Laughter and Yellow Penguins...

Yellow Penguins are SO cheerful! I wasn't even aware that the vintage numbered Penguins included this 'miscellaneous' range, until I found two of them in a charity shop, for 99p each. They are both in really good condition and, despite their age, the yellow covers are still bright and cheerful, and I simply couldn't resist them. They both fall into the 'humorous' category, and it's interesting to see what made people laugh more than half a century ago.

Beyond the Headlines, by Timothy Shy (Penguin 341) is a collection of pieces from the long-defunct News Chronicle, which was a popular daily paper when this book was printed in 1941. Timothy Shy was the nom de plume used by Dominic Bevan Wyndham-Lewis for his column in the paper – at an earlier stage in his career he was the original Beachcomber at the Daily Express, and co-edited 'The Stuffed Owl', an anthology of bad verse by great poets, so he obviously had a keen sense of the absurd, but some of his work would definitely not produce laughs today, and would be regarded as distinctly politically incorrect. For example, use of the word 'cretins' in a headline would not be countenanced today in any publication, whatever the context.

These pieces are sketches on life, in which the author takes pot shots at politicians, celebrities and anyone (or anything) else that takes his fancy. Like many similar writers he frequently sounds snide, and makes his point through allusion and innuendo, rarely naming names or explaining his comments. Presumably this technique offered some protection against a libel action, and readers must have understood who (or what) it was all about, but from a distance of 71 years it was hard to grasp. I couldn't imagine anyone laughing uproariously today, but some of the less topical entries did make me smile.

For me the charm of the book lies in the gorgeous dancing penguin on the front (I do wish the company would reintroduce it) and an advert on the back cover for Pears transparent soap, which cost the princely sum of sixpence a cake - old money, obviously – this was well before decimalisation. 

The ad urges readers to 'Feel its tonic action'  It also claims the soap is 'matchless for the complexion' and that it 'wears down without waste to the thinnest wafer' , a huge selling point during WW2 when everything was in such short supply. There's even a 'by appointment to H.M. The King logo!

There's another ad inside for 'The Business Woman's Opportunity'extolling the virtues of taking out a policy with the Prudential Assurance Co. Ltd., the benefits of which included 'a Dowry when you marry' for women who were 'not over 34'. How times have changed!

Paper was in short supply during the war, so the book is printed on rather coarse paper, and Penguin supported an appeal for books to be sent to the forces. A plea for donations printed at the front says: “When you have read this book, please leave it at your nearest Post Office, so that the men and women in the Services may enjoy it too.”

The second yellow Penguin is Osbert Lancaster Cartoons (number 501) which was published slightly later, in February 1945. The dancing penguin is still there on the title page, but has vanished from the front cover, and the book cost 9 pence. Like 'Beyond the Headlines', the paper is obviously of inferior quality, and the cartoons are very much of their time, and not at all PC: they would probably mean more to someone who remembers the war and rationing, but having said that many of them have stood the test of time and are still funny – well, they made me laugh.

By the time this book appeared Lancaster was working as press attache for the British Embassy in Athens, so these cartoons must have originally been printed at a slightly earlier stage in the war. Somehow the style of drawing does not seem as sharp as it later became, though that could be down to poor paper and print quality, coupled with the fact that we are used to seeing his work in a smaller format, since he was famous for his 'pocket' cartoons.

But his witty observations on the social order are present in abundance, and the cast of upper class characters who became so familiar in his post-war work are already clearly defined. There are military men, naval commanders, socialites, landed gentry, and businessmen, many of whom seem to have a somewhat tenuous grasp on reality. I rather like this ditzy blonde airhead, who knows that war work at Ministry of Information is interesting, but is attracted to the ATS - because it's easier to get lipstick in the Auxiliary Territorial Service!

And while I'm not sure when Maudie Littlehampton, his most famous creation, made her first public appearance, I found myself looking at the women and thinking some of them could be an embryonic countess.

Whilst both these books are curiosities, which I bought to add to my small collection of vintage Penguins, I enjoyed this one, and it's a volume I would pick up and look at if I need a laugh.

