A Book I Wanted to Read for a Long Time But Still Haven't // 30-Day Book Challenge - Day 23

Today is the twenty-third day of the 30-day book challenge, in which I will be writing about a different book or book series every day for 30 days, with each book chosen according to the daily prompt. Today's prompt is: "a book you wanted to read for a long time but still haven't".

In spite of my otherwise surprisingly-consistent progress with this challenge lately, I considered taking this weekend off from posting, as I have done a few times since I started. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), quarantine has left me with even more time on my hands than usual, as well as a strange desire to see this challenge through to the end. So, we will be having a post today after all.

Today's prompt is set apart from previous variations by the fact that it doesn't require (and in fact explicitly forbids) having read the book you choose. Like many people who claim to love books but in fact spend more time browsing and buying than we do actually reading them, my list of books that 'I've been meaning to read' is incredibly long. Luckily for me, it's also an actual list, recorded on the website of an international, demon-owned evil corporation which I won't name here. In order to select the most fitting book for this prompt, all I had to do was scroll to the very start of this list and then look for a book which I am still interested in reading now. My chosen book ended up being the 1932 comic novel Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons.

Not courtesy of Goodreads this time but from Penguin Books instead, here is the book's blurb:

When sensible, sophisticated Flora Poste is orphaned at nineteen, she decides her only choice is to descend upon relatives in deepest Sussex. At the aptly-named Cold Comfort Farm, she meets the doomed Starkadders: cousin Judith, heaving with remorse for unspoken wickedness; Amos, preaching fire and damnation; their sons, lustful Seth and despairing Reuben; child of nature Elfine; and crazed old Aunt Ada Doom, who has kept to her bedroom for the last twenty years. But Flora loves nothing better than to organise other people. Armed with common sense and a strong will, she resolves to take each of the family in hand. A hilarious and ruthless parody of rural melodramas and purple prose, Cold Comfort Farm is one of the best-loved comic novels of all time.

I think I initially heard about Cold Comfort Farm back in the days of my first blog, which would now be almost ten(!) years ago. It was beloved by several other bloggers whose tastes I mostly shared, and their high praise of it combined with what sounded like a charming plot was enough to make me want to read it. I added the book to my wishlist and proceeded to um and ah over buying it for the next almost-decade. To this day, I still have neither read nor even purchased a copy of this book.

Since I can't say much else about the plot or merits of Cold Comfort Farm (since, you know, I haven't read it), I suppose the only thing I can discuss is why exactly I haven't read it yet despite wanting to for such a long time. Unlike a lot of books on my extensive to-read list, I can't argue that I've put off reading it because it's too long (it's less than 300 pages), it's too heavy a topic (literally a comedy), or even that it's hard to find a copy (I've seen it in dozens of bookshops over the years).

In the time between finding out about this book and now, I've even purchased and read another book by the same author, Here Be Dragons. I loved that book and if anything it should have made me more likely to read Cold Comfort Farm, and yet I still haven't done so. So what's the problem?

I'm a little ashamed to admit that probably the most likely reason I haven't read Cold Comfort Farm so far - besides the usual delay that happens with reading any book on a to-read list - is that I haven't liked any of the covers. It's shallow and I'm a bit embarrassed to say it, but it's true. One advantage that Here Be Dragons had over its literary sibling was its beautifully-designed cover art. In contrast, all the editions of Cold Comfort Farm which I had encountered featured either an art style that didn't appeal to me or just a plain close-up photo of a cow's face on the cover. Neither of these made me particularly inclined to have a copy of the book in my possession.

To illustrate my point, here are some photos of the covers of Stella Gibbons' books which I have so far found available to purchase or borrow. From left to right, we have: the 2011 Vintage Classics edition of Here Be Dragons; the 2006 Penguin Classics edition of Cold Comfort Farm; the Penguin Essentials reprint of CCF; and finally the CCF Penguin Classics Deluxe edition.

Taste in art (including book design) is highly subjective, so I'm not going to say that these designs for Cold Comfort Farm are bad. Perhaps the warm colours and satirical look of them go very well with the tone of the book; I wouldn't know. Either way, I'm afraid to say that I do not find any of them aesthetically pleasing enough to want to borrow them, let alone buy a copy.

If you saw the first cover design for Cold Comfort Farm near the start of this post, you might be wondering, 'What about that cover? Isn't that better than the others?' Well reader, I would agree it's much nicer than any of the others. So why haven't I got a copy with that cover design? As it happens, it was only when researching trawling Google Images in preparation for this post that I saw this cover. In a shocking twist, it may end up being the very act of writing this post that leads me to finally get my hands on (and even read) an edition of Cold Comfort Farm.

I'm sure that some of you reading think I'm rather shallow, or at least have my priorities wrong, for letting something as insignificant as a book cover prevent me from reading a story that appeals to me. If so, I'd like to know, are book covers of absolutely no importance to you? Are they not something you even notice, or are they just not enough of a factor to prevent you from getting a book entirely? Also, what books are there (if any) that you have always wanted to read but somehow never got around to reading? I'd be curious to know what unread books you are haunted by, and especially what it is that has stopped you from reading them so far.

