#NYRBWomen23 – A Highlight of My Reading This Year

One of the biggest highlights of my reading this year was #NYRBWomen23, a brilliant reading project conceived and hosted by the lovely Kim McNeill (@joiedevivre9) on Twitter/Bluesky/Instagram. I read many good books; some were terrific as expected, others were fab discoveries, and three featured on My Best Books of 2023 list.

Group reading is not an idea that appealed to me at first. I can be a moody reader and also lack discipline, and I was wary of having my reading chalked out. But that changed last year with #PilgrimageTogether, a wonderful readalong hosted by Kim (see, she’s excellent at this). I wanted to read those Dorothy Richardson books, but also aware that they were complex. Hence, the idea of being part of an online reading group to appreciate her work sounded promising, and it turned out great. When Kim announced plans for #NYRBWomen23, of course, I jumped right in. After all, the combination of NYRB Classics and women writers was too good to miss.

Having now been introduced to the joys of reading together with like-minded bookish folks, I plan to participate in two year-long reading projects in 2024. One is #NYRBWomen24, which Kim recently announced (more on that later in this post). The other is #KateBriggs24, a slow read project of the Kate Briggs books (This Little Art and The Long Form), hosted by Kim and Rebecca (@ofbooksandbikes), again on Twitter, Bluesky and Instagram. So, lots of great reading to look forward to next year.

Meanwhile, coming back to #NYRBWomen23 and the year that was, this is a long write-up, and I’ve split it into three sections: (a) the books I read this year for #NYRBWomen23, (b) a brief look at the books on the list that I read in previous years, and (c) my reading plans for #NYRBWomen24. 

SECTION ONE

#NYRBWOMEN23: THE ONES I JOINED IN FOR – AN EXCELLENT, ECLECTIC ELEVEN

I’m going to divide these books into four groups…

The Expected Winners

Over the years, these books were widely reviewed or rated quite highly and turned out to be winners as expected (I’m including the Baker in this too despite my initial mixed response, because at the end of the year, I find that the positive aspects have stayed with me more).

GRAND HOTEL by Vicki Baum (Translated from German by Basil Creighton)

Grand Hotel is a resounding triumph, in which by focusing the spotlight on five core characters from varied walks of life brought together by fate, Baum dwells on their internal dramas as well as their interactions; these are tragic, haunting characters grappling with their inner demons and insecurities while also wrestling with some of the bigger existential questions. The novel sizzles with a vivid sense of place (1920s Berlin) and the language is wonderfully tonal and visual. Also, Baum has a striking way with words that capture the essence of her characters in a few sentences.

THE HEARING TRUMPET by Leonora Carrington

If you thought a story centred on a 92-year-old protagonist was bound to be dull and depressing, think again. Leonora Carrington’s The Hearing Trumpet is a delicious romp, a stunning feat of the imagination, and an iconoclastic book if you will that refuses to be pigeonholed into convenient definitions and genres; and in Marian Leatherby, the nonagenarian in this superbly off-kilter tale, Carrington has created an unconventional heroine who is charming, feisty and memorable.

The book begins in a quiet, residential neighbourhood on the outskirts of an unnamed Mexican city where Marian Leatherby, our narrator, resides with her son Galahad, his wife Muriel, and their 25-year-old unmarried son Robert. Marian is not welcome in the house and with the aid of a hearing trumpet gifted to her by her charming loquacious friend Carmella who has a penchant for conjuring up unrealistic and improbable schemes and ideas, Marian learns of her family’s plot to park her in an old age home.

The old-age home is unlike anything she had imagined, and Marian soon begins to settle in, gets introduced to her fellow residents, finds herself entangled in various adventures, and is caught up in the fascinating life of an abbess. The Hearing Trumpet could be considered an extension of Carrington’s identity as a Surrealist artist; the novel is a unique montage of styles and genres that resist the laws of conventional narration to brilliant effect. Just superb!

ITALIAN WAR DIARIES: A CHILL IN THE AIR & WAR IN VAL D’ORCIA by Iris Origo

Set during the Second World War and seen from Italy’s perspective, both A Chill in the Air and War in Val d’Orcia are Iris Origo’s real-time war diaries covering the periods 1939-1940 and 1943-1944 respectively, a record of daily life in her adopted country in conflict. Iris was Anglo-American married to an Italian, and much before the war the couple bought and revived a derelict stretch of the Val d’Orcia valley in Tuscany and created an estate. At the height of the war, and at great personal risk, the Origos gave food and shelter to partisans, deserters, and refugees. While A Chill in the Air captures the mood of the Italian people just before Italy entered into the war reluctantly siding with Germany, War in Val D’Orcia records a slew of events at the height of the war.  Both published diaries are first-hand accounts of the complexity of Italy’s position, the politics prevailing at the time, and the difficulty of going about daily life. These are books filled with a mix of facts, anecdotes, and her astute observations on the extraordinary scenes unfolding around her. 

IZA’S BALLAD by Magda Szabó (Translated from Hungarian by George Szirtes)

On the death of her husband Vince, Ettie goes to live with her daughter Iza in her flat in Budapest. Ettie is ecstatic at first, she looks forward to spending quality time with her beloved daughter, but alas things unfold quite differently. The first days of adjustment in the big, bustling city of Budapest are particularly hard for Ettie who has spent most of her time in a village taking comfort in its familiarity and sense of community. Pest frightens her, and with Iza too immersed in her career and social life, Ettie’s sense of isolation only heightens.

One of the biggest strengths of the novel is Szabó’s superb characterization. Ettie and Iza are such brilliantly etched, fully realised characters, and Szabó particularly excels in showing how their diametrically opposite personas and outlook set the stage for heartache and tragedy. The two are as unalike as chalk and cheese. Ettie is warm, Iza is frozen. For Ettie the past is an anchor, while Iza is forward-thinking, her gaze settled on the future. Ettie craves companionship, Iza wants to be alone. Iza’s Ballad, then, is a piercing, unflinching examination of a complicated mother-daughter relationship, a striking depiction of two women who are poles apart. 

THE WOMAN WHO BORROWED MEMORIES: SELECTED STORIES by Tove Jansson (Translated from Swedish by Thomas Teal & Silvester Mazzarella)

Tove Jansson’s The Woman Who Borrowed Memories is a sublime collection of short stories displaying Jansson’s delicate touch and mastery of the form complete with rich characterisations, evocative and often solitary settings, and keen insights on the nuances of human relationships. This collection comprises 26 stories assembled from five books (The Listener, The Doll’s House, Traveling Light, Letters from Klara, and Messages: Selected Stories) published between 1971 and 1998 and showcases Jansson’s incredible range. 

