The Pesthouse

The Pesthouse

by Jim Crace

Blurb:

Once the safest, most prosperous place on earth, the United States is now a lawless, scantly populated wasteland. The machines have stopped. The government has collapsed. Farmlands lie fallow and the soil is contaminated by toxins. Across the country, families have packed up their belongings to travel eastward toward the one hope passage on a ship to Europe.

Franklin Lopez and his brother, Jackson, are only days away from the ocean when Franklin, nearly crippled by an inflamed knee, is forced to stop. In the woods near his temporary refuge, Franklin comes upon an isolated stone building. Inside he finds Margaret, a woman with a deadly infection and confined to the Pesthouse to sweat out her fever. Tentatively, the two join forces and make their way through the ruins of old America. Confronted by bandits rounding up men for slavery, finding refuge in the Ark, a religious community that makes bizarre demands on those they shelter, Franklin and Margaret find their wariness of each other replaced by deep trust and an intimacy neither one has ever experienced before.

My Reaction:

It took a little time to get into the flow of the language with this one, and even once I did, I had some issues with the pacing, but on the whole, I found this an interesting tale.  I appreciated that it wasn't remotely as gratuitously dark as so much post-apocalyptic fiction tends to be; that made for a nice change.  

There's a lot I still don't understand about the world the author built in this book.  Why have people forgotten so much about their history, for instance, while they've managed to hold on to other things (like the traditional, Founding-Father names)?  

Anyway, I find I don't have much to say about this, now that I'm done with it.  It's different... If you don't mind a meandering pace and feel intrigued by a future civilization that feels more like a medieval/Old West mash-up than The Jetsons, this is for you.  Ah, just be forewarned that it's a post-apocalyptic romance, minus much of what you usually find in a romance!  (It's an odd book.)

The Victorian Chaise-Longue

The Victorian Chaise-Longue

by Marghanita Laski

Blurb:

A young married woman lies down on a chaise-longue and wakes to find herself imprisoned in the body of her alter ego ninety years before.

My Reaction:

I've had this one on my list for years, but now that I've finally read it, I never want to read it again—and that's not because it's so horrifying that I couldn't bear to revisit it.  Though this work of psychological horror certainly is unsettling—and it also happens to feature the type of horror that probably bothers me most, body horror, health horror, medical horror—it's not calculated to leave me sleepless or anxious.  

Sadly, I wouldn't care to read it again because I didn't find it a satisfying reading experience.  Though it's already short, as a novella, it felt in need of yet more pruning.  It could easily have been cut even shorter, and I believe it would have been more effective if it had been.  As it was, it felt repetitive in a way that numbed and stupefied rather than heightening the tension.  (On the other hand, it could have been fleshed out into a more engaging full-length novel, but the repetitiveness still would have needed to be addressed.)

There were some interesting ideas to explore here, especially the way that a culture's standards of morality and acceptable behavior shift over time.  What would be an unpardonable sin during one period of time might be almost a mere foible a hundred years later.  When (not to mention where) we are born can be the difference between life and death, joy and misery.  

As for the ending, maybe it's just a matter of taste... I know some people like open-ended stories, but I'm not one of them.  A little ambiguity can be okay, but this felt disappointing.  At least it was short!

The Bird's Nest

The Bird's Nest

by Shirley Jackson

(Edited) Blurb:

Elizabeth is a demure twenty-three-year-old wiling her life away at a dull museum job, living with her neurotic aunt, and subsisting off her dead mother's inheritance. When Elizabeth begins to suffer terrible migraines and backaches, her aunt takes her to the doctor, then to a psychiatrist.  The fabric of Elizabeth's reality unravels with terrifying speed, and it seems there may be no way to repair the damage and make her whole again. 

The Bird's Nest, Jackson's third novel, develops hallmarks of the horror master's most unsettling work: tormented heroines, riveting familial mysteries, and a disquieting vision inside the human mind.

My Reaction:

I edited the blurb slightly to avoid what may or may not be considered a spoiler.  I didn't read a blurb going in, and I certainly didn't know everything that this unedited blurb revealed, but maybe that's not a typical reading experience for this book...  In any case, if you want to avoid spoilers altogether, it's probably best not to read this or any other reviews-- though the plot element I'm referring to as a potential spoiler is integral to most of the book, so... Just giving you fair warning, if you want to go in with no preconceptions.  

As I mentioned, I didn't know what this book would be about, at all, and it came as a surprise when the central subject became apparent.  I feel like I've been unintentionally reading/consuming a lot of fiction, in the past half a year or so, with multiple personalities / dissociative identity disorder as a central subject.  Just an odd coincidence, I guess.  

Though I've read The Haunting of Hill House, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and a collection of her short stories, this is my first time reading one of Jackson's lesser-known novels.  It's clear why this isn't one of her most famous works.  It could use some tightening-up; it was at times needlessly repetitive, and the section set in NYC was over-long, in my opinion.  There were also a few times where I felt uncertain of the author's objective, and while that can be done intentionally, for effect, I don't believe that was always the case here.  There was a whole section about a "practical joke" that felt out of place, as well.  

