Harriet Devine's Blog

Woman Arranging Flowers

This weekly spot - or as near weekly as I can manage - started life as a way of showing nice pictures of women reading or writing, and I still try to stick to that most of the time. But sometimes I find paintings that I just love and so they get in there too. And I was very taken with this one, called Flower Arranging, by the German artist Albert von Keller (1845-1920). I think it's charming and oh how I wish we could go around in dresses like that nowadays. 

And by the way, I have been very absent from here for ages -- work and then a lovely holiday being to blame -- but hope to be back with a few overdue reviews soon. 

Woman Standing

She doesn't appear to be reading though I suppose she might be. I just thought it was a lovely painting. It is by Robert Hope and is called Back of Standing Female Nude.

Woman Reading

This is 'Reading', by Ethel Leontine Gabain (1883-1950), of whom I had never heard though it sounds as if I should have done. 

Heat Lightning

"Poor girl," he whispered. His face looked strange, as if for a long time she had not seen it, the deep eye sockets spaced wide, the strong spring of the nose, the lean cheeks with lines past the corners of the wide, mobile lips. Quite suddenly it changed, and she knew it in her fingertips, the feel of the forehead, fine skin over hard rounded skull, up to the v's in which dark hair grew over the temples. Geoffrey. Hand still shut in his, she moved slowly in the file past the casket. She felt his grasp quicken: he knew about death, its anger and its fear. 

There's nothing more exciting for readers like me than discovering a new and wonderful author. And Helen Hull is one such, at least if this novel is anything to go by. Published in 1932, this is a novel about love, about marriage, about parenting, about families -- but it's also about the melting pot of America, about social class, about morality and about belief. Quite a lot to encompass in a mere 327 pages, but Helen Hull does it with the utmost subtlety and skill. 

This is the story of Amy Norton who, at the start of the novel, has arrived in the small mid-western town where she grew up. It is high summer, and Amy has left  her home in New York City and her troubled marriage to pay a visit to her parents. But though Amy has been hoping for a period of peace and quiet to help her get her thoughts straight, she finds herself instead plunged into the midst of various serious family dramas. A reprobate cousin has made the maid pregant, another is having problems with her lesbian partner, an uncle is in severe financial difficulties, and an unexpected death flings the whole family into panic and overdrive.

Contemplating the problems of her own marriage, Amy looks hard at those of her relatives, finding numerous points of comparison -- what works, what doesn't, and why. A cousin has married a girl of German extraction, from a lower social class than his own, and the family looks down on her and her mother -- but the marriage works, and Amy can't help but admire the girl for her open enjoyment of her sexuality. Amy's brother has a French wife, whose alien status enables her to look on the family dramas with a clear and philosophical eye. In fact overall it seems to be the new Americans who are doing better than the old families -- Amy's uncle's financial disasters seem to be due to his wife's insistence in living way above their means.In the midst of all this, Amy's parents at least offer a safe haven of sorts. Her mother, in particular, has a quiet wisdom which, towards the end of the novel, she puts into words. Her two principles are, first, 'acting so I don't feel ashamed of myself, so I feel comfortable with myself', and second is 'People. Loving them. Not a general, vague love for everybody. But for your special ones'.

So as the week goes by, Amy comes to an important realisation:

If she could have patience, could watch these shifting scenes with sympathy enough, out of them would come the wisdom she needed. It would, far more potent than any Aristotelian tragedy, constitute a personal catharsis, a purging of herself of blindness and other faults of vision -- distortion, perhaps.

This passage is really the key to what goes on in this excellent novel. While her world seems to be deteriorating into chaos around her, Amy slowly comes to form her own code. Though conscious of how much she is hampered by her lack of any kind of religious belief, she practices a severe form of self examination, and gradually her thoughts and feelings become more settled and clear. Nowhere is this more evident than in the remarkable episode in which she finally learns what her absent husband has been doing, and is forced to confront the reality of her deepest fears. Rather than causing a split between the couple, or leading to bitterness and defeat, the revelation brings her to a deeper understanding of Geoffrey's feelings and a rigorous comparison with her own, which she sees to be not as different as she first believed. 

