dovegreyreader scribbles

If you read this...don't miss this.

It's serendipity again, two books arrive from sources thousands of miles apart, one from a big UK publisher, the other self-published from the US and they connect. In fact they connect and speak to each other as if they were old friends and when it happens it creates one of those memorable reading moments.
I've had the proof copy on the shelf since the day it made Scott Pack cry and Bloomsbury sent me one to make me cry too and the nation is probably now joining us, as the book with surely the catchiest title of the year, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Anne Shaffer hits the shelves. A Bloomsbury publicity campaign to match, whilst I doubt many people will even notice Libby Cone's novel War on the Margins which is a pity, so I'm hitching it a ride on the Bloomsbury horse.
If you read the former whatever you do don't miss the latter and I'm keeping my promise to bring you some books from lesser known publishers alongside all this Booker madness too.
I get masses of e mails from writers publishing their own novels and I do peruse them all carefully and agree to take a look at the book if it intrigues me. Libby Cone's book did intrigue and War on the Margins arrived hotfoot from the US all the way to Devon just as I was turning the final pages of the Potato Peelers. I started reading the first few pages and before I knew it that became a hundred. Nor has Libby fallen into any of the pitfalls that seem to beset the self-published author, no paper that weighs a ton, no close-set typeface and no gutter-margins filled to capacity with unreadable text. The book is a pleasure to have and to hold.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society was such a good read as an author embarks on a correspondence with the Guernsey islanders in the years immediately following the German Occupation of the Channel Islands during the Second World War. Slowly a picture builds of just how traumatic it has all been and how far-reaching are the effects of the occupation and the book most certainly upholds that fine tradition of the epistolary novel. People will divulge by letter a great deal more than they may be willing to reveal face to face and the fountain pen on the cover undoubtedly assists the imagination here. There is place of safety 'twixt pen and paper, plus it's a fine tool for progressing a plot and revealing those hidden character traits.
Even Jane Austen thought as much and now I'm recalling another wartime epistolary novel which has been loved by everyone I've recommended it to, Address Unknown by Kressman Taylor published by Souvenir Press.
Any others?
Talking of letters did you see the wonderfully thoughtful and perceptive piece by Julian Barnes on Penelope Fitzgerald's letters in The Guardian last weekend? These letters are something very special indeed, I'm reading a few each day to make them last and will share my early thoughts soon.
Sadly Mary Ann Shaffer died earlier this year but her niece, children's author Annie Barrows ,has helped bring The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society to fruition and a lasting legacy that Mary Ann would certainly have been proud of.
Libby Cone meanwhile has created her novel, War on the Margins out of her research for a Master's dissertation on the wartime occupation of neighbouring Jersey. It's Faction again and taking actual documents Libby capably and confidently weaves a pitch-perfect novel out of the facts surrounding the oppression of the Jews on the island and the resistance movement set up by surrealist artists Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore (Lucille and Suzanne). It's gripping, heart-rending reading and as you read the original and progressively more bewildering edicts issued by the Nazis against the Jews you realise again, as if you needed reminding, just how ridiculously terrible it all was.Considering this is research transformed it all sat very comfortably as I read, no ten tons of obstructively heavy or thesis-like information to detract.
If  these books should make you want to read more on the occupation of the Channel Islands, Libby has helpfully put together a reading list .
So there you have it, I spoil you all, three completely rewarding reads and an unmissable book of letters for the price of one today.

The Open Door by Elizabeth Maguire

'It was said of her that she never failed to win a person if she desired to do so, for her charm was potent and well-nigh irresistible. There were many who came under the spell and the spell was lasting...she was able to draw out of people the best that was in them, while giving them in return the most inspiring and comfortable comprehension.'

I've no idea where I heard about The Open Door by Elizabeth Maguire published by Other Press and I certainly knew nothing about Constance Fenimore Woolson but I think Clare Bendict's assessment of her in 1930 suggests that Constance was a very astute listener if nothing else.
She was of course a great deal more.
I am warming increasingly to the premise of fiction which takes real people and builds a novel around factual events, more to add to the lesser known Faction genre.
First things first, nice sized small hardback with rough cut page edges which suit the era and well-spaced text which doesn't migrate into the spine of the book. I think I'm getting worse as I get older but if I open a book with a tiny close-spaced font and just more line-width than the eye copes with comfortably I get all crotchety.
Born in 1840 in Claremont, New Hampshire (where I do hope they have a statue) Constance was a writer, the grandneice of James Fenimore Cooper, he of Last of the Mohicans fame, and a woman who dreamt of artistic friendships, so a letter of introduction to Henry James enough to make Constance up sticks for Europe and seek out the great man.
Classed as 'second rate regional scribbler' Constance was by no means assured of an audience, Henry allocating but an hour a day to devote to 'reviewing his invitations and engagements.'
What Henry has not bargained for was a woman with an intellect as fierce and as penetrating as his own and an unlikely friendship flourishes, except Constance is no sycophant.
Elizabeth Maguire invests Constance with an innate authorial wisdom and an assertiveness which makes her a perfect judge of Henry's character. She really can read him like a book and is no slouch with her own ideas not only on the art of fiction but also the art of friendship and literary greatness, death of the author arguments and much more. Henry only gets one chance to damn Constance's literary achievements with faint praise in a published review,

' Ah Harry, I knew what you were trying to do. You wanted the world to think you were bestowing a great favour upon me. But nothing could have hurt more than those words of faint praise. It was no accident that you published this essay in the same magazine that has provided such a welcome home to my writing.'

Henry's goose now well and truly cooked though he remains far too above it all to admit the error of his ways and Constance far too gracious to point it out to him.
Urged by Henry's sister Alice to marry him and offer Henry a respectable guise for his less respectable amours, Constance will have none of it,

' James Family I wanted to shout, the world does not revolve around you.'

Independent and free-thinking, and very much in control of her own destiny, Constance forges her own path as a writer beneath the ever-present leaden cloud of excruciating pains in her ear and what emerges is a fiesty likeable woman who now seems to have very few books in print and of course I want to read them yesterday.
I'm sufficiently intrigued to try and track some down and in the meantime I really should read Colm Toibin's The Master, shouldn't I?

Longlist Lamentations

Aravind Adiga - The White Tiger
Gaynor Arnold - Girl in a Blue Dress
Sebastian Barry - The Secret Scripture
John Berger - From A to X
Michelle de Kretser - The Lost Dog
Amitav Ghosh - Sea of Poppies
Linda Grant - The Clothes on Their Backs
Mohammed Hanif - A Case of Exploding Mangoes
Philip Hensher - The Northern Clemency
Joseph O'Neill - Netherland
Salman Rushdie - The Enchantress of Florence
Tom Rob Smith - Child 44
Steve Toltz - A Fraction of the Whole

Wow, that might be a record, a real famine of prediction, two out of thirteen and one other read, but at least the bloggers and their visitors have been brave enough to have a go, couldn't find much in the literary review pages.
So here we go, it's that time of the year I love best, say-what-ya-think-time, blog about them all whether I love them or loath them. Last year I couldn't fault a single book, this year I finally have to read a Salman Rushdie...I'm terrified.
You never usually hear what gets cast aside after fifty pages Chez dovegreyreader scribbles, but this is the Booker prize, gloves off and nor am I going to do my usual typical-me thing and blame myself if I find a book unreadable.
I might as well start as I mean to go on.
Here's a copy of my thoughts posted on the Booker Prize forum a few moments ago.

Having set the scene nicely with my 2/13 longlist predictions I seem likely to maintain my 100% record of never choosing a Booker winner.
I can't really say what I think yet because I've only read three two of them but I will endorse Jamie Byng's comments because I too am stunned at the presence of Child 44.
It was a brilliant read, a thriller a real page turner, but what you read is what you get, it's not literary fiction, no hidden depths to plumb and fathom that I could discern.I loved it and said so,BUT that has never been what the Booker has stood for imho. It has always been about something much deeper in my mind and Helen Garner's The Spare Room embraces that depth with real dignity.
If I'd been a judge I'd have argued and pleaded that book's cause until I was flat on my face for what it tells us about illness, human nature, friendship, guilt and all those wonderful grist to the mill things that life is all about.Then you read it again and again and discover even more.
Doubtless I'll find all those qualities in the other books as I read them, but I just can't quite hide my disappointment about The Spare Room.

 

Booker 2008 predictions

Oh hang it all, it's foolish and folly I know but on Booker Longlist day and as Bookerthon 2008 looms, time to gaze into the crystal ball, go out on that limb and make a few wild predictions.
We've all been offering our long list suggestions over on the Picador blog in an effort to win £50 worth of books.If I win those are going to be offered as a prize on here but don't hold your breath, I've done my best on your behalf but it's all a bit subjective and you know me and the Booker, never chosen the winner yet. Quite a few books are cropping up again and again, some of them I've read, some I've meant to and some I hope I don't have to.
CONFESSION : I have never reached the far end of a Salman Rushdie novel, ever, the 2008 Bookerthon could be floundering from the off if other predictions are right.
It's heart ruling head time so here goes with my Booker Thirteen and there have been some very last-minute amendments after a weekend of reading.

His Illegal Self - Peter Carey
A shoo-in surely? I'm not a huge fan of Peter Carey but I truly loved this book and have vowed to try harder with the rest.

The Secret Scripture - Sebastian Barry
I have a soft spot for Sebastian since he was robbed, the year A Long Long Way didn't win. I have a minor misgiving about the ending but it's very minor in the grand scheme of Sebastian's mesmerising writing.

The Rowing Lesson - Anne Landsman
It would be nice to know someone else had read and loved this other than just me,I feel a bit lonely waving its flag but love it I did.

The Spare Room - Helen Garner
Because Susan Hill says so and last year she predicted Winnie & Wolfe as a winner and just look what happened? We had a great disagreement over that one but this year I'm with her all the way, this is one of those special books, they come along so rarely, but when they do you know it.

Carpentaria - Alexis Wright
If this makes it I'll be kicking myself for not having tucked it under my belt already.Started it twice and got distracted but I knew as I read it was a very important book in the scheme of things but one that requires total concentration.

The Behaviour of Moths - Poppy Adams
I loved this and love it even more having heard Poppy Adams speaking about it at Ways With Words last week. It's a book of far greater depth than I first realised and you hear those dusty moth wings fluttering long after the final page.

Resistance - Owen Sheers
I realise this probably puts Faber over the limit for entries but it's far too good to leave off the list.

Crusaders - Richard Kelly
Another Faber but a parable of our times and another book I relished, real people, living real lives...well as real as fiction can get. It's an outsider but I'll risk it.

The Northern Clemency - Philip Hensher
Well Sam Leith predicts this one to be there so who am I to dissent? Huge doorstop of a book, more real people living real lives. I have it ready and waiting and will read it regardless.

Deaf Sentence - David Lodge
Another I've loved this year, a book that says many things and covers much ground.

Remember Me - Melvyn Bragg
I've barely scraped the surface of this one but even so I think it's shaping up into a masterpiece.

Feather Man - Rhyll McMaster
Marion Boyars have been urging me to read this and I kept saying 'but the first chapter is too upsetting'...'carry on, persevere' they said and assured me it would be worth the effort. I've read it this weekend and how right they were, I would love to see this book on the longlist. 

Sputnik Caledonia - Andrew Crumey
This is a very last-minute addition because it's another I've been reading this weekend and only because John Self has been saying all year it will be a Booker longlister and he's always right about this sort of thing. But I'm in agreement, it's been a revelation of a book, one I thought I wouldn't like but have loved.

So you see if it was all down to me I'd only have to read a couple of books for Bookerthon 2008 and that would free up my August reading time nicely.
Most unlikely because I have no Indian subcontinent writers in there and they always deserve a place or two, so may the best book win.
Except it never does.

The Spare Room by Helen Garner

Helen Garner said, in 1985, that writing novels was like "trying to make a patchwork quilt look seamless. A novel is made up of scraps of our own lives and bits of other people's, and things we think of in the middle of the night and whole notebooks full of randomly collected details".
I found that on Wikipaedia and also the information that Helen Garner wrote The Spare Room after the death of a friend from cancer.
I had wondered.
Not only because the main character is called Helen, but also because I think this book would be tough to write so astutely and therefore so well if you didn't know the real nitty gritty nuts and bolts of looking after someone who is so desperately ill.
Night after night Helen is changing sheets and living with the fear of having to comfort someone through uncontrolled pain, that is real fear. Uncontrolled pain is terrifying for all concerned and descent into that whirlpool of chaos is inevitable when it happens in those darkest hours just before dawn. Helen paces herself to cope with it for the three weeks of Nicola's visit and not a minute longer.
Nicola meanwhile resides in a strangely complex reverie of denial patched up with the hope of a complete recovery even whilst she suffers the most agonising side-effects of her expensive and very alternative treatment. All in a seemingly valiant attempt to exclude any glimmer of the truth from herself whilst, unable to buy into Nicola's optimism, it is all staring Helen in the face. The reality of Nicola's reasoning, when finally revealed, is quietly and heartbreakingly sad.
Susan Hill suggested I read this one and also told me to look carefully at the very clever ending, which I did and yes, how very clever it is. I won't divulge because then you can watch out for it too, it's more about style than plot but such a clever way for a writer to preserve for posterity a moment of utter guilt, trapped like the insect in the amber. Regardless of what may happen next, nothing will assuage Helen's agony over her decision, one that tests her innermost feelings about the bonds of friendship to the very limits and Helen Garner has captured it with utter precision.
Now last year you may recall Susan and I were poles apart on our Booker favourites, Winnie & Wolfe was getting her vote very early on, my flag was nailed firmly to the Darkmans mast, but this year I can report we are of once accord, we even agree about the cover and that's before the long list has even been announced.
Surely The Spare Room will be on there?
How can it not be?
We'll be out of our misery tomorrow and my final longlist predictions will be on here first thing. Suddenly I'm aware of how many books I should have made time to read and haven't, it's been a very busy last-minute reading weekend.

Snowshill Manor

Snowshill Manor has lodged deep in my memory since the day it came up as a quiz question
'Name the eccentric collector who lived at Snowshill Manor'
and I hadn't a clue.
So finding myself within hopping distance off I went to be a National Trust tourist.
It's a balance that is never quite reconciled in my mind, the preservation of these fabulous places versus the National Trustification of a property but without it we wouldn't have them, I know.
It's therefore best to imbibe the beauty of the setting whilst rising above the numberless signs spelling out the serious implications of touching it, and likewise avoiding the prickly burr heads strategically placed to prevent you sitting on any chair. Look beyond and see the sheer magic of Snowshill, swaddled in history and harbouring countless untold stories which your imagination starts writing for itself.
The rules and regulations with their veiled admonitions had clearly affected a German couple quite deeply, in fact they were on the brink of traumatic stress disorder when they saw me about to sit on a seat in the garden. Dashing over they breathlessly begged me, whilst looking over their shoulders, absolutely not to sit on the seat, it was very verboten indeed. We discussed the absence of the prickly burr, of any signs saying not to sit, nothing to warn us how quickly the wood might deteriorate and the fact it was a bog standard garden seat. Reassuring them that I'd take the flak if we were wrong we all collapsed onto it thankfully and admired this rather fine dovecote.
So it was Charles Wade who inherited a fortune from family sugar plantations, bought the house in near-derelict condition in 1919, proceeded to renovate and then started collecting.
A hugely eclectic mix of the unusual and the rare and truly you never know what will be around the next corner or up the next staircase. So much in fact (22,000 objects and 2000 costumes) that there was no room for Charles to live in the house so he lived in a tiny little Priest's Cottage alongside.
Setting aside any qualms over the origins of the fortune, hats off to Charles Wade for doing something marvellously individual and unusual with it all when he returned from fighting in the Great War. In his little memoir Days Far Away, Charles Wade does indeed do much of the imaginative back-story writing that his collection demands, and with ease I imagined the man as I read it. Trained with the eye of an architect and in the finer aspects of design he invested a joy to his collecting,

'I have not bought things because they were rare or valuable...but of interest as records of various vanished handicrafts. What joy these old things are to live with, each piece made by the hand of a craftsman, each has a feeling of individuality that no machine could ever attain...this collection, not a museum, will be a valuable record in times to come.'

