The Haunted Hotel by Wilkie Collins

31 January 2010 23:08

I have to thank JaneGS and The Classics Circuit for encouraging me to read Wilkie Collins because I don’t think I would ever have got around to him otherwise. I’m on my third one of his now, (The Woman in White) but I read The Haunted Hotel over the Christmas holidays. Although I enjoyed it I was quite happy that it was a really short one, as I have so much of a backlog now.

Lord Montbarry has jilted his fiancee Agnes and married Countess Narona instead. As Agnes is well loved by everyone, they all turn against Lord Montbarry, however it seems to me that he was never a popular person. Even his brothers didn’t seem to get on with him, so the mystery to me is why Agnes was so in love with Montbarry in the first place? But such is life, I suppose.

Things don’t go well for the newly weds from the beginning and Lord Montbarry becomes very stingy with money. In an effort to save on hotel bills he rents a dilapidated, damp palace in Venice and his new wife’s ‘brother’ joins them there. The servants who have been brought from England are appalled at the behaviour of their mistress with her so-called brother and decide to leave for home as soon as they can.

When Lord Montbarry’s family in England hear that he has died they aren’t too surprised at first but then they discover that two insurance policies have been taken out on him and their suspicions are raised.

What had really happened to Lord Montbarry? Well I’m going no further so as not to spoil it for anyone.

I would recommend this one as an introduction to Wilkie Collins as it is a lot less wordy than some of his others. I can only suppose that at the time he wrote it he wasn’t being paid by the word – as so many authors were – and that was always a great incentive for them to pad things out. Either that or the opium that he had become addicted to by this time had exhausted him so much that he didn’t have the energy or the inclination to make it longer.

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The Flight of the Falcon by Daphne du Maurier

28 January 2010 00:36

Thriller & Suspense Reading Challenge 2010

This book was first published in 1965 and although I enjoyed it,
I don’t think it is anywhere near as good as du Maurier’s earlier work. At 272 pages, it is a very quick read. I must admit that I am not a fast reader as I take the view that as someone has gone to the bother of writing every word, it is only fair that I should read them all and not skim. It is well written and I found that it hadn’t really dated that much.

It is the story of a holiday courier called Armino Fabbio who conducts coach parties of tourists from Genoa to Rome. When a male tourist propositions the young and handsome Armino and slips a 10,000 lire note into his hand, Armino decides to get rid of the money by passing it on to an old lady who is slumped on the cathedral steps.

Unfortunately, she is murdered soon after and Armino decides that the safest thing for him is to get away from the area and he ends up back in the town where he had grown up, having left it as a young boy at the end of the war.

Since then his home town of Ruffano has enlarged due to the local university expanding, with as many as 5,000 students residing there or nearby.

Nobody recognizes the adult Armino and he takes a job in the university library, becoming involved with the students and staff and discovering that there is a disturbing rivalry between the Arts and Economics faculties, creating an atmosphere of menace.

He lives in fear of being traced to Ruffano by the police, especially when he discovers that the murder victim was his childhood nanny.

The book finishes with a spectacular festival which the students take part in and draws to what was for me an unexpected conclusion.

I don’t think I would read this one again though. It’s certainly not in the Rebecca league.

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The Scots Language.

26 January 2010 23:14

I heard that Alex Salmond had been talking about the teaching of the Scots language in schools. I think that it is about time that something was done to stop the rot where Scots is concerned. Too many words are being lost to us, and once they are gone – they’re gone.

I know that there is no spare money around at the moment, but I really don’t see why such an initiative should cost much – if anything at all. We don’t need teachers to be sent off on courses or anything expensive. Ten minutes towards the end of each primary school day would be all that was needed to teach children a couple of Scots words or phrases each lesson.

It could be a very informal winding down of each day and the only tools necessary would be an English-Scots dictionary and a black/whiteboard. There’s no need to make a big production number of it as there are so many other things vying for space and time within the school day.

When I was at school, in the west, a good few moons ago, we were all bi-lingual. At school we spoke the Queen’s English to the teachers and then when it was playtime we reverted to Scots.

Some adults used to complain about us speaking slang, but it wasn’t – it was just Scots. Likewise – when we grew up it was natural to speak plain English to people in authority as a matter of courtesy, after all the person that you are speaking to may not speak Scots, and I suppose to show that you could speak good English. However, at home and with friends the less formal Scots was used.

I’m not sure if that practice is carried out in the whole of Scotland as a matter of course though. I well remember being in a bank in Fife and when I asked the bank teller a question – his answer to me was -: Ah dinnae ken, but Ah’ll fund oot fur yee.

I have to say that I was dumfoonert. There is no way that you would get a job in a bank in the west of Scotland if you spoke to customers like that. And although I’m all for the promotion of the Scots language, I still think that there is a time and a place for it.

Even Rab C Nesbit was bi-lingual. There was always a time in each programme when his best English came out – usually when he was incensed about something and just had to let off steam.
As he got angrier, so he became ‘posher’.

I know quite a lot of people that that happens to and it’s always funny to observe, whether it’s Rab C. or yer mammy.