A Book That Makes Me Cry // 30-Day Book Challenge - Day 22

Today is the twenty-second day of the 30-day book challenge, in which I will be writing about a different book or book series every day for 30 days, with each book chosen according to the daily prompt. Today's prompt is: "a book that makes you cry".

Hello everyone and welcome back to another post that I am desperately trying to bang out before we get to midnight and it officially becomes late (again). I'm mentioning this partially so that you'll forgive the poor, rushed, and probably typo-filled state of this post, but also so that if you think it's even marginally good then you can think to yourself, "wow, considering she wrote this in such a small amount of time, this isn't completely terrible". And thus, by setting the bar incredibly low, I can manage to preserve a sense of achievement without ever really accomplishing anything. It's the perfect plan.

It's just a little unfortunate that today's prompt is 'a book that makes you cry', given that emotional weight doesn't generally go that well with shoddy and self-deprecating writing, but these are the cards we have been dealt. So, let's see what we have to work with.

The book that I have chosen for today's post is Sky Burial, by Xinran.

I'm rushing and don't have time for a segue, so: I now present to you *drum roll*…. a [redacted] summary!

As a young girl in China Xinran heard a rumour about a soldier in Tibet who had been brutally fed to the vultures in a ritual known as a sky burial: the tale frightened and fascinated her. Several decades later Xinran met Shu Wen, a Chinese woman who had spent years searching for her missing husband who had been serving as a doctor in Tibet; her extraordinary life story would unravel the legend of the sky burial. For thirty years she was lost in the wild and alien landscape of Tibet, in the vast and silent plateaus and the magisterial mountain ranges, living with communities of nomads moving with the seasons and struggling to survive.

Hopefully the additional length of that summary will do something to make up for how brief I'm going to make this post - which I do feel a little bad about, given how I genuinely love and care about this book, but I'm just going to push that emotion to the back of my mind while I write this.

First of all, I'd like to mention that I'm not entirely sure if Sky Burial is a true story or not. I've seen it variously classed as fiction or non-fiction, and I can't tell if the way it's presented as being told to the author by Shu Wen herself is based on Xinran's real life or if it's just a framing device of the "this story was once told to me" sort that some authors use. If it is 100% true, I'll feel terrible for doubting it, but I felt I had to mention that I'm honestly not sure about it here.

So, as you can see from the summary above, Sky Burial is an epic story about a woman who sets off into Tibet to find her missing husband. The book spans decades, although its physical length (less than 200 pages) warps the passage of time so that it can come as a shock when we suddenly realise, when reading, that years have passed when it felt like only a few days. Sky Burial's emotional weight works in much the same way - it builds up slowly, then suddenly hits you all at once. The power of the story is likewise not in flowery prose, but in the simple poignancy of the events it depicts.

Unfortunately, I can tell you very little about these events, as to do so would be to spoil the book. This is especially true as the part that I find most emotional and the most tear-inducing is right at the conclusion of the book. I won't tell you what happens, and I would encourage you not to look it up either, as it might deprive you of some of the emotional shock of discovering it organically through reading the book. I will say that the ending is shocking, tragic, and yet somehow also beautiful. It is this part of Sky Burial which reduced me to tears, and which has earned it its place in this post.

The First Novel I Remember Reading // 30-Day Book Challenge - Day 21

Today is the twenty-first day of the 30-day book challenge, in which I will be writing about a different book or book series every day for 30 days, with each book chosen according to the daily prompt. Today's prompt is: "the first novel you remember reading".

Day 3 of self-imposed COVID-19 quarantine. My exposure to fresh air is limited entirely to sitting out on my room's tiny balcony (really more of an extended windowsill). I have taken advantage of two different libraries' electronic resources and thus have about a dozen books to read, of which I have completed 0. I appear outwardly agreeable in my interactions with the people that share my living space, despite the creeping homicidal urges I feel getting stronger every day. But, I have finally got back on track with this book challenge. So really, things are going pretty well overall.

Today's prompt is 'the first novel you remember reading' which, as usual, I don't have a definitive choice for. I know for certain which was the first book I read as a child, but unfortunately I don't think The Little Mouse, the Red-Ripe Strawberry, and the Big, Hungry Bear counts as a novel, in spite of its other literary merits.

While I can't remember exactly what the first proper novel I read growing up was, I do know of a particular novel I read at a young age and which became my favourite book for many years after. This is the first full-length book I remember having a real impact on me, and so I think it's a fitting choice for this prompt. This special book is The Star of Kazan by Eva Ibbotson.

Although I'm not entirely certain of when I first read The Star of Kazan, I know that I read it soon after purchasing the above hardback edition of the book, which was no doubt not long after it was published in 2004. This would mean I was likely around the age of eight when I read it, about four years younger than the book's protagonist, Annika.

