New writing from the 20th & 21st century

July 2011

I have read four books recently, and not commented on them at all. As a result, they are fast fading from my mind. The most recent was An Invitation to the Waltz by Rosamond Lehmann. She was on the fringe of the Bloomsbury set, and there are echoes of Virginia Woolf in the way she concentrates on a very short space of time and presents the thoughts of the main protagonists, rather then telling a story with a strong plot. On the one hand, I have to say that it was amusing and endearing to get under the skin of the teenage girl, Olivia, as she prepares for the all-important first dance. On the other hand, this is not a book I would pick up thinking, I really must find out what happens. I think the latter half was slightly stronger, when Olivia is actually at the dance and having to suffer as she waits for partners - the indignity of being forgotten by one of them – the misery of being stuck with another unsuitable one, and so on. I had read, many years ago, Dusty Answer, which was a darker sort of book, and which I found strangely haunting, although unsatisfactory to me, in some ways, because I could not identify with the type of people who were the main characters. I simply didn’t live in those kind of circles.

The book which I read some weeks ago was If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, which I was going to allow to simmer. Well, to be honest, I don’t think the soup improved, because my memory of it is sketchy. This is undoubtedly a post-modern book. It doesn’t flow like an old-fashioned novel, where someone has a story to tell. It is more of a construction. As such, as far as I remember, various people tell of what they remember of a particular day and a particular event in a particular street. I don’t feel I have the time to read many books twice, but this would probably lend itself to that. The first time you read it, (rather like Behind the Scenes in the Museum), you spend a lot of time, working out who everyone is and where they fit it. I think perhaps on a second reading, you would feel you know the characters better, and you would pick up the various clues. Perhaps, because I’m old-fashioned, I like a traditionally told tale, and so I wouldn’t give this book, or Invitation … full marks, but I think, possibly, I didn’t give If Nobody … quite enough opportunity to shine.

The other two recent books have both been concerned with the Second World War and the Holocaust, and acted as appropriate bookends to my trip to Israel. But more of that another time.