Pamelad's Clayton's Categories Continue

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Charlas2021 Category Challenge

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Pamelad's Clayton's Categories Continue

1pamelad
Editado: Abr 1, 2021, 2:58 am

Clayton's categories are the categories you have when you're not having a category. I'm reading what I feel like and putting them into categories later.

Last quarter the categories turned out to be:

Regency romances

I read 28 of these! They're very easy to read, and usually short, but leave no lasting impression. These days I appreciate happy endings, and historical romances deliver. Georgette Heyer has no peer!

Humour

13 books. I read a lot of P.G. Wodehouse and made the happy discovery of Marcel Ayme. Also read two by Henry Green, who I recommend highly. This quarter I will read Concluding, which is the only Green I haven't read, and have started Of Mortal Love, which is by another of my favourite melancholic humourists, William Gerhardie.

Crime

13 crime novels, mainly British, mainly vintage. Not reading as much crime as usual because I don't want anyone to die.

Australian

5 books. I want to keep reading more books by Australian writers.

Non-fiction

Read four, probably not as many as usual.

In Translation

3 books: 2 French, 1 Tunisian.

Uncategorised

2 books didn't fit into obvious categories.

Books Read, First Quarter

2pamelad
Editado: Abr 30, 2021, 6:47 am

April

65. Life and Death of the Wicked Lady Skelton by Magdalen King-Hall
66. The Perfect Rake by Anne Gracie
67. Marry in Scandal by Anne Gracie
68. Of Mortal Love by William Gerhardie
69. The Viscount and the Vicar's Daughter by Mimi Matthews
70. Seeing Miss Heartstone by Nichole Van
71. Harlequin House by Margery Sharp
72. Suffering the Scot by Nichole Van
73. Romancing the Rake by Nichole Van
74. Loving a Lady by Nichole Van
75. Mask of Duplicity by Julia Brannan
76. The Mask Revealed by Julia Brannan
77. Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit by P. G. Wodehouse
78. Here We are by Graham Swift
79. His Disinclined Bride by Jenny Goutet
80. A Fall from Grace by Jenny Goutet
81. Midnight Marriage by Lucinda Grant
82. Autumn Duchess by Lucinda Brant
83. Rhododendron Pie by Margery Sharp
84. Mrs Drew Plays Her Hand by Carla Kelly
85. The Governess Affair by Courtney Milan
86. The Duchess War by Courtney Milan
87. The Matrimonial Advertisement by Mimi Matthews
88. A Modest Independence by Mimi Matthews
89. A Convenient Fiction by Mimi Matthews
90. The Winter Companion by Mimi Matthews
91. Fallen Angel by Charlotte Louise Dolan
92. Imprudent Lady by Joan Smith
93. Circe by Madeline Miller
94. A Stolen Kiss by M. A. Nichols
95. Marrying the Captain by Carla Kelly
96. A Matter of Class by Mary Balogh
97. The Obedient Bride by Mary Balogh
98. Simply Love by Mary Balogh
99. The Ideal Wife by Mary Balogh
100. Wish by Peter Goldsworthy
101. Double Wager by Mary Balogh
102. Jeeves in the Offing by P. G. Wodehouse
103. How to Cross a Marquess by Jane Ashford
104. Death in the Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa
105. A Lord Apart by Jane Ashford
106. A Duke Too Far by Jane Ashford
107. How to Beguile a Baron by Jane Ashford
108. The Headstrong Ward by Jane Ashford
109. Last Gentleman Standing by Jane Ashford
110. Earl to the Rescue by by Jane Ashford

4pamelad
Abr 1, 2021, 2:31 am

june

5pamelad
Editado: mayo 14, 2021, 1:44 am

First BingoDog is here.

Second BingoDog


1. One-word title Concluding by Henry Green Completed
2. Marginalised group
3. Dark or light
4. Character as friend
5. Arts and recreation
6. Title describes me
7. Hearty recommendation The Exploits of Engelbrecht by Maurice Richardson Completed
8. Nature or environment When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut Completed
9. Classical element
10. Two or more authors
11. Impulse read
12. Love story Of Mortal Love by William Gerhardie Completed
13. Read a CAT Circe by Madeline Miller Completed
14. Southern hemisphere Wish by Peter Goldsworthy Completed
15. Made me laugh Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit by P. G. Wodehouse Completed
16. Suggested by another generation
17. New author
18. Somewhere I'd like to visit Mr Rosenblum's List by Natasha Solomons Completed
19. History
20. 20 or fewer members Pending Heaven by William Gerhardie Completed
21. 200 or fewer pages Yes to Life: In Spite of Everything by Victor Frankl Completed
22. Senior citizen
23. Building
24. Time
25. Magic Here We are by Graham Swift Completed

6Helenliz
Abr 1, 2021, 10:33 am

happy new thread - following along for another quarter of excellent reading.

7MissBrangwen
Editado: Abr 1, 2021, 10:38 am

>5 pamelad: Great work on your bingo card!

8NinieB
Abr 1, 2021, 3:29 pm

Happy new thread! I agree, great work on Bingo!

9Tess_W
Abr 1, 2021, 8:12 pm

Happy New Thread!

10pamelad
Abr 1, 2021, 9:46 pm

>6 Helenliz:, >7 MissBrangwen:, >8 NinieB:, >9 Tess_W: Welcome!

Life and Death of the Wicked Lady Skelton by Magdalen King-Hall was first published in 1944 and is the basis for the film Wicked Lady. Thank you spiralsheep for recommending it.

The house Maryiot Cells, home of the Skelton family for generations, is notorious for the presence of the ghost of Lady Skelton, who died more than three hundred years ago. The first part of the book describes the hauntings over the centuries. Lady Skelton, dressed in men's clothing, has manifested herself at times of disturbance: at a wedding; when plans were made to tear down and rebuild part of the house. She is a force of destruction.

The second part is about Barbara, Lady Skelton, married off at sixteen to a man who bores her, concerned with herself and no one else, able to mask her feelings and present a bland and docile face to the world. A loss at cards drives her to recover her property by holding up a coach, and the thrill of the crime incites her to repeat it, and to kill.

I enjoyed this. I liked the distant, ironic tone, and was entertained by the evil Lady Skelton.

11pamelad
Abr 2, 2021, 7:57 pm

The Perfect Rake by Anne Gracie

Yet another Regency romance, which I read because the author is Australian. The writing is pedestrian, but there is a plot. Prudence, the oldest and plainest oldest sister of five girls, tries to protect her younger sisters from their brutal grandfather. When he breaks an ankle and is confined to bed, the girls escape to their uncle in London. In order to convince her uncle that she is betrothed, Prudence invents an engagement to a duke who never leaves Scotland, only to find that he has taken up residence in London. When she tries to visit the duke, whom she has never met, to warn him of her uncle's visit, she mistakes him for his cousin, an infamous rake. Say no more!

12pamelad
Abr 3, 2021, 1:10 am

Marry in Scandal by Anne Gracie

Naive young bride - the twist is that something prevents her from learning to read. The author was once a literacy teacher, and now promotes adult literacy. Accomplished rake with deep dark secret. Abduction. Marriage of convenience. True love.

13NinieB
Abr 3, 2021, 6:09 am

>12 pamelad: And reading lessons! True happiness forever, right?

14pamelad
Abr 3, 2021, 6:29 pm

>13 NinieB: The message was more about acceptance, that it wasn't a lack of intelligence or a lack of effort that prevented her from reading. Dyslexia, I think. The hero read to her and found her a secretary. This is a plot device Georgette Heyer never used!

15VictoriaPL
Abr 3, 2021, 6:40 pm

Impressive Bingo card! Will you start another after this one is done?

16pamelad
Abr 3, 2021, 11:24 pm

>15 VictoriaPL: Thank you! I might do a second one later on because it's a good way to read something different.

17pamelad
Abr 3, 2021, 11:52 pm

Of Mortal Love by William Gerhardie

Gerhardie was a well-regarded writer in the twenties and thirties, but then he stopped. He wrote philosophical, comic novels tinged with melancholy, though this one is the other way round: melancholy tinged with comedy. It begins with the death of Dinah, the beautiful young woman whom the narrator loved, returns to the start of their affair, traces its course, then comes back to her death. The narrator, Walter, is a composer, self-absorbed, chronically short of cash, who takes Dinah for granted. Dinah loves him frantically and jealously, and demands his attention. She lives in the present, but a woman in a book is more real to Walter than the woman in front of him.

Three men are in love with Dinah - Walter, her husband Jim, and another man, Eric - but they see her as an extension of themselves, give too little of themselves, and let her down. Only after her death does Walter realise how little he knows of the real Dinah.

The comedy is in the characters - the way they behave, the things they say, their self-deceptions. The melancholy is in the inevitability of failure, that a woman with Dinah's potential for happiness cannot find it.

I recommend this book highly, but I've been a William Gerhardie fan for a long time. Futility and The Polyglots are also well worth reading. They're more outward looking, less melancholy, and much easier to find.

18pamelad
Editado: Abr 4, 2021, 5:24 am

The Viscount and the Vicar's Daughter by Mimi Matthews

This one is Victorian. A misunderstood rake who is sick of his dissolute way of life but is on his way to a house party that promises debauchery. A beautiful lady's companion with the face of an angel, alone in the world. The rake's father, who arrives at the house of debauchery to warn his son to mend his ways, but recognises the lady's companion and conspires to keep her away from his son, who fell in love at first sight but can't be trusted with innocent young women. Everything proceeds as it should.

Seeing Miss Heartstone by Nichole Van

Another Victorian. At nineteen, Belle Heartstone is already a successful business woman. To avoid her mother's matchmaking she researches available bachelors and decides on Lord Blake because he is of good character and in need of money. He kindly refuses her proposal but gives her some good advice, so she secretly puts up the money to finance his trading trip to India. Blake and Belle become business partners and friends by correspondence, but he thinks his mentor is an older gentleman and she cannot tell him who she is because he would find it unseemly to be in business with a woman. After seven years, he returns to England. Can Belle tell him who she is and retain his friendship? Can Blake forgive Belle? Will they end up together? Do we need to ask?

My Kindle Unlimited membership will expire soon, so I will escape the temptation of all this free fluff.

19spiralsheep
Abr 4, 2021, 9:44 pm

>10 pamelad: I'm glad you enjoyed Life and Death of the Wicked Lady Skelton. It's very different in tone from her more widely read teenage romp The Diary of a Young Lady of Fashion.

