Sunday, January 15, 2012

The Butterfly Effect

Penelope Lively's new novel How it all began starts with an event that alters the lives of several characters just as the beating of a butterfly's wings eventually results in a hurricane (James Gleick, Chaos 1998). This is a novel of manners, an exploration of relationships and circumstances with a set of character studies that fit my requirements for a good read.

Penelope Lively was made a Dame in the British New Year's Hounours list; her contribution to modern literature is impressive. As a new children's librarian in the 70's I read, purchased and promoted her wonderful stories; 1972 The Driftway, 1973 The Ghost of Thomas Kempe, 1974 The house in Norham Gardens, that combined history, fantasy and reality with such readability.
Her first adult novel, The Road to Lichfield, was published in 1977. I devoured it and have read every one of her books since then.

All the novels trace relationships amongst an assortment of characters. They also comment on memory, history and circumstance. But all are contextual and different. How it all began references several current events: street crime, financial recession, migrants and also comments on personal preoccupations: aging, loss, memory. The random incident at the beginning of the novel obliquely affects seven lives and the narrative charts the consequences and choices made by the characters as they go about their normal day to day lives. Charlotte, the main character is sensitive, sympathetic, humourous and wise and her tone is gentle satire. I especially enjoyed Charlotte's comments on reading, story, worrying and endings that were part of her musings or conversations - all seamlessly included in the development of the novel. The review from the NY Times says this is "an elegant, witty work of fiction, deceptively simple, emotionally and intellectually penetrating, the kind of novel that brings a plot to satisfying closure but whose questions linger long afterward in the reader’s mind." Exactly!

I can recommend all the novels but my own favourite is The Photograph. The children's books may seem a little old-fashioned now but I would still recommend them for fluent readers. They also make good read-alouds. Her best read aloud title, because it is amusing for parent readers, has to be The voyage of QV66 about a boatload of animals in flooded Britain. Gentle satire again.





Click on the video clip to hear Carole Beu from the Women's Bookshop talk about How it all began.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Hard to walk on shaky ground

Fiona Farrell's The Broken book defies classification; it is about walking but is not a travel book, it includes memories but it is not a biography, there are poems but it is not a poetry book. It is in fact all of these things and more.

The book consists of a Preamble, four essays on life and walking and an Epilogue but is interspered with 20 earthquake poems. The poems arrive at random times and interrupt the flow of the essays. This book shows how an earthquake can change everything in a moment. The poems comment on that immediacy while the essays are thoughtful, often meandering like walking but always connected and enjoyable.

This is a very special book - sensitive, wise, lyrical.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

The reading year

I read 57 books in 2011, mostly fiction, but surprisingly I increased my non-fiction reading to 6 titles. I also read a lot of poetry but since I dipped into many books to find just the right poems I did not record the titles. I'm sure that the poems I read would add up to 2 books full so that I can claim consistency with my 2010 reading total of 59 books.




An assessment of various reading blogs shows that most include a list of titles read even though titles reviewed are fewer - look out for a new addition to this blog page this year.



Some of the poems I have really appreciated recently come from the following books:


Fiere by Jackie Kay
How to survive the morning: new poems by Kevin Ireland
Mirabile dictu by Michele Leggott










The book that lead me into more poetry reading this past year is by Paula Green and Harry Ricketts and is well worth dipping into; I haven't yet managed all the suggested 99 ways into New Zealand poetry