The Semi Attached Couple

The Semi Attached Couple by Emily Eden. Where has this book been hiding all my life? It was written in around 1830, it was not published in England until 1860, and I did not read it until 2010. Something gravely wrong with that. It is delightful. A cross between Trollope and Jane Austen, slightly more fluff than either. A young married couple at odds with each other trying to work it out in the midst of all sorts of wonderfully drawn characters. Country houses, acid tongued mother-in-laws, social climbers, politics---nothing is missing. Very pleasant and light.

I immediately bought a copy off Ebay to keep for myself. It is apparently out of print? Criminal! Stop publishing all the new books with the name Jane Austen sprinkled throughout (Austenland, Jane Austen Ruined My Life, The Jane Austen Book Club, Jane Austen and Zombies etc., etc.)and publish an actual existing book that does resemble Jane Austen for godsake!

Someone At A Distance

I adored this book. It was written in the 1950's by someone named Dorothy Whipple. It's first of all a story of a little old wealthy grumpy lady who takes in a French girl for 'light household duties and French conversation'. The direction the book took after that was completely unexpected in some ways and completely predictable in others. The old woman dies, the French girl inherits some money and goes to stay for a bit with the son and his family.....not knowing this author, not having a cover jacket filled with spoilers I was never sure where it was going. An old fashioned ending in some ways but in some ways quite modern.

Kid's Books

I told Olivia I would read this and so I did. I was actually looking forward to it. She loved it and it's very popular. I was disappointed though. It's fantasy or science fiction I suppose but the world lacks the richness of Philip Pullman or J.K. Rowling's fictional worlds. It feels very sketchy like the children are running around in that awful Perception of Time painting by Salvador Dali not in a fully realized world. Frankly I was bored by the whole thing. Back to the Adult section!

Too Much Happiness?

Although I complained mightily about the title story Too Much Happiness in Alice Munro's new collection of short stories when I read it in Harpers a year or so ago the rest of this collection kicked ass. (If I may be so bold.) It has that wonderful bizarre  story Wenlock Edge about the young college girl going for dinner at an older man's house and having to be naked the whole time while sitting primly in a chair and eating dinner. I remember the unexpected thrill of reading that in the New Yorker a few years ago. The first story Dimensions is fantastic capturing the feeling of a battered woman perfectly. Overall everything but the title story is worthwhile.

Graphic Novel Again

While home with a bad cold, instead of reaching for Buddenbrooks as one so often does, I reached instead for this graphic novel. It was fine for someone with a head cold. A story of  first love between two Midwestern kids who meet at church camp. It wasn't awful and did capture some of the intensity of the experience. Achoo! That's all I have to say.

Martha's Vineyard Bookgroup Emergency March Meeting

Seduced by the rapturous reviews of the Three Weissmans of Westport in the NYTBR an emergency off season meeting of the bookgroup was called to order. One member retired to Jackson Hole to read while the other lolled in a red leather chair in the Boston Athenaeum. The conceit is that the book is a homage to Sense and Sensibility with the sisters and mother now wealthy Jewish sisters and recently divorced mother who are forced into 'reduced circumstances'.


Neither illustrious member was much impressed with the book. Both felt that Catherine Schine's tone was off---were you supposed to like the characters and care when she was so obviously condescending to them? If she couldn't be bothered with them why should they? She is clever though and says some funny things they both acceded. Some of the parallels with Sense and Sensibility are fun to catch. But in the end it was no more than chick lit.

However this prophetic group once more expects it to follow the meteoric and inexplicable rise of their other disastrous choices Edward Sawtelle and Eat, Stink, Pray, Love up the NYTBR charts. Not much sense there.

The bookgroup in happier times.....