The Light Between Oceans

I read a wonderful novel over the Easter weekend.  I was hooked by the end of the first page.  A third of the way through I was racing though and I just couldn't put it down.  By two thirds of the way through I'd slowed the pace right down because I didn't want it to end.  It joins the genre that I've called the "gentle page turner" which has been defined elsewhere on this blog.

A book that moves along slowly and yet is a page turner.
A book that is quiet and gentle but not light weight by any stretch of the imagination.
Full of peace, compassion, deep love, honour and loyalty portrayed through clean, beautiful writing.
That is a gentle page turner.

It's the genre which includes Gilead, Crossing to Safety and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

This latest discovery tells of life after World War One - what it was like for those who didn't go away to war and what it was like for those who returned from the fighting to try and resume normal life.  It tells of the life of those brave men and women who were lighthouse keepers before it all became automated.  It's the story of a returned service man, his new bride and their new life as the lighthouse keeper and wife on a tiny island just off the Australian mainland.  And then there is the mystery of the row boat that comes to shore on the island with a dead man and a tiny baby, very much alive.

The Light Between Oceans is the debut novel for ML Stedman.  It gets five stars from me.  And I'd give it some more if there were more to give on the standard star rating.

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And lest you think I LOVE every book I read, after this (and I guess it was always going to be a hard act to follow) I started The Book Thief.  I got about a hundred pages in and have put it aside.  Despite the rave reviews that abound, this is not the book for me, at least at this time.  And so I have gone back to the classics.  North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell.  I know every inch of the BBC mini-series.  It's nice to be reading the words now.

Why it has taken me this long to read Jane Eyre

So, I have recently read Jane Eyre.  For the first time.  Could it be the perfect novel?  I loved reading through the Jane Austens last year - and there are definitely three of them that I will go back to at some stage - but is one allowed to like Jane Eyre better than Jane Austen? 

I knew this story well having watched it in various versions and I've practically memorised every inch of the BBC miniseries from 2006.  But the novel...  What can I say?  What a beautiful read.  I want to read it again.  Straight away.  Which is unheard of for me.

My recent enthusiasm for J.E. did raise the question amongst at least a couple of my friends as to how I'd got this far without having read it until now.  Well, I blame it on 1986.  And 1985.

High school was full of required reading and it was during this time that I read Tolkien for the first time.  After that I went to university to learn to be a teacher, but did an Arts degree alongside that qualification.  I recall standing in the queue at enrolling time, still undecided about whether to take literature or history.  I was one person from the front of the desk when I ticked the literature box.  That was the mistake for 1985 because had I done my research I would have discovered that my chosen university didn't take a particularly classical approach to literature.  They were more into feminism at the more radical end of the spectrum and Freud.

In 1986 I enrolled in a year long unit call The Theory of the Novel (mistake number two) which involved one novel a week, starting with Don Quixote and finishing with whatever what modern at the time, all viewed through a Freudian lens.  Oh joy.  Not.  In addition I took another unit each semester which also had a reading requirement of one novel per week.  That's two novels a week.  I ended up reading  the novels I needed for essays and tutorials in full and otherwise, lots of first chapters, last chapters, random middle chapters, introductions and journal articles, learning to chip in with some intelligent comment based on my limited reading early on in the tutorial before the discussions got beyond me.  And I learned to hate reading.

In 1987 I only had two more units to complete my literature requirements and I chose poetry because poems are much shorter than novels.  And the lecturer was old school.  Not sure how he came to have a job at this particular university but I was sure glad to have found him.

After that I became a Christian and so I read the Bible and Christian books.  I added professional reading to that and the newspaper to keep up with current affairs then eventually I dipped my toe tentatively back into the pool of fiction, starting with Brideshead Revisited.  Mostly I read whatever was good and current.  All the Pretty Horses, The English Patient and Captain Corelli's Mandolin spring to mind.  There was a Thomas Hardy phase at some stage.

Then all that stopped and suddenly I was reading books about how to care for babies and how to live with toddlers and how to force said toddlers into eating vegetables.  I like Christopher Green's take on baby and toddler wrangling the best, for what it is worth. And I read recipe books.  And magazine articles because my concentration span had shrunk to nothing.

