A public service?!

I had a lovely comment on my blog earlier from hockadilly in response to my post "Ordinary Families" which I wrote last October and I had to share it:

A special thankyou! I read this book back in the 80s and quite enjoyed it. Subsquently I learned to sail, and often thought I'd like to reread the book, because so much of it revolves around sailing. BUT I had forgotten the title and author, just knew it was a Virago and had a vague memory of the cover painting. Every now and then I'd have a go at searching on the internet, without luck. Then bingo! I found your blog and searched through until I found it. I'm now happily rereading it and really enjoying it, especially the sailing sections.

I am feeling really happy that my blog is actually proving USEFUL as well as interesting!

Some more acquisitions

I was lucky enough to recieve a £10 Amazon voucher for participation in a personal development project at work and it gave me the opportunity to buy a few things from my Amazon Virago wishlist! It was quite hard to choose, but I selected these ones:

Open the door (Carswell)
Mandoa Mandoa (Holtby)
Rhapsody (Edwards)
Fraulein Schmidt and Mr Anstruther (Arnim)

With the exception of the first, these are all by authors whose books I have enjoyed as part of my venture, and I'm looking forward to getting stuck into these!

I'm fascinated by the little sticker that says a Scottish classic, Virago on the Carswell book - I've not seen one of these before.

Return of the soldier (West) 32

The return of the soldier was Rebecca West's first novel, and I have to say that this slim volume is the one I've enjoyed most out of all of her books which I've read so far. It felt like quite a different sort of work to her Cousin Rosamund trilogy or to Harriet Hume.

The soldier in question is Chris; he has been fighting in the first world war, his return is marred by shell shock and the fact that he cannot remember the last 15 years of his life. The last fifteen years include his marriage to Kitty, his beautiful wife; he remembers himself as still being in love with his childhood sweetheart Margaret. The women involved have the choice as to whether to leave him as he is, with this huge gap in his memory, or try to effect some sort of "cure".

The book is narrated by his cousin Jenny, herself also somewhat in love with Chris, and her narration provides West with a means to explore the consequences of the damages of war. It is this which makes the book very much more than just a simple return from war/love story, and thus the basis for West's more philosophically books. The prose is absolutely beautiful, so I would definitely recommend this one, especially to those, like me with an interest in the World Wars and their consequences.

The novel has been published three times by Virago; my copy bought from Amazon is the most recent edition, I wish very much it had been the older green one to complement my two other original green Rebecca Wests - I think the oldest one is by far the nicest cover. It has also been published prolifically by other publishers, obviously indicating its popularity.

Afternoon of a good woman (Bawden)

Time for another Nina Bawden, this one being The afternoon of a good woman. I have to say that I think that this is one of her most accomplished novels, being cleverly told, and despite having been written in the 1970s, remarkably undated.

It tells the story of Penelope, a magistrate, on the day that she has decided to leave her husband. Her day presiding over court cases is interspersed with her thoughts about her past, bringing up issues such as sex, marital boredom, families, children, incest. Gradually, the memories piece together to build up a picture of Penelope's life and enable us to see why she has got to the point of deciding to leave her husband.

It's been published in the Green spinal type of Virago edition (at some point I must clarify the different sorts of green editions so that I can be more

Just the Grain of Truth to read and then I'm done with Bawden!

Hours before dawn (Fremlin)

The hours before dawn by Celia Fremlin was an ebay purchase based on the fact that it was a Virago Modern Classic that I hadn't heard of before, and the title sounded somewhat intriguing (I don't tend to do much more research than that into my ebay purchases since as the plan is to read ALL of the VMCs I'm probably going to read the book anyway in due course, but this is a good way of starting!).

A domestic setting, but ultimately a story of extreme suspense. Louise, the main character, is a harrassed mother of three, trying to cope with a newborn baby who won't sleep through the night as well as two younger daughters. Fremlin well describes Louise's situation and it is difficult not to feel sympathy for her. They take in a lodger, a slightly mysterious school teacher named Miss Brandon. And the fatigued Louise starts to lose sense of reality and begins to believe that Miss Brandon is spying on them... The novel is extremely well plotted and builds to a horrific conclusion - it's difficult to write more without giving the story away!

It's just been published once by Virago with the modern style of green cover. Unfortunately Virago don't publish any of her other novels which is a shame as apparently she is known for writing extremely good but underrated crime novels. This novel was awarded the Edgar Allan Poe prize for best crime novel.

Unlit lamp (Radclyffe Hall) 42

I've read two Radclyffe Hall novels for this challenge, but this third one, The unlit lamp (kindly lent to me by Simon from Stuck-in-a-book) is the one that I have enjoyed the most. Despite having similarly bleak themes to The well of loneliness, there was quite a lot of humour at least in the early part of the the book and I found the story interesting.

Set in the seaside town of Seabourne, the Unlit Lamp tells the story of two sisters, Joan and Millie, but focussing primarily on Joan, the elder. They live with their extremely conventional parents, Mr and Mrs Ogden; Mrs Ogden is quite bitter about married life but this leads to some of the entertaining and humourous scenes in the book. Joan and Millie are taught by Elizabeth, their governess - the Ogdens don't place much value on education for women. Joan and Elizabeth develop a close friendship, which develops lesbian overtones (that never actually really materialise), but this provokes strong jealousy in Mrs Ogden who wants to keep her elder daughter close to her. Joan has the chance of escape through Elizabeth, hoping to study medicine at Cambridge and then move to London to live in a flat with her friend, but she has to give up the dream when her father suffers ill-health and dies. She tries to help Millie escape from the family, but even she has to return home when she falls ill. Joan is effectively stuck living with Mrs Ogden, and cannot even dream of going to live with Elizabeth as she has turned her back on her affectation (love?) for Joan and got married.

The book develops into a tragedy of lost opportunity and family pressures which is quite far away from the light beginning where family life was just an irritant.

It's just been published once by Virago with an original green cover.

The last summer (O'Brien) 349

Having enjoyed so many of Kate O'Brien's novels I was very happy that there were several more on the Virago Modern Classic list which I had not yet read. This is a beautifully written tale of a French actress, Angele, who is touring Ireland with some friends. Bored with their company she decides to take herself to Drumaninch, the birthplace of her father, which he had often talked about, and where her cousins still live today. The Kernahans are an intriguing family, and they seem to have a hidden past, that includes the estrangement of her father from them. Angele is seduced both by Ireland and two men creating a tangled situation of love that is hugely influenced by the past leading to what the blurb describes as "a tense and complicated situation".

Like O'Brien's other books, this novel is hugely atmospheric with a wealth of wonderful period detail and I really enjoyed reading it.

It's been published three times by Virago with each of the different sorts of green cover (but the copy I read was actually an Orange Penguin edition)