Six Degrees of Separation: November 2021

 

Six degrees of Separation is hosted by Kate of http://booksaremyfavouriteandbest.com/

The starter book this month is What Are You Going Through by Sigrid Nunez. I haven’t read this book. It is loved by many, but it doesn’t appeal to me at all, so I found this month’s challenge especially challenging….

In the end I decided simply to find a book I’d read whose title is also a question, and I hit upon Madam, Will You Talk? by Mary Stewart.

Stewart is credited with having been one of the first writers of romantic suspense, which I think means thrillers with some romance thrown in. I know that some readers find it terribly annoying when the main characters in mysteries start having affairs of the heart at the same time, but I love Mary Stewart’s books, and this is one of my favourites.

Charity Selbourne has been left a rich young widow by the wartime death of her officer husband. She decides to take herself off to France for a holiday; her husband Johnny taught her how to handle fast cars, so she has no qualms about driving to Provence in her fabulous Riley sports car. Her friend and travelling companion Louise really wants to get some painting done, so Charity explores the area on her own.

The other occupants of the women’s hotel include David, a young English boy, and his French stepmother; Charity befriends the boy, who explains that they are hiding from his father, who has been arrested on a charge of murder. Before long Charity finds herself caught up in a dastardly plot involving fake identities, kidnapping, bigamy - and lots of dramatic car chases through the beautiful landscapes of southern France. Charity is brave, kind and independent; she never waits for a man to do things for her, she’s boundlessly enthusiastic, and is a quite amazing heroine for a novel written over 60 years ago.

From one Madam to another, my next book is Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. Emma Bovary is a woman frustrated by the boredom of provincial married life – indeed, she is perhaps an early victim of FOMO, as she despairs when life does not match her romantic notions, and as a result incurs huge financial debts, while being let down by her unreliable lovers. This book was considered scandalous in its day, and in 1857 the author was - unsuccessfully - prosecuted for obscenity. It is now acclaimed as one of the first and seminal works of literary realism.

Almost 150 years after the publication of Madame Bovary, the cartoonist, writer and illustrator Posy Simmonds published Gemma Bovery, a graphic novel about a young and beautiful woman who becomes the second wife of an older man and the stepmother of his children. They leave London (where Gemma has the active social life typical of her age and class) to live in provincial France – now full of the English chattering classes whom Simmonds portrays so well. Here Gemma is bored out of her mind. She spends too much, she has love affairs, and in everything she does she is observed by the slightly creepy local baker, Joubert. Gemma does, of course, have much in common with Flaubert’s Emma, but for me the chief joy of this book is, as with all of Posy Simmonds’ work, the brilliant accuracy with which she satirises the foibles of the upper middle classes.

I recently heard Posy Simmonds speak on an excellent Slightly Foxed podcast episode about graphic novels and comics. It was such a thrill to hear the voice of someone whose books – especially her Wendy Weber comic strips, first published in The Guardian – have accompanied me through my married life. There is a Weber family story for almost every occasion, from George Weber’s panic about his purple pee (he sits in the surgery waiting room envisaging his polytechnic lecturer colleagues concocting his eulogy, only to be told by the doctor that this is a common problem ‘after a little too much borscht’) to the funeral the Weber children hold for a deceased guinea pig 

‘To the Father, to the Son, and into the hole he goes!’

I’m glad to say that my elder daughter has now become as much of a fan of the Webers as me, thus giving us a shared shorthand with which to describe so many social observations. Simmonds illustrated the lot of a working mother in London’s smarter suburbs long before Anna Maxwell Martin nailed it in Motherland – and in essence, very little has changed.

From France to Italy; my next book is Summer’s Lease by John Mortimer. This is another entertaining - and accurate - story of the English middle classes abroad, though this time it’s the Pargeter family on holiday in their rented villa in Tuscany. Like all of Mortimer’s books, Summer’s Lease is a good read – there’s even a plot (a water supply scandal, a murder mystery) to accompany the comedy. The latter is particularly provided by Molly Pargeter’s father, the badly behaved and entirely unrepentant Haverford Downs;

‘I must leave you for a while. When you get to my age life seems little more than one march to and from the lavatory.’

His isn’t, of course; he actually spends his holiday looking up old flames and (verbally) torturing his unfaithful, pompous son-in-law.

My next book is a more recent one; I heard Sarah Winman’s Still Life read on BBC Sounds and was so impressed with this wonderful story about Ulysses Temper, a young soldier from Dalston,  and Evelyn Skinner, a 60 year old art historian. 

The two first meet in Italy towards the end of the war, when Ulysses is attached to a unit trying to find works of art stolen by the Nazis, and Evelyn turns up offering her help. Ulysses knows next to nothing about art, but his commanding officer starts to open his eyes, and he and Evelyn become unlikely friends. When Ulysses returns to his local London pub after the war, his wife tells him she wants a divorce. Through a series of events Ulysses eventually ends up living in Florence with his wife’s child, an assortment of friends from the pub, and a talkative parrot. 

The years pass, the world turns, the city is flooded, people come and go, but through it all we are shown the essential goodness and generosity of this excellent man. On many occasions he and Evelyn almost meet again, but chances are missed. The ending of the story is perfect. I’m looking forward to reading it in book form.

Finally, another book about art, and goodness. Frank Cottrell Boyce’s brilliant Framed is actually based on a true story, though the plot soon moves into the realms of fiction.

9 year old Dylan helps his father with the family's failing petrol station and garage in Manod, a run-down Welsh village below a disused slate mine. Dylan worships his Dad and loves his family and community, but times are hard, especially when the petrol supplier stops delivering. When a stranger turns up in a BMW 5, together with three sidekicks in a Nissan X Trail and two Toyota Hi Aces (Dylan knows his cars), the whole village is agog – none more so than Dylan, especially when he discovers that the boxes the men are unloading into the old mine contain neither drugs nor toxic waste but works of art.

Why they are there, and what happens next, form the plot of the book, but the story is about so much more than that. It’s about a young boy who always looks on the bright side, and who has no greater wish than to see his family thrive and his village prosper. 

Framed is also hilariously funny. Dylan describes the local residents – from ‘Daft Tom’, a grown man who tries to hold up the garage wearing his Ninja Mutant Turtles cycle helmet (Tom’s mum wants to report her son to the police, but Dad instead offers him a job) to the Misses Sellwood, who live on a farm halfway up the mountain;

‘Miss Elsa can drive but she can’t see. Miss Edna can see but she can’t drive. So what they do is, every Wednesday, Miss Elsa drives and Miss Edna steers. It’s not so risky on the mountain road because no one lives there apart from them, and Mr Morgan’s sheep. But when they hit the High Street, they are a Menace to Society.’

He talks about his school, his annoying sisters, his long-suffering mother, and the village shops;

‘..unisex hairdressing at Curl Up N Dye…. Mr Davis’s butcher’s shop, which has ‘Always meat to please you, always pleased to meet you’ written over the door…This isn’t strictly true, as he’s never pleased to meet you.’

Dylan is naïve and sometimes gullible, but he’s kind, optimistic and believes in the essential goodness of people; his generous heart shines through.

Frank Cottrell Boyce is such an exceptional writer that his books are just as enjoyable for adults as for children. The story flies along, the characters are wonderful, and I can’t recommend Framed highly enough.

So having almost despaired of the starter title this month, I eventually managed to concoct a thread of the kind of books I enjoy.

Next month’s book is Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton – a book I’ve actually read!