WWTTM Benign Book Dictatorship: Asylum.

First, an announcement. As previously mentioned, from next month Scott Pack and I will be running a monthly literary event in Windsor, the Firestation Bookswap. Tickets for the August 20th event are now on sale for a measly £5. We'll be dragging some sofas out of the props cupboard, brewing up a pot of tea, and discussing all manner of topics, including but not remotely limited to books, with guests including the new queen of blockbuster fiction Jessica Ruston and associate editor of the Observer, biographer, memoirist and novelist Robert McCrum. Information on how to get to the venue can be found on this highly informative page. I can confirm that it is very easy to get to from London. Less easy, perhaps, from some of the other places readers of this blog come from: Canada; Australia; Mozambique... Which is why I have decided to run a monthly Virtual Firestation on this blog, instead of the book club. I know, very sad. But think of it as a new, advanced book club! A month in advance I'll post up the names of our guests, so that those who are interested can investigate, and even read, their work. Before the event, anybody who has any questions or comments for our guests can post them here. Then afterwards, I'll do a post writing up the event, and open it out to discussion in the comments box.

Meanwhile, this month's book club book was Asylum by Patrick McGrath. Like an eejit, I have come down to Dorset without my copy. Fortunately it is a memorable read. In 1959, a young woman, Stella, is brought by her husband to live within the grounds of the hospital for the criminally insane where he is deputy superintendent. While there, she falls under the spell of a highly charismatic but dangerous murderer, Edgar. They have a passionate affair, and escape the hospital together. Edgar's sanity begins to crack; Stella begins to suspect she may be in danger at his hands; and the law and her family are on her trail. What transpires is a tragic indictment of love that can neither be lived nor denied.

What I remember finding most disturbing about the book was its vision of love as an obsessive, destructive force, bringing not joy and redemption, but the intense desire for the possession of, and even a murderous consumption of, the other. It reminded me very much of Wuthering Heights in its wilderness setting and its portrayal of the addictive, unshakable qualities of passionate love. Also in its seemingly cool narrator, reminiscent of Nellie Dean, but who by the end turns out to be just as twisted and implicated in the destructive force of passion as his patients. I am brought back to the question I posed when I suggested this book a month ago: is love itself a form of insanity?

Over to you.

WWTTM Benign Book Dictatorship: Next Month: Asylum

Not a huge response for Disquiet, although thumbs up from 100pc of participants, so I am undaunted. However, I am also very low on very short books, so this month's is a normal length. But it's summer, so what better way to pass the time than sitting in the sun reading Patrick McGrath's Asylum

This is one of those books I cannot believe is not read, marveled over and discussed at tedious length at every party that you go to. It was recommended to me by fellow author Jessica Ruston, but it was a while before I picked it up, probably because, as I have since discovered when trying on innumerable occasions to purchase it for someone else, it is simply not very often stocked in shops. (WHY???) Anyway, I picked it up in a bookshop and read the first page and I knew straight away that I had to have it and to read it immediately, which I did.

Set in 1959, Asylum tells the story of Stella Raphael, whose husband takes a job as deputy superintendent of a hospital for the criminally insane, and who has an intense sexual relationship with one of the inmates. But it's also the kind of book which starts off seeming to be about one thing and then later on you realise that another, hidden story has been being told underneath. It's an incredibly gripping, exciting read which leaves you with the question: is love itself a form of insanity?

Off you go. Meet back here on July 16th.

PS I do seem to specialise in books that have featured Natasha Richardson in the adaptations; the image is of her as Stella.

WWTTM Benign Book Dictatorship: Disquiet

Even looking at my copy of Disquiet gives me the creeps. It's so incredibly sinister. The lead character - "the woman" - is cold and detached, bruised literally and metaphorically by a violent relationship. She returns with her children to the loveless home of her upbringing. There, a fresh nightmare awaits her: her brother and his wife Sophie return from hospital with a stillborn baby which she refuses to give up for burial, and which 'sleeps' on a satin pillow in the freezer. Gradually the horror of the situation engulfs the whole family. Eventually, the woman, like Sophie, also has to make a choice between love and death, between her pain and her children.

I think the book is an incredible piece of work, a dark masterpiece of atmosphere, with surprising emotional depth for a book so short and so macabre. I'd be very intrigued, if any of you read it, to hear your thoughts...

WWTTM Benign Book Dictatorship: Next Month: Disquiet

Have returned from Hay to a To Do Mountain (like the European Butter mountain, but less slimy, and less tasty on toast), one of which I realise is: new bookclub book.

Because I have shaved a week off your reading time, I am going short beyond the call of duty. This month we're going to read Disquiet by Julia Leigh.

