A most intriguing article here demands further investigation. And I must just add that *I* used to live in Didsbury, too. Well, okay, I must confess that it was not the same Didsbury. Mine was the tiny village in Alberta just north of Calgary, named, one assumes, after the original one referenced here.
Howard Spring – never heard of him until this happy impulse buy of The Houses in Between ( 1951) – I picked it up and put it down a few times while in the bookshop and then decided to go with it. It cost me a lordly two dollars. (Same as a cheapo lottery ticket, and with more chances of winning!)
So far a definite winner. I’m on page 221 of 568 and I have started rationing my reading because I want to spin it out slowly. Luckily life is frantically busy right now so it’s not too hard to put it down as more urgent things call, so it might even last me a few more happy days.
It’s the fictional autobiography of a 99-year-old woman, and is set in Victorian London (the narrator’s first memory is of a visit to the newly opened Crystal Palace) and then at a drawn-from-life Cornish estate. And it is really, really good.
So I feel like I should have heard of Howard Spring before. Am I the only one out of the loop? Or are all of you chuckling at my obliviousness regarding his novels? Is he wonderfully well known in Great Britain, and am I living in Colonial Oblivion regarding his stuff?
According to Wikipedia, Howard Spring was Welsh, and worked as a journalist while also writing a series of increasingly successful novels. All of which, now that I’ve had a taste of his quite engaging style in The Houses, sound terribly intriguing.
That’s all for now! Hoping to be back soon with some bookish posts, once the smoke clears, both literally and figuratively.
Chokingly smoky in the valley this morning from our personal just-around-the-bend forest fire. Like standing in the wrong spot next to a partially smothered bonfire. Lots of ash in the air, too – was painting outside yesterday afternoon and this morning my shelves and cupboard doors which I left out on sawhorses are dusted liberally with bits of charred fir needles carried on the wind from several miles away.
Luckily the paint had already dried fast – no harm done. š
Onward!
Howard Spring’s books were very popular when I worked in libraries in Scotland in the 1970s, but I don’t think I’ve ever read any of them, now I’m wondering what I missed!
I’m glad that forest fire didn’t get any closer to you.
Now midway and there have been some rather melodramatic passages. Still loving it! And wondering how it will all come out in all its many details. An engaging writer with a lovely eye for detail and much skill in description. Good job so far as a male writer voicing a female character; I am easily able to accept the characterization.
Going down to visit our friends in the fire zone this afternoon; may take some “aftermath” pictures. Still an active fire site, though now well contained. Helicopters still at work carrying water, and a large ground crew deployed putting out the hot spots. *Very* smoky here today. Very hot through western Canada, many fires now burning; this small one (now classified as 100 hectares) hardly counts on the scale of what is happening elsewhere. Such a worrisome time of the year in this regard.
I’ve only read a short childhood memoir but I remember my parents both enjoying Howard Spring’s books. I’m pleased to read a positive reports, because I know some of the settings he uses in Cornwall are places I know and I’ve been meaning to try them.
His descriptions are beautifully written; obviously a setting he knew well and loved very deeply.
In the 1970s the Corp transmitted a TV series based on Shabby Tiger, another of Spring’s books. Regrettably, all I can remember of it is the rather good title.
Marvelous title! And doesn’t it reference a poem? Some small memory is going “ting, ting, ting” in my not very organized brain. Off to Google, methinks! š
I am so happy to see you’re reading Spring! I adored My Son, My Son. It was a Masterpiece Theater production, perhaps in the ’80s? I did find another of his books at a sale, and will have to put it on my bedside table.