“The Listener” is a beautifully expressed, poignant character study of an aging woman losing her sense of self as well as a meditation on loneliness and finding a purpose. “Black-White” is an homage to the talented artist and illustrator Edward Gorey; a story that dwells on the process of creating art with the artist’s sometimes obsessive tendency to strive for perfection. Another favourite “The Cartoonist” is a marvellous, unsettling piece on the price of ambition and the perils associated with the commercialization of art, while jealousy and rivalry take centre stage in “The Doll’s House”, which begins on an innocuous note but steadily descends into violence. 

In graceful, sensitive prose that is filled with air and light, Jansson’s deceptively simple and enchanting writing style transforms into something profound as the stories progress often belying the darker undercurrents flowing underneath.

THUS WERE THEIR FACES by Silvina Ocampo (Translated from Spanish by Daniel Balderston)

In this anthology, Balderston has included around 42 stories from a substantial body of work, an exhaustive but brilliant collection that vividly gives a flavour of Ocampo’s astonishing imagination where she revels in challenging the conventional and distorting the way the reader sees things. We begin with “Forgotten Journey” and “Strange Visit”, two short sketches that dwell on the bewildering mysteries of childhood and the loss of innocence. Next, running to over 60 pages, the novella-length “The Impostor” is a dark, atmospheric tale of friendship and madness shimmering with mystery and menace with a surprising reveal towards the end. One of my favourites, “The House Made of Sugar”, is a masterful and enigmatic exploration of a doomed marriage and the idea of doubles. 

Elsewhere, in “The Clock House”, a hunchbacked watchmaker is lulled into a village feast as the prominent guest where he becomes the victim of a monstrous turn of events; while in “The Photographs”, a girl with prosthetic boots is subject to a battery of photographs with her family and is so exhausted by the end that she appears ‘asleep’ at the dinner table. The stories listed here are, of course, just a few examples from a vast collection and there are many more to whet the appetite. These are tales that shimmer with dreams, visions, and fantastical happenings showcasing Ocampo’s vivid imagination, a flair for the sinister, and her refusal to conform to conventional structures of storytelling. 

YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN by Dorothy Baker

Young Man with a Horn has been inspired by the “music of Bix Beiderbecke”, an influential jazz soloist and composer in the 1920s, although the life and music trajectory of its protagonist Rick Martin has not been modeled on Bix’s life. The prologue at the start of the novel gives the reader a fair idea of Rick Martin’s short but dramatic career as a jazz musician – his gradual ascent in the world of music to become the golden boy of jazz only to culminate in a string of disappointments, heavy drinking, and death.

Rick is an orphan but from the very beginning, he displays talent and flair for music, although with not much opportunity to harness that passion largely because of his circumstances. Once employed at Gandy’s Pool Hall, he meets Smoke Jordan, a black aspiring drummer and a tentative employee and the two immediately slide into an easy friendship fuelled by their passion for jazz. At its very core, Young Man with a Horn is an exploration of music, male friendship, ambition, obsession, and transcending racial boundaries. Some of the racial terms used in the book might be hard to digest for modern readers (I did find quite a few of them jarring), but I was reluctant to judge Baker by today’s sensibilities given that the book was published in 1938. The novel is not always perfect, but Baker’s rendering of the jazz world – practice sessions, recordings, the kinship between musicians – and her beautiful portrayal of male friendship alone make it well worth reading. 

The Five-Star Reread

I first read this novel about a decade ago and that too on Kindle, and I remember being so impressed then. So when NYRB Classics recently reissued it, I had to buy a copy, and #NYRBWomen23 was incentive enough to read the book again in its brand-new avatar.

IN A LONELY PLACE by Dorothy B. Hughes

In A Lonely Place is a terrific novel – a great combination of mood and atmosphere laced with Hughes’ brilliant, hard-edged, nourish-style writing and a fascinating protagonist (Dix Steele) whose actions are as shadowy and black as the fog that envelops and obscures the city of Los Angeles in the night. I also loved the portrayal of the two women, Laurel and Sylvia; personality-wise, like ‘fire and ice’ respectively.

Violence, paranoia, the banality of evil, and the emptiness of post-war life are some of the themes that form the essence of In a Lonely Place; it’s an intense, suspenseful tale, superbly crafted in the way it is told through a killer’s perspective.

The Dark Horse

In Kathryn Scanlan’s magnificent Kick the Latch is a striking vignette titled “This Horse, This Race”, in which a half-blind racehorse called Dark Side, expertly trained by our narrator Sonia, astonishingly goes on to win the race against all odds. I was reminded of that piece when thinking about my response to this novel – I was aware of this book/biography and the author it focused on (I’d read some of her novels several years ago), but I don’t think it’s been widely reviewed and so it always stayed on the fringes of my reading pile. I didn’t have great expectations, I expected to like it and that’s it. But I was surprised at how good it was, so much so that out of nowhere it went on to become one of the best books I read this year.

THE MIRADOR: DREAMED MEMORIES OF IRÈNE NÉMIROVSKY BY HER DAUGHTER by Élisabeth Gille (Translated from French by Marina Harss)

The Mirador is no ordinary biography. The byline below the title reads “Dreamed Memories of Irène Némirovsky by her Daughter” which is to say Gille has breathed life into her mother by giving her a voice and thus positioned this as a memoir. What we read, therefore, is a first-person narrative giving the impression that it is Irène herself who is speaking directly to us.

The Mirador comprises two sections – the first is Némirovsky’s imagined memoir penned in 1929 covering her childhood in Russia and Paris amid sweeping changes and a rapidly evolving political landscape; while the somber and hauntingly sad second section fast forwards to 1942, days before her arrest at a time when she was living in precarious circumstances with her husband and two young daughters in a small French village, isolated with a deep sense of foreboding with regards the future.

Élisabeth Gille traverses the zenith and nadir of her mother’s glittering but cruelly short life; The Mirador is not only a brilliant, immersive, and deeply humane account of Irène Némirovsky’s life lived in tumultuous Russia and France, but also a window into her legacy and fame as a writer par excellence.

The Hidden Treasure

I had absolutely no idea that this novel existed; the bigger revelation was that NYRB Classics published it! At least I had heard of The Mirador; of this novel I was clueless and it went unnoticed when I first glanced at Kim’s schedule. But somewhere in the third or fourth month, when I had read some excellent books and knew I was in till the end, I had a look at the list again and this book popped out. The blurb was intriguing, I bought it, and it turned out to be another amazing surprise really, a hidden gem discovered!

THE TEN THOUSAND THINGS by Maria Dermoût (Translated from Dutch by Hans Koning)

A novel of “shimmering strangeness” as aptly described by the blurb at the back of this NYRB edition, the opening chapter in Maria Dermoût’s magical and enigmatic The Ten Thousand Things reverberates with a mesmeric, otherworldly quality as we are transported to the verdant, exotic spice islands of Indonesia called the Moluccas. This chapter is a masterclass in scene setting, conveying a dazzling sense of place, a fascinating blend of myth with reality where the wonders of the island are as fascinating as the evils that lurk within it. Subsequent chapters dwell on Felicia who is our protagonist and in many ways the pulse of the novel, outlining the course of her life right from childhood to old age, a bulk of which is spent on the island with particular emphasis on her relationship with her grandmother and her son.   