On the other hand, there were several very unsettling moments, juxtaposed against others that were genuinely amusing, if at times rather dark humor.  Jackson even managed to pull her trick of writing something that feels uncomfortably familiar-- you know, those times when you recognize aspects of yourself in a character, though not always in a positive way.  While I found the ending a bit puzzling, I mostly enjoyed the way it was written.  It seemed to come out of nowhere.  I wasn't expecting something so evidently hopeful!  

(...Well, I found the ending hopeful, anyway.  From the reviews I've skimmed since finishing, not everyone agrees on that point.  I also feel sympathetic toward both Dr. Wright and Aunt Morgen-- both flawed characters, but human and essentially well-meaning.)

I wouldn't count on this novel's depiction of DID for accuracy; however, I'm not sure what I believe about DID, to begin with-- especially with the way that it's become almost "trendy" with some people today (mainly some bizarre and troubled people on TikTok, from what I've seen).  I guess maybe it's real in some cases, but I feel that it must be extremely rare, considering that it's supposed to result from particularly traumatic abuse suffered at a very young age.  Videos of people showing off their supposed "alters" seem false and a disgusting bid for attention.  

Anyway... I found this novel interesting in parts, but rather weak in others, and more slowly paced than I'd have liked.  You can see glimmers of Shirley Jackson's developing style, but it's not her at her best, and it certainly wasn't nearly so much "horror" as you might expect.  I wouldn't suggest reading this one until you've first enjoyed her more famous works.  

No Fond Return of Love

No Fond Return of Love
by Barbara Pym


Blurb:

Dulcie Mainwaring, the heroine of the book, is one of those excellent women who is always helping others and never looking out for herself-- especially in the realms of love. The novel has a delicate tangle of schemes and unfulfilled dreams, hidden secrets and a castle or two. Told wonderfully in the deadpan honesty that has become a Pym hallmark, this book is a delight.

My Reaction:
Donald and I chose this almost at random as our latest "shared read-aloud" book. We were in need of something for our next read and selected this from what I already had loaded on my Kindle. Choice was limited (lots of horror on there, at the moment), and this was the closest to our usual fare of light humor. I'd been meaning to try some Pym, but had never really planned on it being shared reading material. However, it served that purpose better than I would've predicted, and I think we both enjoyed it!

I found my first Pym to be much as advertised-- a relatively quiet, unassuming story (a not particularly romantic romance) about a year or so in the lives of a smallish cast of characters, most of whom are members of the English middle class.

Essentially, it's a modern/mid-century comedy of manners. The sense of humor is mild and restrained ("dry" is probably the standard descriptor), but it is unquestionably there and springs up at some unexpected moments.

Embedded in a rather simple tale of ordinary people are moments of keen insight and honesty, just slipped in here and there, casually-- the type of observations where you instantly recognize yourself and your own life (for better or worse!). Those tiny blips of brilliance give this novel a surprising depth and complexity that elevate it to the level of "literature".

I believe I first came across Pym as a recommendation for fans of E.F. Benson's Lucia series. I would agree with the suggestion, but with the caveat that (based on the little Pym I've read) Benson's Lucia novels have a slightly acrid, often biting sense of humor and more outsized character personalities than Pym's, where the humor is softer, muted-- more representative, maybe, of real life. Benson makes me laugh harder, but Pym is more profound (and a little bittersweet).

I'll certainly be reading more from this author!

Scoop

Scoop
by Evelyn Waugh


Blurb:

Lord Copper, newspaper magnate and proprietor of the Daily Beast, has always prided himself on his intuitive flair for spotting ace reporters. That is not to say he has not made the odd blunder, however, and may in a moment of weakness make another. Acting on a dinner party tip from Mrs. Algernon Stitch, Lord Copper feels convinced that he has hit on just the chap to cover a promising war in the African Republic of Ishmaelia. So begins Scoop, Waugh's exuberant comedy of mistaken identity and brilliantly irreverent satire of the hectic pursuit of hot news.

My Reaction:
(This was a shared read with Donald.)

Though of course I'd come across references to Waugh from time to time, I didn't know much about him, and I'd never read anything of his until this.  We elected to read Scoop because I saw Waugh's name on an "if you like that, try this" list of authors-- and because I just happened to have picked up a copy in a library book sale, sometime.

That list of author suggestions I mentioned before indicated that Waugh would be good reading for fans of P.G. Wodehouse.  I suppose I agree that fans of one of these authors might enjoy the other, but though Waugh feels somewhat more literary than Wodehouse, I never quite warmed to these characters, and the laughs weren't nearly so numerous as I've had from Wodehouse at his best.

This is definitely a "product of its time" novel, with language to match.  Many modern readers will find aspects of the novel unpalatable.  I hesitate to admit it, but there were also times when I felt that certain things were flying right over my head...

