This is not a book review

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[I keep writing posts and then letting them rot as drafts as I know I haven’t time to respond properly – so here is a thought from a few weeks ago.]

I have a modern dilemma. As a writer/reader/blogger I review books I love, but by no means all the books I read. I try to support fellow writers by reading their books, but if they write in a genre I don’t enjoy (horror, thriller, fantasy), although I sometimes buy, I don’t read them. There are some other genres (sci-fi, romance, chick-lit, historical fiction) where I’ll buy and read a few pages and occasionally the whole book, because I like the writer and am interested to see their work. Mostly I read general fiction, and a lot of non-fiction.

Tom Gauld cartoon

Tom Gauld cartoon

I recently read two books by authors I had come across online and expected to enjoy and in many ways I did. Both were fiction, but full of interesting subject matter, well-researched; the writing was fluent and grammatical and the proof reading was exemplary.  The first few chapters were enjoyable and yet as I read I fell into a state of simmering irritation.

The first one needed more editing. Some very strange ‘darlings’ that spoiled the atmosphere should have been cut. Most of the characters, including a very crucial one, were well-drawn and the pace was good. BUT the two protagonists and their whole story arc were straight out of central casting and belonged in a different book. The writing (for these two) was what my husband refers to as the ‘he gazed into her sunburnt eyes’ style. It was repetitive and very soupy.

The second was a very good read in many ways with a fascinating background and story. BUT, once more, the two main characters and their interactions were not credible. In this case the characters were undercooked, their behaviour towards each other age-inappropriate and the whiff of teenage romance in a serious setting was odd.

I really want to review these books and I cannot without hurting the authors.

Now, here’s the embarrassment, is this how my writing comes across to others? I still remember one very irritated reader/relative saying, why do you write like this when you could write like A S Byatt if you wanted to (I couldn’t, but I wouldn’t want to either). Were these books perfect for a different reader? Am I just reading out of my genre comfort-zone? Is this just the curse of the writer as reader?

I see that this post has become an (unintentional) demonstration of how dull writing becomes when you generalise instead of being specific – ah well!

Meanwhile winter has turned to spring – Hooray!

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Time for an Update

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Apologies for my absence in January (first month missed since I started in 2013).

Winter aconites

Winter aconites

snowdrops

snowdrops

2016 was almost continuous mayhem. Some of it was wonderful. Surviving the Death Railway: A POW’s Memoir and Letters from Home was published, and has gone down well with the people for whom it was mainly written – relatives of the men who were prisoners with my father. It has pleased my own relatives too as my mother’s work during the war was not known to them.

Phyllis Custance Baker with grandchild

Phyllis Custance Baker with grandchild

I survived the terror of public speaking, giving five full lectures on the story of the book, and there are more lined up for this year.

However, still on the home front, there were family health problems that required a great deal of time and mental energy, but which are happily now mostly resolved.

Segukaku maple in late winter and birch

Segukaku maple in late winter and birch

Moving outwards the national outlook was, and is, depressing. Brexit was a shock and I fear for the future not only of many European friends, but also of those from further afield who feel alienated by the toxic rhetoric of the Brexit campaigners. I also feel desperately sorry for those to voted OUT, genuinely believing this rhetoric and thinking that vast new sums of money would now be available to the NHS, and that stopping Europeans coming to the UK will make Britons better off and having no idea that so many of the schemes in deprived cities round the UK are funded by Europe.

I would never have imagined that all of this would seem insignificant 5 months later. The new president of the USA is a nightmare of such vast proportions that it is difficult to see how the world will recover. Even if he does not cause WWIII or accelerate climate change beyond recovery (and I feel both are highly likely), I still feel diminished as a human being that people not dissimilar to me, voted for this man.

Pepper tree

Pepper tree

If I can see how to make a difference, I hope I will stand up and be counted. In the meantime it will contribute at the micro-level – supporting and caring for those closest and treating all humans as I would wish to be treated myself. We give to the men and women working at charities’ coal faces and we try and care for the environment at home. This all feels like bailing out the boat with a leaky bucket.

So, I am cultivating my garden, or rather starting work on clearing the next bit of fence for replacement; looking after the hedgehog (who reappeared yesterday); growing my garlic; publishing my husband’s book and re-starting my next novel. Life goes on. dscn0205dscn0204dscn0201-version-2

I wish you all courage in facing this even more less than perfect world.

Some trees for Christmas or an alternative Christmas tree

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As autumn approached this year I was looking forward to splashing photos of my beloved Japanese maples all over the blog. Then there was too much going on at home and in the world; they seemed out of place and the moment passed. So I will send all of you – the happy, the sad, the politically bruised, the new parents, the newly bereaved, the travellers and the homebodies, the ordinary and extraordinary people who drop into my blog – some maples for Christmas.

dscn0019 dscn9945-version-2dscn0017 dscn0026 dscn0018 dscn0020 Below one of the nine maples that have seeded over the years beginning to grow in beauty.dscn9985-version-2

And the alternative Christmas tree…   screen-shot-2016-12-17-at-17-06-24

Have a wonderful holiday season, and see you next year.

Being Mortal, a message for writers, remembering Paris

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Is mortality a subject you avoid?

Atul Gawande, the influential and clear-thinking American surgeon, wrote Being Mortal to think through those difficult decisions we all face if we are lucky to live a long life or unlucky and face an early but prolonged death. So yes, this might be a book some of us would instinctively avoid, yet I want to shout at everyone, young and old, READ THIS, because he shows you how to retake control.

