The slump has gone; I’m now in that mood colloquially known as ‘read all the books’ and trying my best not to succumb to the notion that I make up for lost time because it could easily lead to another slump. My enthusiasm for blogging has also returned with a force; I knew 2 weeks at Christmas wasn’t enough and that I was heading for burnout. I managed to keep blogging throughout the time but if it happens again I think I’ll just take a break.

A couple of weekends ago I finally finished The Spring Of Kasper Meier and read Sarah Ladipo Manyika’s Like A Mule Bringing Ice Cream To The Sun. The latter is a book in the same vein as Elizabeth Is Missing – it’s about a 75-year-old Nigerian woman who is starting to loose her independence. It’s also a book about books; I’m looking forward to sharing an extract with you when I review it.

After finishing the Manyika I tried to read City Of Wisdom And Blood, the second book in a series that begun with The Brethren – a book overwhelmed by bosoms. You’ll remember I spoke highly of the opening line of the second book and I was excited to get back to the series; now the characters are away from home I expected less lust and more of the good historical fiction. But no, within the first ten pages were four references and as the saying goes, I just can’t even. I will be giving it another go but not just yet; I might have to make it a long-term read.

Putting it down, I knew I wasn’t ready to return to Tender Is The Night or Cranford (Helen’s description of ‘frothy’ is correct on that second one, it is so and I’m craving studies) so I decided I’d have a read of the first pages of the books I want to read soon. Thinking I’d start with A Little Life I opened it… and that was it, Yanagihara had me hooked by the end of the first half-page. I’d been wanting to leave the book until later due to its length but I have to read it now. Already I can see why it’s been nominated for so many awards. I’m guessing it’s 600-odd pages but refraining from actually checking.

This said, in regards to the Gaskell, I have gone back to it, and Helen’s apt description has made me think of the contrast between it and North And South. I think it’s interesting how Gaskell’s work could be read by different people owing to its variety. Whereas Jane Austen, for example, deals with the same sort of atmosphere in every book, and it’s more a case of whether you like the characters and plot each time, with Gaskell you get totally different worlds. Speaking of what I’ve read so far, you’ve a book about personal religious changes and the industrial revolution with its social studies and economics, and you’ve a book that’s rather like a soap opera in the way there are lots of mini stories and episodes and nothing is particularly noteworthy. I’m assuming that Gaskell’s other works may, at least one of them, fall somewhere in between the two as they are quite far apart on the scale but either way I am liking the difference.

One of my reading goals this year is to even out the ratio of male to female authors, as well as read more Asian fiction – pre-blogging my balance was better and I read much more diversely. I don’t know why it changed but I didn’t like it and I also don’t like it because diversity is a major factor in my musical and film interests. Already I’m doing well, better than I’d planned, in fact, which I believe has likely helped keep me on track since the slump went away.

To talk of writing about books, I’ve returned to Rebecca – I’m writing about themes again. I’ve two posts completed, a sort of round up post in mind, and one other one in pre-production so to speak. (I’ll not post them one after another.) I’m also looking at Margaret Forster’s biography though I know it’s a bit romanticised – have you read it? I’d like some opinions. I’m finding I can’t get enough of the author’s most famous work and whilst I’d love to return to The House On The Strand which I started and then forgot to keep reading, the nameless heroine is too alluring a character to leave. With all the comparisons to Jane Eyre I kind of want to do a mash-up post, blending the Du Maurier, Brontë, and the Samantha Sotto I loved a few years ago (whose hero I see as a mix of Max De Winter and Mr Rochester, so it’d be a post about a book that’s about a book that’s about a book).

How’s your reading life?

And prejudice.

Publisher: Sphere (Little, Brown)
Pages: 361
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-0-751-54027-7
First Published: 1994; re-printed and edited 2007
Date Reviewed: 7th March 2016
Rating: 3/5

Joscelin’s been a mercenary for years but when he gets in a fight with a man who accuses him of trying to carry off his wife, things start to change. The man, now dead, leaves a widow and child and they will need taking care of. And in the background is the conflict between Joscelin and his half-brothers – Joscelin is the child of his father’s other woman – and the fight between the king and his son.