In short, I was not exactly captivated.  I'd certainly give Waugh another try, but he's no Wodehouse-- and to be completely honest, I much prefer E.F. Benson's style to what I saw in Scoop, too.  However, maybe some of his other works would be more to my taste.  Brideshead Revisted, perhaps?

The Driver's Seat

The Driver's Seat
by Muriel Spark


Blurb:

Lise is thin, neither good-looking nor bad-looking. One day she walks out of her office, acquires a gaudy new outfit, adopts a girlier tone of voice, and heads to the airport to fly south. On the plane she takes a seat between two men. One is delighted with her company, the other is deeply perturbed. So begins an unnerving journey into the darker recesses of human nature.

My Reaction:
This is one seriously odd little book.  I enjoyed reading it-- for me, it has a flavor similar to the works of Shirley Jackson, only darker--  but please, don't ask me to explain it.  Bits and pieces can be untangled into some semblance of sense, but as a whole... Well, there's much that remains a mystery.

It's eerie, surreal, and unsettling, with a perverse vein of humor running right through it.

After turning the final page, you'll probably find most of your questions still unanswered, but if you're okay with that (and with moments of horror and ugliness), it's a quick, fascinating read.


Specifics (with SPOILERS):
-- It's clear from the very beginning that something's not quite right about Lise.  She takes offense at innocuous comments, makes off-kilter statements, blithely lies for no apparent reason, laughs too long and too loudly at inappropriate moments, and just generally gives off an intense vibe of volatility-- an undercurrent of instability.  And yet many of the other characters she encounters are also strange.  Bill, the macrobiotics guy, for instance. He's just plain creepy-crawly gross!  Even the kindly Mrs. Fiedke makes some oddball remarks and seems to have trouble with her memory.  My point: Yes, Lise is cuckoo, but apparently she lives in a world thickly populated by bizarre characters.

-- Mentions of Sweden/Scandinavia always interest me:  "...I never trust the airlines from those countries where the pilots believe in the afterlife.  You are safer when they don't.  I've been told the Scandinavian airlines are fairly reliable in that respect."

-- Then there's Mrs. Fiedke's strange, satirical commentary on the modern man: "'They are demanding equal rights with us,' says Mrs Fiedke.  'That's why I never vote with the Liberals.  Perfume, jewellery, hair down to their shoulders, and I'm not talking about the ones who were born like that.  I mean, the ones that can't help it should be put on an island.  It's the others I'm talking about.  There was a time when they would stand up and open the door for you.  They would take their hat off.  But they want their equality today.  All I say is that if God had intended them to be as good as us he wouldn't have made them different from us to the naked eye.  They don't want to be all dressed alike any more.  Which is only a move against us.  You couldn't run an army like that, let alone the male sex.  With all due respect to Mr Fiedke, may he rest in peace, the male sex is getting out of hand.'"  (If Mrs. Fiedke was that upset by the men of the 70s, what would she have thought of the off-putting "metrosexual" movement?  Or is that even still "a thing", anymore?)

She goes on: "'Fur coats and flowered poplin shirts on their backs.  ...  If we don't look lively,' she says, 'they will be taking over the homes and the children, and sitting about having chats while we go and fight to defend them and work to keep them.  They won't be content with equal rights only.  Next thing they'll want the upper hand, mark my words.  Diamond earrings, I've read in the paper.'"

-- I'm not sure why Lise hides her passport in the taxi.  Is she trying to obscure her identity to give her murderer more of a head start in his get-away?  (Would that even help?)  That's the sort of thing that made me think she was looking for a victim of her own-- someone she was planning to murder-- except that we learn fairly early on that she herself ends up dead.  I thought she had specific reasons for drawing attention to herself-- choosing such garish, clashing clothes, for example-- but in the end, none of it really makes sense to me...

-- Lise's comments along the lines of "I won't be needing these now" are casually chilling.  Her carefully selected souvenirs for "Papa" and "Olga"-- labelled with her lipstick-- tragic!  She's not at all a sympathetic character, but though we never meet him, I feel pity for her father.

-- Giving him her book-- because, of course, she has no further use for it-- Lise tells the hotel porter "it's a whydunnit in q-sharp major and it has a message: never talk to the sort of girls that you wouldn't leave lying about in your drawing-room for the servants to pick up"... Whatever that means!

-- The biggest unanswered question (in this "whydunnit") is WHY Lise wants to be murdered.  I didn't pick up on a single clue.  She seems to have a decent (if unexciting) life.  On the surface, she's an ordinary, boring woman.  Why did she decide to actively seek out such an especially violent end?

-- My next-biggest question is how Lise instantly recognized the man on the plane (Richard) as "her type".  I suppose I shouldn't care how she scents him out so easily-- it's not as though the rest of the novella is particularly ultra-realistic!-- but I can't help wondering about it.