The novel is a glittering mix of stories of menace, myths, legends, and a lush, hypnotic vista against which the individual histories of Felicia and her family are juxtaposed. These are stories seamlessly woven into a rich tapestry of love, loss, loneliness, nostalgia, and memory transforming the novel into one of immense beauty.

SECTION TWO

#NYRBWOMEN23: THE ONES I READ IN PREVIOUS YEARS – A BRIEF GLIMPSE OF SOME SUPERB BOOKS

Because I had read them in previous years, I did not join in for these books, but I’ll just briefly write about them with links to my reviews and mini write-ups. I thought they were all excellent with most making it to my ‘best of’ list in the year I read them.

SCHOOL FOR LOVE by Olivia Manning

Set during the last few years of World War Two, a poignant, coming-of-age story of the young and orphaned Felix Latimer who arrives all alone in Jerusalem after his mother’s death to lodge with the miserly Miss Bohun. The acute loneliness felt by Felix in the initial pages has particularly stayed with me.

A VIEW OF THE HARBOUR by Elizabeth Taylor

A beautifully written, nuanced story of love, aching loneliness, stifled desires, and the claustrophobia of a dead-end seaside town focusing on a memorable ensemble cast. Top-tier Taylor for me.

OUR SPOONS CAME FROM WOOLWORTHS by Barbara Comyns

A gripping tale about a young woman’s life gone astray but narrated in a voice that is quite captivating and fresh. Our narrator is Sophia Fairclough, and despite her seemingly unending trials and tribulations, it’s the beguiling nature of her storytelling that makes the book so compelling.

MORE WAS LOST by Eleanor Perényi

An absorbing, immersive, and fabulous memoir in which Eleanor Perényi (who was American) writes about the time she spent managing an estate in Hungary in the years just before the Second World War broke out. It is also a fascinating look at history, particularly the dramatic upheavals in the Central and Eastern European region, and the profound and life-altering impact it had on the people living there.

EVE’S HOLLYWOOD by Eve Babitz

Through these essays and striking pieces, Babitz talks about her love for L.A., the importance of beauty, her preference for individuality and life as an adventuress, her tryst with LSD, a stream of unforgettable people she meets including friends and lovers; all in her singular voice – chatty, intelligent, charming, witty and worldly-wise.

THE BRIDGE OF BEYOND by Simone Schwarz-Bart (Translated from French by Barbara Bray)

Set in the French Antillean island of Guadeloupe, this is a lush, intoxicating tale of love and wonder, mothers and daughters, the grim legacy of slavery, and the story of the protagonist Telumee and the proud line of Lougandor women from who she continues to draw strength.

SEDUCTION AND BETRAYAL by Elizabeth Hardwick

I never ended up writing about this collection of essays when I read it in 2019 (I wish I had) but I remember liking the pieces on Ibsen’s plays, the Brontës and Sylvia Plath. Sorry for not writing more!

BASIC BLACK WITH PEARLS by Helen Weinzweig

A haunting, dream-like narrative of a Toronto housewife, an existentially trapped woman, seeking excitement and meaning in life by having an affair with the enigmatic Coenraad, a spy. I loved it, it was quite unlike anything I’d read then. The group’s discussion on Twitter was fabulous and I regret not having joined in for a reread.

GOOD BEHAVIOUR by Molly Keane

A country house novel and a dark tale of a dysfunctional family set against the backdrop of Ireland’s fading aristocracy and crumbling estates with a naïve, lonely, and unreliable narrator at its heart.

SECTION THREE

#NYRBWOMEN24: WHAT I PLAN TO READ

So, as we approach Christmas and New Year, it’s time to look forward to #NYRBWomen24. As I write this, Kim has already released the schedule; a combination of books I’d read previously and ones I haven’t. So after much thought, I have decided on 12 books of the 23 as of now (picture below of the 11 books I have). Most are ones I’ll be reading for the first time with a couple of rereads thrown in.

Books I Have and Haven’t Read

The nine I’m definitely joining in for:

1. Earthly Signs: Moscow Diaries 1917-1922 by Marina Tsvetaeva (tr. from Russian by Jamey Gambrell)
2. Other Worlds: Peasants, Pilgrims, Spirits, Saints by Teffi (tr. from Russian by Robert Chandler, Elizabeth Chandler, and Others)
3. Käsebier Takes Berlin by Gabriele Tergit (tr. from German by Sophie Duvernoy)
4. Last Words from Montmartre by Qiu Miaojin (tr. from Chinese by Ari Larissa Heinrich)
5. Life with Picasso by Françoise Gilot and Carlton Lake
6. The Fawn by Magda Szabó (tr. from Hungarian by Len Rix)
7. Don’t Look At Me Like That by Diana Athill
8. Divorcing by Susan Taubes
9. During the Reign of the Queen of Persia by Joan Chase

Two Potential Rereads (Taylor & Comyns) – An Interesting Coincidence

Of the books on the #NYRBWomen24 list, I’ve read nine; at first glance, I wasn’t planning to reread any, but then two names jumped out – Elizabeth Taylor and Barbara Comyns, two of my favourite authors in recent years. But here’s an interesting aspect – My first ever Taylor and my first ever Comyns was A Game of Hide and Seek and The Vet’s Daughter respectively, and I read both novels several years ago and loved them. So now I’m excited to revisit both books with a chance this time to write about them too.

Meanwhile, of the remaining seven books I’ve read, barring Anna Seghers’ Transit, I have written about all on this blog and will share my reviews as and when the books are in focus.

A Book I Don’t Have Yet But Wish to Read

Mary Olivier: A Life by May Sinclair

Here’s an enticing extract from the blurb – “Mary grows up in a world of her own, a solitude that leaves her free to explore her deepest passions, for literature and philosophy, for the austere beauties of England’s north country, even as she continues to attend to her family” – Okay, I’m sold, and I loved the cover too. I’ve placed an order on Blackwell’s and a copy is on its way to me.

That’s it, folks! Sorry for the rambling post, but I’m so glad that Kim is continuing with this reading project next year and I’m excited to discover some literary gems.

Wishing you much joy this festive season,

Radhika (Radz Pandit)

A Month of Reading – November 2023

I read some excellent books in November and could read more thanks to some novellas thrown into the mix, as part of my contribution to the ‘Novellas in November’ reading project hosted by Cathy and Rebecca. I also participated in Kim’s #NYRBWomen23 readalong and to me the Jansson was the last book on this stellar list (I’ve already read the December selections in previous years) and I’m so glad this readalong ended on such a high, I’ll be back next year for #NYRBWomen24. In a nutshell, November was predominantly a month of short stories and novellas. All the books were great, but if I had to pick favourites it would be the Kerangal and the Frankau.

So, here’s a brief look at the six books…You can read the detailed reviews on each by clicking on the title links.

