Journey to the River Sea

Journey to the River Sea must be about the last of Eva Ibbotson's books for older readers, and I've been saving it up. It's her most awarded novel, and in many ways it distils all that we love best about her work. Maia is the brave, kind heroine; orphaned Finn is the exotic young love interest; Miss Minton is the stern but loving guardian; the horrid, selfish Carters are unmitigated villains. We are transported to the Amazon in 1910, one of Ibbotson's favourite settings, and again we learn that what makes life worth living is nature, music, kindness, curiosity and books, a message that never gets tired.

I'm glad that of all Ibbotson's books, Journey to the River Sea is one that I decided to buy; it really is one of her best.
 

Daydreamers Anonymous

I was so desperate to read this novel that I broke my strict no-purchases-through-Amazon rule -- it was literally the only way I could access it. Samantha Rose Parker has published (I suspect self-published?) Daydreamers Anonymous, the story of Clara, who is thirty five and a compulsive daydreamer. Stuck in a boring office job, living in a basement room in an unsatisfactory share house, Clara's real life unspools inside her head. But she knows she can't go on like this, and she joins a support group, led by the charismatic Dr Hill, who claims to have cured himself. As the back cover blurb says, Clara 'meets her people, but she's not exactly sure she wants them to be her people: there's Jax, who lives a double life as a detective; Bob, who has an invisible family, and Janice, who's been married to Tom Cruise in her head for 30 years...'

Confession time: all through my teens I was a compulsive daydreamer, just like Clara. There's one character in Clara's support group who fantasises herself as 'Dr Who's assistant,' which is pretty close to the content of my own parallel life. It's not going too far to call this kind of daydreaming an addiction. Whenever I  had the chance, I'd slip into my inner narrative, assuming an alter ego who was smarter, prettier, braver and more lovable than me. I had one friend at school who also had an active fantasy life; she's the only person (apart from one therapist) with whom I've ever discussed what my friend and I dubbed 'etcetera.' Like Clara, I genuinely felt that my secret life was my true life and the most important thing about me; the outer me was just going through the motions. And like Clara, I realised that this was a dangerous path. When started uni, I tried to give up cold turkey -- it was the hardest thing I've ever done, and it took a long time to shake the addiction. I've relapsed from time to time, but I seem to have lost the urge, maybe even the ability, to lose myself in daydreams like I used to. And I'm honestly kind of sad about that. I could easily have ended up like Clara, and I'm glad I avoided that fate, but there's a loss and grief there too.

Daydreamers Anonymous obviously had a special resonance for me, but it's a funny, moving, poignant novel in its own right, with no easy answers for what is a genuine psychological problem. 

The Twelve

UK writer Liz Hyder's YA novel, The Twelve, was recommended by my book group friend, Cathy, who guessed correctly that it would be right up my alley. The blurbs all over the cover talk about Alan Garner and Susan Cooper, which is a signal to parents of my generation rather than a recommendation to young readers themselves these days, I would think. The Twelve certainly has strong echoes of both authors, but notably it's written in a much more modern style -- present tense, first person narration, without which apparently no contemporary young person will pick up a book (what a fuddy duddy I sound like...)

Kit is about fifteen, staying in a caravan over Christmas with her eleven year old sister Libby and her mother. The Christmas timing and the twelve mysterious Watchers harks back to Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising, and there are shades of early Alan Garner in Kit and her new friend Story's pursuit of the vanished Libby into the distant past and their battle against a dark enemy. There are lovely invocations of the teeming wildlife in the largely unpeopled historic times that Kit and Story visit: birds, insects, fish and mammals everywhere (I should add the novel is itself set in historic times, in 1999, though I have trouble thinking of a mere twenty five years ago as being historical fiction!)

I really enjoyed The Twelve, and I hope young readers thirsty for fantastical novels strong on landscape and character will relish it as much as I did.

Becoming Myself

I've long been a fan of American psychotherapist Irvin Yalom, especially his two wise books about coming to term with death, Creatures of a Day and Staring at the Sun. In Becoming Myself, Yalom recounts his life story, and it's just as insightful, compassionate and insightful as his writing about his therapy clients (I haven't yet read Yalom's long fiction, but Becoming Myself has piqued my curiosity).

In many ways, and he admits this himself, Yalom has had a blessed life. He married his soul mate, Marilyn, early, they have four healthy children, he has taught and written and seen clients for many decades, he has travelled all over the world and spoken to huge and adoring audiences, and espeically in latter years, he has enjoyed enormous acclaim and popularity. At the time of writing Becoming Myself, he was 86; he's now 94 and still with us.

