One of my aspirations (rather than resolutions) here was to get back to writing more reviews this year. This has been quite negatively affected by my sight problems - I think that before I realised it was more than needing new glasses, I'd already been struggling for some time, as suddenly so many print books seemed really hard to read.
However, I've written a few - bringing these over from my posts on www.librarything.com
Ratings on a scale of up to 5 but including decimal points - I don't give many 5 ratings but from 4.3 is very good to excellent.
(3) Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These Read 03.01.22
library ebook novella
Set in December 1 in a small town in the Irish Republic, perhaps near the border with Northern Ireland. A local small business owner and family man learns something really shocking while he is delivering fuel (coal/timber) to the convent, as he encounters young women living there, one looking for help to escape, one worrying about her baby who she has been separated from.
When he starts to ask questions and become very uneasy about what is happening, his wife and neighbours remind him of all the reasons not to ask too many questions and upset the nuns - they are good customers, and they have the power to decide on admissions to the only good school for girls in town and determine the futures of Furlong's five daughters. Furlong, however, was himself born outside marriage to a domestic servant who was allowed to keep her child, job and hope by her employer at the big house, a wealthy Protestant widow. He wants to help these girls somehow.
This novella set in the all too recent past is a moving and thought provoking story inspired by the scandal of the Magdalen Laundries in 20th century Ireland.
Rating: 4.5*
Sally Rooney, Mr Salary Read 03.01.22
Library ebook short story (first published 2016 in Granta)
This is a sort of reread for me - I've been looking for a copy of the story to read for a while. I listened to a very good audio reading also borrowed from a digital library collection last year, but wanted to read as well as listen.
Like her other work, this is a story of changing relationships, observations and reflections. Sukie comes back to Dublin from the US to visit her dying father in hospital and also to see Nathan. Is he a friend, replacement family figure or something else? I had forgotten that the story takes place around Christmas but I think that's because the festive season isn't really central to the story, it's just that it's a time of year when people come "home".
I enjoy Sally Rooney's stories about ambiguous relationships and all the confusions that come with them, and really enjoyed this deftly observed short work. I'm grateful to digital libraries for the chances they offer to read short stories.
Rating 4.4*
- John Sutherland, Monica Jones, Philip Larkin and Me: Her Life and Long Loves Finished 03.01.22
Library hardback, published Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2021
Monica Jones was Philip Larkin's girlfriend for many years, though they only lived together for a few years before his death in 1985 from cancer of the oesophagus, when both were affected by the years of heavy drinking and smoking. This is a biographical memoir by a former student/colleague/friend, now a retired professor and well known literary critic. This is an interesting hybrid of a thoroughly researched biography with the personal reminiscences, which is a juggling act but it works quite well here.
Previous portrayals I've heard/watched/read of Monica Jones have portrayed her as a rather unpleasant, racist alcoholic, and someone who distracted Larkin from his poetic callings, rather sexist perspectives often assisted by Philip Larkin's other friends such as Kingsley Amis, who satirised Monica in his novel Lucky Jim.
Sutherland uses letters etc to build a portrait of a real woman, very intelligent and funny as well as often lonely, contradictory and difficult. She was appointed as a lecturer in English Literature at Leicester University within a few yaers of graduating, but refused to write and publish or play the various games required of anyone wanting a glowing academic career. Sutherland's viewpoint suggests she was a really good lecturer/tutor who was given a very high load of lectures, students to tutor and supervise etc. She got on well with her original boss but not with his replacement. There are lots of academics in my family and among my parents' friends etc so I find all this very believable.
Then there are lots of anecdotes about drinking and the periods when she had a more fun social life apart from Larkin. Despite being quite racist and reactionary, one of her good friends and proteges for some time was a young Indian Marxist academic called Dipak Nandy, who went on to found the Runnymede Trust and have a daughter from his second marriage who is now a Labour MP (Lisa Nandy).
Sutherland does try to take on the less attractive aspects of Monica Jones' character such as her quite explicit racism, alongside the misanthropy her lover is famed for, and says that he now feels ashamed that as a young man he didn't question some of her more obnoxious comments. He doesn't say it but I got the impression that the troubled couple at the centre of this story rather brought out the worst in each other. Larkin was never faithful to her and had two long running significant relationships, one with his librarian colleague and subordinate Maeve Brennan, and one with his secretary Betty. One of Sutherland's journalist/writer friends Rachel Cooke apparently suggested that Larkin's treatment of Monica Jones at times amounted to coercive control.
Overall, a really interesting and thoughtful read.
Rating: 4.2*