And there's even a cartoon featuring penguins, which must be a reference to comments or decisions made by a European leader, but who it was, or which country, I have no idea, although I can see it is total nonsense to claim to be neutral while defending territory. Anyway, since this is a post about vintage Penguins, I couldn't resist including the cartoon! And if anyone can explain it, or place it in the correct historical context, I would be enormously grateful.

Roughing it in the Bush

Susanna Moodie

Susanna Moodie is a classic Canadian writer, so it seemed only right that I should read some of her work for the Canadian Book Challenge – after all, my aim was to try and get as broad a view as possible of Canadian literature, and this will take me back to the 19^th century. I wasn't sure where to start, but the beginning seemed pretty good, which is why I plumped for Roughing it in the Bush, which was the first book to be published after she emigrated – she had previously written children's books, which appeared in England.

Susanna, her husband John and their baby daughter moved to the backwoods of Ontario in 1832, and 'Roughing it in the Bush', published 20 years later, describes the trials and tribulations of their early years. Her account, based on the journals she kept, is interspersed with her poetry (which I didn't like) and is a little strange, because it could almost have been writen by two completely different people. She gives lovely, lively sketches in plain, simple language, with warmth, humour , compassion and, when things don't go well, a degree of irritation. But alongside that are florid patches of purple prose, filled with the kind of sentimentality that was popular with readers at the time of publication, but always makes me cringe. The poetry is similar in feel – and sense and meaning take second place to rigid rhymes and rhythms.

Fortunately, these overblown sections are in the minority, and the straight forward tale of life in the bush is fascinating and very readable. Initially Susanna was very homesick, but over the years she came to think of herself as a Canadian, and she wrote this book to warn the English upper and middle classes that while Canada was a land of opportunity, it was not somewhere where fortunes could be made at the drop of a hat. She used her own experiences to show that starting a new life called for hard work, and that gullible, inexperienced settlers could lose everything.

I didn't know what to expect from this at all, but I enjoyed it (apart from the poetry and the purple patches). Susanna comes across very clearly – she seems to have been an optimist, determined to make the best of any situation. She was surprisingly resourceful considering how different her new life was to what she had known before, and was willing to try her hand at anything. A devout Christian, she had a keen sense of right and wrong, tried to live her life according to her beliefs, and expected others to the same. She was humorous and compassionate, loved the beauties of nature, and was devoted to her family.

Moodie writes about the landscape, the weather, her neighbours (who seemed hell-bent on conning the newcomers) – and how she and her husband scraped a living from the land. The Moodies were not poor, and employed servants, but even so Susanna takes her share of household tasks, and I could only sympathise with her first unsuccessful effort at breadmaking, when she had to produce her own yeast from bran. And she was equally inept the first time she washed her baby's clothes, for the garments got no cleaner, but she removed the skin from her hands!

Her love of her family shines through. There's a wonderfully tender scene of Susanna and her husband canoeing, with two daughters at the bottom of the boat enchanted by the butterflies and demanding to pick waterlilies.

Set against moments like that are others which are far less peaceful. You can feel Susanna's fear as she listens to wolves howling in the wood one lonely night while her husband is away, and on another occasion she is terrified when the 'fallow' is being burned off (which I assume is burning the stubble), the fire gets out of hand, and only a sudden change of weather saves them from disaster and tragedy.

Gradually she learns how to survive in this new land, and the strange becomes familiar. She deals with sickness, dwindling finances, running a farm, creating a home with the few resources available, and providing meals for the 32 drunken men who attended 'logging bees' on their land to help fell wood.

While the Moodies did make some good and trusted friends, they had little in common with many of their neighbours, especially in the early days and, according to Susanna, people were determined to con them. She describes them as improvident Americans and Irish, uneducated, uncultured, and discourteous – worse than 'savages' she says. But her account of their behaviour and the way they 'borrowed' from her is very funny, and her description of their appearance and character is so detailed you feel you would know them if ever you met them – and would walk away as quickly as you could!

On the other hand, she had a lot of time for coloured people, and I get the impression this was fairly unusual at the time. She upbraids a woman who will not sit at table with a 'Black', and praises the Indians for their 'honesty and love of truth', although she finds the local tribes 'ugly' and 'not clever'. She tells us:

There never was a people more sensible of kindness or more grateful for any little act of benevolence exercised towards them. We met them with confidence, our dealings with them were conducted with the strictest integrity.

