Review 2155: #1940 Club! Miss Hargreaves

~ whatmeread ~ 8 Comments

When I saw Miss Hargreaves on the list of books published in 1940, I knew I had to read it for the 1940 Club, mostly because of recommendations by Simon Thomas.

Norman Huntley is quite a young man, impetuous and given to making up stories. He is traveling with his friend Henry in Ulster when they take refuge from the rain in a church they agree is hideous. However, the sexton appears and insists on giving them a tour.

When the sexton shows them a commonplace inscription dedicated to a previous vicar, Norman blurts out that he has a friend who knew him. Together he and Henry describe an eccentric old lady named Miss Hargreaves, continuing after they leave to add details.

To cap the joke, Norman writes a letter to the address they made up, inviting Miss Hargreaves to visit. Shortly after he returns home, he receives a letter from Miss Hargreaves saying she is arriving on Monday.

Miss Hargreaves is exactly as Norman described her, including a dog named Sarah and a parrot named Dr. Pepusch. Norman is confused and his friends treat him badly because of his relationship with the old lady. But he comes to believe that Miss Hargreaves exists only because he created her. He both likes and hates his creation.

Although some events seem to confirm this idea, after he gives Miss Hargreaves a title, she begins to go in her own direction, and things get even more complicated.

Of course, this frothy story is meant in fun, but I couldn’t help thinking that the novel could be a metaphor for an author and his creations—how they sometimes take control and don’t want to do what you planned, and how you can love them and hate them at the same time.

Although I don’t usually like magical realism, I found this novel madcap and funny, and I especially loved the character of Norman’s father.

Related Posts

Cluny Brown

The Stone of Chastity

Berry and Co.

Review 2154: #1940 Club! Sad Cypress

~ whatmeread ~ 6 Comments

Elinor Carlisle is on trial for murdering Mary Gerrard at the beginning of this Christie novel. A doctor who knows her hires Hercule Poirot to find some evidence that will save her.

It all begins when Elinor receives an anonymous letter telling her that her inheritance from her Aunt Laura may be in jeopardy. Elinor isn’t really worried about that, since she and her cousin Roddy have long understood from her aunt that they will inherit. However, she realizes she should go down for a visit because her aunt is not well, and Roddy goes with her. They have always planned to marry, no matter who gets the money, and they decide to become formally engaged.

The note warned against Mary Gerrard, a lodge keeper’s daughter, whom Aunt Laura has had educated. Mary has been visiting Aunt Laura frequently since she returned from school. No sooner does Roddy see Mary than he falls in love with her. Elinor, who has always hidden how much she loves Roddy, sees this and breaks the engagement.

When Elinor is there on another visit, summoned because her aunt has had another stroke, the county nurse misses a vial of morphine. Aunt Laura asks Elinor to summon her lawyer, but she dies that night.

Elinor is surprised to learn that Aunt Laura died intestate and that as her closest relative, she gets everything. However, she gives £2000 to Mary and tries to give money to Roddy, but he won’t take it. When she is there to go through her aunt’s things, Mary is poisoned while eating sandwiches with Elinor and the county nurse, and dies.

Things look bad for Elinor, and at first everything Poirot can discover seems to point to her guilt. But the answer may lie in the past.

I began to have an inkling of the truth but not until the very end of the novel. However, I was sympathetic to Elinor and wanted her to be innocent. This was a Christie I hadn’t come across before and may not have read had it not been for the 1940 Club.

Related Posts

Death on the Nile

Sleeping Murder

4:50 from Paddington

Review 2153: #1940 Club! Three Early Stories

~ whatmeread ~ 1 Comment

For the 1940 Club, I picked J. D. Salinger’s Three Early Stories because I hadn’t read any Salinger in so long. My memories of Salinger’s stories, which were a favorite in college, was of funny yet striking tales about a family of brilliant children written in sterling prose. The stories in this volume are not like that.

In “The Young Folks,” two strangers size each other up at a college party. Salinger tries to reproduce their sloppy speech patterns.

In “Go See Eddie,” a brother tries to talk his sister into taking a chorus line job and lets her know she’s getting a reputation for playing around.

In “Once a Week Won’t Kill You,” a man leaving for the war asks his wife to take his beloved aunt to the movies while he is gone.

These three stories seem a little immature, although they were picked up by various publications in 1940. I’m not sure if they were published together until much later, though, which might mean they aren’t appropriate for this club.

