still Emeritus Professor in the Department of English and even though I was a language student I used to sneak into the postgraduate seminars he held each week in his rather cramped office.  (Well, it was actually rather spacious for an office, but definitely cramped when all the students who wanted to attend piled in.)  Every week one of the postgrads would introduce a topic focussed on a particular text and then we would have a free-for-all discussion.  At the time I was already a teacher of some years standing, but had never worked at that level and I would watch him spellbound.  Everything I now know about running seminars be they for undergrads or more experienced students, I learned from observing David.  He has the most remarkable gift of making every one who contributes feel as if they have just made the very point that will elucidate the topic under discussion for the entire group.  He did exactly the same thing this afternoon in the question and answer session.  "What a good question....."  "Now that is a really interesting point...."  The students came out glowing.

So, perhaps the final thing that should be said about David Lodge is that as well as being an extremely gifted writer, critic and teacher he is also a very kind human being.

Felicia's Journey ~ William Trevor

It is to my great shame that I have to admit that I have never before read anything by William Trevor.  What is more, had this not been on the list for my Monday Book Group, I wouldn't have read Felicia's Journey, his 1994 Whitbread winning novel.  The loss has been mine.

It is hard to say anything about the book without spoiling it for those of you who have yet to read it, but I will try and give you a flavour of what it is about.  Eighteen year old Felicia has left her native Ireland to search in the English Midlands for her boyfriend, Johnny Lysaght.  No one in her home town approves of the relationship and she has travelled without any real knowledge of where she is going or how she is going to find Johnny once she arrives.  In the course of her search she encounters Mr Hilditch, a strange and lonely older man who befriends her for reasons of his own which, inevitably, the reader suspects from the first.  As we learn more about Hilditch's background and the reasons for his peculiar life style, so we become more and more concerned for what the outcome of their chance meeting might be.  At the end, despite the fact that Felicia appears to be in a very difficult situation indeed, it is possibly to argue that had events turned out as we anticipated, everything could have been so much worse.  What would in any other circumstances be a downbeat, if not tragic, ending has almost the feeling of victory, certainly of relief.

The greatness of this novel, however, lies not so much in the story that is told, but in the manner of the telling.  Trevor, is celebrated for his short story writing and there is much about this book that is reminiscent of the art of the short story writer.  Paramount is the emotional attachment that the author creates between the reader and the characters.  It is impossible not to react to each of them as if you actually had to have dealings with them yourself.  For example, at one point Felicia finds shelter with a group of religious fanatics who harass those they consider likely to hear their message with a vigour that is so real I wanted to pick the phone up as I read and demand that the police remove them from my doorstep NOW.  (You will be relieved to know that I restrained myself.)

In terms of the written style Trevor wastes not a single word and in half a sentence he can paint an entire picture.

Wouldn't you go up on the deck?

asks an anonymous women in the first couple of lines and immediately you know you're on the ferry coming from Ireland to England.  He doesn't need to tell you anything more.

Or you might get a more extended passage that conjures up an entire way of living.  The whole is too long to quote, but there is what amounts to an elegy on the homeless which begins:

Hidden away, the people of the streets drift into sleep induced by alcohol or agitated by despair, into dreams that carry them back to the lives that once were theirs.  They lie with their begging notices still beside them, with enough left of a bottle to ease the waking moment, with pavement cigarette butts to hand.

The power of the writing is in the placement of a single word, 'pavement cigarette butts'.  That word pavement tells an entire story with nothing else needing to be added.

Inevitably, Felicia's journey turns out to be more than a journey from one side of the Irish Sea to the other, but neither is it simply a journey from innocence to experience.  It could be argued that in some ways Felicia is as naive at the end of the book as she is at the beginning, or conversely you could argue that she had lost innocence before the book begins.  If pushed I would have to say that I think what she finds is a level of independence, a voice and a will of her own.  If you read her story you may feel that by the end she has lost just about everything except her life and yet I can't help feeling that she has found something that if not exactly what you would want for her is in someways at least a life of her own.

The power of the experience of reading this book has been such that it will be some time before I read another Trevor novel.  You cannot live a reading life at that level of intensity for very long.  But I most certainly will read other works of his and am only glad that because of my own previous folly I have his entire back list to work through.

Sunday Armchair Travelling

It is Sunday afternoon and as is fast becoming a habit I have been enjoying tea and scones while reading another chapter of Susan Hill's book, Howards End is on the Landing. Despite the fact that she claims to neither be a traveller nor to be particularly interested in travel writing Hill has all the recent greats in her collection, Bruce Chatwin, Colin Thubron and Patrick Leigh Fermor.

Like Hill, I am no traveller. I not only like my own routine, I actually need it for my medical well-being and travelling not only exhausts me it also separates me from the secret of my much needed sleep, my own bed. So, if I want to know anything of foreign parts I am reliant on the work of others, be that though the auspices of the BBC or through writers of the calibre that Hill describes.

I know Chatwin better through his novels than through his travel books. On the Black Hill, is the story of twin brothers who, like me, are not travellers. They are Welsh farmers whose existence revolves round the land on which they were born and through charting their lives Chatwin also manages to evoke the life of the country itself.

