Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon

Notes on Sunset Song  by Lewis Grassic Gibbon

BBBC Meeting on Thursday 7^th of December 2017 at the Hop Pole in the Upper Bristol Rd.

Almost a full house, Richard being the only absentee but he had sent his notes prior to the meeting which we tried to ignore so as to avoid undue influence.

This book was chosen by Mark W on the back of a film which he had enjoyed and therefore investigated the book upon which it was based, finding the following quote on the Polygon edition: ‘Voted the ‘Best Scottish Book of All Time’. Interestingly two of the Group watched the film for differing reasons, one because he liked the book and the other because he didn’t, but both didn’t enjoy the film, again for different reasons. We will come back to the film later.

This was one of those books which produced very different responses which seemed to depend on whether one was prepared to persevere with the opening 100 pages or so. It is worth saying at the outset that one of the key characteristics of this book is that it is written with a number of words which are probably best described as ‘local vernacular’ which at best took some getting used to and at worst were so off putting that it made the book ‘a bit of a slog’ for some and ‘unreadable’ for others.

So there were essentially two camps: those who decided to persevere and those who didn’t. The fact that some versions of the text included maps, notes and a glossary was a surprise to some and some commented that this might have made a bit of a difference.

In introducing the book Mark W made comparisons with ‘A Month in the Country’, the previous month’s book and Thomas Hardy, particularly ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’.  In addition to the use of local dialect, themes picked up in the Group discussion and by Richard in his notes were :

·         The demise of a rural way of life and gradual modernisation of farming and rural life as a whole although there were no rose tinted spectacles here and the poverty and hard work was presented without any affection. This in contrast to ‘A Month in the Country’ which was a more affectionate look back at the same period.

·         The strong female protagonist and her journey from growing up within a highly patriarchal society with a dominating abusive father to a becoming a married woman and subsequently a widow. The role of women and how difficult and unfair life was for so many of them.

·         The First World War and its devastating effect on society which challenged the whole class system, magnified by some of the events occurring abroad, notably in Russia.

 

Mark referred to three particular scenes in the book that he felt were particularly memorable for him. Firstly the point following the funeral when Chris shed tears for her father after having been pretty cool and matter of fact about the whole thing. Secondly Ewan’s sudden change of character after having spent some time training before being sent to the front (which incidentally was a bone of contention at the time of writing and Gibbon defended himself saying that it was based on personal experience). Thirdly the final scene up on the moors with the memorial and the piper playing Flower of the Forest.

 

Firstly turning to the language issue Chris B probably summed up the feelings of most, finding the book ‘….intensely annoying and feeling pretty frustrated at the beginning, with the mixture of languages making it hard to understand’ . Two of the Group, Mark T and Chris W didn’t get past the sense of irritation, Mark T ‘didn’t like it at all, felt irritated, and couldn’t get into the story, and gave up after about 100 pages’. Similarly Chris W also got to about the same point of the book and then decided ‘not to force myself to finish’ and ‘then decided to watch the film with his family who all got bored!

The rest of the Group decided to ‘go with the flow’ and most found that a) the book got easier to read once they had learnt a dozen or so frequently used words, e.g. meikle =large and quean =girl, and b) that the book was actually rather enjoyable.

Chis B surprised us by initially saying that he was about 70% through, then adding that he was 70% through the trilogy! His moment of change was when the book started to focus on Chris who he found to be a ‘great character, reflective and forceful, and very well placed in the environment’. He particularly enjoyed the subtle observations of village life, the gossips, their enjoyment of being shocked by scandalous events, the metaphor of the war which had a devastating effect on Ewan and subsequently Chris. He particularly loved her reflections on life and her relationship with the natural world. He also enjoyed the political observations and the caricatures of the English.

Steve observed that only when he got to the end did he discover the map which might have helped him had he discovered it sooner. Steve was particularly reminded of ‘The Archers’ but nevertheless enjoyed the book, after having found it difficult to get going like most. He got to a point where he stopped looking words up and was also able to ‘go with the flow’.  He observed that there had obviously been a lot of analysis and study of the book. He did get interested in the plot but there were no real surprises. He found Chris to be ‘a fantastic character, but also very funny, with a sly sense of humour’. He also observed that he felt that he wasn’t really the target audience for the book, and felt a bit excluded.