Yalom is cheerfully candid about his own luck and his failings and regrets -- he allowed Marilyn to shoulder the bulk of child rearing, though she's had a demanding academic career of her own; he made mistakes in handling some patients; he wishes he'd had more empathy toward his difficult mother. He freely discusses taking marijuana, opium, LSD and ecstasy, which didn't shock but did surprise me. He is such an engaging writer and so open about his experiences, Becoming Myself was a thoroughly enjoyable read. Next I'm going to read A Matter of Death and Life, written a few years later by Irvin and Marilyn together, after Marilyn's diagnosis of terminal cancer. Yalom is frank about his fear of losing Marilyn, and I wonder how they handled it together.

The Names

I think I first heard about Florence Knapp's debut novel, The Names, on The Bookshelf on Radio National, and I was immediately hooked by the premise. In 1987, Cora is taking her newborn son to register his name, and on the way she tosses up between three alternatives -- Gordon, the name of her overbearing husband; Julian, her own preference; or Bear, the choice of her young daughter, Maia. The narrative then splits into three strands, each following the the consequences of a different naming decision.

I already have a weakness for names, and I love alternate timelines, so this was an instant must-read for me. I had to wait for months until my reservation came up at the library, and there are 144 people waiting behind me (they have to wait a little longer, as my daughter is currently reading it, and she doesn't normally read fiction, which again testifies to the appeal of this novel). The Names is a hugely readable and engaging story which nonetheless explores some big questions about fate and destiny, family violence, the power of small decisions, loyalty and money and power. The Names is a wonderful example of strong domestic fiction -- it deals relationships within one small family, but it spirals out to encompass a wider field thanks to the three parallel storylines. I did read one review by a person who apparently launched into the book without realising what was happening with the structure and was initially bewildered, but I honestly can't believe they could have been confused for long.

I whipped through The Names in a weekend and it would be a terrific recommendation for reluctant (adult!) readers.

EDIT: My daughter absolutely loved it and can't wait for the inevitable movie.
 

Secret Sparrow

There seems to be no end to the stories to be found in the history of WWI, even though it ended over a century ago. In Secret Sparrow, Jackie French has uncovered a largely forgotten cohort of women Morse code signallers who were recruited after many of the male Post Office employees had been killed early in the fighting. According to French, the service records of these women were destroyed after the war so that the government wouldn't have to pay them pensions, which sadly sounds  all too plausible! However, it seems their status was always ambiguous: they remained Post Office employees, despite wearing uniforms and having to obey Army orders.

Secret Sparrow is the story of Jean McLain, who recounts her wartime experience to young Arjun during a long night when they're stranded by a flash flood (this part of the story takes place in 1978). It's a cracking tale, full of action and peril -- Jean's transport ship is blown up, she is frequently under fire, eventually she's sent right to the front line and endures ten days of terror and excitement during a big forward push. There's even a bit of romance. There are a few moments of contrivance, but I'll forgive them in the service of the story (even 1978 seems a little early to be talking about Bletchley, but what would I know). I'm always up for a wartime tale and Secret Sparrow is a good one.

The Horror of Love

How could I resist a wonderful title like The Horror of Love, especially when it deals with my favourite Mitford sister, Nancy? Lisa Hilton's 2011 book deals with the long love affair between Nancy and her 'Colonel,' Gaston Palewski, better known to readers of The Pursuit of Love as Fabrice de Sauveterre, a portrait in which Palewski delighted.

Hilton takes the refreshing view that Nancy was not the humiliated, put-upon victim of Gaston's negligence; rather, she argues that theirs was a very adult, very French relationship, and that the fact that Palewski had many liaisons and ended up marrying someone else never altered their essential bond. She notes that Palewski invited Nancy to stay with him every summer while he was posted in Rome, they never lost contact, and I've always found it incredibly touching that he had a premonition to rush to her bedside and hold her hand just before she died.

I'm not sure that I entirely buy this very stiff-upper-lip attitude, but personally I do believe that Nancy made a conscious decision that a bit of the Colonel was better than none at all, and played her cards accordingly. Hilton is scrupulous in devoting equal time to her two protagonists, which means there is a LOT of French politics in this book; conversely, I didn't learn anything about Nancy that I didn't already know from previous biographies and letters, and surely no one is going to pick up The Horror of Love unless they are already a huge Mitford fan? Perhaps there are Palewski fans out there, but I seriously doubt it.
 