Colin Thubron I once had the privilege of hearing speak and have never forgotten that calm and gentle man talking of the hazards of journeying through China at a time when the regime in power still made it difficult for a foreigner to spend even a couple of days there let alone any extended visit. I bought a copy of his book, Behind the Wall, and took it back to share with the children I was teaching who were as fascinated as only children can be by the man who kept a collection of noses in jars. Speculation as to what you might do with a nose collection kept the classroom buzzing for weeks.

But, Leigh Fermor, just the mention of his name brought back a feeling of shame. Hill speaks of his book, A Time to Keep Silence, as:

hardly a travel book at all - or if it is, the travel is inwards, a spiritual journey. Some books are balm to the soul and solace to the weary mind, a cooling stream at the end of long and tiring days and 'A Time to Keep Silence' is assuredly one of them.

Some years ago now, a dear friend offered me Leigh Fermor's books at a period when balm to the soul was much needed and I failed to take him up on his suggestion. I could walk upstairs now and put my hand straight onto the copy he gave me of A Time of Gifts, but I have never so much as opened it. Hill says that Leigh Fermor is the doyen of the travel world and I can neither contest or confirm that view - as yet. Has anyone else read his works? And, if so, what do you think? Should I start with the volume I already have or are there better ways in?

And are there other travel writers to explore? Not, please Bill Bryson, who always seems to be laughing at someone. But any other writers of the calibre of Chatwin, Thubron and Leigh Fermor would be welcome suggestions.


Annie

Faulks on Fiction: Yes, but what sort?

The BBC are celebrating 2011 as their Year of Books.  Quite why 2011 should be an important year for books I'm not sure.  In this house, every year is book year and we hadn't noticed that 2011 was more bookish than any other, but what ho, if the BBC wants to celebrate books we are more than happy to join them.

Rather ironically, given that there are demonstrations going on all over the country even as I write against the 400+ library closures coming about thanks to the government's funding cuts, the celebrations kick off this evening with the first in a series of programmes introduced by the author, Sebastian Faulks.  Faulks on Fiction will focus on four different character types in the English novel, starting with the hero and moving through discussions of the lover, the snob and the villain.

As is the BBC's wont, they have published an accompanying book and this morning I had an e-mail from one of our major book chains informing me that not only could I download the book itself for just slightly more than half price, but I could also claim four classics of English Literature free to go along with it.  Well, my kindle doesn't accept downloads from this particular company, but I thought if they were making this offer there was a fair chance Amazon was as well, so I nipped over to their site to see what was what.  

Amazon had the same offer, although it was rather more expensive.  They did, however, also claim to have a very much cheaper download of the Faulks without the accompanying novels and as I already have the other books concerned I eagerly clicked on the link,

only to find this:  yes, I was rather surprised too.  So, I went back to the original book + novel download and scrolled down the page.  The first part of the description was definitely about the Faulks but then I hit this:

Leanne inherits a halfshare in a former boarding school set in a remote part of Scotland. She gives up all that she knows to start her new life in the staff quarters of the school - then finds that the other owner, Adam, is a dominant male. His insistence on disciplining the erring female staff is at odds with Leanne's feminism and she's even more perturbed to find that she's aroused by watching the frequent punishments.

Setting this novel in a vast former boarding school gave me lots of scope for unusual castigatory settings. Miscreants are corrected in the staff rooms, classrooms and even the stables. The remoteness of the institute ensures that attractions build amongst the staff. The tension heightens when Adam, a first class advertising copywriter, starts to write copy for adult erotic toys - toys that, solely for the purposes of research, I forced myself to experiment with. These devilishly effective devices similarly take Adam's personal assistant, housekeeper, cook and other employees to their submissive depths and orgasmic heights.
Leanne initially tells herself that she'll have nothing to do with Adam's authoritative boundary-challenging sexuality, but her psyche and her libido have other plans.      

(Amazon website description (apparently) of Faulks on Fiction)

Well!  If that's what the BBC are intending to broadcast tonight all I can say is that there are going to be some very shocked viewers, either because of what they've seen or because of what they've missed!

I e-mailed Amazon and asked them what was going on.  In fact, feeling rather indignant, I asked them if someone wasn't playing a particularly childish joke.  They assured me that this was not the case, that it was a genuine error and that the matter would be corrected, but I've just been over there now and the site is still as it was this morning.

So, what are we in for this evening?  I was actually going to record the programme and watch it tomorrow, but I'm not sure I can stand the suspense.  I may have to watch it as it is transmitted.  On the other hand if I have an hour of Lingering Lessons before I go to bed who knows what damage it will do to my beauty sleep.  The story will continue.......

Devouring Notions

I'm still busy picking up tips on how to read better, or perhaps more precisely, how to give more thought to what is going on in the mind of the author with whose work I'm trying to engage. Today I have been learning that extremely useful life skill that not all vampires actually have pointed teeth and painful looking brow ridges. Oh no! Sometimes they are as normal looking as you and me. (Well me, anyway, my not being able to speak definitively for who might be reading this blog.)