In her excellent review of the novel earlier this year, Rachel of Book Snob calls Helen Hull an American Dorothy Whipple. And yes, there's certainly some truth in that -- the domestic setting, the examination of unspoken thoughts and feelings. But think I'd rather call her an American Elizabeth Bowen, whose superb To the North was published in the same year as Heat Lightening. Bowen is notoriously challenging to read for the intensity of her prose and the subtlety of her observations of women's lives, and Hull seems to me to fall into that category. I am so glad I read this great novel and look forward to discovering more of Helen Hull in the future.

 

What I've been reading... and not reviewing (1)

I haven't reviewed anything for ages but that doesn't mean I've stopped reading. Life just took over and swamped me. But here I am again and here's some of what I've read lately. First up, Jesse Kellerman's latest novel, I'll Catch You. Well. I've long admired Kellerman junior, both of whose parents are distinguished crime writers, and in fact I think his books are even better than theirs. But anyone who starts this one expecting it to be like the earlier ones is in for a surprise. "This novel is, in a word, dreadful", writes one bemused blogger, who shall remain nameless. It's not, though, not at all. 

This is the story of Arthur Pfefferkorn, who teaches creative writing at a small college on the east coast of America. This is quite ironic, really, as Arthur himself is a failed novelist -- his one published work, a semi-autobiographical literary novel called Shade of the Colossus, sank without trace many years ago, and he has never succeeded in writing anything else.  His college friend Bill, however, whose literary abilities appeared to be pretty well zero, has become a hugely successful thriller writer, much to Arthur's chagrin. As the novel begins, however, he is reading in the paper that Bill is missing, presumed drowned, after an accident at sea. He rather unwillingly decides to go to the funeral, where he meets Bill's widow Carlotta, and soon, much to his surprise and delight, finds himself in bed with her. Carlotta has shown him Bill's writing room, and on the desk is Bill's last work, an incomplete manuscript. Before he leaves, Arthur manages to steal it, and soon, with its help, he too is a massively successful writer and making huge sums of money. But then he makes a terrifying discovery, and his life takes a most unexpected and frightening turn...

Really, this novel is a satire on the world of blockbusting thrillers, with many bizarre twists and turns into the bargain, but it also considers literary pretensions, literary success and its effects, friendship, parenthood, and more besides. Jesse Kellerman writes with great wit and intelligence and I loved the way he expresses some of the simplest things, such as Arthur's first impressions of Carlotta's magnificent Californian villa: A mosaic fountain burbled. Cut flowers stood erect in vases. A chess set awaited players. Chairs awaited buttocks. Portraits smiled, landscapes sprawled, statuary thrust. 

I see on Amazon that this novel has defeated most readers, and perhaps you would be one of them. But for me, though I admit to finding the central section a little too long, this was a really enjoyable and entertaining read. Recommended, but only to those who are willing to suspend disbelief and let themselves have a bit of fun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Woman Reading

I love pictures of women reading seen from behind -- goodness knows why. This one is by the Boston artist William Worcester Churchill (1858-1926). You can read his biography and see some more of his paintings here.

Banksy

Just something that made me smile this morning -- the incomparable Banksy (famous but anonymous British street artist, in case you haven't heard of him) and a typically witty comment on those who want to destroy street -- or in this case cave -- art. 

Woman Painting

This lovely and unusual painting of a woman artist is by the French painter Étienne Azambre (1859-1935), and is called  Interior of a Studio, 1889. Of course she's not actually painting but thinking about it. I found it on a website I often visit, Old Paint, which is a great source of paintings of all countries and eras.  

The Quiddity of Will Self

I sat on the Picadilly Line with Will Self's liver on my lap...

This novel was kindly sent to me by the publisher several weeks ago, and I started reading it at once. The only reason it's taken me so long to get around to reviewing it is that I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to do it justice. If I describe it as a postmodern extravaganza -- and surely someone somewhere has called it just that -- regular visitors here (if any there be) will see at once that it's not the sort of thing I usually read and review. But let's have a go anyway.