And she recognised the effect settlers had on the native population, who were now living in a reservation:

It is a melancholy truth, and deeply to be lamented, that the vicinity of European settlers has always produced a very demoralising effect upon the Indians.

Eventually the Moodies move on when Susanna's husband is appointed sheriff in another district, and the book ends with a series of appendices on Canada, outlining its geography, history, government and education, and explaining what life was like in the province.

A Winter Landscape

The True Deceiver by Tove Jansson is darker than either 'The Summer Book' or 'A Winter Book' (although 'The Squirrel', one of the short stories in the collection, is a little peculiar). But it is every bit as wonderful. With Jansson, little things mean a lot, and her writing is so deceptively simple it's almost hypnotic, drawing you into a strange world word by word, rhythm by rhythm. In 'The True Deceivers' you find yourself in an alien world of snow and ice that's bleaker and far more bitter than Narnia or the land of the Snow Queen.

“It was an ordinary dark winter morning, and snow was still falling. No window in the village showed a light,” writes Jansson. And you wonder, because the scene seems so extraordinary.

It had been snowing along the coast for a month. As far back as anyone could remember, there hadn't been this much snow, this steady snow piling up against doors and windows, and never stopping, not even for an hour. Paths filled with snow as quickly as they were shovelled out. The cold made work in the boat sheds impossible. People woke up late because there was no longer any morning. The village lay soundless under untouched snow until the children were let out and dug tunnels and caves and shieked an were left to themselves.

The residents of Vasterby are as cold and unemotional as the landscape in which they live. There is friendless loner Katri Kling, with her shaggy fur coat, and her eyes as yellow as the unnamed, wolfish dog which accompanies her everywhere. There is her younger brother Mats, who is slow and silent but dreams of designing and building his own boat. And there is elderly artist Anna Aemelin, who looks like a rabbit, and lives on her own in a big, old house (which also looks like a rabbit), and paints beautiful detailed pictures of the forest floor – then peoples them with unnatural, flowery rabbits.

Katri, regarded with suspicion by residents in the tiny Swedish village, is a mathematical wizard, who wants things to be clean and pure. She distrusts people and wants to make money so she never has to worry about it again, and her brother can have his boat, and somewhere safe to live. She befriends Ann, fakes a burglary at the old woman's home – then moves in, with her brother, and takes over Anna's life. She writes letters to the children who buy Anna's picture books, and examines her finances, claiming back 'missing' money and insisting on fees being increased. She keeps an account of everything in a little notebook, but extra money is set aside for Mats. And, most of all, Katri destroys destroys Anna's faith in humanity, telling her that everyone is cheating her.

Anna and Katri seem to have an almost symbiotic relationship, and each seems to supply something the other lacks, quite apart from companionship. They are opposites, in their nature and their view of the world, but by the end each has changed.

Anna never paints in the winter, but when spring comes, and the weather thaws, and the forest floor can be seen again, she finds she can no longer work, until Katri recants her earlier allegations about cheating, claiming she lied. Like much else in the novel, there is no way of telling whether this story is true, or whether Katri tells Anna what she thinks she needs to hear. At any rate, Anna is now able to pick up her brushes and paints, and begins to produce her best work, without the rabbits, which she no longer needs.

The novel raises questions about truth in relation to art, the way others see us, and the way we see ourselves. Truth and lies are not always easy to separate, and self-deception can be dangerous, and we need to be true to ourselves – but it can be hard to know what that truth is.

I love Jansson's writing, and can't understand why anyone would give her books away, but it's worked to my advantage, because I've found three of them, all published by Sort Of Books, and all in tip-top condition, looking as if they've never been read. So now I've got my eyes open for 'Travelling Light', 'Fair Play', and 'Art in Nature', which are also produced by Sort Of.

Edited: Oops, forgot the title!

The Song of Achilles

Achilles pictured on a bowl, with the nereid Kymothea.

Madeline Miller's 'The Song of Achilles' is, as the title tells you, the story of Achilles, one of the great Greek heroes of the Trojan War, and it's a wonderfully lyrical account, told from the viewpoint of Patroclus, Achilles' friend and lover.

