BRITISH AUTHOR CHALLENGE - THE SWINGING SIXTIES

LIST OF BOOKS

The L-Shaped Room - Lynne Reid Banks
A Kind of Loving - Stan Barstow
The Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett
The Fox in the Attic - Richard Hughes
The Pumpkin Eater - Penelope Mortimer
The Drowned World - J.G. Ballard
Up the Junction - Nell Dunn
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold - John Le Carre
The Garrick Year - Margaret Drabble
Corridors of Power - CP Snow
Georgy Girl - Margaret Forster
Lost Empires - JB Priestley
Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys
The Jewel in the Crown - Paul Scott
The Magic Toyshop - Angela Carter
The Mimic Men - V.S. Naipaul
A Compass Error - Sybille Bedford
The Undiscovered Country - Julian Mitchell
A Bouquet of Barbed Wire - Andrea Newman
The Green Man - Kingsley Amis

On board but no clue what I will choose yet....!

I was thinking to try to read half of them this month but I am always too ambitious:

I started a bit early and have read four so far.

A Kind of Loving--well-written but a little too soap opera-ish for my tastes.

Georgy Girl--The cover of my copy declares Georgy Girl "sharp, affectionate and very funny"; clearly these words had different definitions in the 60s than they do now.

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold-- I'll stick with Bond, thank you very much.

Up the Junction

>6 amanda4242: Of course it is not easy to read Up the Junction with your hands over your eyes!

>6 amanda4242: >7 PaulCranswick: Ha!
I'll be reading The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. I'm also going to read the play A Taste of Honey by Shelagh Delaney, which was first performed in 1959, but the movie was a few years later and just seems like the epitome of the era. Maybe that's cheating?
Anybody who reads Lost Empires is in for a treat. And two of the books in the list became movies starring Alan Bates. Guess he was in the right place, right time.

>7 PaulCranswick: I needed to protect my eyes from the awfulness.

I read Wide Sargasso Sea today, a March selection I actually liked.

May I say that The Jewel in the Crown (in fact the entire Raj Quartet) is one of my desert island books? (I've read them 3 times so far). The writing is somewhat dense, but the reward is well-worth the effort! There is also a wonderful miniseries (BBC I think) of the Raj Quartet called The Jewel in the Crown.

>8 mstrust: There is no such thing as cheating in one of my challenges, Jennifer! I have Lost Empires on the shelves and would like to get to it.

>9 amanda4242: Hahaha - bloody hell that is the first one up for me!

>10 arubabookwoman: I have all four books in a lovely two volume Everyman Hardback collection.

>11 PaulCranswick: Our tastes do not always overlap so you may love it.

Today's read was The Drowned World. Even though the characters and plot seem like an afterthought, the world Ballard created and the richness with which he describes it are enough to make me forgive almost all of the books shortcomings.

I've read The Spy Who Came In From The Cold by John Le Carré my thoughts can be found here and Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys which was excellent. My thoughts are here.

Just finished The Magic Toyshop, a strange book that's part Gothic novel and part fairy tale. I found the main character annoying at first, but she grew on me and I wound up really enjoying this one.

I'm halfway through The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. It's enjoyable, and I'm rooting for Leamas. I have no idea how the story ends, so this may be foolhardy. ; )

I've finished The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, liked it and I'm glad I've finally read it. These challenges are great for making me read books that have sat on my shelves for years making me feel guilty. ; )
I've started the play A Taste of Honey.

>16 mstrust: I read both of those years ago and loved them. I'm planning a re-read of The Spy Who Came In From the Cold. I recently read The Pigeon Tunnel: stories from my life by John le Carré, which was excellent! I can recommend it highly.

I'd like to read more from Le Carre, so thanks for the rec. I finished A Taste of Honey yesterday and liked it a lot. Like two cats in a bag. : )

I've just started listening to The Spy Who Came In From the Cold. It's my first Le Carre. Nothing like a good complicated thriller to cleanse the palate. I agree - I'm rooting for Leamas.