Related Posts

Let Me Tell You

Nocturnes

Signed Confessions

Review 2152: #1940 Club! The Corinthian

~ whatmeread ~ 15 Comments

Since this is my first post for the 1940 Club, I’ll include my list of other books published in 1940 that I have already reviewed:

I was happy to reread The Corinthian for the club because I hadn’t read it in some time. It is one of Heyer’s sillier, unlikelier plots, and I found it delightful.

Richard Wyndham is handsome, wealthy, impeccable in appearance, and bored. When a family deputation informs him it’s time he got married and tells him Melissa Brandon considers herself all but engaged to him, he calls on her. He finds an icy, self-possessed young lady ready to make a marriage of convenience to help her family financially. With the prospect of calling on her father the next morning, Richard goes out and gets drunk.

During his subsequent rambles, he spots a boy climbing out of an upper-story window on a rope of knotted sheets that is unfortunately too short. When he catches the boy, he finds he is a girl. Pen Creed is escaping her family, as her aunt is trying to force her to marry her cousin for her money. When Richard finds Pen will not go home, he decides to accompany her to make sure nothing happens to her. She is on the way to the home of her old friend, Piers Luttrell, who vowed to marry her five years ago.

Richard finds himself experiencing many new things, starting with a stagecoach ride during which the coach is overturned. They meet a thief on the stage and soon learn that someone has stolen the famed Brandon diamonds. As if that wasn’t enough, they find a murdered man, assist a damsel in distress, and end up telling many fibs. Richard soon enough realizes he’s in love with Pen, but he can’t say so while she’s under his protection—and perhaps she’s still in love with Piers.

Heyer is always amusing and I had a lot of fun with this one.

Related Posts

The Nonesuch

Cotillion

The Convenient Marriage

If I Gave the Award

~ whatmeread ~ 2 Comments

With my review of No One Is Talking about This, I have finished reading the Booker Prize shortlist for 2021. So, it is time for my feature where I decide whether the judges got it right. This one is going to be difficult for me because I didn’t absolutely admire any of the books on the shortlist.

Sometimes I start this feature with the book I liked least, but in this case, even that is difficult. It’s not that I disliked any of them, it’s more as if I felt detached from several of them and found things that I didn’t admire in others.

So, maybe I’ll have to choose by the book that made the most impression on me, and start with the least. I read No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood several months ago, although more recently than any of the others, yet when I went to post the review, I couldn’t remember a thing about it. I find from my notes that I didn’t relate to anything about the first half of the novel, the thoughts of a media influencer, but was touched by the second half, about a family member with a rare disease. Usually, if I am touched, I remember, but in this case I did not.

On the other hand, I vividly remember Bewilderment by Richard Powers, which is about a single father whose young son experiences fits of rage. It roams into science fiction with an experimental treatment that the desperate father signs his son up for, which sometimes seems a little like child abuse, but the novel has some beautiful moments. This was the novel I read first, and I remember it very well, although I was uncomfortable with it at times.

In terms of novels I felt detached from, there is The Fortune Men by Nafida Mohamed, about the last man sentenced to death in England, an innocent man who just happened to be Somali. This should have been powerful stuff, but I felt disconnected from it and the flashbacks to the protagonist’s life didn’t help.

I also felt detached from the characters in The Promise by Damon Galgut, although I usually like him. This novel was the winner that year, about a promise made to a dying family member, but I felt a lot of distance from its characters. I also thought it was interesting that the two female characters who were the most sympathetic were barely in the novel. It was all about the men.

I found A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam interesting in some respects, about a Sri Lankan man who goes to attend the funeral of his grandmother’s nurse. I liked the background about the recent war, even though it assumed a level of knowledge about it, but the novel was too contemplative for me. And even if that was not the case, Arudpragasam’s long, involved sentences and paragraphs and meandering prose were not something I enjoyed.

The book I was most engaged with was Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead, a historical novel about the life of a woman aviator. However, as engaging as I found it, there was something about it that didn’t seem like prize material. I can’t be much more definite than that. For one thing, it was a split-time story, and the current-time story about the actress playing the role of the aviator in a movie wasn’t very interesting. When I judge it by what I remember, though, it does well, as I read it some time ago.

I think I’m going to have to go with Bewilderment. It wasn’t the best Richard Powers book I ever read (that was The Overstory), but it was compelling and sometimes beautiful, and Powers always seems so intelligent to me.

Review 2151: No One Is Talking About This

~ whatmeread ~ 4 Comments

The unnamed narrator (possibly Lockwood herself) is a media influencer made famous by such utterances as “Can a dog be twins?” She seems to spend all her time online that she isn’t lecturing to her fans. She calls the Portal her information, and although she has a broad sense of irony, doesn’t seem to understand that most of it isn’t.

