It's nearly time to say goodbye to 2022, so I thought I'd share the literary adventures I've been on this year. The embers are softly glowing in the late evening heat and I'm starting to feel a bit more me after a few days of being under the weather. It feels like I'm letting go of a lot of baggage from the last year and my body is telling me to slow down and shed some skin.
I've had to look at the calendar to see what the day is. It's Thursday. Time to write.
Christmas was Christmas. Equal measures of joy and exhaustion. Another year to build the traditions of our family. Stockings, sacks of toys, the mince pie and carrot left for FC, the ceiling decorations from the 80s, tinsel everywhere, eating with family, nourishing days of rest with the fire, and lots of rain. No snow (apart from in our magical Christmas Cottage escape). I've taken down the decorations already. The tree is naked and waiting to be thrown out into the street for the dustbin men.
Back in January, we were about to start hosting Parent Village at the Newbury library and I noticed that they had a book club once a month on a Saturday. It was perfect. Every month you attend and the group take turns in voicing their opinion on the book. At the end of the discussion, they hand round the new book for the next month.
The following reviews are taken from my notes that I have written in the back of my notepad. In this notepad, it also holds every tutoring session this year as well as every lacrosse coaching session. In the back, I scribble down ideas as I'm reading so I can remember what I'd like to discuss during book club. It's been great to write down these reviews as a way to look back over the year and remember what books I've read. Some reviews read like lists, some like short critical essays.
Memoirs of a Geisha
Arthur Golden
I am addicted to this lifestyle. I'm trapped in the geisha world of Chiyo and I don't want to leave.
December 2022:
Everything Under
Daisy Johnson
Debut novel
Scarring opening.
Old age. Dementia?
Underage carer of a alcoholic?
Images are troubling.
I was getting nightmares about drowning in canals so I stopped.
Not for me.
November 2022:
Girl with a Pearl Earring
Tracey Chevalier
I became transfixed with this piece of beautiful writing.
Transcendental.
I became immersed into Dutch life in the 1660s.
I loved the idea that we were a part of how art was created. That art takes time. That no one can rush it.
I remember the cross-over between commissioned work and personal inspiration.
The heartache that young women had upon men.
The temptation that maids provide for their households.
The hard work of some and the creative space for those who lived in luxury.
I still remember how Vermeer said that he thought his wife had no place in the world. Yet they still continued to have children.
The married couple of Vermeer and his wife was secret. their intimacies were never exposed like Griet. Is it because she's poorer? Because she's poor, is she able to have herself written about like that? However, she kept saying how she was never a girl with her hair down/exposed yet the book did actually expose her. And the painting exposed her as an innocent girl with her mouth slightly open with desire. It's all about perceptions and desire.
Griet was able to live her life after Vermeer but like most artists' work, they're not famous until dead or much later, so at least she wouldn't have had to live in the shadow of her popularity.
I like the notion that she grew up whilst assisting Vermeer but as ever, with books like this, I'm always wondering what is fact and what is fiction. But I try not to think too much of that.
Come the end, I loved the part where she could feel like she was never paid for and that she felt like her debt was paid off.
On the whole, it was a convincing account as to how to painting came about and gives reason behind the young girls' open mouthed sexual desire.
October 2022:
When God was a Rabbit
Sarah Winman
Reading this after a suggestion from the previous weeks' book club from Tin Man author.
It came with high praise.
It's a tough job for a book to live up to such high recommendations.
I had to re-read it. Weirdly similar to Tin Man.
Upon the second reading, I have more clarity, and I was aware of the darkness of teenage years. Those secrets we hold. When we learn about sex. It's darkly exciting and boringly honest about how middle-class people live.
But gay sex and porn in a shed...not that shocking anymore.
And it's not that bad to own a Mercedes...they are unbelievably comfortable to drive. Like air, in fact. But yes, the materialistic aspect of them is horrid. Also, I found the rabbit talking strange.
Not as great as I thought it would be. That's the problem with high expectations.
8th October 2022:
John Le Carre
Agent Running in the Field
Old man trying to write about a middle-aged man.
Nope.
10th September 2022:
The Tin Man
Sarah Winman
Sparse Lexis
Minimal description
Short/simple syntax
Powerful emotion
Loneliness
Common traditional father
Absent dead mother
Homosexual
City of Spires - Oxford felt familiar once more. Everyone knows Cowley Road: it's the beginning od the divide between the educated and Blackbird Leys...
First 50 pages extremely quick.
Read it all again and picked up more emotion and connected more.
Trying to be modern with the lack of speech marks and small paragraphing?! I don't like it. It's difficult to read. Punctuation is there for a reason. It makes the conversations hard to decipher who is talking.
The novel turned at the Michael chapter and we realise how much someone didn't follow a path they wish they should have done. It was great to read the letter/journal through Ellis' eyes. I was imagining how he'd feel and picturing his response as he read it. Such a clever way to be inside their character's mind.
"My loneliness is masquerading as sexual desire"
"A simple need to belong somewhere"
13th August 2022:
The Marriage of Opposites
Alice Hoffman
First impression:
Jews set in Carribean?
Slightly like Rebecca
Dead wife ghost vibes
Annoyed that she constantly wants to run away
Very stereotypical
keeps mentioning that women can't own land/houses
Developing ideas:
I knew Aaron would be someone she'd want animalistic sex with...
Plotline: is it enough?! It's basically about whether two females get to spend their time in France (Paris) and spending most the novel wishing they were somewhere else = lacks a hook.
