regshoe

The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono (1953; translated by Barbara Bray, 1995). See, the thing about tree-planting is that I read Oliver Rackham at a formative age and so whenever I hear any encouraging good-news conservation story about big tree-planting efforts I just think 'is this really a good idea?' (the trees planted may not be suitable for the local conditions; planting trees can destroy ecologically valuable non-woodland habitats) and, perhaps more importantly, 'but is it even necessary?' (trees don't need humans to plant them! Anywhere where the local conditions are suited to woodland, as long as it's not overgrazed or too far from established trees to provide a source of seeds, will succeed to woodland on its own if you just leave it alone for a few decades*, and so you should save your active conservation efforts for places that need them, e.g. ecologically valuable non-woodland habitats which will succeed to woodland in a few decades if you don't keep cutting down all the birch saplings). All of which is to say that I was sceptical going into this book. But to his credit, while Giono isn't making any particularly careful effort at realism, he does address ecological issues: the tree-planter finds that some species do well in particular areas and others don't, and has to adapt to local conditions; he starts out as a shepherd, but ends up getting rid of the sheep because they graze the saplings (he becomes a beekeeper instead). More unexpected and more troubling was Giono's consistent and deliberate deceptive presentatation of the story as non-fiction, as described by Richard Mabey in the foreword and Giono's daughter Aline in the afterword of the edition I read. It was apparently widely effective and he regarded it as a good joke. I could get all high-minded and talk about our twenty-first-century knowledge of the harm done by misinformation, but to be honest, I am actually just a 'reader with no sense of humour' as Aline puts it. Still, that rather soured the whole thing.

*This can happen even despite tree-planting efforts: there's an area of my local wood where some people earnestly planted a lot of oak trees twenty or thirty years ago, and now the patch is mostly scrubby birch woodland full of brambles, because that's what does well in early-successional woodland habitat.


The Shortest Way to Hades by Sarah Caudwell (1984). The second Hilary Tamar book has confirmed the series as a fave for me! It's a really enjoyable, well-constructed mystery with clues intricately worked into apparently incidental details; it's just the kind of absurd humour I love, an absurdity of character and incident perfectly confident in its own internal logic and reasonableness; Hilary is a great narrator and detective; have I mentioned how much I love the prose? etc. I don't know whether you could have worked out the solution to the mystery ahead of time: I realised early on that

spoiler

the twins not seeing Deirdre fall was an important detail

but didn't trouble to reason any further beyond 'well, maybe they did it then, let's see'. I am definitely shipping Julia/Selena.


The White Cockade: or, Faith and Fortitude by James Grant (1868). A fairly early Jacobite novel, as far as I can tell: on my list only Scott's novels and The Pastor's Fireside are older. And I think it has more affinity with those older books than with later adventure novels like Kidnapped, at least in style—it's fairly long, wide in scope and written with proper mid-Victorian density of prose. It's also rather oddly structured. The first half or so follows our Jacobite hero Henry, Lord Dalquarn as he returns to Scotland in advance of the '45 and has an original adventure plot involving dramatic smuggling, Dalquharn's romance with the lovely Bryde Otterburn, the dastardly schemes of the evil Baillie Balcraftie and a lot of scenic description of East Lothian and the Firth of Forth, while the early part of the '45 happens in the background. But then Prince Charles arrives in Edinburgh and Bryde and Dalquharn join him there, and from that point onwards the book closely follows the historical course of the rising, apart from the odd detour for things like Bryde getting rather tediously abducted by a moustache-twirling Frenchman; the earlier plot is largely forgotten, and what loose ends remain from it are eventually dealt with really rather perfunctorily.

There's a lot of long-winded and not always very relevant historical exposition, and I suppose both this and the plot that follows the '45 so closely (only not the first bit between Eriskay and Edinburgh, for some reason) seemed more interesting and original at a time when few Jacobite novels had yet been published. Several incidents bear amusing similarities to later Jacobite novels, and again, I may have read those other books first but the incidents are more original here! Grant makes a couple of odd historical errors: e.g., he places both John Cameron of Fassiefern and Simon Fraser of Lovat in Edinburgh with the Prince in September 1745, when in reality the former never joined the rising and the latter only did so much later; he also makes, amusingly, the same mistake Edward Prime-Stevenson does in White Cockades of describing Charles's eyes as blue (they were actually brown). His actual view of the Jacobites is more positive than Scott's or Porter's: he balances an acceptance of the moral rightness of their cause according to the ideas of the time, and a lot of admiration for their loyalty and tragic nobility, with a very Victorian Whiggish 'well, the defeat of the Jacobites ultimately led to the present state of affairs, which—God save Queen Victoria and the Empire—is obviously the best possible, so all's well that ends well, right?'. The characters and relationships are not very interesting, apart from a few details that could have gone somewhere good but don't, but the adventure is enjoyable, especially the pre-rising bit. Overall I'd say this is not one of the best Jacobite novels, but it is worth reading—the first half more in its own right, and the second for historical development of views of the Jacobites and the '45.