ROMAN STORIES by Jhumpa Lahiri (Translated from Italian by Jhumpa Lahiri & Todd Portnowitz)

Roman Stories by Jhumpa Lahiri is a quiet, contemplative, excellent collection of nine short stories at the heart of which lies the theme that is so central to her writing – the experiences of the immigrant or the outsider – but this time set in the pulsating, vibrant capital of Italy.

“The Boundary” is a beautifully penned story of family, city versus country life, trauma, and the pleasures of simple living set in an unnamed village in the Italian countryside, and told from the perspective of a caretaker’s daughter. One of my favourites “P’s Parties” unspools languorously and is a stunning piece on friendships, community, loss in its myriad forms, and unexpected bonds. “The Steps”, one of the longer stories in the collection, is excellent in the way a particular place in the Italian capital forms the vantage point from which the lives of six residents encompassing varied social spheres are explored, while “Dante Alighieri” is another wonderful story of reinvention, living life on your own terms, and the crucial crossroads that mark this journey

Written in spare, elegant language, Lahiri’s writing is subtle and intimate, the sentences simple but imbued with much depth. A tinge of melancholy pervades these stories and heightens their haunting power suffused with a lingering sense of what’s been lost or could have been. Roman Stories, then, is another fine collection from Jhumpa Lahiri once again showcasing her mastery of the short story form.

MY DEATH by Lisa Tuttle

Lisa Tuttle’s My Death is a wonderfully uncanny, subversive tale of artists and creativity, identity, and the erasure of women in the world of art.

A writer by profession, we are told how our unnamed narrator has lost her mojo for conjuring up stories, especially since her beloved husband, Allan’s death. Utterly adrift but realising the need for change, she sets up a meeting with her agent Selwyn in Edinburgh. On the appointed day, our narrator visits the National Gallery where a painting stops her in her tracks. Titled “Circe” and painted by the artist W.E. Logan in 1928, we learn that Logan’s muse for this painting was the young art student Helen Ralston who, flattered by Logan’s interest in her, leaves America to study art in Glasgow. Our narrator is suddenly inspired to write a biography on Helen Ralston about whom not much is known or written, and is pleasantly surprised to learn that Ralston is still alive albeit quite old.

However, when the meeting between the creator and her subject takes place, things take a peculiar, unsettling turn, when uncannily the lives of Helen Ralston and our narrator begin to intertwine…

EASTBOUND by Maylis de Kerangal (Translated from French by Jessica Moore)

Set aboard the Trans-Siberian Express, Eastbound is a stunning, propulsive, and suspenseful novella of fugitives, flight, and freedom. A young conscript Aliocha, barely twenty, is travelling with a slew of men of his ilk to some godforsaken outpost in Siberia. Right till the last moment, Aliocha refuses to believe that he will be forced to sign up for military service even when all his attempts to avoid conscription prove futile. Now he is on the train galloping towards an unknown destination beset by dread, entrapment, and the driving urgency to escape.

And yet, the strange workings of Fate throw him a lifeline. He meets Hélène, an older Frenchwoman in her 40s, who we learn is also a fugitive although Aliocha has no inkling of this at the time. As this fast and furious, adrenaline-charged novella hurtles towards its conclusion, Aliocha and Hélène will encounter some heart-stopping moments that could thwart their uneasy alliance and derail their journey toward freedom. 

Thundering like a juggernaut, and teeming with nerve-wracking tension, Eastbound soars thanks to Kerangal’s gorgeous, haunting prose with its musical cadences and potent energy.

A WREATH FOR THE ENEMY by Pamela Frankau

Pamela Frankau’s A Wreath for the Enemy – a wonderful coming-of-age tale of family, morality, friendships, and navigating the treacherous terrain of growing up, alternately set in the glittering Riviera and the quiet English countryside.

A montage of distinct voices and first-person narratives, the book is divided into three sections, each section told from a different point of view. The first part called “The Duchess and the Smugs” is narrated by Penelope Wells, our unforgettable charming heroine with a singular style of speech and a bohemian upbringing. Longing for an environment of peace and stability, Penelope is entranced by the Bradley family next door and spends time with the two children, but a tragedy at the end of the first section will teach Penelope not to take her freedom for granted plus she will finally see the Bradleys for who they are.

The point of view shifts in the second section which is now told from Don Bradley’s perspective in the first person and charts his friendship with the crippled genius Crusoe, while in the final section called “The Road by the River”, we are back with Penelope, but this is also a section where a panoply of narratives are introduced notably those of Cara de Bretteville and Livesey Raines, two characters who take centre stage in the final part and whose lives collide with that of Penelope.

By turns tender, wise, and perceptive, shimmering with lively tête-à-têtes and lush settings, A Wreath for the Enemy is a glorious, beautifully rendered novel about love, death, freedom, friendships, and forgiveness. 

THE WOMAN WHO BORROWED MEMORIES: SELECTED STORIES by Tove Jansson (Translated from Swedish by Thomas Teal & Silvester Mazzarella)

Tove Jansson’s The Woman Who Borrowed Memories is a sublime collection of short stories displaying Jansson’s delicate touch and mastery of the form complete with rich characterisations, evocative and often solitary settings, and keen insights on the nuances of human relationships. This collection comprises 26 stories assembled from five books (The Listener, The Doll’s House, Traveling Light, Letters from Klara, and Messages: Selected Stories) published between 1971 and 1998 and showcases Jansson’s incredible range. 

“The Listener” is a beautifully expressed, poignant character study of an aging woman losing her sense of self as well as a meditation on loneliness and finding a purpose. “Black-White” is an homage to the talented artist and illustrator Edward Gorey; a story that dwells on the process of creating art with the artist’s sometimes obsessive tendency to strive for perfection. Another favourite “The Cartoonist” is a wonderful, unsettling piece on the price of ambition and the perils associated with the commercialization of art, while jealousy and rivalry take centre stage in “The Doll’s House”, which begins on an innocuous note but steadily descends into violence. 

In graceful, sensitive prose that is filled with air and light, Jansson’s deceptively simple and enchanting writing style transforms into something profound as the stories progress often belying the darker undercurrents flowing underneath.

GHACHAR GHOCHAR by Vivek Shanbhag (Translated from Kannada by Srinath Perur)

Vivek Shanbhag’s Ghachar Ghochar is a smartly-written, unsettling novella on the erosion of values, egos in relationships, and the evils of capitalism observed through the prism of one family, while also being an astute portrayal of middle-class urban India.

The book opens in a bar and restaurant called the Coffee House where our troubled unnamed narrator, a young man, is seeking refuge from the problems back home. What has particularly unnerved him is a nasty incident several days ago, an ensuing family fight, and its disturbing implications. Subsequent chapters flesh out the characters in greater detail which also provides a window to the family’s middle-class, humble origins; we get more details about the joint family he lives in with his wife Anita consisting of his parents Appa and Amma, his uncle Chikkappa, and his sister Malati. The novella enters a dark place in its feverish, final pages, insinuating a scenario that is frightening yet entirely plausible.

