• “The Girls of Slender Means” by Muriel Spark
• “Novel on Yellow Paper” by Stevie Smith
Just got them out of the library for long-weekend reading (heaven forbid I should get any WORK done, on my OWN book!). My office is right near the main branch of the NY Public Library, so today I hit the S’s.
So, anyone have any input on these books?
Sorry, haven’t read them or anything else by the authors.
Curious, tho - how did you choose them?
Did you seriously go down the S’s looking for titles that appealed to you?
Or have you enjoyed the authors’ other work?
Were they recommended?
Or do they just have really neat looking spines?
I am often frustrated standing in a library full of books, not knowing which to take home with me.
Dinsdale—Yeah, I pretty much did just browse through the S’s. I knew I was in the mood for a not-too-long novel, something light but rather bitter. So that left out Smollet, Swift, Sinclair (too heavy!). I spotted the titles and read the blurbs and, after rejecting a few, settled on these.
I’ve discovered some authors I’d never have known otherwise, like Molly Keane, Anthony Trollope, Edgar Saltus. Thank GOODNESS there’s such a large library near my office!
I’ve never heard of either of those books (or authors for that matter), but there’s a series that I always recommend to people, and everyone who’s read it has LOVED it: The Camulod Chronicles, by Jack Whyte. Book 1: The Skystone; Book 2: The Singing Sword; Book 3: The Saxon Shore; 5: The Eagle’s Brood; 6: The Fort at River’s Bend; 7: Metamorphosis.
don’t let the titles fool you. They’re not Fantasy novels, though I thought they would be when I picked them up. They’re historical fiction, looking at the events that led to King Arthur’s Heritage, Birth and Reign, beginning with two of his great-grandfathers. It takes all of the magic and mythology out of the story, and replaces it all with plausiblility.
Brilliantly written, very engaging story and extremely well-developed charachters.
They sound interesting, Blessed—I’ll have to put 'em on my “to check out” list.
Muriel Spark, by the way, wrote “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,” which I liked, so I have hopes for this one.
I lied.
In “The Girls of Slender Means,” the butler did it, and “Novel on Yellow Paper” is a sled.
So how much do you give a book before deciding not to finish it. I used to drive myself nuts - wouldn’t reject it until I gave it a good hundred pages or so, and then was too obstinate to not finish it. I’m better about it now, but it means i have to take out books in bulk.
I usually find myself in the new fiction section, looking for titles or authors that churn up something in the grey matter from the Sunday Books section or the NYT Review.
Using your method, I was most recently surprised by Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove - a rip roaring yarn. Unfortunately, the sequels paled by comparison.
I have my mom’s set of Trollope, including one volume that has her bookmark in it where she left it the evening she went to sleep and didn’t wake.
Happy reading.
(Oh yeah - if you ever find yourself in the C’s or H’s, check out Harry Crews or Jim Harrison. And you can never go wrong with Graham Greene IMO.)
“I have my mom’s set of Trollope, including one volume that has her bookmark in it where she left it the evening she went to sleep and didn’t wake.”
—Jesus Kee-rist! Though now that I think of it, is there a better way to go? In your sleep while reading a good book?
I don’t read too much current fiction, unless a friend tells me “you gotta read this!” There is so much old literature out there that you could live to be 100 and not make a dent in it. Not just the classics, but I adore pop stuff from the late 19th & early 20th centuries: Elinor Glyn, Booth Tarkington, Warner Fabian, Tiffany Thayer.
Oops, dammit, gotta go, a big pile of layouts just landed in my in-box . . .
Well, the next time you’re browsing the “S” section of the fiction stacks, looking for something in the “not-too-long novel, something light but rather bitter” line, may I suggest Tom Sharpe’s The Great Pursuit. I rarely laugh out loud while reading anymore, and found myself doing so several times during The Great Pursuit. One possible drawback is that it’s about the publishing world, so it might be a bit too much of a busman’s holiday for you. On the other hand, while quite trans-Atlantic in its characters and settings, its world is really that of British novel publishing twenty or twenty-five years ago.
are the novels of John Sandford, if you’re into serial killer/detective books. He wrote all those Prey books, and also some others under his real name, John Camp, and his website is at http://www.johnsandford.org/.
Dinsdale, don’t read the next line.
It wasn’t a GOOD book. It was Trollope.
Dinsdale, you may continue.
Wife-person recommends the various American Domestic Novelists of the second half of the 19th century. EDEN Southworth, Mary Jane Holmes, etc. Bad writing but a real (okay, UNreal) slice of Victorian life. You should have less trouble finding some of these with your access to a proper library.
Also in the “S” section; sorry
EVE, is that Stevie Smith the poet? Author of Not Waving But Drowning? I wasn’t aware she had written any prose (if in fact it is the same person). If it is, all I can tell you is that I think she was an amazing poet, and I’d love to read any book by her.
[Hijack]
based on my understanding that you are a writer, and that your book jacket picture is radiant, Eve, if someone were interested in oh, one of YOUR titles, what would you recommend?..
[/hijack]
It’s the same Stevie Smith. She really was a first-class poet.
While you’re at it, try to rent the movie “Stevie.”
I’ve read Novel on Yellow Paper. I enjoyed it because I’m a Stevie Smith fan, but her poetry is better.
I often wonder what it would be like/To have one’s soul required of one/But all I can think of is the Out Patient’s department/Are you Mrs. Briggs dear?/No, I am Scorpion
Your own enjoyment of her novel may depend on your tolerance for twittery prose.
Drop—Hey, I like Trollope! “You are what you read,” you know.
Yes, it is the same Stevie Smith—I hope the fact that she’s a poet doesn’t make the book too artsy-fartsy. I’m reading the Muriel Spark and it’s pretty good so far.
Rack—“The Great Pursuit” sounds interesting, I’ll have to look it up!
Dylan—Aren’t you sweet! Dunno which of my books you’d prefer: “Platinum Girl” is about Jean Harlow, the 1930s blonde bombshell; “Vamp” is about Theda Bara, the movies’ first sex symbol (1910s), and “Anna Held” was a big musical-comedy star on B’way 100 years ago.
Yes, Dylan, by all means, read them all. I am confident you will find Eve’s writing style “witty and accessible, but never glib.” Her books are “beautifully researched,” “meticulously detailed,” “sprightly,” “extravagantly entertaining,” and “written with charm and style.” Tho some readers might “overdose on her sarcasm and cutesy commentary in book form,” even they acknowledge that her work is “not terrible by any means.”
Teehee. How can you stand getting such comments?! I guess it goes with the territory, but still! I’m glad the most I have to put up with is along the lines of my boss’s comment that my most recent appellate brief was “somewhat pedestrian.”
BTW, if you are indeed what you read, Eve, I suspect your copy of “An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of The Occult And Supernatural” is quite well worn.
I read Novel on Yellow Paper a few years ago, so my recollection of it isn’t that great. I seem to remember that it’s full of stream-of-consciousness stuff, mostly consisting of the protagonist’s random thoughts jotted down.
It’s quite good on the 1930s, though.
I haven’t read The Girl of Slender Means, but if you like Muriel Spark I can heartily recommend The Ballad of Peckham Rye.
“I seem to remember that it’s full of stream-of-consciousness stuff, mostly consisting of the protagonist’s random thoughts jotted down.”
—Oh, crap. I think I’ll head back to the library today.
Don’t know about “The Girls of Slender Means” but I do recommend the Novel on Yellow Paper. Yes, it is the same Stevie Smith, the poet, but the Novel on Y.P. doesn’t involve much waving, drowning and general depression.