Tag Archives: British Literature

October 22, 2015 · 12:23 pm

Review: The Blue Guitar by John Banville

I received an advanced review copy of this title from the publisher through Edelweiss.

My Review:
The Blue GuitarOliver Orme, in the opening part of the novel, is fleeing his home, his career and his life.  He has had an affair with his friend’s wife and the torrid details of the tryst has been uncovered.  Oliver is not sure how his own wife, Gloria, will react and he isn’t even sure how his lover, Polly will react to his sudden departure.  All Oliver knows is that his life is spiraling out of control and his instinct is to flee.

The first part of the book describes Oliver’s relationship with his wife and his meetings with his lover.  Oliver has fled to his boyhood home so there are also many scenes in which Oliver reminisces about his family and his childhood.  He is the youngest boy in a large family and was particularly close to his mother.  When he is a child Oliver picks up a very bad habit of stealing minor things.  He relates in great detail his first theft which was a tube of paint in a local art store.  The rush that Oliver feels when he is engaging in his kleptomania is like a drug that compels him to keep stealing from his friends and family well into middle age.  The latest thing he has stolen is Polly and now that the affair is out in the open he wants nothing more than to flee the entire unpleasant situation.

In the second part of the book Polly shows up at Oliver’s boyhood home with her two-year-old daughter Pip.  Polly has decided to leave her husband and is on her way to her parents’ house and asks Oliver to accompany her.  This episode in the second part of the book is very bizarre as Polly’s eccentric family is described in great detail.  Oliver stays there overnight and manages to escape the house secretly without anyone noticing.  It is really unclear why Polly wanted Oliver to accompany her home in the first place.  It is, however, very evident that this passionate, nine month affair has run its course and Polly and Oliver no longer love each other.  Banville provides us with unique insight into an affair because this is one that never could have lasted.  It leaves the characters wondering whether having a brief relationship was really worth disturbing the lives of so many people.

The final part of the book deals with Oliver’s return home and his confrontation with his wife Gloria.  At this point Gloria has some disconcerting news of her own to share in return.  The third part of the book actually has two shocking twists to the tale that I never saw coming.  To be perfectly honest, Oliver was such an unlikeable and almost despicable character in the first part of the book that I almost gave up reading it.  However, I am very glad that I pressed on because the reasons for his emotional instability are revealed further into the book.  Oliver is a well-recognized and talented painter and because of the tragedy he has suffered in his life he has pretty much given up on his career.  Banville demonstrates, through the characters of Oliver and his wife that grief is a tricky emotion that we all deal with very differently.

Finally, I have to mention the beautiful prose and language that Banville uses to relate this story.  The entire book is told in the first person, through the eyes of Oliver himself.  There are a number of interesting rhetorical devices and plays on words and language that Banville uses throughout the writing.  I highly recommend this novel just to experience a taste of Banville’s clever and elegant prose.

About The Author:
J BanvilleBanville was born in Wexford, Ireland. His father worked in a garage and died when Banville was in his early thirties; his mother was a housewife. He is the youngest of three siblings; his older brother Vincent is also a novelist and has written under the name Vincent Lawrence as well as his own. His sister Vonnie Banville-Evans has written both a children’s novel and a reminiscence of growing up in Wexford.

Educated at a Christian Brothers’ school and at St Peter’s College in Wexford. Despite having intended to be a painter and an architect he did not attend university. Banville has described this as “A great mistake. I should have gone. I regret not taking that four years of getting drunk and falling in love. But I wanted to get away from my family. I wanted to be free.” After school he worked as a clerk at Aer Lingus which allowed him to travel at deeply-discounted rates. He took advantage of this to travel in Greece and Italy. He lived in the United States during 1968 and 1969. On his return to Ireland he became a sub-editor at the Irish Press, rising eventually to the position of chief sub-editor. His first book, Long Lankin, was published in 1970.

After the Irish Press collapsed in 1995, he became a sub-editor at the Irish Times. He was appointed literary editor in 1998. The Irish Times, too, suffered severe financial problems, and Banville was offered the choice of taking a redundancy package or working as a features department sub-editor. He left. Banville has been a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books since 1990. In 1984, he was elected to Aosdána, but resigned in 2001, so that some other artist might be allowed to receive the cnuas.

