Put Out More Flags

Somehow I feel like I've read a lot of Evelyn Waugh's novels. I read Vile Bodies in 2008, and Brideshead Revisited last September. Brideshead went onto my list of favourites. When I read a review of Put Out More Flags at Stuck in a Book last year, I vaguely added it to my list of books to read. Then my father randomly happened to buy it for me last week, so I have now read it.
Put Out More Flags is sort of an odd cross between Vile Bodies and Brideshead, in terms of style. Flags is funny, but less absurd and random than Vile Bodies, it deals with World War II, like Brideshead, and it seems to pay more attention to the language, like Brideshead. I liked it better than Vile Bodies, but not so well as Brideshead.

Put Out More Flags is the story of the Phoney War, the period in 1939-40 after Britain declared war but before anything much had happened. It's a period ripe for the kind of absurdity Waugh loves to tell--people evacuating cities for the bombing that was still months away, everyone joining some military or government branch and then not quite having anything useful to do there. The main character is theoretically Basil Seal, though like in Vile Bodies, many other characters appear. Most of the other characters are more sympathetic than Basil Seal. I especially liked the sections about his sister, Barbara, living in a large house in the country where she is the district billeting officer, finding homes for the evacuees, which, though well-meant, results in a lot of irritated people. I also rather liked the parts about the men who feel the need to join the army, but who really look sort of middle-aged and silly there.

The book begins by being funny, but as it progresses and we get closer and closer to real war, it gets increasingly dark. The end reminded me of another book I've read, but I can't for the life of me figure out which one. Oh, wait. It was Vile Bodies. It's interesting how Waugh keeps starting out intending to be funny, and ends being dark and depressing. This was probably inevitable with Put Out More Flags, though. He wrote it in 1942, still smack in the middle of the war. Waugh's great gift continues to be his ability to appreciate the absurdity of human endeavour, even during dark times. It's rather a useful gift, and one that I, as someone who thoroughly enjoys human absurdities, am glad to read the fruits of.

The title perhaps explains this book best. There's a war, but there's nothing much anyone can do about it yet. All that's left is to look like you're doing something--evacuate, practice silly-looking military manoeuvres, speculate about the future, and Put Out More Flags.

84, Charing Cross Road

Happy Father's Day!

While I was eating breakfast yesterday morning my father came home from the library, and said he'd bought me a book (not from the library, of course, but there's a bookshop in between). He bought me a book the day before, too, and at this point every time he says he's bought me a book I say, "Oh, dear." Both books were thoroughly welcome, though. Evelyn Waugh's Put Out More Flags, which I've been vaguely meaning to read, and Helene Hanff's 84, Charing Cross Road, which I've already read, but really ought to own.

And then I sat down and read it again. It's only 97 pages, but it took a while and I didn't mean to and I was supposed to be showering and getting on with the day. It was, however, thoroughly enjoyable.

I tend to think of 84, Charing Cross Road as a novel, as fiction, but of course it isn't. It's a collection of letters between Helene Hanff, a writer living in New York with a taste for out of print books which can't be found affordably any where in New York, and Frank Doel, employee of the Marks and Co. Bookshop at 84, Charing Cross Road, London, where Helene's desired books can be bought. Also making appearance are other employees of the bookshop, Frank Doel's wife, and his next door neighbour. The correspondence spans twenty years, beginning in 1949. Helene sends packages of food to the shop during the post-war rationing, they sometimes send her Christmas presents, and she often berates them for failing to find the books she wants in a timely fashion. The letters are bookish, warm, and lovely, Helene's entertainingly blunt as she tries to force Frank out of his stubborn polite Englishness. Ultimately, the story these letters tell is a mild, everyday sort of tragedy, of the sort one's childish instinctive sense of fairness gets woken up for. Despite that, it's still an enormously comforting book, one that makes you wistful for something you never experienced. It's so perfect it's hard to remember it's not fiction.

Another book to count for the Bibliophilic Books Challenge, as well, which I didn't think of until just now. I seem to be reading them all at once (I read Parnassus on Wheels not realizing that counted, too).

I hereby count 84, Charing Cross Road among the books you must read. I intend to start foisting it upon unsuspecting friends as soon as possible.

Books of the Year 2009: Fiction

It was much more difficult choosing favourite fiction for 2009 than choosing nonfiction, plays, or short fiction. I suppose this is partly because I've read more fiction, or that I'm much less likely to read a novel I don't really like than a play or something short I don't like. Really, it was the last book on my list of three that gave me trouble, the other two were rather automatic. What I think distinguishes these books is that they're the ones I wrote the longest posts about. I had a lot to say about them, lots of ideas and impressions, and some very incoherent emotional or subconscious reactions to them, which I attempted to work through by writing. I read all of these books since September, which makes me wonder if they're on the list just because I remember them better. But I'm sure about the first two. I knew when I read them they'd be on the list.

