50 Books Challenge 2022 Part Seven

Thanks Eine, Sadik and cassandre. I might like Wide Sargasso Sea.

I read Agnes Grey earlier in the year and liked it. Less dramatic, definitely more plausible.

OMG I think we might have the new Never Let Me Go or Station Eleven.

Fans self. Breathlessly prepares to swot up on Jean Rhys.

I own WSS but have never got far with it before giving up, might be one to rectify next year

I took the DDs to see a production of Tom's Midnight Garden and every adult in the theatre were in tears by the end. DD2 (who was very young at the time) was very loudly saying 'why are you crying Mummy?'. She's 13 now and regularly cries at emotional scenes in books and on TV.

Jane Eyre is my Mum's favourite novel but I haven't read it since my 20s so can't remember much that hasn't been tainted by TV productions so darn't have an opinion here!

Me! I hate it! I hate it even more than I hate Jane Eyre and that, to come over all 80s pop, is really saying something (bop bop shooby doo wa).

@IsFuzzyBeagMise if Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys is the prequel you're thinking of it's very much worth reading IMO (though I know others on here hate it).

I'm in the middle on Jane Eyre - I loved the Lowood sections, not so sold on Rochester. I much prefer Anne's Agnes Grey (& the rather more plausible happy ending)

Ha, Meg, studying a book at A-level is more than enough to put you off it for life, I’m sure. Ha!

IsFuzzy, the book you’re thinking of, which tells the tale of the first Mrs Rochester, is probably Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. I love that book too. Well, I don’t love everything about it, but it’s very interesting, and I would highly recommend it as an example of post-colonial literature that ‘writes back’ to the white British literary canon. I now feel like maybe I’m a bit of a freak and you have to have weird Christian fundamentalist parents in order to adore Jane Eyre! But I do think she’s an amazing character. And I find the final scene where Jane and Rochester are reunited to be breathtakingly sexy. (I’m kind of embarrassed about that, but what turns one reader on is obviously not the same as what turns another reader on, ahem)

Sadik, thanks for an interesting review of the Johann Hari book Stolen Focus. I’m sure he has some good points to make, but he has a history of significant plagiarism and that has blackened his reputation forever in my book (maybe it’s because I’m an academic that I’m super touchy about these things). Plus, I think he has a history of denigrating anti-depressant medications, and anti-depressants have probably saved my life on multiple occasions, so there’s that…

Speaking of plagiarism, this might be of interest to people who read Christopher de Hamel’s Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts, even though it’s very niche… Medieval Twitter is currently buzzing with a scandal dubbed ReceptioGate. Basically, the scholar Peter Kerr, who does the same kind of thing as Hamel but is less famous, discovered that some of his work had been plagiarised by a Swiss scholar called Carla Rossi. Her defence was basically, “Why do I need to cite your stupid blog?”. But Kerr’s blog isn’t just any old blog; he was curator of illuminated manuscripts at the British Library, for starters. Medievalist friends of Kerr on Twitter probed further and discovered that the publishing house and academic institution founded by Rossi (namely, Receptio) seemed to be at least partly or wholly FAKE. A lot of supposed academics on the board of the Receptio publishing house had made-up names and stock photos pilfered from different sites across the internet. The publishing house (entirely owned by Rossi?) had received substantial grants from the Swiss government in order to publish Rossi’s ¬¬–stolen—academic work. This has all unfolded over the past few days, and medievalists are riveted, I tell you. Riveted.

twitter.com/mssprovenance/status/1608178414262820865
Part of the drama lies in the fact that Peter Kerr, white-bearded and geeky, has been invariably classy and factual in his account of events, while Prof. Dr. Rossi and her (murkily identified) husband have completely lost it and have been accusing him of all sorts. Academia at its finest. (Or not.)

When I read the family biography a few months ago, it was clear that Jane Eyre was a sensation at the time, and people actively commended the moralistic side.

What amused me was that when the novel spread to Yorkshire people immediately identified both Lowood and its teachers, and it caused much talk, apparently in Charlotte's works there are also several vicars that are just pisstakes of her fathers curates, and they too were identified.

Hey cassandre! I was wondering earlier today if there were any fans of Jane Eyre and here you are :) * *I wonder if Jane is one of the earliest heroines in literature. I did admire her feisty attitude and the way she railed against the establishment. However, I don't think I would read the book again. Parts of it are hard going.

I liked the intrigue surrounding Mrs Rochester and wanted to know more about her. She was just dismissed as 'mad'. It occurred to me too that she could have been Jane's dark mirror image and how things might have gone badly if Jane had 'married' Rochester earlier on. I think there is a spin-off book that might put forward more about his earlier life (Mr. Rochester) but I'm not tempted to go there, I don't think.

