50 Book Challenge 2021 Part Four

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the fourth thread of the 50 Book Challenge for this year.

The challenge is to read fifty books (or more!) in 2021, though reading fifty isn't mandatory. Any type of book can count, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read. Could everyone embolden their titles and/or authors as well, please, as it makes the books talked about easier to track?

The first thread of the year is here, the second one here and the third one here.

Pepe - I remember the utter sadness I felt when watching the film And the Band Played On many years ago. So many opportunities were missed. Such bad luck we have had as a species, including that one super spreader who single-handedly caused the AIDS epidemic without knowing it.

Remus - "5 books that will cause a fight and therefore everyone needs to develop an opinion on:
HHhH - Laurent Binet
The City and the City - China Miéville
Never Let Me Go
Station Eleven
And the Mountains Echoed"

Change the last one to 1000 Splendid Suns and I'm with you 100%

including that one super spreader who single-handedly caused the AIDS epidemic without knowing it

Do you mean the so-called 'Patient Zero' That's a long discredited myth, not to mention a very American viewpoint. HIV was in Africa decades before he was even born and in America about a decade before he started working there.

Patient Zero in the film was the person the CDC were able to study to gain evidence that HIV could be spread by sex. He wasn't the reason the epidemic spread.

HIV existed before but given how difficult it is to spread, it had not reached the numbers necessary to sustain epidemic proportions.

My understanding was that the "patient zero" in the film, a very promiscuous air steward who spread HIV in many different cities, was largely responsible for upgrading this low-grade infection with small numbers that nobody had even heard of to an undeniable epidemic.

16. Motherwell - Deborah Orr

Had a bit of a reading slump due to IRL stuff going on so found it a bit slow to get through this, but I did think it a good read. I know others have reviewed it here and picked up on her obsession with narcissism and pointing it out in her family and herself. However I was able to overlook that to an interesting story, written from the heart, of an imperfect family that were stifled by the social expectations of their times.

Cote - I'm not an expert, though I've probably read and watched more about HIV than average (not a high bar). But I don't think that's true. I think the Wiki paragraph 'Re-evalution' about Gaetan Dugas takes a fair approach based on genetic analysis of the virus and other theories.

But I'll get on with reading now!

32: Daphne du Maurier - Margaret Forster

I seem to have been reading this for ages, but in my defence, it's quite long...! It's a well-researched and well-told, but ultimately poignant life of a woman who had great success as a writer, but was less fulfilled in her personal relationships. Her marriage wasn't a lasting success and her relationship with her children was difficult, at least when they were young (the girls, that is: she idolised her son, who could do no wrong).
It's very sad to read of the long decline of her latter years, when the difficult, intolerant aspects of her character came increasingly to the fore and left her isolated and alone while unable to do the one thing she'd always found comfort in - writing. She didn't consider Rebecca to have been her best book, although it was her best seller and of course it's still going strong to this day.

1. The Shipping News - Annie Proulx

Thanks to whoever it was who read this recently and reminded me that I'd been meaning to read it for ages!! A part of the world and a way of life that I knew next to nothing about, some endearing characters and a wry sense of humour = many happy reading hours. I've heard the film was a bit of a flop. How could Kevin Spacey play the role of Quoyle??

@bibliomania I stayed at Shakespeare & Co for a couple of nights too, back in the day! It seemed extraordinary at the time, and seems even more extraordinary today.

The main thing I remember about George Whitman is him calling everyone 'dunderheads'!!

Critical - Matt Morgan

Dr Matt Morgan has become a familiar face, at least in Wales, during the Pandemic as he Is an intensive care consultant at University Hospital Wales and has been on the news often.
This was written just before the pandemic and is an account of his experiences as an intensive care doctor, looking at some of the cases he’s treated and examining their outcomes. Each chapter deals with a part of the body, heart, lungs, brain etc and the type of injuries and illnesses he sees.
He’s clearly a very compassionate man and we’re lucky to have him in Wales.
I found it a bit of an emotional read after the last year - having lost my dad to a heart attack in the summer the chapter on the heart was hard to read. He also spent some time in the ICU after life saving emergency surgery ten years earlier so I’ve seen it for myself and seen the amazing care he received but I cannot begin to imagine what the last year has been like for the people working there.

@PermanentTemporary

Cote - I'm not an expert, though I've probably read and watched more about HIV than average (not a high bar). But I don't think that's true. I think the Wiki paragraph 'Re-evalution' about Gaetan Dugas takes a fair approach based on genetic analysis of the virus and other theories.

