The Book Trunk has moved to Wordpress and is now thebooktrunkblog, at https://thebooktrunkblog.wordpress.com/


Well, I seem to have had another of those huge gaps when I haven't written anything for ages and, as usual, I can't offer any explanation, except life got in the way. I think for months and months I concentrated so hard on losing weight for our Elder Daughter's wedding, that I didn't have any energy for anything else! Anyway, the Wedding has been and gone, and just before that we had Younger Daughter's Graduation (her second!), and before that was New Year, and Christmas, and all sorts of other things.

And I thought it was an ideal time for a fresh start and a new look, so I've moved to WordPress, because I've always struggled with Blogger, especially when it comes to uploading photos - you'll now find me at https://thebooktrunkblog.wordpress.com/. My new 'home' is a trifle fluid at the moment, while I sort out exactly what I want to do, and what I want the blog to look like, but please pop over, take a look, and leave a comment. 

The 1924 Club

It’s been a while since I wrote anything here, but I seem to have been busy doing all sorts of other things, and never did get round to post reviews on some of the bools I read for All Virago, All August. My track record on joining in challenges and read-alongs is not very good I’m afraid – I always seem to fall by the wayside. However, that doesn't deter me and, like many other bloggers, I can’t resist The 1924 Club, jointly organised by Simon at Stuck in a Book and Karen at Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings.

 They want us all to spend a week in October reviewing books published in 1924, and they say we can include posts which have already appeared, as well as ‘new’ reads. My first reaction was one of sheer horror, because I cannot recollect when any of the books I’ve read were written or published. But when I looked at some of the suggested titles, and the ideas listed by other bloggers, I realised I’ve already written about some books from 1924 (Pink Sugar, by O Douglas, for example). And a quick rootle through the shelves revealed Winifred Holtby’s The Crowded Street (which I’ve read) along with The Rector’s Daughter, by FM Mayor (which I haven’t) and Margaret Kennedy’s The Constant Nymph (ditto). So I should have something to write about between October 19 and 31, which is when The 1924 Club takes place.

The idea, according to Simon and Karen, is to get everyone reading from a particular year. “It could have been many different years, really,” explains Simon on his blog. “But 1924 seemed to have a lot of significant works published, as well as generally being an interesting time. If the project is a success, we can repeat it in the future with other years.”

You’ll find all the details you need at Simon and Karen’s blogs (just click on the links above). They will issue posts so you can link your reviews, and a final round-up, so each participant can see what everyone else has read.

Frost in May

Virago Modern Classic Number 1: This is
the 1991 edition, with an introduction by
Elizabeth Bowen. The cover shows a detail
 from Girl and Flowers by Dod Procter.

 Antonia White’s Frost in May, as I’m sure everyone knows, was the very first Virago Modern Classic, published in 1978 after being out of print for many years. I’m not sure why it has passed me by until now; for some reason I think I was under the impression I’d read it long ago. But I must have confused it with something else - I would definitely have remembered this, because it made me so angry.

Written in 1933, it’s a fictionalised account of White’s own childhood, telling the story of Nanda Grey’s time at a repressive Catholic school. Her fall from grace, and the way her spirit is finally broken make for painful reading. And these days the rules governing the girls’ daily lives would probably be regarded as an abuse of human rights.  Is this an accurate portrayal of a convent school I wonder? Did nuns really treat their pupils like this? How could they be so cruel in the name of religion? What about compassion? And whatever happened to the idea of a loving, forgiving God?

It’s not that the nuns at the Convent of the Five Wounds are physically cruel to their young charges: they play psychological mind games which seems somehow worse. And there’s a kind of drip-feed brainwashing because everything in the school relates to God – even the rooms have religious names, and there are pictures and statues, and edifying (but often horribly gruesome) stories about saints and sinners.

The nuns, who see themselves as instruments of God, demand unquestioning obedience to themselves, to the school, and to God. And they have very odd ideas about education. Mother Radcliffe, the Mistress of Discipline, explains:

We work to-day to turn out, not accomplished young women, nor agreeable wives, but soldiers of Christ, accustomed to hardship and ridicule and ingratitude.

Nanda (short for Fernanda) is nine when she arrives at the exclusive girls’ boarding school. She is ‘one of those children who cannot help behaving well’. She wants to please, to fit in, but she is too good, which makes the nuns suspicious. t’s surprising how quickly she adapts: when her parents visit at the end of the first week she already feels ‘unpicked and resewn and made over to a different pattern’.

And there’s a lot of making over to be done. There are all kinds of regulations. There are no

Author Antonia White.

mirrors, the girls must never be naked, and they sleep flat on their backs, with hands crossed on their breast, so if the Lord calls them in the night they are ready! Close friendships are forbidden, so girls cannot go about in pairs. Letters to and from home are vetted, and the girls are watched all the time.

At night the girls opt to show their piety by placing stockings in the form of a cross on top of their neatly folded uniforms. And they indulge in small mortifications, like washing in cold water, and putting salt instead of sugar on their rhubarb, or stones in their shoes.

Lessons, like the girls, must bend to the will of God. Most story books are deemed unsuitable (unless written by Catholics); science is a dubious area, because most scientists are wrong; poetry is fine for the glory of God – but not for personal enjoyment. But poetry and passionate friendships arouse feelings in Nanda that her religion cannot provide. Even her First Communion, eagerly awaited as the biggest day in her life, proves a disappointment. Nevertheless, her faith doesn’t waver:

She accepted the Catholic Church whole-heartedly and tried hard to mould herself into the proper shape of a young Catholic girl. […] She could never, she knew, break away without a sense of mutilation. In her four years at Lippington it had grown into every fibre of her nature; she could not eat or sleep or read or play without relating every action to her secret life as a Christian and a Catholic.  She rejoiced in it and rebelled against it.

