A Season of Change and Mini Review

Let's hope there is a bit of Indian summer in the days ahead as the change in weather has been all too swift.  In the blink of an eye I have gone from shorts and 'light as a whisper' tops to layering up and pulling the hood of my fleece over my head on morning walks with Deacon.  Last night I came in from the dark, which is way too early these days, and fell straight back in to a tradition at our house - look for the nearest person to torture with your freezing hands.

The garden that we worked on to the point of exhaustion during one of the hottest summers I can remember is wilting and the squirrels are eating up everything in sight.  The Sun Valley maple tree that we planted is showing hints of the red flame meant to be the last hurrah of the garden before everything is naked and covered in frost.  Squirrels are collecting stores of fruit and nuts, lately we've seen a few struggle with crab apples larger than their little head across the road and between cars.  I hold my breath the whole time and cheer when they make it safely to the other side.  Would you expect anything less from an animal lover who has to tell herself that small furry things lying motionless on the side of the road are really just taking a nap?

I was a tiny bit disappointed with my last read, Beautiful for Ever by Helen Rappaport.  The story of Madam Rachel in Victorian London selling snake oil creams and lotions to wealthy society ladies sounded fascinating but I was a bit bored by the end.  It read more like a newspaper story to me and lacked the atmosphere I was hoping for.  More description of sooty walls, jostling carriages, foggy nights, whiffy side streets and clanging chains in Millbank to put me firmly in the scene would have been welcomed in a story tailor made for me.  Perhaps I've been spoiled by the wonderfully animated and delightful Lucy Worsley and a passionate Amanda Vickery.  A cup of tea and some spare time spent watching clips of either historian on youtube are joy unconfined!  To Helen Rappaport's credit though I now have a reference for the character of Mother Oldershaw in Wilkie Collins' Armadale which I'm really looking forward to reading sometime this winter.

The photo above was taken last weekend in front of The Potting Shed, tiniest and most quaint floral and gift shop you could ever image.  R and I were in Toronto last weekend and while we were walking out of the parking garage we passed a couple getting out of a car with plates from New York.  "You're a long way from home" I said.  "We are from much further than that!" came the reply.  This couple were on holiday from France and had driven from New York to Niagara Falls and then decided to continue on to Toronto.  Quite the journey.  At the end of October I will be making a journey of my own back across the pond - chocolate, books and tea, oh my!  

New Grub Street by George Gissing

'Reardon looked at the gaps left on his shelves.  Many of those vanished volumes were dear old friends to him; he could have told you where he had picked them up and when; to open them recalled a past moment of intellectual growth, a mood of hope or despondency, a stage of struggle.'

Writer's block, or at least the ability to write anything he could be proud of, was the beginning of the end for Edwin Reardon.  It was a situation George Gissing was familiar with and according to his diary there were seven false starts to what would become New Grub Street.  Then in a sudden burst of productivity the book was ready for the publisher in just over two months, hitting the shelves so to speak in 1891.

The view of Marylebone Workhouse haunts Reardon as he turns out what he considers to be bits of fluff to earn enough money for the rent due at Christmas.  He yearns to write a stellar novel, one that will bring him fame and security but it's frustratingly beyond his reach.  His wife, Amy, is desperate that he should make something of himself so she can hold her head up in society.  Things are so bad that the Reardon's refuse dinner invitations from friends as reciprocating isn't an option.  Exasperated, Amy resorts to spending ever more time at her mother's home as a way of saving on food.  More down-at-heel members of the Grub Street fellowship drop by to commiserate with Edwin, each with a tale of woe about reduced savings and meagre shelter.  At the mercy of their publishers they wait anxiously for white envelopes to be slipped under the door of their cheap garret rooms stating that a piece of writing is worth any paltry sum.

Meanwhile on the other side of the coin is Jasper Milvain, 'the clothes he wore were of expensive material, but had seen a good deal of service.'  Employed as a journalist he casts his eye toward women with heavy purses and good prospects who will make the climb to a premier position all the easier for him.  Alas, the Married Woman's Property Act has recently become law so Jasper won't have an easy time of gaining access to the purse strings of savvy women.  His sisters, Maud and Dora, are encouraged to write but let's face it, any success they have will ease Jasper's financial burden for the duration of time they remain unmarried.

As always, the more London porn in a novel the better and New Grub Street has plenty.  Many is the mile I've happily strolled around Bloomsbury but poor Reardon and his disillusioned friend, Biffen, have lost any sense of affection for the city...

  'It's a huge misfortune, this will-o'-the-wisp attraction exercised by London on young men of brains.  They come here to be degraded, or to perish, when their true sphere is a life of peaceful remoteness.  The type of men capable of success in London is more or less callous and cynical.  If I had the training of boys, I would teach them to think of London as the last place where life can be lived worthily.
  'And the place where you are most likely to die in squalid wretchedness.'

