PD James dies

We are sorry to learn of the death of PD James. Her novels have, over the last half century, brought pleasure and puzzlement in equal measure to readers of crime fiction. In Adam Dalgleish, her poetry writing Scotland Yard detective she created one of the truly memorable and genuinely sympathetic characters of the genre. She will be greatly missed.

Hell hath no fury like a philosopher scorned

A lost letter from Albert Camus to Jean Paul Sartre, written shortly before their grand falling out, has recently been rediscovered. it reveals the depth of their friendship prior to its turning sour after Sartre criticised Camus’s L’Homme Revolte in 1951.

It is to Trollope’s credit that he maintained his high regard for the work of Thackeray and, indeed, wrote a biography of him in which he publicly stated his belief that Thackeray was amongst the foremost men of letters in Victorian Britain even after Thackeray was somewhat dismissive of Trollope’s own writing. Perhaps the two French philosopher writers might have learned from their english predecessors’ tolerance and mutual respect.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/albert-camus-and-jeanpaul-sartre-lost-letter-shows-philosophers-were-dearest-friends-before-their-bitter-fallingout-9885558.html

Gothic = Horror

No genre could be further from Trollope’s work than the gothic novels. They were about sensation when he was anything but sensational.  His speciality was to draw out the nuances of the tangled everyday and the mundane.  He did so with acute observation, wit and a gentle but deft touch that was always too subtle for the gothic with its appeal to the macabre and the outre.

However, I have to take issue with the BBC’s analysis of the development of the gothic genre.  How can you seriously address the gothic and not include Wilkie Collins. Surely The Woman In White is the epitome of the Victorian Gothic novel.  The BBC to my mind has narrowed its focus too tightly – there is more to the gothic genre than simply horror.

That said, the link below does give an otherwise thorough review of the development of the genre right up to the present day.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/timelines/zyp72hv

Ladybird ends gender specific publication

If, like me, you are from one of the generations who learned to read with Ladybird books telling stories of Peter and Jane, you probably have fond memories of Ladybird books. That they perpetuated an almost mythic world of small town, middle class family England may, or may not, be part of what you love about them.

However, they are moving with the times and are removing from their publication lists (or rather re-branding in non-gender specific ways) the last few titles that have hitherto been targeted at one or other gender, such as Favourite Fairy Tales for Girls.

In Trollopian times such a move would have seemed absurd.  After all, as Trollope so ably chronicled, women’s and men’s spheres were very different and separate. The expectations of women were severely constrained compared to now.  For the middle class women it was all about the marriage game and the price of failure was high and lifelong. So it is likely that Trollope would have been bemused by this development but the commercially savvy author would have recognised the need to respond to changing markets..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-30143662

Annual Lecture:Trollope Society USA

Here is a link to the full text of the annual lecture delivered to The Trollope Society USA by Andrew Lallier on 14th October. The lecture, entitled Civil Combat in “The Eustace Diamonds”: Social Status, Property, and the Law, draws on PhD research he has conducted at university of Tennessee.

http://www.trollopeusa.org/civil-combat-in-the-eustace-diamonds/

100 Greatest Novels (Nos 30 to 21)

So now we are getting into the serious business end of the list…

30 The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald (1925)

I think I read this novel when I was too young.  I didn’t like Jay Gatsby and thought he was a waste of space. Later I came to realise that this was at least in part the point that Fitzgerald was making.  This entire social milieu was a waste of space, and money made on the back of honest men’s toil. Now I find that you don’t have to like a character to feel sympathy for them and to find them believable as a human being.

29 From Russia With Love by Ian Fleming (1957)

The one where Bond dies at the end…or does he? For me this has the best plot of any Bond novel and has all the strengths – the attention to detail and narrative drive – of the series and has few of the weaknesses – the snobbery and the misogynist take on the world. For once the lead female role is not seduced by Bond but sets out to seduce him,. The setting is Balkan rather than Caribbean which gives it a grittier edge than many of the other books in the series. The acid test is that this would stand on its own as a classic spy thriller regardless.

28 Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (1899)

A short novel which has cast a long shadow. Some have focused on the psychological aspects of the novel and the characters of Kurtz and Marlow.  Others have focused on the unflinching depiction of terrible acts carried out by the colonials in exploiting and oppressing the natives of the Congo. Subsequent black criticism has found the book racist either directly, or indirectly by its failure to criticise the racism displayed by characters in the novel. There is, of course, some truth in all these perspectives, which is what makes it such a disturbing read and why it earns its place in this list.

27 Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein (1961)

This appealed to me as a teenager because it challenged just about every social norm prevalent at the time I grew up. It also encapsulates what it is to feel alienated. Maybe I read more into it than Heinlein intended. I felt the whole thing was a metaphor – it can’t be meant to be taken literally, it’s Sci-Fi, for Chrissakes. I was disappointed that it went off on the religious cult tack but at least it was better written than anything by L Ron Hubbard (not saying much).

26 I, Claudius by Robert Graves (1934)

Based on the literary conceit that they are the rediscovered lost autobiography of the eponymous Roman emperor, this novel and its sequel, Claudius The God, provide a fascinating perspective on the Roman court and the treachery that underpinned the rule of the dynasty of the Caesars. It makes the Borgias look positively saintly. Claudius is immensely sympathetic as a character – not the fool his family believe him to be but a very mortal God who spends much of his life, fearing for his life and expecting death imminently at the hands of his plotting relatives should he ever be discovered to be anything other than harmless old uncle Claudius.