Those of you who know your classics (Homer's 'The Iliad', or Virgil's 'The Aeneid') will have encountered Achilles before and may wonder how Miller copes with complexities of giving a semi-divine hero human attributes, let alone the difficulties of portraying gods, godesses and mythical creatures like Chaeron the Centaur. But manage it she does, and she does it so well you believe in her creations without question, and it never seems silly.

It's a long time since I read 'The Iliad' and I'd forgotten how quarrelsome those Greek heroes were, and how disorganised. They may have been called to defend the honour of Menelaus by recapturing his wife, but they are kings of individual city states, and are not keen on taking orders from anyone – though they are not averse to acquiring women and loot during the skirmishes which mark their ten-year siege of Troy. And they crave the glory war will bring, ensuring that their name will not be forgotten, and their reputation will last, even if they fall in battle.

Here are Agamemnon, Diomedes, and Odysseus, who has always fascinated me. He's as clever and cunning as you expect, a talker rather than a fighter, planning strategies and offering counsel, a seemingly sane voice in a world gone mad. His motives are not clear: he is slightly detached, amused by the behaviour and actions of his fellow Greeks, but you never know if he is acting for his own interests, or those of the army.

Anyway, this is a novel about Achilles, not Odysseus. To give some background, it has been foretold that Thetis, a minor deity (she's a sea nymph), will bear a son who is greater than his father. To avoid the awful possibility that her future child may be powerful enough to overturn the divine order, the gods give her to a human king, Peleus. There's no mention of the story where she dips baby Achilles in the River Styx to make him immortal, but forgets that the heel she holds is vulnerable, but she is fiercely determined her son will become fully divine, and goes to great lengths to prevent the death that fate has in store for him.

Meanwhile young Patroclus, son of another minor Greek king, is exiled after accidently killing a boy in an argument. Patroclus, a gentle lad, is no good at fighting or games or any of the other things his father values, so he sent to be fostered by Peleus and meets Achilles.

The growing relationship between the two is tenderly drawn, and as time passes the two sides of his character become more marked: there sensitive, loving man, who is a gifted musician, and the proud fearsome fighter who stands on his dignity and refuses to bow to Agememnon's greater authority. As the long seige drags on and on, the dispute between the two men escalates, and Achilles refuses to fight – partly because his honour has been called into question, and partly because a prophecy says he will die when he has killed the Trojan hero Hector.

Eventually, to save the Greeks, he agrees that Patroclus, who is no fighter, should don his armour and lead his troops into battle – and from that moment the end is inevitable, for Achilles cannot outwit fate. Grief-stricken when Patroclus is killed by Hector, he vows vengeance, kills – and is killed.

It is not nearly as bloodthirsty as it sounds, and there is peace absolution at the end, when grieving Thetis speaks to the shade of Patroclus. To ease her pain he tells her of the Achilles he knew:

I conjure the boy I knew. Achilles, grinning as the figs blur in his hands. His green eyes laughing into mine. Catch, he says. Achilles, outlined against the sky, hanginging from a branch over the river. The thick warmth of his sleepy breath against my ear. If you have to go I will go with you. My fears forgotten in the golden harbour of his arms.

The memories come, and come. She listens, staring into the grain of the stone. We are all there, goddess and mortal and the boy who is both.

The goddess and the mortal soul, who have never liked each other, reach an understanding. When Thetis says 'I could not make him a God', Patroclus' spirit offers comfort. “But you made him,” he says. And, at the end, that is enough.

Guard Your Daughters

My copy has no dust jacket, and is plain red,
with no title on the cover, which doesn't make
for a good picture, so here is a nicer cover!

I'm very fond of my new friends, but I do get angry when the tell me how dull my life must have been before I came to London. We were queer, I suppose, and restricted, and we used to fret and grumble, but the thing our sort of family doesn't suffer from is boredom

I think I'll start with the afternoon when I introduced Gregory to the family. I'd been into Wools for the rations, and I took a short cut home across the Common, that had seemed so big and wild when we were children. It had a few patches of ling, and used to play the part of the Heather when we were being Alan Breck and David.

I just love the opening to Guard Your Daughters, by Diana Tutton, especially that second paragraph. You know you are in the presence of a pretty special writer, who not only pays tribute to Stevenson, but creates a landscape and plants to stand in for wild Scottish moorland in a game of make believe.Who else would do that? And in just a few words she manages to tell you so much about the Harvey family.