There's little more I can say about these books than I said the first time around, since they're so dependent on impression and they are bigger than anything I could say in a paragraph. So I'll just leave you with the links to the original posts, and the urging that you read these books.

The Children's Book, by A.S. Byatt. I'm so glad I own this now. All three of these books are in my possession, which strikes me as fitting for my favourites. Original post here.

Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh. Original post here.

Someone at a Distance, by Dorothy Whipple. I think it may be a given that if I read a Persephone book it goes on this list. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day was on my list last year. Original post here.

And Happy Hogmanay! (This is me indulging in my joy in amusing Scottish holidays.)

My final visit to Brideshead

Boy, I don't know that I really have coherent thoughts about this book to tell you. I have just finished Brideshead Revisited, and I loved it, and I love it more because I don't quite know why I love it. And in the few minutes after finishing it of getting up, blowing my nose, getting on the computer and checking all the things I check every day, blowing my nose again (I have a cold), the book has kind of worked its way further in and suddenly I realize it has, without my knowing, made its way onto my list of favourite books.

I'm so glad I read this without knowing the story, having never seen the movie. It's a book I've been hearing about in a vague sort of way for a long time, and I think the ideas I had long ago of what it was about bear little resemblance to its actual plot. Through the entire book, up to the very end, the last few pages, I didn't know how it was going to turn out. I don't mean that there was anything particularly suspenseful about it, just that there were so many ways it could have gone, so many threads it could have followed. There is absolutely nothing formulaic about this book. I didn't always know who it was about or whether it would continue to be about that person, and somehow I didn't even have any expectations.

It's rare to find a book that is every moment new and unexpected, and somehow reading a book like this brings you closer to its creation. It brings you closer to the author and the choices he makes about where the book is going to go, because you just don't know and there are so many possibilities and he gets to choose. I can't quite explain that.

"'The doctors in Rome gave him less than a year. There is someone coming from London, I think, tomorrow, who will tell us more.'

'What is it?'

'His heart; some long word at the heart. He is dying of a long word.'"

I don't know why I love that line so much, just, it encapsulates the enormous weariness of slow death so very perfectly. I had to put a post-it by it, so I would remember.

The book doesn't come round in a circle, quite. It does in a way, with the Prologue and Epilogue, but if I had been writing it I would have somehow brought it back around to the beginning of the real story, I would have made it circular and tied it down that way, which I think is possibly a sign that I'm not really a very original writer. And I don't think I understood why Brideshead the place gets the title until the very last page.

I can't say anything to the Catholicism in the book. I'm not Christian, have set foot in a church a grand total of once and it was for a book signing. I haven't got the habits of any religion, am if anything pagan but I don't have the focus drilled into me to keep up any particular religious practices, though sometimes I wish I did. All I can say for religion in Brideshead Revisited is that it is fascinating and believable in a human and instinctive kind of way, even for me. I don't know if it would be for an atheist.

You may, by the way, have noticed that I've used five different covers of the book in the course of my talking about it. I went through all the covers I could find pictures of and chose the ones I thought caught the mood best. And actually the mood changes so much that not all of the ones I've chosen work completely, but they're certainly better than some I've seen. Incidentally, none of these are my cover, which also works. It's a green cloth hardcover with a rather impressive building printed in gold on the front, and the title in gold up the spine, published by Little, Brown, and Company. It was a suitably grand edition to read the book in, with nice thick paper, which perhaps added to the experience.

You can see what I mean about my incoherency. All I have are impressions and and disconnected thoughts. Some of my favourite books I love for very analyzeable reasons, but Brideshead Revisited isn't like that, and it is also not a fond love (this will never be a comfort book though I would like to reread it some day), which is rather in line with the loves in this book. So there you have it.

A lateral move

"It was a small tortoise with Julia's initials set in diamonds in the living shell, and this slightly obscene object, now slipping impotently on the polished boards, now striding across the card-table, now lumbering over a rug, now withdrawn at a touch, now stretching its neck and swaying its withered, antediluvian head, became a memorable part of the evening, one of those needle-hooks of experience which catch the attention when larger matters are at stake, and remain in the mind when they are forgotten, so that years later it is a bit of gilding, or a certain smell, or the tone of a clock's striking which recalls one to a tragedy."

