According to Mark by Penelope Lively was first published in 1984. I think I’ve only read a couple of other books by the author, but I read and enjoyed Moon Tiger not so long ago. I borrowed According to Mark from a local library, and by the way, the closure of 16 libraries in Fife has been put on hold for the moment, local councillors aren’t happy about the closures, as you would expect.

Anyway, to the book. I didn’t really expect to enjoy this one, but I put my faith in Lively as she’s very well respected I believe, and sure enough it turned out to be very enjoyable.

Mark is a literary biographer, engaged in writing the biography of Gilbert Strong, a writer who has been dead for years. Mark thinks that he knows everything about Strong but he decides to contact Strong’s granddaughter Carrie, to interview her and look around the old family home which is where Carrie’s garden centre business is based.

Mark has a bit of a middle age meltdown and falls for Carrie, but she is really only interested in plants and flowers, she has had very little education because her mother was a bit of a hippy, more interested in men and partying. One of the men took pity on Carrie and taught her to read, but she has huge gaps in her knowledge of the world, on the other hand she speaks fluent French as she spent so much of her childhood there.

At one point Mark encourages her to read Jane Austen’s Emma and at the end of it she realises that she has more than a passing resemblance to one of the characters.

This is a book which looks at everything from the various characters’ point of view and nothing is really as it seems. When Mark wonders why Carrie is looking at a discarded cigarette packet on the ground – she is of course looking at a wild flower near it.

Diana, Mark’s wife, is a very annoying person, one of those women who ‘manages’ her husband to such an extent that she is more like the mother of a small child – to me anyway. Possibly another Emma-esque character. They do exist though, those wife/mummy women, and no doubt it works for some people, although it always makes me feel squeamish.

Early on in this book I did think that it might be a bit of a dud but it turned out to be a really good read.