More reading
Aug. 9th, 2006 10:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cyphomandraBoth of these are, I think, written/published in that period between the two world wars, and both are set in France. Almost everything else about them is different, but I read them on the same weekend anyway.
The sort of book that leaves me wanting to write coolly incisive prose, words that lay bare the souls of characters to readers while concealing them from each other. Interesting structure – a day in Paris, bookending an extensive flashback from the point of view of someone whose failure to appear in the bookends is crucial. The lead-in character is, in the end, just an observer, and her story does not advance or change throughout the novel. It works, though, and I liked it.
And I've been trying to remember what else of hers I've read, and finally got it by looking at her Wikipaedia article. A Day in the Dark - short story collection with some rather disturbingly good stories. I read it in a corner of the sunroom, tucked up on a battered couch and ignoring all the things I was supposed to be doing. It's tangled in my head with a couple of Elizabeth Jane Howards I was reading around the same time, but more in tone than in plot.
More importantly, the Wikipaedia article references "an exchange of views" between Bowen, VS Pritchett and Graham Greene on "Why Do I Write", which I must track down when I have time.
Very good. Takes place in the lead up to the French Revolution, considers both sides, doesn’t hesitate to point out the faults as well as abilities (which are many) of its main character, and, very rarely, does this for the purported villain as well. Uses the tropes of genre knowingly, and with a sense of proportion. I particularly like the scene where Andre-Louis finds out the name of his mother, unknown all these years, and tells himself that it means nothing, that motherhood is just an ideal and a mother who abandoned her child unspeakable in the extreme, that it’s all sentiment and easy emotion, and nothing about him or his world is different in any way. And then he realises he is crying.
I imagine it made a very bad film, although I’m sure they tried. Although – checking the date, it was published in 1921. A pre WW2 film might manage the distance needed without getting carried away with all the sword fights and those helpless aristocrats.
This is the - third? Anthony Wilding, half of that one about the lost French child king - possibly another one - Sabatini book I've read. I've enjoyed them all (the half-book is due to misplacing rather than flagging enthusiasm) and they've all been more than the conventional historical, particularly in plotting and character. I'll probably make more of an effort to track others down in future, but it's nice to have a fall-back option to look for in second-hand book shops. I wanted to read Sabatini from when I first heard Tim Powers' comments about him (acknowledging him as an early and almost overwhelming influence) and I'm glad I did.
The sort of book that leaves me wanting to write coolly incisive prose, words that lay bare the souls of characters to readers while concealing them from each other. Interesting structure – a day in Paris, bookending an extensive flashback from the point of view of someone whose failure to appear in the bookends is crucial. The lead-in character is, in the end, just an observer, and her story does not advance or change throughout the novel. It works, though, and I liked it.
And I've been trying to remember what else of hers I've read, and finally got it by looking at her Wikipaedia article. A Day in the Dark - short story collection with some rather disturbingly good stories. I read it in a corner of the sunroom, tucked up on a battered couch and ignoring all the things I was supposed to be doing. It's tangled in my head with a couple of Elizabeth Jane Howards I was reading around the same time, but more in tone than in plot.
More importantly, the Wikipaedia article references "an exchange of views" between Bowen, VS Pritchett and Graham Greene on "Why Do I Write", which I must track down when I have time.
Very good. Takes place in the lead up to the French Revolution, considers both sides, doesn’t hesitate to point out the faults as well as abilities (which are many) of its main character, and, very rarely, does this for the purported villain as well. Uses the tropes of genre knowingly, and with a sense of proportion. I particularly like the scene where Andre-Louis finds out the name of his mother, unknown all these years, and tells himself that it means nothing, that motherhood is just an ideal and a mother who abandoned her child unspeakable in the extreme, that it’s all sentiment and easy emotion, and nothing about him or his world is different in any way. And then he realises he is crying.
I imagine it made a very bad film, although I’m sure they tried. Although – checking the date, it was published in 1921. A pre WW2 film might manage the distance needed without getting carried away with all the sword fights and those helpless aristocrats.
This is the - third? Anthony Wilding, half of that one about the lost French child king - possibly another one - Sabatini book I've read. I've enjoyed them all (the half-book is due to misplacing rather than flagging enthusiasm) and they've all been more than the conventional historical, particularly in plotting and character. I'll probably make more of an effort to track others down in future, but it's nice to have a fall-back option to look for in second-hand book shops. I wanted to read Sabatini from when I first heard Tim Powers' comments about him (acknowledging him as an early and almost overwhelming influence) and I'm glad I did.
