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.