Finally catching up on reviews after an exhausting couple of weeks.
2. Period Piece, Gwen Raverat 5/5
Recommended by several 50-Bookers and most recently by @bibliomania. Structured thematically rather than chronically, this memoir of a late-Victorian childhood is vividly detailed and narrated from what feels like a refreshingly modern perspective. Raverat, who had an American mother and a scientist father who was himself a son of Charles Darwin, recounts what it was like to grow up in Cambridge, in a big family house that has now become part of Darwin College. On the whole, Raverat’s childhood seems to have been lively and happy, but she chafes at some of the expectations imposed on young girls. So the work has an appealing feminist slant. This memoir is great and I only wish Raverat had gone on to recount her life as an adult.
3. The Cracked Mirror, Christ Brookmyre 4/5
Another MN rec. A very enjoyable novel with a ‘meta’ take on detective fiction. Towards the end it arguably breaks the rules of the genre, in an ingenious way (which I did eventually come to foresee). I admired the plot, and I liked the developing bond between two very different detective characters. However, I’m a relatively staid reader of detective novels and therefore probably didn’t appreciate Brookmyre’s innovative take as much as I could have done.
4. Abelard: A Medieval Life, Michael T. Clanchy 4/5
A RWYO book. A very readable account of Abelard’s life. As the title indicates, the book is focused on his life rather than on his works. Clanchy convincingly depicts an Abelard who is daring and clever, but also hubristic, and a man who doesn’t always practice what he preaches. It’s a fascinating portrait of powerful clergy and academics in the 12th century. There is so much rivalry and infighting! And I hadn’t realised that scholars and monks could be so much at odds with each other (though Abelard wore both hats at various points). The academic masters cultivated cult followings of students, and the monks were jealous (though they seem to be just as fond of power themselves). The sections of the book that discuss Heloise are very sympathetic. As an aside, Michael Clanchy lived in my neighbourhood and I knew his wife Joan (though not him). Their daughter Kate has written movingly about how they both passed away during Covid. This book reinforces my impression of Michael as a generous and broad-minded medieval historian.
5. Shy Creatures, Clare Chambers 4/5
A lovely read about an art therapist (Helen) working in a psychiatric hospital in Croydon in the 1960s. She discovers a man (William) who has been shut up for decades in a house with his elderly aunts. As Helen’s story moves forward, we learn William’s history in flashbacks. This is a real page-turner and very convincingly written.
6. The Crossing Places, Elly Griffiths 3/5
I enjoyed this book, especially the first half, but found it disappointing in some respects. The stuff about archaeology and the landscape of a Norfolk sand marsh was great. However, the plot moved very quickly at the end and I found it overly simplistic and implausible. I was also a bit annoyed that the heroine Ruth consistently worries about being fat, and the narrator specifies that she’s, gasp, 12 ½ stone which is very nearly what I weigh. I know that society conditions women to worry a lot about weight, but I would have hoped that Ruth, as a highly educated archaeologist, would counter her negative thoughts about weight with feminist/body positive thoughts. Never mind! I’m not sure yet whether I’ll read more books in this series, but I may do.
7. Vernon Subutex 1, Virginie Despentes 5/5
I’ve been a fan of Despentes since I read her feminist work King Kong Theory some years ago, but this novel (the first of a trilogy, and a bestseller in France) wasn’t what I was expecting. The hero, who formerly owned a record shop in Paris, is down and out and finds himself sofa-surfing and eventually becoming homeless. Nearly every chapter is narrated in the perspective of a new character, and I found it hard to keep track of them. Nearly all of the characters, the hero included, are unsympathetic in some ways, and the novel as a whole is quite dark: prostitution, drugs, theft and so on. I also found the French hard going as it’s very slangy. However, Despentes makes every character believable, human and compelling. The writing is extremely colourful and original. So this turned out to be a bold for me: off-putting as the story is in some ways, it’s an extraordinary panorama of contemporary French life. I will definitely read the other two volumes, but not straight away as I need a break from the intensity.
Incidentally, I haven’t read the English translation of Vernon Subutex by Frank Wynne (who also translated The Art of Losing, a recent French novel I admired), but the translator Jennifer Croft praised it to the skies. @inaptonym I was interested in your recent comments on Croft and Lloyd-Jones as translators of Olga Tokarczuk.