Forfatter: Mirthful

Paying Guests

Mirthful

Another Copenhagen find, Paying Guests by E.F.Benson does exactly what it says on the cover, which is always a Good Thing, I think. To quote what it says on the cover, so that you will have an idea what it does:

Bolton Spa is infamous for two things: the nauseating quality of its brine and the parsimony of its boarding houses. Exceptional is the Wentworth. Every summer this luxurious establishment is full of paying guests come to sample their waters, the constant hot meals, the happy family atmosphere. (…) Their triumphs, unforgettably and hilariously recorded here, will be relished throughout the land for years to come.

It also says «ranking with the very best of P.G. Wodehouse», which is just a tad exaggerated, at least I never found this Benson novel Laugh-Out-Loud funny, which Wodehouse is – frequently – but its still fundamentally humorous, and hence fundamentally human. For as Mr. Bennet, the wise man, said: «What do we live for, but to make sport for our neighbours and laugh at them in our turn?»

The Secret Life of Bees – Sue Monk Kidd

Mirthful

I was in the mood for a good story, hence I picked up The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, and I was not disappointed. Lily Owens is a white, motherless child in the american south during the period of the civil rights movement. She runs away from an embittered and violent father and brings her black housekeeper – on the run from the law – with her when she goes in search of her mother’s story. They find sanctuary with three black sisters who keep bees, and Lily slowly comes to terms with life, death and her less than ideal relationship with her mother. It’s the sort of book that should have a «kleenex needed» warning sticker on the front, but it is also a very uplifting tale.

For Her Own Good – Two Centuries of the Experts’ Advice to Women

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I’ve been reading For Her Own Good on and off for a couple of months. Ehrenreich and English demonstrate how the (mostly) male «intellectuals» appropriated the right to make statements about female health – biological and psychological – which up until the 19th century had been the sole property of female healers, midwives and the network of mothers, grandmothers and aunts that any woman used to be surrounded by. It’s a pretty interesting piece of social history and an enlightening read, especially if you’re a woman, but I bet men would learn a bit about the «authority» of the self-styled/so-called experts, too.

Three Men on the Bummel

Mirthful

As the copy I picked up of Three Men in a Boat was a «two in one» with Three Men on the Bummel thrown in (though an old Everyman’s hardback, not the currently available paperback), I thought I might as well read that too. The three friends (though sans dog) set out again, this time for a ramble round Germany, mostly on bicycles. Much in the same style, and certainly with the same merrity-inducing capacity. There is – to mention but one – a lovely description of the «bicycle overhauler», he who takes the thing apart with skills that do not in the slightest match his very knowledgeable comments – we’ve all met them.

Three Men in a Boat: To Say Nothing of the Dog

Mirthful

I’ve been meaning to read Three Men in a Boat: To Say Nothing of the Dog for a while, as it’s been rumoured to be very funny – which it was. Not laugh-out-loud funny, at least not very often, but certainly of the laughing-quietly-to-oneself variety.

Krig!

Mirthful

Underholdende, vagt tankevekkende. Fikk lyst til å lese Åsne Seierstad for å sjekke om parodien er treffende (det er akkurat sånn jeg tror hun skriver, av en eller annen grunn, men siden jeg ikke har lest noe av henne er det jo litt vanskelig å vite… men jeg lo da i alle fall).

Where Did it all Go Right?

Mirthful

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One of the Copenhagen finds, Where Did it all Go Right? is subtitled «Growing up normal in the 70s» – intriguing enough to get me to pick it down from the shelf. This is a tale to counterpoint the chronicles of suffering produced by people who had miserable childhoods – not, as Collins points out, in order to belittle their plight, but in order to show that some things are right with the world even if much of it is wrong… And for someone who’s grown up normal in the 80s (Collins was born in 65, and is thus 9 years older than me – I can’t remember much from the 70s…), a lot of this stuff is head-noddingly familiar. «They tucked him up, his mum and dad» – well, so did mine. Collins bemoans the fact that he was never seriously ill – neither was I, I had chicken pox when I was four and at about the same time had to have two or three stitches on my chin due to slipping on the ice below a slide and hitting said chin on the edge, and that’s the most I can boast (Collins beats me in the number of childhood diseases, but only has a measly ingrown toenail to my stiches). There are other similarities and there are, reassuringly, quite a few differences, but despite these it’s mostly comfortingly familiar. This might not be great art or a candidate for «Memoirs of the Year», but it’s interesting enough and sufficiently well-written for me to want to get hold of the «sequel»: Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now: My Difficult Student 80s. We’ll see.

Home Truths – David Lodge

Mirthful

Picked from the shelf because of its lightness and it’s potential for being left behind when leaving Copenhagen, Home Truths is pleasant enough read, raising a couple of interesting (though, it must be admitted, by now somewhat over-hashed) points about media and fame and privacy and so on. The novella is basically the playtext of Lodge’s play by the same name with a couple of extra bits stuck in and «disguised» to read like a novel rather than a play (i.e. it says «Adrian said, (…), (…) Eleanor replied.» rather than «Adrian: (…) (line break) Eleanor: (…)»), which is fair enough, I suppose, except it still reads rather a lot like a play (being mostly dialogue) and since I’m the sort of person who enjoys reading play texts I would have preferred to read it as such. Never mind. Stuck a bookcrossing note in it and left it in The Bloomsday Bar.

Ruffen og det mystiske hullet

Mirthful

En MEGET etterlengtet ny Ruffen-bok! Og selvsagt er den akkurat så fantastisk som man hadde ventet. Litt pussig, sånn i lesebunke-sammenheng at den hadde med Nederland å gjøre, men mer om det senere…

Løp og kjøp!

One Pair of Hands

Mirthful

It’s amazing how you «fall over» books now and again. In this case it turns out that my new GP’s office have a shelf of books for sale – the proceeds going to Lions – which is where I found Monica Dickens’ One Pair of Hands while waiting to have my plantar faciitis diagnosed. I read (or rather listened to – the local library has an audiobook) – Dickens’ My Turn to Make the Tea way back when (must be getting on for ten years ago) and have only vague recollections of it, but I rather think I enjoyed it. I still think I must have, One Pair of Hands is certainly enjoyable. It’s an engagingly written story chronicling Dickens’ soujourn as a «general» – a combined cook/housekeeper/cleaning lady – the only job her education at various schools for young girls has (partly) qualified her for. It’s an interesting peek at the upstairs/downstairs way of life – with some brilliantly drawn characters from both sides of the green baize door thrown in – from someone who isn’t really «meant» to be there.