If you haven't been to Snowshill don't miss it, you'd be in great company, J.B.Priestley, the Johns Betjeman, Buchan and Masefield, Edwin Lutyens and Virginia Woolf all paid a call, and you may also sight the pure white Snowshill cat suitably named Tinker.
Mind you, Virginia was not impressed. She visited along with Susan, Lady Tweedsmuir (wife of John Buchan) and Elizabeth Bowen on July 3rd 1935 and wrote that same day to Vanessa Bell,

'We went 40 miles to see a necromancer - that is a retired East India planter who lives in a mediaeval farm [Snowshill] which he has filled with old clothes, bicycles, mummies, alligators, Italian altars - not, I thought, very interesting, and I think rather a fraud, as he pretended to have no watch, and so I lost my train and only got back at 8.30.'

John Betjeman, in a letter to Charles Wade requesting photos for a magazine article, less than optimistic about a return visit,

'I hope I shall see you if ever I come to the Cotswolds again, but with the likelihood of a revolution in London, and death by motor accident or rapid disease, any sort of peace seems out of the question.'

Pay no heed, despite veiled hints of witchcraft and the occult, Charles Wade seems harmless enough and Snowshill a real horde of treasures in the finest traditions of English eccentricity.

Ekaterinburg prize draw winners

Tsar Rockyvitch has done the draw and here are the three lucky winners of the signed copies of Ekaterinburg which will be winging their way out on the next troika.

Margaret Calkin James redux

Safely home again after a few days of post-Dartington rest and relaxation staying at a "remote and top secret location with current literary connections and a very gorgeous dog" in the Cotswolds, it was my absolute pleasure to visit the Margaret Calkin James exhibition currently on display until September 21st at the Court Barn Museum in Chipping Campden. The museum itself a tribute to the Arts and Crafts Movement and the setting a perfect one for the work of Margaret Calkin James.
I wrote about Margaret here after I'd picked up her book on the Rainbow Workshops whilst browsing the V&A bookshop and had a lovely e mail correspondence with her daughter Elizabeth Argent at the time.
Imagine my delight to find that Elizabeth was at the exhibition, talking to visitors and showing them around. We had a good chat and I'm so glad I went because this will be the final public exhibition of Margaret's work before it is all archived in the V&A for posterity. Hopefully it will be on permanent display but there's something about seeing textiles behind a glass case which slightly detracts from the whole experience.
Memorable for a textile fanatic like me to get close up to the fabrics especially the hand block printed schoolroom curtain from Margaret's home Hornbeams, used as the endpaper in the Persephone Books edition of The Runaway by Elizabeth Anna Hart. A book illustrated by another dovegreyreader favourite, Gwen Raverat.
It has to be the sign of a truly dedicated artist, one who cannot live and breath without their craft, that Margaret, having suffered a stroke which rendered her right arm useless, taught herself to use her left hand and carried on producing the most exquisitely beautiful tapestries. Still very much in evidence, Margaret's characteristic eye for design in a different but immaculately worked medium and one that Elizabeth recounted brought her mother great joy in her later years, the sight of the blank canvas there to be worked would gladden her heart.
Elizabeth kindly allowed me to take some pictures to share with all of you, but if your are passing Chipping Campden it's definitely worth paying a visit because you can buy a poster of that fabulous Rainbow Workshop sign for a mere £5.
Then you could take a wander around this lovely little market town, you might even run into a famous author, who knows?
You could also nip along to Snowshill Manor which is what I did next.
Remembering forever of course our Belvoir/ Beevor Castle indiscretion, the locals tell me it's pronounced Snowzell, best to get these things right before you go.

The Reader's Block question

I'm with Normblog over the Reader's Block dilemma, in that it's a non-dilemma. All that is required is a calm and measured approach, contain the anxiety and follow your instinct.
I'd quite have expected writing dovegreyreader to give me frequent and recurring bouts of reader's block and I'll admit sometimes I used to think it had happened but Norm's explained it all now.
An occasional moment when no book I picked up seemed quite right, but I think I've developed something of an immunity. I have that many reading projects lined up, disparate books happily paired, tripleted or even octupleted up for future reading trails I can't imagine ever running out of ideas about where to go next.
I'll pick up and run with Norm's meme and list a selection of my own dozen
" books I've read this year, which, when I wasn't reading them, I really looked forward to getting back to"

Oleander Jacaranda - Penelope Lively
Crusaders - Richard Kelly
Bog Child- Siobahn Dowd
Under the Greenwood Tree - Thomas Hardy
Run - Ann Patchett
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Bronte
The Library at Night - Alberto Manguel
Ekaterinburg - Helen Rappaport
Child 44 - Tom Rob Smith
Mrs Darcy's Dilemma - Diana Birchall
The Changeling - Robin Jenkins
Quartet in Autumn - Barbara Pym

Links to my thoughts on most of these books are over here >>>>>>> and check out Susan Hill's Summer reading list too, plenty there to pique anyone's interest.
How about all of you?
Fancy picking up the baton?
Put your own list in comments or spread the meme on your blog.

Ears on Wheels : Friends Like These by Danny Wallace

I've covered almost 600 miles up and over high Dartmoor and home again during the ten days of the Ways With Words festival, there is no public transport from here so I had no option but to fire up the Fiesta and I've managed a varied selection of listening material en route.

Sometimes it's peace and quiet just to take in the magnificent scenery or think about events I've been to, occasionally listen to the radio and one day I caught a dramatisation of The Portrait of A Lady. This started midway as I left Totnes, hadn't  the first idea what I was listening to and was quite pleased to have diagnosed it on story alone by the time I reached the moors...oh all right I suppose the accents and the Isabel Archer mention were helpful clues.
I also managed one audio book and it's quite a surprising one for me
It's hopeless to listen to novels whilst I drive because occasionally I do have to let go of the thread in order to remain alive, and open who-will-reverse negotiations with oncoming horseboxes on very narrow uphill blind bends or risk-assess the skittish behaviour of newborn kamikaze foals, so I usually opt for non-fiction which can afford the odd lapse without too much loss of plot. I don't know why the assumption is that a Fiesta can always go backwards with ease but that generally seems to be the case.
Friends Like These by Danny Wallace surely intended for the bright young Facebook generation? In fact this is probably the last place Danny Wallace will want to see it mentioned, Heat magazine far more of the moment.
Panicking about his impending thirtieth birthday Danny decides to make contact with the twelve school friends whose names he discovers in an old address book.
When I told Offspringette about it, most certainly one of the Bright Young Facebook Generation, she actually couldn't understand why Danny hadn't just, well, gone on Facebook or Friends Reunited like everyone else, but I'm not sure Facebook was quite so all-singing and dancing a couple of years ago. Besides, that wouldn't have been nearly so interesting as flying all over the world to turn up at offices wearing fluffy rabbit heads as revenge for old but good-natured scores which just had to be settled.
It might sound banal but it's not, there are some very very funny moments and also some very poignant ones as Danny, gripped by the obssessive need to fulfill his quest, discovers tragedy along the way and then finds another friend is very reluctant to see him, and this wasn't even the rabbit's head moment. Danny's dismay, especially given he's flown all the way to Tokyo, is not surprisingly quite palpable and it felt a bit like listening to my own twenty-somethings recount their own disappointments.
This might come as a bit of surprise all round but I even know who Danny Wallace is.
We must have been one of the few to watch and enjoy Castaway back along and Danny was the presenter. We couldn't quite fathom the media 'look', sandy beach, deserted Pacific island, pair of nice serviceable shorts and some flip flops would do it. The smart suit jacket, teeshirt and plimsolls had us bemused, or were they Converse All-Stars?
You see I do pay attention sometimes.
But Danny was very amiable, witty, self-effacing sense of humour and he does have a smooth and very melodious voice. However I do think it was a bit of a mean trick to play on someone old enough to be his mother, that joke about 'Welcome to Disc One' when it's actually Disc Three and by the time he tells you and laughs you've already cursed, swerved and nearly taken out a sheep or two as you rummage on the passenger seat for a.n. other disc.
But I forgave all as I listened and tried desperately to remember whether being thirty had been such a big deal or has it become a much bigger one now?

Festival Finale

Tripping over Roy Hattersley and Buster his dog to find my three authors and get to the event I was chairing all got quite fraught last Saturday afternoon, in the end it was like herding kittens as I rounded them up and kept them in one place long enough to get the flow of things sorted before we 'evented'.
Having chaired and kept order over The Women's Guide to Saving the World by Karen Eberhardt Shelton, with Penelope Shuttle and Fiona Walters on the panel too, I realised that chairing is a thoroughly enjoyable pastime. I thought it would be nerve-wracking and actually this event could have been because it's a subject that arouses passionate comment, and though I did need my wits about me as the debate ranged around the room it all felt very enjoyable.
Ensuring the person with their hand up in the back row actually has their say before the blood supply to their hand runs dry, politely but firmly retrieving the floor from the person in the front row who has a lengthy point to make but not actually a qestion, it's all in a day's chairing work.
But Ways With Words Dartington 2008 now over and what a magical experience it has all been.
An interesting nay challenging experience to post immediate thoughts here but an opportunity I've relished. I've heard some inspirational speakers, read some fantastic books and had my thinking well and truly provoked and prodded out of its usual apolitical carpet slipper comfort zone.
I almost feel I'll return to work something of an activist next Monday, that'll shock them.
I mean Martin Bell said it, 'If you want bad things to happen do nothing' but I expect it will all have dissipated by about lunchtime on Tuesday.
Actually make that Monday afternoon.
My colleague is away for the next three weeks, it's just me and 375 under fives. Everyone said it must have been exhausting and very hard work covering a literary festival for ten days...absolutely not, it was pure unadulterated pleasure; 375 under fives on just three days a week is what I call hard work.
I've almost filled a Moleskine notebook with Lamy Safari fountain pen scribbles and become very attached to it. Even more bonded to all my books full of marginalia and notes now they are also signed by the authors, I will treasure those.
My thanks to Ways With Words for the festival pass and comfortable accommodation when I needed it; gratitude to all the lovely people in the office who guarded my laptop, the stewards who kindly reserved me my back row balcony seat for the 'packed to the rafters' events and all those lovely enthusiastic festival goers with whom it is so easy to strike up the most fascinating conversations.
Thanks also to Jennifer, Festival Artist in Residence for the portrait, a lovely memento.
Books really do remove all boundaries and forge friendships.
The jewel in the crown surely Dartington Hall itself, looking spectacular in all its glory, revealing yet more of its secret and hidden places and creating a store of memories that will last through the winter especially as we are still waiting for summer to arrive here.
I sincerely hope you've all enjoyed it too, I think you have because I've had some lovely e mails and thank you for such encouraging words. You've been fine company, it's been a pleasure to take you along every day, fancy being able to cram that many people in a Fiesta?
I also have to agree that the Barn Theatre Cafe was very tempting and we probably didn't need a slice of that luscious lemon cake quite so regularly, but wasn't it  delicious?
Yes indeed, I think a good time was had by all.

Esther Rantzen

It's got to be said, Esther Rantzen looked quite stunning and I think there were audible gasps as she walked on stage, all confirmed by a very complimentary (and clearly smitten) gentlemen who stated in questions afterwards that he wouldn't have recognised her.
Esther beamed.
Poised and graceful, elegantly dressed and the dyed blond hair now eschewed for brunette, Esther settled down to tell it to us like it was.
Having left her hair to revert to its original colour, and now bemoaning the £14,000 and countless hours of her life she calculates to have spent with tin foil wrapped around her head, we all agreed with just about everyone else she knows that it absolutely suits her and she should have done it years ago.
Another public person you feel you know so well, and for those who don't know her Esther Rantzen was the presenter of a hugely successful consumer affairs programme back along as we say in Devon. Esther's huge media presence and undoubted influence with  That's Life and its viewing audience of 21 million, all largely responsible for the fact that plenty of people felt able to go and have a conversaton with her as if talking to an old friend after the event.
That said Esther certainly talked to the audience like an old friend creating a warm and mutually accepting atmosphere, modest and self-effacing as she recounted some fascinating and hilarious episodes in her life.
Esther's latest book If Not Now When recounts her attitude to life which has evolved in recent years and this is all about renegotiating life with yourself as age encroaches.
Thinking back to Jenni Murray, breaking with convention something it would seem the Baby Boomers have been doing all their lives, discarding the stereotypes of the wartime generation that went before. Having transformed their lives by embracing the 1960's they are now heading into their pensionable years looking for microlights to fly and other new challenges to fulfill.
This must all mean me too, Coronation year babies must count.
It was all enough to persuade a member of the audience to encourage Esther to stand for Parliament except by her own admission she hates being told what to do and needs to be a floating cross-party voter depending on manifesto.That said it's clear she still has a voice and can use it to influence from without, though acknowledged that this was also much easier in the days of a TV audience of 21 million.
Esther needs a blog that's what.
All good stirring stuff as I ponder whether at Esther's suggestion my own fifties are fab or fearful. I'd opt for fab right now but might just give the microlight a miss.

Lloyd Jones and Philip Hensher

I know Ways With Words finished on Sunday but thanks to the joys of the blog, we can and will make it last a few days longer.
Fiction events at literary festivals are often quite tricky to pull off but it's a good combination to pair an author whose novel has been read by many with another author whose novel has only recently been published. As a fellow eventer and I agreed, it's a good way to discover a book you may perhaps have passed over.
Lloyd Jones of much-lauded Mister Pip fame matched with Philip Hensher whose recent novel The Northern Clemency has gathered a host of mixed and interesting reviews. Here's my copy of Mister Pip getting a signature and Lloyd Jones asking me if it was the same dovegreyreader quoted in the Guardian, and Philip Hensher about to tell me he has heard of it too.
Amazing.
It's a known fact that I adored Mister Pip from the cover onwards the day I discovered a discarded unread review copy in the Oxfam shop in Marylebone High St. This was before it made the Booker long and shortlist last year and so it was wonderful to hear Lloyd Jones speak in person about the novel's origins.
I guess Lloyd Jones has travelled the world talking about his novel and perhaps he always starts the talk with the audience question

' I doubt anyone's been to Bougainville?'