If, as most of us do, we fear pain or prolonged weakness at time of our death, this book is a revelation. Gawande, with a curious and open mind, investigates current and historical end-of-life care and discusses what matters most and how it can be achieved. He learns from those quiet experts at the coal face, the dying, the relatives, the nurses and the carers, what questions to ask yourself and what questions to ask those you love. He emphasises the deep importance of asking those questions while in good health as well as when they need answering in extreme circumstances.

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This book is not difficult to read because it is so well written and full of real examples. It does, however, need courage if these are questions you always avoid or if you find clearly-discussed medical matters uncomfortable to read. The magic is that facing fear makes you feel better. This book gives you tools to cope with that fear and a sense of control over your mortality.

So, what does it do for writers along the way? Gawande looks at research into the differences between our experience during events and our memory of that experience. Being human, these are often contradictory – at the time we experience ‘the peaks of joys and the valleys of misery’, but when we remember it is ‘how the stories works out as a whole’. So a really entertaining football match in which your team performs blissfully for hours can be ruined by some bad football at the end. Why? ‘Because a football game is a story. And in stories, endings matter.’ [my italics] The Peak-End moment is what matters to memory.

Last Tuesday night I read two poems from Paul Stephenson’s recent pamphlet, The Days That Followed Paris, at the Cambridge Speaker’s Club – our Toastmaster’s venue. Listeners found these as moving as I did; they convey the mood – strangeness, fear, pain and warmth – of those days. I read Safety Feature and Blindfold [about that brave muslim in the Place de la République].   dscn0101-version-2

Shiny red shoes

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There are still small joys to be had in this time when disappointments are on a scale too large to comprehend. In my twenties I used to run around at Art College in bare feet and once got hauled into a room where there was a Karate class, because the teacher wanted to show the class an ‘ideal’ karate foot – an ageing foot that was once ideal for Karate does not fit comfortably into 99% of women’s shoes. After wearing the same two pairs for the last few years, I have at last found, and bought (two very separate actions), a pair of comfortable, respectable shoes. As I sat on a sofa looking at my feet last night I felt for a moment that toddler-like wonder at the sight of my splendidly shod feet.

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I send my deep commiserations to my shocked American friends. We are equally shaken on the other side of the ocean.

Amy’s drawings and interview with Suzy Henderson

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More random, but happy, events – an email from daughter Amy with a lovely mini-show of her drawings

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at a curious event – the House and Garden pop-up-shop – Amy met some celebrities at the launch seen here at the Tatler website.

– an interview with writer Suzy Henderson, who has a passion for WWII history. Her questions about becoming a writer and the new Railway book made me think about my parents’ role in my writing. The interview appears on her WWII blogspot Lofell Writers Place and on her WordPress writer’s site. Something I found interesting on this last site is a persuasive videoed book review by Mike Reynolds.

Sorry, lots of links. Have a tree peony in it’s autumn glory to finish. dscn9971dscn9970

 

 

Still picking and painting… thank you Sally, Rod… and geese for Linda

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(The random nature of my posts reflects my state of mind)

My much neglected vegetable plot and greenhouse are managing fine without me, and still supplying pickings. dscn9938

In August I meant to clean and re-stain all our external and internal woodwork. I finally started a couple of weeks ago. dscn9898

There’s an awful lot of it, and a lot of other important commitments, so I am like a jack-in-the-box – out if the sun shines, in doing other stuff the instant it looks like rain. I have become weather alert, but this had me foxed. dscn9902 dscn9901 dscn9900

The bits that are done look good, but most of the porch and the left-hand run of windows are still to finish.dscn9948 dscn9949

In between my other commitments there are the other, other commitments – four lectures in four different towns (I’m getting a little less fearful with each one) – and one more to go (with others in the pipeline).

Surviving the Death Railway is travelling the world – thank you to all my fellow bloggers who have bought copies, and to Sally Cronin for generously writing about my work and to Rod on Fragmented Mind for his wonderful review.

Photo for Linda – what I did when I was told to be careful of the geese.hilary-chasing-geese_2

 

Sunday Living History Interview – Far East Prisoners of War – Hilary Custance Green

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Sally Cronin has once more given my recent work on Far East POWs and my other work the kind of polish I dream about, but never quite achieve. My thanks to her and all her visitors.

The best laid plans…

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… of mice, men and women are bound to run agley.

Just as I was getting back into a blogging routine, life has bowled me a googly and I shall have to prioritise ruthlessly for the next month or more. So once more, although I will be around, dropping in, and occasionally waving from the sidelines, I will not be visiting regularly and not posting much at all. When I don’t see or comment on your posts it is me, not you. I will be back.

Here is the book I am reading and which is engaging me completely. If you want to keep a perspective on our life on earth, this is the prescribed medicine. dscn9867-version-2 It starts with the simple premise that explorers have reached earth 100,000,000 years hence and then looks at what they might find. Actually it’s an accessible lesson in paleontology and stratigraphy (! my vocabulary is expanding).

And here are my delicious peppers (at least I hope they are, I haven’t eaten one yet), grown from seed. dscn9862 dscn9861

And finally the hips are colouring in the garden as autumn creeps up on us.dscn9869

À bientôt!