When I was reading this portion of the book, which is related in a sort of stream of consciousness, I realized that I was officially a geezer, because I didn’t understand a lot of what she was talking about, didn’t like her sense of humor, didn’t get her world view or sensibility. The book didn’t seem to have a plot and was mostly made up of her musings on a vast array of subjects, particularly the Internet.

Then a family crisis occurs. The second half of the book suddenly gains a plot and becomes meaningful in a way the first half wasn’t. I was deeply touched by it.

I read this novel for my Booker project.

Related Posts

Flights

Crudo

Still Alice

Reading Thirkell’s Barsetshire Series in Order: #23 What Did It Mean? + #22 Jutland Cottage Wrap-Up

~ whatmeread ~ 2 Comments

I am finding the series just as interesting as we get closer to the end because I like finding out what happens to the characters. Thanks to all the people that persist in either trying to read along or at least comment along. I know some people have had troubles locating the post-war novels. Participators and commenters for Jutland Cottage were

The next book, with only seven to go counting it, is What Did It Mean? I will be posting my review on Friday, April 28. I hope some of you can participate.

And here’s our badge, which I don’t think anyone is using anyway. Oh well.

Review 2150: The Bogman

~ whatmeread ~ 4 Comments

When The Bogman was published in 1952, it was banned in Ireland for indecency. These days, we find little to label it indecent, even if it is partially about a forbidden love.

The novel begins with Cahal Kinsella coming home to a very small village with less than a dozen houses, most of them occupied by older people. Cahal is illegitimate. His grandfather threw his mother out when he was born, and he was raised in an industrial school. Now 16, he has been released from the school and goes to live with his grandfather, Barney.

Barney is a hard man. He is sometimes brutal to Cahal, but Cahal doesn’t mind. He is used to obeying and is happy to belong somewhere. However, this attitude earns him the disdain of Máire Brodel, which will have far-reaching consequences.

Cahal also has the problem that no matter how good his intentions, he is often misunderstood. As he gets older, a series of incidents leads to him losing most of his friends. But his worst misfortune comes when, to get money, Barney arranges a marriage for him at nineteen with a woman in her 40’s.

This is a powerful novel about the hardships of Irish rural life at the time, about the insularity and lack of privacy in a small village, about rumor and gossip, treated as truth even if it’s a lie. According to the introduction by Nuala O’Connor, it is based at least partially on Macken’s own life and experiences.

Related Posts

Christine Falls

Small Things Like These

The Burning of Bridget Cleary

Review 2149: #ThirkellBar! Jutland Cottage

~ whatmeread ~ 6 Comments

Jutland Cottage, published in 1953, begins with John and Mary Leslie, whom we have seen little of since Wild Strawberries. However, the purpose of this first chapter is to describe the death of George VI, or rather the characters’ reactions to it.

Then we go to Greshamsbury, where Father Fewling, now a canon, is the new rector and is moving into the rectory. Canon Fewling becomes aware of the plight of the Phelps’s. Admiral Phelps is ill and his wife not much better, both cared for by their daughter Margot, who is 40. Since they mix little in society, no one knows them, but it is Rose Fairweather who realizes that Margot needs help. She has been doing all the work around the house, including gardening and caring for chickens, and her parents are too ill to be left alone. She is tired, stressed, poorly dressed, with no amusements. She is also worried that if her father dies first, the navy pension will be too small for her mother to live on. As it is, they are very poor.

Rose makes a plan with her friends and neighbors to stop by to visit the Phelps’s frequently and to at least once a week get Margot out of the house while someone is visiting her parents. Rose goes further by giving Margot a length of tweed and taking her shopping. A great deal of attention is spent on her undergarments, particularly her “belt,” which is apparently a corset or girdle. (Thank goodness we don’t wear those anymore.) And she gets her hair cut.

While all this kindness is going on, Margot gains confidence and eventually draws the attention of some of the older bachelors.

In the meantime, Swan, who you may remember was in love with Grace Grantly until he realized her heart lay elsewhere, has found someone else to care for. But one of the things I like about Thirkell is her subtle romances, which are so downplayed that it’s often not clear who might end up with whom.

I don’t care what people say about Thirkell’s post-war novels, I am finding them just as interesting as ever, perhaps because I’ve come to know so many characters and want to know what happens to them.

Related Posts

Wild Strawberries

Happy Returns

The Duke’s Daughter