The Light Years and Marking Time: volumes 1 and 2 of the Cazalet Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard

I’ve read these before – but from the library. And in the spirit of re-reading several series of books (another Covid iso-project) I’ve managed to purchase five of the seven and am waiting on the last two to come over the seas from wherever it is they come from. How I am enjoying these books! They’re not all that old - 1990s I think - but they are set just before and during WWII as the extended Cazalet family retreats to their parents’ English country estate. I find the stories compelling: gossipy, soap operatic, domestically detailed and set in a period that I find fascinating. I love the way subjects that would have been taboo then – abortion, homosexuality, attitudes to sex, affairs, feminism, the class system, incest, pacifism – are all part of the scope of these books. It’s almost forensic! In the first one, it’s before the war and we’re getting to know the characters and their murky secrets; by the second one we’re in the early years of the war with all its privations and losses. The characters have developed and we have firmly established favourites. There’s nothing more to say about the plot than and then this happened, and then that … it’s all about the people. I wonder whether these books are ‘guilty secret’ reading because they’re not great literature – but they certainly allow you to escape from the mundane reality of Covid19!

The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel

I read Hilary Mantel saying somewhere that Thomas Cromwell needed somebody to do some serious academic research about him. Well, I reckon she’s done it. This last in the trilogy, something like 900 pages of it, is the grand finale of the set. I think there was actually less stuff happening during this last period of his life, and a lot of it was murky politicking about international alliances. And then of course there was the continuing thorn in Henry’s side of Reginald Pole, the English Cardinal who broke with Henry and fled to Rome where he sucked up to the pope and eventually was rewarded under Mary’s reign as the last Catholic archbishop of Canterbury. Thomas’s inability to take decisive action against this man played a huge part in his downfall. And that combined with what Mantel casts as the resentment of the privileged against someone they perceived to be a complete upstart, was enough. The bulk of this beautifully written book is the fictional part of historical fiction: the thoughts, musings, fears, machinations, plotting, hopes and dreams that made up the imagined internal life of Thomas Cromwell. I have to admit at times, lovely as the writing is, my attention waned a little. There was not quite enough happening to sustain me through 900 pages – but it was not to be missed, under any circumstances!

Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

I’ve got the third of this series sitting waiting to be read but decided that I’d need to refresh my memory by going back to the first two books in the trilogy. And what a gift that’s been. I absolutely relished rereading first Wolf Hall and then Bring Up the Bodies, back to back. I’m often a bit icky about historical fiction, especially when the writers get waylaid by soft porn romantic encounters that never happened. There’s none of that with Ms Mantel thank god. Her research is thorough and fantastic and she takes the time to explain information she might have left out because it had no bearing on the story. So as I read it, I know the thoughts and conversations she attributes to her characters are fiction, but I also feel confident about a lot of the facts. She says at one point in her notes that Thomas Cromwell really deserves great historical investigation. I am betting that largely because of the attention her books about him have gained, that this is probably already underway! He was a fascinating character, son of a boozy blacksmith – well, the boozy bit may be fiction, but will we ever know? Ah the joy of historical fiction begins to emerge! There is no doubt though that he trained with Cardinal Wolsey, and rose to serve Henry VIII. He facilitated Henry’s marriage to Anne Boleyn, supported the break from the Roman church and oversaw the dissolution of the monasteries. And then he oversaw the fall of Anne Boleyn and the rise of Jane Seymour. And there are indeed records of his friends and supporters, and indeed his enemies, all of which make an appearance here. The joy of this book is the way Mantel interweaves the facts with the imagined relationships and responses of other people, all imagined but the product of rigorous research. In one throwaway line a character mentions that her womb might have gone wandering – a one liner, but absolutely accurate. In those times, it was widely believed that a woman’s uterus would indeed wander off around various parts of her body! Mantel’s writing is so engaging, so fluid, and indeed erudite. I am sorely tempted to order in all her other novels just for the joy of her magnificent story telling and compelling characterization. It’s no wonder she’s a prize winner.

Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay and The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante

These are the last two of the four book series and continue with the themes of love and friendship, but with a much greater focus on the political and the intellectual than the previous two. Having lived in Italy and become somewhat immersed in Italian life, this all rings true. I have observed these obsessions and the picture Ferrante paints of the intellectual snobbery, the passion of political affiliations, and the pervasive and underlying misogyny and sexism that women of that generation experienced – and which lives on in many instances - is something I can put names and faces to. So these two books are not so much about story as about the background to the story in gritty Naples and snooty Milan and intellectual Florence, as Lenu moves between them. The gangsters rise and fall, women come and go, children are born and disappear, relationships form and flounder, life goes on. The very banality of life, if you can call a society full of murder and suicide and wife beating banal, is the narrative here and the intermittent and push-pull nature of Lenu and Lina’s relationship is probably a reflection of some sort of similar banal reality. And I think that’s probably the point. However I didn’t enjoy these two books as much as the earlier ones. As this saga progresses it’s hard to find a character with whom you sympathise; I have to say I got sick of Lenu in these later books. I just wanted to slap her and say get over yourself, get on with it, stop the self pity. So I’m glad I finished the series but I’ve had enough of it.

The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante

The second novel in the series describing the relationship between Lila and Elena is even more intense than the first. It’s a painful book to read but utterly engaging. It charts Lila’s marriage to Stefano, which collapses inevitably into violence as the limited character of the husband finds himself completely out of his depth with no capacity whatsoever to understand the brilliance of his wife. He resorts, of course, to violence and brutalityThere is the sense throughout that this is the inescapable pattern of life in Naples at that time. And only Lenu seems capable of escaping it, the pathway out through education. The story investigates love, almost as something that can never be properly realized, as a figment of the romantic imagination. Every one of the ‘loving’ relationships in the book is marred by one thing or another. I am particularly loving the discussion of the role of language in Italian society. It’s a market of class and education, and the movement between dialect and Italian beautifully describes Lenu’s passage out, her lack of confidence in who she is and where she fits. Really, you could spend a whole semester studying the ideas that this book raises and still barely have scratched the surface. I’m already champing at the bit to get onto book three.

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

A number of people have told me they couldn’t get past the first chapter or so of this book. I don’t know whether it was the content or the language that made it so difficult for them, but for me this book is absolutely mesmerising. I decided to re-read the whole series and am finding it twice as enjoyable second time around, when I’m not so anxious about where the story is heading and can concentrate on the detail. It’s the story of the intellectually incandescent Lila, and her friend and narrator of the story, Lenu. It traces their friendship from the age of six to sixteen, through the slums of post WWII Naples. On this read, it’s the life of the city that I’m focusing on, the attitudes towards women, the posturing and brutality of the males that is accepted as normal, the disregard of education, the limitation of expectations. Having lived in Italy and spent some time in Naples, a lot of the subtext is very familiar. So I’m living with these characters as they moved backwards and forwards between the intimacy of best friends forever and the competition, coolness and sometimes even open hostility that occurs in all children’s friendships. Throughout Lenu the observer struggles to understand this brilliant but damaged friend who both inspires and frightens her.

Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie

Talk about powerful. Peter Carey writes about this book that it left him awestruck, shaken, on the edge of his chair, filled with admiration for the writer’s courage and ambition. And this is an incredibly brave novel. It deals with a family of three young people, British-Pakistani Muslim twins and an older sister, whose father was a jihadist and whose mother has died. When the younger twins turn nineteen, the eldest sister leaves for America to complete here PhD. She befriends Eamon the son of the British Home Secretary. When Eamon returns home he meets the younger sister Aneeka and the story becomes more and more complicated from thereon in. What this writer does is get inside the head of these British Muslims, looks at the motivations behind people becoming jihadists, at the response from moderate Muslims, and at the terrible consequences the decisions people make around these issues have on relationships. The book was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize a couple of years ago. It’s obvious this writer has keenly observed British society and the tensions between Muslims and other groups in society. And the ending for me was totally unexpected.

Trace Elements by Donna Leon

I’ve never before read a Donna Leon book but some people I know are addicted to them. So this one was lying around the house and I thought, well why not see what all the fuss is about. This story is about Commissario Brunetti and his female offsider Griffoni investigating a case of corruption. It’s obvious from the moment you find out where the dead guy worked what it’s going to be about, just as it is obvious from the moment you meet him who the villain is going to be. It’s not particularly well written so you just scream through it skimming the whole time. People tell me they read this series because it’s set in Venice, and the writer certainly makes the setting and her references to the stereotypes of Italian men and women a big part of the story telling. I suspect she knows that’s why people are reading her books. So there are heaps of references to landmarks, local eateries and particular little streets around Venice, constant carping about the number of tourists, with particular reference to Chinese tourists, and Italians portrayed in the most traditional gender roles. Brunetti’s wife does the cooking and cleaning and dotes on him like a besotted wife in a soap opera. I don’t know whether this is a deliberate dig on the part of the writer but actually I just found it irritating. Ditto the references to Griffoni’s Neopolitan background, the mafia and the corruption at all levels of society. I was just bored by the whole thing but at least I’ve read one now.