And so I missed the classics - the ones that were not covered in high school at any rate - and as it transpires, that is fine.  Because there are so many wonderful books for me to read now.  And I am very happy about that.

Thank you Ms Austen

Done.

Delightful.

 

And this summer's reading

Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner.  Brilliant.  Looking forward to reading it again at some stage.  In the meantime, if anyone local wants to borrow my copy, let me know.

Which prompted me to reread Gilead by Marilynne Robinson.  It's still good.

And then there was Jane Austen.  I received this gorgeous anthology for Christmas. 

I have watched lots of films and television series of Jane Austen adaptations as well as various spin offs.  But as it happens I haven't ever read any of her actual words.  I should have read Emma at university but that particular course operated at the rate of a one novel per week for the whole year alongside another unit I was doing that also involved reading a novel each week (and not the same novel) - and so Emma was one that slipped through the net.  (Not much to contribute during that tutorial.)  This anthology presents JA's novels in order of their publication.  So far I have read Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice.  Turns out that I serendipitously read the closing chapters of P&P on day of its 200th anniversary.  Currently reading Mansfield Park.  It did take me a while to settle into her style but I am happily there now and looking forward to the rest.  (And you know that you have settled into the style when you spontaneously answer your husband's text message, "Can you come and get me now?" with "We shall set out soon.")

I also reread How to Really Love your Child by Ross Campbell.  Interestingly I came upon some details that didn't sit all that comfortably on this second read through.  However they were just details and in essence I still think this book is excellent.  It was definitely worth reading through it again and I am glad to be reminded of all the good principles held therein.  I will be reading this annually until such time as I need to be reading How to Really Love Your Teenager annually instead, which in fact is not that far off in one case.

Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner

When I read the last words of Crossing to Safety my second reaction was to think, "Thank goodness that's over!"  That came after my first response which was to allow a few little tears to trickle down my cheek.  (That moment was interrupted by finding a seven year old's face about 10 centimetres from my face requesting crackers for afternoon tea.)  Why the second response, when I was moved to tears in the first instance?  Relief that after four (albeit glorious) days I could get myself to bed before midnight and the family stood a chance of a) getting some eye contact from me after four fairly remote days and b) something better than crackers for afternoon tea.

Crossing to Safety was written in 1987 by American author Wallace Stegner.  It is the story of the lives of two couples - Sid and Charity Lang and Larry and Sally Morgan - who met for the first time during the Depression.  Sid and Larry both have their first jobs in the English Department of the University of Wisconsin.  Their wives are both pregnant.  A lifelong friendship is born.  The book, told from the point of view of an aging Larry Morgan, charts the progress of friendship, life, love and loyalty. 

Written about a different era, and yet it was very evocative of Gilead by Marilynne Robinson.  Of Gilead I said,

"And it is a wonderfully written novel. It moved along so slowly, and yet it was a page turner. It was oh so gentle, but not light weight by any stretch of the imagination. Full of peace, compassion, deep love, honour, loyalty and lived out, deeply understood theology.  Beautiful holiday reading!"

Apart from the "lived out, deeply understood theology" bit, that description fits this book perfectly.  Crossing to Safety is not written from a Christian world view so when it takes in the subject of dying I found it achingly sad to read very good writing about dying and death, but death without hope.  So there is that to it.  But as far as great reads go, this is a wonderful, wonderful book and if you are a Gilead fan, then I feel fairly sure you will love this too for its pace, poise and richness.

Thank you so very much to Karen whose review first introduced me to this book.  Unlike Karen, who seems to have excellent self-control and makes very good use of her local library, I actually bought this one and put it away for Boxing Day.  It was all I could do to not take a sneak peak during December.  (I did end up reading the introduction and the first chapter before Christmas...)  And in the spirit of lack of self-control, I was going to a summer reading round up at the end of the holidays, but I couldn't wait until then with this book.  If you are in need of a good summer read (or a good winter read for that matter) then this might be one for you.  As for me, my summer reading plan has just changed directions.  I am off to find Gilead for a re-read now.  (I bought that one too!)  But I might fix afternoon tea first.

Holiday reading

Two weeks of school holidays.  Four books from three different Australian writers.  And a whole lot of housework pending to show for it.  But it was fun getting into such a mess.