You'd hardly expect the affirmative in dear old Devon so he coped admirably with the unexpected response from a member of the audience who had lived there for four years.
Lloyd Jones quickly divulged that the first novel that had come to mind to embed within his story of civil war conflict on a Pacific island had been The Lord of the Flies, but that was all too tricky, Great Expectations far more apposite and far more successful and with that we all agreed.
Searching for imaginative risk and underpinning fable with realism seems to be a winning combination because there was much love for the novel expressed around the Great Hall.
One questioner asked whether the violence in the book was based on fact.
Lloyd Jones acknowleged he was a magpie when it came to storing up ideas for fiction and assured us it was, much of it had been heard whilst in the company of the revolutionary leader and on hearing the minutiae Lloyd had been forced to keep dashing out to the toilet.
I assumed this was to throw up copiously on hearing about people being fed to the pigs but in fact it was to discreetly write down all the details.
Philip Hensher then elaborated on his own love for the realist novel and and the illusion that the conversation established by a book can carry on beyond the final page of a novel where you have come to know the characters well. This is not about readers admiring the scaffolding, this is about readers engaging with the narrative and, despite the recent past being the most remote and difficult history to delineate with any accuracy, Philip Hensher has gone for it with his huge doorstop of a novel on life in Sheffield from 1974 to 1994. I love well-written doorstops and it awaits to be seen on July 29th whether The Northern Clemency fulfills Telegraph Literary Editor Sam Leith's prediction that it will make the Booker long list this year.
I'm waiting for the book to arrive but in that case may be reading it sooner than planned, the Bookerthon gets underway on here and hopefully (unless he's chickened out!)  John Self's Asylum very soon...anyone else up for the challenge?
By Philip Hensher's own admission The Northern Clemency is an autobiographical novel, which led me to have instant and very confusing thoughts.
It's no wonder poor readers like me are wading around in Death of the Author arguments and mired in the criticism often levelled at us, which I do find slightly disparaging, that we assume a book is about an author's life when really we shouldn't be so daft because of course it's not. More and more writers seem to be owning up to having overcome the shame and guilt they feel for doing it and then mining their own lives remorselessly for novel material, so perhaps readers are not so daft after all.
In any case frankly who cares as long as it's a great read and a case in point, Remember Me the latest from Melvyn Bragg, so far a brilliant and uncompromising novel, a remarkable book and one I will write about at length eventually.
Lloyd Jones led us into some final thoughts which have lingered long after the event in my mind as issues of the value of literature and the power of the imagination were mentioned. David Grossman said it,Lloyd Jones quoted it, I sort of managed to write it down and it's along the lines of mass media creates masses, literature creates individuals.
I like that.

The Grand Literary Balloon Debate

I fear Diana Birchall will be looking to have my guts for garters because I think I may have inadvertently hastened Jane Austen's demise, indeed ensured that she was the first to be jettisoned over the side of a hot air balloon and now I'm wishing Jane had stuck with her less risky pursuits.
I'd never been to a Grand Literary Balloon Debate before and it seems likely I may now be banned.
For anyone who doesn't know the form, four people, in this case Andrew Davies, Philip Hensher, Carmen Callil and Mary Beard played advocate to four authors under the capable piloting skills of Alexander Waugh. The imaginary hot air balloon is losing height and authors must be off-loaded, so their advocates must advance a strong case for them retaining their place in the basket, capturing the audience's imagination and thereby their vote. A great deal of hot air is required.
I had been to Andrew Davies's event earlier in the day.
As British television's acknowledged master of the literary adaptation and with a keen and undisguised adoration of Jane Austen, I quite thought Jane would be the last remaining occupant, surely this was a foregone conclusion?
Novelist Philip Hensher was flying the flag for P.G.Wodehouse, Virago founding editor Carmen Callil displayed a penchant for Voltaire and Oxford Classicist Mary Beard sang the virtues of Homer.
No contest for our Jane, that basket was hers as of right.
After initial opening statements it was over to audience cross-examination and not a lot of arms were raised, in fact no arms were raised, so I thought I'd help Andrew Davies's cause along a bit.

'If Jane Austen was so brilliant, why have television dramatisations required so much extra detail ?'

It was a high risk strategy but my theory was to stir Andrew into telling us that Jane was a passionate and sensual woman bound by the proprieties of the age, that everything was of necessity encoded within the books and he was merely the channel for Jane's veiled expressions of healthy lusts and appetites. That's what he'd more or less told us in the afternoon as he showed film clips and explained the thinking behind log-splitting scenes and stroking-hawk's-feathers scenes.
This was surely Andrew Davies's moment, Jane belonged firmly in that basket and would remain.
It all went horribly wrong, clearly Andrew and I do not have the gift of psychic connection, sadly he missed my cue and was caught completely off-guard by the googlie I had inadvertently bowled.The audience remained unconvinced by his argument that he'd just written the scenes Jane had forgotten to write and would be a hell of a lot poorer (in more ways than one) without her.
Attempts at a resuscitation of Jane's campaign and a rallying of Andrew Davies to the cause by members of the audience failed miserably.
It was too late, the damage was done.
Put to the first vote, Jane was over and out, that empire line sprigged muslin billowing in the breeze and I shut up.
P.G. Wodehouse soon plummeted into a rapid descent after Jane, unable to survive allegations of Nazi collaboration levelled at him by Voltaire fanatic Carmen Callil, and the reluctant admission from Philip Hensher, extracted under fierce cross-examination from Carmen (surely terrifying?), that though Plum wrote laughter he was a bit of a dull chap in company.
Sophisticated and witty he might be but Homer's days were numbered once news of an Odyssey of war crimes emerged.It must be acknowledged that Mary Beard put up a spirited defence on behalf of homecomers everywhere and even tried to tempt us with last-resort suggestions that Homer may have been a woman. Alexander Waugh urged us to consider carefully before casting our vote and being complicit in any literary deception and that was Homer hurled out into oblivion.
The utterly exceptional Voltaire that genius of joy and freedom was victorious and Carmen Callil was jubilant. Personally I would have welcomed assurance that Voltaire would have read Virago Modern Classics and embraced the ethos as well as having a shelf full of them in his study, but having scuppered Jane I decided it best to keep quiet...most unlike me but then this is Carmen Callil we are talking about here, let Philip Hensher take the flak.

Elsie's take on Roy Hattersley

Sadly I missed Roy Hattersley my absolute festival favourite as I had to chair another event, but as luck would have it Elsie didn't.
Elsie is the shy and retiring bursary student from Friday's comments who did eventually stop me to say hello rather than have me shout out 'Is Elsie here?' to a packed Great Hall.
We had a fine old natter about all the events we'd enjoyed and Elsie, who lives in Devon and is studying English at the University of East Anglia, very kindly agreed to 'cover' the Roy event for me. I thought it would be good to hear a young person's view on one of our Elder Statesman because I'm developing a hopeless and possibly age-related bias, they are all impressing me immensely.
So a very warm dovegreyreader scribbles welcome to Elsie who I think you'll agree has done us proud, and my thanks to her for filing her insights so quickly and capably.

It was with an open mind and a sense of curiosity that I entered the Great Hall to take my place for Roy Hattersley’s scheduled talk, Borrowed Time. He’s a bit before my time, politics wise, but having recently finished Andrew Marr’s excellent A History of Modern Britain in which he is mentioned, I had felt a flicker of interest when I saw Roy Hattersley’s name down in the Way With Words program and so decided to go and see the man for myself. When my father dropped me off outside the Great Hall, I asked him whether or not he had any ideas about what questions I could possibly ask during the talk. He pondered for a moment and then said,
“Perhaps you could ask him what it was like to be represented by a tub of lard on Have I Got News For You?”
An incisive and probing question, I’m sure you’ll agree, but I felt perhaps it wasn’t quite in keeping with the tone of the event. However, I would rather like to know…
There was a brief flutter of tension as it was revealed that Mr Hattersley had not actually arrived by the time the talk was due to begin but happily he did turn up and was only a trifling ten minutes late, looking supremely unruffled (which, after he explained that he had just endured a lengthy six hour drive to be at the event, was impressive). He was given a speedily flattering introduction by Paul Brassley, who informed us that Roy Hattersley had once been described by Gore Vidal as a “journalist’s politican”, whether or not those two professions can ever be truly reconciled is another matter, but he is evidently well-regarded.
He began by outlining what he would be speaking to us about, namely the uneasy period between the first and second world wars, listing such crises as the armed rebellion in Ireland, the King’s abdication, general strikes and the mounting economic crisis. He was quick to stress, however, that it definitely wasn’t all doom and gloom.
There was also the entrance of the movies into England’s collective consciousness, the creation of the BBC and an increased popularity of Shakespeare, all of which sounds pretty darn wonderful. I suppose this country’s current economic climate (opening the papers, all you get is hysterical headlines screaming about we’re all going to go into meltdown or something, the end is nigh, etc etc) means that we may be all focusing on the ‘doom and gloom’ and it made me feel hopeful that we too might look back upon this period and try to remember the exciting things as well as the bad, such as winning the Olympic bid, more people going to the theatre than ever before, the huge literary output, the emergence of blogging…!
Anyway. Back to Roy Hattersley.
He was the youngest member of the Cabinet during the period of the abdication (this raised a comment whereby he suggested that the fact that Wallis Simpson was twice divorced was not an issue to the monarchy and government, rather it was because she was American that they objected, cue much laughter in the Hall), and was very much involved in the process of trying to reason with the future King. The then Prince of Wales tried to wangle it so that he could marry Ms Simpson with the provision that she would not become queen, but it was to no avail. As Roy Hattersley put it, it was perceived to be in danger of creating a constitutional crisis that the monarchy (and perhaps even the government to some extent) would not survive.
It was all very fascinating stuff. Roy Hattersley is an extremely competent and engaging speaker, proceeding to deliver his entire talk on his feet, in the middle of the stage, without any notes and without, it seemed, pause for breath. It’s exactly what you want from a speaker, someone who gives you the chance to absorb what he’s just said but then smoothly moving onto the next point. I kept repeatedly jumping at the realisation that I hadn’t been taking notes as I was so absorbed, which probably gave the people sat behind me the impression that I was falling asleep or very twitchy. I would like to reassure everyone that I was definitely neither.
The inevitable political question-what would his advice be to the current government?
He revealed that he has admiration for Gordon Brown, citing his dependable, honest and straightforward qualities as reasons. Roy Hattersley spoke of how he believes that Gordon Brown should aim to make these personality traits more obvious in his politics, and therefore win back more support. He explained what he personally thought the government should have done upon Tony Blair’s departure. No further extension of the 28 day detention period for terror suspects, slow withdrawal from Iraq, and the gradual reversal of privatisation.
Tricky aims, but I got the impression that Roy Hattersley has not yet given up hope in his party’s resurgence and ability to bounce back, which is heartening.
We were even treated to a little bit of spontaneous singing, which is always a bonus in my opinion. He has a great love for the music and musicals of the 1930’s and gave a rather dismissive view on modern pop music, which I think should be rectified.
Get in touch, Roy Hattersley, and I’ll try to change your mind!
Although it has to be said, he certainly knows his own.

Tony Benn

Tony Benn might not know this but he's been in my car and out and about on a Health Visitor's day. I listened to his diaries on audio last year as I drove around and he made a fine companion.It had been Bob Dylan the week before and I needed something uniquely British to balance.
Tony Benn, 83 years old, one of those people who needs little introduction because actually you feel like you know him well, another of our elder statesman we must cherish and heed. Except Tony was having no truck with the suggestion that age imparts wisdom...he knows some very silly old men and some very wise young ones.
James Long introduced the event with a quote of Tony's,
'If we can find the money to kill people we can find the money to help people'
and the applause was warm and immediate and somehow the atmosphere for an intimate session was established. Not easy to achieve in a Great Hall packed to the rafters yet again and actually, here are the rafters just so that you know what rests above our heads.It is a grand and magnificent building which oozes history every way you look.
Contemplating writing a book Letters to My Grandchildren (yes Tony, yes) of which he has ten, it was a sobering thought that we now have the first generation who have the wherewithal to destroy the human race but also the capacity to save it and much ot Tony's talk highlighted the unchanging moral decisions that must prevail even given the breakneck speed of change and progress.
Imparting a great deal of wisdom and humility as he spoke, even more than I had picked up from listening to the diaries, Tony Benn emphasised countless times his belief in respect and doing unto others only that we would wish done to ourselves.
In many hands that might sound cliched but in Tony Benn's fervent yet gentle and compassionate world view it all radiated utter sincerity.
Tony Benn is not in favour of war, privatisation, means-tested pensions or student loans and hoped that might be plenty to get us started as he left 45 minutes for questions.He wanted to debate with the audience not preach at us, hands shot up all over the Great Hall and there followed nigh on twenty thought-provoking questions to which Tony Benn offered considered, well-thought out responses.
Topics ranged from the US election, through education, truth in politicians, religious difference, the Iraq war, interventionism, democracy, public service tradition and so much more.
The whole event all surprisingly engaging for a non-political animal such as I and with it an awareness that I was watching a man who would be incapable of succumbing to David Owen's newly identified Hubris Syndrome.
Was that really a week ago?
Tony Benn has so many personal checks and balances in place it would be absolutely impossible, his self-effacing humour alone makes him immune. Cue more rapturous applause and what would have been a standing ovation had we not been packed in like sardines and incapable of moving.
I listened in on the book signing afterwards as he asked everyone their name and what they did and thought yes, Tony Benn is indeed a National Treasure a kind, good and honourable man.

The Art of the Complaint

I've been to plenty of events that remain in note form and will get to them eventually but one that deserves a mention is Julian Baggini's talk on Complaining and meanwhile to keep us all nice and calm here's a soothing picture of the Meditation Garden at Dartington.
I think plenty of people were hoping we'd pick up tips on how to turn a Victor Meldrew moment into a Victor Ludorum moment and reap ourselves loads of cash for tripping over a paving stone but it quickly became apparent that we we were to be bathed in philosophical argument and this at 3.30pm in the afternoon.
Hell's teeth this is not my best hour of the day to be waxing philosophical, in fact it's my hour of the day for winding up my visits and heading back to the surgery; first one back filches milk from the doctor's common room and gets the kettle on as we prepare to swap notes on the traumas and those amusing little anecdotes of the day. The pit bull terrier that has perched on the lap throughout the visit because you have inadvertently sat on its squeaky toy, the house with the tank full of tarantulas, little things like that and then you write up all the clinical records in case anyone, well...complains I suppose.
Then we check all the phone messages in case, well in case anyone's complained by phone.
That said I think I coped admirably with all Julian Baggini's arguments, please just don't ask me to repeat them all because there are complaints and then there are other complaints and then there are degrees of complaints. There was mention of the grievance culture we now live in and the need to hold someone accountable and apportion blame, but still no news on the productive paving stone dosh complaint.
Using the ability of complaint correctly would seem to be an art form I don't possess.
I tend to send Bookhound in on my behalf these days because he's exceptionally good at it. I always seem to start any complaint with an apology about being a nuisance and it all races downhill towards a complimentary voucher for something I don't want, whereas he gets full refunds and compensation.
My best complaining moment ever in the world was however born of the despair of the young mother which, once upon a time, I was.
There's nothing like despair to spur you on to dizzying heights of complaining achievement and as Julian said, the point of a complaint is to change things.
The revolutionary new washing machine with 1300rpm spin that mostly failed to spin at all and trapped the half-washed wet nappies fourteen times in four months. We became sort-of good friends with the repair man who always took about three days to arrive even though we were on a 24 hour repair contract, by which time the nappies were ripening and clearing the immediate vicinity of all human life. Phone calls to manufacturers achieved precisely nothing and eventually in a fit of complete despair I wrote a Private & Confidential letter to the Managing Director of Hoover the washing machine company and said my goods were clearly not of merchantable quality and unless they bought this dire piece of rubbish back within a week it would be placed in our showroom window (the days when Bookhound had an interior design showroom in town) and I would paste all the repair dockets around it.
Cheque arrived in the next post.
I'm not sure whether this was a complaint of the luddite, self-serving, self-defeating, conformist or empty genre but sometimes I think we get beyond the point of caring and just have to give it hell.
So please, if you are of a philosophical nature, don't complain that I haven't done the book justice, I really am very very sorry about that, and besides you can change things, your dilemma is easily resolved, off you go and seek out the book Complaints, From Minor Moans to Principled Protests by the very entertaining and doubtless expert complainer, Julian Baggini.