Bad Blood by Lorna Sage

Lorna Sage, Professor of English at the university of East Anglia, was just a few years older than me but this is a young woman’s story, the story of her childhood through to her graduation from university. I was telling someone the other day that this book is about the telling of the story rather than the story itself. Her writing is exquisite, not in a poetic languagey way but more in its depth of thought, its word choice, its nuances. The period she’s describing falls into three sectors: the first as a child living with her damaged, flawed grandparents, the second when her father returns from the war and the family is reconstituted in a council house and the third the period of her adolescence and education. She’s an early feminist, an intelligent misfit both in the working class environment and within the family in which she finds herself, like a cuckoo in the wrong nest. A lot of her observations ring so true for women of my generation, who grew up in the fifties against a background of war memories, austerity and a need to shelter within rigorous moral boundaries as a means of survival. It’s an inspiring and moving story of this brilliant young woman’s determination to create a different future for herself. This book won the Whitbread Prize for Biography. It’s utterly wonderful.

I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron

This collection of essays is delightful. Ephron moves from musings about the aging neck – and yes, all of us aging people have it and I reckon most of us hate it – to the troubles of raising teenagers to her divorces and her sadness about the death of her friend and the inevitability of it all. It’s peppered with small witticisms, especially in an essay called Things I Wish I’d Known that’s full of wisdom such as ‘You never know’ and ‘If the shoe doesn’t fit at the shoe store, it’s never going to fit.’ My favourite though is ‘Never let them know’, pertinent for someone who can never keep her mouth shut. There’s a lovely essay about her disillusionment with Bill Clinton and some fascinating insights into her life in New York City. Dip into this book and enjoy it.

The End is Always Near by Dan Carlin

This is going to be a long review because there is so much in this book. And interestingly, I am reading it in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic – not cheering reading at all at the moment, when others are immersed in romances and thrillers! This fascinating book is doing a great job of reminding us that we need to learn from history and that human behaviour doesn’t change all that much. Chapter 1 is about toughness and whether tough times make us tougher people and whether there is actually any value in that. At one point he says it would be obscene to assign a toughness value to a plague event that wiped out half the population. So much for the what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger adage or my favourite, ‘well this is character building.’ I didn’t find this chapter all that interesting, though I’d have enjoyed using it as the basis for discussion with someone else. Chapter 2 is about the treatment of children and more specifically the historical suffering of children and whether this in fact damaged them. He asks that if this was the norm in a particular culture, then would children be traumatised by it? I can see that physical harm would be done, particularly in the cases of physical punishment and sexual use, but he is talking about emotional harm. We’re whole populations emotionally harmed? Did it make them into nations of psychopaths? Chapter 3 is about the fall of the Bronze Age, which I didn’t even know happened. I am so ignorant it hurts. He looks at all the theories: climate change, internecine war, invasion/refugees, volcanic activity, disease etc - and gives a good summary of both sides. Not being a historian, he draws no conclusions. What interested me was that similar threats face us today but he points out that because of our ‘advances’ we would suffer less from them. At the moment a lot of this seems relevant to me. So in the next chapter he talks about the fall of Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire. What brutal people the Assyrians were. He says they had a grudging respect for the civilization of the Babylonians, so tended to leave them alone, until they didn’t. And then Bablyon was no more. It happens, he says, and it can happen again. Next we have the fall of Rome. The ‘barbarians’ fought the Romans, over some centuries, but eventually the Romans weakened and the barbarians slipped in as refugees. Badly treated, they rose and overcame their hosts. Over time of course. The interesting bit is the way Rome parcelled out its holdings to various groups who formed the foundation of the cultures that remained when the empire fell - the Visigoths in Spain and the Franks in France for example. He talks about Clovis pulling things together as the first ruler of Europe really, and then the later Carolingian dynasty aka Charlemagne, who was crowned by the pope, possibly unexpectedly, but any way crowned as what later became the holy roman emperor, though not holy, not Roman and with no empire. But it established the grounds for the debate about whether the church was above the emperor since it was the pope that crowned him - a power struggle that continued over centuries. We follow up with a chapter about pandemics. How apt. Mostly he focuses on the Black Death, which I already knew quite a bit about. About how its transmission was accelerated because of great global contact and a lot of other stuff that is truly pertinent to what we’re going through now. Where’s that pop-eyed emoji we use on WhatsApp? But in the light of the virus we have now, the realization that the Black Death wiped out HALF the world’s population, including in China, and that it took three hundred years for Europe to properly recover, is chastening. But looking at how slow governments are to respond, and the way they temper their response with political expediencies, makes you realize they haven’t been reading their history. The next chapter is about nuclear weapons. It contains fascinating detail about the arms race, stuff I’d been vaguely aware of but had never really paid much attention to. Now that’s appalling really because it goes to show just how careless about the past people of my generation have become. This was world ending stuff. He points out that after a major war (WWII) the victors left standing become the only world super powers and then become enemies as they vie to become top dog: Russia and the US. He outlines the horrifying race to develop more powerful weapons and the even more horrifying pressure from the Americans to use them sooner rather than later to wipe out the Russians before they had a chance to develop them for themselves. That attitude continued right through with only the US president standing the way of often unanimous US military support for employment of the weapons. It discusses the Bay of Pigs and the subsequent Cuban Missile Crisis, which really shows what magnificent strength of character and judgment JFK had. I was a child during all of this and have no recollection of any anxiety on my parents’ part at all. Finally he concludes with a chapter called The Rod to Hell. This is such an interesting chapter because it deals with the escalation of war techniques which people believed were necessary to reduce the length and severity of wars and thus save lives. But of course, the lines of limited warfare became stretched and soon we found ourselves justifying killing a hundred thousand people in order to shorten a war and thus save many hundreds of thousands more. This book raises fascinating and often unanswerable ethical questions. They are dark and reading it in these dark times is perhaps not the best advice, but it is nonetheless a pretty stimulating read.

