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A Monstrous Victorian Father: Lovers All Untrue by Norah Lofts

Posted in 1970s, Century of Books - 2014, Lofts, Norah, Read in 2014, tagged 1970 Noir Novel, Century of Books 2014, Lofts, Norah, Lovers All Untrue on June 30, 2014| 1 Comment »

Lovers All Untrue by Norah Lofts ~ 1970. This edition: Doubleday, 1970. Hardcover. 252 pages.

My rating: 7.5/10

Well, this was unexpected. And unexpectedly good.

I quite like what this author does when she turns away from the historical romantic fiction and creative biography she was so much better known for, such as her best-selling depiction of Anne Boleyn in The Concubine, and her somewhat sappy retelling of the Nativity in How Far to Bethlehem?, and lets herself go a bit over-the-top into the realm of domestically set macabre fiction. I’m catching glimmers of a Shirley Jackson-like mindset here, and it’s a treat.

Some time ago I read and was surprised and pleased by another of Norah Lofts’ odd little stories, The Little Wax Doll. Lovers All Untrue will definitely join it on the shelf of keepers. And I am wondering what else the prolific author produced in this style. Time for a bit of delving, I think.

The September, 1970 Kirkus Review call this “a lamplit tale of murder and madness in a Victorian doll house”, and goes on to end its spoiler-laden review (which I refuse to link for that reason) with this perfectly apt recommendation: “A fine horrid tale for matronly secret liberationists.” Yes, indeed, to both of those summations.

The well-off, upper-middle-class Draper family resides in respectable Victorian comfort in a slightly cramped but ever-so-appropriately located, furnished and staffed London house, on Alma Street. The family consists of fifty-year-old Papa (head of a nebulous family business in the City; I don’t think we ever do find out what it exactly is that the firm is all about), the slightly younger Mamma, and daughters 17-year-old Marion and 16-ish Ellen.

Papa is most decidedly the patriarch of the household, and holds unchangeable views as to the proper conduct of the women of his family. Mamma was once a brilliantly talented pianist, but as her more emotional pieces are unsuitably dramatic in her husband’s opinion, she has been squelched into concentrating her musical skills onto mild drawing-room-acceptable sentimental ballads instead of stormy Lizt concertos. Marion, of considerable intellect, has been abruptly withdrawn from the school where she excelled at academics, because Papa Draper felt that the views of the headmistress were unsuitably liberal in the encouragement of young ladies to consider advanced personal and intellectual development and (fatherly shudder) even careers. Ellen is the smiled-upon child, being peaceful, unambitious, and deeply domestic: the epitome of desirable feminine deportment, in Papa’s eyes.

Papa Draper is a marvelous villain, with absolutely no redeeming features, gloriously secure in his masculine superiority.

Mamma, destroyed herself by her husband’s sheer imperviousness to any sort of female ambition, abandons her daughters to their father’s brutally unimaginative plan for their future: he envisions two devoted (and needless to say unmarried) acolytes to his perpetual male glory, with Marion and Ellen functioning as (sexless) adjuncts to their mother in ensuring that domestic comfort is ceaselessly maintained.

Needless to say, despite Papa’s refusal to countenance such a thing, sex relentlessly enters the picture, with Marion in particular proving deeply passionate beneath her stoic exterior. And even mild Ellen and meek Mamma cherish a few secret desires of their own…

Marion seethes quietly under her repression, and breaks out in the expected way, by acquiring a secret (and decidedly lower class) lover with the expected results. However, events take on some dramatic twists and turns, with Marion showing unexpectedly resourceful attempts to free herself from Papa’s grasp. As Mamma recedes ever deeper into her passive state of non-resistance to Papa’s demands, and Ellen feebly attempts to play peacemaker, Marion finds herself (temporarily) committed to a facility for the mentally troubled, where Papa hopes she will find her outrageously forward impulses tamed.

No one in this oddly mesmerizing tale comes out particularly well; even as the nominal heroine Marion is chock full of too-human flaws, and some of her decisions are decidedly cringe-worthy. So her eventual fate is artistically quite perfect, even though it is rather unexpected. The author was brave in her ending; I applauded her decision to not …well…I’m not going to say what she did here with Marion and Ellen and Mamma. Just that it made me quite satisfied, in multiple ways.

Decidedly feminist themes throughout keep us rooting for the downtrodden women while happily hissing at the stupid, stupid men. Bonus points too for introduction of a scheming lesbian, all done up as another period stereotype just as bizarre as that of Papa’s set piece, whom Lofts has a bit of authorial fun with.

