Blindness

I have nothing clever to say about this book. It was really one of the best books I've read in a long time. It's nothing I would want to read: a nameless city has an epidemic of blindness. First they herd the newly blind into an old asylum but the epidemic spreads and soon the whole place, the whole city has gone blind. No one has a name, they are the Girl With Dark Glasses, the First Man to Go Blind, the Doctor's Wife, the Boy with the Squint. The Doctor's Wife somehow escapes infection and she alone can see the horrors of the life of all the helpless blind people living on top of each other, wandering up and down streets searching for food, separated from their families and homes. In all this devastation and misery there is a part towards the end that was so filled with hope and promise that I actually cried.

And I thought I only cried at Reality Shows when someone gets sent home. Who knew?

Year of the Whipple

Can it be? Another Dorothy Whipple Book so soon? Yes, I just read her They Were Sisters after reading Someone at a Distance. They Were Sisters was out of print but they found an ancient copy in Beverly. Last time someone took it out the fines were a penny a day. This is a family saga of three sisters and the directions their lives take. Two of them marry very badly and the happy one, Lucy, tries to help them as best she can. There are some pretty bleak family situations here but once again, it's quite a good book.


Here is a nice little article in the British Telegraph where the author confesses to having had a WhippleFest.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/5094681/Endpaper.html


I did not know that they called them that but that's what I'm having apparently. A WhippleFest! At a penny a day I can afford it.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

This was pleasant enough. An elderly retired major in a small town in England becomes friends with the local shopkeeper who happens to be a Pakistani widow. The writing is pretty forced. You can tell she mapped it all out in her head...hmm...now I need an incident to bring them together outside so the cliff scene will work later...let's see.... Anyway as I said it was pleasant enough. Twee though...in not a very twee-tastic sort of way. On to the next book!

The Invisible Wall

If I were to have to describe this I would say it's an Angela's Ashes for British Jewish people. It's a memoir written by a 96 year old man, Harry Bernstein, growing up in a slum in an industrial town in England before the First World War. His parents were Polish Jews and they live a pretty awful life on a street where one side is Jewish and the other Christian. The father is a monster,an alcoholic, angry man; the mother is who holds the family together. Harry's sister falls in love with a Christian boy from across the street and crosses the 'invisible wall". The writing is good, not as beautiful or as vivid as Angela's Ashes, but still quite good.

When I read about the author in the NYT a long time ago the article talked about the author's wife of 63 (?) years dying and he being so lonely he contemplated killing himself. Instead he wrote this book. Good choice.

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!