At barely a little over 100 pages, Ghachar Ghochar (slang for something messy and entangled), then, subtly touches on a wide range of topics – fragile family dynamics, gender politics, but more importantly how tensions over money can deteriorate relationships – and is immensely readable.

That’s it for November. In December, I’m reading The Oppermanns by Lion Feuchtwanger, a brilliant novel so far but one that is also filling me with dread. I hope to write a review as soon as I finish. More importantly, plan to release “My Best Books of 2023” list around mid-December, so watch this space!

The Woman Who Borrowed Memories: Selected Stories – Tove Jansson (tr. Thomas Teal & Silvester Mazzarella)

Earlier this year, Unburied Books (a podcast that discusses NYRB Classics) held the NYRB Champion competition on Twitter where readers had to vote for their favourite authors in a slew of match-ups that would lead to the eventual crowning of the NYRB Champion. Tove Jansson was one of the authors featured in the draw, and amid all the noise, she very quietly and steadily emerged as the winner! I was one of the many who voted for her consistently and for a reason. She’s a brilliant writer and I’ve loved all the books of hers I’ve read so far – The True Deceiver, The Summer Book, Art in Nature, and Notes from an Island – with more to look forward to. The Woman Who Borrowed Memories was one of the November selections for Kim’s marvellous reading project #NYRBWomen23, and as expected was another brilliant read.

Tove Jansson’s The Woman Who Borrowed Memories is a sublime collection of short stories displaying Jansson’s delicate touch and mastery of the form complete with rich characterisations, evocative and often solitary settings, and keen insights on the nuances of human relationships. This collection comprises 26 stories assembled from five books (The Listener, The Doll’s House, Traveling Light, Letters from Klara, and Messages: Selected Stories) published between 1971 and 1998 and showcases Jansson’s incredible range. As usual, it is difficult to write about this vast collection in its entirety, so I will focus on only a few of the stories that will give an overall flavour of the collection.

The first story and one of my favourites is “The Listener”, a beautifully expressed, poignant character study of an aging woman losing her sense of self as well as a meditation on loneliness and finding a purpose. Aunt Gerda, “a quiet, well-to-do woman of ordinary appearance” is the listener of this story (“Aunt Gerda had always been a good listener, aided perhaps by her difficulty in expressing herself and by her lack of curiosity”).

She might not be good-looking or a striking raconteur, but she is renowned for her considerate letter-writing skills (“Not brilliant, of course, not amusing, but in her letters Aunt Gerda took up and examined every detail communicated to her without ever subjecting her correspondents to meddlesome advice”).

Reading one of Aunt Gerda’s letters was exciting, like reliving one’s own experiences, only this time dramatized and clarified on a wider stage, with a Greek chorus observing and underlining the action. And with the certain assurance that she would never reveal the confidences with which she was so often rewarded.

But then gradually, with the passage of time, Aunt Gerda begins to lose her touch. Her letters arrive too late with lame excuses and even content-wise they have lost something of their earlier warmth and magic. No one can explain this deterioration, least of all Aunt Gerda herself, but this change distresses her.

When a person loses what might be called her essence – the expression of her most beautiful quality – it sometimes happens that the alteration widens and deepens and with frightening speed overwhelms her entire personality. This is what happened to Aunt Gerda.

Reduced to a shadow of her former self and no longer sought after by her family and acquaintances, Aunt Gerda’s sense of isolation deepens.

Not many of them called Aunt Gerda that winter and spring. Her apartment grew very quiet and peaceful, she listened only to the elevator or sometimes to the rain. She often sat at her window and watched the change of seasons.

But then in a valiant attempt to find her bearings, Aunt Gerda embarks on a project that gives her a sense of purpose and that too with interesting results.

“His wife’s name was Stella, and she was an interior designer – Stella, his beautiful star.” Thus begins the next story “Black-White”, an homage to the talented artist and illustrator Edward Gorey; a story that dwells on the process of creating art with the artist’s sometimes obsessive tendency to strive for perfection. In the beginning, we get a picture of a happy couple living “in a house that Stella had designed, an enormous openwork of glass and unpainted wood.” Life goes on as usual, but then one November Gorey bags a commission that excites and intrigues him. He is required to illustrate a collection of short stories with full-page illustrations, and while the stories themselves seem unremarkable, Gorey nevertheless aims to aim for perfection in this project. His vision involves bringing out shades of grey and black in his images, but alas, the bright, light-filled rooms in their house thwart his attempts to arrive at the perfect colour, greatly irritating him. Gorey longs for seclusion, to be holed up in a room that can be closed and is not as transparent as glass. Understanding what Gorey needs, Stella suggests living for a few weeks in her aunt’s old, empty house, and Gorey is grateful. Soon, his project flourishes but with disastrous consequences.

Another favourite “The Cartoonist” is a wonderful, unsettling piece on the price of ambition and the perils associated with the commercialization of art. A young cartoonist, Sam Stein, is employed by a leading newspaper to step into the shoes of his predecessor – the popular and famous Allington who one fine day suddenly decides to step down. Allington is the creator of Blubby, a comic strip that has run for 20 fruitful years, guaranteeing his success.

Not ready to tamper with something that has worked so well, the newspaper decides to keep the comic strip running without Allington’s absence being noticed by his loyal readers, but this would involve hiring another artist to continue the strip in Allington’s name. That responsibility falls on the shoulders of rising cartoonist Sam Stein, and while the job is by no means a piece of cake, Stein rises to the challenge. Working in Allington’s room and surrounded by his paraphernalia, Stein remains tormented by the suspense surrounding Allington’s disappearance and he wishes to dig deeper into the incident.

All he wanted was to try and find Allington. He needed to understand. He had a seven-year contract and he needed to be calmed or alarmed, one or the other, but he had to know.

What he subsequently discovers depresses him even further and he begins to question his sanity and the merits of his profession.

Jealousy and rivalry take centre stage in “The Doll’s House”, which begins on an innocuous note but steadily descends into violence. The artist in this tale is Alexander, an upholsterer of the old school, exceptionally skilled with a “craftsman’s natural pride in his work.” Alexander has lived in an apartment for 20 years with Erik, a banker by profession. Despite their vocations being as different as chalk and cheese, both men “have the same respect for lovely objects.” A day dawns when Alexander finally hangs up his boots and sells his upholstery workshop, while Erik retires from the bank.

They put Alexander’s samples in a cupboard and drank champagne to celebrate their new freedom.

Adapting to their new circumstances is difficult at first…

In fact, he (Alexander) didn’t care about reading as much as he once had. Perhaps books had tantalized him only as a stolen luxury in the middle of a working day.