All in all, the author did seem to be rather enjoying herself here, with a good deal of humour glinting out from among the velvety shadows of this mildly horrific, darkish little tale.

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A Mixed Pair: Nevil Shute Pens a (Rather Good) Propaganda Novel, Eric Newby Flogs Fashions

Posted in 1940s, 1960s, Century of Books - 2014, Newby, Eric, Read in 2014, Shute, Nevil, tagged Century of Books 2014, Memoir, Newby, Eric, Pied Piper, Shute, Nevil, Something Wholesale, World War II on June 27, 2014| 5 Comments »

I’m getting back on the posting pony, after having been tumbled to the ground by recent events, and aren’t I lucky this morning, because look at this! – I found a draft post from mid-May that I never did publish. I think I was going to add a Bill Bryson (I’m a Stranger Here Myself) to the line-up, but I’m sure no one will mind giving my thoughts on Our Mr. Bryson a miss (short verdict: in general, I like his stuff quite a lot), because he’s hardly under-reviewed and I haven’t anything new and stunning to say about his earnestly (relentlessly?) humorous ramblings.

Quickie reviews only, I’m afraid, but operating on the premise that a little something is better than nothing, here we go.

Pied Piper by Nevil Shute ~ 1942. This edition: Heinemann, 1962. Hardcover. 303 pages.

My rating: 9/10

A ripping yarn, indeed, and typical of Nevil Shute at his best.

Elderly (70-ish) John Howard, not needed for war-related work due to his age, and mourning the loss of his pilot son in the early days of the Second World War, decides to take a quiet fishing trip to eastern France, despite the menacing activities of the German forces in other parts of Europe. Unwittingly caught out by the swiftness of the unstoppable German invasion, Howard finds himself escorting two young English children in an increasingly desperate attempt to return to England. His entourage increases child by child as he collects various waifs and strays, as well as a young French woman who has an unexpected connection to the Howard family.

The coast is reached, and transport across the Channel seems to be coming together nicely when the local Nazi commander intercepts Howard and accuses him of espionage – a charge which carries a brutal penalty…

A fast-moving story with a slightly unusual cast of characters. The children are mostly believable, and John Howard himself is the epitome of quiet heroism. The invading Nazis are brutish and brutal, in between their attempts at placating the locals by benevolent establishment of soup kitchens and the like; the English who are caught in the turmoil are universally likeable and high-minded; the French locals are mostly portrayed as a combination of bovinely stoic, and (paradoxically) boldly sly.

Pied Piper is rather obviously (and expectedly so given its time of writing) something of a fervent propaganda novel, celebrating as it does the sterling nature of the British Everyman in the face of the Teutonic War Machine, but with enough departure from the clichés here and there to keep it engaging. Nevil Shute brushes over some vital details as he keeps his story moving right along, but those he includes add clarity and verisimilitude to this gripping and very readable tale.

Something Wholesale by Eric Newby ~1962. This edition (revised 1970 and 1985): Picador, 1985. Softcover. ISBN: 978-0-00-736751-1. 228 pages.

My rating: 6.5/10

Ever since a teaser in the early part of A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush I have been deeply curious as to Eric Newby’s “time in the rag trade”, as he so facetiously terms his years as a apprentice of sorts in the family business, Lane and Newby Limited, a wholesale women’s fashion house situated in London. By the time Eric darkened its door in 1945, after his return to England after a traumatic wartime of special forces service, time on the run from capture, and prison camp incarceration (see Love and War in the Apennines/When the snow comes they will take you away), the once-thriving business was in the first stages of what would prove to be its death throes.

The rationing of cloth was still in effect for some years after the end of the war, and this created serious difficulties for Great Britain’s dress-making firms, but of more serious impact was the resurgence of the very competitive French fashion houses, in particular Dior, whose hyper-feminine New Look (incidentally requiring vast yardages to make up, putting the struggling English firms at a severe logistical disadvantage) was a jaw-dropping success on the 1947 haute couture scene.

As Eric becomes more and more enmeshed in the garment trade – quite literally, as one will learn from the anecdotes in Something Wholesale – he records with a keen eye to detail the absurdities of that arcane world, and the many eccentric characters he came up against, from flirtatious “outsize” models intent on playing under-the-table footsie with the boss’s son (Eric, of course), to various department store buyers, commercial travellers and contract seamstresses.