Virago is 30...again.

I'm not sure why I think a picture of the medieval jousting yard should be appropriate but if it's Friday it's Virago at Ways With Words.
This is the second Virago 30th anniversary event for me this year, same chair, current commisioning editor Donna Coonan, different guests, this time founding editor Carmen Callil and author Michele Roberts.
Good crowd in the Great Hall and Carmen Callil apologised for having 'bored for England' on the subject of the Virago anniversary already this year but we were very happy for her to carry on and 'bore' us some more.
The first Virago writers, Antonia White, Rosamund Lehman,Margaret Atwood, Stevie Smith, Henry Handel Richardson, Christina Stead and many more were the subject of discussion between the members of the panel as we learnt about the early days of Virago and the delight all round at bringing these books back into print. This was an era fed by feminism but as Carmen elaborated, also driven mad by it and Michelle gave a good account of the provocative time that was the late 1960s and early 1970s. This was about not about nostalgia it was about changing the face of literary history.
Talk turned to favourite Virago books and authors so imagine my delight when Carmen Callil then lauded Enid Bagnold's The Squire as one of the best books written on the early days of motherhood.
Michelle Roberts cited her love of the good convent read, and went on to mention the wonderful Sylvia Townsend Warner's The Corner That Held Them, and The Land of Spices by Kate O'Brien as perfect books for accessing her 'inner nun'.
Virago author Elizabeth Taylor gained magnificent plaudits from all three panellists described by Michelle Roberts as the spy in the home where the most dangerous things happen.'The thinking woman's dangerous housewife' in the words of Valerie Martin apparently and I was sitting pondering those chintz-bedecked battlefields so perfectly defined by Paul Bailey in his introductions to some of Elizabeth Taylor's novels.
Yes indeed you could feel the lurve for Elizabeth.
There were good questions, one about chicklit, and Michelle Roberts gave an excellent defence of a genre that enables young women to ask and answer the questions about life and love, the answers are there beneath the froth and then suggested we look at the difference between chicklit and Jane Austen, in fact ask was there a difference?
Why not share your apoplexy or agreement in comments where smelling salts and lavender compresses await those overcome and feeling discomposed with a fit of the vapours, but I'm of the mind that there's a good debate to be had there.
The Orange Prize came up in discussion and Carmen Callil reiterated her refusal to attend the ceremony because of the Taittinger champagne connection and you'll have to read her book Bad Faith to discover exactly why. Michelle Roberts now wants to see men and women competing on the same level literary playing field whilst Carmen would like to see a return of the French Revolutionary spirit, she'd liked writers to object far more, to tackle injustices near to home.
It was all good stirring Virago stuff, vive la Virago.

Roll Up - Ekaterinburg Prize Draw

Almost forgot to announce, I have a very special copy of Ekaterinburg, The Last Days of the Romanovs for you, special because it's been all the way to Dartington where Helen very kindly signed it for me today.
Yes, it's dovegreyreader prize draw time again. 
For those unfamiliar with the process, it's bizarre but for two years a very large and ageing cat assuming an appropriate alias has done the prize draws around here. I'll sort out whether Rocky fancies being Russian as the moment approaches at the end of next week, but just look at those Faberge eyes.
He's a natural.
Meanwhile names in comments and whether new visitor or part of the furniture, living in Devon or Dallas don't be shy, we will post worldwide so the book could be yours.

PS Prize draw update, I had another copy which Helen has kindly signed and she is offering another one for the draw so there will be not one but THREE lucky winners.

Helen Rappaport

Nothing was going to prepare us for the Romanovs and Helen Rappaport, not even reading the book, because when an actress who is also a writer, academic and Russianist takes the stage to talk about her favourite subject there are treats in store.
The Barn Theatre was packed and Helen delivered a wonderful account of the origins of her love for all things Russian and the evolution of her latest book Ekaterinburg. The Romanov sources were there, diaries, letters, testimonies and witnesses and once Helen had identified her route into this much-written about subject it became clear that she was onto a new and exciting approach, one she described as ever-increasing circles. Beginning with the last fourteen days in the life of the family and allowing the circles to spread from the Ipatiev House onwards and outwards to Russia on the brink of a catastrophic civil war.Silent black and white film footage of the house itself gave us a valuable and memorable visual reference.
Discovering the background to a book like this had the audience entranced as Helen elaborated on her search for the essence of the Romanovs as she travelled to Ekaterinburg to do her research. Walking the town, visiting the site and finally the scent of the lilies on the eve of the anniversary of the massacre, followed by the all-night vigil and the Orthodox litany at the Church on the Blood, built on the site of the now demolished Ipatiev House.
The applause at the end was lengthy and utterly deserved. It was all very moving and the Bookgroup Babes and I were enjoying ourselves immensely.We'd held up well considering we all found the book so emotional, then alas we were undone as Helen ended with this 90th anniversary tribute made by a Romanov research student and, as of one, we all emerged sniffling and sobbing. After her signing the introductions were made and I've sent Helen off in the capable hands of the Babes and by now they will all be tucked up in sun-dappled corner discussing Russia to their heart's content.
It's been a two hankie day so far, will Julia Blackburn make it three?

Jenni Murray

Another early start with Jenni Murray at 9.30am, as the chair remarked, even earlier than Woman's Hour.
It was a good morning for a stroll because I haven't had much time to do that this year and it's a very important part of the experience. Dartington is in my diary annually as a 'retreat and reflection' oasis of calm often recalled to mind during those long, dark, murky winter days driving out on Dartmoor, so it's crucial to recharge my own batteries too.There are always hidden corners to discover and I doubt I will ever find them all but the walled garden is looking stunning this year.
I had an interesting chat with Nicola Tyrer about her excellent book Sisters in Arms mentioned on here recently and then had to make the terrible choice as Nicola was speaking at the same time as Jenni Murray; feeling I knew Nicola's book well I opted for Jenni whose book I didn't know at all. Climbed up into my seat in the gods wondering whether I'd made the right choice, Memoirs of a Not So Dutiful Daughter, was this going to be misery?
Jenni appeared on crutches as she awaits hip-resurfacing, a treatment for those too young for hip replacement, all very flattering really, and was introduced by Lorna Duffin. Lorna is one of Ways With Words most accomplished chairs, I've listened to her thoughtful introductions and questions with writers here for years and she always does it all with consummate elegance and skill.
Jenni proceeded to read two brief extracts from her book. One about the death of her mother on the day that Jenni herself was diagnosed with breast cancer, and one about the death six months later of her father. As an only child the burden and significance of such loss was profound and Jenni's grief palpable.Life had not always been perfect and there was much that needed to be reconciled.
Many writers and speakers at Ways With Words must hope that somehow they can flick on the switch and create that emotionally electrically charged atmosphere. It's rare but when it happens the audience senses it, buys into it and submits willingly and as I looked down from my heavenly seat the Great Hall was motionless, frozen in that deep concentration. Me, I was fighting back the tears, so was Jenni, and as she said ' Goodbye Dad, I love you' I'd given up trying to stop the tear rolling down my cheek.
I suspect just about everyone else listening was fighting the same battle.
Jenni had captured us as her own and kept us there for the next hour.
The book is an account of her upbringing in the 1950's and 60's and the conflicts that ensued as one generation brought up the next into a world they had not anticipated, let alone knew how to cope with. Jenni's mother must have known trouble was brewing when Jenni rejected the offer of the Playtex girdle and the alice band.
The book Memoirs of a Not So Dutiful Daughter has only been published this week so I hadn't been able to get my hands on a copy before the festival and I actually wasn't sure it was a book I would read. Naturally an hour of listening convinced me that this was essential reading, so essential in fact and from an event so memorable that I'd best buy one and get it signed as a fine memory of the day.
I'll be giving it the dovegreyreader treatment over the next few weeks and will report back on my findings, I suspect there will be much in there to reflect on and share.
Now time to prepare for Helen Rappaport and the Romanov 90th anniversary experience.

Jay Rayner

The West End Whingers said I had to be sure to call Jay Rayner middle-aged after he'd called them likewise in that article, as if I would, honestly.
Yes Son of Agony won over Agony but I did have an ulterior motive.
One of the lovely little thoughtful aspects of Ways With Words is a Festival Artist, this year Jennifer Johnson who sits in on events and dibbles and dabbles with her watercolours and does paintings of the audience and speakers. Jennifer had said that if I would only come down from my seat in the gods she would do a painting of me.
What a nice gift for Bookhound.
So I thought I'd brave it for Jay Rayner's event which would also mean I could see Jay close-up and decide if the Whingers were right.
Described by Gordon Ramsay as ' a fat bloke what types' Jay Rayner is the now the considerably slimmer restaurant critic for The Observer and occasional interviewer of bloggers when he's not eating. Apparently he's been working out and divesting himself of the inevitable adipose that must go with the job.
It takes some guts...no I can't say that...yes I can, it does...it takes some guts to eat your way around the world and of course I stopped myself asking all those medical questions but sometimes nurses need to know these things.
I mean seriously, it must all have had repercussions? There were no details but did he get sponsorship from Gaviscon ? It would seem like a sensible idea.
The nearest we got was someone asking about food poisoning and Jay did own up to an episode of alimentary canal urgency in Tokyo, but that might all be too much information if you're having dinner, sorry.
Anyway he managed it, Tokyo won Jay's finest food experience and also his worst, possibly linked to the alimentary canal episode? Salt fermented sea cucumber which in Jay's words resembled 'fish snot' can't have been too gut-friendly. Sorry again.
It was all very entertaining, the book is a good read though I've yet to digest Paris. A Michelin star meal per day? That all needs careful pre-reading preparation but Jay is a very lively and witty speaker and as for middle-aged I couldn't possibly comment.
Meanwhile sadly there is no portrait of Jay speaking because this time Jennifer concentrated on painting the audience, but here's his book just to make up for it.

Busy day tomorrow, Jenni Murray kicks the day off at 9.30am followed by John Sargeant, Edward Docx and Helen Rappaport.
Remember the Bookgroup Babes? The reading group who invited me along to their evening and I left them all with a copy of Ekaterinburg? Tomorrow the 90th anniversary of the Romanov massacre at the Ipatiev House. Helen has kindly agreed to meet with the bookgroup after her event and they are very well prepared.
What better among the various delights of a blog than linking authors with their readers in this way, it promises to be a very memorable day.

Ways With Words Wednesday

Ways With Words weather has prevailed and we have warm sunshine conducive to a laze in a deckchair, though I haven't done a great deal of that this year. Besides deckchairs make me nervous, you can't predict the collapse until the thing's taken the majority of your weight, and then you've gone beyond the point of no return and all pride is lost.
The queue is gathering already for Sandi Toksvig who isn't on for another 45 minutes and suddenly I've wilted and decided that I'll give the comedy a miss this evening and bring news of today's events.
I was chairing at 10am, so up early and off sorting out the techy input to Christina Hardyment's talk. Remembering how it was drummed into us in the olden days when we used to do Health Promotion events, make sure your reel-to-reel projector works before the event, don't test it out during the event?
There used to be nothing worse than that film of To Janet a Son flying off the reel just as Janet, fresh as a daisy and on hearing the twinkly music sound, prepared to breath gently and quietly through another welcoming contraction after thirty hours in labour. I clearly needed to be diligent on behalf of my speaker and fortunately Christina knew what she was up to, though we hadn't meant the laptop to revert to the screen saver of her holiday snaps, but do hope the audience enjoyed them as they waited for us to make our entrance.
I decided to begin with the mobile phone thing. In the words of another chair, it is an impertinence for mobile phones to ring at Ways With Words, so we did an audience bag-rummage and double-check before we got started which saved me having to send anyone to the naughty stair.
Could the power be going to my head?
Dream Babies is a marvellous book and Christina took us through childcare through the ages with some very entertaining pictures. After the event I was delighted to meet a retired Great Ormond Street paediatrician who had been at the old Alma Mater at the same time as me though possibly moving in different circles. We swapped memories of wards and night sister harridans. It wasn't just me, he knew of them too, sufficiently all-powerful that even consultants were terrified.
I then decided it was governesses for me and Ruth Brandon talking on her latest book Other People's Daughters, The Life and Times of the Governess. It was a remote, strange and lonely world, a dreadful life, one full of despair and complete lack of hope and expectation and this all became startlingly clear as Ruth outlined the life of Nellie Wheaton born in Wigan in 1782 and researched from her diaries. These incidentally discovered in a junk shop in the 1920's and something that had never really occurred to me before; governesses were poor and the papers of poor people rarely survive. Chairing this talk Clive Fairweather and Clive offered a reading suggestion for the most dreadful fictional governess of them all, we must all read Uncle Silas by Sheridan Lefanu.
Then it was time for Katharine Whitehorn and Selective Memory. Some speakers really do pack an event out and Katharine was another one, here are the rafters I was talking about and the view from my favourite blogging seat up in the gods. As ascerbic, witty and subversive as ever Katharine was hugely entertaining as she took us back through her retrospective look on life.
But enough of all this, it was time to make a choice about the 5pm events.
Should I go to Agony or should I go to Son of Agony?
Virginia Ironside or Jay Rayner?
Growing old disgracefully, about which I would welcome confirmation that I'm doing it properly, or a man eating his way around the world? Food and restaurants about which I know nothing, but Jay is mine and the Whingers new best friend after all.

Looking for Daphne

My second foray into a Green Room. The hallowed inner sanctum for "Writers", I felt a bit of fraud but stuck with Justine and braved it.
So I'm drinking in the atmosphere and not feeling in the least bit nervous which can't be right and what happens?
The fire alarm goes off that's what, and we have to leave the Green Room, it's the St Paul's £10 thing bouncing back to remind me again.
I'd re-read Daphne in the run-up to the event and so was completely zoned-in and with new and exciting insights. Second time around there's even more to find but if there was any doubt about getting into the zone, ten minutes talking Daphne with Justine and you're at Menabilly and hearing the voice of Rebecca before you know it.
Obviously I couldn't take notes so I haven't a clue what I said but Rachel had really done her homework on dovegreyreader and I'm very grateful for her very thoughtful introduction. Rachel may be better known to some as Rachel Trethewey author of Mistress of the Arts, the book which recounts the history of Georgiana Duchess of Bedford and the building of Endsleigh and we had a great chat about history and houses and atmosphere.
It's quite odd to be sitting in front of the audience instead of onlooking and when the sound chap said he'd flash a light if I wasn't projecting my voice into the microphone I made a mental note to watch out for that, but was having such a good time I completely forgot. Also there was a money spider crawling across the fresh air in front of me, I'd normally assist it to another bit of air but didn't feel I could under the circumstances.
Fortunately Rachel keep things moving, Justine held the fort and I chipped in with a reader's point of view as appropriate (hopefully) and the time just flew. I don't know what an audience think but I think a reader's point of view (not necessarily mine) definitely adds something.There was a question about the significance of the pink cover on the book, we tactfully steered everyone round to understanding we thought it was red, and pink would have to send us all back to the drawing board.
Offspringette flew into town unexpectedly which was a lovely surprise and handed me a bag full of Canadian goodies which was another lovely surprise and then smiled supportively from the back row. I was reminded of all those hours spent watching school plays and gymnastic displays and smiling supportively from the back row too. It's always a good idea to send your camera off with someone with an eye, so thanks to her for the photos too because I would have forgotten.Lots of other friends came along to support which was very kind, I'm very grateful and a big thank you to all of them.I could feel the good vibes.
Justine signed books and chatted for ages, and I'll send those pictures to her to post over on her own blog. I didn't sign anything but just chatted, and all in all I think we all felt we'd been part of a lovely, warm, relaxed and uber-friendly Dartington event.
Busy few days coming up, lots of events, just look at all the books I've brought with me!