20pamelad
Abr 10, 2021, 6:05 pm

Harlequin House by Margery Sharp

Dean Street Press has republished a number of Margery Sharp's books. Most of her books had been out of print, and those I've read I bought second-hand, so it's good to see that they're available again. Some of them are even in Kindle Unlimited, including this one. Sharp wrote gentle comedies populated with well-meaning, eccentric characters. Her books are kind-hearted, tolerant and funny, with an ironic take on the British class system. Harlequin House is no exception.

Mr Partridge is lawless in a small way, not really dishonest, just inclined to bend the rules almost to breaking point. He delights in observing people and when he can, participating in their lives. Meeting an elderly lady in a park leads him to an acquaintance with the equally flexible young woman, Lisbeth, who needs protection, Mr Partridge believes, so he inserts himself into her life.

I enjoyed this happy little book.

21pamelad
Abr 10, 2021, 6:35 pm

Suffering the Scot, Romancing the Rake, Loving a Lady by Nichole Van

These are the first three books from the series Brotherhood of the Black Tartan. Six men took part in a privately funded scientific expedition to the New Hebrides, and were fortunate to survive. An evil captain attempted to murder the leader of the expedition, who came close to death. Jamie, the ship's carpenter, apparently died protecting the men, who have formed the Brotherhood to avenge his death.

Each book focuses on one member of the expedition, matches him with the perfect woman, and furthers the story about the expedition and the search to determine the fate of Jamie. I want to know what happened to Jamie, but not enough to read any more of this series. I hadn't realised that there was a subset of historical romantic fiction dealing with men in kilts, and find it very odd indeed.

I was entertained enough to read three books from this series, but there is too much sentimentality, hugging, and self-improvement jargon, and too many overly sensitive heroes and anachronistically independent heroines.

22pamelad
Editado: Abr 10, 2021, 7:37 pm

Mask of Duplicity and The Mask Revealed by Julia Brannan

These are the first two in the series The Jacobite Chronicles. I had to read the second because, as you can see from the titles, the masked character (actually heavily made up, rather than masked) didn't remove his mask by the end of the first book. Amazon has decided that because I read three books about men in kilts I want to read more of them, to the exclusion of anything else. Its recommendations are so unimaginative.

Elizabeth Cunningham's mother was a beautiful seamstress, the second wife of her gentleman father. Elizabeth's father has just died, leaving her an orphan. Mr Cunningham had been ill for a long time, and unable to manage his investments, so there is very little money apart from Elizabeth's large dowry, set aside in more prosperous times.

Richard Cunningham, son of Mr Cunningham's first wife and Elizabeth's half brother, is a sergeant in the dragoons, resentful that there is not enough money to buy him a commission. He is an evil piece of work, having spent his childhood in vicious occupations such as pulling legs off frogs. He re-establishes contact with an uncle in order to launch the beautiful Elizabeth on London society and sell her to the highest bidder. In London, Elizabeth meets the foppish, heavily made-up Sir Anthony. He is not who he appears to be!

I quite liked these - lots of adventure, interesting historical information about the Jacobites - but the ending of the second book had me snorting with disdain - such unlikely behaviour! They're written in British English, which is my preference.

23spiralsheep
Abr 11, 2021, 7:18 am

>20 pamelad: I love Margery Sharp's fiction (and barely disguised autobiography), although I still have to read my last three which were rarities before they were reprinted earlier this year. I even went as far as to read a novel by her husband (not recommended) out of curiosity as there's no biography.

>22 pamelad: Amazon recced me Harry Potter for years for no apparent reason. I find algorithm recs are useless, but LT's member recs are worth exploring.

I can't decide whether to wish you fewer men in kilts or the cream of the crop, perhaps the latter as I enjoy your summaries.

24NinieB
Abr 11, 2021, 9:37 am

>20 pamelad: >23 spiralsheep: I have several Margery Sharps from the 1940s waiting to be read--enough that I should really make a point of it. Looking forward to seeing whether I like her writing.

25Tess_W
Abr 11, 2021, 11:03 pm

>21 pamelad:
>22 pamelad:

I'm game! I'll try the first one of each!

26pamelad
Abr 12, 2021, 8:57 pm

>23 spiralsheep: Amazon recommends lots of sponsored books that I wouldn't read in a fit. The good thing about LT recommendations is that they lead you off in different directions, though sometimes you get books that have nothing in common other than being Viragos, or from the same country (particularly those with a smaller output than the UK or US).

>24 NinieB: I think that Margery Sharp might be just your cup of tea.

>25 Tess_W: There was more historical fact in the Julia Brannan books than in the Nichole Van books. The Brannan books were historical fiction with romance, and the Vans were the other way round. Interested to hear what you think.

27pamelad
Abr 12, 2021, 9:26 pm

Here We Are by Graham Swift begins in 1959 with a variety show in Brighton. The MC, Jack Robinson, sings a bit, dances a bit, and tells a few jokes. Jack's friend Ronnie stars in a magic act, the audience's favourite, with his fiancee Evie, Pablo and Eve. Variety is dying, and the three will never appear together again. There's a mystery about Ronnie. We learn about his early life with his mother in East London, the years he spent as an evacuee with the childless couple Eric and Penny, the events leading to him becoming a magician, on stage in Brighton with his assistant Evie. Then the book returns to Evie, fifty years later, looking back. What happened to Ronnie?

I did not much enjoy this book and was pleased that it was so short. It is elegiac in tone, and the characters are lifeless because Swift describes them from the outside. Ronnie is the one character the reader wants to know about, so the ending, which verges on Magical Realism, was to me a failure of imagination and humanity.

This is the second of Graham Swift's books that I've read, the first being the Booker Prize winner, Last Orders. They share the same dreary tone. Swift is such a sad sack that I doubt I'll read another of his books.

28NinieB
Abr 12, 2021, 10:34 pm

>26 pamelad: I must read one soon then!

29pamelad
Abr 13, 2021, 1:57 am

Midnight Marriage and Autumn Duchess by Lucinda Brant

Midnight Marriage begins with a forced marriage between a drugged twelve-year-old girl and a drunk fifteen-year-old boy, son of a duke. Eight years later they meet again, when the young man, a Marquis, has decided that it is time to consummate the marriage and produce and heir while his elderly father is still alive. On realising that the young woman has no idea that she is married, he keeps his identity secret in order to woo her. But there are obstacles in their way: the duke's bastard son who would do anything he could to destroy the young Marquis; a breach of promise case; malicious gossip.

In Autumn Duchess, the mother of the Marquis, who is still breathtakingly beautiful and looks much younger than her age, has sipped into melancholia after the death of her elderly husband. He had married her for love even though she was barely eighteen and had been his ward. Her son, who wants to help her but has no clue, puts her in the care of a sadistic doctor who keeps her in the ice house strapped to a chair and pours ice water over her head twice a day. Fortunately, an English merchant newly arrived from India has fallen in love with the Duchess at first sight and comes looking for her.

There is a sub-plot of spying and treason against the British in support of the Americans in the War of Independence, with a young relative of the Duchess passing secrets to Benjamin Franklin in Paris. Definitely written for an American readership.

Two of these are enough, or perhaps too many.

30pamelad
Abr 13, 2021, 7:05 pm

>27 pamelad: Still reflecting on why I disliked this book so much. I've been happily reading some real rubbish, but my expectations were much higher for Here We Are and I was disappointed. It was the magical ending, particularly the reappearance of the parrot, which made the book seem like a cold artistic exercise, where its structure was more important than its characters.

31pamelad
Abr 13, 2021, 8:45 pm

His Disinclined Bride by Jennie Goutet

Phineas Stropford, the Viscount Hayworth, marries Kitty Stokes, the sister of a rich merchant. It is a business deal: Kitty comes with a huge dowry that will allow Phineas to be independent of his demanding father, and Erasmus Stokes, Kitty's brother, benefits from his association with the aristocracy. Kitty is not consulted. The first time the engaged couple meet is at the wedding ceremony, where Phineas is struck by Kitty's character and beauty. He decides that he wants Kitty's affection and will not coerce her into producing an heir. Will Phineas be able to gain Kitty's love? That's it. The whole plot.

A Fall from Grace by Jennie Goutet

Selena Lockhart's father gambled away his fortune and drank himself to death, leaving unpaid gambling debts and disgracing his family. Selena is on her way to a job as a paid companion to a bad-tempered female relative when the stage coach breaks down and she is deposited in the cold dark night in the middle of nowhere. She seeks refuge at a nearby house belonging to Lucius Clavering, saving him from a pert young woman who has tried to compromise him and force him into marriage.

Lucius is impressed by Selena, and concerned for her welfare, so he renews contact with her employer, an old family friend, in order to keep in contact. Will Lucius be able to forget Selena's family's disgrace and marry her?

These were quite readable, but not enough happens.

32pamelad
Abr 13, 2021, 9:00 pm

Mrs Drew Plays Her Hand by Carla Kelly

Roxana Drew's vicar husband died almost a year ago after a long illness, leaving her with two young daughters. Her brother-in-law, who owns the living, has allowed Roxana to stay in the vicarage, but now she must leave because a new vicar has been appointed. The brother-in-law has a sickly whining wife, so he wants the beautiful Roxana to live with him and give him a son, whom he will pass off as his wife's. Roxana is befriended by the bailiff of a nearby estate, and is allowed to rent the Dower House. The estate's owner, Fletcher Rand, Lord Winn, on a rare visit to his estate, which is one of many, meets Roxana and her daughters and falls in love with all of them. Unfortunately, Roxana is still in mourning and misses her husband terribly, and Winn has an unfortunate past that has led to his banishment from society. Many misunderstandings and difficulties ensue.

I enjoyed this one, but it was a bit too gooey.

33pamelad
Abr 13, 2021, 9:26 pm

Rhododendron Pie by Margery Sharp

The Laventie family has a birthday tradition. Ever since Ann, the youngest, yearned for a hyacinth pie, every birthday pie has contained flowers. By now the adult Ann would much prefer something edible, like apples, but the tradition continues. The Laventies like to be unusual, to be seen as distinguished, so are inordinately concerned with the impression they create: their neighbours are too common to associate with; their house is exquisitely furnished; their conversation is intellectual, their pursuits literary and artistic. Out of family loyalty, Ann does her best to fit in with her distinguished father, brother and sister, but it does not come naturally and she is drawn to people whom her family find common and worthless.

This is Margery Sharp's first book and very funny. I snorted with laughter quite a few times. The Laventies are appallingly and emptily pretentious, and Sharp must have known people just like them.

34spiralsheep
Abr 14, 2021, 4:58 am

>33 pamelad: Rhododendron Pie is one of the three Sharp's I still have to read so your review is very encouraging.

