The Country House Revisited

I'm a month late in discovering this one, but the Guardian ran an interesting article back in February on the English country house as a literary device and looming cultural institution. For those who are so inclined (as I certainly am), it does discuss a couple of newer takes on the genre, like Toby Litt's Finding Myself, which I'll be adding to the wishlist.

Recent reading, in brief

School's out and I'm catching up on the never-diminishing pile of unread books:

I found Shampoo Planet almost unbearably dated, and it was a real struggle to overcome that and enjoy the very particular emotional sensibility that Coupland injects into his work.


Bitter Seeds, on the other hand, I cannot recommend enough. Nazis with superpowers? Churchill with warlocks? I am THERE! Tregillis creates such creepy atmosphere, and while Nazi Frankstein's monsters might sound a little silly, I can assure you, these guys are not to be trifled with. Scary! My horror at the ending's epic cliffhanger has abated now that I know that book two in The Milkweed Triptych, The Coldest War, is coming in February 2011. There's a great interview with the author over at John Scalzi's blog, if you care to read on.


Finally, back with an old friend.

The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets

Was there ever a condition so idiotically pathetic as that of the penniless toff?

I've been sick for what feels like weeks (how dramatic of me) and without the presence of mind to focus on anything too challenging (the end of Simone, some so-far poorly written travel literature about the Sierra Madre, etc), I've been combing the bookshelves for something to take the edge off too many long days at home. A reading copy of Eva Rice's The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets was given to me by a friend back in our bookshop days, and I've been carting it around with me since. I can't say anything of the final cover, but the proof cover has one of those awful chick-lit-y illustrations on it, so even though this one came recommended by a trusted source I wasn't ever able to quite get past the jacket. I like to think now though, having read it, that it was just saving itself for when it knew it was really needed.

Penelope, Charlotte and their other frightfully English comrades (and a few scandalous Americans) have been such good company over the past 24 hours. I was never much of a fan of I Capture the Castle, but this one seemed to tickle me in all the places I wish Dodie Smith had. Little touches of Evelyn Waugh's crumbling aristocracy, but spoken in a more artless, youthful voice, are irresistable to me. I can't get enough of young kids in old manor houses! There's something so compelling to me about that narrative - old stately England, swept through two world wars into the age of America, quite unsure where one ought to put all these tapestries at a time like this*.

Some other online review has already claimed the metaphor that had popped into my mind while I was reading (it wasn't so original that I can be cross about that), but I'm going to have to say it anyway. This book is like chocolate cake. It's just sweet and filling and in a slightly-too-small serve. I've been saving the last mouthful for hours now but I don't think I have the will to resist any longer. Even though I'm sure I can guess exactly what is going to happen, I know I'm going to enjoy every last crumb! Tea, anyone?

*Did I mention that Eva Rice is also the author of Who's Who in Enid Blyton? Toodle pip!

Waughgasm

I suppose my impromptu Evelyn Waugh festival might have something to do with work avoidance - my current course on American literature regrettably doesn't appear to cover English authors, so my sudden obsession is of no use to all those other things I'm meant to be writing.

He is pretty flippin' great though.

As a missionary priest making his first pilgrimage to the Vatican, as a paramount chief of equatorial Africa mounting the Eiffel Tower, Dennis Barlow, poet and pets' mortician, drove through the Golden Gates.

The weekend started with A Handful of Dust (I can't fully explain it, but I go to pieces with love for this novel! Surely it has been medically substantiated that one can die from Dickens and loneliness [ok, and malaria]?) and now I have found myself among the English in Hollywood, in The Loved One. If I am still seeking to avoid study later in the week, I think it could be time for a Brideshead revisit (terrible puns optional).