Review: Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

Ethan Frome was Edith Wharton’s 16th novel in thirteen years, and is one of the few that she based in down-at-heel a rural setting, rather than in urban high society – in which she herself participated.

It has been claimed that the novel is somewhat autobiographical; born in 1862 in to the Jones family (of keeping up with the Jones’ fame), Edith was married at 23 to an older man, who became an invalid after suffering a mental breakdown. Though they remained married for 28 years until his death, the marriage was not considered a happy one and Edith conducted at least one affair during this time. By mirroring some of her own circumstances – albeit with an eponymous male protagonist – the main characters – Ethan, his incapacitated wife Zeena and her cousin Mattie Silver – are particularly rounded and resonant.

The story is cleverly constructed, covering a span of many years in a relatively short book. The opening chapter sees a nameless narrator, newly lodged in the town of Starkfield, become acquainted with Ethan Frome and intrigued to understand how he came about his physical difficulties. The narrative, turning back some twenty or so years, sees a healthy Ethan holding a candle for Mattie Silver, who is to be turned out of the house in favour of another girl who is more capable of playing stand-in housewife for Zeena, desperately wondering whether his feelings are reciprocated. We slowly learn that Mattie does indeed return his hidden feelings and discover how they intend to deal with their predicament. The dénouement of this section is by no means unexpected, but is still shocking, although far less so than that which we get when the narrative returns to the present.

The setting for the novel is again something that Wharton experienced first-hand and her knowledge of and love for Massachusetts shines clearly throughout. The description of Ethan and Mattie’s journey to the train station through the snow is so evocative that you can almost taste the cold crispness of the day, and smell the pines – and this is not the only passage that allows the reader that luxury.

Despite its brevity, Ethan Frome is certainly another stunning success in storytelling from Edith Wharton.

Review: The Book of Dave by Will Self

I found The Book of Dave, Will Self’s 6th novel, a difficult read at times, and almost gave up (much to my disgust) a couple of chapters in, as I found the dialect-rich prose that parts of the novel are written in a struggle to follow. Ultimately though, I persevered, and once I had got to grips with ‘mockni’ (a language based on a combination of slang, text-speak and cockney), found a witty, scathing and an all too frighteningly possible vision of the future of humanity.

The eponymous Dave is a taxi driver, living in turn of the millennium London and battling his estranged wife for contact with his son. Dave is flawed - misogynistic, racist, homophobic – and obsessed with The Knowledge, viewing London as a series of runs and points, his cab being the only place he feels at ease. As he slips further in to depression, Dave begins writing the Book, a treatise on how relationships between men, women and children should be governed. He then buries the Book in the back garden of his wife’s new home for his son to find.

Interspersed with the ‘Dave’ chapters are those set at some indeterminate time in the future, after the UK has been submerged by water and exists as a series of islands. Dave’s Book has been found and developed in to a religion – Davinity – and this new code decrees that men and women live separately, with children spending part of the week with the women and then at ‘Changeover’ moving across to the homes of the men. Questioning the Book is punished through torture and exile. The lead character in these sections, Carl, is conscious of the iniquity of the Book’s teachings and begins a quest to discover what happened to his absent father, said to have discovered a second, more compassionate Book and tried to enlighten his compatriots as to its contents.

Whilst on the surface the characters in the novel appear to be disagreeable, there is actually deep emotional warmth to them and as a reader I found myself rooting for the anti heroes throughout. The complexity and cross-referring of the storylines is cleverly handled – at times you can see direct correlations between the events of ‘now’ and the future, at others the unveiling is a slow-burn process. If you’re a fan of Will Self and his erudite vocabulary then this is the book for you, but it is not, I suspect, the best introduction to his works.

Review: Atonement by Ian McEwan

What can I say about Atonement that hasn’t been said already! Ian McEwan is an author I already knew I enjoyed, but his other novels – although extraordinarily good when judged by most other authors’ standards – are left in the shade by this epic story.

Opening in the years before the Second World War, Atonement follows the lives of Briony Tallis, her older sister Cecilia and Cecilia’s contemporary, Robbie Turner, the son of their housekeeper. Shifting the narrative between characters and often telling the same story from different viewpoints allows McEwan to build a complex web of a story, fleshing out seemingly innocent actions and showing the reader how the disposition of the observer can dramatically alter their meaning and have lasting implications for those involved.

The understanding McEwan has of his main characters psyches is all encompassing, they are all individually fully realised and could almost walk off the pages as living beings. Briony, an emotionally immature teenager, given to introspection, who reads distorted meanings in to circumstances. Cecilia, a young adult – torn between rebelling against her upbringing and duty to her family – and coping with separation from her lover. Robbie, supported by his mother’s employer financially, but remaining steadfastly divided from them by rules of class, whose life is destroyed on one fateful evening. All are nuanced and – even given how utterly frustrating I found Briony’s attitudes in the first third of the book – sympathetic.