If you ever want to read her closest to autobiographical novel then The Sun in Scorpio is deliciously bitchy about her easily identifiable former employers in addition to being a solid and amusing period novel (although not her best by any means).

35pamelad
Abr 14, 2021, 5:14 pm

>34 spiralsheep: I'd like to read The Sun in Scorpio. It appears to be out of print at the moment, so I hope it will be republished, as her others were.

36Tess_W
Abr 15, 2021, 2:54 am

>27 pamelad: Last Orders was enough to turn me off from Graham Swift forever!

37pamelad
Abr 15, 2021, 5:48 pm

>27 pamelad: The film of Last Orders is much better than the book because the actors give it some life. Michael Caine can lift anything. Maybe Here We Are would also make a better film than a book.

Something strange is going on with alternate touchstones.

38pamelad
Abr 15, 2021, 6:38 pm

The Governess Affair and The Duchess War by Courtney Milan

The Governess Affair is a prequel for The Brothers Sinister series, and the Kindle ebook available free. Hugo Marshall is the son of a coal miner, an ex-prize-fighter, and now a ruthless fixer for the corrupt rapist, the Duke of Clermont. If Hugo can restore the Duke's finances he earns 500 pounds, the basis of his financial future. Hugo plans to become the richest coal miner's son ever.

The Duke has married the daughter of a wealthy businessman who has tied his financial support to his daughter's happiness, so the Duke gets the cash only when the couple are living together. But Serena Barton, an ex-governess, waits outside the Duke's mansion ever day, intent on gaining the recognition of the Duke. If the Duke's wife finds out, she will not return, the Dukes debts will remain unpaid, and Hugo will not get his 500 pounds. Hugo has to get rid of the young woman, but he is drawn to her and unwilling to add to her pain.

Because I wanted to find out what happened to Hugo and Serena, I read The Duchess War, which features the legitimate son of the evil Duke, Serena's son, and a cousin. All of them are left-handed, hence the name the brothers sinister. The young Duke is devoting his life to repaying the working people his father destroyed and changing the political system in order to abolish the peerage and hereditary privilege. He meets Minnie Pursley, a community activist, and they are attracted to one another, despite the difference in their station. But Minnie has a dark past which does not bear scrutiny. Once she was stoned by an angry mob: her face is scarred and, despite being otherwise brave and capable, she is frightened of crowds.

Even for a historical romance, the plot of this is ludicrous. The book was entertaining enough, but the sentimentality was cloying.

39christina_reads
Abr 16, 2021, 2:46 pm

>38 pamelad: Thanks for this! I always seem to see really glowing reviews of Courtney Milan, so I'm interested to see this different perspective. I have The Duchess War on my e-reader, so I'll probably get to it at some point, but this is a good reminder to moderate my expectations. :)

40pamelad
Abr 17, 2021, 5:11 pm

>39 christina_reads: The writer built up Serena's scandalous history to such a degree that the final reveal had to be a disappointment. It required that couple of people behave in ways that were very much out of character. I'm interested to see what you think.

41pamelad
Abr 17, 2021, 6:03 pm

The Matrimonial Advertisement, A Modest Independence, A Convenient Fiction, The Winter Companion by Mimi Matthews Series: Parish Orphans of Devon

Justin Thornhill, Tom Finchley, Alex Archer and Neville were orphans, semi-starved, maltreated and unloved in an orphanage set up by the brutal Sir Oswald Bannister, molester of servants. Many of the orphans are his own unacknowledged children, including Justin and probably Alex.

Justin is a retired army captain and Tom a solicitor. Alex disappeared 20 years ago. Neville, who received a serious head injury as a boy, though intellectually unimpaired, has speech problems, and lives with Justin, caring for the animals and training to take over the duties of the elderly steward.

The series begins with Justin, who lives in the isolated abbey once owned by Sir Oswald. After a conversation in which Justin talks about wanting a wife, his steward takes it upon himself to advertise for one. The advertisement is answered by Helena, who is in desperate need of a protector.

The second book is about Tom and Jenny. Tom is a ruthless solicitor, and Jenny is Helena's paid companion. Helena settles 5000 pounds on Jenny, enough for a "modest independence". Jenny plans to travel to India on her own to find Helena's missing brother, thought to have died during the Sepoy Rebellion. Her life up until now has been controlled by others, and she will not give up her independence, even for Tom Finchley, of whom she is becoming very fond.

The disreputable Alex reappears in the third book. He holds the gambling debts of a dissolute young, childhood friend of an heiress, and has compelled him to support Alex's courtship of the heiress. But Alex meets the impoverished Laura, who attracts him as no other woman ever has. Will he give up his quest for a fortune and marry his true love?

In the fourth book, Clara, a paid companion, meets the inarticulate Neville, who is kind, gentle and extraordinarily handsome. This is the least successful book of the series. Not a lot of plot, but a lot of waffle about animals.

I enjoyed the first three books, despite the unlikely plots. Plenty of interesting historical details, particularly in the first two.

42pamelad
Abr 18, 2021, 4:37 pm

Fallen Angel by Charlotte Louise Dolan

The writing didn't flow. The plot, what little there was of it, was silly. Not worth reading.

43pamelad
Editado: Abr 19, 2021, 6:12 am

Imprudent Lady by Joan Smith

Prudence Mallow falls in love with the dashing Lord Dammler, Marquis of something or other, loosely based on Lord Byron, before she has even met him. He is a famous poet, devastatingly handsome, with a patch over one eye but two functional feet. Prudence is a writer, seemingly based on Jane Austen, so she and Dammler eventually meet at a literary soiree. He barely notices her, but events bring them together and a friendship grows. This was quite entertaining with a bit of humour and some broad comic characters, including Prudence's uncle, Clarence Elmtree.

It seems ridiculous to downgrade a Regency romance for being predictable, because that's part of their charm, but I've read too many about dashing rakes who fall in love with dowdy spinsters without realising.

ETA Because this was set partly in Bath, I'm going to count it for the last square on my Bingo card: set somewhere you'd like to visit. In June 2020, I was going to England for the first time, and Bath was one of the places I planned to go to.

44pamelad
Editado: Abr 19, 2021, 6:41 am

Starting another Bingo card to add some variety, and because I've read a book that fits in the Magic square, which is the hardest. It is here, in post #5. I'm using books read from April onwards.

45Tess_W
Abr 19, 2021, 8:01 am

>43 pamelad: I was in England in 2005 and I thought Bath was the most beautiful city I've ever visited!

46pamelad
Abr 19, 2021, 10:15 pm

>45 Tess_W: I hope to get there before too long, but even 2022 is not looking too promising. I'd booked three walking holidays, one based at Lulworth Cove on the Jurassic Coast, one based in Whitby, in Yorkshire, and a third in the Cotswalds. Between walks I'd planned to visit London, Bath and York. No point moaning. We're lucky to be able to travel at all, and I've recently been to South Australia. We saw the Clarice Beckett Exhibition at the Adelaide Gallery, and went on a boat trip in the Coorong, starting from a small historic town, Goolwa. We saw seals and lots of birds, and climbed up isolated sand dunes to aboriginal middens. The weather was perfect.

47pamelad
Abr 19, 2021, 10:24 pm

Circe by Madeline Miller

I read this for the April HistoryCAT because it's based on Greek mythology. It's a sympathetic story of Circe, from her own perspective. I have almost zero knowledge of Greek mythology, except for what I learned reading The Silence of the Girls last year, so had never heard of Circe and find it hard to say anything sensible about this book. I quite enjoyed it, and have now learned who the Olympians and the Titans were. I've also learned more about Odysseus.

48pamelad
Editado: Abr 19, 2021, 10:33 pm

A Stolen Kiss by M. A. Nichols

Lily Kingsley is big and ungainly and at 29 no man has ever taken a romantic interest in her. Rather than going to her grave unkissed, she arranges to meet an old friend in the library to kiss him goodbye on his emigration to Canada. But in the dark she kisses the wrong man, the cold and ruthless businessman Jonathan Hartcher, who is no gentleman.

I liked this Victorian romance. No aristocrats, just middle-class people. Lots of misunderstandings, but true love wins in the end.

49Tess_W
Editado: Abr 20, 2021, 6:01 am

>46 pamelad: I hope you get there in 2022! I was in London during the Queen's Jubilee and Buckingham Palace was open. We waited in line for 4 hours to get in, but it was well worth it.

>47 pamelad: I enjoyed Circe, but I loved The Song of Achilles.

50spiralsheep
Abr 20, 2021, 3:17 am

>46 pamelad: From personal experience I can recommend walking in all those places, including central London if you're confident. York is truly the most walkable of English cities. I hope we can all travel confidently again soon.

51MissBrangwen
Abr 20, 2021, 3:08 pm

>46 pamelad: I've been to all of those places and truly love them, and I hope you can go there as soon as possible!
We wanted to travel to Australia this year as a second honeymoon and of course it won't happen, so I'm feeling with you. We haven't even done the first honeymoon.
I hope for Australia in 2023 and until then I will be happy with anything possible, even within Germany!

And I think South Australia is lovely, although I haven't been to most places you visited.

52pamelad
Abr 20, 2021, 10:12 pm

Marrying the Captain by Carla Kelly is set during the Napoleonic Wars. The Navy captain does not want to marry because he does not want to leave his wife a widow. Too many sailors die at sea, and he has seen to many grieving widows. The young woman with whom he falls in love does not want to marry him because she is illegitimate, so thinks she will ruin his career. But she is at risk from her father, an evil Viscount who would sell her as a mistress to the highest bidder.

I nearly gave up on this a number of time because these English people are speaking contemporary American slang, and because the story dragged. Page upon page of how much these two love one another, but their noble natures are keeping them apart. Dull.

Asses are donkeys, and rats don't have them. This is written for an American audience.

53pamelad
Abr 20, 2021, 10:15 pm

I've read 95 books this year. Can I read 100 by the end of April? Probably, as long as I stick to escapist fluff.

54NinieB
Abr 20, 2021, 10:22 pm

>53 pamelad: I'm impressed, regardless of the fluff factor!

55pamelad
Abr 21, 2021, 2:04 am

>49 Tess_W:, >50 spiralsheep:, >51 MissBrangwen: It will be good to travel again because that will be a sign that the worst of the pandemic is over, worldwide. Australia has a travel bubble with New Zealand now, and it might be expanded soon to include some other countries in the region, depending on how they're managing the pandemic. Possibly Singapore, Vietnam, Taiwan, China.