There is little in the way of sugar-coated niceties about this book but there is plenty of page-turning drama.  Which begs the question of why is it that production companies churn out numerous productions of the works of Austen and Dickens when there is such a work, rich in character and plot with story lines still relevant in today's world, found within these pages?

Many people died before the age of 50 during the Victorian era and Gissing succumbed to emphysyma at 46 in 1903 after catching a chill on an ill-advised walk during the winter.  Eerily it was a fate he gave one of his own characters in the book.  New Grub Street is every bit as wonderful as The Odd Women, one of my favourite books from the past year and I am desperate, yes desperate, to read another of his popular works, The Nether World.

The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley

'I would not have gone to war for a kindness, perhaps, but for a grace I would, and did.  For I had no doubt, as my voice floated upwards, who was going, or why.'

L. P. Hartley was edging toward his sixties when he wrote The Go-Between but he certainly had not lost the capacity to remember what it was like to be a child.  As Leo Colston travels through the story, Hartley keenly reminds us how it felt to go unnoticed by adults and ignorant as to what so many things are about.  There is charm though in the swirl of wonder and curiousity amidst so many unknowns and it can be one of the best times of our lives.  Hartley poignantly defends the idea that ignorance is bliss, at least in childhood.

The story begins with Leo as a mature man routing through an old red cardboard box full of the sorts of things a small boy would call treasure.  Finding a diary from the summer of 1900, when he turned thirteen, he recalls being bullied but also the most fantastic case of coincidence resulting in his becoming something of a hero to other bullied youth.  Reading more from his past, Leo finally processes the events of an unusually hot summer spent with the Maudsley family as a playmate for Marcus,  a friend from his dormitory.

Brandham Hall is a world apart from Leo's modest home and upbringing.  In this upper class mansion, clothes are changed often, meals are formal, servants pick your things up from the floor, appearance is everything and sticking to your class in relationships matters.  The Maudsleys seem to relish in the project of 'bringing up' Leo to their standard and outfit him in expensive garments in cooler fabrics rather than see him suffer in his hot, scratchy wool.  The colour they choose for him is green which is rather symbolic and intentional on the author's part I'm sure.

While staying at Brandham Hall, Leo develops quite the crush on Marcus's older sister, Marian.  When she asks if he would mind delivering a note to a nearby farmer, Leo jumps at the chance to serve.  He then becomes a go-between but a rewarding feeling of being useful turns to one of jealousy and dread.  Just what is going on between the farmer and Marian that requires such secrecy?  Rather than enjoy all the wonders of an idyllic summer holiday spent frolicking in cool ponds under a blazing sky, Leo agonizes over things he can't fully understand until a dreadful day of reckoning.  His blissful ignorance of the adult world has vapourized and he is changed forever. 

The library I work for is in the midst of a massive weeding campaign and last week I snapped up a discarded copy of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.  This story is included as one of them.  The Go-Between and The Hireling are two books by this author that I have thoroughly enjoyed but be prepared, not only will L. P. Hartley's writing grab your heart but he goes for your guts as well.  

The Odd Women by George Gissing

It can be a bit frustrating to be surrounded by a community of mainstream fiction lovers when you want to stand on a chair and shout out how much you adored a late-Victorian novel.  So I'll do it here...I loved this book!

The Odd Women, published in 1893, is a spectacular novel about the choices and obstacles faced by women in their struggle for independance.  Whether that be as single women or within a marriage.  Mary Barfoot and Rhoda Nunn are steadfast in their belief that to marry reduces a woman to being a cook and cradle rocker and to retard her thinking.  Together they operate a business that teachs young women to use a typewriter so they can escape the drudgery and abuses of service or other menial occupations.  They also make themselves available one night a week in their Chelsea home to meet with women who share their views.

Alice and Virginia Madden have reached the stage of spinsterhood but their younger sister, Monica, has beauty enough to secure a better future for all three.  Her chance meeting with the modestly wealthy Edmund Widdowson creates debate amongst all of the above-mentioned ladies.  Let it be said that Mr Widdowson is a stuck in the mud loner and once he reels in his young prey becomes nothing short of her jailer.  His opinions are to be Monica's opinions and his jealous eye questions her every movement.  The security of marriage has come at a price to both and Gissing writes of that toll from his own dismal experiences.  There are other riveting storylines but to hint at them would ruin the fun of discovery.

The Odd Women is a page-turner full of secret alliances, betrayal, vice, misunderstanding and deceit.  And I have a new author crush in George Gissing, which is saying a lot for someone who tends to prefer the writings of women.  His portrayals of a Victorian London where pea soup fog from charcoal fires causes its citizens to hug walls in order to read an address is irresistible.  Also, his ability to convincingly construct characters from different classes and both genders while creating arguments for and against marriage is nothing short of remarkable.  Even before I had finished The Odd Women I placed an order for two more books by Gissing, The Nether World and New Grub Street.