-- Does Lise have any last-minute regrets?  For one thing, Richard ignores one of her more important instructions ("You can have it afterwards.  Tie my feet and kill, that's all."), and for another, she screams at the end, "evidently perceiving how final is finality".

-- Yes, this is a truly weird book.  It's not the sort of thing I'd want to read exclusively, but a little now and then serves as a reinvigorating tonic.

Pat of Silver Bush

Pat of Silver Bush
by L.M. Montgomery

Publisher's Blurb:

Patricia Gardiner loved Silver Bush more than anything else in the world. She was born and raised in the beautiful old-fashioned house on Prince Edward Island, "where things always seemed the same" and good things never changed. But things do change at Silver Bush--from her first day at school to the arrival of her new own first romance. Through it all, Pat shares her experiences with her beloved friends and discovers the one thing that truly never changes: the beauty and peace she will always find at Silver Bush--the house that remembers her whole life.

My Reaction:
It's been years since my last re-read of Pat of Silver Bush.  (I'm not sure when that was, exactly...)  I clearly remembered certain episodes and aspects of the book, but others had grown dim.  As for the book as a whole... I think I sympathize less with Pat now than I did as a teenager.  Her obsession with Silver Bush and the intensity of her hatred of all change-- always a bit strange-- seemed even stranger on this read-through.  The book still holds a place in my heart-- particularly Jingle/Hilary and McGinty and Judy-- but it's not quite the same...

I'd still recommend it, but only after the Anne and Emily series.   If you love those, Pat is worth reading-- but if not, I doubt Pat will be to your liking, either.


Specific Reactions (with LOTS of SPOILERS):
--  This was published in 1933.

--  "'The girls in school are nice but I don't love any of them.  I don't want to love any one or anything but my own family and Silver Bush.'"  To say that Pat is insular doesn't put it strongly enough.  That level of desire for isolation feels strange in a child, imho.  I understand shyness-- but such a young person not wanting to "love any one or anything" but your own family and family home... It's just weird!  I can understand older characters being sad about the passage of time and some of the less pleasant changes that time brings-- but it feels wrong for a child to be afraid of "happy" changes, like the marriage of an aunt or the impending arrival of a baby. 

--  Pat and Jingle "build a bridge of stones" over Jordan (a brook) for ease of crossing.  It can't have taken them long, because they've just had lunch (if I remember correctly) and afterward still have time for "an afternoon of prowling and rambling"-- and yet it's still standing ten years later!  (Unless they rebuilt it, at some point...)  Anyway, I've always wondered how one goes about building a bridge of that sort-- and what the bridge would have looked like.  Admittedly, I don't know much about engineering, but it seems tricky.  Two kids building a sturdy little footbridge is amazing.

--  Though his early obsession with houses is perhaps a bit too precocious, Jingle/Hilary is one of Montgomery's best, most loveable heroes (not that that's saying much).  ...Which makes it all the more frustrating that Pat suffers the typical, stubborn blindness where he's concerned. 

--  "'Uncle Lawrence doesn't mind McGinty but he laughs at him and McGinty can't bear to be laughed at.'  'Dog's don't,' said Pat knowingly, out of her extensive acquaintance of three dogs."  ...Well, I've never noticed dogs not liking to be laughed at, in general... Maybe if you laugh particularly rudely or cruelly, the smarter dogs might notice, but just a friendly laugh at their antics?  They're more likely to get excited and happy than to seem hurt.  (And I've known more than three dogs, so I'm an expert.)

--  I don't care for Sid (including his name).

--  "Judy began to talk of getting ready to hook a big crumb-cloth for the dining room, a bigger one than Aunt Judith's of which she was so proud."  Sounds like a crumb-cloth is just a rug that goes under the table.  I wish we had pictures of some of the things mentioned in these old books... Judy's rugs, for instance...

--  The ethereal quality of Pat's nearly-always-absent Mother has been discussed-- but it's still striking.  Pat is the only of Montgomery's "big 3" heroines to not be an orphan.  Both parents are living-- and they are present in the book-- but I so much prefer Judy to Pat's mother that it comes as a shock when some Great Tragedy sends Pat running home from school:  "Oh, to get home to mother... mother now, not Judy.  Judy did for little griefs but for this, only mother..."  ...It's just that Judy feels more like Pat's mother than her mother does!

-- On that topic... I know some people hate Judy's bizarre dialect, but I actually love it.  It may not be remotely realistic, but I can hear her in my head when I read-- I'm even coming to be comfortable with the the "oh, oh"-- and... she's cozy.

--  When Pat comes home from a visit and discovers that her father has shaved off his moustache, he has to promise to let it grow back before she'll stop crying.  Eventually she gets used to his new look and doesn't hold him to the promise, but that's still simply ridiculous.  What a terribly spoiled child!