Disregarding the fact that this entire paragraph, from chapter six of Brideshead Revisited, is one sentence, it was this paragraph that caught in my mind and pulled out a certain thread of recognition. Something about the tone, the mixture of memory and poetry, reminds me forcibly of History Boys. History Boys in many ways talks about and skirts around memory and experience; there are layers of time, and you are always conscious that what is happening to the characters in the moment is something they will look back on later. Often you get the feeling that they will remember it in the way this paragraph describes, as something sensual and perhaps without the factual, seemingly important parts. Irwin, the character who most appears in two different times, sometimes remembers things from the earlier time in which most of the play takes place, and Hector in that time remembers a vague past. Posner and Dakin, students of Irwin and Hector in this time, are the ones most potently, because of their age, creating the experiences that you can tell will later be remembered in things like this, the turtle, the gilding, the clock's strike.

I mentioned before the memory and nostalgia I feel running all the way through Brideshead Revisited. The paragraph above is what I feel is a perfect example of this thread at its best. I hadn't quite realized that this is part of what I love about History Boys, and suddenly recognizing the feeling in Brideshead Revisited brought it all to the front and made me realize it. I think it was on this paragraph that the book clicked into place for me. I had to stop immediately and tell you so.

Visiting Brideshead

I'm told girls used to read Brideshead Revisited and become enamoured of Evelyn Waugh, and then read his other books like Vile Bodies. And then they would take books like Vile Bodies seriously because Brideshead was, and Evelyn Waugh became sorry he'd ever written Brideshead because these girls were so annoying. I'm not sure how much of this story is true; my father told it to me.

I rather seem to have come at this from the opposite end. I read Vile Bodies last year though I seem not to have said much about it, and now reading Brideshead Revisited I have trouble taking this one entirely seriously. It certainly has many moments of fanciful, wistful, slightly purple prose, which could be a mockery but I think, perhaps, aren't. According to Wikipedia it was written in the six months following a parachute accident in 1944, and as such the author's circumstances are rather similar to his narrator's--enough so that I suspect Charles Ryder's wistfulness for old times contains a lot of Waugh's wistfulness for the times he used to satirize. Certainly his later dislike of the book would be in line with this idea, the instinctive pushing away from a work containing the kind of nostalgia he would usually not indulge in.

I'm about a third of the way through the book, and have yet to be entirely certain what it's about. Not that it lacks focus in any way, but I couldn't tell you what its main point is yet, which I think says something for how little it follows a formula. Brideshead Revisited can certainly be called a classic, but it is one that is so without having a universally known plot, as many classics do. In some ways classics like this are the ideal book--with all the good writing but retaining the element of surprise. I'm looking forward to that surprise, as I get further into the book.

State of the union

I've managed to post every single day since the 7th of August, now exactly a month ago, which I am decidedly proud of, and it's been very nice to have so much time to read and blog. Going into the autumn, though, this may start to change. I'm planning to spend September organizing the Nova Project's drama department and hanging out there, even though I graduated. The idea of getting to be at school but never having to go to classes is entirely lovely, and I've been wanting to organize all the costumes and props for the last three years, but not had time because of classes. So it's an ideal situation. And then at the end of September I start college, and no doubt my posting at that point will become much less frequent. I'll try to keep it regular, though, and no doubt I'll be reading lots of interesting things and have them to talk about.

I've still got that huge pile of books to read, and it's gotten even bigger with more books I keep remembering I've been meaning to read, like The Forsyte Saga and That Hideous Strength, so far that I had to turn it into two piles. I am slowly but steadily working at The Worm Ouroboros and Brideshead Revisited, so keep a lookout for posts on those.

I haven't bought any books lately, having been of an odd mood that talks me out of buying anything. Funnily enough books are the one thing this mood least applies to, despite being of the least immediate use. My text file of books I want to find has gotten considerably longer lately, though, what with finally catching up on all the book blogs I read, so there are some things I'm definitely on the lookout for used copies of. And Connie Willis is starting to look appealing again, after To Say Nothing of the Dog and The Doomsday Book last year.

Creation

All right, so I'm going to have to admit that I never actually got any sewing done yesterday. I had the best of intentions! I cut out the pattern, anyway, but never quite got up the energy to get the pattern properly ready or cut out the fabric, which I always find the most enormous chore. But it was very nice to sit around in my warm living room all day while it poured rain outside and not have to worry about getting too much done. I watched Elizabeth: The Golden Age and a couple of episodes of The West Wing, and made jewellery.

This is a pendant that's going to be attached to a chain, but I haven't got any chains that will work so I might venture out and find one today. Don't bet on that, though. I'm rather pleased with it. I was going for a sort of mishmash cobbled together look of different elements, and I'm not sure that's what I got but I like it anyway. The picture in the frame says "victoria," I cut it out of National Geographic. I made a couple of earrings, too (not matching ones), but I couldn't get my camera to take a good photo of them (the camera is definitely on its way out).

I always make jewellery just because I want new jewellery and don't think it's worth buying it, but there is definitely a certain pleasure in creating something. Sewing is about beginning from scratch, something flat that can then be given shape and some element of personality. Jewellery is more to do with taking different pieces that already have personality on their own, and seeing how they fit together. Two very different kinds of creation, but they both satisfy the need to make things.