In general I enjoyed this memoir, though the humour is of the determined type and not particularly funny after a certain point – pseudonymous names such as Throttle and Fumble (a retailer of Lane and Newby’s output), and the Misses Axhead and Stallybrass being examples of the sort of heavy-handed fun which Eric Newby resorts to for much of the book.

But here and there the narrative strikes pure gold, and some bits are sarcastic gems of prose and really quite perfect. And though he refuses to be completely serious for much of the tale, Eric Newby’s ultimately loving depiction of his parents and their dedication to the firm is perhaps the most gentle and poignant aspect of this uneven memoir.

Lane and Newby went down for the third and final time in 1956, winding up its affairs after the death of Eric’s father, but Eric himself stayed employed in the garment business until 1963 – taking off for an occasional expedition during holidays and writing the odd book and magazine article here and there in his spare time – when he finally managed to find full-time employment in a career much more suited to his tale-telling aptitude, journalism.

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On becoming an orphan – a personal note

Posted in My World, tagged My World on June 24, 2014| 28 Comments »

As those of you who have been followers of L&P for any length of time will perhaps remember, I would occasionally reference my elderly mother who I have supported in various ways, including, quite pertinently to this blog, the provision of vast amounts of reading material; she was a book-a-dayer these past eight years, ever since my father’s death in 2006.

A week ago Sunday morning, June 15th, she called me as usual in the morning; we had a pleasantly normal chat, and I told her that I would be in to see her in a day or two, to drop off yet more books. Later that day, mid-afternoon, my sister called me to tearfully inform me that the nurse at the seniors’ residence had just called her: Mom had quietly passed away during her afternoon nap.

Though Mom was physically extremely frail – hence her residence in a complex care facility these past ten months – her death was absolutely unexpected.

And I find myself quite bereft.

It was not at all a tragedy in any real sense of the word; Mom’s ending was the classic “best way to go”, as everyone tells us, and as we tell each other and ourselves. She was 89; she had had some serious health issues, and a few close calls. Several surgeries. A bad fall last summer, which put her in hospital for months. Several bouts of pneumonia. She had just been put on full-time oxygen.

But still…

So, everyone, call your mother, if you’re lucky enough to have one in your life. Go see her, if you can. Take her some flowers, or take her out to lunch, or just sit and have a chat. If it feels right and the timing works, tell her you love her. Yes, she already knows that. But do it anyway.

Those of you who have also lost your parents, perhaps you will agree that this is such a surreal feeling. This is it. We’re all alone. Orphans, in fact. My goodness. Rather sobering.

Life does indeed go on. The grass grows and needs mowing; the garden needs watering and weeding; the flowers I picked for Mom’s funeral are drooping and are almost ready to be thrown out onto the compost pile. The books I had ready to go in to town for her are still sitting on the kitchen counter; the books I collected from her room along with her other personal belongings are needing to be sorted out and put away. The floor needs sweeping, meals must be made; the food from caring friends is mostly gone. And I am very much able to laugh at jokes, to smile, to be happy much of the time, despite the tremendous sorrow that shadows my days right now.

And books are still good. I know that they brought Mom endless and reliable amusement and interest and comfort; I read right now with a nod to her shade. Nothing too challenging: from the stack I had ready for Mom, Elizabeth Goudge’s The Castle on the Hill, Norah Lofts’ Lovers All Untrue. An E.B. White essay collection, and tonight I think perhaps something from the Margery Sharp shelf.

Back to writing now as well. I have a review to formulate for Shiny New Books; I have things to say about recently read novels; I have loads of catch-up to do on my favourite book bloggers’ sites; I’ve neglected those particular email notifications this past week.

Thanks for listening, everyone. Now, go call your mom!

Mom in 1962, moving to the Cariboo region of British Columbia from central California. She drove up in her beloved Taunus car, Dad's truck is loaded with her furniture and household treasures, and, yes, many boxes of books. I love this picture, especially the totally unsuitable footwear. Mom never did really resign herself to wearing proper winter boots; I swear her feet were cold for the next 50 years!

Mom in January 1962, moving to the Cariboo region of British Columbia from central California. She drove up in her beloved Taunus car. Behind her, Dad’s truck is loaded with her furniture and household treasures, and, yes, many boxes of books. I love this picture, especially the totally unsuitable footwear. Mom never did really resign herself to wearing proper winter boots; I swear her feet were cold for the next 50 years!

Mom and Dad, 1962. At home in the Cariboo.