Short enough to be read in a couple of hours, Disquiet is - as the title suggests - a disturbing, unsettling novella, about a woman who returns to her family home with her two children, escaping a violent relationship. The day she arrives coincides with her brother's return home from hospital where his wife has just given birth to a stillborn child.

Having picked a series of crowd-pleasers, I expect this one to divide readers. The only reviews on Amazon are both 2-star, from people who found the book hard to engage with. It is an eerie and distant read. On the other hand I found the book utterly engrossing and read it in one sitting. It's dark and haunting and very unusual. But that'll make for a good discussion...

Meet back here on June 18th, literary guns blazing.

WWTTM Benign Book Dictatorship: The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie

Before we begin, I was in central London this morning and noticed a huge poster advertising Suzanne Shaw's perfume. How many people wake up in the morning and think: today, I want to smell like Suzanne Shaw? My guess: not many.

Moving on. Really enjoyed re-reading The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie this month, for one main reason: I had forgotten how funny it is. The appropriately-surnamed Muriel Spark has such a waspish way with her prose, each page glitters with vicious observations and sharp commentary. I particularly enjoyed the first half of the book where the girls are pubescent children filled with beady curiosity, watching the adult world, and, while not entirely understanding it, somehow picking up the truth of it, so that they catch onto Miss Brodie's love triangle long before any of the adults do. The fake letter they write from Miss Brodie to her lover Gordon Lowther is typically priceless:

I was proud of giving myself to you when you came and took me in the bracken on Arthur's Seat while the storm raged about us. If I am in a certain condition I shall place the infant in the care of a worthy shepherd and his wife, and we can discuss it calmly as platonic acquaintances. I may permit misconduct to occur again from time to time as an outlet because I am in my Prime.

Miss Brodie herself is a fascinating, grotesque, as simultaneously attractive and monstrous as any fascist leader, which is of course what she is to her girls. Marrying the portrait of Miss Brodie to the story of fascism in 1930s Italy and Spain, Muriel Spark spins a brilliant satire, where the power struggles are no less momentous for taking place against the smaller backdrop of a school. The book skillfully intertwines its twin themes of female sexuality and female power dynamics, reading as a sort of female Lord of the Flies, except much, much funnier.

I'll announce next month's book, um, once I've decided on one...

The I Can't Be Bothered To Type It Again Book Dictatorship: Next Month: The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie

Last year, I spent the entire year trying to write a funny book set in a 1930s girls' boarding school, before finally having to abandon hope and the book, which is a very painful and difficult thing for a writer to do, but possibly the reason I couldn't finish the book is that The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie has already been written, and it is impossible to improve upon perfection. Damn you, Muriel Spark!

My first exposure to Miss Jean Brodie was via the justifiably famous film starring Maggie Smith. It is one of the very first films I can remember watching, and was probably shown to me in the misguided belief that if a film is about children, it must be for children. Which is emphatically not the case. But even so, I remember being completely absorbed by, and envious of, the blooming sophistication of the schoolgirl characters as they grow up. The latter part of the film has sex in it, and this was mesmerising and slightly disgusting. Only later did I realise that, ironically, the earlier part of the film is about children being desperately curious about sex but slightly disgusted by it.

It was only years later that I read the book, but even that was a long time ago now, and my memories of the novel and of the film have melted into one another. I picked the book off the shelf yesterday (nice narrow spine) and started reading it again, and was immediately reminded of what makes it so brilliant: the impeccably observed, hilarious dialogue; and the character of Miss Jean Brodie herself, possibly the most fascinating in modern literature.

Published in 1961 but set in the 1930s, it's about the sexual awakening of a group of girls at a time when they weren't supposed to have sexual awakenings, but it's more than that: it's an intellectual and political awakening too, and an examination of the attractions and terrors of fascism, the fascination and fragility of power, a study of the social danger that is an intelligent, sexual, unmarried woman, and an exploration of what happens to that woman when she starts to age.

It isn't perfect, no matter what I might have said in my first paragraph, and I imagine it will divide readers, but that makes for a more fun discussion. Meet back here to talk about it on Thursday May 21st.

Oh god. You probably all did it for A Level, didn't you?

PS Thank you all for your brilliant discussion of A Month In The Country, it totally makes this book club worth doing.

PPS How brilliant is that poster?

WWTTMBBDOBBAWTTL: A Month In The Country by JL Carr

That's "Woman Who Talked Too Much Benign Book Dictatorship Of Books By Authors Who Talked Too Little", as suggested by MediumRob. Can you blame me that I didn't want to type it all out again? And yet I did. Ah well.