Banville also writes under the pen name Benjamin Black. His first novel under this pen name was Christine Falls, which was followed by The Silver Swan in 2007. Banville has two adult sons with his wife, the American textile artist Janet Dunham. They met during his visit to San Francisco in 1968 where she was a student at the University of California, Berkeley. Dunham described him during the writing process as being like “a murderer who’s just come back from a particularly bloody killing”. Banville has two daughters from his relationship with Patricia Quinn, former head of the Arts Council of Ireland.

Banville has a strong interest in vivisection and animal rights, and is often featured in Irish media speaking out against vivisection in Irish university research.

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October 16, 2015 · 11:20 am

Review: Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

My Review:
Aurora LeighAurora Leigh is a beautiful, sublime poem written in blank verse.  The language, however, is not the only strong point of the poem.  The character of Aurora is fierce and compassionate, as she adapts to her new life in Britain despite her stern aunt.  Aurora is born to an English father and an Italian mother and happily spends her childhood among the mountains in Italy.  Aurora’s mother dies when she is only four, but her father continues to raise her in Italy among her mother’s people.  Aurora’s father also tragically dies when she is at the young and pivotal age of thirteen, and Aurora is shipped off to live in England with her father’s sister.  Her aunt is a stern spinster who makes Aurora learn what she believes are appropriate skills for a proper English girl.

But Aurora is resilient and even though her life is more restrained and cumbersome in England, she still finds pleasure in books and poetry.  The beautiful estate on which her aunt lives becomes the inspiration for Aurora to begin writing her own poetry.  She takes quiet walks in the early morning before the rest of the house is awake and develops her skill as a writer.  Furthermore, Aurora doesn’t take what would be the easy way out by marrying her cousin Romney Leigh when he proposes to her.  Marriage and financial security would have been a much easier fate for Aurora; but even when her aunt dies and Aurora is disinherited, she moves to London where she works and supports herself as an author.

Browning weaves the theme of class struggles throughout the poem and she especially highlights this social problem through the character of Romney.  The  poor are depicted as wreteched and even ugly; Romney makes it his life’s work to help out the poor and destitute.  After his marriage proposal is Aurora's Dismissal of Romneyrejected by Aurora, he saves a woman named Marian Erle from her miserable life and proposes to her next.  Marian is the daughter of tramps that roam around the countryside finding any work they can.  Marian’s father is abusive and when her mother tries to sell her off to a local squire,  Marian finally runs away from her parents in horror.  Romney decides that, even though Marian is well-below his social class, she will make a perfect wife to help him in his charitable missions. But we are left wondering if these two are really suited as husband and wife.  Does Marian truly love Romney or does she simply worship him as her savior.  Does Romney really have feelings of love for Marian or is he still in love with his cousin Aurora?

The upper class don’t fair any better in Browning’s verse.  They are depicted as vain, judgmental, and petty.  The character of Lady Valdemar is the epitome of a greedy upper class English woman who will do everything in her power to fulfill her selfish desires.  Lady Valdemar is in love with Romney and once she finds out that he is going to marry a lower class woman like Marian, she sets in motion a series of events that have devastating consequences for all involved in this love triangle.  Lady Valdemar’s singular focus of getting Romney to the altar makes her a despicable and opportunistic character.

At the end of the poem Browning brings the characters back to the place where everything was simpler and happier: Aurora’s native land of Italy.  There Aurora finds peace once again as she is finally away from the petty gossip and prying eyes of the upper classes in England.  Aurora does, however, admit that despite her new surroundings,  there is still something missing in her life.  She is a successful author who has become famous for her poems and novels about love.  But will she ever experience this elusive feeling for herself?  You will have to read Browning’s beautiful poem to find out.

About The Author:
Elizabeth Barrett BrowningElizabeth Barrett Browning was one of the most respected poets of the Victorian era.
Born in County Durham, the eldest of 12 children, Browning was educated at home. She wrote poetry from around the age of six and this was compiled by her mother, comprising what is now one of the largest collections extant of juvenilia by any English writer. At 15 Browning became ill, suffering from intense head and spinal pain for the rest of her life, rendering her frail. She took laudanum for the pain, which may have led to a lifelong addiction and contributed to her weak health.

