Now & Then
William Corlett
346 p.

Abacus, 2007.
(First published 1995.)

Back cover blurb:

  Now, Christopher Metcalfe returns to his family home in Kent after the death of his father. Sorting through a box of memorabilia from his days at public school, Chris is suddenly confronted by the face that has haunted him for thirty years.

Then, as a callow fifth former enduring the excesses of a school system designed to run an Empire that no longer existed, a most extraordinary thing happened amid the thrashings and cross-country runs: he was seduced by Stephen Walker, a prefect two years his senior with whom he went on to share a brief but intensely passionate affair. Now, again, alone, approaching the age of fifty, Christopher is painfully aware of the price he paid for letting go, and resolves to find Stephen, and discover what became of the only person he has ever loved.

Before Love was simply ecstatic over it a few weeks ago, I had never heard of this book. (I was under the belief I had never heard of the author, either, but it turns out he wrote the novel the  tv-series The Magician’s House is based on - fancy that!) I naturally assumed that it was a new book, strengthened by the “Winner of the Dillons First Fiction Award”. I also assumed that the book was set roughly nineteen-ten, all due to the hats of the boys in the picture. The fact that people wore them after that time was unthinkable! So, naturally, when I opened it up and saw it was from nineteen-ninetyfive, I was a little surprised! When I started reading and there were all sorts of new things, I smelled a rat. Or, really, I didn’t smell anything; it was so lovely.

I read a rough twenty pages in the morning, before being called away to do something or another. Late at night, when I was going to bed, I decided to sneak in a few pages. Need I say I finished it before turning out the lights? I less than four hours sleep (compared to my usual seven to nine), so it is peculiar I am not seeing things. Apart from the things I should see, of course. One of the things I see is that this is a terrific book. Really top-notch. It is a bit like E.M. Forster’s Maurice and how I imagine Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty would be. (I’ve not yet read the latter, due to lack of time and my father exclaiming something about what bastards they were when he had finished it. Plus my sister nicked it.) It is witty, calm, beautiful, at some places down-right terrifying. A lot of the time, it is really funny. The following bit had me in fits at one o’clock in the morning:

‘Actually, [Roger, the protagonist's nephew] isn’t my type. But I don’t expect you to believe me. I go for the older man. Now, if Richard [Roger's father]  was in my room, you’d have every right to be worried.’ For a moment I could see that she was almost pleased. My words confirmed her unerring taste - even in me. ‘I also, of course, go for the older woman,’ I continued. ‘No, not you, Angela, but Mother. You really wouldn’t be safe from me, darling, so don’t dream of sharing a room with me. You know that incest is all the rage at the moment. I could be your toy-boy son. Would you have me?’
‘Certainly,’ Mother replied gaily. That’s settled, then. Chris will sleep in my bed and Roger can have the room to himself.’
‘What are you both talking about?’ Angela said, looking and sounding bemused.
‘Incest, darling,’ Mother told her.                                         (pp. 190-191)

Of course my laughter was very quiet, not to disturb any sleeping person within a hundred yards around me, but I could’ve awoken the entire neighbourhood - they would surely laugh as well! This quote, too, shows the loveliness of both the main character Chris and his mother. During the first fifty-odd pages his mother annoyed me a little, but then I grew to love her. She might be in her seventies, but she still jokes about incest!

This novel is a reminder for me just how lovely gay lit is, even though I guess it is dreadful to niche it in there. (in an ideal world there shouldn’t be any categories of that kind, should there? But, well! It is such a lovely genre!) Unfortunately, there isn’t all that much I’ve read that is as good as this. I will have to look for a lot more, and I will be glad to. And if it is as good as this, I don’t mind if I sleep four hours a night.

A Tale of Two Cities
Charles Dickens
367 p.

Penguin Popular Classics, 1994
(first published 1859 by Chapman and Hall.)

For Decades ‘08.

Back cover blurb:

‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…’

Those are the famous lines of Dickens’s stirring tale of two cities, London and paris, at the time of the French Revolution. Suspense gathers from the opening scene, the dramatic coach journey to Dover and the rescue of Dr manette from incarceration in the Bastille. At the centre of the novel are the figures of Sydney Carton and Charles Darna, both men in love with the doctor’s beautiful daughter Lucie, linked together by fate and by the engulfing terrors of revolution.

A Tale of Two Cities was written at a time of crisis in Dickens’s life. It is a wonderful love story and, aside from The Pickwick Papers, the most popular of all Dickens’s novels.

Not counting this novel, I have only ever read one book by Dickens, and that’s Great Expectations. I read that in a strange Swedish translation, and wasn’t much impressed. So, I didn’t expect that much from this book. I have always thought that Dickens is a big bore, and was so very surprised to discover that he was so funny! I was also surprised to be so fascinated by his writing. Given, his sentences are roughly seven lines each, but they are so intricate and exciting that I didn’t care. Sometimes I paused and made myself read certain lines again, just because they were pretty. A lot of the time I skimmed through the longest sentences, but that’s not Dickens’ fault. I honestly enjoyed reading it, which is something I didn’t expect I would be saying.