I started with The Spare Room by Helen Garner.  This is a story about Helen (it isn't autobiographical) who prepares her spare room for friend Nicola, who is coming to the city to undergo three weeks of experimental treatment she believes will cure her advanced cancer.  I've read some excellent reviews for this novel.  And it is well written.  Garner uses her words economically and creates believable characters in easy to picture settings.

Her powers of description are so good however that as it turns out, I didn't really enjoy the book.  It's a hard subject.  And the descriptions of this desperately ill woman with more emphasis on bodily fluids than I can manage (I'm the person who, when pregnant with our first child, prayed earnestly that I wouldn't give birth to a vomity baby!) and the hopelessness of the situation (it's not a Christian book - but to face death without the hope of eternal life found in Jesus is a desperately sad thing indeed) just made it all too bleak for me.  In and of itself it's fine prose...but I was glad I hadn't saved it to take as holiday reading to the beach.

I moved onto Land's Edge: A Coastal Memoir by Tim Winton.  Ahhhh...Tim Winton - prize winning West Australian author.  I love his earlier material.  My favourite big novel of his is The Riders which I read compulsively quite some years ago over three big days and nights, interrupted only by needing to go to work and needing a few hours sleep to prevent my eyes from falling out of my head. I haven't enjoyed his more recent offerings - far too much information and far too much pushing of the boundaries for me, I'm afraid.

I referred to The Riders as a "big novel" because my absolute favourite YOU MUST READ THIS work by Tim Winton is his novella Blueback.  This is the story of a mother and son who live on the coast and fight to protect their little piece of marine paradise from developers.  Winton's powers of description take you to that bit of beach and that beach shack - and it is there that a very tender and beautiful story unfolds.

Land's Edge is like Blueback, except that while Blueback is fiction, Land's Edge is Tim Winton's own experience of coastal existence.  He loves the coast.  He lives for the coast.  And he can describe it like none other.  He captures the sting of the sand on your legs on a windy day, the smell of the ocean, eyes watering from the salt and the glare, the windswept vegetation, the peace and tranquility, the danger, the colours, the feelings evoked.  It's all there. He captures it and bottles it on a page. 

Land's Edge also taught me that if you want to remain standing in rough surf, it is better to stand side on rather than front on in crashing waves.   I remembered that little piece of information after my first unceremonious dumping at the beach during the holidays...and was subsequently saved from further unplanned somersaults in the crashing foam!

Finally, feeling like possibly the last person in the world to read these books, I moved onto My Seventh Monsoon and No Ordinary View by Naomi Reed.  Two great reads as she describes life as a cross-cultural worker in Nepal with her husband, both physios, and their family .  There is much to love about these books.  Early on in the first book she wrote,

We arrived back in Khammam in June with a renewed vision and purpose.  We would use any opportunities that came our way to love and pray for people.  Beyond that, we would rejoice in God and in the place where he had put us.  
(My Seventh Monsoon, page 39)

This was the Reeds' fresh resolve after some really hard months in India, enroute to Nepal.  If they couldn't do anything else for lack of language, cultural awareness, resources or real opportunity, they could do that.  And that resolution to be content was evident throughout the remainder of My Seventh Monsoon and No Ordinary View.  These books exemplify Christian contentment - the deep joy of being a child of God that runs at the foundation of all of life, irrespective of what life throws at you.  It doesn't mean always being deliriously happy.  It means being anchored.  Their lives in Nepal were not easy, by any stretch of the imagination.  But in seeking to serve God, honour Him and be content in and dependent upon Him, they thrived and their ministry to the people of Nepal bore fruit.

I read these two books while away at the beach.  We stayed in Youth Hostel accommodation which is good but basic - definitely not what you would call fancy.  Had I not been reading these books at the time, the fact that the drains in the bathroom (toilet and shower) that we were to use at the end of our verandah were blocked, smelly and out of action could have had me feeling very sorry for myself.  But really this was nothing compared with the conditions in Nepal.  I had access to another bathroom where there was running water - hot and cold - and good drainage!  And we had electricity, refrigeration, good food and no threat of civil war. 

Naomi Reed's amazing godliness and contentment in the face of all sorts of hardships and her capacity to see not an ordinary view but treasure around every corner is inspiring.  It works because she has written with integrity.  This isn't someone putting on a happy face or looking back with rose coloured glasses.  It's real, authentic and growing faith in action.  And these aren't the sort of books that might make you feel inadequate.  There is genuine encouragement, in the true sense of that word, to press on  to "use any opportunities that [come] our way to love and pray for people" and to "rejoice in God and in the place where He [has] put us."