In the 1830s Barrett’s cousin John Kenyon introduced her to prominent literary figures of the day such as William Wordsworth, Mary Russell Mitford, Samuel Taylor Coleridge; Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and Thomas Carlyle. Browning’s first adult collection The Seraphim and Other Poems was published in 1838. During this time she contracted a disease, possibly tuberculosis, which weakened her further. Living at Wimpole Street, in London, Browning wrote prolifically between 1841 and 1844, producing poetry, translation and prose. She campaigned for the abolition of slavery and her work helped influence reform in child labour legislation. Her prolific output made her a rival to Tennyson as a candidate for poet laureate on the death of Wordsworth.

Browning’s volume Poems (1844) brought her great success. During this time she met and corresponded with the writer Robert Browning, who admired her work. The courtship and marriage between the two were carried out in secret, for fear of her father’s disapproval. Following the wedding she was disinherited by her father and rejected by her brothers. The couple moved to Italy in 1846, where she would live for the rest of her life. They had one son, Robert Barrett Browning, whom they called Pen. Towards the end of her life, her lung function worsened, and she died in Florence in 1861. A collection of her last poems was published by her husband shortly after her death.

 

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October 5, 2015 · 11:53 am

Review: Green Mansions by William Henry Hudson

My Review:
Green MansionsLast week I was in one of those moods where I just couldn’t decide what I wanted to read.  I tried a couple of books that just weren’t working for me and then I finally settled onto this oftentimes neglected classic by William Henry Hudson.

Hudson was not only an author, but he was also a naturalist and wrote extensively about the flora and fauna of his homeland in Argentina.  So it is no wonder that the most striking aspects of this novel are the descriptions of the lush landscapes in which the main characters live.

The contrast between the “savages” and civilized man is an interesting topic that Hudson explores.   Abel is escaping from his civilized country in which his government is constantly being threatened by coups and rebels.  He takes refuge in the lush, tropical forests of south-western Venezuela which are inhabited by unorganized tribes of Indians.  Abel finds that life among the Indians is much simpler than life in the city; the focus of these people is gathering food, building shelters and protecting themselves from their enemies.  Abel describes the lavish rainforests in which he lives among these people as his “green mansions.”

Abel learns that even among these tribes superstitions, prejudices and hatred exist.  The Indians with which he settles put him through a series of tests to see if Abel can be trusted and accepted into their community.  Abel is eventually given his own hammock on which to sleep in one of their huts and he is invited to take his share from the communal eating pot.  But Abel is restless sitting in his hammock all day, so he explores in a local wooded area where he meets a mysterious woman named Rima.

When he first explores this forest, Abel hears what he thinks are warbling bird sounds.  The sounds seem to follow him no matter where he goes in the woods.  Eventually he stumbles across a woman who looks and acts like no other native he has encountered.  She is at peace with nature and lives among the animals in harmony; the animals and insects seem to obey and respect her and even a poisonous snake which bites Abel wraps itself around Rima as her protector.  Abel gradually falls in love with Rima and wants nothing more than to act like lovers do with embraces and kisses and sharing and conversation.  But Rima is elusive and even though she is around Abel she doesn’t let him see her or touch her very often.  It appears that she is also in love with Abel, but she doesn’t understand the concept of love and so she is afraid of her feelings and shrinks from Abel’s advances.

In the end Abel must find a way to teach Rima what love is and show her how to express it.  Abel must also protect Rima from the other natives of the forest who view Rima, because of her difference in appearance, as a threat to them.  And although the book ends on a tragic note, the descriptive passages of the fertile rainforest, the ideas about love and Abel’s enduring will to live all make this a great classic.