I may not have done any sewing, but I did read! I'm very much starting to get into Brideshead Revisited, and you'll no doubt hear about it very soon.

Rainy days

Yesterday I went to the fabric store because I need a new duvet cover, and of course came away not only with fabric for that but also some soft pale green plaid cotton flannel which I had to have, and a skirt pattern. Today's weather is forecast to be grey and rainy, and maybe thunderstorms too, so it seems like the perfect day to sew. And I've never had to match plaid before, so that ought to be an exciting venture.

There's something inexpressibly pleasant about a rainy day spent indoors sewing, and maybe I'll get some reading done too, while I'm at it. It wouldn't be bad weather for Brideshead Revisited either, which I've started over and have some musings about already.

Look out for photos of the finished skirt at some point, but I make no promises as to the timeliness of this.

The Marvelous Mitfords

I've had the most splendid day, doing absolutely nothing but sitting in my back yard in the sun and reading, and getting very tan. My book of choice is The Mitford Girls, by Mary S. Lovell, which I talked about vaguely here, back when I bought it in December. I am absolutely loving it. I started it Saturday night or maybe Sunday, the thing is 529 pages, and I expect to finish it tomorrow. It's lovely having time to read, but if I were reading a different book I doubt I'd have gotten through so much of it. I always forget how much I like reading biography.

For the few readers of book blogs who have not yet heard, the Mitfords were (and are, I suppose) a family of British aristocrats made famous mostly by Nancy Mitford's semi-autobiographical novels The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate. They were at the height of their notoriety (I think I can pretty safely call it that) in the 1930s and '40s. Lord and Lady Redesdale, David and Sydney Mitford had six daughters and a son, born between 1902 and 1920. Each of them is a fascinating and often strikingly different person in their own right, and on top of this they lived in one of the most interesting times in history. Not only that but they were also a notable part of this history. The book suggests, for example, that it is possible that Diana Mitford (third eldest daughter) was the only person to be personally well-acquainted with both Churchill and Hitler.

I enjoyed the stories of their childhood and their early adulthood, especially the various eccentricities of the family, and also the various associations they had--suddenly reading a name of some close acquaintance or other and realizing that it was some famous person. Evelyn Waugh, for example, based his novel Vile Bodies off Diana Mitford and her first husband and their friends. Nancy Mitford especially knew numerous famous members of England's literary world.

What I've found most fascinating about this book, though, is the politics, and the family's place within political history. Diana and Unity Mitford were both devoted Fascists, while Decca Mitford was a Communist, and David and Sydney Mitford's inability to agree on Hitler, Fascism, and the war fractured their marriage. The family was related to Winston Churchill. Diana's second husband, Oswald Mosley, was leader of the British Fascist party. Unity spent most of the 1930s living in Germany, and for quite a long time sat in restaurants she knew Hitler frequented, waiting to see him. Eventually, he noticed her. They got to know each other very well; he gave her presents, found her apartments, paid medical bills, got her tickets to the opera. She was so torn between Britain and Germany that she decided she would have to commit suicide if they went to war with each other.

The story of Unity Mitford's relationship with Hitler and Germany is, I think, the most interesting part of this book for me. I've never read anything about Germany in the years before World War II, and it's especially interesting to do so now, having innocently read The Pursuit of Love a year ago, and now being able to connect its author to such a subject.

I definitely recommend this book, whether you already know anything about the Mitfords or not. The writing is very fluid, and I think does a good job of capturing the world these people lived in, and their extremely unique and forceful personalities.

An Update

School's started, so I've been a bit distracted from doing much blogging. I have been reading, though.

I read my first Evelyn Waugh, Vile Bodies, an utterly bizarre and rather circular little thing. It was quite enjoyable, really, though something one only wants one of at a time.

I also finished Three Men in a Boat, which I've been working on from DailyLit for ages. That was lots of fun.

I'm working on The Kite Runner and Don Quixote, both for classes, and just this evening I started The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Mary Ann Shaffer). I already love that one. It reminds me a lot of 84, Charing Cross Road, only wonderfully fatter! I can already tell I'm going to positively guzzle it down. If it's sunny tomorrow I'll sit outside, and probably read the whole thing at once.

The Kite Runner is interesting. While I do like it, I'm not entirely sure what all the fuss is about. It does have some very pretty moments, and some very sad ones, but I remain solid in my opinion that a good first person novel is extremely difficult to pull off, discounting ones in diary or letter form. I rarely truly like them. And I do like this one, but the fact that it's written in first person is a huge drawback, which keeps me from loving it. Anyway, I don't really see why it's such a big deal, apart from the topic.