This month's round up of reading, books I don't want to feature in extended blog posts but would hate you to miss out on. Notes written in my journal the minute I turn the final page but as always, less wordage is no indication of lesser books.
Lullaby ~ Leila Slimani
Deeply unsettling, totally compelling. The children are dead in the first paragraphs of the book. Mila and Adam's nanny Louise is responsible, her attempts at suicide have failed, the rest of the book is going to chart the journey towards this tragic outcome. It's like sitting watching a car crash in slow-motion.
High flyers Paul and Myriam can hardly believe their luck when Louise comes to work for them. Organised, competent and seemingly adored by the children, the family are the envy of all their friends. Myriam can resume her legal career, Paul can build his music business, life is perfect. It is the reader who will see what Paul and Myriam don't... Louise's OCD tendencies, the signs of mental illness, shady background and unusual behaviour. By the time the parents start to worry it is too late, Louise has complete control of everyone's life except her own.
Themes of obsession, disempowerment, control and entrapment prevail. By deeds does Louise succeed, cleaning, cooking, washing and ironing her way into favour, creating a dependency and neediness which all makes for gripping reading. Lullaby is a book with an afterlife too...what will the future hold for these parents in terms of grief, self-recrimination, guilt, and then of course there will be a trial....
Euphoria ~ Lily King
My thanks to whoever recommended Euphoria in comments here, I would never have found it otherwise.
Based loosely (I think) around the life of Margaret Mead, three anthropologists travel to New Guinea in the 1930s. Everyone wants a tribe of their own to write about so the competition is fierce between husband and wife Nell and Fen, whilst further professional (and other) jealousies will emerge when they meet up with Andrew, already in the field.
'The tribe is always greener on the other side of the river she often tried to tell him. But it was impossible not to be envious of other people's people. Until you laid it all out neatly on a page your own tribe looked a mess.'
Fascinating revelations about a world largely unknown to me. these risk-takers fearless in search of clues to civilisation and its development. Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead was a set text for our HV training in the 1970s. None of us ever really figured its relevance to the population of Plymouth, on whom we were about to be unleashed, and ultimately I'm sure I read that Margaret Mead's work was eventually seen to be flawed and was much-criticised.
A good read, much enjoyed.
The Girls of Slender Means ~ Muriel Spark.
Good old Muriel. Last read who knows when (but how fond I am of this old Penguin cover) and read again to celebrate the recent centenary. I hadn't forgotten what an excellent book this is.
'The May of Teck Club exists for the Pecuniary Convenience and Social Protection of Ladies of Slender Means'
Which all takes on new meaning when the slim girls living there in 1945 are able to squeeze through the roof-light in the bathroom for the occasional rendezvous with boyfriends. The club is rapidly populated in fine Muriel Spark style by an eclectic mix of characters, whilst the Schiaparelli dress almost has a life of its own too. Beginning and ending in tragedy, book-ended by loss and death, but there is everything and more to like in between.
Black Swan Green ~ David Mitchell
Bought in hardback on publication in 2006 on the back of the joy of Cloud Atlas, and Black Swan Green a reading failure for me ever since. But you don't part with a David Mitchell first edition, and this time around it was like reading a whole new book.
It is the 1980s and thirteen-year old Jason Taylor's first-person narrative charts the teenage angst of a problem with stammering. It is an excruciatingly painful expose of bullying and also secrets. There is clearly something wrong with his parents' marriage but a thirteen-year old just can't see it, only react to it, and often sub-consciously. I missed most of the 1980s having babies and wondering when I might ever sleep again, so this was a useful revision of the times...the culture, the music, the food and the way of life. Apparently semi-autobiographical but the observations are very clearly those of an adolescent boy, not an adult writing about one...if you see what I mean. It is clever and difficult to pull off successfully. If I have one small gripe, maybe there was one bullying chapter too many towards the end, but otherwise a stellar read of a book I AM delighted not to have passed over again.
Right book - wrong reader - wrong time : 2006
Right book - right reader - right time : 2018
What a difference twelve years makes.
Up at the Villa - Somerset Maugham
Recovering from the death of her husband and the discovery of his near bankruptcy, Mary accepts the offer of a friend's villa in Florence. There is no shortage of amours - the older but respectable Sir Edgar Swift, about to become Governor General of India, is in the running, alongside the louch but wealthy playboy Rowley. When a dalliance with an Austrian refugee (as I said, no shortage) ends in disaster Mary's web becomes decidedly tangled, and its going to be a case of who will be best at unravelling and living with the mess.
I read this in one sitting, 120 pages of story - plotting - tension with description in spades, all of which left me wondering why on earth I haven't read more by Somerset Maugham. A complete surprise of a book.
Maigret Travels ~ Georges Simenon
Possibly the best one I have read so far . Tight plotting and a very clever reveal when our Inspector sets up a high-risk sting situation to force a confession out of a murder suspect. The victim a wealthy businessman who has been found dead in the bath of his Parisian hotel suite, and also implicated in the death a ditzy Italian countess who has fled the scene for Geneva (as you do). Much cogitating required by our man who looks like a 'big sick animal' when he is trying to figure out a case.
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