--  A cat falls down the well.  He survives and is rescued-- but Judy says they'll have to drag water from Jordan (the nearby stream) until they can have the well cleaned.  Which leads me to wonder a couple of things.  First, how does one clean a well?  Second, would brook water really be safer than water from a well that a cat merely fell into?  It's not like the cat was dead in the well.... Just wondering.

--  At one point, Pat's mother waits for word from Mr. Gardiner regarding his decision to either move the family out west or stay where they are.  She clearly wants very much to stay on P.E.I., but intends to follow her husband's decision-- whatever it might be-- without demur.  The situation reminded me of Mrs. Ingalls and the girls following Pa out further and further onto the unpopulated prairies.  Ma would rather have stayed closer to home and family, I'm sure, but she went wherever Pa wanted, because he was the Head of the Family.  Talk about different times!  I'm fairly traditional, but I'm glad there's more a of a partnership, these days.  I want to have some say in where I live.  Shockingly modern.  ;o)

--  "Jingle was always on the lookout for windows.  They had a peculiar fascination for him.  He averred that the windows of a house made or marred it."   Well, windows are the eyes of a house-- and the eyes are the windows to the soul-- so obviously they're vital to the expression and attitude of a building.

--  "Mr. Gordon Keys at the bridge keeps his wife in order by crocheting lace whenever she won't do as he says.  She hates to see him do it and so she gives in."  ...Have to agree with the wife on that one...  Sorry, male crocheters of lace!

-- "'I'm clane missing me guess if he don't be in Parliamint be the time he's a bit bald.  Ye're not nading inny great intilligence for that.'"  So true. 

--  Judy and Pat discuss what Pat remembers of "the Great War"-- and at the end of the conversation, Judy says "it's all over now, and I'm hoping the world will have more sinse than iver to get in a mess like the same agin, more be token that the women can be voting"--  because of course LMM didn't know in 1933 that WWII was less than a decade away...  The conversation made me wonder what age Pat and Hilary would be at the beginning and end of WWII.  Pat was 5 when the armistice was signed (1918), so that would make her about 26 in 1939 and 32 in 1945.  Hilary is two years older than Pat, so he'd be 28 and 34...

--  "'They don't call them billets-doux now, Judy,' she said, gravely.  'They call them mash notes.'  'They would that.  The uglier the better nowadays.'"  Amen to that.  Only, can you imagine what poor Judy (or my own great-grandmother) would've thought of "sexting" and the like?  ...Probably best not to imagine!

--  By the time I was the age Pat is when Bets dies (not sure of the exact number), I don't think I had a "best friend" anymore.  Certainly not a friend as close as that.  It would've shaken and pained me to lose any of my high school friends, but I wouldn't have been so utterly devastated, because we simply weren't that close...  My best-friendships with other girls were mostly an elementary-school thing, fading during the middle-school years.  Is that a sign of changing times or more just a difference in personality and circumstance?

--  "'As for me poor Lester, they tell me he's rale down-hearted now that his temper fit do be over.  I'm afraid it's ye that do be the deluthering cratur, Patsy.  He did be thinking ye were rale fond av him.'"  I can usually understand Judy perfectly, but "deluthering" has me stumped!

--  There's a reference to "Victorian monstrosities with towers and cupolas"-- and we learn that young Pat hates bay windows.  Hmph.  I like bay windows-- and I would be so excited to live in a Victorian monstrosity with a tower and cupola! 

-- "Children ran about the grounds like small roses."  ...Okay...  Odd turn of phrase!

--  Some of the things those elderly "uncles" and "cousins" (not really relatives) say to Pat!  It's bad enough when her elderly great-great aunts criticize her looks to her face, when she's a child-- but Pat's eighteen by the end of the book, and these old men are still vocally appraising her beauty or lack thereof-- or saying they'll "take her if she liked".  Yuck.  Talk of dirty old men!

-- I love the beautiful descriptions of the landscape and home life.  Though there are charming descriptions of all seasons in this book, Pat and "her" books always feel like autumn to me-- and seeing as autumn is my very, very favorite, that's a compliment.  ;o) 

--  I don't think I'll be reading Mistress Pat soon.  I remember that it's much darker than Pat of Silver Bush-- and that's dark enough!

Cold Comfort Farm

Cold Comfort Farm
by Stella Gibbons


Publisher's Blurb:

...a wickedly funny portrait of British rural life in the 1930s. Flora Poste, a recently orphaned socialite, moves in with her country relatives, the gloomy Starkadders of Cold Comfort Farm, and becomes enmeshed in a web of violent emotions, despair, and scheming, until Flora manages to set things right.

My Reaction: 
(This was shared read.  As such, there are no detailed notes.)

We saw the 1990s film adaptation years ago-- so long ago that I had only the vaguest memories of it.  However, I feel safe saying that the book is better.

What higher praise can you give a book than to say that it made you laugh (in the intended places)?  Well, we laughed!
 
(A couple of slightly spoilery things follow, so if you want to remain innocent of all spoilage, sneak out the side door now.)  



