Alta Ifland's Blog: Notes on Books - Posts Tagged "british"

Jane Gardam’s Man in the Wooden Hat (2009) is a sequel to Old Filth (2006), though both novels can be read independently. The Man…is written from the perspective of Betty, married to Sir Edward Feathers, while Old Filth (Filth being an acronym for “Failed in London, Try Hong Kong”) is told from Filth’s point of view.

The Man in the Wooden Hat is one of those novels that are hard to summarize because what “happens” resides mostly in the interaction between characters—a character-driven story, as they say. The chapters’ titles themselves are emblematic: “Happiness,” “Marriage,” “Life…” Indeed, the only “events” in the novel are the marriage of Eddie and Betty—preceded by her one-night adventure with Eddie’s professional rival (also a lawyer, like Eddie), and in the end, Betty’s death. Yet, this is a very captivating book, and once you begin to read it, is hard to put down. Moving between London, Hong Kong and an idyllic location in the Doneheads, the texture of the novel borrows something from the atmosphere of all these places, so the reading experience translates for the reader into the sensuous feeling of being enveloped in an alien, fascinating fabric.

Nocturnes is the first book by Kazuo Ishiguro I’ve ever read. I often avoid reading books by famous contemporary authors because they are usually overrated, and I prefer to give my time to underappreciated writers. But Ishiguro was a nice surprise. I read this collection of five short stories in a day—which is very unlike me. The stories have a false simplicity, that is, they are written in an unassuming style, and are all related to music in some way (it is clear that the author is not only a lover of music, but a connoisseur). Most of them are “double narrations”—they are narrated by someone who remembers something that happened to an acquaintance—a technique often used by 19th century Russian writers, which gives these stories a “patina” that is in contrast with their contemporary topic and characters. This patina, together with the psychological subtlety and a certain absurdness present in certain dialogues make the book a great read.

Crusoe s Daughter by Jane Gardam (Europa Editions, 2012. First publ. 1985)

I had read The Man in the Wooden Hat (a sequel to Old Filth, both published by Europa Editions) and fell in love with Jane Gardam’s sensuous style. By “sensuous” I don’t mean “lavish” or “lush.” I simply mean that her writing has a strong capacity to evoke feelings and states, and thus, to appeal to our senses. There are few contemporary writers who give one (me, at least) that feeling of intense pleasure we used to have when we read as children, and Gardam is one of them. This may be because she was herself—as one can see from this novel—a child in love with reading. Crusoe s Daughter is a metaphor for someone (in this case, a woman) who lives in isolation and creates a whole universe in the same way Crusoe created his island and God the world. It is also a testimony to the narrator’s (and I assume, the author’s too) love for this great classic and for reading fiction, in general.

The narrative starts when the protagonist is six years old and, orphaned, moves in with her aunts in a remote yellow house by the sea, and ends when she is in her eighties. The novel’s best parts are probably those in which “nothing happens,” save for the everyday rhythm of life in a small fishermen’s village. The second best are the scenes taking place at the Thwaite villa (Mr. Thwaite is a Dickensian character who, initially, has a marginal role, but in the end—like in those early nineteenth-century novels that have inspired this book—turns out to be closely related to our protagonist). The descriptions of the artists and the poets who are hosted there are witty and funny, and the bohemian atmosphere is so vivid that one can’t help longing for such an idyllic place.

Jane Gardam is one of the wittiest and most talented writers writing in English today.

1. The Art of Joy by Goliarda Sapienza (2013, Italian)
2. The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante (2005, Italian)
3. Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante (2014, Italian)
4. The Bridge over the Neroch by Leonid Tsypkin (2012, Russian)
5. A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka (2006, British)
6. Christopher and Columbus by Elizabeth von Arnim (1995, 1919, British)
7. Child of My Heart by Alice McDermott (2003, 1984, American)
8. Kinder than Solitude by Yiyun Li (2014, American-Chinese)
9. Slow Homecoming by Peter Handke (2009, Austrian)
10. The Time Regulation Institute by Ahmet Hamdi Tampinar (2014, Turkish)

My video review of "Introduction to Sally" by Elizabeth von Arnim (British Library Publishing, 2023) https://youtu.be/KW2Odlz9y3U