About The Author:
WH HudsonWilliam Henry Hudson was an author, naturalist and ornithologist. He was born in the Quilmes Partido in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, where he is considered to belong to the national literature as Guillermo Enrique Hudson, the Spanish version of his name. He spent his youth studying the local flora and fauna and observing both natural and human dramas on what was then a lawless frontier, publishing his ornithological work in Proceedings of the Royal Zoological Society, initially in an English mingled with Spanish idioms. He settled in England during 1869. He produced a series of ornithological studies, including Argentine Ornithology (1888-1899) and British Birds (1895), and later achieved fame with his books on the English countryside, including Hampshire Days (1903), Afoot in England (1909) and A Shepherd’s Life (1910). His best known novel is Green Mansions (1904), and his best known non-fiction is Far Away and Long Ago (1918). His other works include: The Purple Land (That England Lost) (1885), A Crystal Age (1887), The Naturalist in La Plata (1892), A Little Boy Lost (1905), Birds in Town and Village (1919), Dead Man’s Plack and an Old Thorn (1920), and A Traveller in Little Things (1921).

 

 

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September 29, 2015 · 2:45 pm

Review: Seven for a Secret by Mary Webb

I read what is probably Mary Webb’s most famous novel, Precious Bane, a few months back.  So when a friend and follow bibliophile offered me his extra copy of this novel I was thrilled at the prospect of reading another of Webb’s books.

My Review:
Seven for a SecretGillian is the only child of a very wealthy farmer, so whomever she marries will not only be lucky to have a pretty bride, but will also have the added benefit of inheriting a large fortune.  Gillian is nineteen when the novel opens and she is a starry-eyed romantic who wants to flirt with men so that they will fall in love with her.  Gillian, in many ways, still acts like a child and she is is selfish, narcissistic and silly towards others in her life.  The kind and simple shepherd named Robert who is employed by her father is oftentimes the target of her coquetry.  But Gillian keeps telling herself that she can never fall in love with Robert because she doesn’t want a simple farm hand for a husband;  she wants excitement, passion and a man who can ride a horse bareback.  Webb beautifully foreshadows the suffering that Gillian will have to endure before she can have her happily ever after.

Robert is the only son of Mrs. Makepeace who lost her husband when Robert was a very young boy.  Mrs. Makepeace has remarried a man named Jonathan who, despite being so clumsy, is a great husband and stepfather.  Mrs. Makepeace knows her son Robert well, so she senses it when Robert begins to fall in love with Gillian.  Robert is the main farm hand and does the lion’s share of the work for Gillian’s father; he has grown up with Gillian and as they both mature he sees her in a very different light and begins to develop deep romantic feelings for her.  It is sweet that since he cannot express his love to her directly, he composes penillion verses about her and his love for her.   He is a gifted poet but he never writes his poetry down or shares it with anyone, especially not Gillian.

When another sheep farmer comes to town and buys the local inn, Robert is very suspicions of this mysterious man from the beginning.  Ralph Elmer is not married, or so he says, and lives with his servants Fringal and Rwth.  Rwth is mute and Robert treats her very badly.  Both Robert and Gillian take pity on Rwth and treat Rwth with kindness and compassion;  Gillian’s kind treatment of Rwth, for me, was the beginning of her transformation into a mature and less selfish woman.

Unfortunately, Gillian is smitten with Ralph Elmer and despite the warnings from Robert, she continues to spend a lot of time with Ralph.  Ralph makes physical advances toward Gillian that show us he is not a gentlemen.  But Gillian is too silly and young to make the distinction between passion and physical lust and true love.  While she is allowing Mr. Elmer to court and kiss her and do other things to her, she is really thinking about Robert and wishing it was the shepherd-poet who was paying her so much attention.

In the end, Gillian does have to suffer in order to become a better human being; she becomes someone with whom we can sympathize and someone who is finally worthy of Robert’s love.  I am so glad I had the opportunity to read another of Webb’s novels and I would like to read even more of her works.

About The Author:
Mary WebbMary Webb (1881-1927) was an English romantic novelist of the early 20th century, whose novels were set chiefly in the Shropshire countryside and among Shropshire characters and people which she knew and loved well. Although she was acclaimed by John Buchan and by Rebecca West, who hailed her as a genius, and won the Prix Femina of La Vie Heureuse for Precious Bane (1924), she won little respect from the general public. It was only after her death that the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, earned her posthumous success through his approbation, referring to her as a neglected genius at a Literary Fund dinner in 1928. Her writing is notable for its descriptions of nature, and of the human heart. She had a deep sympathy for all her characters and was able to see good and truth in all of them. Among her most famous works are: The Golden Arrow (1916), Gone to Earth (1917), and Seven for a Secret (1922).

