Books I have read during lockdown (so far)

‘An Unkindness of Ravens’ by Ruth Rendell

Left to myself I’m not sure I would ever have picked up one of Rendell’s novels, but Ruth’s aunt passed two on to us a while back, seemingly under the (erroneous) impression that Ruth is a fan. Ruth would have put them straight into the charity pile but I thought that as they were there I’d give them a go (the other one was the later-published ‘Simisola’, which I read a few months back).

‘An Unkindness of Ravens’ was published in 1985 and was Rendell’s thirteenth ‘Inspector Wexford’ novel. The story focuses on the disappearance of Rodney Williams, a marketing manager for a paint company; Williams’ body is discovered fairly early on in the proceedings and the bulk of the story is taken up with Wexford trying to find out whodunnit. A quote from The Times at the front of this book reckons that Rendell has a “mesmerising capacity to shock, chill and disturb”. I wouldn’t say I’ve quite thought that about either of the books of hers I’ve read so far, but I did find the book pleasantly readable, though the twist in the end is more confusing than chilling, and it’s never adequately explained why Inspector Burden’s wife has gone a bit doolally on discovering her unborn child is a girl (in the event, the amniocentesis was wrong, and it’s a boy – phew).

These collective noun thingies are a fun curiosity for quizzes but some, like this one, must surely have just been made up by someone having a bit of fun. This Country Life piece lists a whole load of collective nouns for birds. Confusingly, some types of bird have more than one – for ravens, this lists both ‘unkindness’ and ‘conspiracy’. Off to see if I can spot a booby of nuthatches.

‘Burial Rites’ by Hannah Kent

This was meant to be our March Book Group book – Alison’s choice – but it’s not clear yet whether we’re going to attempt some sort of remote discussion of it. Someone did suggest trying to meet via Zoom, but I’m not quite sure how that would go – my mother’s book group did attempt this, though Mum bowed out of attending so I’m not sure how it went.

Burial Rites was published in 2013 and was Hannah Kent’s first novel. It was apparently shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. It’s set in early 19th-century Iceland and the action takes place among a series of rural settlements in the north-west of the country. Kent has woven a story around the real-life execution of Agnes Magnúsdóttir in 1830 for her part in the murder of two men at an isolated farm.

Agnes was the last person to be executed in Iceland. As I usually avoid reading any forewords, author’s notes etc until after I’ve read the actual story, I didn’t realise at the outset that it was based in real life and was hoping until quite late on that Agnes would be granted a reprieve, and perhaps receive an offer of marriage from the nice Reverend Tóti. ‘Twas not to be. It’s not clear quite how much Kent had to go on in terms of known facts about Agnes’ life, but she has certainly managed to construct an absorbing story that represents Agnes as essentially a victim of her circumstances, but also as an intelligent and literate woman angry at where things have led and at the lack of choices open to her as a servant.

‘The Secret History’ by Donna Tartt

A few months back a friend lent me a copy of Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, reckoning that it was a good read and I should give it a go. So far I haven’t been greatly tempted by the imposing hardback brick, and am not any more encouraged by discovering it won the Pulitzer Prize in 2014 – the only other Pulitzer Prize-winning novel I’m aware of having read (Philip Roth’s American Pastoral) was almost completely lost on me¹. Mum recently finished wading through The Goldfinch, but didn't seem overly enthused by it. In any case I decided that if I was going to read one of Tartt’s novels, I’d read The Secret History, especially as Ruth conveniently has a copy of it on her bookshelves. So I did.

Admittedly the current lockdown situation probably helped, but the fact that I romped through a >600-page novel in less than a week must be testament to something. It’s a great read and very well written. It’s set in a fictional ‘liberal arts’ college in New England (supposedly based on the one Tartt herself attended) and centres on a small élite group of students who have been admitted to the Classics degree run by eccentric professor Julian Morrow. The story is narrated by one of the students, Californian Richard Papen, a talented ancient Greek scholar from an ordinary background (his father runs a gas station) who has had to jump through all sorts of hoops to get to the college in the first place and then to get onto Morrow’s course. Papen is deeply impressed both by Morrow and by what he perceives as the glamour of the other five students on the Classics course, lying about his background and buying clothes in an attempt to dress like them. It soon turns out that the others aren’t quite including him in everything they do. Events escalate and things don’t turn out all that well for most of the group, though Papen is at least alive at the end.