Neil generally found the language ok although it was a bit hard as first. He felt relieved when the father died. He found it interesting that a male author could come up with such a strong female character and he found that the book ‘painted a vivid picture of the farm and the land with great characters’. He observed that the Great War came along and turned the people against each other, with particular intolerance against those who disagreed with the War and didn’t want to fight. There was a lot of drama and it was vividly portrayed. He did add that he, like Chris B, may well be inspired to read the trilogy. He also added that he was tempted into watching the film which he didn’t enjoy at all.

Finally, Richard’s written notes indicated general agreement with most of those who had ‘gone with the flow’, finding the book ‘interesting and quite enjoyable’. He found that ‘there was a lot of quite lovely language’ and ‘a number of interesting themes’ but ‘overall it won’t go down as one of the highlight books of the year’.

Scores as follows: Mark W 8.0, Chris B 7.5, Mark T 3.0, Steve 7.0, Neil 7.5, Chris W 5.0 and Richard 6.0. So quite a mixture (which is always tends to result in a lively discussion!)

Mark W December 2017

A Month in the Country - J.L. Carr

BBBC Meeting:  Thursday, 2^nd November 2017, Flower and Forrester, Combe Down

Present: Richard, Steve, Neil, ChrisW, MarkT, MarkW, and new (potential) member, John Hailey.  Apols received alongside notes: ChrisB

Carr, J.L.. A Month in the Country (Penguin Modern Classics)

This was a book which was enjoyed a lot, by everyone in the group.  “What a lovely book”, “a lovely small book”, “an absolute masterclass of how to use such a few words to cover so much”, “I really enjoyed it”. “absorbed”.

The enjoyment was for many reasons.

One was the author’s style: “he writes beautifully, with no excess of fat”. Many remarked on the fact that the book was so short – not much longer than some short stories – yet so much was conveyed.  Carr gave wonderful descriptions – of buildings, countryside, people, machinery. He used lovely language. His writing had humour (“‘Now,’ he said, ‘… to touch on a delicate topic.’ It apparently was going to be very delicate, because he lowered his voice”), occasional darkness of tone, but elegiac, creating a seamless line to a now-long-distant world.

Another was his ability to evoke the time and the place – many of us felt that we could actually see Oxgodby; experience the idyllic summer, the English countryside, a reminder of the era of hay fields, the community camaraderie: all things now lost, our lives are too fast. There was also the lost idea that people did not travel far from their birthplaces – many had never met someone from London, most had no concept of ‘taking a holiday’.

Yet another was his development of character – mainly Birkin of course (“‘But you would have listened. You do listen. And you know how to be still. Don’t you know that, when people are with you, they don’t feel they have to say something? I mean just say anything to fill in silences. Were you always good at listening? When you were a little boy?’”), but the other characters are all well-drawn – Alice, Keach, Moon, Kathy Ellerbeck.

Another was his keen insights and sharp observations into people and places: that people always think that they will have more time later to look properly at something, that sometimes people who put on a bold front are actually very shy, and when “caught off-guard, go to pieces”, that when we eat cuisine from a local area, which gets lost in a developing global world, we are “eating disposable archaeology”, that as we age, our memories of who we were and how we thought about things fade and have to get reconstructed – and sometimes we can’t quite believe that the person we re-construct could actually have been us.

Yet another was how short the book was, and yet how satisfying it was – although shorter than some ‘short stories’, it covered his journey, from trauma to (better) psychological health and acceptance. The Month in the Country allowed relationships to develop whilst at the same time creating the circumstances to allow him to heal himself, with the people and relationships around all being part of the healing – and the revealing and healing of the painting is a metaphor for the revealing and healing of Birkin.

We generally enjoyed the relationship between Birkin and Moon, and the developing relationship between Birkin and Alice.  

We enjoyed the presence of ‘the War’ – as an undercurrent, clearly hugely important and damaging, and yet not laboured, not ‘laid on with a trowel’ (although it was also noted that there seemed to be only one death in the town, and that did not accord with all of our experiences of going to almost every town or village in the country and seeing a War memorial with long lists of those who had been killed in the Great War).