But then Alexander is struck by the idea of building a doll’s house; a hobby that completely engrosses him to the point of obsession. Cracks begin to appear in his relationship with Erik who is relegated to the role of cooking and cleaning, while Alexander continues to be absorbed in his newfound passion. And when Alexander strikes up a friendship with a man who shares his zeal for the doll house, Erik’s role in the household further diminishes, a development that has repercussions.

Accurate portrayal of a part in a play or film requires study and research and this path takes an unexpected and novel turn in “A Leading Role”.

It was the biggest part she’d ever been given, but it didn’t suit her, it didn’t speak to her.

In this tale, our protagonist, Maria Mickelson, is a theatre actress who is expected to portray a timid woman called Ellen, a proposition she considers challenging (“An insignificant, anxious, middle-aged woman, an obliterated creature without any personality whatsoever!”). But then she realizes that the role entrusted to her bears an uncanny resemblance to the personality of her distant cousin, Frida. Taking advantage of the fact that Frida is enamoured by the glamour of the theatre milieu, Maria invites Frida to spend a few days with her at their desolate house in the country.

It was early summer, and she had driven out to their country house to open it for the season. The weather was dreadful, an ice-cold fog as grey and impenetrable as the role of Ellen. Down by the dock, the reeds vanished out into the empty nothingness of the lake, and the spruce trees were black with moisture. The fog forced its way into the house and the fire wouldn’t burn.

Nostalgia for home, fractured relationships between siblings, and the struggle to blend in with the crowd forms the essence of the story “A Memory of the New World”, while in “Locomotives” a draughtsman’s obsession with drawing trains provides a sinister twist to a love story.

 “The Summer Child” is another excellent story, the initial premise reminded me of Elizabeth Taylor’s The Devastating Boys, although they are ultimately vastly different. Following an advertisement and arrangements made by his father, Elis, a city boy comes to live with the lively Fredrikson family for a few months to experience country life and get some fresh air. The Fredrikson family comprises the parents Axel and Hanna and their children Tom, Oswald, and little Camilla. But Elis turns out to be utterly different from what they had imagined. Intensely morose and filled with forebodings, Elis penchant for gloom and doom coupled with the alacrity with which he doles out dire warnings on climate, politics, and the inhumanity of the world at large begins to take its toll on the family. The elder son Tom, being the same age as Elis and therefore saddled with him, is forced to bear the brunt of Elis’s miserable personality, until one day, when the boys are marooned on an island, things come to a head.

Jansson has a flair for the uncanny and two stories in this collection are particularly strange and unnerving. In the titular piece “The Woman Who Borrowed Memories” drenched in ambiguity, we learn of a woman, a famous artist, who visits her old house, now occupied by an old friend. As they converse and reminisce, the woman is deeply unsettled at how seamlessly the old friend has stolen her memories to the point that it is not clear who the actual victim is. “Shopping”, a dark and disturbing story focuses on a couple who are struggling to survive following an undefined apocalypse, both striving to maintain some façade of normality in a drastically altered world.

Jansson’s characters often seek independence and freedom, whether from societal expectations or personal constraints. In “Traveling Light”, a man fed up with the demands made on him by family, friends, and acquaintances, decides to up and quit. Carrying the barest of belongings, he embarks on a ship to an unknown destination which promises the intoxicating whiff of freedom. But as various persons aboard the ship begin to confess their troubles to him, the man wonders whether he has really managed to run away from the cares of this world.

In graceful, sensitive prose that is filled with air and light, Jansson’s deceptively simple and enchanting writing style transforms into something profound as the stories progress often belying the darker undercurrents flowing underneath; her sleight of hand is apparent in the way the lightness and brevity of her prose can carry the weight of her themes such as isolation and solitude, family, the complexity of human relationships, aging, the role of art and the intensity of the creative process, self-discovery and identity, the meaning of freedom, and the allure of island life.

Solitude – the subtle freedom it implies and the epiphanies that it brings in its wake – is one of Jansson’s trademark themes often blending with her deep connection with nature and the sea, the island featuring as a recurring motif in this regard. We see this theme playing out in “The Squirrel” where the protagonist’s familiar solitude is interrupted by the squirrel’s unexpected appearance as well as in “The Summer Child” when holed up on an island, the Fredrikson boy is struck by a new way of looking at things. Intertwined with these elements is the theme of isolation, both physical and emotional, which in many ways allows her characters moments of self-reflection.

Passion in the creation of art is also frequently touched upon. In “An Eightieth Birthday”, a young woman’s grandmother, renowned for painting trees, is respected for sticking to her strengths throughout her career without being swayed by fleeting trends (“your grandmother stuck to her own style and it was still there when all that other stuff had had its day”). In the same story, we see a supporting character sharing his views on passion…

“Passion. As you can see, I’ve lived quite a long time, which is to say I’ve been working for quite a long time, which is the same thing. And you know what? In the whole silly business, the only thing that really matters is passion. It comes and it goes. At first it just comes to you free of charge, and you don’t understand, and you waste it. And then it becomes a thing to nurture.”

We meet precocious children, zealous artists, lonely lovers, disconcerting doppelgangers and apocalypse survivors, peculiar old acquaintances, quarreling couples; singular, eccentric characters that heighten the appeal and magic of Jansson’s stories. I’ll conclude with a quote from Lauren Groff’s introduction to this edition – “We read Tove Jansson to remember that to be human is dangerous, but also breathtaking, beautiful.” Highly recommended!

2022 Honourable Mentions: Five Superb Short Story Collections

Last week, I released a post on My Best Books of 2022; books that gave me much joy this year and would heartily recommend. As I reflected on my reading, I noticed that I had read quite a few short story collections in 2022, certainly more than in previous years. Two of them – Tess Slesinger’s Time: The Present and Tove Ditlevsen’s The Trouble with Happiness – made it to my year end list. But there were five collections that despite not making the cut were still great.

This post is to highlight those five short story collections, sort of my ‘honourable mentions’ if you will (You can click on the links for detailed reviews)…

WE ARE FOR THE DARK by Robert Aickman & Elizabeth Jane Howard

We Are for the Dark is a wonderful collection of ghost stories written by both Robert Aickman and his lover at that time, Elizabeth Jane Howard (of The Cazalet Chronicles fame). First published by Cape in the autumn of 1951, it is a collection of 6 stories, 3 stories written by each. However, at the time, the stories were not individually credited and were presented as a collaboration between the two authors.

The best among these is Elizabeth Jane Howard’s ‘Three Miles Up’ -a perfectly paced, chilling story set on a boating trip through the canals of England; one where an atmosphere of menace and doom unfurls like a blanket over its characters as they navigate an alien canal, until it opens out into an ending that is truly terrifying. Click on the title for a more detailed write-up.

A POSTCARD FOR ANNIE by Ida Jessen (tr. from Danish by Martin Aitken)

A Postcard for Annie is a quiet, exquisite collection of short stories of ordinary lives; the highs and lows of marriage and family life told in lucid, restrained prose suffused with great emotional depth.

