Beverley Nichols – Cats’ A.B.C.

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Beverley Nichols, Book Review, Cats, Cats' A.B.C., Humour and Wit

Frolicsome, fantastic, feline frivolity

A chance mention of a Beverley Nichols book on gardens and gardening by a book blogger (thank you Karen) sent me scurrying to my bookshelves to find Nichol’s ABC of Cats, bought for me as a child – though Nichols writing style is anything but childish – by a family friend, who had a slightly waspish and fastidious nature, and didn’t really like cats – or children. He did at least have the generosity to realise the child I was had an enthusiasm for good writing, which ought to be encouraged, and that despite the fact that Nichols was expressing a lot of distaste for children in these pages (with a tongue I hope at least marginally in cheek) his veneration of cats, and approval of those who he regarded as ‘true Fs’ (feline lovers) would meet with my regard. As indeed it did.

So it was with great delight that I re-opened the well battered, oft read, delightfully illustrated – line drawings by Derreck Sayer – Cats’ ABC. With short, letters of the alphabet chapter headings, running from such important subjects as A for Amusements

Let us take as a simple example the familiar device of a length of string to which we attach a screwed-up piece of paper, in order to simulate a mouse. A regrettably large proportion of cat-owners, having manufactured this elementary form of diversion, seem to imagine that nothing remains to be done but to drag the string languidly across the carpet, giving it an occasional twitch, while the cat or kitten leaps and pounces and cavorts in its wake

This is surely the most stingy and unimaginative behaviour; it is totally lacking in drama, and drama is the essence of all feline diversions

to Z for ….

Z stands for…Whatever else we may decide that Z stands for, it does not stand for Zoos. This is a book in which no institution so miserable as a Zoo should play any part. I am totally unable to understand the general public’s attitude to Zoos

with many delightful staging posts in-between. Nichols’  aura is remarkably patrician and has definite sharpness and sting, a marvellous foil to his whimsicality. There is at times an acidity and definite wasp – the reiteration of ‘their horrible children’ though babes appear to escape disfavour somewhat – but his moues of perhaps slightly affected campness are not malicious.

I like to imagine that if I, as a small child, had smeared chocolate stained fingers over the Ming, that my obvious respectful adoration of kitten-and-cat, and my instinctive awareness that any feline should be approached softly and patiently, would have led to Nichols regarding me as ‘needs some improvement, shows promise’ as he summoned Gaskin-the-butler to clean the offending smears off the priceless porcelain, which at least I had had the delicacy and appreciation not to break

Following, mainly the lives, loves and loathings of his three-in-residence, Four, Five and Oscar, affectionate attention is also given to the very lamented Siamese, One, who, for very sad reasons darkens the entry on G for Gardening – one of Nichols other passions, which inspires his writing.

The G chapter made me cry, though he was recounting an event which must have happened nearly 75 years ago, given this book’s publication date.

Other chapters are far happier.

A wonderful divertissement. Cats a springboard to take in other important matters like music (classical) and art.

Beverley and Leo

To my delight I have also discovered he wrote another, similar tome, again with illustrations by Sayer. Which the postie has just delivered, as I sourced a beautifully preserved copy, at reasonable price, from a market place seller. PURR!

Cats’ A.B.C. Amazon UK
Cats’ A.B.C. Amazon USA

The UK edition I have linked is the Paperback One, which seems more readily available at reasonable price, and new, than the hardback. which I have

And, not at all in the spirit of Nichols book, as it is distinctly made to satisfy the non-Fs among us, rather than the Fs, but still too amusing to miss

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It’s Publication Day! Margery Sharp has landed!

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Book Review, Cluny Brown, Fiction, Humour, Humour and Wit, Lighter-hearted fiction, Margery Sharp, The Nutmeg Tree

It’s re-issue day at last for Margery Sharp, thanks to Open Road Media and some dedicated bloggers who have been raising flags for her for at least a couple of years.

Followers of this blog and most of us new Margery readers know that Jane who blogs from beyondedenrock has done sterling work in helping Margery to reach a new generation of readers. You will find, if you explore that there are reviews to more Margerys, not to mention reviews of various Margery books, from readers around the blogosphere who engaged, this year and last, in Jane’s hosted Margery Sharp day

Go explore Margery – she is a light-touch, light-hearted writer, who writes books which are hugely entertaining, witty, and well-turned in writing craft. Margery can indeed write sharply and incisively; you get the sense she feels warmly towards humanity, but is not at all saccharine.