The Secret History was published in 1992 and was Tartt’s first novel.

‘The Black Stallion’ by Walter Farley

First in a series of 1940s children’s books about, as the title suggests, a black stallion. I’d never heard of these books but Ruth has a number of them in the attic, brought back to the house along with several boxes of stuff from her childhood. I remember as a child being aware of some ‘horsey’ series – quite possibly books by the Pullein-Thompson sisters but I also remember the older My Friend Flicka, published the same year as The Black Stallion. Not being interested in horses – then or now – I never read any of them. I did read K. M. Peyton’s Flambards, though that’s more of a ‘people’ story with horses as a background.

The story: teenage Alec is on a sea voyage back from India where he has spent several months visiting his uncle. The ship calls at an Arabian port, where a magnificent black horse, along with his owner, come aboard. The ship is wrecked in a storm, and the black horse and Alec are the only survivors. They spend several weeks bonding together on an uninhabited island before they are rescued by another ship. They both are eventually returned to Alec’s home city of New York – Alec having assumed ownership of the horse – and Alec arranges for a neighbour to stable him. The neighbour, Henry Dailey, turns out to be a former champion jockey who spots champion material in the horse, and he and Alec set out to train the horse for racing.

The story is ludicrous but fun and feel-good enough. I think it would have been a bit Boy's Own for my tastes as a girl; Ruth claims that as a tomboy she went for these books over what she perceived as ‘girlier’ horse stories. There are evidently a number of sequels, though I’m not sure whether I’ll read them. They include The Black Stallion and Satan – I had had visions of the BS engaged in a life-and-death struggle with the very Devil himself, but it turns out that Satan is one of the stallion’s colts.

The Black Stallion was published in 1941; Ruth’s copy is a Knight Books edition from 1975. The book was the basis of a 1979 film of the same name.

‘A long way gone: memoirs of a boy soldier’ by Ishmael Beah

This was one of our Book Group books in 2008 (I’ve just checked – how time flies), but I abandoned it after a few chapters and must have skipped the meeting. It’s been languishing in the attic ever since, presumably because I had some sort of vague idea that I ought to read it before giving it away. Lockdown has presented an ideal opportunity to gather my strength and tackle it again; not that it’s a difficult read but it is, as the subtitle might suggest, somewhat harrowing.

As a 12-year-old in Sierra Leone, Ishmael Beah was visiting a neighbouring town with some friends when rebel RUF (Revolutionary United Front) forces overrun his home village, after which he never sees his family again. He wanders from village to village with various other boys for some time, before ending up in the town of Yele, in the south of the country. This village is protected by soldiers fighting for the government, who offer the boys food and give them work to do – but then issue the boys with guns and make them join them in fighting the rebels. Helped along by the drugs the boys are given, Ishmael seemingly becomes a pretty effective soldier. Two years on, he and other younger teenagers are rescued by UNICEF personnel and taken to a rehabilitation centre in the capital Freetown. Rehabilitation proves a struggle, but Ishmael is eventually found a foster home with an uncle and his family.

The civil war in Sierra Leone went on for most of the 1990s before being declared over in 2002. A long way gone was published in 2007. One of the worst bits of the book is when the RUF arrive in Freetown, just when you had thought Ishmael was safe and able to pick up his life again. It’s not to be, and he eventually manages to escape the country altogether into neighbouring Guinea. In the end, it’s partly a stroke of luck that saves him. While in Freetown, he had been picked along with another boy to go to the United Nations in New York to talk about his experiences as a boy soldier, and at the conference meets an American woman, Laura Simms, who befriends him and sends him money after he returns home to Sierra Leone. This money helps him pay for his way out of the country and – although this is not detailed in the story – he evidently eventually got to the US with Laura’s help, where she provided him with a home. He was certainly overdue some luck.

¹  Actually, scanning the list of Pulitzer winners, I've also read Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad, though I remember precisely nothing about it.