A plot summary of the book, as always courtesy of Goodreads, is as follows:

Annika has never had a birthday. Instead she celebrates her Found Day, the day a housemaid and a cook to three eccentric Viennese professors found her and took her home. There, Annika has made a happy life in the servants' quarters, surrounded with friends, including the elderly woman next door who regales Annika with stories of her performing days and her countless admirers - especially the Russian count who gave her the legendary emerald, the Star of Kazan. And yet, Annika still dreams of finding her true mother. But when a glamorous stranger arrives claiming to be Annika's mother, and whisks her away to a crumbling, spooky castle, Annika discovers that all is not as it seems in her newfound home..

I've read this book many times over the years, but even so it's been quite a while since my last re-read. It's funny what things you remember and what you forget, when you recall a piece of media that had a great impact on you as a child. Today I would struggle to give you an outline of the book's plot and major events, although I feel like I read its opening paragraphs just yesterday. Even when I was still actively re-reading the book, I remember one day being shocked at the realisation that Annika was described as having 'corn-coloured hair', even though I'd always pictured her as a brunette. It must have taken me until my fourth or fifth reread to notice this.

I mention this weird gap in my memory to stress how bizarre and apparently meaningless the things we remember and forget can be. I say 'apparently' meaningless - no doubt there are important reasons why things stick in our memory, even if we're not aware of them. I don't know why there are certain things I remember about The Star of Kazan while seemingly more significant details elude me, and I can only guess their subconscious meaning. However, I still thought it would be fun to list some of the details that stick out in my memory the most from The Star of Kazan. So, in no particular order, here are the things I remember best about this book:

• Annika's name. For years after reading this book, Annika my absolute favourite name. I gave the name Annika to my Sims, characters I wrote about, and even daydreamed about one day giving it to a human child. I thought it was beautiful name and, importantly, I associated it with one of my favourite characters. Which brings me to...
• Annika's kindness. Even if I managed to forget what she looked like, Annika's many small acts of kindness and selflessness throughout the novel stuck in my mind. In particular, I remember:
• The scarf scene. In one part of the book, Annika gives her red scarf to the standoffish, unhappy Gudrun, who never gets new clothes. The simple kindness of this scene always stood out to me.
• The food. Annika and her adoptive mother Ellie both love to cook, which maybe explains why the food descriptions in the book are so memorable. Or perhaps I'm just a glutton. Either way, just recalling the descriptions of sugar mice, plum cake, and even the legendary Christmas carp* is making me hungry.
• The adoptive family. As the summary above mentioned, Annika is found abandoned as a baby and raised by an adoptive family that includes: her mother Ellie, a cook; Sigrid, the housemaid (who in hindsight is very close with Ellie - their relationship sounds a bit gay to me now); and the three eccentric professors they work for, Gertrude, Emil, and Julius. While the servant-master dynamic of this family seems a little odd to me now, at the time of reading I found the closeness and love of this found family beautiful.
• Vienna. A large part of the book is set in Vienna, where Annika is adopted and raised until the age of twelve. In the second chapter of the book, titled 'The Golden City', there is a long, gorgeous description of the city, from the Danube to the famous riding school to the hundreds of varieties of delicious food produced there. I feel like this book made me fall in love with Vienna without ever having visited it.

*I wasn't yet vegetarian when I read this book for the first time, so don't judge me.

There are several other parts of the book I remember, but they are less important and are harder to describe without giving spoilers. Still, I hope the list above is of some interest. I personally find it fascinating to think about the little details that we remember, even above things of seemingly greater significance. If anyone wants to let me know what little things they remember from books they read as a child, I'd love to hear.

Also, although I say these are only small details, that doesn't mean they haven't had an impact. To this day, I love reading books with found families, detailed descriptions, and delicious food. Annika may also in some ways be the predecessor for every other gentle but strong protagonist I've loved since then.

Maybe it is not objective importance that makes us remember things, but the act of remembering which makes something important, if only to ourselves. The things I remember about The Star of Kazan matter to me, so perhaps that in itself makes them significant.

Favourite Romance Book // 30-Day Book Challenge - Day 20

Today is the twentieth day of the 30-day book challenge, in which I will be writing about a different book or book series every day for 30 days, with each book chosen according to the daily prompt. Today's prompt is: "favourite romance book".

I am currently in self-imposed quarantine after being potentially exposed to COVID-19. This is not an ideal situation for my health, but it has been a net positive for this blog, which has been receiving much more attention since I've been confined to my flat. So, in the interest of preserving the momentum we've had going for the last two posts, let's move swiftly into the topic of this entry: my favourite romance book.