Vintage Murder

  

I thought it was about time I sampled one of the Queens of Crime whose books I've never read. Encouraged by the Secret Life of Books podcast, I started with Ngaio Marsh's Vintage Murder, which is actually her fifth book about Detective-Inspector Roderick Alleyn. Though Alleyn is based in London, in Vintage Murder, he is on holidays on New Zealand (given the book was published in 1937, that is quite a commitment for a holiday -- about six weeks' sea voyage each way!) Marsh was herself a New Zealander and this was the first time she'd ventured 'home' in fiction.

Ngaio Marsh seems to belong firmly to the puzzle school of murder mystery authors, with the solution turning on entrances and exits and who in the large cast of suspects had the opportunity to access the scene of the crime. The reader can compare each character's account of events on the crucial night and spot the discrepancies, just like a real detective. However, to me, this is the least interesting aspect of the story. I enjoyed Marsh's observations about New Zealand, its incredible scenery and the locals' colonial deference to the Scotland Yard expert. The Maori character of Dr Te Pokiha is mostly sensitively drawn, though there are a couple of moments of wince-inducing racism.

I think I will try another Marsh, mostly for the period detail, but I did enjoy Vintage Murder, even if the mystery itself was on the humdrum side. The murder, however, was truly spectacular, involving a jereboam of champagne smashing down on the victim's head.

The Unwanteds

  

Another disappointing book, I'm afraid. Again, I don't think my opinion will hurt Lisa McMann, because The Unwanteds is a New York Times bestselling series of seven volumes and is evidently extremely popular! I borrowed it because I liked the premise: in the land of Quill, creative children are designated 'Unwanted' and 'purged' at the age of thirteen. However, instead of being chucked into a lake of boiling oil as they anticipate, they find themselves transported into a magical, colourful land where they can refine and explore their creative skills in safety. But a showdown is coming...

The Unwanteds is aimed at readers of 8-14, but that doesn't excuse the broad brush plot strokes, the liberal use of adverbs at every opportunity, and the thin characters. The cover blurb describes the series as 'The Hunger Games meets Harry Potter,' which is a stunning elevator pitch, and was no doubt irresistible to publishing executives. But unfortunately, for me, The Unwanteds never progresses far beyond the formulaic.  

The Women

I should start by saying that a lot of people really love this novel. The Women by Kristin Hannah has over a million 5 star reviews on Goodreads, and it came in high on the Radio National book countdown -- particularly since it hasn't benefited from a film or TV adaptation. It deals with meaty, emotional subject matter -- the experience of American women, specifically nurses, during the Vietnam War, women who suffered physically and psychologically and yet had their experiences dismissed and were frequently told 'there were no women in Vietnam.'

Having pointed out all that, I have to admit this book was not for me. I found it melodramatic, often implausible, and not very well written. There was a lot of telling, not showing, in this novel. Frankie's close friendship with her fellow nurses, Barb and Ethel, seemed very one-sided -- several times, Barb and Ethel drop everything to fly across the country and support Frankie in her many crises, yet Frankie never seems to offer them any support in return. We are told how strong and important their friendship is, but we don't really see it. Frankie's mother has a stroke, from which she makes a full recovery -- this serves no purpose except to fill up a few years of plot time. Every man that Frankie meets falls in love with her. I can handle one character miraculously coming back from the dead, but two strains credulity.

I can see that the strong, eventful story would pull readers rapidly through this novel, and I thought the early sections, dealing with Frankie's war experiences, were vivid and punchy, but for me, after she returned home, the story trailed away. I wish Kristin Hannah all the best and clearly many, many readers adore her work -- and The Women is indeed a story that deserves to be told. This just isn't the version for me.
 

The Golden Road

I'm a big fan of William Dalrymple and Anita Anand's podcast, Empire, but I've never read any of William Dalrymple's history books before. The Golden Road explores the influence of ancient Indian culture on the world -- Buddhism and Hinduism spread both east and west, as far as China, and had a huge influence on the Arab world, while so-called 'Arabic' numerals and especially the concept of zero were actually Indian in origin.

Dalrymple writes in a clear and engaging style, and has an eye for the lively anecdote that keeps the narrative moving. But to my shame, my complete ignorance of world history outside Europe often left me feeling out of my depth, paddling helplessly in a sea of names and dates and places that were unfamiliar to me. I'm not sure I'll remember a lot of what I read in The Golden Road, but hopefully it might have laid down a foundation for learning in the future.

