Bookworm by Lucy Mangan

[TheOnlyLivingBoyInNewCross]

I’m reading this and have just got to the moment which mentions the need for a Ladybird book on Maintaining Your Sanity on Mumsnet Given the Impossibility of Staying Away from Mumsnet.

Lucy: If you are on here, your book is JOYOUS. We have a LOT of childhood reading in common!

How? The editor would have to read every single book Lucy Mangan writes about to be able to guarantee her recall is accurate. While fact checkers do exist, they are generally deployed only when the book being strictly factually accurate is key (no one is going to find a history of WW2 credible where the author repeatedly gets dates wrong) or where there’s a strong possibility of legal action for libel about inaccuracies, for instance. And obviously a fact checker for what you’re talking about would have to read all the novels discussed, not just one. In a memoir about obsessive childhood reading viewed through a veil of adult nostalgia, does it matter enormously whether the author remembers Lucy as meeting Aslan on her first visit to Narnia rather than her third or the colour of the puff/sleeved dress Mrs Rachel Lynde makes for Anne Shirley?

The poster who first raised it took the view that she didn't believe LM had actually read the book, given the mistake, and that seemed an overstatement, on grounds that e all forget things (and honestly, if she was making up books she had read, she probably would only put in plot points verified by google!)

Overstatement? Bit much. I struggle to believe that someone like Lucy would misremember about something in a book so apparently beloved to her.

It would be interesting to know if this was ever corrected - if not, that suggests the vast majority of readers haven’t spotted this error either. I must say, I’ve read TLTWATW many times as a child and I didn’t spot that error. In the grander scheme of what she was saying, it’s was irrelevant.

Honestly, why is it one that shouldn't have happened? Lucy did meet Aslan, just not on her first visit. It's not an invention that she met him. It seems a fairly minor error.

It doesn't take that long to check something.
Sure, but if she mentioned a couple of plot points from each of 50-100 books or whatever, I guess it adds up.

Do you? LM clearly read voraciously and she's, what, 50 now?

I used to read a book a day as a teen (I kept a record for a project) and I would not be able to tell you much about the plot or characters of many of them now. Doesn't mean I didn't read them.

@SheilaFentiman , because it is a much-loved children's book that the readers of Lucy Mangan's book will have read.

As are - presumably - many if not all of the books she references.

Who cares. I'm not going to read it.

But so are virtually all the novels she talks about. They’re almost all much-loved children’s books. I’ve not read Bookworm, but I’ve picked it up in bookshops and dipped into it more than once, and I think I’d read pretty much everything she namechecked. (Same age, same obsessive childhood reading). There’s nothing that makes a plot error in TLTWATW any more inexcusable than one in Little House on the Prairie or Little Women.

It's a pretty big plot point though. Nothing like the colour of a dress as a pp mentioned. Lucy in the book doesn't meet Aslan until much later on. It is of course Mr Tumnus she meets on her first visit and promises to help.

I would think that many readers remember that. The book is so iconic and also there have been film and TV adaptations etc. Lucy Mangan may have read TLTW&TW, but you do question how much of a devoted reader she really was. And then that leads you to question everything else in her book, what a shame.

@ImaginedCorners , what @Pemba posted.

Ummm.... you seem to care because you are posting, and people are therefore replying.

What do you mean by “genuine”?

...but you do question how much of a devoted reader she really was. And then that leads you to question everything else in her book, what a shame.

It's this viewpoint that I don't understand, TBH.

But the error is literally LM saying that Lucy met a talking lion called Aslan on her first visit to Narnia rather than her third, not that the plot of the novel concerns her befriending a singing hyena or joining the White Queen’s ogre brigade to fight Father Christmas and the dryads?

I read many of the same books as Lucy M, was definitely a bookworm, and didn't register this error at all. We all have books we know better than others and mistakes that would jar with us (I spotted the absence of Cecil immediately!) but we can enjoy and fondly remember other books without knowing them so well - clearly the Aslan scene had stuck but the details around it were fuzzier.

I have now bought the book, so LM has got at least one sale out of this thread :>

BTW - this book - Reading Lessons: An English Teacher’s Love Letter to the Books that Shape Us by Carol Atherton is an excellent one and I am sure will have no mistakes because Carol has taught all of these books/plays/poems repeatedly to secondary school pupils.

She got it wrong. That's a bit embarrassing for her and frustrating for those of us who also read it and remember more accurately, but that doesn't stop the book bewing enjoyable for me. It's the Mandela Effect, where we are sure we remember seeing things that we definitely couldn't have. (yes, I 'see' books as I read them).

There was a 'forced choice' trick that the magician Dynamo did with someone picking a page at random from Pride and Prejudice and reading out a sentence. That line was absolutely not in the book. It drove me mental. Until my kids pointed out the magic trick wasn't about accurately reflecting P&P, it was sleight of hand and some fun.

Bookworm is a memoire about a childhood of books. It's still true that Lucy Mangan read all those books and loved them, built her sense of self from the books she made part of her.

So did I. If we misremember one of the 10,000 books of our childhood, no matter how famous, it doesn't make our lives with books any less true.

Looking through the 'bookshelf' index, on a quick count with my finger so I may not be wholly accurate, it references about 250 titles, some of which are series (eg The Chalet School series, The Milly-Molly-Mandy series)

I also wouldn’t be able to remember the details from the books I read more than thirty years ago years ago, but Lucy positioned herself as a voracious reader in childhood, to sell her book, and has been around the block enough times to know that editors don’t have the time or inclination to check plot details. Additionally, this particular book ticks a few boxes, from a PR perspective.

@SheilaFentiman , I'm responding because you keep poking me.

@ImaginedCorners , your comparison is ridiculous.

Bizarre that a couple of misrememberings or typos would put people off. It must make it very difficult to find anything to read!

It’s a lovely book-if you haven’t read it, please do.

My Kindle version (your font size may vary) has 7 pages about CS Lewis and the Narnia books. From my own recollection of the Chronicles, this is the only error I could see. (The section opens with the book being gifted to her by her dad.)

Additionally, this particular book ticks a few boxes, from a PR perspective.
Ummm, I don't know what you mean by this, in all honesty. It would probably be odd for such a book not to mention Narnia, even if it was 'tried a Narnia book, never got on with it well' - which is basically what she then goes on to say about Tolkien.

I don't feel I can say any more on this topic. I have no doubt she read it as a child and made a mistake that wasn't picked up. Others feel that this means she probably wasn't such a bookworm after all; I disagree. Hey ho.

It would probably be odd for such a book not to mention Narnia, even if it was 'tried a Narnia book, never got on with it well' - which is basically what she then goes on to say about Tolkien.

Is the point I was inferring to.