At times, I could have wished for more explanation--  Flora's "rights"!  The exact nature of the "something nasty in the woodshed"!  How did Flora's conversation with Aunt Ada Doom begin?!  (Yes, I realize that we aren't meant to know those things and that they were very intentionally left out.  But I still want to knoooooow!)


...It was just fun to read.  I'm satisfied. 

Starlight

Starlight
by Stella Gibbons

Blurb:

Gladys and Annie Barnes are impoverished sisters who have seen better times. They live in a modest cottage in the backstreets of Highgate with Mr Fisher, a mild but eccentric old man living secretively in the attic above them. Their quiet lives are thrown into confusion when a new landlord takes over, a dreaded and unscrupulous 'rackman'. He installs his wife in part of the cottages in the hope that there she will recover from an unspecified malady. With a mounting sense of fear, Gladys and Annie become convinced she is possessed by an evil spirit...

My Reaction:
This is a very strange book, difficult to describe or categorize-- humor rubbing shoulders with horror.  Except for a few passages, it was not a page-turner for me, but though it took me a while to work my way through it, I found it intriguing.  I wouldn't recommend this book to just anyone, as I think it would bore most-- also, I think I am unlikely to want to reread it (in the near future? ever?)-- but I'm glad I've read it once.  This is an interesting story about an unusual collection of characters.  The characters are the stars of the show.


Random Specifics (with SPOILERS):
-- Though I've never read the author's most famous work (Cold Comfort Farm), I've seen a film adaptation, and based on that, it's safe to say that this is a less biting work.  There is humor, but it is not stringent-- and we have multifaceted, realistic characters instead of caricatures. 

--  "rackman"... It must have been contemporary slang, something like a "racket" man, I guess.  Obviously a rackman was a shady character involved in possibly criminal (and definitely unsavory) dealings.

--  I found it difficult to picture precisely the layout of Rose Cottage/Lily Cottage.  I've got something in my mind's eye, but I'm not sure how accurate it is.  I guess it was just a three-story house in which rooms (or attics) are available for rent, with a common entry-room (the kitchen? I couldn't ever really place the kitchen...) and staircase. 

--  I'm not sure where the title came from.  It (and the Vintage Classics cover) attracted me, but neither seem to have much to do with the book. (g)  There did seem to be many scenes set at night, though...

--  "By mutual though silent consent, they said no more about the threat [of being turned out on the streets]; awful, to them, as that of any looming hydrogen holocaust."  When is this set?  I know it's well after WWII.  I think it works out to about the same time that it was published (which was 1967). 

--  At one point, there is a reference to a time "before the 1914 war", which led me to wonder if the British don't/didn't call them "World War I" and "World War II"-- and at what point Americans commonly gave them those names.  Obviously before WWII, they wouldn't have called it "WWI".  (I think "the Great War" was the usual name for it.)  ...Anyway, nothing to do with the story-- just something I wondered about...

--  "At Belsize House, she had always been called Barnes.  Housemaid.  Not tall enough for a parlourmaid."  Ha!  I knew that height was important for some male servants (footmen? butlers?), but this is the first I've heard of height being a factor for maids.  Such a strange system!

--  "...the exhausting business of commercialized Christmas only three weeks away..."  So tell me-- have people always lamented the "commercialization" of Christmas?  One begins to wonder...

--  "For she had, as usual, and certainly with more reason than she would have had twenty years ago, been anticipating murder."  ...Yes, well, this was the 1960s, so is it even more reasonable to anticipate murder, today?  Depends on where you live, what you do, and when you do it, of course...

--  "Mrs. Corbett, as was usual with Mrs. Corbett, had noticed nothing."

--  "'You always tempt us.  I put on six ounces last week.  Oh well-- perhaps just this once.'  'Six ounces!  You'll have to "watch out", as they say.'  'I don't know why you all bother about it, fussing over ounces.  Harry likes me well-covered.'  Three of the old women said nothing.  The one they called Madge was the last of them whose husband was alive, and she was full of triumph because of the simple fact.  Every incident, every detail concerned with her hair-dressing, her clothes, her make-up, was referred to it."

-- "bestend-of-neck"-- Apparently, it's a cut of meat.

--  "Gladys minced up the remains of the previous day's bestend-of-neck (New Zealand) in the clumsy forty-year-old mincer, and, with the addition of two potatoes, well salted and mashed with half a gill of milk left from their breakfast, produced a shepherd's pie that was just not quite enough for two.  But the Bovril had provided a passable foundation, and, with six staleish brussels sprouts added, there was in fact a lunch.  Gladys could cook.  She loved her food, and she had a most un-English talent for making something tasty out of scraps that most women would have thrown away.  It is not too much to say that she and Annie would have died years ago from some illness invited by malnutrition if they had not been carefully fed.  'Quite nice, these sprouts,' commented Annie, sitting up in bed with her lunch spread out on the old papier mâché tray with its spray of Japanese flowers. 'When did you get 'em, Glad?' 'Saturday-- or was it Monday?  I got a half.  Pull the leaves off.  Make 'em small, I hate those great lumps of sprouts.  These're all right inside, even if they are old.  Like me,' and Gladys went off into a great cackle, in which Annie more primly joined."