It is also my 500th post on this blog. Total blog posts ever are 2320, so it's not entirely surprising that I have occasional moments of blog fatigue where I do things like just not posting since Sunday and totally forgetting that I have a book club to remind you about until I wake up on Thursday morning and wondering whether anybody has read the book, and thus what is the best way to go about this.

In so wondering, I picked up my beloved copy of A Month In The Country (you'll note I'm linking to Play.com, if you have read it you will know that A Month In The Country has gay content and Amazon have still not properly explained or fully apologised for their little tantrum, sorry, "glitch" about the gays). I opened it at random and this is what I saw:

Ah, those days... for many years afterwards their happiness haunted me. Sometimes, listening to music, I drift back and nothing has changed. The long end of summer. Day after day of warm weather, voices calling as night came on and lighted windows pricked the darkness and, at day-break, the murmur of corn and the warm smell of fields ripe for harvest. And being young.

If I'd stayed there, would I always have been happy? No, I suppose not. People move away, grow older, die, and the bright belief that there will be another marvellous thing around each corner fades. It is now or never, we must snatch at happiness as it flies.

And there it is, the exact reason why I love A Month In The Country so much: its perfect capture of that exact mood of fleeting happiness, loss and regret. My dictionary defines "nostalgia" as "a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for something past or unrecoverable." There is no sentimentality in A Month In The Country, excessive or otherwise, but for good measure I looked up "wistful" (I love the precision of dictionary definitions) and got "Full of unfulfilled desire; yearning. Musingly sad; pensive." Which is exactly the tone of this novel. And the tragedy of A Month In The Country is that the chance of happiness does fly past the narrator, Tom Birkin, but he fails to snatch at it, and he loses it forever.

So, book club members: If you have read A Month In The Country, please share your feelings about it in the comments, being spoiler-sensitive. And if you haven't, can you recommend a book which also captures a particular mood to perfection?

WWTTM Benign Book Dictatorship: Next Month: A Month in the Country

Thanks to everyone who took part in this month's book club. I thought it went well, so well in fact that I am having another go for this month. The book I've chosen is A Month in the Country by JL Carr (or check out this lovely illustrated edition.)

There are two reasons that I have chosen this book:

1. It is one of my all-time favourites, and woefully under-known, and
2. It is very short.

I am feeling inclined to only pick short books for The Woman Who Talked Too Much Benign Book Dictatorship, so much so that I may rename it The Woman Who Talked Too Much Benign Book Dictatorship Of Short Books, So That As Many People As Possible Can Read It In Time. Though I don't want to tie myself down, in case at some point in the future I decide that I really want to get you all to read Bleak House because it's just so good (well, it is.)

But in the meantime: A Month in the Country, by JL Carr (not to be confused with A Month in the Country by Turgenev, though by all means read that as well, only I haven't, and cannot comment on whether it is (a) any good or (b) short.) A young man, scarred both by his experiences of World War One and by the betrayal of his wife, takes a job repairing a fresco in a country church in the north of England. His work, his growing friendships in the community, and the stirrings of love begin to heal him, but can he ever be entirely healed? This book is beautifully written, with a real delicacy and lightness of touch, and a healthy amount of dry humour, and was shortlisted for the Booker prize in 1980. I believe I may have blogged about it before, very much in the context of its pleasing shortness. The late Natasha Richardson was in the film, but the timing of my choice is just coincidence. However it is a nice excuse to illustrate this post with a picture of her with the other two stars of the movie, Colin Firth (nice 'tache!) and Kenneth Branagh. If you are feeling super-keen, you could watch the movie as well, and make a comparison. If you are not feeling all that keen, you could just watch the movie.

Meet back here to discuss it on Thursday April 16th.

WWTTM Benign Book Dictatorship: Ali and Nino

OK, so this first meeting will be a bit experimental. I can be experimental in my dictatorship: it is benign, as you can see. But anyway, I think that most of the fun is to be had in the comments, so I will start us off with a few of my own thoughts regarding Ali and Nino and then hand it over to you.

First a little summary for those who have not read the book.

Ali Khan is a Muslim, Nino Kipiani is a Georgian Christian. They live in Baku, the Azerbaijani capital, at the turn of the century. And they are in love. Baku is a melting pot of cultures and at first Ali and Nino are able to pursue their courtship relatively unhindered, and their anxieties regarding their different backgrounds are little more than the usual worries between lovers. But then the First World War breaks out and they are forced to flee Baku, and for all their desire to stay together, history conspires to tear them apart.

The book itself has a remarkable history: written under a pseudonym by a Tartar who converted to Islam, and fled the Bolsheviks only to die at the hands of Italian fascists, it was first published in Vienna in 1937. By the end of the Second World War it was out of print, but a copy was found in a second hand bookshop in the ruins of post-war Berlin, by the woman whose translation we now read. It was published in the UK in the 1970s, then once again forgotten, and reissued by Vintage in 2000.