And take a peek here for a great set of emails from 2009 between Naomi Reed, now back in Australia, and Rachel Connor, serving with her husband and family in Vanuatu.

That's it for holiday reading.  I am slowly retrieving the chaos of the house and returning to term time routines.  And I have made a start on A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and his Letters by Don Carson.  I don't think the title of this book, at least the first bit, is especially helpful.  But the book itself is great.

Marilynne Robinson trio

The Marilynne Robinson trio.  It sounds like a jazz ensemble!  But no.  This is a trio of three great novels.

Last year I read Gilead by Marilynne Robinson.  First published in 2004, it is a letter written by Reverend John Ames to his young son.  Ames has discovered he has a heart condition that will take his life, no doubt soon and without notice, and he wants to write down all the things he wishes his young son to know - things he would have shared over time as his son grew up, had he had the opportunity to live a longer life.   And it is a wonderfully written novel.  It moved along so slowly, and yet it was a page turner.  It was oh so gentle, but not light weight by any stretch of the imagination.  Full of peace, compassion, deep love, honour, loyalty and lived out, deeply understood theology.  Beautiful holiday reading!

A thread in the story is the relationship John Ames and his family has to Robert Boughton, a fellow minister in the town of Gilead who has been Ames' friend since childhood, and his family.  In 2008 Robinson published Home, which unveiled what was happening withing the walls of the Boughton household during the days and weeks described in the pages of Gilead.

I somewhat courageously opened the first page of Home within an hour of closing the last page on Gilead.  Always a risk.  Gilead was so enjoyable - one of those books where I slowed my reading pace right down in the last twenty or so pages to prolong reaching the last page. 

But I wasn't disappointed.  Home is equally compelling, but grittier - and a much sadder story.  Where Gilead was full of hope, Home felt desolate.  But Robinson has crafted the story well.  I didn't finish the book in deep despair.  Desolate but not despairing.  Just like Gilead was slow but still a page turner.

That was last year.  This holidays I have been reading Housekeeping, Robinson's first novel, published in 1980.  Whereas I was hooked into Gilead within a page or two and Home within a handful of pages, I didn't really get into this story until about a third of the way through the book.  The thing that kept me going was her use of language.  She has the most extraordianary vocabulary and a classical turn of phrase. 

Housekeeping is a book about family life, based on the idea that the place where we find love and growth and nurturing is the family home.  But this story is about what happens when tragedy eats away at the fabric of the family home.  When there is an illusion of keeping house - but not the keeping of a home.  It's life at the edge of madness.  Life where transcience, loneliness and loss prevail.  And yet, right at the end there was a glimpse of the deep connectedness that exists within families.  Not a happy read, but a fine book none the less. 

So that's it for fiction for now.  School starts in week's time and it's back to non fiction for the next ten or so weeks.

The Uncommon Reader - However...

As much as I loved this book, there was a sad moment for me just before the end. It was just a moment. But for that moment my thoughts turned away from the delight of this tale to things more serious.

In the story the Queen has just turned 80 and is considering her mortality.

In the darkness it came to the Queen that, dead, she would exist only in the memories of people. She who had never been subject to anyone would now be on a par with everyone else. Reading would not change that...

In death, the playing field becomes level. It doesn't matter if you are the Queen or a commoner of any standing. At this point the Queen in the novel is thinking about how she will be remembered after her death. But I couldn't help thinking beyond reputation and remembrance to something much more significant - standing before God on the Day of Judgment. Death is THE equaliser. And it doesn't matter what we have read or not read, who we are (king, queen or commoner) or what we have done. We all stand before God having fallen short of His holiness. We are all equally made low. The only thing that truly matters is whether we have stood before God in repentance and confessed Jesus Christ as Lord.

Why do the nations conspire

and the peoples plot in vain?

The kings of the earth take their stand

and the rulers gather together

against the LORD

and against his Anointed One.

"Let us break their chains," they say,

"and throw off their fetters."

The One enthroned in heaven laughs;

the Lord scoffs at them.

Then he rebukes them in his anger

and terrifies them in his wrath, saying,

"I have installed my King

on Zion, my holy hill."