John Julius Norwich

I'm now into the residential phase of my Ways With Words experience, a couple of days where I finish late and have an early start. Tomorrow I'll be chairing Christina Hardyment's talk on her book Dream Babies at 10am. Working it out wasn't difficult, need to arrive 9am, therefore need to leave home at 7.30am just to be sure. In that case better set alarm for 6am to be on the safe side.
Book a room and save the hassle and here's the view.
I'm tucked up in the eaves, overlooking the main courtyard, I have tea-making facilities, thoughtfully brought a packet of biscuits and the Earl Grey, so that's me sorted.
I arrived in the nick of time to hear John Julius Norwich speaking on his memoir Trying to Please published by Dovecote Press, this sounds like just the publisher for me to know and they kindly sent the book. I see they also publish Jack Hargreaves, remember Out of Town, I'm humming that theme tune already, wasn't it Max Bygraves?
I'd read a fair chunk of Trying to Please before the event but nothing can prepare you.
Only child of Diana and Duff Cooper, his mother a society beauty, (this was confirmed by a member of the audience who had met Diana, 'she was all woman and I see where you get your panache from' ) his father a cabinet minister and political ally of Winston Churchill, John Julius the baby whose nurse remarked as he screamed in his cot, 'poor old baby, he's only trying to please.'
I'm realising how lucky we are to have these people with the gift of raconteuration, possibly a non-existent word but one which fits the moment.This was all hilariously, uproariously funny and highly entertaining and we could all have listened for hours and hours, all day, far into the night and on into the weekend given the chance.Wonderfully chaired by Rachel Kiddy and as well as taking 'How To' notes before my event tomorrow I also remembered that Rachel would be chairing the Daphne event later, good, very good.
By his own admission John Julius has had a charmed and lucky life for which he is very grateful and I'm equally grateful that he's remembered so much of it. Things got off to a flying start with the news that his grandfather was a doctor and Court Physician specialising in venereal disease and piles, his grandmother was a nurse and between them they knew more about the private parts of the British aristocracy than anyone else in the country.
Could it get any funnier?
Well yes, much, and it did as John Julius guided us through his life and people he'd met with a wit that had us rolling in the aisles. He does a wickedly spot-on impression of Winston Churchill, probably perfected through many childhood meetings and along the way he told of encounters with Maurice Chevalier, Prince Yusopov (Rasputin's murderer) and the assertion that as a nation we owe Wallis Simpson a huge debt of gratitude.By whisking Edward VIII away from the throne in what was known euphemistically as The Crisis, Wallis really deserves a statue and why mess about? Give her that empty plinth in Trafalgar Square. John Julius was in no doubt that had Germany invaded Britain, as friends of Hitler, Edward (and doubtless Queen Wallis the First ) would have been back on the throne as Hitler's puppet.
As a teenager John Julius sat in on the Nuremberg trials, played the piano for Ernest Bevin, knew a great story about Winston Churchill playing football in the bath with a sponge and so much more that I was laughing too much to write down.
He left us with these wise words.
Always push the boat out.
When in doubt say yes.
You can have your cake and eat it.
and I for one am delighted to have seen the man behind the radio voice I know so well and will enjoy reading the rest of this memoir which I can only imagine is just as funny.
But now I must focus the mind, the Daphne event beckons and I must go and find Justine.

Simon Montefiore

Quality not quantity that's what this must all reflect and so I mustn't be tempted to dash around to events just to serve up loads of blog posts at the Festival Feast that we are enjoying. Besides, talking of feasts, I'd sat down to Stalin's Hidden Legacy nursing a bout of indigestion after bolting that lunch and if there was a single mention of people under siege living off boiled shoes I wasn't in the mood to cope. Gaviscon that's what I needed.
But who says you can't have quality and quantity?
Certainly no one's told Simon Montefiore because he delivered in an hour a talk that would have taken the average English-speaker at least two hours. He speaks at 78rpm, breath-takingly fast, no notes and it is all so compelling you have no choice but to keep up, there was smoke coming from my Lamy Safari and I can only apologise if that distracted anyone.
The man is indeed a human dynamo and he said it not me, a civil war seems to break out in just about every country Simon visits just as he arrives.
Sashenka was the subject but Simon took us on a guided tour of his life as both a historian and a writer with some high octane adventures on the way. I'd be surprised if his mother isn't grey with worry bearing in mind that he rang her from the President's personal satellite phone just as civil war was pending in Georgia.
By his own admission much of it was terrifyingly foolhardy and settling down to a life as a writer sounded like the grown-up solution to ending Simon's Boy's Own adventures, except it all involved frequent return visits to do battle with the impenetrable Russian archives. Having written a book on Catherine the Great which had been well-received in the Kremlin, Simon Montefiore bathed in the warm light of approval and with it an open door for his research.
The result was Young Stalin but also enough material gathered to write Sashenka, a novel which focuses on the lives and struggles of the women. It was a photo in the archive of a woman who had been arrested and executed some days later which was the starting point, her face telling so much. You could be arrested for a million unknown reasons, when you fell everyone you knew fell with you, etched on her features the pain of that moment, of losing everything. The joy of writing a novel evident as Simon recounted the pleasure of getting to know his characters and what they might or might not do.
This was quite my most exhilarating event so far, no fear of falling asleep and I hope I've given you the essence. Simon Montefiore is a marvellous raconteur, brilliantly entertaining, another one not to miss if he's down your way. I think speakers like this are few and far between these days or perhaps I don't get out enough. A true storyteller and one by all accounts striving and succeeding in writing readable accessible history for people like me who never really paid enough attention to it at school and have regretted it ever since.
So yes, I have definitely come away enthused enough to read Young Stalin and anything else Simon has written.
If he's done an audio version expect it only to take up half of one CD and therefore no good for a long train journey.

James Long

Right, it's obviously a day for the planets to align in my favour and I have been forgiven for not paying that £10 to get into St Paul's.
Parking here at Dartington can be fraught and involve a wet field and a long walk. Today the second space along in the nearest car park was free, it was going to be a good day.Things got even better about ten minutes ago when I found a wireless signal radiating from this remakable comfortable chair in a quietly relaxed sitting room off the Courtyard.
11.30am and I was perched up in the window seat, ready and waiting in plenty of time for James Long to speak on The Rebirth of Ferney and in conversation about it all with his son Ben. Sons clearly know their fathers well and can ask questions and probe in a way that the rest of us cannot so it was an hour of good interviewing and Family Long done good.
For a book about reincarnation to find itself coming back from the dead seems entirely appropriate and it was good to hear thoughts and ideas about the book being expressed by the author himself. So often I go to events like this having not read the book, this advance reading is making some events doubly enjoyable.
An interesting observation that this could not be a book of the city, too much clamour, Ferney requires the vision and the landscape of the countryside and I am now wondering how this soul match of Ferney and Gally will play out next.
I'm now in a state of highly suspended animation about the sequel because as James Long admitted he'd left himself a very big hole to dig his way out of if he was to successfully carry on from the final moments of Ferney. It's been difficult but he's done it and it will be shocking and that's as much as we know.
The next big decision is the title, all suggestions welcome.
Now must dash back to the hamper and then onto Simon Montefiore on Stalin's Hidden Legacy. I'm halfway through his latest novel Sashenka and really enjoying it, I might, just might, tackle his Young Stalin if he's really good this afternoon.

Too much excitement for one day.

Far too much excitement for a woman of certain age in one day, I've had to come home and have a lie down, calm myself with a few more of Penelope Fitzgerald's letters. My she was a such a wonderful correspondent, the book just oozes humanity and compassion with a beautifully unrehearsed and naturally self-effacing humour, I'm going to be raving about it for the rest of the year and probably some of next.
Now then, The Observer.
Well, so far we've bought ...er...six copies several and yes the Whingers and I are fighting over Jay Rayner as our new best friend. They took him to the theatre, I get to meet Jay at Dartington on Wednesday, hear him speak about his book and then it's my turn to do the writing.
Ho Ho.
Actually he got it all down much as I said it and I thought the whole piece was nicely balanced. No Whingers mask for me so the picture does accurately reflect my early morning start, five hours travelling and a last minute dash by foot across London because the tube network had shutdown, plus I had to prop up that nice comedy chap next to me but that's life in the fast lane I suppose.
Now back to the slow lane and the dovegreyreader event at Dartington, a select little event as Diane Athill pulled in the crowds, but I had the cream and we had a lovely time. After all that mobile broadband kerfuffle Wi Fi has come to Dartington this year and they had rigged up a live computer link to the blog on the big screen so that was excellent. I've sent my elite audience away with a pile of books (with bookmarks) to read, and instructions to send me their thoughts as and when or send the book to Oxfam if no good, and I've promised to post those here eventually, spread the love and the work I say. I also took along evidence of quilting and sock-knitting lest there be any doubt.
I meant to go and hear Gervase Phinn this afternoon but as a speaker you partake of festival lunch in the inner sanctum and I was too overcome with sweet and sour pork and a plateful of excitement to manage anything but a lie down after all that,sorry.
I did see Gervase so I do get one out of ten for that in my I-Spy book.
Decided that it wasn't fair to stalk Sam Leith for the entire week so have introduced myself to him and we had a good parley about the state of the book world and I expect we'll wave at each other for the rest of the festival.
Now I must sort out the books for tomorrow's events, read some more of Daphne for Tuesday, write my intro for the event I'm chairing on Wednesday and pack up the hamper again.
Tomorrow the schedule is James Long, Simon Montefiore, Poppy Adams and Rebecca Abrams and I might squeeze in Julian Baggini talking on Moaning and how to complain differently, I like the sound of that.
Lots of points for the I-Spy book if I manage it all, see you there.

Compline

Well here I am reflecting quietly at the end of a long and fascinating first full day day.
Sharing the Festival with all of you is certainly adding to my own enjoyment, subjects I don't often write on.  I have to think much more carefully about what I've heard if I'm to recount and for the record I'm taking notes with my Lime Lamy Safari fountain pen with blue-black ink and 1.1 italic nib on a Moleskine reporter's notebook, probably highly annoying for the person sitting next to me, sorry.
Tomorrow a much quieter day, just going to me talking about dovegreyreader with Kay Dunbar in the morning and Gervase Phinn's event in the afternoon...oh yes and buying The Observer.
I really should be rehearsing but the book I've been anticipating and coveting for years was waiting for me when I arrived home, my copy of So I Have Thought of You The Letters of Penelope Fitzgerald.
It's bath and bed for me, night night.

David Owen

So I'd left it late and indeed I sat right up in the rafters to hear Lord Owen, qualified medical doctor and I could probably tag this under my Doctors Who Write section now I think of it. David Owen a specialist in neurology, talking on illness in political leaders and his newly identified Hubris Syndrome.
'But David' someone bravely asked, 'didn't you suffer from this?'
To his credit David Owen held his hands up guilty as charged, but takes one to know one he offered in mitigation. The man's right, how could he empathise and diagnose without suffering first?
In Sickness and In Power - IIlness in heads of government during the last 100 years is David Owen's latest book  (I haven't read it) which examines the effects of power on politicians and it made for scary listening.
Politicians lie about their health and their doctors lie too and David Owen puts forward a convincing case for this whole area to be much more carefully regulated, we have a right to know. His account of the life and contemporaneous medical history of John F. Kennedy was gripping.
JFK had Addison's Syndrome. I'm sure Jane Austen is thought to have had this but fortunately had nothing more dangerous than Pride and Prejudice (how apposite!) to write, not sort out the Cuban Missile crisis. This defect in the adrenal glands leads to wildly fluctuating hormone levels and JFK's were very poorly managed. By all accounts he was massively and incompetently drug-fuelled and unstable around the time of The Bay of Pigs debacle. Kruschev clearly thought that this rich and privileged young upstart was a push-over.
How fortunate in that case that a single doctor had got a grip on things some months later and stabilised the treatment in time for JFK to handle the Cuban Missile Crisis with all the skill of a senior statesman.
Much was revealed about Tony Blair and his secret heart condition, more serious than everyone was led to believe. His Presidential style of leadership which unpolitically-minded me had just let him get on with (too busy keeping the NHS in one piece) comes under intense scrutiny by David Owen. If I heard it right, Tony removed the Cabinet Secretariat, the system of combined intelligence, foreign policy and defence advice that could inform and allow for collective decision-making.
Hell's teeth, wish I'd been paying more attention to what was going on in Downing Street behind the spin , but according to David Owen few of us realised until it was too late, everyone missed it. According to David, Tony found power intoxicating and even the media weren't vigilant enough on that score.
The danger of world leaders with fundamentalist religious views was interesting and often led to a suspension of critical faculities in those who should be opposing, he cited Bush and Blair again.
Hubris Syndrome in leaders could well become officially recognised

• Acquired in office
• Self congratulatory arrogance evident
• Longer in office = increasing susceptibility
• Preventable by self-effacing humour

That's the gist and you'll have to read the book for an accurate and full account with several world leaders put on the examination couch and under the medical spotlight. David Owen wants the past medical history of those aspiring to political leadership to be revealed, he maintains we have a right to know. I might have opted for the sharp intake of breath and muttered 'patient confidentiality' yesterday, today I'm shouting 'someone get me Gordon's and David Cameron's notes right this minute.'
The inevitable name came up in questions
'Mugabe?'
David hedged but did reveal his unease about Mugabe taking up the reins of power many years ago, better a crook than a zealot was his thinking at the time.
All in all a great talk, can you believe it? Politics and I was riveted, I hate politics, it wears me down and makes me cross, I practice evasion and avoidance and end up being done to, as Martin Bell said, 'if you want bad things to happen do nothing'. In that case it's all my fault.
Impression - We absolutely need our elder statesman and we need them more than ever, of that I am assured.