Scrublands

I've discovered that the library at my dad's aged care home contains almost a full shelf of Chris Hammer novels! So I started out with the first book, Scrublands, where it all began.

In some ways, Scrublands bears the hallmarks of a first novel -- there is almost too much going on, as if Hammer wanted to cram in every fiction idea he ever had. In the first hundred pages we have a mass shooting, a kidnapping in Gaza, a fatal car crash and a bushfire -- and that's just the start of the action. Martin Scarsdale, a journalist battling PTSD, is an attractive protagonist, though for someone who characterises himself as a detached observer, he doesn't hold back on getting involved in the dramas of the damaged little outback town of Riversend. Mandalay Blonde unfortunately has the name of a Bond girl, but she's also an attractive (maybe too attractive) love interest for Martin.

There is a lot going on in Scrublands and over nearly 500 pages, Hammer doesn't hold back. In contrast, The Seven had a more measured pace and arguably more depth to the story. Hammer seems to have calmed down a bit between book one and book ten (I think). I'm interested to check out the mini-series and see how closely it hews to the novel.

Yellow Notebook

It's hard to believe that six years have passed since the publication of Helen Garner's first volume of diaries, Yellow Notebook. It came out before Covid! In some ways that feels like another lifetime, but in some ways it seems like the blink of an eye.

It was an interesting experience to go back and reread Yellow Notebook, knowing what's coming in volumes 2 and 3. This book covers the years from 1978, just after Monkey Grip, to 1987, when she's poised on the brink of her third marriage to 'V.' When V first appears in the last sections of the diary, you feel like yelling, 'No, Helen! Don't do it!' In spite of her attraction to him, we can already see V's fatal rigidity, his self-centred intellectualism, his insistence on his own point of view, all of which are going to capsize their future relationship.

Some of my favourite parts of Yellow Notebook deal with Garner wrestling with what she calls 'the mighty force,' which is some sense of the numinous or spiritual, which she almost seems to experience as a wild beast stalking her, waiting to pounce. At this stage she seems determined not to surrender to it.

I'm so happy that these diaries have begun to draw attention from overseas readers; at long last, Garner is getting the acclaim that she's always deserved.
 

Untwisted

Coincidentally, not long before I spotted Paul Jenning's Untwisted: The Story of My Life on the Allen & Unwin shelves (wow, I really did score, didn't I), it was recommended by my friend Kirsty Murray. It's a fabulous read, a candid, funny and often moving account of Jennings' background and career.

Paul Jennings didn't start writing for children until he was forty years old. Before then, he had an extraordinary career as a teacher and education lecturer, often taking on students with physical or mental difficulties, and teaching youth offenders at what was then called Turana. With his quirky, hilarious short stories and particularly after the huge success of the ABC kids' show, Round the Twist, Jennings found himself rich and famous, and able to indulge himself by buying lots of vintage cars and fairytale cottages in the mountains. However, he is equally frank about his own struggles with mental health and the toll that his ups and downs took on his relationships.

Untwisted is compulsively readable. Jennings is a master craftsman of the art of the plot twist, foreshadowing and the clever set-up, and this makes the story of his own life a real page-turner. I must admit that his stories never had a lot of appeal for me, but my kids loved them, and Round the Twist is of course a classic. I now have a fresh respect and admiration for this national treasure of Australian children's literature. 

Crampton Hodnet

Finally published in 1980 after Barbara Pym's career revival, Crampton Hodnet was actually written in the 1930s and put aside because of the war. I think it was Pym's very first novel, and it contains all the classic Pym ingredients -- spinsters and widows, busy with good works, clergymen, foolish academics and young women who are way too good for them. It's set in North Oxford, which I'm acquainted with through Penelope Lively's The House in Norham Gardens, where much is made of the tall dark brooding house. The house where Miss Doggett and Jessie Morrow live is described as 'ugly,' and from the cover, it's definitely the same kind of house!

What I especially love about Barbara Pym is that, at the end of the day, nothing much actually happens. Even grand schemes of elopement fizzle out; people somehow find themselves embroiled in love affairs without actually feeling that keen; misunderstandings abound; proposals of marriage are made and dismissed almost in the same breath. If Quartet in Autumn was melancholic, Crampton Hodnet is bursting with low-key joy. It's very funny and I laughed out loud a couple of times, whereas Pym's novels usually provoke a wry smile.