The first piece titled “An Excursion” is a beautiful story of a marriage, of how it changes people, of the ties that bind couples despite their differences, while “December is a Cruel Month” is a heartbreaking story on grief, loss, the tender and often tense relationships between parents and their children. In an “An Argument”, a married woman, as the title suggests, argues with her husband on how the physical intimacy between them has deteriorated, while “In My Hometown”, the last story in the collection, is a short piece told in the first person about village secrets, the private lives that people lead and how we don’t know people as well as we think we do.

Each of the six tales is drenched with a quiet beauty, marked by the author’s penetrating gaze into her characters’ outer lives and their innermost feelings.

ART IN NATURE by Tove Jansson (tr. from Swedish by Thomas Teal)

Art in Nature by Tove Jansson is a beautiful, beguiling collection comprising 11 short stories of art, ambition, loneliness, unusual relationships and family.

How we perceive art is an individual experience and one of the cornerstones of the first and titular story of the collection, while one of my favourites “The Cartoonist” is a wonderful, unsettling piece on the price of ambition and the perils associated with the commercialization of art.

The “Flower Child” is a dreamlike, other-worldly tale of loneliness and alienation while nostalgia for home, fractured relationships between siblings and the struggle to blend in with the crowd forms the essence of the story “A Memory of the New World.” A “Sense of Time” is a disorienting tale of losing your bearings where the line between dreams and reality gets blurred, while in “Locomotives” a draughtsman’s obsession with drawing trains provides a sinister twist to a love story.

The stories told in a simple, lucid and arresting style are often dark and disquieting but also drenched with wisdom, beautifully capturing the creative process.

DANCE MOVE by Wendy Erskine

Dance Move is a wonderful collection of short stories set mostly in Belfast; eleven tales of ordinary lives written with warmth, compassion and Erskine’s keen insight into human nature.

Typically, when we talk about short story collections, there are always some stories which really stand out, while some others fade away from the memory quickly. What’s great about Dance Move though is that there’s something memorable about each of the stories, although I do have my favourites.

The first, “Mathematics”, is a superbly penned tale of abandonment, unlikely bonds, and how our past can define the way we live the present, where Roberta, a cleaning woman, comes across an abandoned child in a room she is cleaning. One of my favourite stories, “Cell”, is a dark, devastating tale of control, imprisonment and neglect in communal settings fuelled by shaky political activism; while “Golem” is another excellent tale of mismatched relationships, of alternate lives that could have been lived.

Erskine’s storytelling is sublime, very down-to-earth, and each story is written with such tenderness and compassion. With her sensitive portrayal of fraught lives, she understands the psyche of her characters and is able to convey multitudes in a short space in her distinct expressive style (“What happened next, remembered so many times, is burnished and glittering and perfumed”). In a nutshell, Dance Move is a great collection, one I would whole-heartedly recommend.

CURSED BUNNY by Bora Chung (tr. from Korean by Anton Hur)

Cursed Bunny is a terrific collection of ten stories that merge the genres of horror, science fiction, magical realism and dream logic to explore a wide variety of themes that are possibly a commentary on the ills of Korean society, but which could simply be applied to any society where patriarchy and greed rules the roost.

“The Embodiment” is a disturbing tale of prospective motherhood, single parenting and how the idea of a family unit is heavily defined by conventional mores, while the titular story “Cursed Bunny” is a story within a story, a wonderful tale on the evils of capitalism which bolster greed and unfair business practices. Another favourite of mine is the story called “Snare”, a chilling, frightening tale of the gruesome aftermath of avarice. While a later story “Scars” is a violent, disquieting tale of imprisonment, the illusory notion of freedom and the price one has to pay for it.

The stories in Cursed Bunny are surreal, visceral and quite unlike anything I’ve read before, but they come with a unique, interior logic that works.

A Month of Reading – October 2022

October was a good month of reading. I read six books – a mix of early 20^th century literature, translated lit, a mini short story collection, and two books from Richardson’s Pilgrimage series – Oberland & Dawn’s Left Hand – for #PilgrimageTogether.  My favourites easily were the Barker and the Sherriff.

So, without further ado, here are the books…For detailed reviews on the first three you can click on the links.

GHOSTLY STORIES by Celia Fremlin  

My first brush with Celia Fremlin’s work was through her marvellous, unsettling novel – The Hours Before Dawn – which portrayed the travails of early motherhood with that extra dash of suspense. There is something similar at play here, in this collection called Ghostly Stories that in keeping with the Faber Stories format focuses on two tales, each centred on a house.

In both these concise works, Fremlin is in supreme command of her craft. These are short, sharp tales of great psychological depth, tales of domestic horror where the fears and perceived sense of threat comes not from otherworldly beings but from real people who are close to the protagonists.

Thwarted love, toxic relationships, how the ghosts of the past come back to haunt us in the present, and a succinct look into women’s lives are themes that vividly come alive on these pages. 

O CALEDONIA by Elspeth Barker

Elspeth Barker’s O Caledonia is a brilliant, immersive, haunting tale of an intelligent often misunderstood young woman who unable to conform to societal expectations seeks solace in books, animals and her wild, vivid imagination.  

The book opens with an arresting scene in an isolated Scottish castle. The play of filtered light on the stained-glass window refracts a splash of vibrant colours on the great stone staircase. And at the bottom of the stairs lies Janet, our protagonist, clad in her mother’s black evening gown “twisted and slumped in bloody, murderous death.”  The rest of the book then is a flashback that spans sixteen years as the reader is given an account of Janet’s short, turbulent life and the events leading to her death.

In Janet, Elspeth Barker has created a wonderful, brilliant character – nonconformist, dreamy and a misfit within the conventional boundaries of society. She is a doomed young girl but her fierce determination to remain true to herself and staunch refusal to be molded as per the dictates of others makes her utterly remarkable. The biggest highlight of O Caledonia though is Barker’s stunning writing. It’s truly a feast for the senses dotted with rich, kaleidoscopic imagery, lush language, dazzling manner of expression, and haunting dreamlike vibes. 

THE FORTNIGHT IN SEPTEMBER by R C Sherriff

The Fortnight in September is a beautiful, soothing novel about an ordinary family on holiday, an annual tradition they have adhered to over the years. The book opens with the Stevens family getting ready to embark on their journey. They are to leave for the seaside town of Bognor the next morning, preparations are in full swing and a sense of excitement is palpable. Mr Stevens, a thorough and meticulous man, has drawn up a “to-do” list called “Marching Orders” in the Stevens lexicon, with precise set of instructions on the various duties to be carried out by each family member before they lock up the house and set off.

Once at Bognor, the Stevens stay at the same guest house (‘Seaview’) as in the years before, but the gradual signs of decay and deterioration of the rooms and the furniture within are imminent and noticed by each of them in their own way.