Shields Of Pride is one of Chadwick’s earlier novels, recently reprinted, that deals with completely fictional characters. It’s a fair book but far outmatched by some of her others.

The history is as strong as always; Chadwick’s knack for throwing the reader back in time is just as good here as elsewhere. The details ensure an almost film-like, immersed quality, and the two main characters are stunning. Particularly Joscelin. Chadwick’s hero is fully medieval. Unlike some of her books wherein the hero is a historical dream, inevitably very similar to her other historical dream heroes, and sometimes a little too modern in sensibility, Joscelin is simply a medieval man. He’ll fight to the death, no holds barred and in anger, then kiss his wife who, similarly unaffected by any misplaced modernity, doesn’t comment on the fight and happily follows him to bed. If it feels like the book lacks any nicety, it’s for good reason.

Not so good is the plot. One could say there isn’t a plot, just a scene, a man who takes to wife the woman whose husband he killed, and their resulting average life together; indeed if that were it it would be fine – and it is for a good chunk of pages. What happens, then, is that the story begins to drag and continues to drag until the end. Unnecessary minor conflicts are conveniently added to, it can only be assumed, lengthen it. (The book would have made a lovely novella.) Fights happen then life happens then fight happens and rinse, repeat; you can see the conflicts coming a mile off. Each battle is meticulously detailed but as you know who is going to win you could skip them if you wanted to. It’s hard to say there’s a climax because the end of the book is a lot weaker than the middle.

Amongst this is the family set-up: Joscelin is the lauded, loved, out-of-wedlock oldest son whose father treats his wife and younger sons badly. The initial introduction works – you’re introduced to the hurt wife who had to live in the footsteps of the other woman (who lived with them) and the official heirs who are constantly criticised because their mother was married out of duty and isn’t loved. The thing here is that these people are rightly angry and it’s well established that they have reason, but as the book carries on they are written more and more as crazy bad guys who are too hateful and as much as one might agree that they shouldn’t blame the messenger for the faults of the sender it all becomes a bit too hubble bubble toil and trouble, and a bit too good versus evil. Add to this the young-skinny-woman and older-large-woman divide and the release date shows.

Where Shields Of Pride works, then, is in the afore-mentioned factual hero and the history. It works as a generally upbeat, escapist read, that doesn’t demand anything of you, but shouldn’t be picked instead of others.

Related Books

A few weeks ago I attended a friend’s party. (As far as I know she doesn’t read my blog but if she does, please excuse my discussion.) This friend had told me a while back about her friend, a published author. We’ll call my friend Sarah and her author friend Ellen. At least at the time of telling me, Sarah was in the position of ‘friend who is yet to read the book’ so there wasn’t much to discuss in terms of the work itself.

Anyway, I realised this Ellen was at the party. We don’t know each other, didn’t speak. I don’t know whether Sarah’s told Ellen she has a blogger friend; maybe she has and Ellen decided not to talk books.

I speak of this event because it made me draw a firm boundary in my mind. I realised that in the unlikely but possible case of an introduction, given my role as someone who promotes books, this was a line I couldn’t cross. For me, personally – maybe others find it easier. I’d be comfortable featuring a friend of a friend’s book with full disclaimers added but not reviewing it. A friend of a friend may not be my friend but that mutual connection would be in the line of fire for awkwardness.

What do you think about this sort of boundary, and, if you’re a blogger, have you drawn your own?

I feel I should note here that this isn’t a sponsored post.

A couple of weeks ago I received a request to review books for a publisher I hadn’t heard of before. (This sentence has confirmed for me that the American way of dropping the ‘of’ between ‘couple’ and ‘weeks’ is something I can get behind.) I read the press release, found myself interested and, as is usual in these situations, went looking for more information. I have always been the person who takes hours to finish a computer game due to the need to explore the city in its entirety first.

I liked what I saw of the publisher and thought you might be interested yourselves. Around since 2006, the reason I and whoever else in Britain got a review request is that they’re about to launch in the UK.

Cassava Republic’s mission is to change the way the world thinks about African writing; they deem it time. The founder, Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, has said, “[We’re] establishing a base in the UK after nearly ten years in Africa rather than the reverse. This is the birthing of African publishing onto the world stage”.