(Those who have read A&N may spot a few key plot points that I have left by the wayside, but let's keep the spoilers for the comments section.)

Anyway, what I thought of it: I loved it. It was one of those books which picked me up and transported me utterly into another time and place. I didn't know a thing about Azerbaijan at the time of WW1, didn't know a thing about Azerbaijan full stop really, I'd never even heard of Baku. Now I feel like I've been there. And I am desperate to visit for real, though I imagine things have massively changed. What I particularly appreciated was the delicacy of the detail, there wasn't that urge you get in so many novels to club you over the head with endless descriptions of time and place so that you choke on the smell of the local cookery and the frangipani (isn't there always frangipani?) Reading Ali and Nino I felt as if I was learning something, about a period in history which resonates so clearly now again, when once again society is obsessed with the relationship between the Muslim and the Christian world. It's both a love story and an adventure, the love story adding emotional depth to the adventure, the adventure adding jeopardy to the love story.

Also: the humour. The whole book, which at times is achingly sad and moved me to tears, is nevertheless laced throughout with subtle, sly humour, filling it with warmth. This was one of the reasons that I felt so attached to the book and its characters, and experienced such a profound investment in what happened to them.

And the characterisation. Ali, the narrator, is young, mercurial, confused, but warm-hearted, loving and well-meaning, and his forced journey to maturity is wonderful and sad. But it was Nino I fell in love with - stubborn, willful, funny, intelligent, emotional, vulnerable, thoroughly modern, and quite a remarkable creation for a male author of the 1930s, or for that matter for anyone. I found the ups and downs of their love story completely believable and terribly moving.

Ultimately I found this to be a magical, transformative book which I would strongly recommend to anyone whether they think they are interested in the Caucasus or not.

And you?

PS If you are putting a spoiler in your comment please say so first.

Holidays on Mars

The thing about skiing is that it's so completely different from anything else that you would ever do that it's a bit like having taken a holiday on Mars. "What did you do on holiday Marie?" "Oh, I just drove to the top of a snowy mountain, put on seventeen layers of clothing and a thick smear of factor 50 sunscreen, forced my feet into the most painful boots you can possibly imagine which weigh about six tonnes each, strapped fibreglass planks to the bottom of my feet, sat on an open chair swinging high above the ground in sub-zero temperatures, and then threw myself down the mountain as fast as I could go. Repeatedly. For a week." Result? I feel as if I have been off the planet for about a month. On the way home (Easyjet flight full of vomiting South Africans, but still miles preferable to the demon Ryanair) I fantasised lightly about how much all my friends would have missed me and how delighted they'd be to have me back, and then I remembered I had only been gone one WEEK. A blink of an eye. I think it's like light speed travel, it's changed the speed of time.

And now I'm back and I've realised that it's only two days til the great inaugural Woman Who Talked Too Much book club! Had you forgotten? Yes team, we will be discussing Ali and Nino here on Thursday, I hope you've all been busy reading. I finished it a while back and can report that it is... no, that would be showing my hand. I can report that it is short. So you can make it if you try. Or possibly if you go to a skiing resort right now and interfere with the passing of time...

The Woman Who Talked Too Much Book Club

Claire in Sydney has seconded a Woman Who Talked Too Much Book Club and so a Woman Who Talked Too Much Book Club we will have. We don't care if it's just the two of us, because we can have plenty of intellectual discussion by ourselves. But obviously, we would totally love it if more people joined in.

It's going to be a bit experimental because I have no idea how to run a book club on a blog, but for now I'm going to say let's meet back here on the third Thursday of every month ('cause it's the third Thursday today, no other reason) and chat in the comments about the book we have been reading. This month we are reading Ali and Nino by Kurban Said...


...and we will be discussing it on Thursday March 19th. People in other time zones will have to wait until I get up. You will be allowed to carry on commenting after Thursday 19th. It won't be a very strict book club. I think I will probably be quite strict about book choices though, because the one thing I hate about book clubs is being made to read books that I don't want to read. So chances are that in the WWTTMBC the book of the month will be whatever I happen to be reading anyway. Hey, it's my club. And so it will be a very small book choice dictatorship. But that's OK. It's a benign dictatorship. No secret police (well, I would say that...) And I will take reading suggestions from the floor. Plus one of the things that isn't strict about the book club is you don't have to finish the book, or even read the book, or even say anything, if you don't want to. You can still eavesdrop on the conversation. It's just for fun. In the way that all dictatorships are fun one way or another (eg outfits) (the WWTTMBC will not have a special outfit) (not yet anyway).

Are you in?