I will proclaim the decree of the LORD:

He said to me, "You are my Son;

today I have become your Father.

Ask of me,

and I will make the nations your inheritance,

the ends of the earth your possession.

You will rule them with an iron scepter;

you will dash them to pieces like pottery."

Therefore, you kings, be wise;

be warned, you rulers of the earth.

Serve the LORD with fear

and rejoice with trembling.

Kiss the Son, lest he be angry

and you be destroyed in your way,

for his wrath can flare up in a moment.

Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

Psalm 2

The Uncommon Reader

One of the things I did during the holidays was read The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett.

Queen Elizabeth reads plenty - papers from Parliament, newspapers, briefing notes and the like - but never novels.  No time for such things.  But that all changes when she inadvertently stumbles upon the City of Westminster travelling library van parked outside one of the palace's kitchen doors while taking the dogs for a walk.  She pops her head in to take a look and then duty bound, feels she can't leave with out borrowing something.  She is given a novel and again feeling duty bound, reads it.  So begins her journey into reading.

She makes a slow start but soon picks up speed and it isn't long before her work begins to suffer.  While others around her manage her now less than diligent work practices, she travels through various stages in her own inner world - the delight of reading, the guilt of spending too much time reading, regret that she didn't start reading sooner, regret at being exposed to a new way of life that she can't properly access in all reality because she is the Queen, wondering if she should turn her hand to writing herself...

This is a gentle read, not unlike another favourite - The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.  Along the way the names of authors and novels are dropped left, right and centre as the Queen is exposed to more and more literature.  As we, the readers, remember these novels and authors, and whether or not we enjoyed them, it is as though we join in a literary conversation with the Queen as she makes her comment on each.   In this way it's very, very clever and engaging.  Best of all there is the most delicious twist at the end. 

A fun holiday read.

The Tyranny of Fiction

My reading time is mostly at bed time. I try to read for about fifteen minutes – sometimes it is more and sometimes it is less. In between volumes one and two of The Story of Christianity by Justo Gonzales, I read a lovely novel – The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer.

I noticed (once again - this is not new) that when I am reading non fiction I read for shorter lengths of time. This is not because the subject matter is boring. It just takes more concentration and at the end of the day I run out of steam more quickly. This has the built in benefit of turning out the light and going to sleep in reasonable time for a fresh start in the morning.

Fiction however is easier to read. I read more. The nights become later. Then it becomes harder to get up in the morning. The morning quiet time becomes compromised. In the end I decide to read at length, in part because I can't resist a good plot, but more so just to get the novel finished so that routine and order can be restored.

So there is nothing for it but to make the decision to limit fiction to the times when we are away on holidays…and I know exactly what I am going to read when we go away later in the year…for the next year or two until our boys are bigger/more independent and the days free up a little.

Which feels OK.

As I said, the source of my literary distraction this time was The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society which is an epistolary novel. No surprises that I would love a novel crafted entirely from letters.

This one is a delight. Set just after World War II, it is the correspondence between Juliet Ashton, a writer from London, and the members of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – and then later between Juliet and her friends in London, as she finds herself in Guernsey meeting the recipients of her earlier letters. It is a gentle, quietly humorous read with gorgeous characters, based on life in German occupied Guernsey during the war.

Here is a glimpse, with some sage advice for would be writers.

Dear Sidney,

Elizabeth's cottage was plainly built for an exalted guest, because it's quite spacious. There is a big sitting room, a bathroom, a larder and a huge kitchen downstairs. There are three bedrooms, and best of all, there are windows everywhere, so the sea air can sweep into every room.

I've shoved a writing table by the biggest window in my sitting room. The only flaw in this arrangement is the constant temptation to go outside and walk over to the cliff edge. The sea and the clouds don’t stay the same for five minutes running and I'm frightened I’ll miss something if I stay inside. When I got up this morning, the sea was full of sun pennies – and now it seems to be covered in lemon scrim. Writers ought to live far inland or next to the city dump if they are ever to get any work done, Or perhaps they need to be stronger-minded than I am. *

Sadly this is a one-off as the author died just before the book was published. It's well worth a read – I'd highly recommend it – but only if it isn't going to do a mischief to the good routines of your daily life!

* The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer p. 161