Penelope Lively

That wireless signal went into fluctuating after all but I'm back at Mission Control restocking the hamper for tomorrow and reflecting on a day of contrasts.
Up bright and early to be across the Moors and seated in time for Penelope Lively at 10am. Always the most gracious and measured of speakers and never to be missed if you have the opportunity to hear her, Penelope Lively's theme was Reflections on Living and Writing and Letters Home and if you are interested my thoughts on her autobiography Oleander Jacaranda here.
The Letters Home was a lovely touch, the comparison of a book once published to that of a grown-up child leaving home, off they go to live their independent lives which it is is meet and right so to do, but nice to get the occasional letter home. Penelope Lively kept us smiling with her accounts of some of the letters from readers her books have generated down the years, and that blurring of fiction and reality which often happens,
' was the character called Mrs X in your book Y any relation to the Z family now living in Chester? If so do you have a contact address as they are old friends and we've lost touch with them.'
Yes really!
This was a warts and all account of an accidental writer's life including the frequent financial insecurities of a profession for which no training is required and no qualifications needed, and Penelope Lively gave good account of all the endeavours required. Endeavours of which she knew precious few when she loaded the first sheet of paper into the typewriter forty years and some fifty books ago, becoming by chance (and our good fortune I might add) a writer.
Furnishing a writer's mind and the suggestion that in order to write a writer must read, and read more alongside the idea that the roads not taken in life can often offer interesting material made for fascinating listening. Penelope shys away from the term research for a novel, it's too scholarly, often the imagination will suffice but more often than not background reading and the beloved library work are essential. The benefits of the mature long view back on life as it unfolds were highlighted, that richer and deeper seam of material that becomes available to mine, the more of it you've witnessed the more material you have to call on.
The essence of the process of writing was shared alongside the comforting fact that Penelope Lively can also procrastinate and just absolutely have to clean the oven rather than settle at her desk and her typewriter. No drafts,no computer, typewritten manuscripts annotated and altered by hand and surely those must be fast disappearing in this cut-and-paste age? With it I realise we lose the fascinating workings of a writer's mind so often the source of rich analytical material, back to the Olivetti's everyone.
Lots of questions, too many to cover here but asked which was her favourite book Penelope Lively mentioned her Booker prize winning novel Moon Tiger, though it's fame and the blaze of ongoing publicity and public speaking did somehow temper her love of it and the associated prize money did attract some remarkable begging letters (we heard one which had us in stitches). The book which has sent the most letters home a children's book, The Ghost of Thomas Kempe and with it invitations ot tea 'which my mum says will be all right as long as it's Thursday.'
Delightful, the entire hour, just delightful.

Fethiye Cetin

I've just dashed back to Fiesta Base Camp and remarkably I have a wireless signal, is it mine? Is it someone else's?
But before I dash off to hear David Owen speaking on Ilness in Leaders I must quickly tell you that Maureen Freely the translator of Fethiye Cetin's book My Grandmother was exceptional this morning.
I'm starting to gather an understanding of something I've been on the edge of, never quite knowing the details and now I realise that actually My Grandmother is a perfect starting point. The humanitarian angle about the Armenian genocide before the political, and the fact that the book is a best-seller in Turkey and Fethiye Cetin hasn't received a single hate letter suggests that the Turkish peoples (Maureen Freely urged us to use the plural) were ready and waiting to read it too.
I did ask a question about Fethiye Cetin's safety. Maureen acknowledges that the time to be worried is when Fethiye is in court as she is at present and that perhaps the more she is known in the West the safer she may be.
There are only two things for it, firstly I must read Orhan Pamuk, Maureen Freely is his translator too, and secondly I must now hightail off to hear David Owen, the Great Hall will be packed to the rafters.

Martin Bell

Martin Bell, the nation's Sleaze Detective, the ex-journalist and war correspondent and now UNICEF ambassador but the with the nose for the nasty whiff; if it's there Martin Bell sniffs it out and exposes it to air and daylight for that stink to be fully appreciated.
The Parliamentary candidate who opposed and ousted cash-for-questions MP Neil Hamilton, Martin Bell was elected on a wave of people's insurrection and then kept his promise of only serving for one term, but interestingly he rates those four years as the most shocking of his life. Even worse than National Service (not one but two gap years) where after failing the intelligence test not once but twice, he found himself posted quite logically to the Intelligence Department.
The House of Commons is most certainly not about the Best of British in his eyes.
His book The Truth That Sticks gives good account of all the very nasty smells that Martin Bell has uncovered and as I listened I realised that, though Neil and Christine Hamilton may disagree, we need more Martin Bells. The truthtellers who have the courage of their convictions and complete and finish on the task of exposing deceit.
Several revelations that made me sit up and take notice.
So I claim not to be a political animal, I vote but if I'm honest I don't look at it that deeply but I was shocked to hear that not a single member of the current Cabinet has ANY military experience, not a single second apparently and they are responsible for sending our armed forces, our young soldiers to war.
Very sobering thought.
Martin Bell recently returned from the high-profile David Davis campaign, and if the Tories get in at the next election, which he predicts with utter certainty, Davis at least has served in the SAS.
Whilst acknowledging that there are good people in Parliament, Martin Bell's interesting observation that MPs as young as 28-29, with no career prospects outside Parliament if deselected, will follow any whip or mandate to keep their seat and keep power. When it can take a mere five years to rise from the photocopier to a seat in Parliament it would seem to pay me to examine more closely what I expect from any candidate who may seek to win my vote. In Martin Bell's words we need to elect responsible, decent people who we don't distrust too much (complete trust seems to be a bit too much to expect) It's not a quest for a new Jerusalem but we do need integrity and competence.
There were some fascinating questions from the audience.
Do we get the politicians we deserve, why should good people put themselves forward for the inevitable vilification that goes hand in hand with  political office?
Is their a place for Sharia law alongside UK law?
Might the next quest on the British Foreign Policy agenda be Nigeria? Martin Bell cut his journalistic teeth alongside Frederick Forsyth in Biafra in the 1960's. Forsyth was recalled and wrote The Day of the Jackal on the back of that experience.
Has our ability to question the infringement of civil liberties effectively been silenced by the climate of fear created by the police and the media?
Martin Bell is a passionate and commited speaker, a man of integrity and this was a thought-provoking opening to the 2008 Festival. He left us with the suggestion that the power lies with every individual 'If you want bad things to happen do nothing' and then a great joke at the end about a stand off between US warships and Canada.
Nor had I any idea that Anthea Bell, that most-favoured of translators here at dovegreyreader because she translates not only Asterix but  Max Sebald, Stefan Zweig and plenty more favourites, is Martin Bell's sister.

Question from James Long

Kay Dunbar kindly introduced me to James Long author of Ferney this afternoon and we had a very quick Ferney conversation before James dashed off to his event on the book he has co-written with his son Ben, The Plot Against Pepys. We discussed the horse and oats moment, there is to be a sequel and he's asked me to ask you a question.
The book was a very slow-burner first time around and the theory was that this was all down to the title which didn't say enough about the book.
So what do you all think?
Is that title too bland?
Do we need longer titles to make us buy a book?
If you've read it can you think of anything better?
Loads of feedback welcome because I told him there were millions of you and I'm not sure people ever believe me when I tell them that...there are millions of you aren't there?

Base camp established

Right, so here I am sitting on the back seat of Fiesta Base Camp, parked up and the summit is in sight.
How sensible of Bookhound to suggest pillows, heavens above I may drop off and miss entire days it's so cosy in here. My lovely hamper of food is going to save my life through the week. Available Festival food is divine but divine is expensive and I'm having to feed the car daily as well, so it's packed lunch for me and I've installed tea-making facilities in the boot.
So far so wet, though the sun did shine long enough for the Launch Party to happen in the garden of the Great Hall. Avoiding the Pimms (gin-based at lunchtime not a good idea for an alcohol fairy-wimp like me) I happily snapped away picking out a few speakers for you.
Martin Bell in customary white suit talking to James Long author of Ferney and nearby Penelope Lively deep in conversation.

I can never tire of Dartington I've decided, or of taking photos of the same view, expect more of these but you'll note enough blue sky to make a good-sized pair of men's trousers today and the forecast is hopeful.
Kay Dunbar opened proceedings and urged us all to appreciate the slowness that is possible at Dartington. It's a wonderful sentiment, so true and very easy to achieve because this is a festival with the atmosphere, of a bookish retreat, relaxed and unstressed, though I may feel differently at 5pm next Tuesday.
Sam Leith, Literary Editor of Festival sponsors The Daily Telegraph also welcomed everyone. Sam is here for the entire ten days (and probably doesn't eat lunch in his car) so doubtless blog posts (probably has functioning, unfluctuating mobile broadband too) from him over at the Telegraph website and he does have a very witty turn of phrase. Apparently he's looking forward to the Festival because last year he found himself swimming in the River Dart with a selection of lady authors. Have no fear, if it happens I'll be lurking behind a tree to capture that moment for you all because I don't actually know anyone who's been in the River Dart in anything less than a winter wetsuit.
But let's haste away, I must emerge from my cosy Fiesta cocoon and head off to test out my Festival pass on the first event, Martin Bell.

Ways With Words

It's the old but justified chestnut again, and I came across this article on Indie publishing on The Guardian blog via the US and Douglas McClennan's daily Arts Journal update which arrives by e mail and it made me stop and think. I'm very aware that I've been chasing the big hitters on here lately, mostly reading the top of the tree in the publishing world and I must return to my humble roots and redress the balance very soon.I've always loved to read and share the books that no one else is reading and finding them was always the big difficulty. 3 for 2s and Richard & Judy, Orange, Booker et al means that it's all too easy to read what the publishers and the hype dictate. I used to moan it was almost impossible to track down the hidden treasures, but I really do have no excuse now, Jim the postman brings them by the armful; books from small publishers and authors and once the dust settles on forthcoming literary festivals and the Bookerthon I shall be turning my attention to them in earnest. Who can resist a book called Soft Words Butter No Parsnips after all?
Meanwhile Dartington beckons.
I've handed over my caseload at work and I have the next two weeks in which to play so just a few minor in-house domestic arrangements to share.
Things will be a bit different at dovegreyreader scribbles for the next fortnight. Posts will go onto intermittent as and when and perhaps several shorter posts per day or a longer gap depending on the technology as I trip around Dartington. I'll be listening, scribbling, snapping and generally soaking up the atmosphere to transmit your way.
I even got really carried away and stupidly thought I could cope with super-techno and move into mobile broadband, silly me, what on earth was I thinking?
I don't hold out much hope of success, so far I've been on the phone to India for longer than I care to think about trying to sort it out. It's all a terrible palaver as they ask for the 300 digit number on the reverse of the dongly modem thingy each time and that happens to be just underneath where I've stuck the exceptionally sticky bit of velcro thoughtfully provided to attach the dongly thing to the laptop.
Then there's an awful lot of 'now please shut your computer down'...'now please restart your computer' and we hum for hours while it all slows itself down to a crawl.They are unfailingly polite but obviously can't deviate from the script and keep telling me to

"Try it out in an area that is red on the map because mauve means fluctuating then ring us again and we will help you."

"But mauve and fluctuating was deemed good enough when I conversed with you at length prior to purchase."

"Try it out in an area that is red on the map because mauve means fluctuating then ring us again ...."

"But the nearest red place seems to be Birmingham"

"Try it out in an area that is red on the map because mauve means fluctuating..."

"In other words this is rubbish in Devon."

"Try it out in an area that is red on the map ..."

Bless them all.
It'll be cancelled and going back, I just know it.
Instant posting often prone to more typos and hideous grammatical errors than usual so apologies, but I am on holiday so I hope the Truss-ites can see their way to cutting me some slack.
If you are going to be there do stop me and say hi, I'll be easy to spot, like a carrier dove carting around books, laptop, camera, snoozing out on the terraces over at the Tilting Yard, you know the sort of thing.
Events kick off with the Festival Launch Lunch tomorrow followed by Martin Bell talking about his latest book The Truth That Sticks followed by James and Ben Long talking to Penelope Lively about The Plot Against Pepys. It's true to say I'm raring to go and thrilled to be taking all of you along too.
First things first though, go and find your tartan blanket and small head pillow for our daily siestas here.

My Grandmother by Fethiye Cetin

It's another tear-jerker I'm afraid, yet another book with a page-blurring moment so either I'm going soft in my old age or getting blepharitis or these books are touching a chord.
My Grandmother A Memoir by Fethiye Cetin and published by Verso is a little book with a huge heart and an even bigger theme. As Fethiye recounts her grandmother's life, and in this beautiful translation by Maureen Freely, you realise that you are witnessing the struggles of a selfless and most extraordinary woman. A life that you can rejoice in for the sheer depth of fiesty determination to survive and the compassion for others born of that experience.
For most of her life Seher a Muslim, has concealed her true Christian Armenian identity from her family. Having watched the massacre of those closest to them, Heranus ( Seher's real name) and her mother and brother undertake the forced death march in 1915. Seized from her mother by a Turkish gendarme Heranus is then adopted into his family and separated from her own for ever. It is many years later that she divulges this truth to Fethiye and reveals that she thinks some of the family may have escaped to America all those years ago and might it be possible to trace them?
Acknowledgement of the Armenian genocide remains a very dangerous and difficult topic to write about within a country that maintains it never happened and, whilst not wishing to even speculate on something of which I know so little, it still becomes essential to acknowledge the courage and conviction of Fethiye Cetin to write and publish this book. Fethiye is a Turkish human-rights lawyer who campaigns fearlessly for the ongoing advocacy of Turkish-Armenian reconciliation and there is little doubt of her commitment to the cause when you read My Grandmother.
The facts as told to Fethiye are presented rationally and unjudgementally, she does indeed cut right through any bitter political territory to tell her Grandmother's story, and it is left to the reader to make the call.
It is not difficult to hear the voice, in fact the heart-rending cries of those who were silenced.
In her excellent and informative introduction Maureen Freely clearly outlines the political situation in a way that Fethiye Cetin for obvious reasons cannot, it's chilling to read and illuminates in stark reality the depth of Fethiye's courage in the face of great danger but also great hope in writing this book,

'Despite the dangers it (ie the democracy movement) faces from what she has called 'obscure forces', she remains confident that democratisation, though slow, jagged and dangerous, cannot be checked.'

Now I recall that excellent account of the genocide in Prince Rupert's Teardrop by Lisa Glass and I will read that passage again in the light of this book. My Grandmother is one of those important books, a brave account of a remarkable and formidable woman, a life which is, despite the early sadness, a joy to read about and one which truly deserves to be remembered.
Maureen Freely will be speaking about Fethiye Cetin's book My Grandmother at Ways With Words, Dartington on Saturday July 12th at 12 noon and of course I'll be there.

The Drummer General's Award

I've been trying to remember where I first heard about The Outlander and for the life of me I can't?
Was it on a prize shortlist?
Was I just browsing and coveting over at House of Anansi Press?
But studying the cover of my copy I see it won The Drummer General's Award which I'd never heard of but check it out here.
The books that should have made the prizelists but didn't, those books that hear the beat of the different drum, one of my favourite analogies first heard here in a poem by Cornish poet Jack Clemo many years ago and I can't even find the words anywhere so that's not much help either. I don't have any of Jack Clemo's poetry and I've browsed every anthology on my shelves to no avail.
Does anyone else know it?
Suddenly I have to read it again...this minute.

The Outlander by Gil Adamson

If there's one thing I like it's a jolly good 'well I'll be jiggered' moment in a book.
It can be about anything but to be jolly good it's got to be previously unknown, obvious to everyone else except me and therefore quite startling in its discovery. Sufficiently startling  in fact to cause me to exclaim and pronounce to Bookhound..'did you know that...' with the emphasis on the 'you'.
So I went and asked him and his reply after a lengthy silence was, 'not until now', so that's two of us educated on the subject of equine digestion.
How on earth have we both struggled through life, all these years, not knowing that horses can't vomit or belch?
Did you know that or is it just us?
It's obvious now I know and even more obvious when you check out the anatomy, way too far to travel back up once it's gone down. So that explains all this hoo-hah when horses eat something they shouldn't or get colic, I thought it was just horsey people being a bit obsessively pernickety, all that walking round and things.
My grateful thanks to Canadian author Gil Adamson for filling this glaring gap in our knowledge, though I think it may be too late to put it to any use now.
Getting hold of a copy of  Gil's first novel The Outlander  published by Anansi Press has proved almost as much of a challenge as 'murderess, outlaw and fallen daughter' Mary Boulton's flight across the wilds of Alberta in the early 1900's.
House of Anansi Press are top of my list for off the beaten track Canadian writing, the books are usually nicely produced paperbacks, good quality paper secured in safe bindings and they weigh in heavy for postage to the UK.
Now typically of course I note that The Outlander is available here, but it wasn't when I was yearning for it and so when I had the chance to release a picture from this blog to a Canadian TV company I suggested this book as payment and eventually it arrived.
It's been worth the wait and I haven't been disappointed. Neither was Michael Ondaatje

'Full of verve, beautifully written, and with all the panache of a great adventure'

nor Ann Patchett,

'Deserves to be read twice, first as a page-turner of the highest order, and then a second time, slowly, to savour the marvel of the writing.'