And a few years later, now with children in tow. This looks like we’re going Sunday visiting; all dressed up. I’m the one in orange; check out the homemade haircut!

One of my German cousins just sent me this picture. It was taken in the summer of 1981. Mom has just come in from the garden. (I know this because of that distinctive hat; she wore it for years every time she set foot outside between April and October!) She could be shelling peas, or hulling strawberries; that look of concentration and her slight frown is utterly typical. My family tells me I look just the same; our faces share a rather sombre cast which does not necessarily reflect our actually happy mood!

One of my German cousins just sent me this picture, taken in the summer of 1981. Mom has just come in from the garden. (I know this because of that distinctive hat; she wore it every time she set foot outside between April and October.) She could be shelling peas, or hulling strawberries; that look of concentration and her slight frown is utterly typical. My family tells me I look just the same; our faces share a rather sombre cast which does not necessarily reflect our actually happy moods.

Just a few years ago; one of the last photos I have of Mom. She was deeply self-conscious and hated having her photo taken; this one was stealthily snapped from across the room while I was “experimenting” with a new camera lens.

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Wide-Spectrum Journeyings: The Water in Between by Kevin Patterson

Posted in 1990s, Canadian Book Challenge #7, Century of Books - 2014, Patterson, Kevin, Read in 2014, tagged 1999 Travel Memoir, Canadian Book Challenge 7, Century of Books 2014, Patterson, Kevin, The Water in Between on June 13, 2014| Leave a Comment »

The Water in Between: A Journey at Sea by Kevin Patterson ~ 1999. This edition: Vintage Canada, 2000. Softcover. ISBN: 0-679-31054-1. 289 pages.

My rating: 9.5/10

Breaking the too-long posting silence because this book was too good not to mention. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and its references to Chatwin and Theroux (that would be Bruce and Paul, respectively) have me mulling over just which boxes those authors’ works are tucked away in – I cleared a whole bank of bookshelves to facilitate repainting some time ago, and am starting to get jittery at my lack of easy access to a favourite segment of our personal non-fiction/travel library. (The bookshelves still need their paint, too. Maybe this will trigger a start to that project?)

It seemed at first like just another one of those “Hey, my life was so messed up that I decided to go off and so something completely out of character, and in the meantime I discovered the secret of the universe, and golly, it’s great I kept notes because here I am with this book deal…” things. But it turned quickly into something rather unexpected, a non-adventurous adventure story. And the Great Big Reason for Being – well, that didn’t materialize, though Patterson spent a lot of time (all those becalmed days in the Horse Latitudes) trying to wrap his head around his personal issues, with some success.

So – a young, complete non-sailor, ex-army doctor, desperately unlucky in love and feeling that life is flat, stale and unprofitable, buys a small sailboat on Vancouver Island and sets off across the Pacific heading for Tahiti, accompanied by an experienced sailor, another emotionally desolate man, whose marriage has recently imploded and whose personal life is understandably in tatters. The two of them have never met before, and an instant friendship does not spring to life, nor do they hate each other by the time they reach Hawaii. They just kind of rub along in a very Canadian way, being tactful and not over-sharing, but listening when the other guy has a moment of cathartic release, and (apparently) never, ever giving relationship advice.

Backtracking to the non-adventurous adventure story bit. What I liked – no – LOVED – about Patterson’s saga was that he refused to build up his adventures into anything out of the ordinary. Sure, for him, Manitoba boy, setting out in a sailboat on the ocean was legitimately a leap far beyond the comfort zone, and he talks about that. Quite a lot. But there is a continual pragmatic tone to Patterson’s navel gazing which keeps his musings from straying into that self-indulgent “aren’t-I-wonderful” mode that so very many of his autobiographical-adventure peers seem to default to.

And I learned a lot, completely effortlessly. About small boats, sailing, the Pacific Ocean and its natural and human history.

Kevin Patterson wasn’t afraid to document the squalor of his own life, and the rose-coloured glasses were seldom donned regarding other people’s, either, even those souls residing in the paradisiacal South Sea isles which he finally reached, albeit after a very slow journey.