The hope that the Press will showcase the diversity of work by African writers – in this case mainly Nigerians – is bolstered by the variety of genres they publish: literary fiction, YA, and romance all feature in their catalogue.

As for the authors themselves, whilst all share Nigerian heritage by birth or law, not all live in Africa. Some, like Sarah Ladipo Manyika, whose book I’ll be reviewing, live elsewhere. Regardless of nationality, all the authors are celebrated writers, and that’s surely one of the most exciting aspects of this expansion.

One of them, Leye Adenle, has an extra claim to fame – his grandfather was a king. Adenle’s book, Easy Motion Tourist is a thriller, a story in which a British tourist comes across a body outside a club and is noted as a potential suspect. The story studies his time in custody and his subsequent release, looking at the darker aspects of the city of Lagos. Released the same day, Elnathan’s John’s Born On A Tuesday is about love, friendship, and politics in the midst of the most unstable period in recent Northern Nigerian history.

I chose the Manyika because I liked the sound of the main character – Like A Mule Bringing Ice Cream To The Sun is set in San Francisco, where the author teaches literature, and is about a 70-something Nigerian woman who, finding her independence dwindling, has to rely on the help of friends and strangers. Part of the story studies her sexuality, the feelings of an older woman. My thought when I read the description was that it sounded like Elizabeth Is Missing, just perhaps without the memory loss. I loved that book and it’s helped me to know how to proceed with family members and friends in a similar position. The thought of reading another book that tackles age-related issues is compelling. Fortunately there are many books on the later years at the moment, it’s a much needed trend, and I look forward to reading Manyika’s spin on it, the difference in culture compared to most others making it stand out in the pool of possibilities.

If you’re wondering, Cassava Republic is indeed one of houses to have published Chigozie Obioma’s The Fishermen, so whilst the UK launch is yet to commence, they’ve multi-award-nominated writing behind them already.

What are you favourite books set in Africa, Nigeria if you have one?

So I recently read The Amber Spyglass, ending a literary relationship that’s been going on for 15 years. I have loved the first two books all that time and simply didn’t want it to finish. But at some point you’ve got to remember you won’t be able to converse with confidence on the subject until you do finish and just get it over with.

And as one often finds when they’ve waited so long, reality can’t match expectation. The finale didn’t live up to what I believe were the promises – there was a conclusion but Pullman left much unanswered, too much, I and others believe, if the thousand-odd forum posts I found just on one subject are considered, for a series that the author’s stopped writing, non-sequel spin-offs aside. There are ambiguous endings and then there are questions for which answers are out of reach and Pullman’s series is one of the latter.

I suppose it means there’s something to talk about.

So I wasn’t keen on the ending. Crucially, I was under the impression, from what the first two books implied, that the last would be about Will and Lyra’s restoration of the Creator to power. That the ending was merely a case of letting the usurper out of his life-giving tomb, and that happening without comment and done by the children by accident, was a nonentity. What happened to the Creator? Where is he or she or it? We’ll likely never know and yet Pullman went to great lengths to make you interested in it all.

Perhaps it’s his Atheist self talking, perhaps he himself saw the Creator an unimportant subject, not important enough to discuss. The Creator’s gone – no big deal. We have to work our lives out ourselves. But I think he almost owed it to us to explain, indeed I think the fact his series is about rewriting religious history and questioning religion, that it’s a response in part to the problems with The Chronicles Of Narnia, demands it. (There are spoilers in this post for the last book in that series.) There is nothing for us to work with, nothing we can use to form an idea or opinion, we can only idly guess. And that’s a great pity.

We’ve also Pantalaimon’s reference to Lyra, when he says he and Will’s daemon, Kirjava, were discussing something when the humans were separated from them and he’ll tell her about it when she’s older. At least in this case we can make informed guesses, for example the ambiguity regarding travel between the worlds and Lyra’s parting line about creating the Republic Of Heaven could relate to Pan and Kirjava working out a way for the children to see each other again. Other possibilities include a period of intimacy between the daemons, which seems most likely if we assume that Will and Lyra had intercourse under the willow tree. However the possibility of sexual intimacy between the daemons rests on that fact, of Pan saying he’ll tell Lyra what happened/was discussed when she’s older, and also the fact that, earlier in the series, adult characters discussed the relationship between two people (I believe Farder Coram and Serafina Pekkala, I believe) and Pullman says, to paraphrase, that the talk went over the children’s heads because they were too young to understand the sexual references – which conflicts with the possibility of the willow tree.