This book sees the return of the trend of my favourite characters dying. A couple of years ago, I could barely open a book without the most fascinating character dying. And here it comes back! Of course, he survived until, well, a couple of pages before the end, but still. I was very sad; but it was a good sad. It was a good ending, too. A good ending to a good novel. I should read more Dickens.

eta. It was impossible to find the proper cover of the version I read, so I just went with the original title page. It is decent enough.

Edward Trencom’s Nose : A Novel of History, Dark Intrigue and Cheese
Giles Milton
392 p.

Pan Macmillan, 2007

Back cover blurb:

Edward Trencom has bumbled through life, relying on his trusted nose to turn the family cheese shop into the most celebrated fromagerie in England. But his world is turned upside down when he stumbles across a crate of family papers. To his horror, Edward discovers that nine previous generations of this family have come to stickly ends because of their noses.

When he investigates further, Edward finds himself caught up in a Byzantine riddle to which there is no obvious answer.

This back cover blurb LIES. I always get as upset when what is said on the back of the book isn’t what is said inside the book. Edward’s cheese shop has been on top of the cheese shops since the 17th century. And his world is turned upside down well before he stumbles over the family papers. When I reread this blurb now, I feel angry for being lied to. It is a bad thing, of course; all they want to do is sell books! And all I want is truth. I have a bit of a problem categorizing this book, but since there are extracts set in the 17th, 18th and 19th century I placed it under Historical as well as Humour. Though, admittedly, it wasn’t that funny. It was mildly amusing at times, but it wasn’t a laugh-party. And seeing as the Guardian claims it was a comic novel, I felt very disappointed.

I can really not make up my mind about this book. It is well-written, that much is true, if maybe at times a bit over-the-top. The end was completely non-understandable until you read the first five pages again. Milton had done one of those put-in-the-end-at-the-start-to-heighten-excitement. However, this just led to me thinking that Edward Trencom and his wife had been on a ski-trip to the Alps. And he hadn’t! HE WAS IN GREECE. THERE ARE NO ALPS IN GREECE. Or, there might be, but Edward doesn’t go to them. The story of nine of his ancestors are told, and I got so confused as to who is who that I had to stop and think about it for a long, long time. At the end there was a Hubert appearing, and you were supposed to know who he was. It took three pages before I figured out that it was a Hubert that HAD appeared earlier, but fleetingly. The characters and their names were a bit of a mess.

I didn’t really like Edward Trencom. And I didn’t think he was that believable, either. There was something about him - certainly not his nose, which really sounded quite pretty - that just didn’t resonate with me. There were also a number of sex scenes that were just really weird. I don’t care about how a middle-aged 1960s couple gets it on! I just don’t! I can do without. This makes me sound like I dislike sex scenes overall; that’s not the case. The case is that I want some sort of logic in it. Somehow, at least, it should be relevant to the story in hand. And how Edward Trencom has sex with his wife against a wall doesn’t feel as though it brings the story forward. And now that I think about it, I don’t think I really liked any characters. I liked the lawyer’s receptionist, but she was only in it for three pages. Which was a pity, I think.

It wasn’t a really easy book to read, given all the weird cheeses, characters and (I assume) witticism. Sometimes they were witty, sometimes they were… not. I don’t know what Milton’s goal was, really. Did he want to write about cheese, the Byzantine or something completely different? Everything was too fleeting to get a proper grasp on. The best part of this novel was when Byron was in it for a chapter. Lord Byron is the quite the hero and can save a lot of things. Unfortunately, he couldn’t really save this book.

ps. Happy New Year, the one person reading this thing!

The Necropolis Railway
Andrew Martin
231 p.

Faber & Faber, 2002

Back cover blurb:

When railwayman Jim Stringer moves to the garish and tawdry London of 1903, he finds his duties are confined to a mysterious graveyard line. Perplexingly, the men he works alongside have formed and instant loathing for him. And his predecessor has disappeared under suspicious circumstances. Can Jim work out what is going on before he too is travelling on a one-way coffin ticket aboard the Necropolis Railway?

Admittedly, I am not that good at crime literature. I have only read a handful of crime stories, despite having seen several dozens of TV-shows involving murder and the solving of thus. I have read one Christie and maybe a few other similar books. It is not a genre I am extremely well-acquainted with. So, that said, it is obvious I didn’t choose to read this book because of the murder itself. And I think that is good, because the murders are not very prominent. There are several murders, and they are discussed a bit, but I was never really that concentrated when it came to the murders themselves. I didn’t really care who’d dunnit, as you can say.

This book is set in the beginning of the 20th century, which is a period I find very interesting, and this book has really brought out the atmosphere of the time. When reading it, I could almost feel the grime and dirt from the London streets: it was captivating. The main character is likeable and was believable as well. I never went “you can’t figure that out like that!”, which is something I oft do when watching, say, Midsomer Murders (I do, however, have utmost faith in Tom Barnaby as well).  The language of the novel captivated and pulled me in. I can’t say that the plot was the best thing with this book, but it was presented in such a way that I was intrigued. The murder mystery is parallell with Jim’s growing attraction to his landlady. Of course, I got an impression that he was attracted to every other characer in this book, but then again, I am a pervert. Everything is rounded off with descriptions of trains, how trains work, how trains of move, how it is working with trains, &c. If I had understood what they wanted to say with these descriptions, I would be able to drive a train no problem. Unfortunately, I didn’t. But at least I know now that The Railway Magazine is sixpence a month.