From Christopher Buckley’s May 28, 2000 New York Times book review:

“In August of 1994, I bought a 20-year-old ferrocement ketch on the coast of British Columbia. I did this in an effort to distract myself – at the time I was so absorbed in self-pity that my eyes were crossed.” So begins this tale of sailing back and forth across the Pacific by Kevin Patterson, who at the age of 29 found himself loveless, directionless and as sour as Hamlet after three dreary years as a Canadian Army doctor posted to an artillery base in Manitoba…He conceived the idea of refreshing his soul by sailing to Tahiti, that ever-beckoning paradise, never mind that he had never been in a sailboat before and could barely tell a rudder from a bowsprit. Acedia, incompetence and ferrocement – all the makings of a decent sea yarn. Add to those literary skills, wide reading, a decent humanity, humor, a Global Positioning Satellite receiver, a Force 9 gale and you have ”The Water In Between,” a delightful, finely written and, in the end, wise book.

It succeeds against a number of odds. First, there is no longer much novelty left in the genre. The damp, drizzly November-in-my-soul impetus to go to sea has been around since Ishmael started knocking the hats off people he passed. And it’s been over a century now since Joshua Slocum, the grandfather of modern nautical literary types, completed the circumnavigation that resulted in his masterpiece and best seller, ”Sailing Alone Around the World.” All books since on the theme of putting to sea in small sailboats – alone or not – are footnotes to Slocum. Patterson himself freely admits that no one, really, has equaled the old New Englander’s nautical or literary accomplishments…

I highly recommend that you read the rest of this review here; it is a thoughtful and clever summary and analysis of The Water In Between’s unexpectedly deep appeal.

I was myself born and raised in a relatively landlocked part of the world – hundreds of miles from the nearest seacoast – and I’m a dedicated landlubber. Beyond the fringes of the seashore I yearn not to travel; the ocean quite frankly terrifies me. Nothing I read in Patterson’s book has tempted me to revisit this notion. In fact, it has strengthened my resolve not to even toy with the idea of small-boat ocean travel, much as accounts of mountaineering reinforce my desire to stay safely on non-vertical ground.

But it’s absolutely fascinating reading about such exploits, especially when the writer is so articulate. Patterson references all the standard gurus of travel writing and solo adventuring, including a few I’ve not yet read myself, and may well have placed himself among them in a low key but more than competent way by this excellent first work.

Kevin Patterson has since gone on to publish more non-fiction (Outside the Wire: The War in Afghanistan in the Words of its Participants, 2008), a novel (Consumption, 2006), and a collection of linked short stories (Country of Cold, 2003), and he still practices medicine, as of 2013 in Nanaimo, B.C.

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One. More. Thing. (And then I’ll get back to the books!)

Posted in My World, tagged British Columbia, My World on June 3, 2014| 11 Comments »

There’s a light at the end of the tunnel… in this case, that would be the extremely cool (literally) abandoned Othello railway tunnels near Hope, British Columbia. Yes, we’ve been travelling! Not too far away from home, just touristing in the backyard, as it were. (This is about 5-ish hours driving hours from home, not counting numerous stops to get up close and personal with the roadside flora. Marvelous botanizing this time of year, especially as it has been rather more wet than usual and the wildflowers are very happy.) Couldn’t resist sharing this photo of my travelling companions, heading out into the light while I lingered behind, trying to hold the camera still enough for a steady(ish) shot.

The dry, sagebrush-covered hills south of Cache Creek, B.C. were alive with the ephemeral blooms of Bitter-root, Lewisia rediviva. Fragile, ephemeral, and extremely beautiful. Just a sample of the wonderful flowers we encountered.

And the scenery was pretty incredible, too. Here’s the locally famous “Spotted Lake” near Osoyoos, B.C. (just north of the United States border). Crystalline salt pans in perfectly round formation; a sacred First Nations site as well as an interesting natural phenomenon.

And then there was the fauna. Like these guys. Bighorn sheep near Kamloops, B.C.

Blue skies, dry hills, and lush farms in the valleys where the rivers and streams provide welcome irrigation water. This is near Keremeos, B.C., an area of orchards and vineyards – the fruit basket of B.C.

What a very full week or so this has turned out to be. I won’t go into details, but it has been packed with eventful things. Mostly good, I am happy to say.

Just home for two days, then off again tomorrow to the Provincial Performing Arts Festival in Penticton, with happy anticipation of the pleasures to come of watching and listening and marveling at the talented young musicians, singers and dancers from all over B.C. who converge once a year to represent their local festivals, to perform, compete, take master classes and workshops, and delight their audiences with their passion and mastery of their chosen arts.

I’ll be back to the books soon, once I stop moving.

I can’t quite believe that May has come to a close so quickly; that now we are in June! Blink, and a day goes by…

Hope you are all having a lovely spring!

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