>50 spiralsheep: I'd planned to do the London section with a friend who has a much better sense of direction than mine (it would be hard to find anyone with a worse one) so I'll borrow the confidence to travel central London on foot.

>51 MissBrangwen: I recommend the Fleurieu Peninsula in SA, which is only an hour or so from Adelaide. I plan to go back there, because we only caught a glimpse this time. We drove 720 km each way to avoid flying, a lot of driving for a 4 day trip. Adelaide has retained a lot of its historic buildings and is surrounded by parks, so it's an attractive city. It has a really good Chinatown and I went to a Chinese restaurant for the first time in a year.

>54 NinieB: I've replaced online shopping, news scrolling, and TV watching with reading fluff. And maybe housework and reading anything thought-provoking.

56spiralsheep
Editado: Abr 21, 2021, 7:35 am

>52 pamelad: "Asses are donkeys, and rats don't have them."

From the 14th century pontifical of Guillaume Durand, because I though it might amuse you. I mean, it's not technically a donkey.... >;-)



ETA: If you prefer not to have images on your thread then let me know and I'll delete it. :-)
/ETA

57spiralsheep
Abr 21, 2021, 4:31 am

>53 pamelad: Congratulations on reading 95 books! That's not far off my usual annual total. And there's nothing wrong with brain candy when required.

58Tess_W
Abr 21, 2021, 1:06 pm

>53 pamelad: It seems I have read more fluff this year than ever before!

59MissBrangwen
Abr 21, 2021, 2:56 pm

>55 pamelad: I remember driving through the Fleurieu Peninsula en route to Kangaroo Island, but we didn't stop there.

>53 pamelad: Congratulations! And I think there's no harm in reading fluff, and comfort reads are what many of us need right now! I feel that this year so far I lack the necessary concentration and stamina for longer or heavier works.

60pamelad
Editado: Abr 22, 2021, 6:11 pm

>56 spiralsheep: That's eerie - the evilly cheerful rat, the rigid bird and the sad-looking tiger.

>57 spiralsheep:, >58 Tess_W:, >59 MissBrangwen: Good to know that you're also fans of froth.

A Matter of Class by Mary Balogh

Reginald Masson's father started as a coalminer and made a fortune. He's brought Reginald up as a gentleman and would dearly love to marry him into the peerage, so when he hears that Lady Annabelle Ashcroft has been caught eloping with a groom and is ruined, he forces Reginald to offer for the disgraced young woman. Things are not what they seem!

I liked this. It was cheerful and short.

The Obedient Bride by Mary Balogh

Arabella Wilson is eighteen, the middle daughter of a viscount who died without providing for his family. The new viscount, Lord Geoffrey Archer, offers for one of the girls, leaving the choice to their mother, and is a little disappointed when he is matched with the short, plump Arabella rather than her beautiful older sister, Frances, but is not too bothered because he has a mistress and is not prepared to let his marriage interfere with his way of life. He hasn't allowed for falling in love with Arabella.

OK.

Simply Love by Mary Balogh

Two damaged people have given up on love. The unmarried woman has a child, the product of a rape, and the man has disfiguring war injuries. The chit-chat and the will-they-won't-they go on for 420 pages, at least twice as many as necessary. Dull, repetitive, banal. Not recommended.

61christina_reads
Abr 22, 2021, 6:33 pm

>60 pamelad: That's quite a spectrum on the Balogh! She's an author I generally like, but I definitely do find some books better than others. Of the ones you mentioned, I've only read A Matter of Class, which I also enjoyed!

62spiralsheep
Abr 23, 2021, 4:35 am

>60 pamelad: I assume the rat out hawking is supposed to be a clerical criticism of the aristocracy but I'm sure no aristocrat ever gave, ahem, a "rat's-ass" about it. >;-)

"I liked this. It was cheerful and short."

I'm very tempted by this review. Obviously people have recced me Mary Balogh before but there's too much choice to know where to begin.

63pamelad
Abr 23, 2021, 4:46 pm

>61 christina_reads: Simply Love suffered from a severe case of book bloat, so I'll be careful in future to check the page count before I start. A lot of philosophising, most of it inane, and far too much talking. But I think the talkiness might be a Mary Balogh characteristic, because I've just read a short book that's full of talk. I prefer that characters do more, talk less.

The Ideal Wife by Mary Balogh

The new Earl of Severn is under pressure from his mother and sisters to marry a woman they have picked out but he is not at all keen, so when Abigail Gardiner, an apparently meek and submissive young woman, a distant relative who has lost her job as a companion, requests his help in finding a new position, he offers her marriage. Fearing destitution, Abigail accepts, even though she has a deep, dark secret. Although short, this book was too talky, and the two main characters never quite gelled. Deep dark secrets are ALWAYS predictable.

OK.

64christina_reads
Abr 23, 2021, 4:51 pm

>63 pamelad: I think Balogh's books do tend to be "talky" -- there aren't a lot of adventures or super dramatic events. Maybe her shorter books would work better for you -- a lot of them have been rereleased as e-books, or in mass market paperbacks with two novels per volume.

65pamelad
Abr 23, 2021, 4:58 pm

>62 spiralsheep: Or a rat's tiger! People shorten the phrase to "Couldn't give a rat's" here, but it's quite aggro, and I certainly wouldn't expect to find it in a Regency romance.

Of the four Mary Balogh books I've just read, A Matter of Class is definitely the one I'd recommend.

66pamelad
Abr 23, 2021, 5:07 pm

>64 christina_reads: I've been reading them from the Internet Archive. Lots of her books are available there for free, though most of them can only be borrowed for an hour at a time. I'll try another early short one.

67pamelad
Abr 23, 2021, 5:29 pm

And now for something completely different!

Wish by Peter Goldsworthy

John James's parents are both deaf, so he learned sign language before he learned to talk. He earns a living teaching Auslan (Australian sign language) and in a night class meets Stella Todd and Clive Kinnear, who employ him to give private lessons to someone whom he assumes is their non-verbal child.

This was a thought-provoking read. There's a lot about sign language and linguistics, which I found interesting, and animal rights. Kinnear has written a book that sounds a little like Peter Skinner's Animal Liberation, though Kinnear is not based on Skinner. He is a proponent of suffrage for animals, and a monomaniac. I don't want to say too much and ruin the ending.

Many people might find this book distasteful.

This was book #100.

68Tess_W
Abr 23, 2021, 5:52 pm

>67 pamelad: Book 100 by April! Well done!

69NinieB
Abr 23, 2021, 5:59 pm

>66 pamelad: I've been obsessed with Internet Archive recently. It's amazing what you can find there. I do get peeved when the hour ends. Did you know you can create your own bookmarks which IA will save for you?

>67 pamelad: What Tess said! Well done indeed--you'll be well over 100 by the end of April, at this rate!

70pamelad
Abr 24, 2021, 1:20 am

>68 Tess_W:, >69 NinieB: Thank you Tess and Ninie.

I'll check out the Internet Archive bookmarks. Thank you.

71pamelad
Abr 24, 2021, 4:54 pm

Double Wager by Mary Balogh

The duke wagers that he will marry within six weeks. The young woman wagers that she will marry the duke. They both win, and when they marry they barely know one another. Will they come to love one another?

This is a naive young woman, older man story. The duke's heir tries to ruin the young woman, abetted by the duke's former mistress.

Pros: Lively young woman with entertaining family; short.
Cons: Ridiculous premise; familiar plot

OK

72pamelad
Editado: Abr 24, 2021, 11:59 pm

I'm getting some new window screens so I thought I'd touch up the paint on the window frames. Things I've learned: don't open the paint can on the back steps; when you try to hose the paint off the steps, close the back door and hose away from the house; a little bit of paint goes a long way when you add water.

73spiralsheep
Abr 25, 2021, 4:15 am

>72 pamelad: Oh, no! I hope it was water-based paint and you can get it all out (or enough of it to be able to cover up any remaining splashes).

We've all done this though. I know I have. In my panic to clean up as quickly as possible before anything dries I've smeared the offending substance even further around, argh. It usually turns out ok in the end, often after second thoughts and a change of tactics (sometimes with help from google).

74pamelad
Abr 25, 2021, 4:31 am

>73 spiralsheep: All is well. It's the same colour as the curtains, and there's none in my hair.

The Viscount's Convenient Bride by Josie Bonham

Because Regency romances are set in England I cringe at every gotten, shriek at normalcy, and curse at asses. I gave Josie Bonham a try because she's British, but her writing is terrible: lots of short sentences; it doesn't flow; hordes of characters are introduced suddenly; most of the action is compressed into a couple of pages; there is extensive waffle about the hero's relationship with his dead father (before he died, of course). I cannot recommend this.

75spiralsheep
Abr 25, 2021, 5:05 am

>74 pamelad: I have masses of hair and learned from my dad never to go anywhere near paint without wearing a hat. I'm glad you won't need shearing!

"gotten" in the mouths of supposedly English characters makes me cringe every time. Fortunately I haven't encountered any "ass". ;-) And, yes, British writers aren't necessarily better at historical fiction, merely differently bad, lol.

76pamelad
Abr 26, 2021, 4:51 pm

Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, Jeeves in the Offing by P. G. Wodehouse

The The Jeeves Omnibus - Volume 4 is the perfect reading in bed book. It's light, humorous and cheerful, not at all nightmare material. Because I've read all the Jeeves books before there's no urgency to keep reading all night to find out what happens. I read Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit earlier this month, have just finished Jeeves in the Offing and have started Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves. All three books feature Aunt Dahlia, Bertie's favourite aunt who never speaks below a bellow, and her husband Tom Travers, who collects antique silver and hates to pay taxes. When I've finished this volume, I'll probably buy another.

77pamelad
Abr 26, 2021, 5:42 pm

Lord Dashwood Missed Out by Tessa Dare

I borrowed this on Overdrive before realising it was a novella. It's one of those contemporary American heroine does Regency books, so I'm glad it was short. It's part of the Spindle Cove series, in which serving girls marry dukes and aristocratic ladies marry butchers. I don't plan to read any of the others.

78VivienneR
Abr 26, 2021, 8:54 pm

>27 pamelad: Sorry you didn't enjoy Wish You Were Here as much as I did. I've enjoyed everything I've read by Graham Swift. Just proves we don't all like the same thing.

>72 pamelad: I hope you were able to rectify your paint blunder. I've had too many to relate here.

>75 spiralsheep: During a recent visit to the doctor she remarked on the nice colour of paint I'd chosen. I didn't realize it was daubed over the back of my arm.