Characters don't have parity/clarity. She is a wild free child yet she doesn't want her child to paint?! Is the author trying to say how women become like they're mother?!
Lots of telling, not showing. Donkey called Jean Florence: constant repetition of story is annoying & pointless.
The stolen child, Lyddia, is heartbreaking.
Their reunion is told through Rachel's eyes and we are distant to it. Very disappointing. Makes the ending less satisfactory,
The two girls go to Paris. Finally. Albeit very old.
Great symbolism in the apple tree, turtles, old man, frog, birds.
I literally judged a book by its cover. The cover is awful.
After reading the ending, it's made me realise that there are only a few people in life who truly know who you are. Those people are rare and will always know you. These are the people you can be your true self around. Trust these people. And spend time with these people.
Lastly, it doesn't read like a novel in the 19th Century novel. Laudanum, yes. But the language, no.
16th July 2022:
On Gallows Down
Nicola Chester
Set in Greenham Common and she rode horses at my Nan and Grandad's riding school in Newbury. Facts bit off-putting for me.
Far-fetched idea about the nightingale - very Romantic, beautiful imagery.
She dipped into storytelling and it got better and better.
Lyrical (she loves poets)
'Peacewomen' - I never knew this existed even though I grew up when the A34 was being re-routed through the wildlife.
Her knowledge of nature is incredible.
The idea of preservation
Newbury (my hometown) is actually impressive: new poor laws, bread laws etc.
Like Tess of D'Urb.
Low Key publisher.
June:
We were given another war novel. I've read so many war fiction novels and I didn't want to read one during the summer (we went on holiday for a few weeks) so I had a rest (and got a stomach bug...).
21st May 2022:
Shakespeare's Mistress
Karen Harper
I began this novel thinking too much about historical fiction. Whether what I was going to read about was speculative or not.
But maybe all history is speculative?
Will I only ever enjoy a novel that's based on reality?
What do I actually enjoy?
You can see I clearly got too wrapped up before I'd read the novel so I decided to let go of the context and try not to read it with my teacher hat on.
I tried to enjoy the book for what it was.
Another Shakespeare book.
Further ideas:
I've let go of the context (mostly) and swept up in the black plague drama.
Sometimes, I think that the author exaggerated the plot (bumping into Earl of Southampton in order to escape the city of London that was being ravished by the plague) but most of the time I think I'm learning about shakey (his non-Latin & Greek life meant he had to work harder, as well as his naughty side over on the Southbank [ironic that the Southbank is now a little home to modern poetry]).
It's made me more open to read a shakey biography another time.
Great perspective in the character of Anne.
The birth was intense.
Rooting for them: like we do with R&J but we know they're ill-fated and star-crossed.
9th April 2022:
The Gustav Sonata
Rose Tremain
First thoughts:
Sharp, clear narrative
Dark, haunting areas
Not very uplifting - very sorrowful and haunting at times
Great setting
'Master Yourself' sounds more German then Swiss so will he end up finding out he's a Nazi?!
Continued thoughts:
It has everything: a foreign deserted town, romance, fear, sex, death, life, love, food, music. Maybe this is why the war is so written about.
Undertones of gay sex.
Dark places and experiences that no one discusses.
Felt intimate, private, but also disturbing. Macabre.
The impacts of war were/are real. Still shocking. Still powerful. Still haunting.
Happy that Gustav finally starts living for him,
Sadness fills the end but it helps (as a youthful reader) to be able to reflect on my own life to remind me to live my own life how ever I wish to.
It's a reminder that we have one life but we all make mistakes and we can't help how those experiences shape us. Sometimes, they're unavoidable, like the war - but sometimes it's how you live by your own choices.
A moving novel. He finally found someone who loves him in return.
19th March 2022:
Sweet Sorrow
David Nicholls
Buildungsroman (coming of age)
I'm glad it wasn't too 'sweet' of an ending and had a realistic feel.
Too 'young' for me. Great for YA.
Brought some memories back.
I don't read many books from a male protagonist POV.
This created the idea about whether men just read men and whether women just read women.
The mother was pitiful and the father characteristically vulnerable (better than the standard missing absent father figure that novels usually like to have...are men changing different roles in society now?
I hate amdram but I didn't mind this. It actually made me want to be in a summer play when I was 16...
BUT
Romeo and Juliet?
Can he get any more cliché?
Phrases were just too overused
The glasses were only there to create a storyline of the crash - a little bit too gimmicky for me.
Overall, a sweet read, but not memorable.
19th Feb 2022:
If Walls Could Talk
Lucy Worsley
Opinionated: 'almost certainly suffered from PND'
Georgians invented the corridor and talked openly about sex. I liked the Georgians. They also had great architecture.
Men hospitalised and medicalised birth. Birth has always been at home.
New York midwives aren't legally allowed to help give birth at home?!
Apparently, some women were inhibited to breastfeed because it stopped them from conceiving again (I'm proof that defo is not true!).
Order: Did she start with the most controversial?
Baby farming to create wet nurses (!)
"Swapping babies for a feed is not unusual among laidback middle-class mothers today" (!!!)
Footnotes? Page 128, George Orwell.
Sweeping statements.
Heavy.
There seems to be missing facts and too opinionated.
15th Jan 2022:
The Salt Path
Raynor Winn
Fell off a cliff about two thirds the way through.
Back on the path by the end.
I was comforted that they never left the path.
I wasn't convinced with how believable it was.
With non-fiction, I want to believe.
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