Not that beautiful

The only thing beautiful about The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst is its writing and narrative, which are rich and sublime. That is not a double-edged compliment, just truth: the content is ugly, insidious and shallow but it is intended to be, in a discomfiting satire of 1980s London. Nick is a homosexual aesthete writing a PhD on the style of Henry James whilst living in the Kensington Gardens family home of his friend from Oxford, Toby, who he has always been secretly attracted to/in love. The family are upper middle class, father Gerald is a pompous Conservative MP, in love with The Lady (Margaret Thatcher), married to Rachel -who comes from money- and their other child, Catherine, is manic-depressive. The narrative of the novel runs through three separate sections: 1983, 1986 and 1987 and the development of Nick into an inexperienced and naive gay man who meets his first lover to the corrupt and corrupted Nick who has seen it and participated in it all with his secret lover; Nick enters the world of subterfuge in a class in which he never belongs through the satirised Eighties of Thatcherism, economic crisis, Conservatorism and the outbreak of AIDS within the gay community.

The title refers to the model of beauty, coined by William Hogarth in his The Analysis of Beauty, the double 'S' of the ogee shape, Ogee the name given to Nick and Wani's business venture. The cover pictured above shows the line of beauty; I have the BBC adaptation tie-in edition and I prefer to attach images of the books I own but it is a beautiful design. Conversely, tainting the beauty (as the novel sets out to do in so many areas), line of beauty also refers to the lines of Coke snorted by Nick and his lover. The brutality and uncompromising nature of the novel's events, the ugliness of it all, is rather unnerving and left a bad taste in my mouth; the homophobia and the superficial nature of people are, in particular, shockingly loathsome in their matter-of-fact depiction. I enjoyed the book (I found it dragged some in the middle section), I greatly admired the writing, I have respect for Hollinghurst depicting this shallow time but the written line of beauty does starkly contrast against the ugliness of the content, which is the point, I guess. The book is challenging, without you realising it until its explosive end, and particularly unsettling.

Books I am Most Looking Forward to in 2009

I think a list is in order today.
There are many books that I am looking forward to being published or reprinted this year:

1. The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

I am a huge fan of Sarah Waters. I have read all of her work, so far, my favourite being Fingersmith, a wonderful Victorian Gothic tale that uses Wilkie Collins' The Women in White as inspiration. I am lucky enough to have have heard her speak a few times (three, I think) and have my copies of her books signed. The Little Stranger is a ghost story and I highly anticipate it to be pleasurable and chillingly satisfying. I also hope that I manage to attend a reading of this book by the author. It's due to be published in June.

2. The Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett

Another installment of the Discworld is always something to look forward to! According to Wikipedia (and implied by the title), this outing of Ankh-Morpokians will feature the Unseen University wizarding (and the Orangutan LIbrarian) football team... I'm laughing already. It will be a long wait until October.

3. The Children's Book by AS Byatt

As yet I haven't read much Byatt, and what I have read (short story collection The Little Black Book of Stories) didn't wow me but I can't resist the temptation of a book about books in an imaginative setting, like Inkheart for adults. This title is expected in May.

4. Nightingale Wood by Stella Gibbons

Virago Press are reprinting this "sprawling, delightful, eccentric fairy tale", as Amazon describe it, with a preface by Sophie Dahl (who writes modern fairy tale like fiction of her own). I eagerly await its publication (due early April).

5. The World that Was Ours by Hilda Bernstein and Cheerful Weather for the Wedding by Julia Strachey

Both of these (along with Noel Streatfield's Saplings, which I already own) will be published by Persephone Books as Persephone Classics next month and will be added to my collection. Although I love the dove grey Persephone covers, the Classics are also beautifully presented and are cheaper, which is important to me just now: I buy so many books that it is great to make a saving here and there!

6. Making Conversation by Christine Longford

Speaking of Persephone Books, this is one of their forthcoming Spring/Summer's titles. I know nothing of this yet except for its pretty endpaper (not a surprise) and that it will be accompanied by a new Persephone Lives series title: The Other Elizabeth Taylor, about Virago popular author Elizabeth Taylor and written by Nicola Beauman (Persephone founder) herself.

7. Shades of Grey, Jasper Fforde

A new Jasper Fforde series! woo-hoo!
According to US Amazon the premise of this series is set in a "world where social order and destiny are dictated by the colo[u]rs you see."
This is out in July and it's going to be a great summer of reading.

8. Miss Hargreaves by Frank Baker

Bloomsbury are reprinting six titles this summer (July), all of them -like Persephones- forgotten classics (including Virago Modern Classic The Brontes Went to Woolworths). This title sounds like a treat and is one of Simon's at Stuck in a Book "50 titles you must read but may not have heard about".

9. The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

A collection of short stories due to be published in a couple of weeks that I am really looking forward to reading. I greatly enjoyed her novels Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun.

10. The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb

The paperback edition of this novel is being published in April too. I have heard good things and look forward to it along with the others.

All of these books excite me, some will be pre-ordered, all will be purchased (well, if my financial situation improves), all will be read (I hope) and hopefully enjoyed and finally reviewed.