Milkman by Anna Burns

The New York Times describes this book as ‘slogging’ through the Troubles. Despite is Man Booker status, I too slogged my way through half the book before, exhausted, abandoning it. It’s written in stream of consciousness style, almost, and is the story of a young woman who is being stalked by not one but two IRA soldiers who want to possess her. So much for the plot. The rest of it is page after page of garrulous introspection about the society in which she lives. And I don’t doubt the difficulty of that : the expectations, the gossip, the subtext surrounding everything people say and think and do. Everybody has their own version of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, even if only from living in such a fraught environment.. But I just didn’t have the stamina for all this introspection. I would gird my loins, pick it up, read three pages, forget what had happened the page before, and then give up and make a cup of tea. I’m probably a philistine but half way through I just had to quit.

The Odd Woman and the City by Vivan Gornick

I heard this writer at a writers festival quite some years ago, bought the book on Kindle and never got around to reading it. But it is perfect for travelling! And it is intelligent and witty and entertaining – a wonderful thing!! The book is a memoir, a collection of observations about her life in New York City. Helen Garner has done some similar types of books. So there are little pieces about people she’s observed, or interactions with her best friend or commentary about life on the streets. It’s the sort of book you can pick up and put down and because there is no narrative per se, it’s ideal for broken nights of sleep or interrupted train travel. Having said that though, it’s also something you could easily read in several sittings, absorbing it in great greedy gulps. Her writing is superb, incisive and accurate. And honest, oh so honest about her recognition of her own flawed humanity. Fabulous.

A Single Thread by Tracy Chevalier

If I’m going to read light historical fiction while I’m travelling, I always go to Tracy Chevalier. This one didn’t disappoint. It’s about a young woman in the years post WWI in England who is trying to become independent against the backdrop of Victorian and Edwardian era sentiments. She takes up embroidering and makes new friends etc etc etc. She becomes especially friendly with some bellringers. And that’s all really. But I quite like the research Chevalier does and her investigation of these two quite obscure activities is interesting, especially since one of the characters actually existed. But as I said, a light read and, as always with Chevalier books, imbued with quite a bit of sentimental nonsense.

Akin by Emma O’Donoghue

This is the same writer who produced Room, which was a riveting book. On the strength of that I bought this one, only to be marginally disappointed. Room was such a powerful exploration of a dreadful situation, but this was less powerful, more sentimental and of course totally predictable. Chick lit really, OK for travelling when you really don’t want to concentrate and the guy might be coming round with drinks at any moment. So this light and entertaining read is about a crusty old bloke who suddenly finds himself lumbered with a disturbed child. They take off for France and spend their time there investigating the old bloke’s family history, uncovering secrets and changing their attitudes to one another as things warm up. That’s really all to be said about it. Pleasant but not important.