The rest of the novel then charts the entire fortnight of the family holiday – lounging in the beach hut, swimming in the sea, hours of leisure on the golden sands soaking up the sun, and indulging in sports and games. That’s really the crux of the novel and as you can see it’s largely plotless and yet such a wonderful, immersive read because there are so many aspects of the Stevens’ personalities and travel mantras that are familiar and spot on. What’s truly remarkable about the novel are the character studies – the Stevens’ are ordinary people, not too financially well-off, but they have a goodness of heart that make them so memorable.

NOTES FROM AN ISLAND by Tove Jansson & Tuulikki Pietilä (Translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal)  

Tove Jansson’s wonderful novel The Summer Book was one of my favourites last year – a lovely, beguiling novel that in twenty-two crystalline vignettes captured the essence of summer and the unshakeable bond between a 6-year old girl and her grandmother, two unusual but fascinating characters. That book was inspired by the island of Bredskar which Tove often shared with her mother Ham and her brother Lars with his young daughter Sophia.

But for twenty-six summers, Tove and her life partner and artist Tuulikki (Tooti) would spend time on the austere, barren island of Klovharun, at the edge of the Pellinge archipelago in the Gulf of Finland. Whereas Bredskar was a warm, welcoming island, Klovharun in contrast was stark and desolate (“the preserve of warring gulls and terns”).

Tove and Tooti were enamoured by it though, and this lovely book goes on to tell us why Tove chose this island, the process of securing a building permit, the actual building of their home, the invigorating impact of absolute solitude and how day to day living was dictated by the elemental forces of nature – the raging thunderstorms and rough seas that often easily washed away all the hard work done the previous day.

And I know exactly what she meant – that we’ve tried to make the meadow into a garden, change the thicket into a park, tame the shore with a dock, and all the other things we’ve undeniably done wrong.

Okay, we make mistakes. What of it?

Sometimes it felt like unrequited love – everything exaggerated. I had the feeling that this immoderately pampered and badly treated island was a living thing that didn’t like us, or felt sorry for us, depending on the way we behaved, or just because.

Sometimes the joy of building is discussed (“sometimes we build things to be solid and lasting, and sometimes to be beautiful, sometimes both”), at other times Tove describes the sheer quietness all around when only two people live on an island (“It’s possible that living with one other person makes you quiet, at least on an island. The things you say are mostly just about everyday stuff, and if the everyday goes normally you say even less”).

The physical book itself is a beautiful object, a hardback edition that comprises Tove’s diary entries interspersed with terse, spare logbook entries by Brunstrom, the builder employed by the two women to make the island more habitable. Also included are excellent sepia-toned, copperplate etchings by Tooti – a calm, soothing accompaniment to Tove’s quiet, introspective musings.  Very much recommended if you love Tove Jansson’s work, which I do!

OBERLAND (PILGRIMAGE 4) by Dorothy Richardson

Oberland is the ninth installment in Dorothy Richardson’s Pilgrimage cycle of novels, afterPointed Roofs, Backwater, Honeycomb, The Tunnel, Interim, Deadlock, Revolving Lights and The Trap.

In Oberland, in a change of scene from London, we are transported to a ski resort – the hotel Alpenstock – in Switzerland where Miriam will spend the fortnight of her holiday. Here, Miriam will encounter a new set of people in particular Harry Vereker, a charming university man and the precocious young girl Daphne.

In many ways, there’s a travelogue feel to the book as Miriam marvels at the aching beauty of the snow clad slopes, the sheer whiteness of it, the fresh air and the invigorating walks in the company of the one person she most prefers – herself. On her walks, she observes people enjoying skiing and other winter sports, and Miriam herself attempts tobogganing for the first time and greatly enjoys it (reminiscent of The Tunnel where experiences the joys of bicycling).

In the last few chapters, Miriam attends a ski fest where she witnesses Vereker display his skiing prowess. Oberland is one of the shortest books in the Pilgrimage series, its highlight being the gorgeous descriptions of nature and the mountains that Richardson revels in, in particular her penchant for depicting the dazzling play of light on Miriam’s immediate surroundings.

The mountains were still wan against a cold sky, whitening the morning twilight with their snow.

How long to wait, with sleep gone that left no borderland of drowsiness, until the coming of their gold?

And in a moment she had seen forever the ruby gleaming impossibly from the topmost peak: stillness of joy held still for the breathless watching of the dark ruby, set suddenly like a signal upon the desolate high crag.

It could not last, would soon be plain sunlight.

DAWN’S LEFT HAND (PILGRIMAGE 4) by Dorothy Richardson

Dawn’s Left Hand is the tenth installment in the Pilgrimage series and immediately follows from Oberland above, where we find Miriam back in London.

After her failed experiment of sharing a room with Selina Holland at Flaxman Court, Miriam goes back to having her own lodgings again at Mrs Bailey’s. This is a book that sees Miriam get a marriage proposal, receive the attentions of a woman, and having sex for the first time. The marriage proposal comes from Dr Densley, who Miriam first meets in The Tunnel when treating the dubious Eleanor Dear for consumption. Miriam learns of Eleanor’s death from Dr Densley who later proposes to her, but Miriam is silent and the matter ends there.

At her club, Miriam also meets the beautiful, ethereal Amabel who is enamoured by Miriam and leaves a message on the mirror saying “I love you” during Miriam’s final days at Flaxman Court making her wonder how Amabel managed that feat with Selina around. Miriam is aware of Amabel’s deep feelings for her but as usual is not ready for a long commitment that would entail a loss of personal freedom.

Amabel. But Amabel will move on. And remain with me forever, a test, presiding over my life with others. She stands permanently in my view of life, embodying the changes she has made, the doors she has opened, the vitality she has added to my imagination of every kind of person on earth. And stands, too, insisting on marking the boundary, where she falls short and is in awe of me: of my ‘wisdom’ and, strangely, the strangest of all her ascriptions, of my ‘gift of speech.”

We know that in real life, Richardson had a brief affair with HG Wells (Hypo Wilson is modeled on him), which resulted in pregnancy and miscarriage. In the last chapter of Dawn’s Left Hand, Miriam and Hypo make love but in true characteristic Richardson style it is so obliquely described that it would be easy to miss it.

It was uncanny, but more absorbing than the unwelcome adventure of her body, to be thus hovering outside and above it in a darkness that obliterated the room and was too vast to be contained by it. An immense, fathomless black darkness through which, after an instant’s sudden descent into her clenched and rigid form, she was now travelling alone on and on, without thought or memory or any emotion save the strangeness of this journeying.

With the year drawing to a close, I enter the last phase of the Pilgrimage series, with 3 of the 13 books left to read.  

That’s it for October. November has begun on a terrific note; during a much needed beach holiday, I managed to read two excellent books – Louise Kennedy’s Trespasses and Mona Arshi’s Somebody Loves You. I am also reading Emeric Pressburger’s novel The Glass Pearls, a Faber Editions reissue, and the graphic memoir Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton and both so far have been excellent.