Auto da Fay - by Fay Weldon - review

 

Sue's Reviews > Auto Da Fay

Auto Da Fay
by 

Fay Weldon

Sue's review

May 30, 2023  ·  edit

really liked it

bookshelves: biog-memoir, non-fiction

Fluid, fluent and very readable memoir. Fay Weldon has never been a pretentious writer. Her work is always concise, not for her the 20 line sentence or the deliberate use of obscure or obsolete words and quotes.

She gives us her relationships rather than her career as a writer, though it soon becomes obvious how writing was always her destiny. It runs in her blood and her genes.

She gives us characters in the form of her father, a distant figure and her mother too often very present. Her doomed sister, her grandmother, her lovers, ghosts, husbands and friends abound. Most of the really important people are the women. The men are culturally dominant and usually unreliable, she shows the reasons for feminism before modern feminism began.

Her novels are mentioned, but in flash-forwards. Is there a second volume of this memoir?

Fay Weldon is now, in the 2020's, no longer such a fashionable writer but god is she important. Her death at the start of this year may, very sadly, mean her importance is forgotten.

David Attenborough's Life on Air: Memoirs of a Broadcaster - book review

 

Sue's review

May 2023  ·

liked it

bookshelves: animals, biog-memoir, environment, just-bought

I'm pleased I've read this. It's been very interesting to see how much David Attenborough has contributed to our cultural life over the past 60+ years, because it really is a lot and not all to do with wildlife and the natural world. Without him, BBC 2 may have never existed and certainly not in its diverse and eclectic form. This memoir tells us a lot more about him than we think we know.

Not absolutely the greatest memoir I've read but his style is engaging and in places very humorous. He does spend a lot of time naming everybody who he's ever worked with, which becomes tedious in places although I'm sure he does this for the right reason. He's pretty self-effacing and wants to make sure everyone else gets the credit due to them.

The man is justifiably a legend.
Thanks David!

Good Friday #Tennison 3 by Lynda La Plante - book review

 

Good Friday

Good Friday (Tennison, #3)
by 

Lynda La Plante

Sue's review

May 16, 2023  ·  edit

liked it

bookshelves: thrillers, mystery, novels

Half way through this - so far so mediocre. The plot is unfolding, the main character Jane Tennison is building but it's all a bit slow. Too much mundane detail, I'm sure this is to obscure the details which are relevant to the storyline but it's becoming tedious - no actually it became tedious before I was quarter of the way through. I shall keep going because it will get faster, it has to!

Okay I finished it, the finale was exciting and gripping. No spoilers.

However I do stand by what I said when I was half way through. Apart from the explosion at a tube station which was over in a flash, with not a huge amount of description, there was a level blandness with mundane description slowing the narrative down. I didn't need to be taken through the details of how to make spaghetti Bolognese! I could see that this was part of the author character building and distracting the reader with misleading information. But the fact that I could see it happening was a but off-putting. Shouldn't a write of the stature of Lynda La Plante disguise their technique a bit better?

I do admire her scripts and I know this is not the first of her Jane Tennison prequal books. I will read the others, hoping they will have more narrative action and less about ball gowns.

Reading in the Bath

 Lying in a warm bath, in my right hand my copy of Final Draft by Shelley Burbank - a brand-new novel just imported from the USA - and a glass of sauvignon-blanc in my left, should be sheer luxury. 

Certain facts could diminish these luxurious elements, in some people’s eyes. Starting at the top, the dated Artex ceiling and polystyrene coving are slowly parting company with each other and the plastered walls. The spider plant atop the bathroom cabinet has browning tips, its trailing babies are all brown and mama spider is calling, loudly, for water and light. 

There is the wash basin which doesn’t drain properly no doubt due to something grim lurking down in the U-bend.  The shower cubicle is slowly growing its own dark ecosystem, not helped by the charcoal soap somebody gave us for Christmas. Charcoal soap stains everything grey and is the ultimate gift that nobody needs, ever.  The 1970’s green wall tiles (every random 10-15th of them covered in ambiguous flowers) are detaching themselves from the walls and the corner I’ve painted to pretend it never was tiled doesn’t even convince me. Meanwhile the carpeted chipboard floor is slowly disintegrating just behind the toilet… who puts carpet in a bathroom…?

I'm well aware of all these negatives and I don’t care! I've always loved to read in the bath, whatever the state of the bathroom. Today I have this new book in the genre I’m currently into, detective fiction, written by an author I know, well we chat online.  And the book is immediately engaging, I’ve reached page 56 before I notice that the water is cooling down. I could chose to stay put, deplete the reservoir further and vastly increase the gas bill, but not tonight. 

Washing is in order. I’ve been gardening and don’t fancy sleeping with my pollenated, earthy and leaf mould dusted self.  There is an ingrained order to washing which does seem mostly logical. Around the eyes first, then the rest of the face. Next the hair, then moving down the body ending with cleaning between the toes. My grandmother would not approve of hair washing in the bath. 

In my grandparents household, time was an element to be obeyed. Getting up time, breakfast time, teeth-cleaning time, playtime, elevenses – a time by its very name. Then after lunchtime there was walk time, a march to the creek to feed the swans and ducks with rice, crusts and fly-walk. Teatime was followed by bath-time, with absolutely no reading. All ablutions were timed even more carefully than meals. Hair-washing-time was not the same as bath time. It involved a twice weekly ritual of standing on a stool bent double over the wash-basin while Granny poured enamel-mugfuls of warm water over my head and, inevitably, up my nose.  Grandfather even tried to control his bowel movements to a strict timetable, with pots of senna-pods stewing on the Aga every evening. Luckily he didn’t attempt this regimen on anyone else.

And now I'm clean. I still have 236 pages of this novel still to read. The writing is fresh, easy and engaging, the story intriguing and the protagonist identifiable. I have five more bath times to look forward to, before the pages start to sag in the moist heat. Luxury!

Coronation Trifle with Extra Ducks - flash fiction

Georgia watched the Maître D for the signal, wishing he would get on with it. Her gilded brass tray wasn’t light, with its load of sixteen cut glass dishes containing Coronation Trifle.

One of the waiters brushed past her headed for the kitchens. He was showing off with a huge stack of used plates and silverware balanced confidently on one hand. As the heavy swing door closed behind him there was a huge crash.

“Extra ducks!” With a click of fingers the Maître D summoned two waitresses who were clearing serving dishes and directed them toward the kitchens. He then waved peremptorily to Georgia to begin serving the desserts. She was only carrying enough trifles for the top banqueting table where the Mayor was seated. She then had to return to the kitchens for more.

Behind the swing doors, chaos reigned. An extra duck had slipped in spilled gravy and gashed her knees on broken crockery, the other duck was trying to stem the bleeding with her apron. 

Georgia sidled around the mess. It was being made still worse by the waiter who had caused it sweeping around with a broom already impregnated with duck skin, gravy and spinach. The floor was becoming a skating rink. The kitchen staff were ignoring everything, their shift was almost over.

Georgia could not possibly cross that floor carrying another heavy tray. She sat down and began eating Coronation Trifle.