--  Regarding the snippet above:  Ah, the cheerfully impoverished!  But seriously, there's something so bittersweet and... cozy, really, about so many poor-but-getting-by characters.  I enjoy reading about them, and I'm not sure how I should feel about that!  Should I be ashamed to take pleasure in these things, when I'm living the well-fed life of the modern middle class?  I remember having the same feeling of coziness as a child, reading about the dirt-poor Ingalls family (so excited to get a penny for Christmas!  or a peppermint stick!  or a little cake made from white flour and sugar!)... or the poverty-stricken town that grudgingly shared the ingredients to make Stone Soup... or the poor old man and woman in Socks for Supper.  It must not be an unusual sensation.  Why do we like these stories?  It would be different if they were really suffering or starving.  It's the fact that they are making do, living very carefully, but "getting by"... the simplicity of the characters' wants.  You can't help but admire the frugality and resolve to be more consciously grateful for what you have-- more careful to make the best use of it.  ...And maybe it stirs a charitable impulse, too...

--  Gladys and Annie buy their gas (for heat) and electricity through a pay-as-you-go system, it seems.  They drop coins into boxes to start it up again-- like a pay phone.  So very strange!  I wonder how common that was, at the time.

--  "There was no sound or movement in the room beyond those slight ones made by the burning of electricity, which give a false impression of life."  Yes-- and even more so now, with the humming of computers and larger appliances.  You don't notice it until the power's out; everything's so much quieter!

--  "...photographs of eupeptic beauties in furs..."   Eupeptic!  What a word!  "Of, relating to, or having good digestion"-- or "cheerful".  (g) You decide.

--  "'I shouldn't wonder if it wasn't that tinned pudding, say what you like it's not natural.'"  Then there are fish-sticks!  I was so surprised to see fish-sticks mentioned!  The modern age...  I get the impression that Gibbons shares Gladys' opinion of all these "prepared" foods.

--  Then there are the references to plastic.  There are quite a few of them, and generally, they feel like a negative commentary on the times.  Plastic decorations for the home... Plastic balls for the Christmas tree... Plastic shoes.  It feels cheap.  Signs of a world that is changing-- and not for the better.

--  "...the cheap wood of the furniture, shaped into debased contemporary curves, had its usual chemical sheen."

--  "Her mind was busy with the story she had been reading; a suspense-story about multiple murder and hidden love in the Deep South of America."  How amusing!  She's reading about this exotic Deep South of America, and here I am in the Deep South, reading about the equally exotic (fictional) goings-on in England.

--  "Her face was beginning to fill out; a pear-shaped German face with white large cheeks and a narrow brow and small eyes blue as flax."  Hm... Never heard of German faces being pear-shaped.

--  The possession element of the story is very odd.  Not at all what you'd expect from a book that is firmly planted in a modern, everyday world.  It's not really horror, but there are definitely a few creepy moments.  They mostly come in the form of strange phrases mixed into Mrs. Pearson's dialogue.  There's the "I will put my feet on the pavement" line... Then there's the bit about how she wants "just to enjoy my house... my house that I can touch and taste and smell..." 

--  "'...if I hadn't such a mistrust of the psychiatric brotherhood I'd try and pass the whole thing on to one of them.'  'I'm inclined to agree with you-- but don't you give them credit for anything?' asked Gerald.  'Arrogance,' said Mr Geddes tartly. 'Plenty of credit for that.  They're the new Sanhedrin.  You show me a wardful of happy, or even resigned and contented people allegedly cured by psychiatrists and-- I'll give credit where it's due.  To Almighty God.'"  . . .  "'It's lack of time that's the trouble,' Mr Geddes went on. 'Each patient really needs the entire interest of one person concentrated entirely on him or herself.  It just can't be done.  It's cruel to pretend it can.  They find themselves clinically pigeon-holed when they need to be loved ... a perfect demonstration of "I asked for bread, and ye gave me a stone".'"

--  (Bedridden) Mrs. Pearson points to some cakes she's offering to a guest, then asks to be excused for pointing.  I don't understand why pointing at an object-- particularly in one's own home-- would be considered bad manners.  I understand (in theory) why it might be bad manners to point at a person-- especially out on the street.  It might look as though you're talking about the person--  saying who knows what about him/her-- and it could embarrass the person, but this example seems a bit extreme.  I don't see the harm in pointing at a plate of cakes.  ~shrug~  (But then again, I'm not Miss Manners.)

