Fludd (Hilary Mantel): Set in the mid-1950s, in a village on the edge of some northern moorland and where the Roman Catholic Church holds sway against a dismal backdrop of ancient local feuds and general disillusionment. The village is presided over by a Catholic priest, who seems to have lost his faith in God while keeping to his horrified belief in the devil, and an appalling mother superior of the local convent. Into this bleak world comes the curate Fludd – apparently sent by the local bishop – who turns out to be a spiritual alchemist who can free anyone who will listen with the influence of his magical (not particularly holy!) powers. Enjoyable, funny, moralistic and compassionate.
(This note appears at the front of the book: “The real Fludd (1574-1637) was a physician, scholar and alchemist. In alchemy everything has a literal and factual description, and in addition a description that is symbolic and fantastical”).
Alexander Pope (Edith Sitwell): First published 1930 (my copy: 1948). Before reading this biography, I knew very little about Pope (1688-1744) – apart from knowing he was poet (“The Rape of the Lock”). Her introduction to the book is telling. She clearly worshipped Pope and was ruthlessly disparaging of his many critics, for example: “We must remember when reading certain of the biographies and certain criticisms of Pope’s life and of his work, that the authors were schoolmasters and scholars, not poets, and that no matter how great their learning and how deep-rooted their kindness, they could scarcely be expected to understand that to this man, who was one of the greatest poets England has produced, whose sense of texture in poetry was so excessively delicate that it has never been surpassed, and, I think, has scarcely been equalled, to this fine and sensitive artist, inferior poetry and clumsy texture were an agony, and must have had almost the effect of physical rupture”. As you might have gathered, she was a poet! Frankly, once I’d read her introduction, I realised that it was highly unlikely that the biography of her hero could ever be regarded as unbiased… and so it proved. Nevertheless, an interesting insight into the life and times/work of the poet (and his biographer!) about whom I knew so little. From the age of 12, he suffered numerous health problems, such as Pott's disease (a form of tuberculosis that affects the bone), which deformed his body and stunted his growth, leaving him with a severe hunchback (he was only 4’6” in height) and his tuberculosis infection caused other health problems including respiratory difficulties, high fevers, inflamed eyes, and abdominal pain. At times, 18th century society life seems to have been all about protracted quarrels, snide remarks, jealousy… and publishing correspondence (often altered to suit one party against another). Social media ‘bitching’ and ‘fake news’ are clearly nothing new!
Holy Disorders (Edmund Crispin): First published 1946 (my copy: 1958). The third Crispin crime novel I’ve read (I think)… predictably clever, predictably absurd and, of course, typical of 1930s/40s crime novels - but it provided agreeable, ‘light’ reading material for my train journey. The back cover featured a photograph of the author in a typical pose of its time, with the head suitably framed by the ‘delicate’ fingers of one hand… except that these fingers also held a smouldering cigarette, just a couple of inches from his face. All rather ludicrous!
Where Poppies Blow (John Lewis-Stempel): This is a book about the British soldier, nature and the Great War. At first, I felt the writer was romanticising war and how soldiers (particularly officers) spent much of their time bird-watching, fishing and taking strolls in the countryside. But, thankfully, I was wrong… and Lewis-Stempel goes to great lengths to provide the flip-side to this ‘life’ – including harrowing descriptions of rat-infested trenches, lice, flies, disease and death. It’s very well written and brilliantly researched (using correspondence from soldiers). As my grandfather Frank was a ‘driver’ with the Royal Horse Artillery (RHA) on the Somme from 1914 onwards (ie. horse driver – I think each driver was responsible for a pair of horses), I was particularly interested in this extract: “NCOs and men working in transport or with the artillery also had riding lessons, invariably of the intensive type, condensed into a week, as Sargeant George Thompson recalled: ‘All the drivers were taken to 50th Division RFA and went through a week’s training to learn both to ride and to drive. They gave us some stick, I can tell you. First came riding bareback and then with saddles on : we were sore for days’”. Living in Birmingham, as he did, I suspect that the war was Frank’s first encounter with horses? An excellent book which provides a new perspective on WW1.
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