But I'll get on with reading now!

Exactly. The NY gay scene was very promiscuous in the 70s, what distinguished Gaetan Dugas was that he kept a diary and so the researchers were able to link him to several other AIDS patients. He was originally referred to as patient 'O' (which if I remember correctly stood for Ontario, other patients were e.g. NY12 or SF16), the author of And the Band Played On called him 'Patient '0' and created the myth that he caused the spread in America. This is not true and is disrespectful to a victim of HIV, he was no more to blame than anyone else for the spread in America, particularly more than 30 years later when we know so much more about HIV. We didn't even have the sequence of HIV at the point And the band played on and our knowledge of the virus was in its infancy. The book may be interesting on the social side of things but the science will be largely wrong at this distance.

It's a good memory, barnabas, isn't it? My nearest encounter with Bohemia.

Finished 26. Small Pleasures, by Clare Chambers. It's the 1950s and Jean has resigned herself to a spinsterly life, caring for her mother, when her job as a journalist brings her into contact with an intriguing family and life takes a new turn. I felt quite cheated by the ending, but enjoyed it till then.

Permanent - What I said wasn't that he brought HIV to the US but that the unfortunate combination of (1) his ultra-promiscuous lifestyle (2) in many different cities (as he was an air steward) meant that it infected enough people to then become an epidemic.

HIV is incredibly difficult to transmit without sexual intercourse or blood transfusion, as we all know. Without such a super-spreader dropping it in (1) multiple communities that were (2) already very promiscuous, and (3) not using condoms, this infection could have remained in tiny numbers or possibly even fizzled out in time.

I'm not judging anyone for promiscuity and even the film was clear that Dugas didn't know he was spreading a disease most of the time. It's all just a very unfortunate coincidence that brought together a perfect set of conditions for the spread of HIV.

Susanna Clarke's Ladies of Grace Adieu is £1 today I've waited a long time for this collection of short stories from the Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell and can't wait to read about the Raven King again.

Fortuna, your review of No One Is Talking About This is interesting. I'm looking forward to reading that novel as I read Lockwood's memoir Priestdaddy and thought it was hugely original, with lots of wry humour and very inventive use of language.

19. Transcendent Kingdom, Yaa Gyasi 4/5
    On the Women’s Prize longlist, and deservedly so. This is a wise and beautifully written book. The thoughtful narrator is a young academic in science and the child of Ghanaian immigrants to Alabama. She cares for her depressed mother and grapples with the trauma of a beloved brother lost to drug addiction. The novel shifts seamlessly between her past and her present. I haven’t read Gyasi’s first novel, Homecoming, but am now keen to do so.

20. Lord of the Flies, William Golding 5/5
    DS1 has been studying this novel for his GCSEs (or whatever will stand in for his GCSEs), and I reread it for the first time in many decades. I had forgotten how much literary description there is of the island, and how mystical some parts of it are. I also remembered the boys as more or less one big mass, but this time I could see how subtly the different characters are portrayed. It’s weird and gripping, and I can see why it has become a cultural icon.

Bibliomania, I agree about the ending of Small Pleasures. I decided to more or less disregard it as it seemed to me like a coda that wasn't really necessary in terms of making the novel work!

Coincidentally, biblio my 26th book is also Small Pleasures. I haven’t finished yet but am enjoying it so far - disappointed to hear that the ending is going to be a let down!

Agreed, cassandre. Barbara Pym would never have toyed with me like that.

Ultimately the Pym comparisons are a bit superficial, although the most Pym-like bits were my favourite.

Ooh, you and me going head to head, Time!

21. The Outcast - Sadie Jones A young man goes back to his father's house on release from prison, back to the village he has known his whole life and Kit, the only one in the village glad to see him return. Lewis is a damaged character after being unable to prevent his mother's death by drowning when he was 10 years old. His neighbours treat him with suspicion and his mental state spirals as he grows older. It's quite bleak, there's mental anguish, self-harm and alcoholism throughout against the backdrop of middle-class Surrey in the 50s.

Wasn't there a TV series of The Outcast a few years ago. I think the BBC co-opted it before it was even published?

I'm still wading through Black and British which is very good and very interesting but taking me an age and I have lots of easier reads calling me but I've only got 100 pages to read.

@bibliomania you're way ahead of me on Small Pleasures as I've got a couple to get through first. Unsurprising that the Pym comparisons were exaggerated, but still look forward to reading it.