25 Steppenwolf  by Herman Hesse (1927)

Often regarded as a counter-culture novel, with extensive sex and drug use featuring prominently throughout the novel, I found this a profoundly sad book. It showed the downside of the feelings of isolation and alienation that an individual who does not fit in, or thinks he does not fit in, with society experiences. In a way its central character, Harry Haller, could be viewed as another Jay Gatsby without the trappings of high society. It is interesting to contrast the disillusionment with the American Dream in Fitzgerald’s book, with the conscious shift into the world of magic and mythic unreality in this European novel.

24 The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea by Yukio Mishima (1963)

This is a story of how a man loses his way through misplaced love for a woman. It is always going to end badly for him once he does so.  HIs destiny is the sea and he is destroyed by forces he cannot understand or begin to tackle because they are of the land. At this level the book mythologises the intimate, personal tragedy and makes it epic. The whole becomes a metaphor, not to be taken literally but to be interpreted. And yet it is essentially still a simple, personal tragic story. Moving and human. The Japanese mind, so alien to a European reader, proves not so alien when concepts of love and honour are at stake.

23 Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift (1726)

Of course it is a satire, poking fun in a very unceremonious way at all aspects of 18th century society. But is is also a fun story, a series of adventures out of which the hero emerges triumphant through his courage and ingenuity. It clearly parodies the fantastic travellers’ tales with which those who had been abroad regaled those who, like the vast majority of that time, has never strayed more than a few miles from the place they were born. Here be giants indeed.

22 The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler (1939)

More hard-boiled than Hammett? I think not. But I’m in love with his prose style.  Perhaps almost as much as he was himself. After all, the plot is far too complicated to explain. Chandler himself famously responded that he had no idea who killed the chauffeur whose death is pivotal in the plot. He didn’t care.  He wanted to nail the atmosphere and characters.  Have them behave in psychologically credible ways under the circumstances.  So if he was a little wooly about precisely what those circumstances were, well what difference did it make?

21 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (1884)

I always preferred Huckleberry Finn, the young ragamuffin, to Mr Goody Two Shoes Fantasist Tom Sawyer. The book portrays southern US society of its time accurately.  So there are racist attitudes aplenty – but it is clear that Huck Finn does not share them and his companion Jim is a fleeing slave. Twain’s stance is therefore clearly anti-racist and, in that, decades ahead of his time. But, being of his time, he uses the word “nigger” and this retrospectively lands him in hot water. To which I would respond that he uses it in an accurate reflection of the society he describes. Within the book it used by racists and non-racists. The former use it in a way that they would have done then that is unacceptable now – accurate reporting is the defence. The latter use it in a non-pejorative sense because that is the only word they have and we can’t superimpose our language backwards on them. Enough discussion. It is brilliant and insightful into the innocent minds of the young and the poisonous minds of their elders and not so betters.

That whirring sound you can hear…

is Trollope spinning in his grave.

The man who gave mainland Britain the post box and whose indefatigable efforts across Britain and Ireland and diverse parts of what was then the British Empire gave us the universal same price post service we know today would be appalled at the state of the Royal Mail service less than 12 months after it was privatised. It is now indulging in special pleading that this fundamental obligation is unsustainable in the face of competition from organisations unencumbered by an equivalent obligation.

Which must be worrying for shareholders.

And for the government which sold off the organisation at a price significantly below that put on it by the private sector if the bounce in the share price immediately post-launch is anything to go by.

It seems to me that all concerned had adequate information about this obligation.  After all it was not a new thing, having been in place for more than a century. So if new competitors come in and cherry pick services they wish to offer up against that universal obligation, then so be it. That’s the market that the buyers of the shares used to their advantage 12 months ago. Those who got their shares cheap may now find they have a fight on their hands to ensure the company they own does compete and to protect the value of their investment.

Those who live by the sword…

What would Mrs Proudie say?

The general Synod has finally passed a resolution to permit women to become bishops of the Anglican church.

After decades of debate, and some 20 years after women were first permitted to be ordained as priests of the church (in my local cathedral here in Bristol), it seems that equality has penetrated the upper echelons of our Established church.

But did they ever consider the most important voice in this matter – the fictional wife of the Bishop of Barchester surely wielded more power behind the throne than any modern bishop could openly exercise today.

Would Mrs Proudie have followed Paul’s letters to the Corinthians which exhorted women to be silent during worship or would she have argued that the self-contradictory references in the letter to Timothy to women being required to keep their heads covered while prophesying and that they must not have authority over men meant that the source was unreliable? All three statements are Biblical and therefore infallible in the Victorian Christian mind.  How would Trollope, the arch-conservative Liberal (note capitalisations!) have had her square that circle?

For more detailed consideration of this debate, see Trevor Timpson’s article linked below:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29513427

It’s all a question of priorities

Superb cartoon discovered by Liz Bowsher on the Vintage Books website.  Can’t help but question the order though…

https://www.facebook.com/vintageanchor

Second Annual Pacific North West Seminar

Congratulations to all who attended. I suspect that any one of you might well have travelled as far to get to the seminar as the entire London group travels to get to its seminars. Hope you had a great time.