I'm Team Jane Eyre Is Cack, I'm afraid. Still get flashbacks to having to do it for A Level English shudder

Nice to see @bettbburg and @CoteDAzur :)

I've got a few books on the go but will hold them over to the new thread as I'm likely to finish over the weekend. So my roundup of the year goes like this;

65 books read (22 fiction, 43 non fiction)

Top non fiction:
Faith, Hope and Carnage - Nick Cave and Sean O'Hagan
Fall -John Preston
Beastie Boys Book - Michael Diamond and Adam Horowitz
Nina Simone's Gum - Warren Ellis
Kitchen Confidential - Anthony Bourdain

Top fiction (much slimmer pickings)
Bomber - Len Deighton
The Terror - Dan Simmons

Stokey, I think you’ve put your finger on it. I can cope with unsympathetic/satirical characters as long as there’s some plot, but the relative absence of plot (at least in the 1st 100 or so pages) made the book too much hard work.

Bett and Cote, it’s lovely to see you.

Pass me the smelling salts, how dare people critique my beloved Jane? Seriously, I read and reread Jane Eyre as a child, and when I reread it as an adult, I still loved it. Jane speaks truth to power. I love the way she banters with Rochester and holds her own against him so well. I also admire her critique of religious oppression and hypocrisy, as embodied by various characters (Eliza Reed, Mr Brocklehurst and of course the smug, self-satisfied and utterly repellent St John). (I grew up in a repressive religious household so as a child I think I must have identified quite a lot with Jane. I would be physically punished for having a Bad Attitude, for example. And yes, my attitude was bad. Extremely bad.) I know there are problems with the book, namely Mr Rochester as a domineering, brooding Mills and Boon type hero. And the (Creole!) madwoman in the attic. But Bertha in the attic seems to me in some ways to be a dark double of Jane: another woman who doesn’t fit into the role a patriarchal society prescribed for her. In short, I will never not be a fan.

I'm not likely to finish any more books this year, so here's my end of year round-up!

Books read: 51
Women 61%, men 39%
Fiction 57%, non-fiction 43%

Top 5 fiction:
The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
History of the Rain by Niall Williams
The Last Migration by Charlotte McConaghy
The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver

Top 5 non-fiction:
The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson
The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters by Charlotte Mosley
Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe
Into the Silence: the Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest by Wade Davies
The Devil You Know by Gwen Adshead and Eileen Horne

I also just finished The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley, & your review is spot on for me @Zireael - my favourite of the three of hers I've read so far

Also Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. This was my one book Christmas present, from my dad, and while you definitely need to go heavy with the suspension of disbelief it suited my tastes nicely as a light holiday read.

The Rising Tide - Ann Cleeves

Latest in the Vera Stanhope series. There’s something very restful about them even if they are about Murder. Perfect for reading while stuffed with chocolate and with g&t in hand.

Now for Mr Rickman.

I took my children to see the stage adaptation of A Monster Calls. Completely harrowing; we were all weeping uncontrollably by the end. DS had studied it at school and was completely bemused by my buying tickets but hadn't thought to challenge me.

It's a brilliant book of course, Siobhan O'Dowd and then completed by Ness. Ness is an excellent writer but there are several I haven't yet read. He was last I heard the screenwriter chosen for a Master And Commander series

Oh, goodness, yes. Even sadder given its author.

It’s funny how it’s different things which make you cry as you get older! For me these days it’s parent-daughter stuff, and sister relationships too - I only have a brother (who is lovely) but seeing the relationship between my girls makes me all weepy when I read or see sad situations involving sisters (Frozen 2!! 😭😭)

The saddest book I've read in my life is a childrens book. A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness. I didn't just shed a few, I broke down.

I went to see Up with DS2 who must have only been about 7. Bless him, he patted me on the knee.

He cries at books too mind, especially Animal Farm. We subject children to terribly sad books!

@DuPainDuVinDuFromage I remember weeping while reading the end of Charlotte's Web to my DD. She looked at me baffled "why are you crying mummy?"

22 The Paris Apartment - Lucy Foley

Fleeing a drama at home, Jess arrives in Paris to stay with her brother Ben, who has abruptly stopped answering her calls, messages and his front door. Upon gaining entrance to the shabby-chic apartment block Jess meets the other peculiar residents of the building, each with dirty secrets and a reluctance to help track down her missing brother. Naturally, everyone is in on it.

The characters develop nicely and their motivations are gradually revealed as the plot races along, in part helped by the really short POV chapters.

This was enjoyable enough, fun escapist fluff, and generally better developed than The Hunting Party

109. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I really liked this, but think I would have liked it more if it had been a bit shorter. I found the musings on race interesting and enlightening and found the blog posts an interesting way to do this. The star crossed lovers aspect definitely felt secondary, but I didn't mind this, as I preferred the sections when Ifemelu was in the US. I can't say I exactly like Ifemelu, but I think she is one of the most rounded and alive characters I have come across in a long time. Will definitely read more by the author.

72 The Railway Children - E Nesbit (read to the DCs) Such a lovely book! I really enjoyed introducing my girls to it. As expected, I cried at the end - I had to get DD1 to read the last two pages, as I wept while they laughed at me 😂

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Great to see you, as always! Hope you had a lovely Christmas and are all geared up for fighting over books and lists for another year.