Three books in one bog entry… for me there is one common theme to them too, which is race and the way it is approached in literature.  I should almost like to include Coetze’s “Friday” here, but I think that work deserves consideration alone and in any case four wouuld be, I think, a book too far!

“Home” is a sequel or follow up to “Gilead” which was highly successful for Marilyn Robinson and the January choice of my reading group.  Although I did not make it to the reading group in February it did get to feature on their new blog and I have made a comment there, one which I expect will stand alone since this book group are definitely a fan of the printed page a proper meeting.  There are plenty of other online reading communities and active blogs out there, some in the blogroll to the right.  But back to “Home” and as you will have seen if you clicked through to my comment there is one thing I was left puzzled by, which likely would not have happened to me had I started reading the works with the highly acclaimed “Gilead”.  I had formed the impression the family at the centre of the narrative were black, African Americans to be exact.  It is largely this which gives the common thread to this post so perhaps I stretched the connection.

Gilead is the name of the small, rural Idaho town where the Broughton family home is.  They are a large family and the narrative is told by the youngest daughter who returns home to care for the aging patriarch of the family.  There is a touching portrayal of the return of one of her brothers, perhaps the black sheep of the family.  What I liked best was the exploration of things they shared despite being obviously quite different siblings with different life paths.  The simple fact they had shared the same family allowed them to make connnections they would never have managed as people who were not related.  This was actually the only hopeful part in a rather bleak novel, but only bleak in a realistic sense.  There was plenty touching and encouraging and very beautifully portrayed within that.

Ms Robinson has left herself plenty of scope for another sequel exploring how life goes on for Rosalind, the youngest in my opinion.  Everything we learn about Jack is presented obliquely and in a shadey manner which is a cunning way to paint him since this is the sort of character he is.  A drifter and destined to leave the novel as he arrives, from the street with not a penny to his name and a drink problem that haunts him along with a past relationship.  It was this relationship that finally meant i Had to accept this fammily is white and not black, because Della is the daughter of another minister and definitely coloured.  I did get a little tired of the way Jack’s father tended to dominate the novel, but perhaps that was a reflection of Jack’s life too in that he always felt he had not done enough and was destined not to make his father proud of him.  One could make an interesting criticism of the novel exploring the question of predestination.

You could not say the same of “ Mudbound” the firstl novel by Hillary Jordan which is very directly concerned with the quesiton of race in the American past, but also has a strong element of family drama and patriarchy.  This time the patriarchy is rather less benevolent, althought the elder son of the family whom our “heroine” narrator marries does present a more positive image, perhaps.

Set between the wars in the deep South of America this has many historical scenes directly concerning race - I should love to know if the auther os black and if not I am impressed by her research an ability to portray things convincingly fromt he point of view of Ronson and his family.  She did seem to me to have a very convincing way of speaking from a male viewpoint and understanding his friendship with the younger brother.  I commonly admire it when a male author can convincingly write from a female viewpoint, so here is a counterpoint for a woman author.

Last but not least Scottsboro by Ellen Feldman is a ficitional work of a very real hisorical event.  The reading group by large had not heard of the eventpersonally I was also surprised that it has faded from modern consciousness.  So as a work that reminds one of the historical sweep of the case and the historical background perhaps this book has some merit.  But as a work novel in it’s own right I found it extremely lacklustre, the characters felt very thin, almost to the extent of being cardboard cutouts.  We are only really presented with two protagonists, both female.  Everyone else is a walk on character and it seemed to me there were few and far between strong male roles here, which somehow seemed a lack when the tragedy of Scottsboro is the prejudice and biggotry leading to the wrongful arrest of nine black men whose lives were effectively ended thereafter.  I found myself far more interested in how events may have affected those men and frustrated by the way the novel would not go there.

If you are interested in the journalistic process and dilemmas it throws up then perhaps this book my hold more for you, since the leading lady is presented almost solely in the light of what was no doubt quite a pioneering career for a woman in those times as she works for a left wing journal covering events.  The role of the communist party is mildly interesting too and no doubt informed somewhat by the figure of Ruby Bates who seems really rather a stereotype of underclass suffering an dmakes me feel the book is almost parodying the liberal feelings of our protagonist.

All in all I did not really enjoy it, although the story if made somewhat compelling.  Others might get more form it though and no doubt it suffered coming after other books all of which had involved race to some degree….

I think I have also learned not to break off a posting in the midst of writing it (these last four paragraphs were written some days after the main substance).  I shall try to avoid doing that in future and hope this posting has not suffered as a result.

I approached this book, the last months for my library book group, with eager anticipation.  Then I attended the group before getting through more than a couple dozen pages, and listened to the book be roundly criticised.  And then I read the rest of the book.  So it is interesting to me how I now react to the book.

One of the reasons I was eager to read the book was simply what I think is a great title.  I am fairly convinced the title alone is a large part of the reason for th ebooks apparent success.  The other reason is that one of the main subjects in this fictional account is the figure of Nicola Tesla.  Throughtout my youth my father and a friend were often fiddling with a Tesla coil in the basement and placing razor blades in the middle of pyramids to sharpen them, and other such weirdly trendy things in the zeitgeist of the times.  So I was eager to find out more.

The book is written with some engaging language, in places the descriptive prose is positively poetic.  The research seems to be fairly sound, and I have to admit I was quite well engaged with the New York of the times the novel is concerned with, primarily around the thirties and forties one imagines.  However the main “meat” at the centre of the novel promises much but fails to deliver anything one can truly get ones teeth into.  Someone at the reading group said I may as well ready the first thirty pages and the last thirty, I would not be missing much.  I could not take this advice, but looking back over the book I can see just what he meant!