Equally, his adeptness at describing the settings for the action in the story enables the reader to completely immerse themselves into the period – whether it is the oppressive, hot summer of the opening chapters; the desperation of the Allies retreat through France to Dunkirk; or the horrors experienced by Briony training to be a nurse in one of the London hospitals that dealt with those same wounded soldiers.

It is hard to review Atonement without seeming to pour for a stream of praise for it, although, to my mind, none of the eulogising is unwarranted. This is simply one of the best books I’ve ever read.

1001 must read books

After seeing people adding the '1001' tag to books in their libraries on LibraryThing I finally decided to try and track down an online version of the original book, with the vain hope of having read a reasonable proportion (certainly of the more modern books) listed. Oh what a surprise I got!

This wonderful spreadsheet I found shows me that, based on the 2008 version I've read 53 books, plus an additional 10 from those taken out of the original 2006 version....... only another 20 or so to read every year before I pop my clogs then!

Still it has helped me populate my Amazon wishlist (circulated to lovely friends and family in advance of Christmas) in case anybody is ever stuck for a present. Only another 600 titles to browse to see if I like the look of them :0)

Review: Wise Children by Angela Carter

Wise Children was written by Angela Carter in 1991, the last of her nine novels, published before her death in 1992.

The story is a complex tale – set on the day of identical twins Dora (the narrator) and Nora Chance’s 75th birthday, it is a memoir of their personal lives as illegitimate twin daughters of Sir Melchior Hazard, a British theatrical legend, and their professional lives as vaudeville ‘hoofers’ – the Lucky Chances. All of the vignettes recollected by Dora lead towards the dénouement set at their father’s centennial party.

Central to the theme of the book – emphasised by the choice of quotations used at the outset of the novel – is the relationship between mothers and daughters ("Father is a hypothesis but mother is a fact"), and there is a very matriarchal slant to the story. This is very in keeping with Carter’s other works, which emphasise the power held by women in determining their own destinies.

At times the thread of the narrative is difficult to follow – the timeline jumps around incessantly and there is (fittingly for a novel about theatric types) a large cast of supporting characters – but Carter’s clever use of language to describe situations and events and her talent in bringing the principals to life make this a joy to read.

Wise Children requires one to suspend belief at times due to its use of magical realism, but if you can get to grips with the multiple pairs of twins, the numerous illegitimacies and the constant Shakespearian motif, then the highs and lows in the book will really tug at your heart strings. There’s also plenty of bawdy humour to keep the pace up.

A Love Poem

In the middle of a wood

     lived a man who understood

          what it felt like, to be alone



If it weren’t for the trees,

     gently blowing in the breeze,

          there wouldn’t be any sound



But on a fine spring morn,

     not long since the day had dawned,

          a carriage came his way



And as the horse went by

     it happened suddenly,

          the noble beast threw a shoe



Springing up upon the sound,

     he saw laying on the ground,

          a maiden, warm and fair



He felt his beating heart

     deftly pierced by Cupid’s dart

          on seeing loves true form



The maiden felt the same

     and they kindled passions flame

          vowing ne’er to be apart



They swiftly named a day,

     to be wed without delay,

          and plighted each their troth



So happy were the pair,

     so full of life, so free of care

          they couldn’t help but beam



So the home amongst the beech,

     where once love was out of reach,

          was filled with laughter e’remore.

Review: Persuasion by Jane Austen

Jane Austen’s last finished novel, Persuasion was printed in 1818, one year after her death at the age of 41.

The story follows Anne Elliot, the middle daughter of a self-satisfied popinjay Baronet, who is persuaded against marrying Frederick Wentworth for love, at the age of nineteen, by her deceased mother’s friend Lady Russell, due to his lack of connections or fortune.

Eight years later Anne is still unmarried and, having lost the bloom of youth, has had ample time to regret being so easily swayed from her choice. Then, owing to a change in circumstance to her family’s fortunes, the now Captain Wentworth reappears in her social circles, with rank and wealth on his side, owing to an illustrious naval career in the Napoleonic Wars. Whilst he looks certain to become attached to one of Anne’s companions, Anne’s cousin William Elliot – on whom the family fortune is entailed – begins to court our heroine.

Whilst the outcome of the tale is never in doubt (it is Austen after all, where happy endings are de rigueur), the circuitous paths Anne must tread and the compassion that the reader feels for her, transform what could be regarded as too simple a plot in to an engaging love story.

The character of Anne Elliott has an added degree of poignancy when one knows a little more about her author. Austen accepted a financially advantageous proposal in her mid twenties but broke it off soon after, when she realised that she could not marry without some degree of affection. This was to be the only proposal she received, and it could be implied that Anne, in receiving her second proposal at such a late age, was her vehicle for experiencing romantic attachment vicariously.

Perhaps less well-loved that other Austen novels, Persuasion is nevertheless an outstanding read, full of the author’s usual rigorous observations on the human condition and ready wit.