First of all, the title. I did not know what quiddity meant, and had to look it up, though if I hadn't bothered I'd have eventually found a definition some way into the novel. Here's what the OED has to say about it: 

• 1 the inherent nature or essence of someone or something.
  2 a distinctive feature; a peculiarity:his quirks and quiddities

OK -- both probably relevant here. Now how about Will Self? I knew he was a novelist of rather scary brilliance, but all I'd read by him was some of his journalism. Was this going to hamper my enjoyment of the novel? I can't possibly say, but probably if I had it might have added another layer to my enjoyment. Not that it needed any more layers, because I enjoyed it very much indeed.

But what's it about? I hear you say. Well, I can quote the blurb to give you some kind of idea:

The ghost of a beautiful young woman, Sylvie, hovers outside the window of Will Self's study. She is seeking to influence his latest novel, before she can rest in peace.

Sylvie was a member of the WSC -- a mysterious cult of charismatic writers who appear to worship Will Self. When Richard, a twenty-something wannabe, discovers Sylvie's dead body he gets sucked into their dark world of absinthe, cloaks, and bizarre initiation rites, slowly losing his sense of perspective on the strange events that encircle him. What is the true nature of the WSC? What did they do to Sylvie? And does Richard now face a similar fate?

Quite honestly, though, this is really only scratching the surface of the comic, multi-faceted, multi-narrated, metafictional, confusing and delightful plot. Five different narrators voice the novel's five parts -- or rather four, as Richard, who narrates Part One, returns in Part Three in the form of a diary he is writing in a Liverpool tower block, while he also writes a novel, watched avidly by numerous members of the general public. Sylvie narrates Part Two, after her own death. Part Four is narrated by Mia, and takes place in 2049, after the death of Will Self, who, we learn, finally managed to win the Booker Prize in his 80s. And Part Five is narrated by Sam Mills. But what Sam Mills is this, and how much relationship is there with the 'real' Sam Mills? Well, for a start, the Sam Mills who has put her name on the title page is female, and the Sam Mills in the novel is male. But the very name of the novelist hints at some kind of gender confusion, and there's reason to believe that it may not in fact be the real writer's real name. And, as Sam Mills wrote recently in a Guardian article, 

In symmetry with Will, I suffer from sex dysmorphia; I habitually feel like an angry young man trapped in the body of a female …

 Be that as it may, there does seem to be some autobiographical material in this section -- it is undoubtedly true, for example, that Sam Mills was, or is, a writer of young adult novels, a couple of which I've reviewed on here, and almost certainly this novel did take nine years to write and was turned down by several publishers. As for the letter purportedly written by Sam to Will Self, and the account of his reply -- well, who knows. And does it matter? I don't think so. In fact I know it doesn't. For this is a novel partly -- or largely? -- about writing, about words, about identity and its confusions.

And would you like this novel? You'd have to be prepared to let go of a great many preconceptions about how stories are meant to be told, and of the need to come out at the other end with some kind of satisfying conclusion or closure. There's lots and lots of sex, though not of the gratuitous variety -- it is, believe it or not, integral to the plot. The only thing I can think of that the novel resembles a little is a film called Being John Malkovitch, so if you ever saw that and liked it, you'd perhaps like this too. 

Anyway, I'm in no doubt that this is a novel of real brilliance. The Daily Mail, my least favorite newspaper of all time, wrote of 'glimpses of genius', and for once it's hard to disagree with them. 

Oh -- and as for that opening quote about the liver -- well, you'll just have to read the novel to see what that's all about.

Related articles

Sam Mills' top 10 fictional sex changes

Woman Not Reading

This is what I feel rather like doing today -- it's grey and rainy outside and I woke up much too early. But duty calls -- too much to do, too little time.

Anyway, this is called The Green Sofa, painted by the Belfast artist  Sir John Lavery (1846-1921) and sold last year for an amazing $1.3 million. It's very nice, but I'm not sure I'd have coughed up that much for it, even if I had that sort of money to throw around. Actually though Lavery was a pretty great painter and had quite an interesting life. You can read about , and see more of his lovely pictures, in a very lively article here.