Although all did enjoy it, there were some who were not totally convinced by all aspects.  Birkin was only 23, but seemed very much older (but maybe the war aged him faster?) But he didn’t seem especially traumatised – he tells us that he has a facial tick and a stammer, but they seem very external to him – within himself, he seems rather UN-affected. And it seemed unlikely that at 23, he could be able to be one of the major experts in church painting restoration, especially if he had spent some years in the Trenches. Had he gained all of this knowledge and experience in the 18 months since the end of the war and him being demobbed?  And what changed him so that he could simply walk away at the end, and not tell the Times what he had done, when that was such an important pull in the first place? “I was so excited that only darkness stopped me from making a start. What luck! My first job … … And I willed it to be something good, really splendid, truly astonishing. Like Stoke Orchard or Chalgrove. Something to wring a mention from The Times and a detailed account (with pictures) in the Illustrated London News.”

There were also many individual takes on this book. 

Richard saw links between this book, about a medieval painter and people in a more modern age using it as a way of linking with that long-dead artist, and another book we have read, which he particularly loved: Ali Smith’s ‘How To Be Both’.

MarkT saw great similarities with aspects of his own upbringing and experiences – a church-going upbringing, lay preaching, making first relationships with other young people within the Church and so on – realising that some pretty religious girls might fall for not so handsome boys!

John saw that the book was actually much darker than others had remarked.  It was an evocation of the ‘last days of the horse’. The fantastic and amazingly talented painter falls and dies whilst paoingitn the picture. Birkin is very damaged by the war (his screams in the night joining with the screams of the dying animals). The young girl dying of consumption. Moon being ‘outed’. The huge cold bare house that Keach and Alice rattled around in. There were many dark sides and dark vignettes running throughout the book: rural bliss, but with many elekents of darkness (which was probably true to life, too).  

The fact that the book was enjoyed by all was reflected in the scores given, other than Chris Born’s one – his comments suggested that he also really enjoyed the book, but whereas everyone else’s scores ranged between 7.5 and 9.0 (mean 8.43) he gave it a measly 6.0.

Even with this relatively lowly score by Chris, this becomes the 2^nd highest scoring book over the past 12 months and the 3^rd highest scoring book since September 2014 (the books scoring even higher were ‘Of Human Bondage’ and ‘Olive Ketteridge’).

Richard Velleman

6^th November 2017

The Noise of Time, by Julian Barnes

A full house met at the Coeur de Lion in Bath, 7^th September 2017.

The group came to this book having surprisingly not read any Julian Barnes as one of our choices, though some did indulge in an off-piste assignment when he came to the Bath Lit Festival a few years ago. We were all to a greater or lesser degree familiar with his work – some more with his earlier books such as Metroland, others with more recent novels.

The response was broadly pretty positive. It’s a book about the Russian composer Shostakovich – a kind of ‘novelistic biography’ as one of us had it. Well-structured, well written and therefore pretty easy to engage with. One or two did find the early sections harder to connect with, and only felt some kind of momentum was achieved later in the book as the narrative gained some kind of life of its own.

With one exception none of us was on more than nodding terms with Shostakovich’s work. Some took the opportunity to investigate and the comment was made that it was interesting that he ranges from pomp and bombast (his 5^th Symphony) to much more avant gard stylings in his maligned ‘Lady Macbeth’ opera, and that the latter, while initially wildly popular, became reviled under the influence of the Party (‘Power’), before being restored to grace in his later years.

We found interesting insights into the life of a self-confessedly flawed character: Eager to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh with his early liaisons we see a man increasingly beset by self doubt, torn between achieving the best expression for his artistic output and, basically, toeing the line. His questioning of the nature of courage, of whether man is a coward if he does what he needs to do to save his life, of the concept of engineering of the soul – these uncertainties were pitched against an apparent sureness that he was best off in Russia, that his former friend and ally Stravinsky has more or less’ sold out’ by setting in America and was to be afforded no sympathy, nor extended the hand of friendship later in life. Bridges were burned.

A comparison was drawn with Dostoyevsky. Lest we should give the impression that we all spend our days with our noses in one gigantic Russian novel or other, it should be pointed out that no-one else in the group was in a position to support or indeed contradict this, but it’s recorded for what it is worth – was Barnes deliberately drawing a comparison with Crime and Punishment, which similarly features a protagonist who, over the course of the book, becomes increasingly introspective?