--  The kindness and sympathy everyone seems to feel toward Erika surprised me a little, and I wondered how realistic it was.  (Of course, at the time, I thought the book might be set in the 50s, whereas now I think it was set in the mid-to-late 1960s.)  I know she's a poor orphan who was born well after the war and in no way to blame for it, but still... She's German, and it wasn't that long after the war, and... Well, I wouldn't have expected outright displays of hatred, but neither did I expect such easy, unquestioning acceptance.  I wonder how soon this type of reaction was the norm...

--  There are four dogs (pugs? I can't recall) named (oh so creatively) A., Bee, Cee, and Dee. 

--  Peggy annoys me.  Perpetually bored.  Above regular people.  Self-absorbed.  Uninterested in anyone else.  ...Then later on we get her back-story, and yet, still, I don't like her.  Are we supposed to sympathize with her?  I can't!  She's a wanna-be home-wrecker!  The man she's cavorting with (Fred) is even worse, since he's the one with a wife (and children?) to think of, but there's enough disgust to go around.

--  All that said... Though I dislike Peggy and Arnold, individually, I can't help but like them together, and I wouldn't have minded reading more about them.

--  "She was twenty-two.  Not, thought Arnold, a great age."  Ha!  I've heard people say that the teens aren't a great age-- not years you want to repeat-- but pity for the early twenties is less common.  Interesting, coming from an older author... Gives me hope for the years to come.  ;o)

--  "...his heart shook against his rib-cage as if it were an animal bounding from side to side and trying to get out; he had never been so aware of it, and he felt, too, what power it had, how he relied upon it, how it sent the blood that kept him alive running along his veins."  It's an odd sensation, the realization of your ultimate vulnerability.  If one little bit of the clockwork comes to a halt, you die.  In the meantime, what magic keeps it going?  Nothin' like mortality!

--  Poor Mr. Fisher.  Such a sad yet dignified character.  I'm not sure I "understand" his murder.  It's so random.  Just in the wrong place at the wrong time?  (Well, kind of.  It was a risk he consciously took, because he thought he might be able to save another man's life-- make a difference.)  Such senseless violence... It happens, but... well, it is so senseless that it's baffling.  Why?  Not even greed for a motive-- just violence for its own sake. 

--  Mr. Fisher's anti-war letters struck me as a bit odd... Perfect for Gerald to find them-- right up his alley-- but personally... I don't know.  Maybe it was more poignant when the book was written, with the ever-present fear of the atom bomb.  Or maybe it's just me... In any case, life's not that simple.  As long as there are evil people in the world (and I don't see any improvement in human nature), someone has to be prepared to defend against them.  That sometimes escalates into war.  Innocent people die, and there is much needless loss.  But what is the alternative?  To surrender to those who are willing to kill or otherwise use force to get their way?  Cowering under the tyrant's watch for generations?  Is that kind of life any better than war, really?  No, I'd rather fight.

--  "(The occupants, already late for a television programme specializing in scenes of violence, preferred to indulge their taste without risk of involvement, and ignored the girl lying in the road and the man stooping over her.)"  Not a very high opinion of TV or those who watch it...

--  "Mrs Lysaght was sitting in her drawing-room, a week later.  It was ten minutes past eleven, and she was sipping her coffee and reflecting that Gretl did not make it as well as a Continental girl should.  Gretl was sitting in the kitchen, sipping hers and reflecting with complacence that it tasted just like that served in the London coffee bars."

--  While Gerald waits for Mr. Geddes to come help him with the possessed Mrs. Pearson, he tries to fix his mind on holy things, but... "He began to experience nothing but a detached curiosity.  His moral sense told him that it was evil; yet he could feel nothing else, and the cold, crawling out from somewhere beyond the warmth of the summer evening, slowly burned into his flesh inside his clothes and began to seep inwards, in the form of this passionless curiosity, threatening his spirit."  ...I recognize that feeling, or something like it.

--  I was surprised when Mrs. Pearson died (even though we're obviously meant to understand that her soul has been saved)-- and even more shocked when her husband made good on his earlier promises and proceeded to "follow" her.  ...I'm still shocked by that turn of events. 

--  The strangest aspect of the book, in my opinion, would have to be the curiously cold parent/child relationships between the Pearsons and Peggy.  I guess Mrs. Pearson's been battling this "illness" for practically all of Peggy's life, and Mr. Pearson has been obsessed with his wife... and as a result, Peggy was mostly self-reliant from a young age.  I understand that not all families are very close, but this one is so distant!  Mr. Pearson doesn't even consider his daughter before killing himself-- and Peggy doesn't bother to tell her mother that she's married and going out of the country for goodness-knows-how-long!  Weird...  Her strange relationship with her parents might explain some of Peggy's problems and "personality quirks".  Maybe her future with Arnold will be happier...

--  After the strange, sad story of the Pearsons, at least the ending is cozy.  Gladys and Annie get their happy ending-- a nice place to live in the country-- a real home with family, where they'll be cherished for their remaining years.  The picture of them slowly driving home through a friendly village in a pretty, twilit countryside... So soft and warm and lovely.  Who could ask for anything better?