If this book is languishing on your shelf then you are housing a gem.  Go and get it!

The Glass of Time by Micheal Cox

Now this presents a challenge.  How do you write about a follow up novel without giving away what happens in the first novel?  I suppose the answer has to be...very carefully.

Picking up twenty years after The Meaning of Night leaves off, the 26th Baroness Tansor is interviewing for a new lady's maid.  Esperanza Gorst applies for the position as instructed by the woman who has raised her since she was very young, Madame de L'Orme.  She is told to watch every movement in the house, beware of the Baroness and to keep a Book of Secrets in shorthand.  A series of letters will arrive which reveal ever more detail about Lady Tansor's past and Esperanza's parentage. 

Evenwood, the ancestral home of the Tansor dynasty, sets the stage with secret staircases, a heavily panelled library, windows overlooking vast lawn and paintings which seem to watch your every move.  The Baroness frequently has visits there by Armitage Vyse, a sinister lawyer from Lincoln's Inn, London.  Esperanza comes to realize that these visits are not completely welcome and that Vyse has a secret he holds over her Lady.

Despite being warned by her guardian never to trust the Baroness, Esperanza finds herself being drawn in.  Attention from the heir, Perseus and his brother, Randolph lends an air of romance and rivalry to the story.

As more information is revealed, Esperanza's confidence rises.  Gaining strength from secrets, she watches as the Baroness becomes skittish and begins to wither from the weight of them.  The last quarter of this book will keep you riveted!

The Meaning of Night and The Glass of Time are over 1,100 pages of sheer adventure and characters that come to life.  Should you be in the mood for swishing coats, London mist, secret excursions down hallways by candlelight and the sound of carriage wheels on gravel drives then you MUST read these books!

The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox

When you find the perfect book to suit your mood it's amazing how much time you can find to steal a page here and there.  On several occasions I found myself leaning on the kitchen counter to read just one more page before grabbing my keys to drive off to work. 

'After killing the red-haired man, I took myself off to Quinn's for an oyster supper.'

So begins this Victorian pastiche deliciously filled with foggy nights so wet you can feel the mist and hear the cobbles play a tune under horse hooves and carriage wheels.  The story is a confession of revenge and murder by Edward to his friend, Le Grice over drinks and we're all in for quite the tale of intrigue.

Edward Glapthorn is raised by his mother who writes novels long into the night to provide as best she can for her son.  There also exists a rosewood box containing 200 guineas left to him by a mysterious benefactor which makes his attending Eton a possibility.  Once there he has the misfortune of befriending Phoebus Daunt, whose petty jealousy of Edward's attention to others drives him to an act with serious consequences.

Eventually, through his work in the office of Tredgold, Tredgold & Orr, Edward begins to unravel the shocking and previously unknown details of his birth.  Some may find this chain of information and events somewhat coincidental but in no way did it lessen the thrill of the ride for me.  We also learn that Lord Tansor, an incredibly wealthy aristocrat and married to his second wife has yet to father an heir.  Desperate that he should have someone to leave his vast estate to, he visits Gray's Inn to have documents drawn up making the precocious son of the village rector his heir.  One Phoebus Daunt.

That the man who was the cause of Edward being removed from Eton, thereby ruining any chance of a successful career, should inherit such wealth so easily twists the knife.  Whilst mulling certain events and tidbits of information over in his mind, Edward consoles himself in the arms of an exotic lady of the night, Isabella Gallini.  Though she gives her body to others her heart belongs only to Edward.  On occasion, the irresistable pull of an opium den provides further distraction for our tortured man.

The vivid description of chop-houses, alleyways, shops and tolling bells had me desperately wanting to book a trip back to visit historic parts of London.  An outing by Edward and the breathtaking Emily Carteret to St Paul's, to climb the numerous steps to the Whispering Gallery and beyond had me picturing how one would manage it in yards of fabric, full petticoats and bustle!

For the duration in which Edward seeks ever more clarification regarding his birth, he is aware that someone constantly follows him.  In crowded streets there's a tap on the shoulder here or footsteps behind him in the dark there making for many an anxious outing.  I wondered how I would sleep at night knowing a villain was just waiting for me to leave the latch unlocked. 

Showing no economy with description, Cox takes his time arriving at the climax but it was well worth the wait.  The last few pages had me riveted, hand on my chest, holding my breath and at one point shouting 'oh no!' out loud. 

This story very much reminded me of Wilkie Collins, No Name, in which a character goes to any length to recover what is rightfully theirs.  I loved that book and I loved this one every bit as much.  Thankfully, in a state of sadness that I wasn't jetting off to anywhere exciting during a holiday last summer, I purchased both The Meaning of Night and The Glass of Time, its sequel.  Despite the first instalment being 600 pages I'm not the slightest bit hesitant to continue this story in the next offering...in fact, I can't wait!