That seems to reflect the experience of many Catholic writers – perhaps it’s that tension which enables them to be creative?

Despite her efforts to fit in, Nanda has an independent streak, which sets her on a collision course, and when she is finally sent away, on her 14th birthday, Mother Radcliffe tells her:

Every will must be broken completely and re-set before it can be at one with God’s will. And there is no other way. That is what true education, as we see it here at Lippington, means.

There are all kinds of things I haven’t mentioned: the girls themselves, who are all utterly believable; the constant ringing of bells; curtseying; gloves; the smell of beeswax and incense; cabbage drowned in vinegar, and the sense of being shut away in an enclosed community which becomes more real than the world outside.

Virago non-fiction:There's Something About
A Convent Girl, published in 1991. 

After finishing Frost in May, I re-read There’s Something About A Convent Girl, a Virago anthology edited by Jackie Bennet and Rosemary Forgan, because it makes an interesting companion piece, containing a brief history of convent schools, and varied recollections from former pupils. Some contributors, like Maeve Binchy and, surprisingly, Germaine Greer seem to have happy memories of their schooldays. Others, like playwright Mary O’Malley (author of Once A Catholic), hated the humiliations, the lack of kindness, the bigotry, and the feelings of guilt about sex and life in general.

Her view of convent school life echoes that of Virago founder Carmen Callil, who says she can never forgive the nuns at her convent for the way she was treated. She’s particularly scathing about the view of the Catholic Church on suffering, especially in relation to women, and she gives a moving account of her feelings when she first read Frost in May:

I was absolutely suffused with misery and agony and fury as I read it because I identified with it so much. It told what I felt to be my own story. Not that it was my own story, but the suffering it conveyed and the feeling of mindless repression that the child couldn’t deal with because the child couldn’t understand what was going on and what the reasons were. I felt so strongly about it I actually invented Virago Modern Classics to enable me to publish that book. The world had to read the book again.

 

I think she’s right, and I’d urge anyone to read it, because Frost in May is beautifully written, with some wonderful characters, and it’s as valid and relevant now as it was when Callil reprinted it, and when Frost wrote it. 

Book Buying in London!

Book boxes outside Any Amount of Books.

I’ve been to London for a couple of days visiting my Younger Daughter, and although I didn’t make it as far as Persephone, we spent a happy afternoon exploring bookshops in Charing Cross Road. I guess their main business must be from the rare books – collectibles, first editions, curios and so on, and they’re fun to gaze at, but way out of my price league. However, there are shelves full of second-hand paperbacks (slightly more expensive than the average charity shop, but the choice is much better). I was very restrained, since trekking around London carrying lots of books is not a happy experience, and I had to travel back home on the train, with my backpack full of clothes and stuff, and didn’t want to struggle with too much additional luggage!

Window shopping! Outside Henry Pordes - inside is wonderful, a real
Aladdin's Cave for book lovers 

In Any Amount Of Books (which really does live up to its name) there were lots of irresistible green spines, and I pounced on A Woman of my Age, because I’m on a bit of a Nina Bawden thing at the moment. This one is about Elizabeth and Richard, on holiday in Morrocco, and Elizabeth’s account of ‘the desert her life has become’ is reflected in the barren landscape. The blurb on the back goes on to say the novel is about marriage, families, expectations and betrayals, and is written with poise, with and charm. Has anyone read it? Does the description match the book?

And I found Pirates at Play, by Violet Trefusis, which I bought it because it has a fabulous cover - a portrait of Nancy Cunard by Guevara – and I know this is not a good reason for buying a book, but I loved Hunt the Slipper, and I’m sure I will like this, which is described as a romantic comedy set in the ‘frenetic, fantastical Twenties’.

Henry Pordes Books was fabulous, a real treasure trove, with even more old Viragos (and lots of other books as well, but I’m collecting VMCs). Anyway, I succumbed to this:

It replaces my 1974 edition of Winifred Holtby’s South Riding, which I bought new all those years ago after watching the TV drama starring Dorothy Tutin as Sarah Burton – does anyone else remember seeing it? It was kind of timely, since I hunted for the book to re-read after reading The Land of Green Ginger, and found it when I started reorganising my bookshelves. But, like so many of the books printed during the 1970s, it has not worn well, and now looks like this:

I had great difficulty tearing myself away from Henry Pordes – I could have spent a great deal of money in there (if I’d had a great deal of money, and if carrying purchases home was not a problem). But I limited myself to two volumes, and after much thought selected The Getting of Wisdom, by Henry Handel Richardson, an author I’d not come across before. I read a bit in the shop, and thought I might enjoy it, and I liked the cover, and it has an introduction by Germaine Greer! Apparently Henry Handel Richardson was really Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson, and this novel is about Laura Rambotham and her life in a Melbourne boarding school.

And, as something completely different, my daughter and her boyfriend took me to Gosh!, the comic bookshop in Soho, which is very bright and cheerful, and unlike any other bookshop I’ve ever been in, two floors full of comics and graphic novels and such like – definitely not a genre I know anything about, but interesting nevertheless. And there are kids’ books, and arts books, but I don’t think there’s much you’d find in a traditional bookshop – the books all seem to be different, edgier somehow. Anyway, I couldn’t resist this, which is a bit of an extravagance, but it makes me happy!

Time To Tidy The Shelves...

LibraryThing and Viragoing for August has gone to my head I think. Have started trying to tidy bookshelves – not something I attempt all that often! Now have two rows of Viragos and Persephones, which may not look a lot, but they’re double stacked, so there's a complete row of green Viragos behind the grey Persephones. (all my books are double stacked – no room otherwise). Who thinks I shuld put these in alphabetical order?