Several of us were most engaged by the overview of life in Soviet Russia that the book afforded. It’s a compelling ‘biography’ – much more worthwhile than the usual rather tedious shopping lists of all kinds of information that no-one really need to know. Here, Barnes weaves the facts into a narrative that, without ever lapsing into ‘Then he did this, then he did that’, succeeds in painting a vivid and fascinating picture of someone that we really didn’t know too much about.

The book wasn’t without its flaws for some but no-one really took against it.

We gave it an average score of 7.5 out of 10. The conversation progressed across and round Soviet Russia, travel in general and heaven knows what else.

Peculiar Ground Lucy Hughes-Hallett

Quite a challenging book both to read and review given the breadth of subject matter, characters, historical periods and themes that were interwoven into this book. There was a general consensus among the book club (with the exception of one) that this was "a curates egg" of a book - good in parts but not so good in others.

So here goes with a list of those elements that were appreciated by the critical membership.

The authors expertise as a historian was notable interweaving four different periods into the storyline with characters who were  felt to be generally well drawn with the events of the different periods described well. Her way with words and expertise in the use of archaic english which sounded plausibly appropriate to the historical periods was complimented.

Two of the four periods that were written about-1663 and 1961 were found interesting and developed a number of intriguing themes-the sectarian divides in the Civil War, 17th century parkland design and the foresight of wealthy Landowners planting small trees which would become stately avenues in centuries to come, the devastating impact of the plague, the construction of walls both to contain a private estate and contain a political system and the way in which the uber rich spent their money .The characters that were developed during these two periods were enjoyed  particularly Norris, Nell, Cecily and Flora.

 It was recognised that the wall was a metaphor for keeping people both in and out with the wall around the Wychwood estate, between east and west Berlin and containing modern day prisons being three that were introduced in the book.The recent Brexit vote raising the question of access to Britain for foreigners and Donald Trump's 3000 mile long Mexican barrier were discussed and even Hadrian's Wall keeping out the barbarous Scots. (It was noted that the book club  had read too many books recently about the fall of the Berlin Wall following on so soon after The File (A personal history) which caused tedium for some) .

At the start of the book the description of the multiplicity of religions in England was appreciated-papists, pagans, Methodists and the allusions to witchcraft creating the melting pot from which our"Englishness" is derived. The social hierarchy -The wealthy, the poor with artisans in the middle was well described and interesting to observe the similarities between relationships in 1660 and 1960 at Wychwood but by 1980 these divisions were starting to break down.

On the negative side it was felt that the book lacked coherence and although it was possible to empathise with several of the characters an explanation for the ultimate purpose of the book was missing. Was it meant to be "a historical piece, a metaphysical novel with pagan elements, a soap opera or a social comment on the British class system or what? All very confusing. Did the author really know what she was trying to do?" "At this point I wondered if I was really that bothered about these privileged souls who lived off the apparent goodwill and limitless funds of the proprietor and his wife."  The majority felt that whilst well described the chapters in the 70s and 90s were confusing and unnecessary and readers got bored with the details of the rock concert and some of the characters who appeared at this stage particularly Manny. One reader found these more recent chapters "very disappointing and that a book the promised so much descended into a cliche ridden soap opera with too many shallow poorly developed irritating privileged characters that were of no interest to him" another felt "to be honest I really started to feel this was becoming a bit of a sprawling mass at this stage. Too many characters and strands, none of which was really adding much to the whole..... walls falling, characters dying, winds blowing etc etc  That 1970s chunk could have gone completely in my mind"

 Another irritation to readers was the confusion over character names that were duplicated in two periods possibly to assist the reader but which resulted in recurrent review of the Dramatis Personae which under the power of Kindle is most tedious.

So to finale which reverts to 1663,the plague and fountains and tying up loose romantic ends . One reader felt that these final pages seemed almost "mawkishly twee" 

(Mawkish - excessively sentimental or so sappy it's sickening. ... Oddly enough, it's rooted in the Middle English word maggot and originally meant “sickly or nauseated.” But mawkish eventually evolved to mean something so overly sentimental it makes you sick.)Ed. 

