What Katy Read

Steamy update of Austen classic: Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld

Popping up on various summer-reading lists Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld is a contemporary retelling of Pride and Prejudice. Funnily enough one of the major things to be overcome here is prejudice against anyone daring to rewrite such a beloved classic. Sittenfeld is a good writer (I loved her first book, Prep and quite enjoyed Sisterland) and here she just about pulls off the retelling. But only just, the writing doesn’t feel nearly sharp or incisive enough. Part of the pleasure lies in a compare and contrast with the original – how does a character like, say, Mr Collins transpose to the present day? Sittenfeld makes him a gauche Internet start-up millionaire, but the comic genius of Austen's original is firmly lost in the translation. Some characters remain reasonably faithful to their originals (letter-writing Elizabeth becomes a journalist, Darcy an arrogant neurosurgeon, Mr Bennet a man who shuts himself up in his study while the family finances collapse around him) while others, bewilderingly, don’t (Darcy’s sister Georgiana, Wickham). For me the book was at its best when it went off script allowing Sittenfeld to do what she’s really good at, invent (the spider infestation of the family home, the cult of cross-fit). But the unevenness of tone bothered me, and call me prudish but I thought there was way too much sex. It felt uncomfortably like fan-fiction; let’s explore what it might have been like if Darcy and Elizabeth had pre-marital sex without actually seeing if the plot warrants it. It's all mildly enjoyable but no more than that. In a pernicious bit of marketing the subtitle of this book on Amazon is 'the book of the summer', an accolade I'm not at all sure it has earned. 

BOOK CLUB: At the Existentialist Café, Sarah Bakewell

Whether stimulated by the book or the apricot cocktails, we had a great time discussing Sarah Bakewell's book on Existentialism. Reviews and scores here although if you can't bear to look away I can tell you it scored 77, we found it a readable and enjoyable overview of a movement most of us probably would have struggled to define. I was amused by this video that attempts to give a clear overview of Sartre's philosophical ideas. Even the knowledgable tones of Stephen Fry and some eyebrow raising action with a canon in the trousers can't really save this from seeming awfully complicated. Chapeaux off, then, to Sarah Bakewell for her clear, lucid history not just of Sartre, but a whole movement.

 

In an interview for the wonderful 'Five Books' website Bakewell writes: 'Most of us live in what Heidegger calls the “forgetfulness of being,” we forget to ask any questions about the existence we find ourselves thrown into. But to think is to be always wondering.' In a time of political turmoil here in the UK Sartre's idea that we don't just have to accept life as we experience it, that we can choose to act to change our circumstances seems a timely one.

 

The New Yorker's Mary Norris on 'which' and 'that'

A charming short film on 'which' and 'that'.

I'm a little bit in love with Mary Norris. She seems to have an enviable sense of clarity and purpose. We read the essays of E.B. White for book club once. And I recently read Charlotte's Web to my daughter. She loved the story and I loved the words.

What is literature for?

In the best books it's as if the writer knows us better than we know ourselves. They find the words to describe the fragile, weird, special experiences of our inner lives; the light on a summer morning, the anxiety we felt at a gathering, the sensations of a first kiss, the envy when a friend told us news of their new business, the longing we experienced on the train looking at the profile of another passenger we never dare to speak to. Writers open our hearts and minds and give us maps to our own selves so that we can travel in them more reliably and with less of a feeling of paranoia and persecution.

 

What is Literature for? from Marcus Armitage on Vimeo.

 

BOOK CLUB: I Was Amelia Earhart

For our second reading retreat book we chose I Was Amelia Earhart. First published in 1997 this book made the New York Times bestseller list and was no doubt a bestseller here in the UK also, but both author and book were new to most of us at What Katy Read, and it's thanks to our bibliotherapist Susan Elderkin that we have discovered her. Elderkin said it the perfect book to read on a retreat as it leaves the reader feeling cleansed and changed, too. She was right; we loved it, and gave it one of our highest scores – have a look over on the main site for our full review. 