As with several other posts I've written for this challenge, preparing for this one involved a lot of time spent thinking about how I could find a loophole in the prompt. I don't read a lot of books that I would class specifically as 'romance', so I was finding it difficult to choose a book that fit that category. Even the few books in which I particularly enjoyed the romantic element have already either been written about (Carol) or earmarked for a later post (Fingersmith). I thought that I could pretend to have misinterpreted the prompt as meaning a book from the Romanticism period of literature and chosen something like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as a result. Or I could act like it meant Romance as in 'Romance languages' and thus be able to pick any book written in Italian, French, Spanish, and so on. Thankfully, I ended up not having to use either of these slightly deceitful approaches, as I remembered the perfect romance book for this post at the last minute.

In the end, the book I chose was Penguins Poems for Love, edited by Laura Barber.

This book, as the title suggests, is a collection of poems by various authors on the subject of love. The poems are split into categories named as adverbs, in response to the famous question 'How do I love thee?'. In order from first to last, they are:

• Suddenly
• Secretly
• Nearly
• Tentatively
• Haplessly
• Incurably
• Impatiently
• Superlatively
• Persuasively
• Passionately
• The morning after
• Greedily
• Truly, madly, deeply
• From a distance
• With a vow
• Happily ever after
• Treacherously
• Brutally
• Bitterly
• Finally
• Forsaken
• Regretfully
• Fatally
• Indifferently
• After death
• Eternally

As you might have guessed from the sheer number of sections listed above, the book is rather large. It numbers about 400 pages in total, and that is while it's in a large-paged hardback edition. It's a physically beautiful book, the kind of thing you could imagine keeping for years, giving as a present for a special occasion, or perhaps passing on to a younger generation. The original hardback version, pictured above, has the word LOVE spelt out in big letters on a red spine, with the words "love, lust, life, loss, love" written in smaller print between the characters. This edition even comes with two red ribbon bookmarks sewn in - the height of luxury. There's something rather romantic - in the sense of being idealised or extravagant - even in the book's outer appearance.

What I really like about this collection, and what makes it my favourite romance book, is its variety. As you can tell from the many categories of poems and even the words on the spine, Penguin's Poems for Love illustrates both the breadth and diversity of love, from the selfless to the toxic, from the fleeting to the immortal. As someone who often feels that people's varied experiences of love are too frequently flattened into one universal feeling, I appreciated this book's attempt to depict romance in its many forms. 

Besides thematic variety, I also enjoyed the diversity of the book's featured poets. While there are plenty of classic, famous love poems in the collection, like several of Shakespeare's sonnets, there are also some lesser-known poems as well. Likewise, they vary in length, style, and origin. This variety was deliberate; Barber even states this intention in the introductory notes, writing: 'my aim has been to range as widely as possible, historically and geographically.'

All in all, Penguin's Poems for Love is a lovely book with a beautiful design, a great variety of poems, and a charming way of displaying them. It might be impossible to find a single book that encapsulates the vastness of romantic love, but you could do a lot worse than this one.

Favourite Book Turned Into a Movie // 30-Day Book Challenge - Day 19

Today is the nineteenth day of the 30-day book challenge, in which I will be writing about a different book or book series every day for 30 days, with each book chosen according to the daily prompt. Today's prompt is: "favourite book turned into a movie".

As I mentioned in my other post about a book-to-film adaptation which I decidedly did not enjoy, I don't watch that many movies that are based on a book I've already read, mostly out of fear that they won't do the original story justice. However, there are a few which I've seen and found pleasantly surprising. Even if they are rarely better than the original (if such a comparison is even possible), such film versions can complement, add to, or provide a refreshing interpretation of the story they get their inspiration from. While I could name a couple of films like this - one of which I exempted because I want to talk about it in a later post - the one I have chosen for this prompt is Carol, the 2015 adaptation of The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith.

For the sake of clarification, I should add that although this novel was originally published with the title The Price of Salt, it was later republished by Bloomsbury under the name of Carol. This is why my edition of the book, the same as the paperback pictured above, is also labelled as such.

As book-to-film adaptations go, Carol's screen version is rather more well-known than the novel, although the latter is by no means obscure either. I first found out about the book when the film was nearly due to be released and hotly anticipated by many queer women's websites as a landmark in seeing our stories represented in mainstream media. I read the book with the primary intention of watching the film soon afterwards, but then predictably got distracted by other things and didn't see the movie until some time later. When I did, I wondered why I'd put it off for so long.

Before I go any further, you should probably have some idea of Carol's plot - assuming that you haven't already heard about it from the internet (spoiler alert: 'Harold, they're lesbians'). As a change from our usual Goodreads plagiarism, in this post I'm going to share a summary courtesy of IMDB:

In an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's seminal novel The Price of Salt, CAROL follows two women from very different backgrounds who find themselves in an unexpected love affair in 1950s New York. As conventional norms of the time challenge their undeniable attraction, an honest story emerges to reveal the resilience of the heart in the face of change. A young woman in her 20s, Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara), is a clerk working in a Manhattan department store and dreaming of a more fulfilling life when she meets Carol (Cate Blanchett), an alluring woman trapped in a loveless, convenient marriage. As an immediate connection sparks between them, the innocence of their first encounter dims and their connection deepens. While Carol breaks free from the confines of marriage, her husband (Kyle Chandler) begins to question her competence as a mother as her involvement with Therese and close relationship with her best friend Abby (Sarah Paulson) come to light.