The other problem is that one is unsure how accurate the impression one gains of Nicola Tesla is.  Granted, Ms Hunt is creating a fictional character, but there are so very many direct quotes and facts which she has drawn on and placed within the work that I think it is flawed if it does not try to faithfully recreate at least the author’s impression of the character.  And do so without adding a mish mash of fiction to muddy the waters.  Now the only test of this is to research oneself - and I have not yet done so, but if I have time intend to, look into the life of Mr Tesla.  In this case there is plentiful material to draw on.  Someone from the book group had looked into his own autobiographical volumes and I imagine they could be fascinating.  There was one aspect I seriously enjoyed and which the reading group surprisingly overlooked; this was the description of a newly opened and extensive public library in New York.  If I ever get to visit New York I should like to trackthis building down and visit it (assuming it is based in fact and still exists).  I enjoyed the use of this setting thorougly and thought it was quite cleverly deployed, far more so than the New Yorker Hotel which I became bored by.  Also after looking the hotel up in Wikipedia I do believe I actually stayed there when visiting New York in the ninetties and I am sorry to say it had none of the features on display that are so well portrayed in the novel. Perhaps it says something that I found the locations more engaging than most of the characters!

Having said all this there is something the book tries to do which I think is what it was intended to be about.  I am not sure I would get it from the first and last thirty pages.  I believe the intense relationship between a father and a daughter is sketched in a little after the opening of the novel.  Then in concluding the prose seems to shift up a gear as the daughter deals with the death of her father and her future after the loss.  I do believe this is what Samantha Hunt might have taken as the central theme, but then again it could have been a love triangle which seems to be sketched in (and how much truth in that?), it could have been a romance (one is always tantalisingly offered but not really portrayed in the novel), it had many possibilities but ultimately tried to approach all of them and therein lies the failure in my opinion.

Still, great title it must be said! I wonder if the title helped garner the Orange prize nomination and other awards?  Somehow I suspect contacts and networking are everything there and the title largely incidental…  By the way I like the openning page of her website linked above - worth a click, though I suspect completely opaque from an accessibility viewpoint.

This was written by my daughter at the weekend, I shall photograph the original text and post it, but this is my version typed as faithfully as I can:-

Look! a leaf
Scrunkling my life away.

Look! a rabbit hole
Like a bowl
Eating my life away.

Look!…a nest
Like a bed
Sleeping my life away

Look at the green grass
Like  a bean
I roll my life away

Isabel Eleanor Amelia Wrighton, November 2009.

At the weekend I visited my father, aged seventy five, and made sure his computer was online.  Although I am quite sure he shall not manage to read this I thought I would put the poem he gave me at the time online:-

J.C.W. October 2009

This is a poem I wrote many years ago.  It appears in a published work of my father’s called “lie Lines”.

Paul Wrighton (when young enough)

The post was inspired by the recent discovery by my sister of a listing on Amazon for the book, which appears to have appreciated since publication in 1996, when the cover price was “One pint or six mars bars”!

Part I - The Curse

He is an ancient smoker, he stoppeth ‘neath a tree

With thy long black pipe and glittering eye,

“Wherefore though stoppeth thee?”

The Public Bar is open wide, within a merry din,

The youth accosts the ancient soul “Thou can’st not go within!”

“I have the curse”, the old man sighed

“Bin coming here for years,

My pipe and baccy both are banned”,

The old man glared, the old man spake,

“Yet I will go within!

By God I’ll fight for my right!”

“A pint”, he quoth and settled in his place

The taproom glowed, the good beer flowed

Joy shone in his face, the din did grow

The banter flew, he joined that merry crew.

He struck his match, he puffed his pipe

The smoke was thick and strong

The banter dropped, the door flew wide,

A curse came from the throng

The barmaid shrieked, the landlord cried

“Thou can’st not do that ‘ere!”

The banter stopped, the silence grew,

His curse was in his hand;

Now ‘twas an angry crew

“Be gone!  Get out!  You’re banned!

God save the Ancient Smoker

From the curse that plagues thee thus”;

Sadly he slipped his moorings and crept into the night

The laughter grew the jibes flew too

He was a sorry sight

Part II - The Return of the Ancient Smoker

When he joins the Nick O’ Tyne Line

Her masts the finest briars

See, she is Rizla rigged

Her crew all true born liars.

She sailed across the harbour bar

And nestled by the quay

He leapt aboard her crying

“I’m going back to sea!

Far from this land

Where smoking’s banned

I’ll smoke my pipe as is my right!”

They cast off and sailed away

Not to come back for many a day

To do their duty, not to pay it.

Part III - The Voyage of the Good Ship Nic O’ Tyne

A fair wind blew, o’er the waves they flew

Leaving the land behind, they gave a cheer

He lit his pipe and drawing deep

He took a swig of beer

The silver moon sailed in the sky

Softly she was going up

And a star or two besides

His lips were wet, his throat was cold,

His garments all were dank

He was drinking as he slept

And still his body drank.

The helmsman steered, the ship moved on,

A steady breeze still blew,

The mariners all gan work the ropes

As they were wont to do

They were a merry crew.

Like a flying horse they flew

Acorss the boundless Ocean

The sun shone bright, a fair wind blew,

They smoked and drank all day.

They drifted o’er the harbour bar

The rock shone bright, the kirk no less

That stands above the rock

The Harbour Bay was clear as glass

So smoothly was it strewn

In the bay all was dark

in the shadow of the moon

thus they quietly slipped ashore

Stowing their goods in a safe place

Crept out and locked the door

To Follow; Part IV - The return of the Happy Smoker

John Charles Wrighton, 2008.

(He only gave me the text thus far, having mislaid further pages, which he might post me at some future date!)