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Categories: Scottish words

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Scottish words: Eejit

25 January 2010 23:26

The word eejit is still used a lot in Scotland. It means idiot, and I think it is just a corruption of the English word. People are usually described as being a complete or a total eejit.

Terry Wogan claims it’s Irish but Collins English Dictionary says it is Scots and Irish.

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The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton.

23 January 2010 00:20

First I have to say that I think that the previous reviews of this book have been great. I’m just hoping that I can add a few more things of interest.

Edith Wharton won the Pulitzer Prize for The Age of Innocence in 1921. She was the first woman ever to win it. However, her joy was short lived as she discovered that the judges had chosen it because in their opinion it was “the American novel which shall best present the wholesome atmosphere of American life and the highest standard of American manners and manhood”.

She had written it to be a satirical and dark comedy of manners, but whichever way you take it, the fact is it is very well written and amazingly detailed, full of social history.

I think that Newland Archer underestimates his fiance May as he is under the impression that he will have to educate and mould her to resemble his married lady friend with whom he had had an affair.

In reality he gave up on her even before they were married.

When he meets May’s cousin, the Countess Ellen Olenska, who has left her husband, he is at first worried that he is going to be affiliated with a family which is about to have a scandalous divorce. However, in the course of his negotiations with Ellen, on behalf of the family who want to avoid the divorce and subsequent scandal, Newland falls in love (lust) with Ellen.

Status and family name is all important in this society and Ellen’s family can’t think why she would want to give up her title of countess and become a divorced woman.

It has been mentioned that people have found the names a bit confusing, with surnames cropping up as first names often. This still happens in Scotland with boys’ names. The women are reluctant to give up their maiden names completely and so they are given to the eldest boy as a first name or sometimes a middle name. In fact we have done this in our family, we have also used one grandmother’s maiden name. Obviously in 1870s New York society it was important to remind people that they were the product of two wealthy, influential families.

Newland had led a very narrow life compared with Ellen and when he tells her that he wants to go with her into another world where words such as ‘mistress’ won’t exist- where they will simply be two human beings who love each other. Ellen replies -
“Oh my dear- where is that country? Have you ever been there?” she asked, and as he remained sullenly dumb she went on: “I know so many who’ve tried to find it; and believe me, they all got out by mistake at wayside stations at place like Boulogne, or Pisa, or Monte Carlo- and it wasn’t at all different from the old world they’d left, but only rather smaller and dingier and more promiscuous.”

I think if they had run off together then it would only have been about six months before Newland regarded Ellen as the trollope who had ruined his life. He would have been miserable living a life being ostracised by the only society that he had ever known.

The ever generous May would have welcomed him back though and he might have learned to appreciate her attributes, which he hadn’t managed to do in 26 years of marriage.

This was a re-read for me. I read it about 20 years ago when Gore Vidal (whose writing I love), waxed lyrical about Edith Wharton’s writing and I think he was correct.

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Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens

20 January 2010 22:33

Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens.
by J.M. Barrie.

I’m lucky enough to have my mother’s 1925 copy of this book, which has the lovely Arthur Rackham illustrations. Obviously this book comes under the category of a book from childhood but I’ve read it a few times since then and I always enjoy it. It is the very beginning of the Peter Pan story and is actually the middle section of The Little White Bird which was published before Peter Pan and Wendy.

The book starts with The Grand Tour of the Gardens, in which the gardens and some of the characters to be found there are described. Sexism is rife as you would expect from something written so long ago and by a Scottish man, but it is all quite tongue in cheek.

J.M. Barrie had a wonderful, fantastical imagination and a beautiful way with words.

Babies were birds before they were human and have to think hard to remember the time when they could fly.

Peter Pan escapes from being human by flying from the nursery window ledge when he is only 7 days old and flies to Kensington Gardens.

He knows that it must be past lock-out time as the place is full of fairies who are too busy to notice him. When he meets with Solomon Caw after flying to the island in the middle of The Serpentine he realises that he has lost faith in his ability to fly and so is stuck on the island. Solomon declares him to be a Betwixt-and-Between.

Although he is happy on the island for a while, he misses being able to play the way children do and begins to plan how he can escape from the island. Eventually he pays the thrushes to build him a nest big enough for him to fit into and he sails over to the gardens again, but he can only leave the island at night after the park is closed.

The girl in this book is called Maimie and when she is locked in the gardens overnight, the fairies build a little house around her so that she doesn’t die of the cold.

If you have read Peter Pan you might find it interesting to read the book which it developed from.

When Barrie was just 7 years old his 14 year old brother died in an ice skating accident and it is thought that this tragedy was what prompted Barrie to write about a boy who didn’t grow up.

J.M. Barrie is one of the few authors who made up a name for a character which became popular with parents. He came up with it because a wee girl of his acquaintance who couldn’t pronounce the letter ‘r’, described herself as his little ‘fwendy’.

You can visit the Barrie family home in Kirriemuir and the original Wendy house, which is the old wash house in the back garden. Kirriemuir is about 40 miles from where I live. It is quite a pretty small town which differs from most Scottish towns in that it was built from red sandstone instead of the usual grey.