This is where we get to the sex – did they or didn’t they? It’s a difficult subject to discuss, not so much because it’s ambiguous but because of the ages involved. Pullman makes mention of ages early in the introductions to each character and provides a rough idea – a possible idea? it’s difficult to say – as to how much time passes over the course of the series. As far as my own thoughts and those of fans I’ve read about are concerned, the length of time between Lyra’s sitting in the wardrobe and the ending of the series is any when between 3 weeks and a couple of years. I personally think 3 weeks unlikely given all that happens but it’s not completely out of the question. My understanding was that it was about a year – all that travelling must have taken time and unless Mary’s a language whiz she would’ve needed time to learn the mulefas’ mode of communication. Whatever the time, we’re talking 9-13 years old for Lyra and 11-14 for Will – and that’s with added slack.

So that’s the main difficulty, which obviously leads to the second pre-question issue – whatever we assume about the possibility of sex will reflect on Pullman’s creation, and assuming two children slept together is highly uncomfortable. This is surely why Pullman has never given a straight answer to the question.

I’m of the opinion, however uncomfortable, that Will and Lyra did sleep together and I’ve thought it from the first. Pullman makes reference to the long branches of the willow tree, how they obscure the resting children from view and to me that clearly signifies something going on. It’s a literal fade-to-black, behind-the-curtain moment. This conflicts with the way Pullman spoke of their lack of knowledge during that Farder Coram/Serafina Pekkala conversation but I consider he may have forgotten – errors happen – or that the mature-of-mind children figured it out in the meantime as there’s a lot to be said for emotions and physical feelings. And now I feel the need to wash the whole idea away with a gallon of soap we’re going to move on.

To me that the children consummated their love is key to what Pullman was doing. The series is about growing up, about Adam and Eve in the Garden and also about C S Lewis’s treatment of Susan Pevensie’s growing maturity. Where Lewis didn’t allow Susan into Heaven because she had begun puberty – begun to explore life as an independent, begun to look at religion in a new way, questioning her belief as people often do as they become adults – Pullman says that Susan ought to have been allowed to explore and grow up and that to do both is natural and shouldn’t be hampered. He lets Lyra’s growth be accepted where Susan’s wasn’t. It’s a direct response, a commentary and a criticism of a literary issue we’ve been struggling with for decades.

Mary Malone, as openly acknowledged in The Amber Spyglass, is the serpent in the Garden and again Pullman alters things so they aren’t as damning. Mary ‘tempts’ Lyra through her tale of falling in love with a man, a nice, innocent enough history, no malice or goal behind it as far as Mary is concerned, she’s simply doing as Dust tells her, telling stories. Lyra feels the pull to choose a life with Will instead of a life without him: choose love and in doing so cause everyone to die and live in hell forever, or forfeit love for the greater good of allowing the dead their freedom to dwell in the atmosphere of the living. And whilst Eve took the apple, lost her innocence and fell, so Lyra takes the apple but doesn’t fall, she pushes past that. Lyra’s loss of innocence isn’t the end of perfection as Adam and Eve’s was.

By keeping the window of the after-world open, we can spy potential hope for the pair even if it’s bitter-sweet, an eternal resting of separated atoms blending together in the sky. Lyra and Will choose selflessness, showing that a loss of sexual purity isn’t the same as sinning, and put humanity and creatures before themselves. They’ll spend their days teaching people about love, bringing peace to worlds in conflict.

Will I ever be at peace with the ending, the lack of the Creator, the convenient and unsatisfying end of Lord Asriel and Mrs Coulter? No, but if nothing else Pullman has ensured that I needn’t have worried about finishing the series because he’s left a legacy of thoughts that’ll last me at least twice as long as my waiting period.

What did you think of the final book and the trilogy as a whole?

Update on 18th August 2016: I’m pondering a possible connection between the land on the dead and the Catholic idea of Purgatory – did the window there have to be left open so that people could leave Purgatory easily, Pullman’s answer to the thought that a person must spend time there before deliverance, making it that there’s no damnation, just a quick journey through?