The One Who Wrote Destiny (Nikesh Shukla): I met Shukla at the launch of our local bookshop (StorySmith Books) in November and this is the second of his books I’ve read. This novel focuses on a Gujarati family settled in Bradford with roots in Kenya. It seems that the family is inter-generationally doomed by fate… with huge consequences for those left behind when young lives are tragically cut short. Covering three generations within a time-frame of 1966 to the present day, this is a funny, poignant, powerful story of family relationships, of things passed on between grandparents, parents and siblings, of frightening racist confrontations, of integration, of health and ageing, and ultimately of determination, defiance and hope. Growing up in Birmingham in the 1950s, I was well aware of colour prejudices and resentment issues (from my parents’ and grandparents’ generations – mine included)(although I never personally witnessed any racist violence). Sadly, today in the UK, some 70 years on, we’re experiencing similar despicable (but different) ‘hate crimes’ against refugees and immigrants. The book also dealt with the life of a particular individual being cut short by pulmonary fibrosis. Having myself being diagnosed (incorrectly, as it turned out) with the same terminal illness 18 months ago, it brought back all the same emotions and memories. I thought it was a quite brilliant book… and it’s given me much food for thought.
Ravilious and Co (Andy Friend): Everyone’s heard of Charleston and the Bloomsbury Group of artists, writers and thinkers, but far fewer will be familiar with the work of their contemporaries such as Eric Ravilious and his network of influential artists, including Paul and John Nash, Edward Bawden, Barnett Freedman, Enid Marx, Douglas Bliss, Percy Horton, Peggy Angus, Thomas Hennell, Helen Binyon and Tirzah Garwood (a somewhat less privileged group!). I’d previously read a fair amount about Ravilious (a memoir by artist Helen Binyon, a book of his High Street illustrations and his artist/wife’s wonderful autobiography ‘Long Live Great Bardfield’) and Friend’s book adds further superb detail to these (using access to diaries and letters from the time). The book also contained fascinating connections for me personally – reference to Ravilious and John Nash painting pleasure-steamers in Bristol in 1938 (Nash described Bristol as “the best port in England”!); Hennell’s time in a ‘mental’ hospital (St John’s Hospital, Aylesbury: the location of my first ever architectural project… long since demolished!); mention of the Kynoch Press (where my father worked for some years in the 1960-70s); and references to visits to John Nash’s home in the village of Meadle in Buckinghamshire (where one of my architectural partners also lived). This is a brilliant, extensively-researched and lavishly illustrated book and I absolutely loved it.
The Pebbles On The Beach (Clarence Ellis): I am a great lover of beach pebbles and this rather lovely book, first published in 1954 (re-published in 2018), provides an excellent source of information and advice. I think, however, I’d prove to be a huge disappointment to Ellis! I love the pebbles as objects in themselves – I have no real desire to cut, scratch or polish them… whereas Ellis would be urging me to hack and scrape them and take my ‘prizes’ off to the local lapidary for cutting and polishing before, of course, displaying my finest specimens! The book is very much of its time (and, in many ways, delightful) and appears to have been written for 12 year-old boys (in the mid-50s)(one gets the very clear impression that pebble-collectors and lapidaries are all male in Ellis’s view!). The language is both dated and rather patronising… some examples: “Thenceforward your progress will be rapid and joyous…”; “You must not expect to find good specimens of it without prolonged search…”; “If you crash one stone against another you risk the loss of an eye. That would not only bring your seaside holiday abruptly to an end but rob you of your zest for pebble-hunting once and for all…”! The book also contains a well-illustrated ‘Spotter’s Guide’ within the book jacket. I think the book only helped to underline the fact that I’m not very good at identifying things from book descriptions/illustrations and, although I might have learnt to apply a couple recognition hints, I’m never going to become a pebble expert!
A Year Of Magical Thinking (Joan Didion): I’d only previously read one Didion book (‘Blue Nights’, 4 years ago) and vowed then that I looked forward to reading ‘Magical Thinking’ (published in 2005) in due course. It’s taken me some time! Her husband John Gregory Dunne died, aged 71, of a heart attack… quite suddenly on 30 December 2003 in an armchair while Didion was cooking supper at home. Just days before, the couple had seen their daughter fall seriously ill (and much of the first half of the book juggles the loss of Didion’s husband with her daughter’s grave illness – her daughter died in 2009, aged 39). This beautiful, desperately honest book about loss and grief was written in the 12 months immediately following her husband’s death… replaying their last conversations in her head; coming across things he had written; dealing with her own self-pity; asking if there had been something she could have done to prevent his death; remembering things about their time together that she had long since forgotten; ridiculously refusing to throw away his shoes ‘in case he returned’… This a story of a year spent wishing – a year of ‘magical thinking’. Several times, I found myself reflecting on Didion’s words. Here’s just one example: “We are imperfect mortal beings, aware of that mortality even as we push it away, failed by our very complication, so wired that when we mourn our losses we also mourn, for better or for worse, ourselves. As we were. As we are no longer. As we will one day not be at all”. Another passage that really struck me was after a cancelled restaurant birthday meal (due to heavy snowfall) when her husband sat by the fire and read out a passage from one of Didion’s own books. At the end, he closed the book and said: “Goddamn. Don’t ever tell me again you can’t write. That’s my birthday present to you”… as she recalls the occasion, Didion’s concludes the chapter thus: ‘I remember tears coming to my eyes. I feel them now. In retrospect this had been my omen, my message, the early snowfall, the birthday present no one else could give me. He had twenty-five nights to live’. It’s a remarkable book. It’s not sloppy or sentimental (far from it), but it addresses emotions and fears that we’ve all experienced and pondered – about our own mortality and that of family members and friends. “Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends”.
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