Virago Modern Classics

I consider myself to be a bit of an aspiring bibliophile; I own an impressive amount of books and enjoy collecting them. Since May I have consciously started to collect the old -and quintessential- green spined Virago Modern Classics (I started to collect Persephones at the same time). Above is a photograph I recently took of the VMCs I have acquired so far. I have a few more at home in Glasgow and about double the amount in other editions: the newly published pastel coloured Viragos from the VMC list, 5/8 of the beautiful harback designer textile covered 30th Anniversary Virago Modern Classics and my separate Angela Carter collection boasts a few Viragos (as well as a couple of the green ones above). When I am more financially stable I plan to add and add and add to my burgeoning collection but with a list of over 500 titles, it may take me some time to track them all down! My pride and joy is The Brontes Went to Woolworths, which is quite rare and normally expensive, but which I managed to snag in Oxfam books for £2.49! Luckily (for other people) Bloomsbury are reprinting it later this year, as it is a lovely joyous read about the wonders of imagination, but I do adore my green copy.

As an end-note, these are the VMCs I am especially on the look out for in green:

Lolly Willowes or the Loving Huntsman by Sylvia Townsend Warner
Poor Cow by Nell Dunn
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim
She Done Him Wrong by Mae West
Olivia by Olivia
My Mortal Enemy by Willa Cather (the Klimt cover)
Love by Elizabeth Von Arnim
A Model Childhood by Christa Wolf
The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West
The Weddingby Dorothy West
Any green Margaret Atwood books
The Aloe by Katherine Mansfield
The Camomile by Catherine MacFarlane Carswell

Randomness

A friend sent me a panicked message today, "help! what's that fabulous story where the man turns into the cockroach?" Amidst my laughter at the uncanny timing (having just read and reviewed it), I promptly returned with ""Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka. Then ensued an interesting chat ranging from a similar story "Axolotl" by Julio Cortazar; to an anthology A Hammock Beneath the Mangoes: Stories from Latin America, in which it appears and which I must pick up at some point (in second-hand condition as it is long out of print); to Latin American Magical Realism and its superiority to Westernised Magical Realism (I think the backdrop of South America lends itself to this form of writing); to a interesting one-sided rant (on my friend's part) about Murakami and how his writing can come across as only being written because he's Murakami; back to narration by animals/insects and a little monologue by moi about great non-human narrators such as Colette's Le Chat or Jose Eduardo Agualusa's narrating gecko Eulalio in The Books of Chameleons, which took us back to Magical Realism, and Gregor Samsa, which returned us to "Metamorphoses" and full-circle conclusion.

Baking Banana Bread and Other Stories

Baking Banana Bread and Other Stories makes a quaint title for a collection of short stories, I think; somewhat like Mary Norton's Bread and Butter Stores (Virago). Alas, it is not a collection that yet exists, nor that I am reviewing but refers to the banana bread I currently have in the oven. It is my first attempt and I'm not a frequent baker so I am somewhat nervous.

The other stories? I don't actually think I have any ... I'm not feeling very creative today, I'm afraid. I may do later once I have a tummy full of light and fluffy (I hope) banana bread. I imagine that the pretend stories would also be light and fluffy but wouldn't smell nearly as good (not that the smell of new books isn't divine, because it is, but the smell of my banana bread is very promising).

What's life without drama?

My book journal tells me that it has been two years since I read any plays. The last drama in my life was Peter Schaffer's Equus in March 2007, unless you count seeing Spamalot before it ended this January. I used to read (and study) a lot of plays but the only Tennessee WIlliams I had a chance to read before now was A Streetcar Named Desire, which I enjoyed, so I picked up my copy of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with anticipation. I wasn't disappointed; the play contains a lot of raw emotion, family tension and energy, which I imagine transfers well onto stage.


Consisting of three acts, Cat tells the story (over one afternoon celebrating Big Daddy's birthday) of the deteriorating marriage between Brick and Margaret/Maggie/Cat; of Big Daddy's diagnosis of Cancer and what that means for him and his family; of Brick's drinking problem; of his grief at his friend Skipper's death and their homo-erotic relationship; of suppressed sexuality; of the not-so-subtle hint of scandal ... all of these stories and lies (or mendacity, as Brick describes the root of his disgust, the permeating theme of the play) are brutally exposed on the page/stage. Yes, Cat is dramatic.

Happy Birthday to You, Dr Seuss!

Thanks to Google and it's fabulous design today, I am informed that it is the birthday of Dr Seuss, which deserves a blog post. Oh, how I love Dr Seuss! I'm an adult fan; I don't recall reading him much when I was younger, except for The Cat in the Hat; now I try to share Seuss books with the children in my life. Speaking of which: I bought My Many Coloured Days for my sister many years ago from the book shop in the Tate Modern Gallery Bookshop on a trip to London (now I live here). It is unlike other books by Seuss and is about feeling differently, of different moods and emotions (colours) on different days and reminds me of some things I have read about Autism and how children on the spectrum can relate to the world in colours (and the colour spectrum). I heartily recommend it, for young and old. "Some days are yellow. Some are blue. On different days I'm different too." What it lacks in characteristic Seuss visual imagery (has its own illustrators), the book makes up for in whimsy.

I think I will try to fit in a quick re-read of Green Eggs and Ham this afternoon; I can't think of anything more delicious and celebratory!