When I started The L-Shaped Room I thought, "Oh god, another one with an unmarried woman getting pregnant", but I soon found myself warming-up to Miss Jane Graham when she informed her doctor that he should confirm a pregnancy before offering an abortion. I was so pleased that Banks didn't have Jane wallow in misery or spend all her time trying to secure a husband; she created a character who has many flaws, but is generally sensible and who learns and grows.

Despite my affection for the main character, I was sadden by the casual racism and homophobia in the book. I found an interview Banks gave in 2000 saying she was embarrassed by that aspect of the book.

In summary, painfully dated in some ways, but still worth reading.

>20 amanda4242: So a sort of qualified thumbs up then Amanda. Out of eight books so far it is 4 for 8.

Add The Pumpkin Eater to the dislike column.

I've begun Wide Sargasso Sea, which I'm fairly sure I read in the past, but didn't care for very much. This time, I'm enjoying it quite a lot.

Add The Game of Kings to the like column. It's a rollicking good swashbuckler that I'm enjoying immensely.

The Garrick Year today...well, at least no one was pregnant in this one.

A Compass Error is an unpleasant book which consists of characters speaking to each other in an affected way, a fifty page info dump about the main character's grandmother and mother, and tedious monologues from a narcissist.

I read The Spy Who Came In from the Cold over the weekend. I can see why it's a classic in its genre.

>22 amanda4242:, >25 amanda4242: & >26 amanda4242: It has been an indifferent month for you then Amanda! That equals your BAC monthly if I am not mistaken?

I have finished Wide Sargasso Sea. This compelling short novel creates a very plausible back story for Bertha Mason Rochester, the "mad woman in the attic" of Jane Eyre's Thornfield Hall. Born Antoinette Cosway, and re-named "Bertha" by her disillusioned husband, this woman should be a sympathetic figure, but I found I could not take her part, as I could not quite get a grip on the true cause of her madness. Did she break up (as her West Indian servant and confidant Christophine refers to her mental disturbances) because of unrequited love for Mr. Rochester, or because her own mother drifted into insanity and rejected her when she was a young girl, or because she witnessed her mother being sexually exploited and was therefore predisposed to sexual dysfunction herself? Christophine blames Mr. Rochester for "(making) love to her till she drunk with it...till she can't do without it. It's she can't see the sun any more. Only you she see." Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of Rhys's story is the suggestion that Antoinette has been driven mad by lust. If your romantic soul has shared Jane's love and compassion for Mr. R since you first read the classic, you will hate what Rhys has done to him. Because if it's hard to warm up to Antoinette, even after knowing what all happened to her in her childhood, it's impossible not to see Rochester as heartless, cruel and vindictive here. Even though he does not put his wife away from him, but takes her to England and has her cared for in what was probably viewed as a benevolent fashion at the time, his automatic rejection of her based on a letter filled with accusations of congenital madness, interracial affairs and incest; his inability to accept her culture and concepts of beauty as equal to his own; and his blatant act of infidelity within her hearing make him one reprehensible SOB. A tragic fire in Antoinette's childhood foreshadows the ultimate "bad end" she eventually visits on herself. Brilliantly done, and mightily unsettling.

>29 laytonwoman3rd: I just bought this one at Powell's and I am glad to hear that you liked it so much this time around. I didn't read your whole comment, because I don't want to know too much. ; )

>30 Berly: I hope you find it worth reading, as I did, Kim. And if you don't, I hope you'll come back and read my whole review, in case I warned you there about the parts you might not like!

I must confess that I chose to read The L-Shaped Room because it was the only book on the list that I found in my library. It was really good. The way that Jane, the young single pregnant woman, was treated brought back the world of the '60s. That particular “problem” was treated differently then because society was a lot less understanding; better than it had been but a lot more buttoned down than it became.

This was my selection for the March British Author challenge.