Another concluded that the final chapters somewhat redeemed the book as they contained the conclusion to the love story between Norris and Cecilia who were well developed characters.

So all in all a mixed bag of a book. What started out with a number of promising themes ended up losing direction and thus reader interest."It was clear that the book was written by historian who felt that she had a brilliant idea but then was unable to self-edit down to a more manageable package, rather than a novelist who kept the reader experience at the forefront of her priorities at all times - a bit disappointing"

But to conclude on a positive note our one exceptional reader really appreciated the book on many levels particularly the social commentary of the 70s and 80s which resonated well with him."This was a very rich book with a wide range of themes"

Even if not fully appreciated this breadth of themes did however generate an interesting level of debate even managing to introduce references to climate change!

Chris W

18 August 2017 

The File: A Personal History by Timothy Garton Ash

In the absence of Chris B whose choice the book had been, Richard agreed to open the discussion.  He was very positive about it saying how much he had enjoyed it and what an excellent book he thought it was.  He liked the idea of comparing one’s memory of things to a set of notes and he became intrigued when he realised from reading this that MI5 would undoubtedly have a file on him due to an interview he had many years ago. He found the nuances about how people make decisions in difficult circumstances interesting and felt that GA asked a lot of clever questions about how people lived and thought.  What happened to his relatives in Germany before and during the war also coloured his perception of what he felt to be one of the best books he had read in the club.

By contrast Rob had not enjoyed it and had only completed it by skim-reading the final third. He felt it was poorly written, too dry and factual and didn’t really tell Rob anything new about the Stasi and the GDR. For him the book felt superficial and was too centered on a fundamentally boring man doing boring things so that what informers recorded about him was also boring.  Added to which GA seemed to be showing off about his sexual exploits whilst in East berlin.

Steve had another perspective.  Although he hadn’t finished the book, he was impressed by the colour which GA had injected into the details of his life that Rob had found boring.  However, as the book progressed he had realised that GA was fundamentally a very privileged individual with is Alfa Romeo and his regular flights home and he felt less able to empathise with his outlook.  He had also been looking forward to insights into life in the GDR which didn’t materialise.  Overall he thought that despite having good material to work with, the approach was probably too journalistic.

Chris W on the other had also really enjoyed this book because of his own experiences.  He had lived in Germany when he was 18 and visited East Berlin at the time.  He was aware that there was a bunker containing nuclear missiles about 4 miles away from where he was living and was spooked by going to see the border fence and watchtowers nearby.  He went on a bus tour of East Berlin at the time and all this gave him a real interest in the book.  It did lack excitement and was drier history, but he was intrigued by much, such as the way that people didn’t seem to have a moral filter about what they did. He found it amazing to read about the GDR here and then think about how relatively easily it has been re-assimilated back into modern Germany.  For Chris it also highlighted the importance of people keeping diaries as a record.

Mark T was only about half way through the book and felt unable to comment too much, but was also quite curious following his own visit to Berlin.  He found it easy to read, liked the chapter structure and was enjoying it so far.

Neil was less enamoured with the book despite having been quite keen to read it.  He admitted that his prior knowledge of the Stasi and their work was based largely on having seen The Lives Of Others, the famous award-winning German film about a Stasi investigator who spies on and discredits an artist.  Obviously this book was much less dramatic and for Neil lacked emotional interest.  He thought GA’s regurgitation of too many facts about people and politics of the time was unnecessarily complex and the use of his own file was a little self-indulgent and far less interesting than if he had researched more examples of other people for whom the files had real impact and created real threats to their lives and existence. He found some of the most interesting bits were when GA met former senior Stasi officers and found them pottering in the garden for instance, so completely in contrast to the kind of people they would have been in their day.

Chris B added his own comments via email saying hat he had hoped for more. He too had seen Lives of Others and felt he learnt more from it, but maybe the point of this book is that a lot of surveillance is humdrum and dull. What Chris did find interesting was how people reacted to being approached to inform or to work for the Stasi and whether or not they should have been outed when they were…or were they victims themselves of the regime. So he found it enjoyable, but at the same time felt an opportunity had been missed to make it a more exciting or insightful read.