In my opinion, a film adaptation of a book needs to do two things to be considered 'good':

1. do the original book justice
2. be a good film in its own right

The first point doesn't mean that the film has to adapt the book completely faithfully; I feel that sometimes slight adjustments can both make a story suit the medium of film better as well as bring in an interesting new element. One of my favourite adaptations, The Handmaiden (which I will discuss more on a later day), dramatically changes multiple elements of the story, from setting to plot, but it does so in such a way that it remains respectful of the original.

If a film tries not to change anything in adapting a book to the screen, it will always fail, as it is working from a blueprint created for an entirely different form of media.

All that said, Carol doesn't actually change very much of its plot in its transition from book to film. The crucial elements remain the same, but tweaked slightly so as to best suit the new form and our current times. As an example of the former, the film changes Therese's aspiration in life from being a theatre set designer to becoming a photographer. Not only is this easier to depict on-screen, it also allows for a number of poignant moments when we see the events of the film through Therese's camera lens. This is particularly valuable as the book is written from Therese's perspective, whereas the film spends some of its runtime focusing on Carol alone. With regard to slightly modernising the story, the film omits the book's mention of Therese's neglectful mother - a detail which can be read as having 'caused' Therese's lesbianism in the book, an unfortunate implication for a modern audience.

All of the changes made to the story feel carefully considered and mindful of the source material. Rather than disrespecting the book, these alterations are done in service of depicting its narrative in the best way possible. The minor differences also mean that lovers of the book get to experience something new in seeing the film, instead of simply watching the exact same story play out in a cinema as opposed to on the page.

So, Carol fulfils the requirements of my first commandment for adaptational film success, but what about the second? Is Carol a good film in its own right? My answer is absolutely, definitely yes. It is one of my all-time favourite gay films, and possibly one of my top ten films ever. Despite being straight, Cate Blanchett (who I'm convinced is only heterosexual due to a glitch in the matrix) and Rooney Mara give brilliant performances as the cool, confident Carol and the lovestruck Therese, respectively. They have great chemistry and manage to convey the significance and intimacy of many of the small, crucial moments that take place over the course of their characters' relationship. The film is also beautifully shot and directed, with city scenes like those of an Edward Hopper painting in motion. Adding to these are the costumes, gorgeous 1950s outfits designed by Sandy Powell that look beautiful while also illustrating the personalities of their wearers. Finally, the score composed by Carter Burwell gives the film a sense of grand, sweeping romance and drama, as its story rightfully deserves. If you haven't yet heard the opening theme for the Carol soundtrack (the first song on the tracklist, named 'Opening'), I urge you to do so now.

In short, Carol is a beautiful film and a worthy adaptation of an important book. Women who love women and people who love films alike were blessed the day this film arrived in the world.

A Book That Disappointed Me // 30-Day Book Challenge - Day 18

Today is the eighteenth day of the 30-day book challenge, in which I will be writing about a different book or book series every day for 30 days, with each book chosen according to the daily prompt. Today's prompt is: "a book that disappointed you".

WARNING: I suppose this post might include some minor spoilers for The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart, but also I remember it so poorly and care about it so little that I'm likely to get parts of this wrong anyway. You have been warned.

After another few days off from posting, we're back once again. It feels a little strange to be writing about books right now, when the world is in a collective panic over the COVID-19 outbreak. Still, if it seems flippant for me to be doing a post like this during a pandemic, I can only say this: writing is providing a much-needed distraction for me during a time of worldwide crisis, and I would like to think that maybe reading this post could do the same for at least one person. So, I am going to try to continue writing and posting as normal - if perhaps a little more regularly than I have been.

When I was a child, I used to think that the worst emotion in the world was disappointment. I'm not sure I'd make the same statement now, but I still believe there's something uniquely tragic about the way the pain of disappointment follows previous hopefulness. Disappointment of the bookish variety might not seem the worst of these at first - it is not as though, in expecting a book to be good, I had prepared myself for something obviously, tangibly life-changing, like a dream job opportunity or a cure for a pandemic (ahem). Still, in my experience book-related disappointment can be as saddening or annoying as many other kinds. I learnt this lesson the hard way, in around 2009, when I read The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart.