The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard, finished March 28, 2017, 3+ stars, audiobook


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The Drowned World was Ballard's first novel, published in 1962. It is set in London, drowning in the future after 70 or 80 years of global warming stemming from a solar event. Europe is described as a series of giant lagoons and the speculation is that the world is reverting to the Triassic period aided by some sort of memory within all creatures DNA. Yeah, that's a little strange, I know. This isn't so much a post-apocalyptic survival novel as it is a psychological drama. When everyone starts regressing to a primal state it gets VERY weird and a little (maybe more than a little) politically incorrect - modern readers might be offended.

Many of the descriptions in here are wonderful, fantastic, mesmerizing - and wonderfully imagined. I could easily rate this as 4 stars or better for the time it was written, but for the playout of the de-evolution of mankind (hmmm why am I suddenly reminded of that William Hurt / Blair Brown film 'Altered States'). I'm torn between wow 4 stars and a wincing 3 stars. This has been compared to Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' and I can see why. Cautiously recommend this book for the adventurous.

I finished The Green Man by Kingsley Amis which was published in 1969, not one I'll be pushing for others to read.

Probably a book that I'll appreciate more now that I've finished reading it. The edition I read had an interesting introduction by Michael Dirda which placed the book at the forefront of the horror trend of Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist, Carrie etc which were all published within a couple of years of The Green Man.

The writing is very fine, I especially loved this description of the cat, Victor Hugo, entering a room - 'He entered, as usual, in vague semi-flight, as from something that was probably not a menace, but which it was as well to be on the safe side about. Becoming aware of me, he approached, again as usual, with an air of uncertainty not so much about who I was as about what I was, and of keeping a very open mind on the range of possible answers.'

Well, A Bouquet of Barbed Wire is revolting.

ETA: OMG I just discovered there's a sequel!

Corridors of Power is a snorefest.

I've made my way through The Game of Kings. The first half was a chore but it picked up considerably in the second. I would probably have enjoyed it more if it was about 150 pages shorter.

Just started The Green Man and came across this:

[the ice-maker] never performed with much conviction in hot weather, and the temperature most of that week was in the upper seventies.

I'm looking at at least two weeks of 100+ with overnight lows in the low seventies; unsurprisingly, I'm not feeling much sympathy for the narrator.

I was pleasantly surprised by how good Lost Empires is. Has anyone seen the movie?

Yes, and it's a great mini-series. Colin Firth, who was so young and thin he was almost unrecognizable. And John Castle as devious Uncle Nick was perfect.

Thanks! I'll have to request it from the library.

Finished The Mimic Men, which would have made a great satire if it didn't take itself so seriously.

Knocked out two more.

The first half of The Undiscovered Country is reminiscent of Brideshead Revisited, but the second half goes off in a really strange direction that I can only compare to Joe Orton's Head to Toe. I liked it, but it's a weird one.

The Jewel in the Crown is a rich, immersive experience. I will definitely re-read it in the near future.

Finished The Fox in the Attic yesterday. The first section had me expecting a nostalgic English countryside novel, but the second section did a complete 180 and dropped me into Munich for a detailed account of the Beer Hall Putsch. I really enjoyed this one, but I think I suffered some minor whiplash from the change in tone.

And with that, I've conquered the 60s!

The L-Shaped Room ★★★
A Kind of Loving ★★1/2
The Game of Kings ★★1/2
The Fox in the Attic ★★★1/2
The Pumpkin Eater ★1/2
The Drowned World ★★★1/2
Up the Junction ★1/2
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold ★★
The Garrick Year ★★
Corridors of Power★★
Georgy Girl ★
Lost Empires ★★★1/2
Wide Sargasso Sea ★★★1/2
The Jewel in the Crown ★★★★
The Magic Toyshop ★★★1/2
The Mimic Men ★★1/2
A Compass Error ★1/2
The Undiscovered Country ★★★1/2
A Bouquet of Barbed Wire 1/2
The Green Man ★★1/2

Fun Fact: 7 of the selections featured pregnancy as a major part of the plot, it's a minor part in 2 more, and it's mentioned as the cause of a character being sent down in one. If I ever stumble across an unattended TARDIS, I'm traveling back to the 60s to hand out condoms.