 

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September 14, 2015 · 1:20 pm

Review: To Bed with Grand Music by Marghanita Laski

I am so delighted that it is finally fall and the temperatures are getting cooler and the NFL season has begun here in the U.S.  I am a huge New York Giants fan and I am hoping for a stellar year.  Speaking of sports, this is another interesting Persephone title, the plot of which involves a woman using sex as a game while her husband is away at war.

My Review:
To BedI thought that the first scene in this book was quite shocking, but as it turns out the subject matter of the entire book is rather bold.  Deborah is in bed with her husband, Graham, who is about to leave for the middle east where he will be stationed during World War II.  Graham informs her that there is no way he can be expected to be faithful to her for the duration of the war.  Graham also gives Deborah permission to have a dalliance of her own since he will be away for so long.  I couldn’t decide what was more shocking: his declaration of intended unfaithfulness or his suggestion that his wife have an affair as well.

Deborah is the type of woman who needs a man to complete her identity.  When she is left alone with her three-year-old son and her housekeeper she thinks she will go crazy from the boredom and the monotony.  Deborah’s mother suggests that she get a job to help pass the time until the war is over.  Deborah eventually finds a job in London as a clerk and it is also in London that she has her first indiscretion with a man.  The first one night stand disgusts her and she runs off in shame, but she quickly changes her mind and her attitude towards having extramarital affairs.

Deborah eventually comes to the conclusion that it is acceptable to have lovers while her husband is gone so that she isn’t lonely.  The first prolonged affair that she has is with an officer named Joe who lavishes attention on Deborah and even gets along well with her son.  When Joe is sent to the frontlines Deborah takes on yet another lover.

The rest of the novel is an account of Deborah’s string of lovers.  Some of the book is very funny, especially when she finds ridiculous reasons to dump one man and move on to the next.  One of her lovers gets along very well with Deborah’s mother and Deborah is extremely irked by this.  So she casts him off and moves on to the next soldier.  Many of Deborah’s lovers provide her with lavish gifts, jewelry, expense differs and clothes.  Deborah is not a sympathetic characters since she is taking advantage of the situation of war to have a series of affairs which are all to her emotional and material benefit.

One part of the book that I found particularly sad is the fact that Deborah cannot bring herself to move back home and take care of her son.  The little boy craves his mother’s attention and the scenes in which she leaves him to go off to London with one of her many lovers is pathetic.  The boy becomes more and more attached to his nanny and we wonder whether or not his mother’s abandonment will have a lasting effect on his life.

This is a very interesting book to compare to Laski’s other World War II title, Little Boy Lost.  Both books bring up a very different side of the war that are somewhat controversial.  And children do not fair well in the lives of adults in either book.  If I found the subject matter of this book bold then I wonder what the reaction to it was in 1946 when it was originally published.

About The Author:
M LaskiEnglish journalist, radio panelist, and novelist: she also wrote literary biography, plays, and short stories.

Lanksi was to a prominent family of Jewish intellectuals: Neville Laski was her father, Moses Gaster her grandfather, and socialist thinker Harold Laski her uncle. She was educated at Lady Barn House School and St Paul’s Girls’ School in Hammersmith. After a stint in fashion, she read English at Oxford, then married publisher John Howard, and worked in journalism. She began writing once her son and daughter were born.

A well-known critic as well as a novelist, she wrote books on Jane Austen and George Eliot. Ecstasy (1962) explored intense experiences, and Everyday Ecstasy (1974) their social effects. Her distinctive voice was often heard on the radio on The Brains Trust and The Critics; and she submitted a large number of illustrative quotations to the Oxford English Dictionary.

An avowed atheist, she was also a keen supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Her play, The Offshore Island, is about nuclear warfare.

 

 

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