In the talk below she talks about the ending. 'I was trying to write a story where you ... could read it both ways. It's a fantasy about what happened to her, but when you get lost in it, it feels real.'

 

 

 

'how physical books are'

... I thought about how physical books are, how you can hold them in your hands. When you’re young, and you read a book, it seems to hold you, creating a world around you, but then as you get older, you can hold onto it; your own world takes on a life of its own, bigger than any book but able to contain many world, many stories within it. Maybe that’s what makes a book great, if you can grow up with it, never outgrow it exactly, but find a way to pick it up over the years and form a new connection.

 

From a wonderful essay on Jane Mendelsohn's website.

BOOK CLUB: The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard

May saw us at Sally's parents' house in France for our 'reading retreat', the aim of which was to sit around doing very little other than reading and discussing what we read. In practice there was a lot of driving about doing things like supermarket shops and picking latecomers up from the airport but we did have one completely blissful day in the sun where we were able to do exactly as we'd hoped.

So as not to waste a rare weekend away with unworthy books I enlisted the help of School of Life Bibliotherapst Susan Elderkin, who accepted the challenge of prescribing books not to an individual but to the group as a whole. She gave us four considered options to choose from: two longer books to be read in advance (Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff and The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard), and two novellas to read while we were away (The Wedding by John Berger and I Was Amelia Earhart by Jane Mendelsohn). As we liked the idea of discovering a writer so many rate so highly we picked the Hazzard and our reviews and scores are over on the main site. If you can't bear to leave I can tell you it scored 68. I think it would be fair to say we admired her writing but found the novel to be flawed both in terms of plot and character. 

If you've never heard of Bibliotherapy ("Life's too short for bad books") I can't recommend it highly enough. For the price of a festival ticket or – in my case, say – half a haircut, you get a personal conversation that will be one of the most enjoyable chats about books you've ever had with anyone and then a detailed prescription with ten titles carefully chosen to address whatever reading ailment / complaint / condition you might feel you have. It's basically a kind of bookshelf MOT and the books you discover may well be life-changing. Plus it's a lot of fun. If Bibliotherapy is not for you then you could simply acquire copy of The Novel Cure by Susan Elderkin and Ella Berthoud, a fantastically thoughtful and generous book that will offer you suggestions for every possible moment you might find yourself in need of something to read. A gem.

 

There's a useful Japanese word "tsundoku" for the accumulating of books yet failing to read them....

Five Dials

You know when you go on holiday and you encounter things and you think 'this is so amazing, why don't we have cool things like this at home?' Maybe it's just harder to notice the brilliant things that come along when we are busy with our everyday lives. Maybe we're more open and receptive to things when we are away.

I've written about Five Dials (a free digital literary magazine published by Hamish Hamilton) and how much I like it before, but they still manage to surprise me, as with their latest endeavour that is hard to describe but wonderful to experience. If you have a few minutes, try this.

 

BOOK CLUB: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Lovely short video in which Anthony Doerr talks about his Pulitzer-prize-winning novel. He's right, it's almost impossible to imagine now a time when you couldn't just pull your mobile out of your pocket and call somebody. And whether a good or bad thing, we forget how much more isolated people used to be, and the importance of radio. All the Light beautifully explores this idea of connection.

I shouldn't think there are many London book bloggers who know Boise, Idaho, Doerr's hometown, but I am one of them as I once lived in the nearby town of Emmett for a year. Which doesn't really afford me any particular insight except that I think it's a testament to Doerr's research, imagination and writing ability that he was able to so brilliantly evoke Marie-Laure's world; one so very different to his own.

Detailed write-up and scores over on the main site; in general we liked this very much although the Pulitzer prize seemed to confer on it a weight we weren't totally sure it merited. Hard to tell, though, how this will linger on with us. How do we define a classic?