Cluny Brown and The Nutmeg Tree have both been reviewed on here, so you can follow the links.

They feature two delightfully individual and quirky central characters, and I’m delighted to have met and made friends with Cluny and Julia

When Jane started her championship of Margery on her blog, she was only available, if you were very lucky, as a charity shop find, rumpled and elderly, but at reasonable cost. And, as time went by, and more of us were introduced to the wonderful Margery Sharp, the dwindling copies of Margeriana began to reach eye-watering prices via market-place sellers. I could only find a battered Cluny and a battered Julia-Nutmeg, at reasonable outlay. 

Until now – so have a look at the other titles Open Road Media have released. I trust some of them will make their way on here in due course!

Cluny Brown Amazon UK
Cluny Brown Amazon USA

The Nutmeg Tree Amazon UK
The Nutmeg Tree Amazon USA

Margery Sharp – The Nutmeg Tree

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Book Review, Humour, Humour and Wit, Margery Sharp, The Nutmeg Tree

A woman of impeccably loose morals.

Julia ,’by marriage Mrs Packett, by courtesy Mrs Macdermot’ is the central character of three strongly delineated women, in Margery Sharp’s delightful The Nutmeg Tree.

Sharp, a deliciously witty writer of rather eccentric English romances and childrens’ books, from the 1930s to the 1970s, had sadly gone out of print, and was only available as lucky finds in second hand shops or sometimes on line at some eye-watering prices.

Fortunately, Open Road Integrated Media who have a wonderful reputation for reissuing ‘minor’ classics in good, digital format, have now reissued a generous couple of handfuls of her titles.

And this is one of them, and I was delighted to be offered The Nutmeg Tree by Open Road, as a copy for review

Julia is a middle-aged actress, member of the chorus, and any kind of vaguely theatre related work she can get. She is a woman of impeccably loose morals. Promiscuous in part because she has a generous heart (and even more generous bosoms), she cannot bear to disappoint or embarrass a suitor. Not to mention the fact that she is hopeless with money, will squander what she has on a good time and good friends, and, when treading the boards work is slender, a man might take her out for a meal. She is not averse to undertaking the odd swindle, to part a fool from his money, either

It is Sharp’s particular genius, her wit and her warmth, to take this seemingly unprincipled woman, and make us root for her, delight in her, and understand exactly why so many who meet her, both men and women, happily fall under the spell of her charms. Despite her dishonesty, she is remarkably honest with herself about her failings, and really dislikes hurting or offending those whom she fleeces.

The opening paragraph of the book immediately showed me this was going to be a sparkling and good humoured read:

Julia, by marriage Mrs, Packett, by courtesy Mrs Macdermot, lay in her bath singing the Marseillaise. Her fine robust contralto, however, was less resonant than usual, for on this particular summer morning the bathroom, in addition to the ordinary fittings, contained a lacquer coffee table, seven hatboxes, half a dinner service, a small grandfather clock, all Julia’s clothes, a single bed mattress, thirty-five novelettes, three suitcases, and a copy of a Landseer stag

I was already laughing so hard by this point, with the tune of ‘On the twelfth day of Christmas’, rather than the Marseillaise, playing in my mind, that I half expected the sentence to end with the proverbial partridge, pear tree and all.

Julia, on her uppers again is the mother of a grown-up and extremely intelligent daughter, presently at Girton. She was never the most motherly of women, and Susanne, or Susan as she is now called, has been brought up by Julia’s mother-in-law, a well-to-do woman whom Julia admires, and who has always treated Julia kindly. Even if she does nurture a rather peculiar fantasy that her daughter–in-law would make a great success if she would only open a cake-shop in Knightsbridge.

Julia hasn’t seen her daughter for years, but Sue wants to get married to a man, whilst her grandmother wants her to wait till she is twenty one. Susan sends a letter to her mother asking her to come to France (where she and her grandmother are holidaying) to help persuade Mrs Packett senior to accept Sue’s beau, Bryan, and a speedy marriage.