I hope you can see, from the picture above, why I was initially so intrigued by the look of The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart. Its cover design is gorgeously Tim Burton-esque, for one, but even the little of the book's concept conveyed in its title struck me as enchanting in a gothic sort of way. It was originally published in French as La Mécanique du cœur, written by Mathis Malzieu, lead singer of the rock band Dionysos. So far, so charming. The plot description only intrigued me further:

Edinburgh, 1874. On the coldest night the world has ever seen, Little Jack is born with a frozen heart and immediately undergoes a life-saving operation. But Dr Madeleine is no conventional medic and surgically implants a cuckoo-clock into his chest. Little Jack grows up different to other children: every day begins with a daily wind-up. At school he is bullied for his 'ticking', but Dr Madeleine reminds him he must resist strong emotion: anger is far too dangerous for his cuckoo-clock heart. So when the beautiful young street-singer, Miss Acacia, appears - pursued by Joe, the school bully - Jack is in danger of more than just falling in love... he is putting his life on the line.

Add to this fascinating plot the fact that I first encountered the book via a glowing review by a book blogger I trusted, and I was guaranteed to read this book. I ordered a copy and soon received a pretty hardback edition with the cover you see above. Everything looked promising and I was excited to dive into this seemingly magical little book.

Unfortunately, the reading experience itself turned out to be utterly disappointing. 

As always, I feel the need to state that I read this book in translation, so there is a degree of uncertainty as to how much of my dislike of the book is owed to the original writing versus the way it was translated. However, I think it would be a disservice to both Malzieu and Ardizzonne (the translator), to assume that a book could so easily be ruined purely by translation. So in order to avoid insulting both of these people, I must assume that The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart was simply terrible to begin with.

Perhaps terrible is an exaggeration, but if my expectations for the book were high to begin with, that just means its fall seemed that much further. To begin my complaints, let's start with the writing itself. I'm not a fan of incredibly poetic books in general, as I find it can be a challenge for the writer to balance prose and pretention. Malzieu, sadly, tips the scales firmly in the latter direction. For every one occasionally genuinely-poetic line, we get ten others with painfully stretched metaphors and weird anachronisms:

For example: 'I watch as she hides her huge eyes under the parasols of her eyelids.' (If I remember correctly, this parasol-eyelid comparison is made more than once).

Or, another one: 'Eyes wide open, I spot Dr Madeleine with her arms in the air, like she's just scored a penalty in a World Cup final.' (as far as I know, the first football World Cup took place in 1930, while this book is ostensibly set in the late 19th century)

And, for one final example: 'Our lips take over, in the softest relay race in the world; they mingle, delicately and intensely. It feels as though her tongue is a sparrow gently landing on mine; curiously, she tastes of strawberries.' (ew)

These are not even the most flowery lines in the book, but they are a few samples of its cringey writing. Barely a page goes by without this aggressive floweriness. But, if you will briefly direct your attention back to the third quote (if you can bring yourself to do so), then I would like to mention my second gripe with the book: it's weirdly sexual.

The emphasis here is on the 'weirdly' part. It wouldn't necessarily be a problem if the book was sexual - lots of books are - but the way this book is seems, quite frankly, a little odd. First of all, perhaps I am alone in thinking this, but the book initially struck me as a story for children. Combine the Tim Burton aesthetic with the many reviews referring to it as a 'fairy tale' or 'fable', and I just assumed that the book was created with a younger audience in mind. Apparently not. While the main character in the book starts as a baby and spends much of the story as a teenager, I can only presume the book was going for a 'fairy tale for grown-ups' angle, because of how things take an oddly adult turn partway into the book.

Besides random allusions to sexual topics that are present from near the beginning of the book - like the fact that Jack names his pet hamster Cunnilingus after learning the word (but not its meaning) from his two sex worker friends, Luna and Anna - things get suddenly more intense about halfway through the story, when Jack begins a relationship with his childhood crush Acacia. I say that as though there is a big gap between his childhood and when they start seeing each other, but in reality they start their sexual relationship when Acacia is about 14 or 15 years old.* I don't know about anyone else, but I find that highly uncomfortable to read.

The author didn't even have the decency to make Jack and Acacia's intimacy implicit; instead we are confronted with drawn-out scenes that, in my opinion, could have been real contenders for the Literary Review's Bad Sex Awards. To make all this worse, we are also treated to the frequent use of Jack's clock as a phallic symbol. It's all very awkward and unnecessary.

My third and final problem with The Boy With the Cuckoo-Clock Heart is that it didn't make me care at all about the characters. Malzieu might have a few whimsical ideas and an addiction to metaphor, but he doesn't have the literary skills needed to make us actually invested in the characters and their stories. Jack himself is at a disadvantage, being the voice of the book's first-person narration and thus likely to experience second-hand annoyance from the reader whenever they get fed-up with the book's painfully overdone writing. Yet even the other characters, like Dr Madeleine and Acacia, are flat and uninteresting. My only motivation in continuing to read the book was not a desire to see how it concluded or what happened to my favourite characters - it was that I couldn't wait for the book to end and release me from my misery.

Perhaps the message here is in line with that old adage: don't judge a book by its cover. Or maybe it's to not get your hopes up too much over a book you haven't yet read, although I would argue that I'd find this book irritating even if I hadn't heard anything about it beforehand. 