Also read 'Hornblower and the Big Decision' or 'Hornblower and the Widow McCool', a short story written and set shortly before Lieutenant Hornblower. It's a very interesting story and has given me much to think about vis-a-vis how Hornblower's attitude to an Irish rebel (and deserter) might inform 1750s!Hornblower's attitude to a Scottish Jacobite (and deserter). I was a little bit sceptical of

spoilers

how possible it would really be to conceal a mechanism in those carved letters, but charmed by Hornblower carefully inspecting the mechanism and experimenting to figure out how it works

alongside agonising over his moral quandary.

At long last I've made it to the start! Mr Midshipman Hornblower (1950), sixth of the Hornblower books by publication order, is the first chronologically, and thus the point where it's generally recommended one should start the series. I don't regret reading in publication order instead, but I'm beginning to see why this is so.

I got this book from the library in a TV tie-in omnibus edition of the three 'prequel' Hornblower books titled The Young Hornblower (subtitles/blurbs 'A MAJOR NEW ITV SERIES, HORNBLOWER' and 'THE YOUNG HORNBLOWER—A TRULY FORMIDABLE FORCE IN HIS MAJESTY'S SERVICE'). The Young Hornblower as portrayed in the TV series is on the cover, looking dashing and handsome as he wields a cutlass while climbing up the side of a ship. This may or may not be the character in the book.

( They took me bonny laddie, the best of all the crew )

So now I have to decide whether to re-read Lieutenant Hornblower (which I've already read out of order) before going on to the next book, Hornblower and the 'Hotspur'. I'm inclining towards yes, because I remember it being a really good one and I'd like to get it in context. So I'll be seeing The Young Hornblower again before very long, I hope. :D

I read The Commodore a few weeks ago, shortly before the Kidnapped play took over my entire fannish brain, hence the delay in writing it up. And to be honest Kidnapped is still taking up much of my brain right now, but I do want to get caught up on these book review posts, so: Hornblower! :D

( So we sailed up north to reach the ice, we took full sails )

My next Hornblower—which is to say the second in publication order and the seventh by internal chronology. Having sampled the later, better Hornblower books, the plan is to read in publication order from now on and see what I find...

( We sailed our course away for Spain... )

Other books read on holiday and since...


The Happy Return/Beat to Quarters by C. S. Forester (1937; different titles when published in different countries). My first attempt at getting into Age of Sail fandoms! I can't say I enjoyed this one hugely, but I have only myself to blame for that, because I had heard from Hornblower fans that reading the books in publication order is a bad idea and then decided to start with the first-published anyway. (I read the Discworld books in publication order when I was twelve and it didn't do me any harm...!) However—this is a very detailed story of sailing, imperial politics and highly questionable personal decisions set in/off the coast of Central America during the Napoleonic wars; Our Hero, Captain Horatio Hornblower, has to navigate commanding his crew, following difficult orders from the Admiralty, negotiating with some very strange local rulers, more than one suitably dramatic sea battle and an encounter with the strong-willed and somewhat improper Lady Barbara Wellesley (a fictional sister of the future Duke of Wellington). Hornblower would very much like to be a human person with feelings, idiosyncrasies and weaknesses, but he is absolutely convinced that this would be the most unpardonably un-captainlike thing he could possibly do, and so he tries his utmost to conceal his entire character beneath a facade of hard, featureless naval perfection. All his crew love him for it; my reaction to the extremes of this was a sort of cringing horror mixed with annoyance. I think the worst/best bit for me was where Hornblower thinks about how he hasn't discussed his orders with his officers, even though he isn't required to keep them a total secret, because he loves talking and gossiping about everything and is terrified of saying too much and spoiling his reputation. I feel sorry for him, but he does make it difficult! There were also some hints of where people get their slash shipping for this fandom from (I gather that the popular pairing is Hornblower and Bush, the first lieutenant with whom he can't possibly discuss his orders), which was entertaining, but not more than a few hints as yet.