79pamelad
Abr 26, 2021, 10:10 pm

>78 VivienneR: Swift wasn't a winner for me, but I've found plenty of other good reads on your threads so I know that if you recommend them they're worth trying.

I've had a similar post-painting experience at the doctor's.

80spiralsheep
Abr 27, 2021, 5:31 am

>78 VivienneR: Ahaha! (Sorry.) :D

81pamelad
Abr 27, 2021, 4:54 pm

A Lord Apart by Jane Ashford

The reckless actions of Penelope Pendleton's brother, now dead, have caused her to lose her home and her place in society, so she is relieved when a secret benefactor leaves her a cottage. Daniel Frith, Viscount Whitfield, is the son of the unknown benefactor and has no idea of the identity of his father's legatee. After some initial mistrust, Penelope and Daniel become friends, and more, but Penelope's disgrace stands in their way. The Earl of Macklin, an old friend of Daniel's father, who has made it his business to help the grieving Daniel, does what he can to smooth their path.

I liked this one: there are some amusing characters; there's a plot, and some historical background; no graphic sex scenes. Unfortunately the English characters say gotten, but you can't have everything.

82pamelad
Editado: Abr 27, 2021, 9:49 pm

Kathy, kac522, is doing a challenge, which looks like a very good way to break a regency romance addiction.

Read books published between 1900-1950 and that:

1) the author is from your own country
2) the author is from a country other than your own
3) is a classic in its genre (mystery, sci-fi, play, etc.)
4) is NOT a novel (nonfiction, plays, short stories, poetry, etc.)
5) is about, set during or references WWI or WWII

Possibilities:

1. Seven Poor Men of Sydney by Christina Stead 1934
2. The Stone of Chastity by Margery Sharp 1940
3. The Misty Harbour by Georges Simenon from Inspector Maigret Omnibus 2 1932
4. Blandings Castle and Elsewhere by P. G. Wodehouse Short story collection 1935
5. The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene 1948

83NinieB
Abr 27, 2021, 7:51 pm

>82 pamelad: Margery Sharp, I should have remembered her . . . !

85pamelad
Editado: Abr 30, 2021, 8:54 pm

Now want to find books from 1900-1910, 1911- 1920, 1921-1930. Checking the wishlist.

1909 The Iron Chariot by Stein Riverton Classic Norwegian Crime Novel
Jakob von Gunten by Robert Walser 1909
1911 Jenny by Sigrid Undset
1924 So Big by Edna Ferber, 1928 Nadja by Andre Breton
1920s A Country Doctor's Notebook by Mikhail Bulkagov, Short stories
1943 No Place to Lay One's Head by Francoise Frenkel, Non-fiction, WWII

86kac522
Editado: Abr 27, 2021, 10:57 pm

>82 pamelad:, >85 pamelad: Some great picks--Can't go wrong with Wodehouse & Maigret; it'll be interesting to compare notes on Jenny at the end of the month.
I read So Big a few years ago--I liked it because it was set in Chicago, and was evocative of a specific time and place. It's loosely based on real people.

87Tess_W
Abr 28, 2021, 4:04 am

>82 pamelad: Looks like a great challenge. I may steal it and complete books throughout the remainder of this year!

88spiralsheep
Abr 28, 2021, 4:25 am

>82 pamelad: I predict you will either love or hate Stone of Chastity. I loved it for the satire.

Good luck with the challenge. I would have completed it by accident last year. :-)

89pamelad
Editado: Abr 28, 2021, 5:42 pm

Death in the Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa

Corporal Lituma and his assistant, Tomas Carreno, have been appointed to Nacco, an isolated town in the Andes, to guard the workers who are building a new road. Bands of Shining Path guerillas are based in the mountains, from where they launch raids on towns and travellers, stoning victims to death. An attack on a bus and raids on a town and a national park are described in devastating detail. Nacco was once a thriving town, but a cantina and the workers huts are all that remain.

Lituma comes from the coast, a world away from the mountain people whose Catholicism is overlaid with the ancient beliefs in the spirits of the Andes. He is investigating the disappearance of three men. Were they they the victims of Shining Path, or did the spirits take them? The owners of the cantina, Dionisio and his wife, Senora Adriana, known as a witch, are linked to the disappearances, but how?

Every night, Tomas tells Lituma the story of Mercedes, his obsession, whom he has rescued from a violent man, or has he? Mercedes does what she needs to survive. The narrative switches without warning between Tomas's story, Lituma's investigation, the attacks of the guerillas, Dionisio and Adriana, the past and the present, with the story of Tomas and Mercedes ending each day.

The tangled layers of the novel reflect Llosa's view of the complexity of Peru, a place that fascinates outsiders, those people from clean, clear places, who cannot comprehend the country's murky depths.

Recommended.

90pamelad
Editado: Abr 28, 2021, 5:56 pm

>86 kac522: Thank you for suggesting this excellent challenge! I keep finding more and more books to add, so may have to continue past May.

>87 Tess_W: Good idea, Tess. There are quite a few books in my wish list from the thirties and forties, too many for May.

>88 spiralsheep: I might have too, except for the 4th category. A bimodal distribution for Stone of Chastity - interesting.

>83 NinieB: So many possibilities!

91Tess_W
Abr 28, 2021, 6:38 pm

>89 pamelad: on my WL it goes!

92spiralsheep
Abr 29, 2021, 6:03 am

>90 pamelad: I read and reread a lot of poetry. Between the Georgian Poets, the Modernists, and wild cards such as Dylan Thomas, there's something in the 1900-50 time period for most readers.

93pamelad
Abr 30, 2021, 7:04 am

How to Cross a Marquess, A Lord Apart, A Duke Too Far by Jane Ashford

These three are from the series The Way to a Lord's Heart. Four young recently bereaved men have been invited to dinner by the Earl of Macklin, who still grieves for his dead wife after ten years. He wants to help these men recover. Each book in the series covers one of the men, who finds love with the help of the Earl.

How to Beguile a Baron, The Headstrong Ward, Last Gentleman Standing, Earl to the Rescue by Jane Ashford

These are re-titled re-releases of some of Ashford's romances from the eighties.

All of them were enjoyable. A bit of humour, a bit of adventure, some historical detail, and the right people end up with one another.

94pamelad
Abr 30, 2021, 5:03 pm

In April I read 46 books, 36 of them historical romances. The Clayton's categories don't seem to be working all that well, if variety is the goal, so this month I have a plan.

1. Complete the books I've started and put aside. The Yield, Mr Rosenblum Dreams in English.
2. A few for the BingoDog
3. History CAT
4. 1900 - 1950 Challenge, kac522

95pamelad
Editado: mayo 12, 2021, 7:06 pm

1900 - 1950 Challenge

1. Author from Australia

The Getting of Wisdom by Henry Handel Richardson 1909

2. Author not from Australia

Pending Heaven by William Gerhardie 1930

3. Classic in its Genre

The Iron Chariot by Stein Riverton 1909

4. Not a Novel

A Jury of Her Peers by Susan Glaspell, Short Story, 1917

5. References WWI or WWII

Yes to Life: In Spite of Everything by Victor Frankl 1946

1900 - 1910

1911 - 1920

1921 - 1930

Nadja by Andre Breton 1928

1931 - 1940

1941 - 1950

Concluding by Henry Green 1948
The Exploits of Engelbrecht by Maurice Richardson 1950

96christina_reads
Abr 30, 2021, 5:33 pm

>94 pamelad: Wow, 46 books?! That is ridiculous and impressive! I've enjoyed your Regency romance binge and have gotten several good recs. But I understand the need for some variety. :)

97pamelad
mayo 1, 2021, 1:18 am

>96 christina_reads: Glad you found some books to read! I also thought 46 was a ridiculous number. It's because a lot of them were shortish, so I thought, "I'll just keep reading and finish it." The hordes of Mary Baloghs on the Internet Archive and Jane Ashfords on Overdrive were a trap too.

98pamelad
mayo 1, 2021, 1:22 am

>95 pamelad: I've started with The Getting of Wisdom by Henry Handel Richardson and am enjoying it. Australian author, Australian setting, 1910. I'm easing into the challenge, leaving Christina Stead for later on.

99spiralsheep
mayo 1, 2021, 1:37 am

>94 pamelad: You should have stopped at 42, the meaning of life, the universe, and everything! >;-)

I hope you enjoy your new 1900-50 challenge.

100pamelad
mayo 1, 2021, 5:39 pm

>99 spiralsheep: Thank you. I've started a second book for the challenge, William Gerhardie's Pending Heaven, 1930, which will also fit in the fewer than 20 BingoDog square.

101Tess_W
mayo 1, 2021, 6:07 pm

>100 pamelad: I'm starting that challenge, also, but don't think I will finish it in May. I decided to go through my TBR and find books that would fit, beginning with the oldest.

102pamelad
mayo 1, 2021, 6:20 pm

First May book completed. I started it a week ago, but put it aside.

Mr Rosenblum's List by Natasha Solomons

Jakob and Sadie Rosenblum, Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, arrive in England in 1937 with their one-year-old daughter. They were lucky to obtain exit papers, and had to leave behind the rest of their family, who were not so fortunate. On arrival they are given a list of rules to follow in order to assimilate into English society. Jakob embraces the challenge with enthusiasm and his first step in becoming an Englishman is to change his name to Jack. Sadie, however, sees Jack's optimistic focus on the future, his refusal to feel sad, as an insult to the people they have lost, and they grow apart.

Jack builds a successful carpet business, which allows him to acquire the outward trappings of a successful Englishman - an impressive house, a Saville Row suit, a Jaguar - but he cannot fulfil his ambition of joining a golf club because no club will take Jews. He decides to build his own, so buys a ramshackle house, with enough land for a golf course, in Dorset.

Jack's obsession with building the golf course doesn't chime with the character who built a successful carpet business and was devoted to his wife and daughter. This section of the book is almost unbearably twee, and only the realism of Sadie's melancholy ties it to reality. Fortunately, something happens to restore the sympathy between Sadie and Jack.

The best parts of the book were the insights into the difficulties experienced by Jack and Sadie: the racial prejudice; the clash of cultures and lack of understanding; the difficulty in getting out of Germany and leaving people behind; coming to terms with the loss of their extended family; the class system. The author is the grand daughter of Holocaust survivors whose experiences she used as a basis for Sadie's and Jack's. The worst parts were the lengthy fantasy about building the golf course. The book was far too long.

I chose this book because I was looking for something set in Dorset for the somewhere you'd like to visit Bingo square.