One other thing: I haven't seen the film adaptation of the book, Jack and the Cuckoo Clock Heart, that came out in 2013. I actually think it may be better than the book, partially the bar isn't terribly high, but also because I think it would benefit from a clear target audience (the film being PG) and the book's little gimmicks (cuckoo clock heart, eccentric doctor in a house on a hill, etc.) would possibly come across better on-screen. 

To end this post on a positive note, I will say this: the existence of disappointment necessitates the existence of hope, and even if that hope is disappointed, it still means we saw the potential for something to be better than it was. Perhaps this hope can be something that drives us to do better and to create better things, sometimes by building on the flaws of the work that came before. I think that the film adaptation may have the potential to be better than the book. Maybe there will be those who write similar but better books than this in the future as well.

*I no longer have my copy of the book so I can't confirm the exact age, but I remember finding this weird and uncomfortable when I read it the first time. 

Favourite Quote from My Favourite Book // 30-Day Book Challenge - Day 17

Today is the seventeenth day of the 30-day book challenge, in which I will be writing about a different book or book series every day for 30 days, with each book chosen according to the daily prompt. Today's prompt is: "favourite quote from your favourite book".

Welcome back to the 30-day book challenge. Today we will be featuring some of the classics you all know and love, including: Mary-tries-and-fails-to-pick-favourites and outrageously-delayed-posts. Rather than give you all the details of my indecisiveness this time, I'm going to skip all of that and get to the point of this post. My chosen book for today's prompt is Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, one of my favourite books of all time.

In specific, this post is meant to focus on my favourite quote from the novel. The quote I remember the best and appreciate the most just so happens to be one of the most well-known from the book, but that doesn't make it any less meaningful to me:

'She had a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxicabs, of being out, out, far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day.'

I won't go into great depth regarding the plot of Mrs Dalloway, as that will be necessary in a later post. However, I will say that this scene comes near the beginning of the book, when the titular Clarissa Dalloway has set out into London in search of flowers for her party later. These sentences, typical of the book's stream-of-consciousness style, appear when she is in the midst of the bustle of the busy city.

One of the reasons I chose this quote is because it accurately represents a feeling which is common to me at the moment, as I am living in a city for the first time in my life: urban isolation. It's both a great and terrible thing about being in a crowded urban environment, that even when you are surrounded constantly by people, noise, and activity, you can still personally feel very alone. 

This quote encapsulates that feeling, but more than that, it also illustrates another divide that is deeper than simply personal/urban: the contrast between our inner and outer lives. This is a major theme in Mrs Dalloway, which often blends Clarissa's real-life experiences with her thoughts and memories, in a way that simultaneously shrinks and draws attention to the disconnect between them. 

Finally, in the last phrase of this quote - indeed the one which I see most frequently quoted alone - Clarissa reflects on the precariousness of life. I like this phrase partially for its ambiguity; what exactly is the danger in living? Is it simply the danger of death? Or is it something else, any of the myriad threats we open ourselves up to just by engaging with the world around us - not physical harm, but emotional. 

Clarissa is a woman who feels things deeply, but as we have already discussed, she is also a person who struggles to balance her internal and external lives. Perhaps her interpretation of 'danger' is literal or perhaps it has a subtler meaning. If you (like me) are not certain of her meaning, I would guess that Clarissa isn't entirely sure which she is referring to either.

Favourite Female Character // 30-Day Book Challenge - Day 16

Today is the sixteenth day of the 30-day book challenge, in which I will be writing about a different book or book series every day for 30 days, with each book chosen according to the daily prompt. Today's prompt is: "favourite female character".

So. Once again I have failed to get back on track with these daily instalments, despite my promise in the previous post that I would. At this point, I'm sure none of you will take me seriously if I say that this time I genuinely will get back to doing a post each day, so I'm going to refrain from stating that here. However, I will say that I hope that the post for Day 17 will be less delayed than this one was. You'll just have to check back to see if my hope was justified (or subscribe by email - hint hint).

I had originally planned to upload this post on Galentine's Day, i.e. the day before Valentine's Day, when women around the world celebrate their female friends and other women in their lives. It would have been the perfect conclusion to a day I had spent sending e-cards and soppy messages to real-life women, to then come online and write about a fictional woman who I adore. Sadly, it was not to be. For various reasons, the post was delayed, with the result being that you are now getting to read it approximately one month later than was initially intended. Sorry about that.

However, my own tardiness does not mean that the topic of this post is any less important. In fact, the prompt of "favourite female character" is one that's very close to my heart. I love female characters, so much so that I had the reverse problem with this prompt as I did in the previous "favourite male character" challenge: there were simply so many great women to choose from.

In the end, I settled on a female character who not only do I love and find inspiring, but who I also think is less well-known than the likes of Elizabeth Bennet or Anne Shirley, and thus deserving of a little extra attention. My choice is Mame Dennis, the title character of Patrick Dennis's 1995 novel Auntie Mame.