When J.M. Barrie died in 1937, he chose to be buried in Kirriemuir with his family instead of in Poets Corner in London.

I reviewed this book as part of the Flashback Challenge.

Here is a video from 1937 showing some places of interest around Kirriemuir.

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Knitting a hat.

19 January 2010 21:17

I finished knitting the hat from the pattern which I downloaded from Ravelry site, however it didn’t turn out as I had expected it to. The pattern is called The Natural.

Despite the fact that I actually made it longer than recommended, I still found the finished article to be much smaller than I had expected.

It was perfect for a 5 year old but no good for my husband as when it was stretched to fit him it wasn’t thick enough to keep his head warm.

So that was a bit of a disappointment and I’ve started another one just using one of my old tried and tested patterns.

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Scottish words: fantoosh

18 January 2010 00:03

You don’t hear the word fantoosh all that often nowadays but I think it is a great word and I use it whenever I can.

If something or someone is being described as being fantoosh it means that they, or it, is overdressed, ultra fashionable, over-ornamented, too fancy. Just downright over the top.

I always think that this word should be of French derivation as quite a lot of Scottish words are, due to the influence of the French people who came to Edinburgh when Mary, Queen of Scots came back from France as a young widow. There is a part of Edinburgh which is still called Little France, however I can’t find any evidence that it derives from French.

I do think that fantoosh is quite presbyterian though as I’ve always heard it used in a slightly disapproving way. It’s the feeling that anything too fancy must be sinful. It’s the influence of Calvinism I suppose.

Anyway, I really like fantoosh and I’d hate it to die out, although I suppose if you were in America it might sound a bit rude to some people as it’s almost like two words for bum (butt) spliced together.

That might make it all the more desirable to use though, just for a laugh.

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Categories: Nostalgia, Scottish History, Scottish words, Towns

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Chris Evans on Radio 2

15 January 2010 22:54

Come back Terry – all is forgiven.

I knew that I was really going to miss Terry Wogan in the morning and after having to listen to Chris Evans for a week I have to say that I don’t think I’ll ever get attached to him as a radio presenter.

Yes, he is a big improvement on his mad, bad and dangerous to know days of Radio 1, but for me he is altogether too bright and breezy for the mornings. And the jingles. I always think that if a radio programme has a lot of jingles it is because they are flapping and panicking in the studio and it’s just a way of covering it up. The music selection hasn’t been great either, although the same could often be said of Wogan’s show too. I’m not a big fan of Ralph McTell or Eva Cassidy and they were given far too much air time.

I realise that what I miss most is the TOGs. What are they all getting up to now? Terry really didn’t need to do much, the show wrote itself with the many contributions from the likes of Heidi Vodka and Chuffer Dandridge, whatever became of Stuart from Kirkcaldy, I wonder? They were all so quick witted and funny and just what I needed first thing in the morning.

I suppose I’ll just have to wait and see what the new Terry Wogan programme is going to be like and hope that they all turn up for it. After all I can’t blame Terry for wanting to have a long lie of a morning now that he has reached 70.

I don’t know what I’m going to listen to in the morning now.

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2010 Flashback Challenge: January

14 January 2010 22:53

Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers.

It must be about 30 years since I first read this book and although it isn’t my favourite Sayers read, I think this is a good one to start with. It was written in 1930 and was her sixth murder mystery to be published.

It introduces us to the character of Harriet Vane. At the beginning of the book she is on trial for the murder of her ex-lover, who has been poisoned. Lord Peter Wimsey sees her in court and becomes interested in the case as he can’t believe that she is a murderer, although all the evidence points to her.

He takes on her case and during the course of his investigations he falls in love with Harriet making it all the more important that he can save her from the gallows.

Lord Peter owns a detective agency which is disguised as a typing bureau which is staffed by women who can infiltrate offices and companies which need to be investigated. The nickname for the bureau is ‘The Cattery’ and half in jest – half in earnest Lord Peter has compiled a list of rules for his employees. Rule 7 is:
Always distrust the man who looks you straight in the eyes. He wants to prevent you from seeing something. Look for it.

A very good maxim – I think.

The story line is autobiographical, telling of a disastrous previous relationship and although Dorothy’s lover wasn’t poisoned, she probably wished that he had been. She didn’t seem to have much luck with men and seems to have written the character of Lord Peter Wimsey to suit her perfect idea of a man. The character of Harriet Vane is very much based on Dorothy herself.

I enjoyed re-reading this book, but then I’m keen on things which are set in the 1920/30s. I started reading Dorothy Sayers books in the 1970s and in 1978, completely by coincidence we moved to Essex and the office window of my new workplace looked into what had been Dorothy Sayers back garden in Witham. She was long gone by then as she died in 1957.

I’ve also enjoyed viewing the various adaptations of her books over the years on the television.

Edward Petherbridge was perfect as the aristocratic detective and Harriet Walter seemed made for the part of Harriet Vane.

If you enjoy vintage murder mysteries you will probably enjoy this book.

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