sanguinity tells me that the mood of the books and the portrayal of Hornblower as a character shifted considerably over the course of Forester's writing career, and that the later books are much better. I'm planning to try Lieutenant Hornblower, her recommendation from the later books, next, and then if I like it I may go back and read the rest. I'm also going to try the Aubrey-Maturin books, which I gather are better-written and have some natural history in them.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1911). A classic which I somehow managed to miss out on reading as a child—I think I saw a film adaptation of it at some point, but I can't remember the details. Anyway, I think this book is basically the idea of 'oh, go and get some nice fresh air, you'll feel better!' incarnated as a novel, an impressive achievement. Ten-year-old Mary Lennox, having grown up in the stultifying climate of India, loses her parents to cholera in one of the more horrifying opening sequences to a children's book I've read in a while and then finds herself sent to Yorkshire to live with her uncle in a big house next to The Moors. She is moody and unpleasant, but gradually transforms under the influence of Good Yorkshire Fresh Air and, most importantly, the garden of the title. This belonged to her uncle's wife, and he heartbrokenly abandoned it after her death years before; Mary is shown the door to the garden, all overgrown with ivy, and the key, buried in the earth, by a helpful local robin who befriends her, and sets to work restoring the garden alongside Dickon, the young brother of Mary's maidservant and a sort of local slightly-magical-nature-spirit friend to all animals (it's just occurred to me to compare him to Thomas Godbless, which seems like an interesting idea). Her cousin Colin, who has spent his life being hidden away in the house and convinced that he's hopelessly ill and surely won't live to adulthood, also joins in and is restored to perfect health. I thought all the Wholesome Fresh Air stuff was, er, just a little bit OTT—apparently it originated from Hodgson Burnett's Christian Science beliefs, which perhaps explains the sense of religious fervour in it. But I did enjoy the book overall, and especially all the nature descriptions, magical friendly animals and slightly absurd adulation of the general concept of Yorkshire. The attitudes to health in this context were certainly wobbly, however—I thought Hodgson Burnett convincingly argued that Colin's illness in particular was the result of persuasion and expectations rather than an actual physical disability and could plausibly be 'cured' by fresh air etc., but I was left with a certain suspicion that she wouldn't be especially ready to accept the idea that many disabilities are not that. Also, I remember ethelmay commenting on one of my posts about Juliana Horatia Ewing that a lot of the stuff in this book was ripped off from Six to Sixteen, which, yes, it totally was!

(Looking it up now, FHB not only never lived in Yorkshire, she was actually born in Lancashire. Who'd have thought! o_O )

Emily Davis by Miss Read (1971). Read towards the end of my holiday, when I was getting tired and wanted some comfort reading—the next Fairacre book is always a reliable choice for that. This one begins with the death of Emily Davis, one of the older generation of teacher characters, and shows various friends, former pupils and other members of the community reacting to the news and reminiscing about Emily and her influence on their own lives—helping them, guiding them in their choices, reacting to and wisely overlooking various transgressions and generally being a good influence. It's solidly good in the way of Miss Read books—gentle, perceptive and sympathetic. I especially liked the significance which Emily Davis's life as a single woman gets to have—her fiance left her due to his WWI trauma and she never married, living happily in retirement with her lifelong best friend Dolly Clare, and the portrayal of this situation is lovely; regretting what didn't happen, but living a full and happy life nonetheless. I also sympathised especially with one of Emily's former pupils, who's now living in London for work and, thinking about her old teacher, realises how awful the city is (crowded, noisy, unbearable in a heatwave, etc.) and decides to go back home to the country.

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers (1940). I had been meaning to read this one for ages—the library's copy was bizarrely determined to evade me, but it does prove to exist after all—and I'm glad I got round to it now. It's a more or less plotless novel following the lives of various characters in a mill town somewhere in the US South just before the Second World War; the central figure is John Singer, a deaf and mute man who becomes the unlikely friend and confidant of several very different characters variously hurt and unsatisfied by their lives. Basically it's a story about the human longing for connection and meaningful purpose, as the other main characters seek in Singer someone who will understand their troubles: a thirteen-year-old girl from a poor and overcrowded family who cherishes a passion for classical music and dreams of becoming a composer; a doctor striving to improve the lot of his fellow black Americans, who ultimately fails to make the changes he wants even in his own family; a young man who comes to the town as a sort of vagrant and finds work at a carnival while determined to spread the word of his Marxist ideals to the workers of America; the owner of a cafe (incidentally, defined in the same oddly broad way as in The Ballad of the Sad Cafe) which the other characters frequent, who deals with various personal troubles and lonelinesses surrounding the death of his wife. But Singer is not really the friend the others all seek in him—his muteness and the resulting lack of actual communication between them impede real understanding while allowing them to project whatever they need onto him. And Singer too has an ideal friend, another deaf-mute man who is carted off to an asylum at the start of the book; his loss is a source of great pain to Singer throughout, and none of the other characters ever understands or even, I think, actually knows about it, but Singer's relationship with his friend ultimately seems as self-created and unreal as the others' friendships with him. The whole thing is an oddly dislocated book. It's very, very good! McCullers portrays highly varied and complicated situations, emotions and reactions in brilliantly precise detail, and sums up her characters' predicaments with understanding and sympathy; but it is somewhat grim and very pessimistic about the potential for real connection between people, and I think this gloominess was a bit too much for me in the end.