Dormant mother love is wakened, and the story follows Julia’s eventful journey to France, and the amusing encounters which await her there

In a neat twist, it is Julia, and even the older Mrs Packett, who are the flexible and adventurous ones, whilst Susan, bar a desire to marry a little young is implacably rigid and insufferably worthy

Susan was a prig. Not an objectionable prig, not a proselytising prig, but a prig from very excess of good qualities.. Like all the right-minded young, she wanted perfection; the difficulty was that her standards of perfection were unusually high. Exquisite in her own integrity, she demanded an equal delicacy and uprightness from her fellows

Susan – unlike Julia – is not a lot of fun, Take, for example, this typical throwaway Margery Sharp gem, about Julia’s pecuniary embarrassment and the detail of her underwear :

Julia decided to take single instead of return tickets, and to buy a new dinner dress with the money saved. She also purchased a linen suit, a Matron’s model hat, and three pairs of cami-knickers. She had indeed plenty of these already, but all with policemen embroidered on the legs

I shan’t (of course) reveal spoilers, but do just need to say that I thought the ending was utterly brilliant, and done with panache.

A film version, or should I say an extreme ‘based on’ was made, starring Greer Garson. Whatever the merits of the film, most of the elements of Sharp’s novel have been bent into unrecognisable shape. The title of the film was Julia Misbehaves

I enjoyed this book enormously; though Sharp is writing light, witty romance, it is in a unique and wonderfully executed manner. Her characterisations are brilliant, her humour never laboured and, knowing more Margery’s are waiting for me, accessible, and reasonably priced is enchanting.

Thank you Open Road! And thank you to Jane at beyondedenrock, who probably woke us all up to Margery

The Nutmeg Tree, and other Margery titles are being published on April 12th. Not long to wait!

The Nutmeg Tree Amazon UK
The Nutmeg Tree Amazon USA

Winifred Watson – Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day

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Book Review, Humour and Wit, Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day, Winifred Watson

Delicious, delightful, de-lovely,

This is a charming book. It’s a glass of pink champagne, sparkling and light. And in just the right amount. You are left perfectly satisifed, wanting no more, not having had a drop too much either.

Written in the late 30’s, Miss Pettigrew is a genteel, impoverished spinster in her middle years, facing destitution, and conscious of her lack of charms, small faith in her talents, and no experience of romance. Life is, not to put too fine a point on it, pretty dreary for her.

Sent by an employment agency for a position as a governess (which she knows she has no talent for anyway) she lights up on the doorstep of a delightful, amoral vamp chanteuse, her prospective employer. Miss Pettigrew is revealed to be a woman of much more spirit, open heartedness and sparky intelligence than she ever realised, and over the course of the day is whirled into a froth of decadent delight as she changes the lives of the fast set, and they change hers, for the better, to the mutual satisfaction of one and all.

Implausible escapist froth? Surely, but done with sly humour, joie de vivre and impish playfulness. Miss Pettigrew is a delightful and unexpected heroine, and the reader can’t help wanting things to come right for her; despite her unpromising potential – plain, mousy, rather dull, timid, without obvious talents (these are her own assessments) – her ability to be excited as well as a little shocked by the unexpected make her a good companion. The froth the pastiche and the sparkle are beautifully done, and finished off with excellent line drawings of the transforming Miss Pettigrew and the flirty girls and swooningly dashing chaps from the smart set. Great fun.

I enjoyed the read enormously – but can’t ignore the great part of that pleasure which came from THE BOOK AS AN OBJECT

Image From Persephone Press Website

Persephone Press are reminding us that the whole experience of reading is not just an act of imagination and reflection on ideas and abstracts, but that it can be a sensuous, luxurious experience which delights the hands, the eyes, the nose.

Image of Winifred Watson from Persephone Press website

In fact, there is something about handling the book as a well crafted object that has a wonderful, slow-read effect, as opposed to the Kindle fast read experience. I absolutely savoured my reading of this book, and Persephone I assume are carefully matching the books they publish to their style. Miss Pettigrew is not a beach read – these pages shouldn’t be sullied with sand and suntan lotion, but accompanied by tea in fine china and a delicate patisserie – eaten with a cake fork OF COURSE to avoid nasty crumby stains on the beautiful pages, would be exquisitely just so.