I've just slogged through The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro. This has probably been reviewed in the past on here as I'm late to the game. It is set in the dark ages, probably around 5th or 6th century in a time just after Arthur. The country is split into Saxons and Britons who live reasonably peacefully in adjacent villages. But a mist is covering the land that makes people forget. The story follows an elderly couple who go on a journey to find their son who they believe had left for another village, but they can't remember when or why. There's a lot of Arthurian legend tied in with fantasy and musings on memory and religion, but I found it a bit boring. I didn't really engage with the characters and in fact the old man's habit of calling his wife "Princess" at every opportunity was really quite annoying. I think we're going to do Ishiguro's latest for book club next month - based on this, I'm not looking forward to it.

27. Charlotte, Helen Moffett

I know that the concept of a Pride and Prejudice spin-off is enough to make some of you run for the hills. I'm OK with the idea - I like the sensation of stepping back into a familiar world with characters that we know - but it does have to be done well.

So, is this one done well? It's hard to say, in that some bits of it are done really well, and other bits are just awful. Just a warning that I am going to spoiler a bit.

Moffett is really successful in her focus on Charlotte Lucas, and her marriage to Mr Collins - a fate which leaves most readers of P&P saddened, and reminded of the difficult choices that faced women who were neither rich nor pretty, and who relied on marriage for access to security and a home. Here we have a portrait of Charlotte recognisable from the original Austen; sensible and practical, she goes into her marriage with eyes open, and gains genuine happiness in the peace and comfort of the her new home, her garden, and most of all, her independence. Mr Collins is an idiot, yes, but essentially good-hearted - there's a scene (set within the P&P timeline) where Charlotte sits near him at dinner and sees how he gabbles away nervously; after Lizzie cuts him down with a witty remark, Charlotte draws him out with kinder attention and finds him much more likeable. I will admit it's a while since I last read P&P but this all seemed believable to me, a good and valid take on the original. The Collinses lose a child, their only son, and Moffett writes well about grief (she writes that she started the book while she herself was grieving) as well as cleverly linking the fate of the Collins girls back to the situation of the Bennet girls in P&P - brotherless, they will eventually lose their home (which of course, will be Longbourn, although it isn't yet).

All of this is very nice, it works. Unfortunately, the quiet story of married life doesn't provide enough excitement, and this is where Moffett decides to bring in two big clumsy Plot Elements:

1. Miss de Bourgh - you remember, Lady Catherine's sickly daughter who was supposed to marry Darcy? Well, it turns out she sneaks out at night, dresses as a man so she can visit taverns, and is a raving feminist who has "never longed for union with any man; the truth is that I shudder at the idea". Having introduced her, Moffett then leaves her out of the action, only appearing as the author of a series of letters until she's brought back at the end to wave a magic wand and make something happen.

1. A sexy Austrian piano tuner who comes to Pemberley to tune Georgiana Darcy's harpsichord and ends up plucking Charlotte's strings after he seduces her by introducing her to the latest new music by Herr Mozart. Unfortunately he is utterly wet, and says very little. He does jump in a lake with his shirt on at one point (having read the author's end notes I am sure this is a deliberate wink to Colin Firth) but has zero chemistry with Charlotte despite the fact that he's obviously just been chucked into the plot as a love interest.

Once we move outside the Collins' marriage and home, the whole thing starts to feel like rather dubious fanfic. Despite Moffett's careful research (and many many references to items of furniture, garden design etc), it doesn't feel English, or regency. The book's sense of geography makes little sense (who stops in Kent on the way to London unless they are coming from France?) and I really missed the presence of the English countryside and weather which adds so much to Austen's writing. You can tell that Moffett is a genuine and knowledgeable fan of Austen's writing, but you can also tell that she doesn't know England very well and is writing it from her imagination, which isn't really much like the real thing. This is a shame as I felt there was a much better book here waiting to get out.

(I have to mentioned that there's also a really wierd moment where Charlotte's adult daughter pisses on her baby brother's grave... I think it's because she has started to hang out with Gentleman Jack Ann de Bourgh wearing men's clothing and this is part of her "masculine" behaviour but it's just bizarre?)

(You also find out what it's like to have sex with Mr Collins. This is actually worse than the Bill-Hillary sex in Rodham )

The Silver Collar by Antonia Hodgson
The 4th in the Thomas Hawkins series, beginning with The Devil in the Marshalsea
I really enjoyed this. It's a bit over-egged, and a bit adolescent at times, but a good balance of comedy and tension, and a satisfying outcome. Perfect easy reading, and I'd definitely read more by her.