Book worm: March 2010

In each monthly 'Book worm', I review all the books I have read the previous month, no matter how varied! I am looking forward to discovering what takes my attention in a year. Bit late with this post, and it will be split over two days as the printed word really caught my attention in March!

Every so often I do a grand second-hand bookshop trawl, looking for authors and editions that please me. The following was the result.

The House on the Strand, by Daphne du Maurier.
My Uncle Silas, by H.E. Bates.
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
The Doll’s House, by Rumer Godden.
Mandy annual, 1982.

REVIEWS

The House on the Strand, by Daphne du Maurier.
This edition published by Penguin Books, 1973.
First published by Victor Gollancz 1969.

I am somewhat ashamed to admit I had never come across Daphne du Maurier’s books before, but someone in blog-land (forgive me, I cannot remember who) mentioned them a while ago and since then it has been ticking in my brain that I had to read something from this author. So I pounced on this book, and scurried home to read with the same enthusiasm I had as a child with an Enid Blyton from the library.

The House on the Strand tells us about Richard Young, the publisher bored of his life with lively American wife Vita, and his two step-sons. He goes to Cornwall to stay in the house of his scientist friend, and experiments with a drug his friend is developing, a drug that takes him back as an unseen wanderer six-hundred years into the history of the house and the surrounding area. The dramas played out over the chilly fields of historic Cornwall embrace Richard, and draw him like a moth to a flame, for how can you fall in love with a time so long dead?

Oh I loved this book. The dualities of the two dramas enfold and overlap one another, and yet the historic tale is very much life as it was, and the modern world is very contemporary for its time. Both stories are equally compelling, and all the characters ring true. There is a love of language, a vividness of description, which makes me long to up sticks and move to Cornwall, to research bygone times, and, worrying, to stride around in a late 60s lounge-suit. I didn’t want it to end.

But sadly it did, abruptly, and I had to check I hadn’t missed a page. I won’t spoil it but it is a very enigmatic ending, and it’s left to the reader to summarise what had happened to the protagonist. I would have preferred a more definite clue as it feels very veiled, but this the beauty of it.

I am thrilled there are lots more books by Daphne du Maurier for me to discover!


My Uncle Silas, by H.E. Bates.
This edition published by Penguin Books, 1958.
First published by Jonathan Cape, 1939

The reason I picked up this book was two-fold. One - I recognised the cover illustration as being by the great illustrator Edward Ardizzone, and two – it tickled me in a way that good friend C would understand. I also had never read anything by H.E. Bates before, and decided that now was as good a time as any to begin.

Reading this book is like the equivalent of sitting with your back to a tree in a meadow, warm sun dappling through the branches, bird song in the air, and a cool glass of lemonade by your side. For some reason you are wearing a wide-brimmed hat but ignore that for now. It is a real comfort read, and even better is split into bite-size short stories, all about the rapscallion Uncle Silas.

Uncle Silas is a scoundrel, a bounder, a rascal in every way – and yet he is charming, with humorous tales that span nearly a century, from the ‘hungry forties’ in the nineteenth century to 1930. He is coaxed to tell his stories to his small great-nephew, and weaves fact and fantasy together in order to beguile and delight the youngster (and us). Although I found this book in a children’s section, I am not convinced it is a child’s book – some of Silas’ tales concern love and courtship, with hints of forbidden romps behind helpful haystacks. But they all delightfully describe the countryside of days past, and the many ways an elderly gentleman can still cause mischief in his twilight years.

o0o

Part two to come tomorrow, and a warm welcome to new followers! I am so excited to see you. Virtual hugs!