How can I possibly disagree with two writers whose work I have enjoyed immensely this year?
The Outlander felt like a book of two distinct halves and one you absolutely just have to stick with through some fairly horrendous moments of extreme endurance as nineteen year old Mary flees from her cabin home where she has left her husband John murdered by her own hand and with his brothers on her trail for justice. The journeying and the hardshp is relentless but the slow seepage of back story is so cleverly woven in, just little snippets and reflections gathering momentum right through the book, until eventually you realise you have a page-turner on your hands.
Mary, known as the widow throughout, remained a remote and distant character for a good deal of the book for me so it was easy to feel one-step removed from the hardships, but to my utter amazement and don't ask me when it happened there was a subtle mood change somewhere along the way. The back story worked its magic and I was begging and pleading with Gil Adamson on Mary's behalf as the tense gallop to the end left me in the same mood as Ann Patchett and ready to read again slowly. Gil certainly wrote with the confidence to hold this reader in the palm of her hand  and it was almost a 'bath overflowed' episode here as I just had to turn the final page.
Then I hardly slept a wink for thinking about it all.
I took it along to Endsleigh Salon last night because our theme was First Novels. The selection was fascinating and the discussion far-ranging as always and I'll tell you more soon.My resume of The Outlander and poor Mary's feet cut to ribbons quite overshadowed the hobbling salonista who had run up fell and down dale in the Lake District last weekend, pshaw we said, no skin? Huge blisters?
So what, you should just try the Canadian backwoods.
My only mini-Outlander qualm is that too much relentless and extreme suffering in the first half may deter some readers from getting onto the brilliance of the second-half of this book. I know it's all part of the intentional build-up but it does occasionally feel endless however trust me it isn't. The reward from hacking your way through the forest and nursing your bleeding hands and feet, as well as stitching your skirt up to make trousers and eating stewed porcupine will all be well worth the huge sacrifice of the odd chewed fingernail as you too let the bath overflow because you absolutely have to turn the final page.

PS Talking of Endsleigh Salon don't miss Alex Polizzi, the dynamic and forward-thinking owner of Hotel Endsleigh who kindly agreed to our group meeting there for free each month, in her forthcoming TV series The Hotel Inspector.
Thursday July 10th 9pm Channel Five. Bound to be some nice shots of Endsleigh in there somewhere.

The Behaviour of Moths by Poppy Adams

Poppy Adams is on the bill to speak about The Behaviour of Moths alongside Rebecca Abrams speaking on Touching Distance at Ways With Words on Monday July 14th at 5pm. Having now read both books I'm intrigued because the common denominator is not there on the surface, but dig a bit deeper and there you find it, the place science and research play in both these excellent novels.
It all leads me to ponder what makes a good novel for me and to be honest I'd probably give a different answer depending on my mood, the day of the week, whether there's an 'r' in the month or whether it's raining or sunny.
It's all quite the moveable definition but both these books did the trick, drew me in and kept me there, plenty of interesting strands to hold my attention and whereas Touching Distance was to a certain extent known territory for me, The Behaviour of Moths was not.
I know as much as would cover about a quarter of a wing of a Feathered Footman but will admit this book made me get The Observer's book down off the shelf and look something up. Mulleins grow in our garden and I know we checked it out years ago when we found huge caterpillers on them, but I couldn't remember the moth. Innovatively they attract Mullein moths and now I'm waiting and watching.
It must be getting increasingly difficult to find unexplored fictional territory these days, I remember Ways With Words a few years ago and by chance two authors had written novels with the central theme of seahorses. Obscure indeed so how galling to find that someone else has done the same as you? They gamely shared the platform and we all emerged completely in the know about the genus hippocampus and all associated metaphors.
Moths feels like a new and original theme, bees and butterflies seem to have been done to death but not moths in my albeit limited knowledge. The literary metaphors and allegory abound now I consider them , pupae and chrysalis, moths to a flame.
Now I expect you all to give me a list of hordes of moth-fiction.

A slowly unravelling thread of mystery is played out throughout the book as a past emerges predominantly through the eyes of a narrator who feels far from reliable. But there is little else to fall back on as the aged Ginny awaits the arrival of her sister Vivien to the crumbling but expansive family mansion. The two sisters haven't seen each other for forty-seven years and you immediately ask yourself why and I carried on asking myself that question right to the end of the novel.
Ginny, obessessive, compulsive, a seemingly poor judge of character, detached from reality and lacking in social skills after living the life of a remote recluse as her father's apprentice in his moth research. It's tempting to place her somewhere on the autistic spectrum but where?

'I'm a scientist and I'm afraid I don't work with intuition...I'm a scientist. I need hard evidence'

says Ginny about herself with her frequently remarkable insight about faculties she doesn't seem to possess.
Vivien the vivacious sociable sister who escaped and has now returned but why?
The book is full of uncertainites and perhaps that's one aspect to pin down about a good novel. I was constantly questioning situations and assumptions because I'd only viewed them through Ginny's eyes and I wasn't altogether sure about Ginny. Ginny's eyes had seen things in Ginny's way, Vivienne would have been wearing a completely different set of spectacles and it is only very latterly that we are allowed to see through them, this gives a book double value as you write the other story yourself.
Ginny by the way is the first to admit her shortcomings.

'I know memory shouldn't be trusted, that two people's recall of the same event can be unbelievably different, that even their perceptions at the time can be paradoxical, so I accept that my own recollection may be heavily distorted.'

Reader sympathies waver all over the place, one minute poor Ginny, the next flashes of sadism in the name of scientific research as moths are trapped and pulled apart at the seams. Is she mad, bad and extremely dangerous? Is she deluded and psychotic or completely in possession of her faculties?
The ending reveals all and it's good. Very good.
Another reason not to miss The Behaviour of Moths is to find how best to capture twenty-five thousand virgin Brimstones, because you never know when you might need them, and the recipe is a tricky treacle mix of wine, fermented banana and rum that will take some practice to get right.

Oh Canada...

I had allowed myself a temporary distraction from Ways With Words, and with 40% of the family currently in Canada  my thoughts naturally inclined rather enviously in that direction. I've been playing the Joni Mitchell's and browsing over in Canada Corner in my library and pondering the shopping list I must send to Offspringette who is back this week and will surely go to a bookshop for her mother before she leaves?
Then I'm not sure how or why but in came this e mail,

A call for papers on the world- wide reception of Canadian writers for the ACSUS (Association of Canadian Studied in the US) Biennial Conference in November, 2009, in San Diego.
Canadian writers are getting world-wide recognition, but their works are read differently in the various countries as diverse cultural settings provide the context for literary interpretation and literary reception.  Cultural values and national loyalties are among the factors that figure in how works are received (along with such things as experiential background, age, aesthetic tastes and education). I invite papers that explore the reception of Canadian writers around the world.

that would have sounded as dry as dust to me years ago, now I really really want to write that paper....but when?
In my sleep,with my left foot at 3am?
CanLit was a slow but steady discovery, and blame can of course be laid entirely at the door of Margaret Atwood and her excellent book Survival a Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature, published by House of Anansi Press in 1972 and which illuminated my reading with some startlingly new perspectives,

'Canadians are forever taking the national pulse like doctors at a sickbed: the aim is not to see whether the patient will live well but simply whether he will live at all. Our central idea is one which generates, not the excitement and sense of adventure or danger which The Frontier holds out, not the smugness and/or sense of security of evrything in its place, which The Island can offer, but an almost intolerable anxiety.'

I'd never really taken a view on a country's literature in quite this way but Margaret Atwood was talking about what she knew and in 1972 she wasn't happy,

'Our stories are likely to be tales not of those who made it but of those who made it back from the awful experience - the North, the snowstorm, the sinking ship - that killed everyone else...Canadian authors spend a disproportionate amount of time making sure that their heroes die or fail.'

But in the light of that call for papers how interesting it would be to examine how differently we do read Canadian writing here in the UK for a start. Margaret Atwood in her new introduction contends that times have changed, many of her wishes have been granted and predictions realized, but I still think it would be fascinating to read with the post-colonial glasses on and with this in mind,

'Let us suppose in short that Canada is a colony. A partial definition of a colony is that it is a place from which a profit is made, but not by the people who live there...that's what colonies are for, to make money for the "mother country".

Oops, that's us she'll be meaning then.
Margaret Atwood elaborates on Canada as Victim and naturally reading as The Oppressor would offer fascinating insights. Personally I often wonder how many generations it takes to shake off the guilt of colonial oppression? I've certainly never felt reponsible for any Canadian oppression and we do still graciously share the Queen and our Royals with them, but though the world map doesn't seem to have been pink for much of my life I sense we'll carry the can for it all for generations to come.
The reading in that case had better be a Thriving and Vibrant Survivor in the Ascendant v Diminished and Floundering  Imperial Power one...hmm even more interesting and time to really spread my wings and read some new Canadian authors beyond my stock favourites.
Survival was a memorable and exciting read for me and still is, suddenly it all slotted into place and I was dragging Canadian authors off the shelves right, left and North having not realised they were even Canadian. Then I discovered Margaret Laurence and between the two Peggy's I was well and truly Canada-fied.
Times have certainly changed since Margaret Atwood's controversial and ground-breaking book , but don't miss Survival. It is eminently readable and deliciously subversive and having raised her head above the parapet in such a provocative way the flak just flew and I suspect Margaret Atwood loved every minute.
Writing a new introduction some thirty years later,

'who could have suspected that this modest cultural artifact would have got so thoroughly up the noses of some of my elders and betters?...I began to feel like the mechanical duck at the funfair shooting gallery, though nobody has won the oversized panda yet because I still seem to be quacking.'

This post was all supposed to be leading up to my thoughts on my latest CanLit read The Outlander by Gil Adamson, but I've spent so much time dreaming of papers and getting the books off the shelf and browsing them that I've almost forgotten what I was going to say. This could well be a sign that my paper might all be bit simplistic amd garbled. We'll leave that to the phD Paper Writers and I'll have to regroup on The Outlander, but meanwhile, you needn't even ask, of course I've had Joni Mitchell's Blue playing while I've been writing.

'On the back of a cartoon coaster
In the blue TV screen light
I drew a map of Canada
Oh Canada
With your face sketched on it twice
Oh, you are in my blood like holy wine
You taste so bitter and so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you, darling
And I would still be on my feet
I would still be on my feet.'

Wimbledoves Tournament de-brief

Well Wimbledoves, we must be gracious in defeat and hand the Tennis For Free Wimbledon trophy over to the Big Mouth Big Hitters which we'll do when they all get down from clambering over the Royal Box but which I see they'd already seized on Friday.
That's it for another year, didn't our little lad Rafa do us proud and though personally I plumped for the wrong Williams sister the rest of you made some excellent team selections and we all had a winner in either our men's or our women's teams and Top Bear had them both. Congratulations to Becca who topped our table and Sit Down Over There please don't worry about coming last, your frocks and dazzling white plimsolls were sheer perfection.
I think we cut quite a dash on the courts and my Teddy Tinling frock is now back in its tissue paper and my Dunlop is back in its wooden press ready for the US Open, because the Big Mouth Big Hitters have challenged us to a rematch when that comes around.
I'm convinced our strategy was right, our well-equipped umpire's chair contributed to our success at raising our game and lifting us from the foot of the table to joint 41st, with the lycra-clad BMBH managing a very creditable 23rd and on one truly amazing day an astonishing 3rd. That slow creep up the table was much easier on my knees and I shall know next time not to choose a team for the names.
So congratulations Wimbledoves, now off you go and rest up for a few months, we'll gather for training the week before the US Open.

Divine retribution and a dog called...

I already knew the entire run of The Chalk Garden at the Donmar Warehouse, Covent Garden was a sell-out but perhaps they were fibbing?
They weren't so I joined the returns queue for the afternoon matinee and stood (yes stood, my poor feet) for an hour waiting.
Would God look down on his kindly, good and faithful yet lapsed servant ?
Six tickets were returned and, you guessed it, I was seventh in the queue.
Divine retribution for not forking out the £10 for St Paul's and now I'm even more determined to stay lapsed Anglican.
By this time I'd gone right off Covent Garden so I had an amble around Islington and Camden Passage and then headed off for my final hour pre-train which is always spent in Waterstone's in Piccadilly. God clearly hadn't finished with me, the heavens opened and as I sloshed in the door of that lovely old Simpsons building, bedraggled and with a tidemark of water rising slowly up my trouser legs, I walked right into an immaculately suited, tanned and coiffed Julian Clary and dog Valerie doing a book signing (Julian not the dog that is). I decisively nudged my dripping self into the ranks of heavily armed press photographers shouting 'This way Julian' ...' Pretend to sign the book Julian'  ' Smile Valerie' to grab that all-important picture for my readers. Sorry about the ghostly five-legged Valerie pic, never work with animals, that dog would not keep still.

Julian's first novel Murder Most Fab now out in paperback, the cover's pink and I didn't buy one.

Unusually tranquil train journey West, not a sign of Family Hooray as I headed into the setting sun, and now we just have to wait for The Observer on Sunday July 13th to see what all the fuss is about. Oddly the very day of the dovegreyreader event at Dartington that I know at least two people are coming to.
Will my worst fears be confirmed?
Did I look a complete idiot leaning against the wall of the Tate Modern? Did I remember to stand in that way you must to conceal chins?
What exactly did I say in the interview with Jay Rayner, or more pertinently what does Jay Rayner think I said to him ?
Shall I just hold those thoughts on his book for a while longer?

Bloggers, Boris, Ballet, Bruno and Lord Kitchener

Back to London this week for more photos for this Sunday mag piece and at this rate you'll be expecting a whole supplement plus cover given over to me me me so I'd best clarify. It's me and half a dozen others and it's a feature about bloggers and critics and this time we caused quite a stir leaning against the wall of the Tate Modern. Speaking for myself and modelling not really being my forte, we looked very inertly Band on the Run-ish (remember that album cover?), but caused enough of a commotion for passers-by who, not knowing us from Adam, also stopped to take pictures just in case we might somehow be famous. It suddenly felt like a moment of high symbolism, bloggers with backs to the wall or waiting to be shot?
We all laughed at the impossibility of it all before everyone dashed back to their day jobs and I carried on wandering around London because it was my day off and I had seven hours to kill before my train home.
Frankly, having been up since 4.45am I would have killed for a snooze on a bench somewhere.
A London wander is always fantastic when you don't live or work there and I love it. Suddenly the dirty old Thames looks like a magical river and the London skyline dazzlingly exciting and different from all the grass and trees I'm used to.

The Wobbly Millenium Bridge was in high demand for photo-shoots, there was a lot of posing in progress.
I wasn't quick enough to snap Mayor of London Boris Johnson, gone in a vanishing haze of floppy nordic hair, but I did catch these ballet dancers who, dare I say might be more pert and more pleasing on the eye than our Boris?
That might be unfair because, as yet, I have no picture of Boris in tights to make an informed comparison.