103Tess_W
mayo 1, 2021, 6:56 pm

>100 pamelad: Hmmm, debating on the Gerhardie book! The last I read was a solid "3." Will put it on my WL and then mull it over.

104MissBrangwen
mayo 2, 2021, 2:46 am

>102 pamelad: Parts of your review reminds me of Nowhere in Africa by Stefanie Zweig.

"Jakob embraces the challenge with enthusiasm and his first step in becoming an Englishman is to change his name to Jack. Sadie, however, sees Jack's optimistic focus on the future, his refusal to feel sad, as an insult to the people they have lost, and they grow apart."

This is very important in that novel, too. It's the young daughter who loves Africa and is happy and free there, while her parents find it hard to get used to a new life and feel guilty towards their family who had no chance to leave Germany. I hope to read the sequel this month.

105pamelad
mayo 2, 2021, 5:32 am

>104 MissBrangwen: I looked for this book and found that there is a film based on it. It won the Academy award for Best Foreign Film in 2002 and is available on Kanopy. Have you seen it?

106MissBrangwen
mayo 2, 2021, 5:55 am

>105 pamelad: Not yet, unfortunately! I bought in on DVD but haven't watched it yet. As far as I know it diverges from the novel in some aspects, but I assume it still must be good if it won an Oscar!

107pamelad
Editado: mayo 2, 2021, 6:10 am

First book for the 1900 - 1950 Challenge
1. Author is from your own country (Australia)

The Getting of Wisdom by Henry Handel Richardson is set in the 1890s and was first published in 1909.

Laura Robotham's father is dead and although her mother barely supports the family by doing embroidery, she has scraped together the money to send Laura to board at a ladies' college in Melbourne. We now know it is PLC, the Presbyterian Ladies' College, which was then located in East Melbourne. We also know that the country town where Laura's family lives is Maldon, which I know well, so I can trace her journey on the coach to Castlemaine station, then to Melbourne by train. All the places in the book are familiar: Prahran, where Laura's godmother lives; Collins Street, where people used to 'do the block', walking up and down dressed in their best, meeting friends; Eastern Market, which used to be at the top of Bourke Street; Sorrento, the small town on Port Philip Bay where Laura went for a holiday. I loved reading about these places as they were 130 years ago.

I last read this book in year 9, which is over fifty years ago. It made a strong impression on me then, partly because, like Laura, I was a new student and the new school felt strange. I remember Laura's embarrassment at the bright purple dress her mother made her wear, and the sympathy I felt for her need to be just like the other students. But Laura is not at all a sympathetic character. She tells lies, has no sense of humour, toadies to people she wants to know and is cruel to people who don't interest her. If Laura is, as is often assumed, based on the author, this is a brutally lacerating portrait.

I enjoyed this re-read and am planning to watch the Bruce Beresford film.

108pamelad
Editado: mayo 2, 2021, 6:29 am

>103 Tess_W: It's started well, but I've been side tracked by a book I found on an LT list, Wilfully Eccentric Little England. Excellent list. The book is The Exploits of Engelbrecht by Maurice Richardson, a collection of short stories published in 1950, about Engelbrecht, the dwarf surrealist boxer. I've laughed through two stories so far. Deadpan and ridiculous.

https://www.librarything.com/list/1015/all/wilfully-eccentric-little-england-cos...

109spiralsheep
mayo 2, 2021, 6:31 am

>107 pamelad: That sounds like a good book and a good choice for you too.

110Tess_W
mayo 2, 2021, 8:00 am

>108 pamelad: Gotta stop coming here! Too many book bullets. My wish-list is expanding at a rapid rate!

111NinieB
mayo 2, 2021, 9:17 am

>107 pamelad: The Getting of Wisdom has been on my shelf waiting for me for quite a while--time for me to prioritize it. Not likely for this month, though.

112DeltaQueen50
mayo 2, 2021, 12:53 pm

This challenge is being picked up by a number of Category Challengers. I can't see anyway of fitting it into my this year's reading, but I am taking notes of books read and enjoyed in case I give it a try next year.

113pamelad
mayo 2, 2021, 6:45 pm

>109 spiralsheep: A local setting adds a layer of enjoyment, I think.

>110 Tess_W: Happy to assist!

>111 NinieB: Is The Fortunes of Richard Mahony also on your list? It's so tragic that I could hardly bear to keep reading. The Getting of Wisdom is slight in comparison, but definitely worth reading.

>112 DeltaQueen50: There are so many possibilities for this challenge. I want to read them all at once.

114NinieB
Editado: mayo 2, 2021, 7:15 pm

>113 pamelad: Yes, I have a (very beat-up) copy of The Fortunes of Richard Mahony waiting for me. I need to declare my own Australian month challenge--I have so many Australian books to read!

And I agree--can't I read all the books at once?

115pamelad
mayo 2, 2021, 10:21 pm

From today, everyone in Australia who is over 50 can get the AstraZeneca vaccination. I'm booked in for Wednesday. People under 50 who are in high risk groups can get the Pfizer vaccine now, but others under 50 will have to wait until at least September to get it, and that's a best-case scenario because of the world-wide shortage. Then again, other people need it more than we do. We make the AstraZeneca vaccine here, but not the Pfizer.

116pamelad
mayo 3, 2021, 6:16 am

Second book for 1900 -1950 challenge

5. References WWI or WWII

Yes to Life: In Spite of Everything by Victor Frankl 1946

This is the first English translation of three lectures delivered in 1946 at an adult education college in a district of Vienna, 9 months after Frankl had been liberated from the Dachau concentration camp. They were published as a book the same year. Frankl draws on his experience in the camps, in hospitals and clinics, in order to reach his conclusions.

The first lecture, On the Meaning and Value of Life I, concludes that life becomes more meaningful the more difficult it becomes, that each person is responsible for his own existence. The second lecture, on the Meaning and Value of Life II makes the case that all lives are valuable. Frankl is responding here to the "euthanasia" of the mentally and physically ill. In the third lecture, Experimentum Crucis, Frankl talks about the people who knew nothing, and distinguishes between being responsible and being liable.

This is a precursor to the book, Man's Search for Meaning.

117MissBrangwen
mayo 3, 2021, 11:01 am

>115 pamelad: Thank you for this information! Trying not to be too political here, but I think it is so important to keep a global perspective, especially in this pandemic. I want to look out of my bubble and stay informed about the vaccination progress (unfortunately, often rather lack of progress) in other places. And of course, Australia is especially close to my heart.
I am happy that you have your appointment!

118Tess_W
mayo 4, 2021, 3:04 am

>116 pamelad: I always use the Frankl poem "Little Polish Boy" in my Holocaust class as an example of an ecphrastic poem; then have the students write their own.

I have Man's Search for Meaning on my shelf, waiting to be read. I was unaware of the precursor to this book, but I'm off to locate it now!

119pamelad
mayo 4, 2021, 5:24 am

>118 Tess_W: I looked up this poem, which is by the poet Peter Fischl. https://isurvived.org/SmallBoyCaptured.html
I would definitely recommend reading Man's Search for Meaning. Frankl was a psychiatrist and neurologist.

120pamelad
mayo 4, 2021, 5:31 am

>117 MissBrangwen: Thank you. I agree that it's important to have a global perspective. We want everyone to be safe.

121pamelad
mayo 4, 2021, 5:47 am

Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse

This is the last book in the The Jeeves Omnibus, Volume 4. Bertie and Jeeves are staying at teh house of Pop Bassett, father of Madeline Bassett who has just forced Gussie Finknottle to become a vegetarian. If Gussie breaks off the engagement, Madeline has threatened to marry Bertie, so he is determined to mend the "rift in the lute".

Loved it.

The Gilded Web by Mary Balogh

I had this on hold at the Open Library, so had to do the right thing by the other people on the waitlist and read it straight away! Autocratic father who is a religious fanatic and makes his children's lives miserable. A young woman dishonoured through no fault of her own. An earl who offers marriage. A brother with a terrible secret and a ruined life. Earl and dishonoured young woman are eminently well-suited, but create 440 pages worth of difficulties. Tempted to read Devil's Web to find out about the brother, but will leave it a while and hope the urge goes away.

122pamelad
mayo 5, 2021, 5:33 am

3. Classic in its Genre

The Iron Chariot by Stein Riverton was, according to Amazon, voted the greatest Norwegian crime novel of all time.

Most of the protagonists are staying at a seaside hotel in a rural Norwegian village surrounded by farmland, mountains and forests. The descriptions of the surroundings are poetic and beautiful, and contribute enormously to the atmosphere of the book. It's summer, and the nights are short, with only two or three hours of darkness. A man's body is found on the plain, and a detective is called from the city. He knows who the killer is, but there is no evidence, so he must find a way of proving his case.

The Iron Chariot is a local folktale. People hear the sound of the chariot when someone dies, and it was heard on the night of this death.

I enjoyed this book. It was slow, dramatic and atmospheric. It was first published in 1909.

123Tess_W
mayo 5, 2021, 5:41 am

>118 Tess_W: You are so correct! I read too fast! But I do have that book on my shelf.

124pamelad
Editado: mayo 5, 2021, 5:28 pm

The Devil's Web by Mary Balogh

In the The Gilded Web the passion between James Purnell and Madeline Raine drove James to Canada in an attempt to forget. He has a deep dark secret that apparently justifies treating Madeline cruelly. Four years later he returns, still passionate, still cruel, still in love with Madeline, who is unmarried at 26 because no man could measure up to James. They marry, despite knowing that they will be unhappy together. And they are, because James behaves very badly.

I found this book distasteful because today James's behaviour would be classified as domestic violence: coercive control. Madeline tries to make him happy, but he humiliates her again and again, until she has no choice but to leave. I waded through over 400 pages of this low level violence, cruelty and masochism because I wanted to get to the happy ending. It would have been more sensible to leave out the middle chapters and skip straight to the end.

ETA Couldn't help but think of last year's Stella Prize winner, See What You Made Me Do: Power, Control and Domestic Violence by Jess Hill.

125pamelad
mayo 5, 2021, 6:11 pm

I've started books for both of these categories.

2. Author not from Australia Pending Heaven by William Gerhardie, England, 1930.

4. Not a Novel The Exploits of Engelbrecht by Maurice Richardson, Short Stories, 1950.

126pamelad
Editado: mayo 5, 2021, 10:08 pm

In Pending Heaven, the main character Max Fisher mentions three best sellers, one of which I've read, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and two others, The Green Hat 1924 and If Winter Comes 1921. More possibilities for the 1900 - 1950 Challenge.

