It's a lovely late summer evening. As I glanced out of my study window earlier I noticed a bright yellow tractor ploughing the field on the hill. There are heavy clouds on the horizon but they're mostly white rather than grey with, at the western end, the setting sun reflected glowingly in them - and then a clear pale blue sky above. Has our Indian Summer commenced?
I've read quite a few books recently: I find myself going to bed rather than attempting to find the occasional but rare, interesting programme on television. I'm normally in bed at 10 p.m. and falling asleep over my book by 10.30: and in the mornings, because the children are waking up a bit later than normal, I often get half an hour to read with my cup of coffee (and I really resent it if they wake up and come through at 7a.m., especially if they start bickering, as is the norm. This morning I even chucked them out again so I could have 5 or 10 minutes more reading time and finish my coffee).
Besides the fact that I love reading anyway and have managed to pick up some intriguing, interesting and addictive books recently, while I'm in bed reading is also the time I'm most likely to feel the Little Guy moving. It's reassuring to be sitting there snugged up with a good book and funny little squirming sensations in my stomach.
I find that I am more and more frequently reading books which are either historically factual or which have a background of historical fact. Recently two novels have made me want to find out more about their periods: one was Havoc, In Its Third Year (Ronan Bennett) and the other The English Spy (Donald Smith).
The first depicts a family around the time that the country was switching to Puritanism. It paints a picture of the country moving in that direction anyway prior to an actual civil war (neither King, Cromwell nor war ever gets mentioned: this novel very much paints a local picture), and shows how society can move in a direction of 'big brother is watching you', paranoia and sickeningly strict morals relatively easily. For me there were parallels with what I have heard and read about Dictatorships generally, and an echo of a book I read a couple of months ago about Afghanistan. We are so lucky to live in a peaceful country where freedom of speech is permitted. In addition I was wondering if the story was set in Penrith: anyone who knows Cumbria well will have to read it to see if he or she agrees with me.
The English Spy is set in Edinburgh around the time of the Treaty of Union (1707: Queen Anne was on the throne), and centres around Daniel Foe (Daniel Defoe), a pamphleteer and English Spy. In fact I found his character less central than I had thought it would be from the 'blurb' and the other main characters in the novel equally intriguing. I must look up the historical basis for it: what roles are the various Scottish Dukes and Lords (Glamis, Hamilton, Queensbury) really believed to have played? What was also interesting was the build-up to the Jacobite rebellion, although this appears to have died away towards the end, unlike the build-up to 'change' in Havoc.
I then more recently finished The Tomb of Zeus (Barbara Cleverly). This is a murder mystery but unlike some crime writers who can lead you completely up the garden path, this one unravels quite logically and without too many red herrings. It was easy to read although the over-use of exclamation marks in the dialogue really annoyed me, and I found the characters vividly painted: if not all entirely credible. The book is set on Crete, which is somewhere I've always wanted to go, partly because of its ancient history but also because I love Greece and it is one of the Greek islands on my list of those I particularly want to visit (I guess I love Greece because of its history in any case, but also its climate and the beautiful clear blue Mediterranean in all those lovely shallow coves). I enjoyed the way that the murder mystery element of the story shadowed the archaeological 'mystery'. It's set in a time (1928) when more freedoms were occurring for young women, in the UK more so than in Greece I think, and this too is reflected in the novel, with a relatively feisty heroine who is at times in conflict with some of the more archaic, or accepted, social mores. I really enjoyed this novel despite the exclamation marks.
Back to troubled times now with Guernica: to be followed by a Scottish view of the Border Reivers. Reviews to follow!
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