Then on to the next gathering on the bridge and this was obviously a Strictly Come Dancing event because judge Bruno Tonioli was brewing a tango with dancer Erin Boag. With apologies to Erin, I didn't really catch her best side.

Moving swiftly on across the bridge, St Paul's Cathedral perfectly placed and I realised I hadn't been in there for years. There is something uplifting about a cathedral wander, from the history in the smoothly worn flagstones beneath your feet to the soaring echoing lofty spaces, the windows and the memorials, but less so if you have to pay £10.
Now I know it costs to keep these buildings afloat but since when a compulsory £10 entry charge?
They've even covered the 'oh but I just want to sit and reflect' angle with a big sign pointing you towards a little chapel inside the door and set-aside specifically for said purpose with an on-call chaplain hovering ready to be summoned. I did wonder what would have happened if I'd pressed my case with 'but I want to reflect under the dome not in there'.
Could you legitimately be turned away from a place of Anglican worship because you didn't have £10?
Feeling even more lapsed and less and less Anglican I walked out and, ignoring all signs about no cameras /no mobiles /no candy floss / no kite-flying, snapped Lord Kitchener in quietly chilly and lonely repose behind bars.

I trudged off to have lunch in The Salvation Army cafe. They let me in without charging, perhaps I should defect? Don't be misled by any images of dreary East End hostels, The Sally Army have a state of the art headquarters by the Millenium Bridge with a beautiful light, bright cafe serving reasonably priced and very appetising food downstairs.

Then I went off on my afternoon adventures having been egged on by the West End Whingers that very morning, plus I sighted another 'celebrity' and a dog in the afternoon too, but that's enough excitement for one day.
Contain yourselves, more tomorrow.

The Three of Us - Julia Blackburn

Was there any doubt?
Of course I'll be taking us along to Julia Blackburn's talk at Dartington.
It's 5pm again, Thursday July 17th in the Great Hall and I've already suggested that anyone foregoing the talk and snoozing out on the lawn instead might regret it.
Firstly the book itself. The three of us - A Family Story and published by Jonathan Cape is a book well worth having in the hand. Production values, which we all know matter, are high. Good quality paper proving that environmentally aware needn't mean Bronco toilet paper standard, and the book is of an unusual dimension, 17cms x 21.5, most hardback books seem to average 14cms x 22 and all these sizes probably have proper names (is it Foolscap Quarto?) but this is one is squareish and it feels really good. The bigger pages haven't been crammed with text right into the margins to save on paper either so it's beautifully spaced with Sebald-like photographs woven in, making it all an easy-on-the-eye delight to read. Somehow the binding allows the pages to lie flat too without committing irreperable damage to the book's spine, all proving that it can be done and making this a book that feels worth the money.
So is it a misery memoir? Well if anyone's childhood and adolescence had the ingredients for the most miserably miserable misery memoir it's Julia Blackburn's, yet somehow it doesn't read like that.
Family Blackburn teeters on the edge most of the time as alcohol, drugs, sex and violence proliferate in young Julia's life in the midst of what seems like an understatement to describe as this high-end dysfunctional family. Both Julia's parents brought a disturbed childhood to their marriage and having been subject to poor parenting models themselves it was obvious that as two very emotionally needy, egocentric people in their own right they might make a bit of a hash of things.
Her father Thomas Blackburn was a poet, a heavy drinker also addicted to sodium amytal but eventually popping any pills that came within his reach from contraceptives to anti-histamines. Julia's mother Rosalie de Meric a painter, 'sociable, sane and flirtatious'. The constant battle between the two of them for the emotional lower ground...well my life was much worse than yours, makes for an unusual ambience around the house.
Writing as an adult and using her copious diaries as reference Julia has captured and bottled that childlike understanding of her situation, it must have been tempting to invest it with the wisdom and hindsight of an adult but she doesn't.
The power of the book rests in its degree of understatement, what lies beneath doesn't need to be said and when symptoms do surface, as when Julia takes to prolonged episodes of screaming, it's quite matter-of-fact almost normalised. This was all day to day life for young Julia, she knew no different. There is not an ounce of self-pity nor a hint of attention seeking as young Julia accepts this as the norm and struggles through, hence as a reader you build up and apportion the layers of guilt and responsibility on her behalf. I was also yearning for Julia to find just one single person she could talk to who would listen and understand her. There seemed to be one or two but by this time Julia, herself prey to the inevitable law of diminishing insight as this maelstrom of life carried her down in its vortex, seemed less and less able to indentify her own needs or make sound decisions.
Healing comes many years later in the unlikely form of her mother's final illness when Julia takes the dying Rosalie into her own home to live out her final days as the leukaemia takes its toll. Mother finally realises what she has missed in her daughter's life, daughter finally receives what she has searched for all her life, a mutually reciprocated and uncomplicated, unconditional love. No matter how brief the healing is complete.
It seems corny to say it is a story of redemption but the book blurb doesn't hesitate to say so and it truly is a remarkable book, humour and lack of blame do prevail and in its final pages it is completely uplifting. It conquers and soars above all that has gone before in Julia's life and the final twist of happiness will leave you feeling on cloud nine for Julia.
So there you have it. I've survived as 'them as know' told me I would.
I didn't feel in the least bit miserable as I turned the final page of The three of us which is surely a fine testament to the non-misery-ness of this potentially miserably miserable misery memoir.
We're in for a fine time at Julia's talk I'm sure.

The Squire by Enid Bagnold

So I'm going to join the Whingers' Bagnold Revival and apart from National Velvet this is the only other book I have, The Squire, published in 1938 and I had  immediately been drawn to Dame Margaret Drabble's suggestion,

'Imagine To the Lighthouse written by Mrs Ramsay expecting her fifth child and you get something of the spirit of this intense and passionate novel.'

It is certainly one of the most deeply moving books I've read on the subject of pregnancy, birth and motherhood, almost existential in its thinking as a woman known as the 'squire', prepares for the birth of her fifth child whilst her husband is away on business. The house also has the luxury of staff,

'Ah this old feudal nonsense in a toppling world,'

and as the midwife arrives, she and the squire are able to escape into a mutual world of time-honoured ritual and tradition as the labour progresses and the baby is born.
I'm not sure why I might assume that perceptions surrounding childbirth and motherhood should be any less insightful in 1938 than they are in 2008, but I would be profoundly misguided if I did.
The role of the midwife as curator of the mother and baby, lionishly protective, fierce and involved but equally able to walk away when her job is done, is uniquely described by Enid Bagnold, and I fancy we could learn much from the way that this allowed the mother-baby attachment to develop. Given protected time and space away from her older children, the squire wallows in the languid, soporific stress-free post-natal environment created by the midwife and meditates on life, love, children, ageing and so much more as she feeds and gets to know her newborn. This is about utilising that special and unrepeatable period of time to the full, nature facilitates this but the environment needs to be quiet and still enough for it to be heard.
The lying-in period as was, has all but been swallowed up in early hospital discharge and off to the supermarket shopping on Day Three, and we have high expectations of a baby's ability to withstand the bright lights and the hustle and bustle after so long as a snugly well-wrapped and insulated little traveller.
Enid Bagnold's midwife knows this too,

'I should say that as your baby is now so he will be in old age, that the perfection of his introduction to life will reassert itself again and again in all his crises.'

Here's me with my mum, September 1953, I'm a day old, yes, yes I know and beautiful too, so blessed. But I'll bet we stayed put here for weeks. No wonder I now take to my armchair when it all gets too much.

The midwife has a dream ,

'Some day, ' said the squire, 'you will be helped to your dream. A convent-clinic, where nuns abet the mothers. And birth is worshipped. What a mother-superior you would make.! ...
'How seldom I can care for a mother and her baby in the peace I want for my work, away from the household and its surroundings! My clinic would be a palisaded place, far in the country.'

Enid Bagnold knew what she was talking about. Old style Maternity Homes have all but disappeared from the face of the earth in the UK, designated an unaffordable luxury service but I'm grateful to have benefited from ours x 3 and for ten days each time. I know it all set me up to succeed, after ten days I was raring to get home and get on, after three I was most certainly not.
Enid Bagnold's midwife, childless herself, is a strange, single-minded, ethereally goddess-like being; almost other-worldly with a touch of the wise but stern Fairy Godmother about her,

'I have seen so many bad mothers, poor indifferent mothers.Yet often the babies do well with them...There is something between the mother and the baby.Not only love, not only milk. Some sort of closeness. A baby, when it has been so close to her, needs to be close again after it is born.'

And here's a very modern concern, I'm almost comforted to know it was a problem then too,

'The book of instinct has long, long been closed, ' said the midwife
'But what do we get instead?' said the squire. ' The science-guided baby! Labelled, its tears and stools in bottles, its measurements on a chart, its food weighed like a prescription!'

So much more I could write about this book, it has been a read which has made me consider deeply at every level, both personal and professional, and hopefully that's enough to encourage you in the direction of The Squire if you feel so inclined. If you then find you are in the mood for more childbirth reading don't miss Winter's Child by Dea Trier Morch, and excellent to see one of my favourites, Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth, (where the midwives are actually nuns) up there amongst the best-sellers at the moment.

Ferney by James Long

I'm not sure how I missed Ferney fever during the first epidemic but I've caught it good and proper this time round. Bit like chickenpox I suppose, which I didn't get until I was thirty-five, the older you are the more it affects you and perhaps the same could be said for Ferney which has definitely brought me out in a florid rash of enthusiasm.
Written by James Long, who I discover is also a Devon resident, the right chord is touched before I even begin the book because it's located in Somerset and there's something about Somerset that gives a book a head start with me.
Black Dirt by Nell Leyshon, The Various by Steve Augarde, and my favourite art book of all time (since the last favourite art book of all time) John Caple's beautifully simple but symbolic Somerset. John's raw and naive yet highly imaginative artwork basks in this magical and slightly extraordinary setting which has cast my spell in gold for ever. Don't ask me to try to pin it down or analyse it because I can't, perhaps it's because Somerset is the first county we enter as we drive out of Devon and that first landmark, the much-loved Willow Man, our Angel of the West.
Then we cross something called King's Sedgemoor Drain. You'd barely know but for the sign saying so, but something about that name conjures up Somerset Levels and heaven knows why but thoughts of The English Civil War. There's probably no historical basis for my connection but it just happens and I wonder whether anyone else makes these odd and irrelevant and unfounded connections as they travel ?
So thanks to all that and James Long's meticulous writing Ferney and I somehow bonded very quickly, and I was rapidly installed in this book as Mike and Gally move to their derelict Somerset cottage with a history they couldn't possibly know of but somehow local wise man Ferney does. Mike the historian, logical evidence-based thinker, scholarly and scientific in his approach and not one to let his imagination play any part in the history he writes and lectures on. Gally quite the opposite, slightly ethereal, disturbed by nightmares and it rapidly becomes evident that there is an unspoken and mysterious bond between her and Ferney.

' Gally was a poem with a missing line a symphony with a discordant phrase.'

The plotting is so so clever, and it's tricky to say much without lessening the impact, but all making it one of those unusual reads. The 'deep puddles of memory' connect Ferney and Gally to time immemorial as Gally realises the life she is living now is the tip of the iceberg and startling questions of history and authenticity reared up as I read. Mike cannot possibly believe anything Ferney says and as Ferney recounts events surrounding Monmouth's rebellion, which we as readers believe him to be telling as primary source truth, Mike sees memory as a palimpsest and must verify it all in a textbook.
My thinking got quite tangled in that chicken-egg way as it can and I can't explain more without ruining, but if you read the book I think you'll discover the episode I mean, it's about horses and oats and it's clever, and then you'll have your own chicken-egg moment too.
Now I'm really looking forward to hearing James Long speak on The Rebirth of Ferney at Ways With Words on Monday July 14th.
Out of print for ten years Ferney is back and deservedly so, there's something ultimately comfortable about a book that may have tapped into just one way of recounting the mysteries of eternal life but this one's an unputdownable page turner too and I can quite see how it achieved cult status. Ferney taps into something primeval that you'd like to imagine was posssible and by the time you finish the book you almost believe it might be.

Trauma by Patrick McGrath

I'm new to the writing of Patrick McGrath  and nor was in the least bit sure this was a wise move, but I felt the need for something entirely different and Trauma was to hand and looked shortish and quickish. In the end it wasn't quick at all, far too much to consider.
I'm woefully out of touch with the male US writers, somehow I position them out of my realm then I discover that actually Patrick McGrath is English by birth but that doesn't seem to change much. He sits rightly or wrongly in the Constellation Impossible in my mind along with the likes of Bellow, Roth, Updike & Co. It's Saul Bellow's fault really, we fell out over Herzog and have never quite effected a reconciliation. I used up a precious week of my life years ago reading it for a new reading group. Fearing the shame of failure I ploughed on, Andy Murray has nothing on my tenacity when stupidity and humiliation beckon, and I duly pitched up with my copy annotated with inane drizzle which I had hoped might help me wing it through. I hadn't really grasped the Bellow concept at all but everyone else had given up after twenty pages so I was crowned the unchallenged Bellow Expert, but it was all enough to scare a girl off US male authors for life.
Trauma is certainly an intriguing read as Charlie Weir, psychiatrist with enough textbook symptoms of his own to keep him in therapy finds himself in a messy tangle of personal and professional relationships with boundaries fast disappearing as the tangle of psyches becomes a complete bird's nest of chaos.
With references to views of the twin towers and firemen and definite mentions of a sultry August I quite thought the plot was leading up to 9/11 and I'm still not sure whether that might have been the intention. Perhaps Patrick McGrath changed course fearing the extra hundreds of pages that would have added to the book? Whatever, it was a good decision because the conciseness and discipline of a mere 200 pager (they are becoming rare these days) worked to perfection.There is enough trauma in this book without adding 9/11 to the mix, the Vietnam veterans have quite enough of their own to deal with and there's only so much you can squeeze into one book and expect a reader to emerge whole and in one piece at the other end.
The traumas of every single character are played out with a keen eye for the due process of psychiatric malaise and Patrick McGrath explores the issues proficiently and with care and that's important. Charlie slowly becomes as embroiled and troubled as those he seeks to help and you can but watch helplessly as the haunting 'physician heal thyself' scenario unravels towards an ending that is quite breathtaking.
Trauma perhaps also a red warning light to the dangers of mis-managed therapy, equally capable of causing trauma in its own right, and I'm reminded of the late great Bernice Rubens whose thoughts on therapists of any description are so brilliantly and excoriatingly exposed in her novel Nine Lives. Bernice incidentally also named Philip Roth as one of her favourite writers. Therapy in the wrong hands highly dangerous and those of us who tread on that territory professionally know the perils of taking the lid off without having something ready and waiting to catch what jumps out.
Charlie is caught out and pays a  heavy price and rightly so in my mind, I get quite cross about literary cop-outs for professional misconduct that in real life would be reprehensible and life-threatening. Though absolution is available it's only a short-term remedy, Charlie has far too much of his own trauma to deal with first.
A gritty New York read and a solid exploration of its subject, Trauma sports a UK cover that conveys par excellence the claustrophobic angst-ridden minds and lives of so many of Patrick McGrath's characters. That tangle of fire escapes says it all.
I shall read more now I know what to expect, it wasn't that terrifying at all, name a Philip Roth for beginners someone and, while you decide which one I really should read, don't miss John Self's interview with Patrick McGrath over in his Asylum.