How we disappeared

by Jing-Jing Lee

Ordered from the library, when I saw that this is the second of two books published by One World (the other being Marlon James’ The Book of Night Women) that appear on the BBC’s Big Jubilee Read.  This list comprises ten titles from each decade of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II.  I pride myself on having read a good number of them, although the titles from the 1950s and 1960s passed me by.  This reflects my age of course – I was only 13 when 1970 dawned – but also, perhaps, my predilection for reading recent publications or pre-war ‘classics’ rather than picking up a book from those two decades.

The compilers of the Big Jubilee Read have selected titles that reflect the Commonwealth, and thus the writers are from different countries within that entity as well as from across the UK.  I decided to fill in a few gaps, and this was one of them.

(Perhaps I should also mention – for my own, rather than anyone else’s satisfaction – that I have read 6 out of the eight books selected from the 90s and 00s, but only 3 including this one from the most recent decade.  Even though it includes two Booker prizewinners – Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain and Damon Galgut’s The Promise – neither of which I have yet read.)

This whole exercise just serves to remind me that I have BBLE (Books Beyond Life Expectancy) and I measure this not in the books on my shelves, but in those that I can’t wait to read.  But I must wait, and try to read one at a time.  Is it a sign of and ageing and an increasingly disordered mind that I feel the need to have several books on the go at once?  Or is it just that my appetite is ever more vigorous, the less time I have left to satisfy it?

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I had this book out of the library for a month or two, before I read it. After the first couple of chapters, I got a bit bored. There is not a lot of plot, and I wondered if I would stick with it.

I’m glad I did keep going. On coming back to the book, I was more taken with it. It’s difficult to write about the story or character without giving away the plot – such as it is. It left me with several questions unanswered – why did the central characters (any of them) behave as they did?

But in the end it was the setting and the historical context – Singapore before, during and at the end of WW2 – that captures my interest. And the descriptions of the present-day city, seen from the point of view of its residents of Chinese descent, contrasted with and complimented my own brief experience as a tourist there.

Give this book a chance. The writing is very good; the story, characters and setting are well thought-out; and it is after all a first novel. The publisher (and my slight acquaintance) Juliet Mabey took a punt on this. And I think she was right to do so.

The Haunting of Alma Fielding

by Kate Summerscale

Why did I start to read this book?  I think it was after a conversation with my friend Pat.  We often have book discussions when we meet – which is only every couple of months.  Lately I have had the feeling that Pat is dipping into books rather than reading them.  She is, after all, nearly 90.  But perhaps I am mistaken in this perception.  Indeed, it seems to be me that is doing the dipping just now.  This is one of three books that I have on the go.  In an effort to bring the number down (or, at least, not to increase it) I plan to take one of them back to the library tomorrow.  But this book is, partly, what has been holding me back.  I just can’t get sufficiently excited about spiritualism and its hold on certain sections of British society at certain times in its history.

Alma Fielding is a housewife in 1938 London, who starts to experience poltergeist activity.  The members of her household are also witness to some of the events, which mostly concern objects flying around the room or turning up in unexpected places, sometimes at quite a distance from where they started.  The author expands the story to include a ‘ghost hunter’ of Hungarian origin, Nandor Fodor, working in London and attempting to use scientific techniques to demonstrate whether reported hauntings are true or hoaxes.

The connection between the new science of psychology and techniques of psychotherapy are explored.  I was excited (it doesn’t take much to excite me) when I saw the name of a Hungarian psychoanalyst, Sándor Ferenczi, mentioned not only in this book but in something quite unrelated that I was reading recently.

I haven’t read far enough to learn whether this story turns out to be a hoax.  But I must assume that it is based on a true story – or, rather, several true stories, as we learn about other hauntings and spirit activity in the course of the book.

The Guardian review raves about this book, but it is not doing much for me at the present time.  I have it on Kindle, so maybe I will come back to it.

Roth Unbound – a writer and his books

by Claudia Roth Pierpont

I ordered this book from the library a couple of months ago, after reading Roth’s Goodbye, Columbus. I realised that I really don’t know much about this author beyond what he gives away in his books (which are perhaps less autobiographical than they seem) and the TV interview in the Imagine series by Alan Yentob.

Well, this has been a very enjoyable read.  With some reluctance I intend to take it back to the library tomorrow.  I think I have read enough to whet my appetite for more Roth, and to see a sensible, if brief, write-up on those of his books I have already read.  Claudia Roth Pierpont (no relation to Philip) puts each book into its chronological setting in the context of his life, loves and works.

This is a no-nonsense but highly informative and readable book.  I find it enhances my reading experience to learn a little about the writer, particularly from one who has met him, and is able to put his work into its context in his life.

Dear Life

by Alice Munro

After listening to two effusive essays or talks on Munro by Margaret Atwood about in her recent collection Burning Questions, I was encouraged to read more by this author.  I believe (am fairly sure) that I have encountered Alice Munro many years ago.  In my 30s and 40s, I tended to read novels rather than short fiction.  But I have become more and more enthusiastic about short stories in more recent years, and have many collections on my shelves and, especially, on Kindle.

It was surprising to see so few of Munro’s works available on Audible.  In fact, in English there are only this collection (published 2012) and The View from Castle Rock.  I find this very disappointing, and perhaps indicative of the way Munro’s work, and that of other short story writers, has been neglected by novel-readers and critics alike.

The stories in this audiobook are narrated alternatively by a male and female narrator.  They are touching, very real and yet imaginative.  Some are set in the present, but often in the (not too distant) past.  All the stories appealed to me, but the two that have really stuck in my mind are:

The last four ‘stories’ in the collection are really short autobiographical pieces.  I found these less satisfying.  Munro is such a good storyteller, and I wasn’t really in the mood for listening to autobiography.  However, I can quite understand the inclusion of these stories – Munro was after all 80 when this collection was published in 2012.

Since reading this collection, I have ordered another of Munro’s story collections from the library: Who Do you Think you Are, published in 1978 and also phished as The Beggar Maid.  I wonder if this is the volume I read some 25 years ago?  (It is on the Big Jubilee Read list for the 1970s.)

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A remark on the Audible production:  Each story is introduced by the narrator with its title.  Each Audible chapter is a story. But the story titles are not given as chapter headings, as they would be in the printed book or eBook.  In effect, there is no Table of Contents.

This seems to me to be a cheapening of the work and not at all useful to the reader/listener.  Someone should have fixed this during the editing process – and I hope it will be fixed retrospectively.  Come on Audible – you can do better than this!