127pamelad
mayo 6, 2021, 2:03 am

Pending Heaven by William Gerhardie 1930

The two main characters, Victor Thurbon and Max Fisher, are based on the author and his friend, Hugh Kingsmill. They first meet in the Cap d'Antibes, where Victor leases a house, then again in London, where Victor has a flat and a secretary, the young widow, Phyllis Blackadder. The three of them decide to share a flat, but the arrangement ends when Phyllis leaves with Max, to Victor's chagrin. Max and Victor compete over literature and women, and Max manages to spirit away another of victor's women, the harpist Helen. Max ends up in Victor's house in Cap d'Antibes with both Helen and Phyllis, plus a third young woman, Sheila. Max acquires mistresses but cannot get rid of them.

There's hardly any plot. It's episodic, comic and melancholy, with a few recurring themes. Max is swindled over a horse and for most of the book tries to get his money back; Helen's vanity is ludicrous and entertaining; Sheila, Helen and Phyllis all think they're the most important and intelligent woman in Max's life. They move to Algeria, where Max suggests a Mohammadan marriage. It's very amusing book, and you can't help but feel sympathy for Max and Victor, though they're a pair of selfish, incompetent womanisers.

I enjoyed Pending Heaven, but had to suspend judgement. Max loves womanhood, but finds women's individual personalities tedious and unnecessary.

128pamelad
mayo 6, 2021, 4:38 am

A Radical Arrangement by Jane Ashford

Margaret runs away because she believes her parents are going to force her to marry Sir Justin, a radical politician whom she has been taught to mistrust. Believing that Margaret's parents have disowned her, Sir Justin pursues Margaret, but suffers a serious injury. Margaret nurses him back to health.

Happy ending never in doubt and it doesn't take long to get there. A quick read is a very good thing.

129pamelad
Editado: mayo 8, 2021, 3:22 am

First Season, Bride to Be, Man of Honour, The Marchington Scandal by Jane Ashford

First Season was dull. A lovely young widow was married straight out of the schoolroom, and when she comes to London for the first time, her head is turned by a selfish rake, despite the worthy neighbour who has always loved her, and her children.

Bride to Be was better. Emily Crane, daughter of two eccentric artists, saves a young man from drowning. She meets him again in London, and realises that other attempts have been made on his life, so she tries to save him, despite his denial of his own risk and lack of appreciation for Emily.

Man of Honour had an annoying main male character. He marries a young woman who has been compromised by being trapped in a snow-bound inn with him, but behaves in a remarkably self-centred, autocratic way, The problems that arise would not have occurred had he only listened.

The Marchington Scandal

Oliver Stonendon once proposed to Katharine Daltry, but she had no interest in a man as arrogant as Oliver. After six years in India and the death of her father, Katharine has returned to London, where she and Oliver meet again.

I'd read this before. So hard to tell!

The Work of Art by Mimi Matthews

Phillida is a beautiful young woman with one blue eye and one amber. Her wicked cousin, her only relative, tries to sell her to the Duke of Moreland, who collects unique works of art and has offered marriage, but she is saved by the bitter, crippled war hero, Arthur Heywood who offers her a marriage in name only, but Phillida's life is still endangered.

Enjoyed it.

Both Jane Ashford and Mimi Matthews write entertaining historical romances and are worth trying.

130MissBrangwen
mayo 8, 2021, 4:48 am

>122 pamelad: This sounds great, on my list now!

131pamelad
mayo 9, 2021, 3:51 am

The Banishment by M. C. Beaton and The Homecoming by M. C. Beaton

These are the first and the last books in the series, The Daughters of Mannerling. The father of the five Beverley daughters gambles away their house, Mannerling. Each of the five books is the story of a Beverley daughter attempting to marry the current owner so she can get the house back. The first book is about Isabella and it's a shocker. It reads as though the author had no interest in her characters, and wrote the book in an afternoon. The writing is as flat as the characters. The fifth book is slightly better than the first.

Three Weeks to Wed by Ella Quinn

Grace is the guardian of her seven younger brothers and sisters. She plans never to marry because she cannot take the risk that a husband would split up the family. But when she is snowbound in an inn she meets Worthington, a man she has yearned after for years, and decides that one night of love with him will last her for the rest of her life. Worthington doesn't remember meeting Grace before and does not know her name, but falls in love and decides to marry her. He has to find her first.

This started off well but it is much too long. The detailed descriptions of sex and clothes hold up the plot. It's cheerful, there's a happy ending, and there's no violence, but I don't think I'll bother with any more by this writer.

132pamelad
mayo 9, 2021, 6:18 am

1900-1950 Challenge

4. Not a Novel

A Jury of Her Peers by Susan Glaspell Short story, 1917

A man has been strangled with a rope, and his wife arrested. Three men, the sheriff, the county attorney and a witness, are upstairs investigating the crime and searching for a motive, while downstairs in the kitchen two women are collecting the clothes and other necessities for the jailed women. The men's jocular criticism of the woman's housekeeping and their condescending comments about women's concerns contrast with the women's sympathy for the accused. By observing domestic details the men cannot see, the women understand the motive.

Highly recommended.

133pamelad
Editado: mayo 9, 2021, 6:26 am

1900 - 1950 Challenge

1. Author from Australia

The Getting of Wisdom by Henry Handel Richardson 1909

2. Author not from Australia

Pending Heaven by William Gerhardie 1930

3. Classic in its Genre

The Iron Chariot by Stein Riverton 1909

4. Not a Novel

A Jury of Her Peers by Susan Glaspell, Short Story, 1917

5. References WWI or WWII

Yes to Life: In Spite of Everything by Victor Frankl 1946

134pamelad
mayo 9, 2021, 6:25 am

>130 MissBrangwen: I hope you like it. I enjoy those early, leisurely detective stories and the setting of this one is special.

135pamelad
mayo 10, 2021, 8:02 am

Concluding by Henry Green

In a Henry Green novel the characters were living before the reader picked up the book, so when you arrive you don't quite know where you are. Eventually things start to make sense, but you can never be sure that you understand, because the characters don't understand either. They might be deliberately misleading one another, not making themselves clear, not listening. One of the characters, Mr Rock, is partly deaf, so he both mishears and pretends to mishear.

Mr Rock is a retired scientist, a man with a distinguished career behind him. A grateful government has granted him the lifetime tenancy of a cottage, where he lives with his grand daughter Elizabeth who has had a nervous breakdown. The cottage is on the grounds of a government girls' school run by two governors, Miss Edge and Miss Baker, who are scheming to move Rock on. They're also scheming to keep their jobs and avoid scandal, so when two students go missing, Edge and Baker don't report it.

The plot is the day. The girls and the staff are preparing for a Founder's Day celebration. Girls visit Rock's pig. People search for the missing girls. People move through the day gossiping, misleading, manipulating, trying to get their own way, hiding their motives from themselves. Green's descriptions of physical world they move through are strange, dazzling and perfect.

This is a confusing, unsettling, brilliant book.

136pamelad
Editado: mayo 10, 2021, 8:11 am

Concluding was published in 1948, so I'm adding it to the 1900 - 1950 Challenge.

I've now read all of Henry Green's novels and have just bought his memoir, Pack My Bag, which he wrote at the age of 35 in case he died in WWII.

137NinieB
mayo 10, 2021, 8:31 am

>135 pamelad: Your reviews of the Henry Green novels are tempting indeed.

138pamelad
mayo 10, 2021, 10:44 pm

>137 NinieB: After a steady diet of Regency Romance Rubbish, Henry Green probably seemed even better than he usually would.

Why not start? I recommend Loving, which references WWII (for the challenge).

139NinieB
mayo 11, 2021, 7:42 am

>138 pamelad: I'll see . . . I've already read my WWII book (Cheerfulness Breaks In). I was planning to read Cluny Brown for the 1940s. If I have extra time I might read Blindness or Living for the 1920s as I read a short story for that time period.

140spiralsheep
mayo 11, 2021, 7:49 am

>139 NinieB: Cluny Brown is fun, and much better than the film adaptation.

141pamelad
mayo 11, 2021, 5:10 pm

>139 NinieB: So many books to read. I wouldn't recommend either of those as a start to Henry Green, so perhaps he doesn't fit into May. Blindness is unlike his other books. It was written when he was at school and while it's an impressive effort for such a young man, it doesn't demonstrate his ear for conversation and the plot is silly. Living took me two tries, and I succeeded on the second. I was initially put off by the lack of "the" and the dialect spoken by the workers, but after I'd read more of his other books, I enjoyed it. How awful if you didn't like him because you started with an uncongenial book!
Party Going is another of my favourites.

>140 spiralsheep: I also enjoyed Cluny Brown.

I'm reading Nadja by Andre Breton, which I expected to be alight with energy and imagery dragged from the author's unconscious (or subconscious, whatever) but it's dry, and reads in part like an academic treatise. I put it down because a hold arrived, Brave New Earl and the temptation of Regency froth was too strong, but I've now returned to Nadja. It is short, thank goodness.

142NinieB
mayo 11, 2021, 6:09 pm

>141 pamelad: Good to know that I should try this some other way. I don't have to read 1920s--I could also read another WWII book! But I have to see if I can get through the other books I have planned first. And I am looking forward to Cluny Brown (thank you >140 spiralsheep:!).

143pamelad
Editado: mayo 11, 2021, 6:37 pm

Brave New Earl by Jane Ashford is the first book in the series The Way to a Lord's Heart. I've read the rest, but had to put this one on hold. Lord Macklin, whose wife died ten years ago, is trying to help four young men who are burdened by grief. In this book the young man is Macklin's nephew, Benjamin, who has shut himself away and ignored his young son, Geoffrey, after the death of his wife. A distant cousin of Benjamin's late wife, Jean Saunders, descends on Benjamin, prepared to save Geoffrey from his father's neglect.

Another light, undemanding read where the happy ending is never in doubt. No violence. No swollen shafts. (Ella Quinn is preoccupied with them.)

144pamelad
mayo 12, 2021, 1:14 am

Nadja first appears a third of the way through the book. I'm struggling on.

Who were we, confronting reality, that reality which I know now was lying at Nadja's feet like a lapdog? By what latitude could we, abandoned thus to the fury of symbols, be occasionally a prey to the demon of analogy, seeing ourselves the object of extreme overtures, of singular special attentions?

145pamelad
Editado: mayo 12, 2021, 1:56 am

Miss Goodhue Lives for a Night and A Madness in Spring by Kate Noble

Two novellas. Just enough time for the heroines to fall in love with men from their past. Little historical detail, and people are speaking contemporary American. Light, cheerful, with happy endings, so if you're OK with people in Regency England speaking American, you might like them.