As is tradition, let's start this post with a Goodreads summary of what this book is about:

When shy young heir Patrick is orphaned at the tender age of ten, the only family he has is his wealthy and eccentric aunt, a fabulous New York socialite named Mame. While prone to dramatic costumes, flights of fancy and expensive whims - not least her lives as a muse and a Southern belle - Auntie Mame will raise Patrick the only way she knows how: with madcap humour, mishaps, unforgettable friends and lots and lots of love. 

Based on that first sentence alone, you already know a little about Mame. She's rich, she's eccentric, and she's undeniably fabulous. But there is more to know about her, and specifically why I love her so much, than can be gleaned purely from this summary. So, let's do this in semi-list format. Why do I love Mame Dennis? Let me count list the ways.

She's glamorous and unapologetically decadent

I knew that I would love Mame's character from page eighteen, in my copy of Auntie Mame, when our narrator Patrick is summoned for his first proper meeting with his aunt. He enters her room to find her still in bed, wearing a "bed jacket made of pink ostrich feathers" and "reading Gide's Les Faux-Monnayeurs and smoking Melachrino cigarettes through a long amber holder". This meeting, referred to by Mame as being in the morning, takes place at 1pm. Patrick writes, "Morning, I soon discovered, was one o'clock for Auntie Mame. Early Morning was eleven, and the middle of the night was nine."

This isn't even Mame's first appearance in the book, but as the first scene where we and Patrick are properly introduced to her, it makes a hell of an impression. We can see here that she is a woman who does what she wants, even if that means her perception of the world is slightly divorced from the common view (more on that in a minute). She's glamorous and perhaps a little endearingly self-indulgent - rather how I've always imagined Princess Margaret to be. Although Mame comes without the association of enjoying all this decadence at the taxpayers' expense, so that's a bonus.

She's a unique thinker

Following on from my previous point that Mame's ideas and behaviour are often at odds with wider society, I'd go so far as to say that she is even something of an iconoclast. Besides her unusual personal behaviour, the first great display of Mame's unconventionality comes when she alarms Mr Babcock (the trustee of Patrick's inheritance and ever-present adversary of Mame) by sending her nephew to a school she describes as "revolutionary", which turns out to be more or less a coeducational nudist institution.

This is hardly the only instance of Mame's unique sensibilities causing trouble. Her taste in fashion and art ("more with the Bauhaus of Munich than with the rocaille and coquaille of Versailles"), for example, is unconventional enough to cause conflict a number of times, but even if she briefly appears to change to accommodate others' expectations, Mame always returns to her same unorthodox self in the end.

She never gives up

In his narration of the book, Patrick admits that, looking back on when he first came into Mame's care, she was no doubt "just as terrified [...] as I was" but, he adds, "Auntie Mame was never one to admit defeat." Mame throws herself into raising Patrick, doing everything she can to bring him up well. In other areas of life, Mame shows determination as well. When she loses all of her money in a financial accident, she hops from job to job trying to make ends meet. Even when her aforementioned eccentricities lead to her being fired more than once, she still refuses to give up and continues to move on to different opportunities. 

She's loving

Mame's approach to raising Patrick is definitely controversial, but for all of the slightly questionable decisions she makes, it is always clear that Mame truly loves and cares about her nephew. She gives him her time, attention, and affection, with the result that they develop an incredible bond. Even if there are times when they are pulled apart, by external forces or personal conflicts, the familial love they share for each other is enough that they always end up forgiving each other in the end.

She stands up for what she believes in

As we've already established, Mame Dennis is not one to change herself for others' comfort. Nor is she willing to compromise her beliefs for the same reason. The most obvious instance of this comes when Mame is taken to meet the parents of Patrick's fiancée, who turn out to be virulently anti-Semitic. Not wanting to upset Patrick by openly fighting with his wife-to-be's family, Mame begins by gently questioning the father's comments about Jews. When this fails and the man begins to voice even more violently prejudiced opinions, Mame finally snaps. She lets the anti-Semitic father have it, telling him exactly what she thinks of his harmful views. The result might be that Patrick's engagement fails to remain unscathed, but he and Mame leave the meeting both feeling that Mame did the right thing in speaking up.

***

Mame Dennis is definitely one of the memorable characters I've encountered in literature, and she remains one of my solid favourites. She is seen by some to be eccentric and perhaps slightly frivolous at first, but underneath her wonderfully glamorous exterior is a determined and caring woman. She doesn't do anything by halves, and she always does everything in her own unique way. She is a devoted aunt, an inspiring woman, and (most of all) a brilliant book character.

PS: Although I highly recommend reading the original novel if Mame's character appeals to you, in the case that that's not possible I can also suggest watching the 1958 film adaptation of the same name, starring the great Rosalind Russell. It might not capture 100% of the humour and glamour of the book, but it comes pretty close.