Everyone else who read this (thanks to a recommendation from Simon at Stuck in a Book) seems to have already reviewed it, and since it's been universally praised, I feel anything I say only repeats what has already been written. But that's not going to stop me from having a go! According to Simon, if you like Dodie Smith's 'I capture the Castle' then you will like this, and I do, and I did (if you see what I mean). It's way up there on my best books of the year: amusing, literate, well written, witty, warm - and ever so slightly off-kilter. There's a dark edge here that is not immediately apparent.

It's set in the late 1940s, or early fifties – butter and eggs, which they buy 'illicitly' from the farm, were still rationed when the book was first published in 1953. The Harveys are one of those middle-class families who seem to have fallen on hard times and now live in self-imposed exile from the rest of society, whilst maintaining their superior taste and intelligence. They live in genteel poverty, leading a somewhat eccentric life in a rambling old house which is falling into disrepair. That may make them sound rather horrid, but the five daughters of the house are absolutely delightful.

And another one...

Pandora, Thisbe, Morgan (who is writing the story and is called after Morgan La Fée) and Cressida were named by their mother, whose mental state seems to be very fragile. Teresa, the youngest, was named by Father, because Mother was tired by that stage. Only Pandora, the eldest, has escaped their enclosed life: after a whirlwind romance she is now living in London, married to a man she met at Sunday School. The others seem happy with their lot – apart from Cressida, who grows vegetables, does most of the cooking, and yearns for normality. Thisbe, who is rather waspish, wants to be a poet, Morgan hopes to be a concert pianist, and Teresa doesn't know what she wants to do. She appears far younger than today's 15-year-olds (how the world has changed) but is precociously well read.

I thought the relationship between the girls was really well done -Tutton was spot on with her description of the the bickering and sniping that goes on (sister talk, as my own daughters always tell me) but at the same time they are very supportive of each other, and they do have a lot of fun.

Father is an author: not just any old author, but the 'only, really, great, detective writer there has ever been'. However, he is famously reclusive, for when he is not writing he is totally wrapped up in ensuring his wife's comfort and well-being. He has little time left for the girls, and their world is centred on their home. Visits, and visiting, are frowned upon. They've never been to school, although at some stage in the past there was a governess, appear to have no friends of their own age, and few opportunities for meeting young men.

But there is Gregory, who is totally overwhelmed by the sisters when his car breaks down outside their home and they invite him in. He is obviously surprised by Mother's snowboots, 'huge things of black cloth and rubber to pull on over our shoes', her wet stockings steaming by the fire – and by the girls themselves. While he is there Thisbe, clad in eye-catching tight ski-ing trousers, proceeds to do the ironing (including a 'dreadful torn pair of cami-knickers'), and as he leaves he bumps into the grandfather clock, the door opend, and dozens of wet stockings fall out. On his return visit there's an equally hilarious scene as Thisbe desperately tries to pull metal wavers from her hair, without being the noticed.

And there is journalist Patrick True who, strikes up conversation with Morgan and Teresa in a cafe, visits the family at home, encourages the girls' to tell him tales of family life – but fails to explain until much later that he wants to publish an article about their father.

And another!

The girls' seclusion is brought about by their mother's delicate condition. She mustn't be upset, or she will be ill again – and it seems she is upset by any attempt at independence on the part of of her daughters, or any intrusion from the outside world. She may be obsessively over-protective, and fear for their safety if they are away from home or exposed to outside influences, but it is her own safety and comfort that she is interested in. As the novel progressed I began to wonder if she is mad, or manipulative. Her condition seems to work to her advantage. When she doesn't want to do something she takes to her bed; she has the best of everything, and everyone falls in with her wishes. She really is a monster, and it's hard to know if her the Harvey daughters should be protected from the outside world – or their parents.

My copy of the book was published by The Reprint Society in 1954, and seems to have faded from view fairly quickly. 'Guard Your Daughters' is a forgotten book by a forgotten author: I couldn't find any information about Diana Tutton, but she deseves to be better known, and there must be some publisher out there prepared to reissue this wonderful novel - it would fit very nicely into the Persephone canon of work.