The Solace Of Fierce Landscapes (Belden C Lane): This is a rather special book… exploring desert and mountain spirituality. I love reading about mountains and deserts (over the years, I’ve read several books about them) – despite having never really experienced any of them first hand (and I have a fear of heights!). In some ways, I suppose I’d hoped that the book would help point the way out of my own spiritual wilderness, but it didn’t. But I did find it incredibly helpful in a variety of ways. I found his references to the lives of the desert fathers and mothers fascinating and also how these challenging locations and experiences haven’t just been limited to the Christian faith… the book contains numerous references to Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists as well as Tibetan mythology and Chinese traditions. I was relieved that the book wasn’t full of biblical references (these days, I find I’m struggling with a lot of biblical stuff!), but it did include words which resonated for me, such as: “If you cannot go into the desert, you must nonetheless ‘make some desert’ in your life”. It was good that Lane didn’t over-romanticise the desert and mountain experiences/references… and that he was able to point to some of the terrors and tussles of the wilderness/mountainous terrains as well as providing glimpses of their majesty. Throughout the book, the author interweaves his mother’s long struggle with Alzheimer’s and cancer with meditations of his own “wilderness experiences” – which I found both helpful and illuminating. I could write so much more on Lane’s book, but I think I’ll leave it at that. Beautifully written and something of an oasis, perhaps, for me.
More Work For The Undertaker (Margery Allingham): First published in 1949. The book focuses on Apron Street, an isolated neighbourhood in London… going ‘up Apron street’ has become a byword for a criminal vanishing. Undertakers are kept busy accordingly and bankers become involved with the eccentric Palinode family, which has inherited shares of stock once thought worthless. I’d read a number of Allingham novels, but had never really ‘warmed’ to her Campion character – unlike a number of my good friends who very much rate him. So, this was another attempt to become a fan… Yes, it’s an impressive, clever, complex storyline and, yes, I was rather more impressed by Campion, BUT I also found the novel rather annoying at times. There were far too many characters for my liking and it took me ages to get them clear(ish) in my head (on the other hand, it might just be my lack of intellect of course!). In addition, I frequently found Allingham’s written dialogues very confusing… and kept having to re-read them to discover who was actually speaking (again, it might just be me – but I did find this happening time after time). It took me about a third of the book to properly ‘get into the story’ and, once I did, found it intriguing. I’m a great lover of crime novels but, frankly, have yet to become a huge fan of Allingham’s writing (sorry!).
A Terrible Kindness (Jo Browning Wroe): It’s October 1966 and 19 year-old William Lavery has just qualified as an outstanding embalmer (I know!) and is about to celebrate at a posh black-tie dinner, but news comes through of a landslide at Aberfan… and there are lots of fatalities. Lavery feels the need to help as a volunteer. The story fluctuates from his time, nine years earlier, when he’s a chorister in Cambridge to perhaps 6 years beyond the Aberfan disaster. The novel’s about families, relationships, grieving and kindness (among other things). It’s very readable (I read the 380-page book in less than 3 days) and is full of quite moving passages… but I also found it somewhat annoying (and frequently predictable). I didn’t warm to the William character (or his mother) and frequently found the writing style and narrative (particularly in the first third of the book) somewhat clumsy and ungainly as far as character and dialogue were concerned. I became regularly irritated by what I felt was the author ‘showing off’ that she’d done her research about Aberfan, choristers, ‘pop music’ of the time, homophobia, embalmers and locations in the West Midlands (where she grew up) and Cambridge (where she now lives). The book-cover is full of glowing praise for the book – but I noticed that they ALL seemed from female writers/critics(?). To sum up: I enjoyed it and was exasperated by it in equal measure!
The High House (Jessie Greengrass): This incredibly moving novel describes the climate crisis as not just a possibility, but grounded in REALITY (as the book’s cover puts it: “You think you have time. And then, all at once, you don’t”). Perched on a hill above a village by the sea, the high house has a mill, a vegetable garden and a barn full of supplies. A girl and her younger half-brother arrive there one day and find it cared for by an elderly man and his granddaughter (I’ll the background details!). They learn to live together and care for one another… in a world that is fast disintegrating – islands are disappearing due to rising tides; weather extremes are becoming normal; the changing climate is even starting to have devastating effects on those privileged countries of the ‘western world’… in the UK, villages are being abandoned during the ‘winter’ months (and, even in the ‘summer’, are only occupied by those with second homes); flooding has become a dangerous reality for people who never imagined that their homes would be at risk etc etc. The novel doesn’t have a specific time-scale, but there are references to the grandfather listening to “Children’s Hour” on the radio as a youngster (so I suspect he was born around the same time as me – say 1949)… and, in the book, he’s reached a somewhat doddery ‘old age’ – so, I imagined the book being set perhaps ten or fifteen years hence(?). I’ve read a lot about the Climate Crisis (and all the frustrations that go with it – the lack of action by governments, including ours, throughout the world etc) and, yes, I appreciate that this is a novel and not an academic analysis but, for me, this book has provided the most effective and compelling description of the REALITY of the nature of the Climate Crisis we face and its imminent threat to our world. In the circumstances, it might seem rather frivolous to say that I REALLY enjoyed this book (but I did!). It’s beautifully written and, as the Sunday Times’ reviewer puts it: “full of elegant, resonant sentences about human fallibility, complacency, selfishness and our unquenchable capacity for love”. I think you definitely need to read this book.
Footnote: I started reading ‘The High House’ on the same day that I’d finished ‘Terrible Kindness’ and was immediately struck by the huge difference in the quality of the writing. Wroe’s ‘Kindness’ showed her skills as a storyteller (despite her ‘clunky’ writing style), whereas Greengrass’s ‘High House’ was altogether more impressive and accomplished (like suddenly being to relax when a brilliant actor arrives on stage and spoke his/her first lines and you just KNEW everything was going to be ‘ok’).
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