A Madness in Spring is free on Amazon.

146spiralsheep
mayo 12, 2021, 2:17 am

>141 pamelad: Breton spent many years claiming it was impossible to write a surrealist novel because the form was incompatible with the ideal. Of course, there were several surrealist or surrealist-influenced novelists who disagreed with Breton. >:-)

147spiralsheep
mayo 12, 2021, 2:27 am

And I'm still enjoying the Regency reviews.

148pamelad
Editado: mayo 12, 2021, 5:54 pm

Nadja by Andre Breton

Andre Breton is known as the father of surrealism, so I read his book in the hope of clarifying what does, and does not, qualify as surrealist literature. The term surreal is so debased now that people use it as a synonym for strange. Had I not read The Hearing Trumpet I would be tempted, on the basis of Nadja, to dismiss the surrealist novel as pompous twaddle, but the sample size is far too small, and Breton denies that this is a novel.

Nadja doesn't appear until a third of the way through the book. The author is attracted by her appearance and picks her up in the street, hoping that she is not a prostitute. She's not, and her unconstrained behaviour and conversation strike a chord with the author. Nadja and Breton meet every day, and he is impressed by Nadia's artistic insight and natural affinity with the surrealist philosophy. He discusses Nadja with his very understanding wife. After a week, which includes a trip to the country and a night together, the author tires of Nadja and he loses touch with her, despite Nadja's reliance on him and his wife for support. Nadja has no instinct for self-preservation, and her immoderate behaviour, which Breton has encouraged, leads to her committal in an asylum. Breton muses on the differences between asylums for the rich and the poor: the possibility of recovery for those rich enough to be treated well, and the inevitable descent into incurable insanity for the poor. But he never takes action, or even visits Nadja.

I've reviewed this book on the basis of my impressions of Breton's character, which is hardly objective, but I can't separate his philosophy from his behaviour.

149pamelad
mayo 12, 2021, 6:43 pm

Here is Andre Breton on the unconscious.

May the great living and echoing unconsciousness which inspires my only conclusive acts in any sense I always believe in, dispose forever of all that is myself.

The Exploits of Engelbrecht by Maurice Richardson

The narrator first meets Engelbrecht at the Walpurgis Night Witch Shoot, which is just like a duck shoot except that the vicar and choir are the beaters, the loaders are chaplains and instead of ducks, the prey are witches and warlocks. Englebrecht seemed a pleasant enough little chap - a dwarf, of course, like nearly all surrealist boxers who do most of their fighting with clocks. He and the narrator are sharing the finest witch stand in England, and they say the splash as the witches plop into the water all round you is the most exciting sound in the world for a witch shooter and one he never forgets.

The exploits of Englebrecht is a collection of short stories, most of them based on sporting contests organised by the Surrealist Sporting Club. They're all ludicrous and extremely funny. There's Engelbrecht's greatest ever fight, with a Grandfather clock, a golf match that covers the universe and goes on for centuries, a football match against Mars. The narration is deadpan, as though these are the sort of events you'd read about in the daily paper.

I'd be almost certain that The Exploits of Engelbrecht wouldn't qualify as surrealist literature, despite being littered with the term surrealist. Every time I came across the phrase "when he recovered the priceless gift of consciousness" I had to laugh, and thinking of Andre Breton made me laugh harder.

I absolutely recommend this extraordinarily funny, madly imaginative book.

150pamelad
Editado: mayo 12, 2021, 6:50 pm

Nadja was published in 1928 and The Exploits of Engelbrecht in 1950, so I've included them in the 1900 - 1950 Challenge here.

151pamelad
Editado: mayo 12, 2021, 7:38 pm

>146 spiralsheep: Having struggled through Nadja, I'd suggest that Breton did not differentiate between his own limitations and those of the surrealist form. If you come across a readable surrealist novel, please let me know.

152spiralsheep
Editado: mayo 13, 2021, 7:22 am

>151 pamelad: I actually agree with Breton that the intention of surrealism (as an art movement) and the intention of writing in the form of a novel are incompatible. So it's possible to write a novel about surrealism but not to write a surrealist novel that is true to both intentions/forms. That said, The Hearing Trumpet (which I know you've read), is the closest anyone has achieved, at least in English, and is a classic for good reasons. Obviously it's possible to read translated works by authors associated with the surrealist movement, but if you're looking for influential classics then the play Ubu Roi is probably more stylistically and historically important as a precursor to dadaism, surrealism, and the theatre of the absurd. Unfortunately, written in 1896 it misses your current challenge unless you extend that back a decade.

Surrealist poetry is an achievable combination of intention and form but I've yet to be convinced it's edifying to read (although it can be fun to write, especially in company).

My personal stance is that dadaism is more interesting anyway. It also seems to me that dadaism is more relevant to our contemporary societies. If we can't peruse any media without encountering people displaying their subconscious and unconscious both intentionally and unintentionally then what is the point of surrealism? Apart from as a decorative visual art. I mean, drug-addled 1960s art movements achieved all the goals of surrealism and more besides, and we live with the results on a daily basis (see also inescapable psychobabble as a consequence of the early 20th century obsession with psychoanalysis etc).

153pamelad
mayo 13, 2021, 7:05 am

>152 spiralsheep: Thank you for sharing your ideas. If the readable surrealist novel cannot exist, I can put all thought of it aside, with relief.

154spiralsheep
mayo 13, 2021, 7:23 am

>153 pamelad: Edited my above reply >152 spiralsheep: to correct the touchstone:

Ubu Roi by Alfred Jarry.

155NinieB
mayo 13, 2021, 7:53 am

>153 pamelad: I gave surrealism a go by watching An Andalusian Dog and of course I'm familiar with Dali's droopy clocks. I struggled even with The Hearing Trumpet, after the accessible first part. I can't imagine trying to read surrealist fiction.

156pamelad
mayo 13, 2021, 5:14 pm

>156 pamelad: The eyeball! What I'd really like is a surrealist fiction checklist or, even better, a flowchart. The universal, all-purpose literary classification system. (Once a science teacher....)

157spiralsheep
mayo 13, 2021, 5:28 pm

>156 pamelad: If you're reading along a flowchart then Expressionist literature is probably next but a lot of the notable prose works were published after 1950 (except maybe, hmm, Nightwood which I see you've read and didn't like).

158spiralsheep
mayo 13, 2021, 5:32 pm

>157 spiralsheep: Have you read the unclassifiable Mary Butts? The Taverner novels: Armed with Madness and Death of Felicity Taverner. Or Ashe of Rings (which I've read but don't remember, while I definitely remember Armed with Madness).

159pamelad
Editado: mayo 13, 2021, 7:05 pm

>157 spiralsheep: The flowchart was a joke. Thanks for the suggestion of Mary Butts.

Perhaps, outside academic circles, classifying literature is of limited use in predicting what we'd enjoy reading, or find worthwhile? I used to read The Castle at the start of each working year, but knew nothing of Expressionism.

My other favourite books for readjusting to work politics were Catch 22 and Pride and Prejudice.

160pamelad
mayo 14, 2021, 4:10 am

When We cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut is shortlisted for the International Booker. It is, according to Labatut, "a work of fiction based on real events......The quantity of fiction grows throughout the book......while still trying to remain faithful to the scientific concepts....." The book begins with chemistry, Goering's addiction to hydrocodeine, moving onto the Wehrmacht dependence on the amphetamine Pervitin, then to cyanide, a by-product of the manufacture of the first synthetic pigment, Prussian blue, and the suicides of Hitler and his staff, then to Zyklon B, the cyanide based poison used in the gas chambers. Having established the link between chemistry and war, he moves onto Fritz Haber, whose Haber-Bosch process for fixing atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia was developed for making explosives during WWI, but when used to produce fertiliser led to the improved agricultural yields that have allowed the world's population to explode. Ammonia wasn't Haber's only contribution to the war effort: he masterminded gas warfare, flooding the trenches with chlorine.

The second chapter is about Karl Schwarzschild, a brilliant mathematician whose calculations, carried out while he commanded an artillery unit on the Russian front postulated the existence of black holes: the Schwarzschild singularity. The author imagines Schwarzschild's emotional state, his reaction to his discovery, Einstein's response. In the third chapter, the focus remains on mathematics, with the withdrawn Japanese mathematician Mochizuki linking to the life and work of Alexander Grothendieck, who retried at the peak of his powers to devote his life to environmental causes and religion, becoming increasingly eccentric and ascetic. Or is this the author's conjecture?

The longest section of the book covers the quantum physicists, in particular the work and rivalry of Schroedinger and Heisenberg. With Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, we cease to understand the world.

I found this book fascinating and enjoyed reading it, but where does fact end and fiction begin? What thoughts, opinions and emotions has Labatut imposed on his scientists? What dread?

161pamelad
mayo 14, 2021, 7:12 am

This Rake of Mine by Elizabeth Boyle

Miranda Mabberley is working as a decorum teacher at her old school under a false name, when Mad Jaclk Tremont, the man who ruined her by kissing her in an alcove 9 years ago arrives to collect his disgraced niece. Three of her students notice the attraction between Miranda and Jack, so they plot to bring them together, a feat they manage when Miranda is accompanying them on a trip home. Miranda and the girls arrive at an isolated house during a storm, seeking shelter. Only the girls know that the house belongs to Jack, and Jack doesn't recognise their teacher as Miranda.

There are spies, a highwayman and a forger, smugglers, excise men, misguided magistrates and an old lady thought to be dead, who pops out of a secret passage talking like Grandma Clampett. This is a very silly book, but I was managing quite well until an aristocratic Englishwoman called someone a horse's ass. Try harder, Elizabeth Boyle!

162pamelad
mayo 14, 2021, 7:30 am

I don't think there's much point in checking out any more new Regency Romance writers. It would be better to stop reading filler. I wish I liked gardening!

163spiralsheep
mayo 14, 2021, 8:33 am

>159 pamelad: Yes, I understood your mention of a flowchart was intended as humour and was responding in kind (always difficult to know via text, but I rarely pass up an opportunity for an in-joke).

I agree that classifying most art by "movement" is one of the less useful forms of description, even in historical terms.

Although I'd classify Armed with Madness (the title is an accurate summary of the novel) as symbolist / modernist / expressionist... for the benefit of the flowchart, obviously. >;-)

164pamelad
mayo 14, 2021, 4:25 pm

>163 spiralsheep: Let's leave the literary movements well alone now. I feel as though I've stumbled into a maze of lit crit and will never find my way out.
Este tema fue continuado por Pamelad's New Categories.