Foster makes the point that there are ways of devouring an individual's life spirit other than draining them of their blood. What is more, the non-vampiric predator is often far more lethal precisely because their intentions are not immediately apparent. He calls on a number of texts I have to admit to not having read to support his claim but what came to mind immediately was the passage in Margaret Forster's Keeping the World Away that I quoted a couple of weeks ago where one of the characters says of Gwen John that she drained whoever she was with by the emotional demands she made on them without giving anything back in return. That surely is a sort of vampirism and one that makes me realise that I've actually come across a few blood suckers in disguise myself over the years.

Then there are those characters who assume that everyone is at their beck and call and that the whole world exists simply to do their bidding. My favourite would have to be Jane Austen's Lady Catherine de Burgh who would still be happily draining the life out of all and sundry had she not had the misfortune to run into Miss Elizabeth Bennett.

And there in lies an important distinction. When characters like these meet their Waterloo the outcome is comedy or at least a feeling on the part of the reader of a kind of triumph. When they have their way and we have to watch helplessly while a good person is destroyed as a result of their devilment, when an Iago brings an Othello to his untimely doom, then what we have is tragedy.

Give me a vampire I can recognise every time.


Annie

A Lesson in Secrets ~ Jacqueline Winspear

Every now and then you come across a new author whose future works you know you are going to want to read the moment they become available.  That was the case in 2003 when I read the first of Jacqueline Winspear's novels about the eponymous Maisie Dobbs.  Maisie, having survived the hospitals of the First World War where she was nursing, has returned to England, completed her Cambridge degree and set herself up as a private detective.  Her methods of detection are unusual in the extent to which they rely on an understanding of human nature as much as on other more tangible evidence.  And, as a result, she and the police with whom she comes into contact don't always see eye to eye.  Nevertheless, Maisie has a clear up rate that would be the envy of any police force and what is more, she also manages to help her friends find their way though the most difficult of circumstances.  In fact one of the major attractions of this series for me is watching the way that Maisie grows in confidence in dealing with the social world into which she has moved, having started life as a maid of all work in the home of one of the English aristocracy.

I was, then, extremely pleased to be given the opportunity by NetGalley to read the eighth Maisie Dobbs novel, A Lesson in Secrets, prior to publication and spent last weekend immersed in the Cambridge of 1932 where Maisie finds herself at the behest of the Secret Service conducting covert surveillance into the activities of the staff and students in an independent college dedicated to encouraging peace amongst the citizens of various European countries.  While the Government is concerned that there may be problems with people entering the country under false pretences, it is not long before Maisie becomes far more concerned with the extreme political allegiances of some of her colleagues and their influence upon the students with whom they are associated.  As usual, it is Maisie who has the more accurate grasp of the situation.

Inevitably, matters are complicated when the College Principal, a man whose writings are said to have caused a mutiny in the ranks of both the British and German armies during the First World War, is murdered and Maisie becomes embroiled in the investigation even though specifically warned off it by the powers that be.  One of the things I really like about Maisie is that she is always prepared to tell said powers that be when she thinks they are wrong, even if she does know that she is still going to have to play along with them in the end.

Eventually, of course, the murderer is found and the real danger at the heart of the College revealed.  Revealed, but still not acknowledged by the leaders of the Secret Service.  There is clearly scope for taking the matter further in future episodes.

As well as putting together a tidily thought out plot, Winspear also explores a number of issues that were pertinent at that period.  She brings to the fore the failure of the British Establishment to recognise the threat posed by Hitler at a time when it might still have been possible to do something to stop him and hints at the possibility that it is a fear of the rise of the lower classes that fuels this failure.  Too many people in power in the UK, I believe, thought that Hitler had the right idea when it came to keeping certain types of individuals in their places.  She also explores the post war growth of racketeering and of extortion that was the plague of those trying to set up their own businesses in a world that had seen a tremendous slump in trade and a dramatic rise in unemployment.  And, perhaps most interesting of all to me, she has her characters look back on the treaty signed at the end of the Great War and foretell the disaster that was to come as a result of the demands made upon Germany.  There were moments when I noted as I read "this could be Winifred Holtby", thinking of that writer's journalism on this subject rather than her fiction.  She too was aware of the catastrophe that awaited Europe as a result of the short-sightedness of the Treaty of Versailles, a catastrophe it would have been possible to avoid but which by this stage was already inevitable.  As one of Winspear's characters says:

we do not pay enough attention to the past...in 1914 we had become a reflection of history when we embarked upon what could be considered another European Thirty Years War.


Now there's an interesting thought, one conflict stretching from 1914 right through to 1945.  It is, I think, a perspective that has some merit.

This is the excellent novel that I've come to expect from Jacqueline Winspear and I recommend it heartily.  My only caveat, if you are a new Maisie Dobbs reader, is that you shouldn't think about starting here.  I do think you need to read this series in order.  However, if that is the case, then how lucky can you get.  You still have all eight to read and delight in.  I envy you.