Persephone rather ‘re-launched’ Watson when they republished her book in 2000. She was still living, aged 94, in Newcastle, and the success at that time of this charming book was greeted by pictures of the nonagenarian clutching her book with the by-line “Bodice-Ripping Fame At 94” The success of the book led to a film, hence the reprint again with the cover as above

Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day Amazon UK
Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day Amazon USA

Jonathan Coe – What A Carve-Up

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1980s, Book Review, Humour and Wit, Jonathan Coe, Thatcher's Britain, What A Carve-Up

Remarkably easy to read – but reflection shows how stunning and well-crafted it is

I came to Coe late, when I originally read and reviewed this book, originally published in 1994, back in 2010 and enjoyed it so much that I read his  The House of Sleep and The Rotters’ Club in quick succession.  Someone has just reminded me of this book, and i remembered my delight in it, hence I trawled through my back catalogue of vintage vinyl reviews!

He’s a fabulous writer. He has an enviable ‘light touch’ an excellent comedic sense, which he uses like a sugar pill to disguise the deep, serious nature of his writing. Fundamentally, I think he is writing about politics, and examining the nefarious nature of capitalism. He doesn’t bang you on the head with simplistic, didactic polemic. He seduces you with wit, compassion, narrative, much more wit, and then delivers rapier sharp conclusions – in the very best ‘show, don’t tell’ manner

What A Carve Up does for the 80’s, Thatcher’s greedy ‘there is no such thing as society’ decade, what The Rotter’s Club did for the 70’s

The telling, layered title of the book refers to the film What A Carve Up [1961] [DVD], starring Sid James, Shirley Eaton, Kenneth Connor, which exerts a profound effect on at least 2 of the central characters – scenes from this film are replayed in different ways throughout the book.

Excuse for photo of well-loved Carry-On star Sid James

And I’m afraid i also can’t resist this elderly but still-got-legs joke from that 1961 film with the wonderfully seedy Sid James delivering it

Back to Coe: At a deeper level, the title of the book also serves to encapsulate the dismantling of the public sector which took place in the 80s. It refers to the carve-up of our assets, and the effects of privatisation.

The structure of the book is stunning. A writer (because of a complex subplot which doesn’t get revealed until the end) is hired to produce a biography of a wealthy family, all of whom, in different ways, are bedded deeply into the various power complexes of the state – the food industry, the financial sector, Parliament, the media, defence. And are rampant self-servers, to a man and woman, symbolising what happens when self-interest is followed at the expense of ‘there’s-no-such-thing-as’-society. The book flips back and forth between the seminal setting the scene events of a particular day in 1961, to the writer’s personal storyline, and chapters from the developing careers and personalities of, the various biographical subjects. There is also the construction of a second book, which will be a fictionalised version of the beginning-to-be-too-hot-to-handle biography.

We meet a cast of believable, individuals outside the central ones (writer and ‘The Family’) – none of whom are wasted. Coe skilfully, effortlessly (to the reader’s eye) connects the spider’s web. The interconnected life proves, again and again, the lie of ‘there is no such thing as society’.

And flowing through all this, seductively, engagingly, is the humour….and behind this the ability to make the pain of humanity plain, a fine sense of individual psychology. Coe has that right combination of heart and head coupled with flair, imagination, artistry and, innate, the ability to be that magical teller of tales, the weaver of a story, a spell-binder.

I recently read, thanks to the Amazon Vine ARC programme, his most recent book Expo 58, which unfortunately I was less than ‘whelmed’ (!) by. An agreeable, rather enjoyable, undemanding read, but the humour was not anywhere near as sharp, and the vision not as razor-edged in balancing the knife edge of warm-hearted empathy, incisive social commentary and mordant wit. So it did not, and does not, get reviewed according to my ‘go get this!’ bloggy criteria.

This though, strongly recommended – a light-hearted easy read with a lot to tickle, tease and niggle the old brain-cells as well

What A Carve-Up Amazon UK
What A Carve-Up Amazon USA

Sadly, it is not available on Kindle download in the States, and only reasonably priced ‘in real’ used, from market place sellers. You might be the lucky one, as reasonably priced useds are finite!