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.