The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike

This is a very weird book. I had seen the film years ago and of course could not get Jack Nicholson out of my mind, and I recalled he was clearly cast as the devil himself but I really didn’t pick this up strongly from the book. There were hints at it but I didn’t come away with a strong sense of it. Yes he was devilish in his behaviour, but again he could be almost any man if you want to look at this as a feminist novel. What I did come away with was a strong sense of witchcraft itself. Updike sees it totally tied up with being female, a sensual sexual powerful thing that comes with age and freedom and menstruation, almost a mantle of female power. And then when you get a couple of witches together you end up with a cone of power, a spirally energy that transports them in a way. I’ve had friends that he would have cast as witches, indeed any woman who comes into her own with maturity and strength could end up casting spells. His writing in this book is absolutely Updike, leaping off into convoluted asides and observations that take great concentration. The reader must be engaged in this book, pay attention, because if not stuff slips through and you find yourself asking, what?? So, the story… about three women living in Rhode Island, in the small inward looking town of Eastwick. Their powers have become strong with divorce and they are promiscuous, dangerous women, “bad” mothers, all trying to find their place in the world. Their work and their thinking is stuck in Eastwick. Along comes Darryl , an exotic and mysterious man from New York, who leads them into a life of personal challenges, wild orgies, everything life in small town America is not. I really don’t know what Updike is getting at with this book. Is he commenting on small town America? Is he paying tribute to the mysterious power of women? I understand the story but there’s a lot more to this book and I think it will take some thinking about.

The Silent Wife by ASA Harrison

Ha ha ha ha ha! This is an utterly evil book about a woman whose husband cheats on her. It is black and wicked and compelling and at times chortle out aloud funny. Awful people, awful situations and a great conclusion. Five minutes on the beach should do it for this one. Or when you’re wiped out in bed for a day.

The Harry Potter series by JK Rowling

What a guilty pleasure to sit down and read through the entire series of seven books, one after the other. I do think Rowling has a very dark side to her but I’m thinking that’s part of the attraction. Speaking critically though, there’s not much to say about these books except that they are about story, not about wonderful writing, that they are repetitive in plot structure AND that one Hermione does not resolve the gender equality problem. Indeed Hermione is a stereotyped bossy boots know it all. The sexism, the stereotyping of family, and the patriarchal values all bother me. So while the stories were fun, I did find myself skipping large tracts of them, and I don’t think these books add anything to kidlit other than cheap thrills.

The Box Garden by Carol Shields

What a fine writer Carol Shields is. And this is a delicate book, sparingly written but with such poetry of language that you often stop and reread phrases. Usually I find that books that are beautifully written don’t have a similar strength in the plot but this one has a finely wrought plot, where the threads of the story work in with one another to a lovely resolution. Charleen is a painfully divorced mother, who doesn’t seem to be able to resolve any of the major relationships in her life – with her ex husband, with her mother, with her new boyfriend and with her career. She is marking time, waiting for something to go bang in her life. The catalyst is a trip she takes to attend her mother’s wedding on the other side of Canada. Outlined like this, it sounds a bit bald but the story is told with such delicacy that understanding comes upon you slowly, like gradual realizations as you get to know the characters. There is sympathy and warmth and humanity in this book. The characters are utterly believable and the whole thing an absolutely compelling read.

Sunday Best by Bernice Rubens

My friend Kathy recommended this writer and what a wonderful writer she is. Kathy said her humour was wonderful but in this book it’s not the humour that is the key to enjoyment. It’s the story of George Verrey-Smith, schoolmaster and cross dresser, who needs to resolve his personal issues. The death of a neighbour initiates a whole string of events that see him facing up to his sexuality and to his past. The writing is outstanding. George tells his own story with black humour, wit and a nastiness of character that can leave you gasping. I really liked the resolution which rang absolutely true – no fairytale quaint endings here but something as satisfying and utterly believable, important when the situation the writer is exploring is so unusual. This makes it all sound very serious, and while the themes are indeed serious, the storytelling is done with a light hand. It is utterly readable.

My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell

I’ve read and re-read this book many times since first coming across it as a child. But it’s been a long time since the last read possibly thirty years, so it was time to have another look at an old friend. The story of this madcap family moving to Corfu and their exploits over the five years they were there still made me laugh. What an eccentric lot they were. The animals Gerry acquires and the people they befriend retain their original charm even all these years later. But the Corfu they lived on no longer exists and that made me a little sad. You read Gerry’s descriptions and know that the places he is describing are covered by acres of concrete holiday developments and resorts. The people are no longer open and welcoming and friendly but used to mass tourism and have developed a keen commercial eye. I was interested in my response to the way the book was written after all this time. I realized that it really was just a collection of episodes strung together on a timeline. The characters are amusing stereotypes. And the writing is florid. The young Gerald Durrell had a passionate love affair with adjectives. Still, this is a wonderful book as much because of the authenticity of its feeling and experience as anything. It is laugh aloud material and was a great way to begin my holiday reading.

Mapp & Lucia by EF Benson

Inspired by an upcoming trip to Rye, the setting for Tilling, I launched into Mapp & Lucia with gusto. And it is wonderful. In this book Lucia and Miss Mapp come head to head. Pepino has died and Lucia decides to leave Riseholme and move to Tilling, trailed by the devoted Georgie. There begins the battle for social supremacy in the village, all told with the waspish wit and clever writing that marks EF Benson’s work. I find myself chuckling a lot, sometimes even bursting into loud laughter, when reading these Lucia books. The smallness of village life, the pettiness of the characters, their anxieties and fears and their snobbery all tell, but they are above all endearing. You smile indulgently and forgive them every time. And of course, their behaviour is instantly recognizable in people you know today. Apparently Benson did not regard the Lucia and Mapp series as important works, but wrote many more serious biographies and the like, as well as some ghost stories that have a good reputation. But it is this series that is the most widely read and has given him his place in literary history.

Lucia’s Progress by EF Benson

In this fifth book of the Mapp and Lucia series, Lucia and Mapp continue to battle it out for queen of the village. It is perhaps the weakest of the books I’ve read so far in terms of plot, but of course the language and humour is still Benson’s strong suit. Finding herself turning fifty and wanting to put her stamp on the world by doing useful things, Lucia takes on a series of projects: running for council, speculating on the stock exchange and undertaking archaeological excavations in her garden. Of course Miss Mapp, who has developed as a less generous spirited soul than Lucia and rather less likeable, tries to compete and failing that, to spoil all of Lucia’s projects. As always it’s laugh aloud stuff, when you’re not cringing from embarrassment at the situations these two competitive women put themselves in! How Benson must have enjoyed himself writing them!

Cairo by Chris Womersley

Didn’t like this one all that much. It’s the story of a young man’s misspent youth amongst the bohemian arty set in Melbourne thirty or so years ago. They are planning an art heist and he gets involved. The voice of this novel really irritated me, like a young person writing down every single thought they had without discriminating between something worth recording and the most uninteresting and worthless trivia. Because he’s writing it and it’s about him, everything he thinks and sees and does has value …….well no, Chris, sorry.