The Wild Silence (Raynor Winn): I read (and hugely enjoyed) Winn’s debut book ‘The Salt Path’… about her walking several hundred miles round England’s South West Coast Path with her husband, Moth - sleeping wild and virtually penniless after their home was lost to bailiffs (and, even worse, her husband had been diagnosed with corticobasal degeneration, an incurable brain disease). ‘The Wild Silence’ tells the story of how, despite never having written anything previously, she had decided to write the first book as a gift for Moth, a record of their (and particularly his) endurance and, following encouragement from their daughter, an enthusiastic publisher was found. ‘The Salt Path’ ended up catching the eye of Sam - a City trader with a dilapidated, neglected farm beside a creek in Cornwall - and he offered Winn and Moth a free tenancy in return for reviving the wildlife on the farm. Their relocation here, once again in search of natural healing and ‘proper’ home, is the premise of ‘The Wild Silence’.
At the start of the book, they were living in a small rented converted chapel and, without any physical connection to the land, Moth’s health was deteriorating quickly. Moving to the farm was a huge risk and involved massive amounts of work… but, between them, they rediscover a connection with nature. On the strength of the first book’s success, they decide to undertake another walk – this time to Iceland (something that seemed ridiculously onerous as far as Moth’s health was concerned). I have to say I found this section of the book something of distraction and longed for them to return to ‘life on farm’, but hey ho! Having said that, I did really enjoy the book – Winn is a very talented writer – and I found it wonderfully hopeful and encouraging… and also frequently quite moving.
Summerwater (Sarah Moss): I think this is the fifth Sarah Moss novel I’ve read. The setting is a group of wooden holiday cabins located beside a Scottish loch. The ‘action’ all takes place on a single day… each chapter focuses on one of the individuals occupying one of the cabins. There are no phone signals and, of course, it’s pouring with rain. Everyone is hiding something, it seems… and they each have opinions (accurate or wildly inaccurate) on their fellow holiday-makers. It’s a tense, unsettling novel (I’ve even read a review that described it as “somewhat pandemic”)… and the first chapter essentially infers that it’s not going to end well… which only adds to the tension. It’s beautifully observed and full of political and climate change references. In some ways, it reminded me of Max Porter’s “Lammy” (one of my favourite books). Very impressive.
Wise Children (Angela Carter): This is our next StorySmith bookgroup book. I’ve watched Emma Rice’s brilliant stage adaptation twice, but never read Carter’s 1991 book – until now. The novel follows the fortunes of twin chorus girls, Dora and Nora Chance and their bizarre theatrical family. Dora is the book’s narrator and she recounts her family history – a mix of ambition, greed and revenge; fathers and daughters; brothers and sisters; twins, mistaken identity, incest and adultery; family and forgiveness; love and loss; failure and success… but, essentially, about life and living. It’s wise, bawdy, vulgar, eloquent, life-affirming, very, very funny… and wonderfully written. It’s not a long book (230 pages or so) but, for some reason, it took me longer to read than I would have anticipated – perhaps this had something to do with trying to keep abreast of the wide array of characters and their complex, interconnected lives. Carter died at the tragically young age of 51 (she wrote the play after she knew she’d been diagnosed with lung cancer). Our bookgroup’s selection theme for this month was to come up with a book that would essentially make us smile (and take our minds off Covid-19, Brexit et al). Well, it certainly did that… quite a brilliant book.
The P-P-Penguin (Patrick Campbell): I first read this book nearly 50 years ago. My dog-eared copy was already second-hand when I bought it (first published in 1965) and I knew before I started re-reading it that it would something of a challenge to do so before it actually fell apart… but I persisted! If you’re old enough(!), you might recall that Campbell was a panellist on TV’s “Call My Bluff” show… and very funny he was on it too. This book is a collection of various newspaper articles/anecdotes he’d written over the years and I was surprised to discover that time seemed to have made them less amusing than I had remembered them (but tastes and fashions obviously change). While some of the collection DID make me laugh out loud, some just seemed rather dated and somewhat obscure. Having recently read books by both Alan Coren and Campbell, I think that, for me, Coren wins ‘hands down’.
Under The Frog (Tibor Fischer): This is my Bloke’s Books bookgroup’s latest book. The novel follows the adventures of two young Hungarian basketball players through the turbulent years between the end of WW2 and the revolution of 1956 (and influenced, no doubt, by the author’s parents’ accounts of their own experiences). The book’s cover includes the following description: “In this spirited indictment of totalitarianism, the two improbable heroes, Pataki and Gyuri, travel the length and breadth of Hungary in an epic quest for food, lodging, and female companionship”. It parodies the trumpeting of the ‘gains of socialism’ by the regime, which the author seems to suggest as being empty rhetoric – that all but the dimmest were able to see through even from the beginning. It was shortlisted for the 1993 Booker Prize, so I knew it was likely to be an impressive book… and yet, although impressively-written and full of bizarre humour (and poignancy), I was actually rather disappointed by it. I found the first 100 pages utterly tedious (yes, that’s probably just me!) and, although I ‘got into’ the book about half-way through (and found the final chapters quite impressive and powerful), I was somewhat relieved when I’d finished the book. It took me a full fortnight to read (very unusual for me). According to Wikipedia, ‘Under the Frog’ is taken from a Hungarian expression used to describe any situation when things can't seem to get any worse: "under a frog's arse, down a coalmine"… which doesn’t QUITE sum up my thoughts about the book, but I don’t think I’ll be re-reading it any time soon.
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