Mark W also emailed in to say that he did finish it, more out of duty than as a result of any particular sense of enjoyment. The subject was potentially very interesting, but for him the personal history of this relatively unimportant player in the game didn't really add many new insights or particularly interesting new observations. 
In fact he found him quite irritating overall, possible because Mark is not generally sympathetic to rich kids who seem to be able to swan around doing what they enjoy doing presumably being subsidised by parents or something meaning while the rest of us have to think about working and earning money! Mark has also enjoyed The Lives of Others'  on a number of counts and found it told him much more about what it was like living in East Germany at this time. 

So, as you may have gathered, there were quite divergent views and very divergent scores which led to a lively debate in the Coeur de Lion.

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

Neil opened the discussion by confirming that he had enjoyed this book a good deal, but that he was not surprised as the recommendation came from a trusted friend who has also suggested 2 or 3 other excellent books in the past.  Obviously there has been some debate about whether this is a novel or a collection of short stories, but as the author said when interviewed for Radio 4, she considers it simply as a book and that is good enough for Neil.

He was particularly taken by the fact that a book about such ordinary and, on the face of it, almost boring people, living quite small lives in a small town that is quite unremarkable, the author manages to make it so interesting and engrossing.  Yet it is not because she has used elaborate or fancy language, her writing style is quite economical, but her perception of people’s true feelings is very insightful and revealing.  This seems to be particularly true when it comes to more senior citizens and their families. The poignancy with which she wrote about these characters and their often quite sad stories left a real mark.  He also got a vivid sense of the place, something he measures many books' success by.

Mark W noted that he is not generally a fan of American literature and their abuse of the English language, so he had put off reading the book and it did take him a while to get into it, but then he started to enjoy it He found the concept of the book unusual and interesting, and the hospital episode surprisingly funny. In general Mark likes books and films that do small town observations well and so this fit the bill well and he found it to be a beautiful book.

Chris B described it as a book about middle class people, but he liked the way Strout got inside the heads of the characters and shows what’s going on below the surface while most of us only see the tip of the iceberg. He saw the influence of parents as a key theme and liked the context of age and the way that dilemnas faced by the old, particularly dealing with loss and depression, were handled.

Chris W picked up on the sparing use of language and yet was impressed how she still managed to cleverly explain subtle nuances of life in a very skilful style. He too felt that it probably helped to be over a certain age to really enjoy this book and suspected he would probably have been quite bored by it if he had read it 30 years ago.  He was touched by the fact that the “loss” of Olive’s son actually affected her more than the loss of her husband. He too admitted to usually getting irritated by Americanisms, but found this book to be OK. 

At some stage around then we had to look up what Donut holes were!

Steve was quickly put in mind of The Shipping News whilst reading this, another book which he enjoyed.  He described the style as self-contained and unremarkable and yet very powerful because it connects with everyday people and ordinary lives. He also found a theme of forgiveness in the book, but if he had one criticism it was probably that the book tried to be too wide-ranging. He also admitted to being somewhat angered by the passing off of the taster for The Burgess Boys as a final chapter as it was not signposted as such at all, a common issue that several of us identified with.

The three absentees submitted comments via email which everyone has seen, but in short summary,  Mark T was yet to finish due to some very real issues of old age and death in his family , so could relate to the subject matter very well. But he was occasionally getting frustrated at having to learn about a whole new set of people with many of the chapters. This was something Rob had also found, although he  liked the easy writing style that created a picture of people and of small town America that was quite tangible.

Rob also found strong themes about ageing, disempowerment, depression, loneliness, unfulfilling relationships, loss and uncertainty for the future and once again found that being almost 60 made these quite powerful to read about. He thought the emphasis more on depression than other more commonly referenced conditions such as dementia, made the book more realistic.

Richard very much enjoyed the book, although he preferred some of the "stories" to others. He found the tales of middle-aged or elderly people finding some sort of loving relationship very moving and, by contrast the chapter where Olive couldn’t relate to her son’s life in New York, very upsetting.  Although not a novel as such, it did what Richard wanted and developed characters, developed a sense of place and encompassed a range of experiences.      Overall he felt it provided complicated pictures of complicated, real people, with smooth effortless prose.