The Uncommon Reader
Alan Bennett
121 p.

Faber & Faber Ltd., 2008
(First published by Faber & Faber, 2007.)

Back cover blurb:

Led by her yapping corgis to the Westminster travelling library outside Buckingham Palace, the Queen finds herself taking out a novel by Ivy Compton-Burnett. Duff read though it is, the following week her choice proves more enjoyable and awakens in Her Majesty a passion for reading so great that her public duties begin to suffer. And so, as she devours works by everyone from Hardy to Brookner to Proust to Beckett, her equerries conspire to bring the Queen’s literary odyssey to a close.

I love Alan Bennett. I spent a great part of the summer re-reading The History Boys probably a half-dozen times, without ever getting bored of it. And all the time, I heard buzz about this novella about the queen. When summer was drawing to a close, I bought and I read it. And it examplifies exactly why I love Bennett so. There’s much literature, so much name-dropping - culture exists as much as in reality, if not more, in Bennett’s stories. And everyone, everyone, is so witty. Bennett describes the world the way I want it too be; a bit more dashing, a bit more clever.

This story is why monarchy still exists.

Jane Eyre
Charlotte Brontë
576 p.

Penguin Classics, 2006.
(First published 1847 by Smith Elder & Co.)

Back cover blurb:

Orphaned Jane Eyre grows up in the home of her heartless aunt, where she endures loneliness and cruelty, and at a charity school with a harsh regime. This troubled childhood strengthens Jane’s natural independence and spirit - which will prove necessary when she takes a position as governess at Thornfield Hall. But when she finds love with her sardonic employer, Rochester, the discovery of his terrible secret forces her to make a choice. Should she stay with him and live with the consequences, or follow her convictions, even if it meeans leaving the man she loves? A novel of intense power and intrigue, Jane Eyre (1847) dazzled and shocked readers with its passionate depiction of a woman’s search for equality and freedom.

In her introduction, Stevie Davies discusses the novel’s language and politics, its treatment of women’s lives and its literary influences. This edition also includes a chronology, further reading, and appendix and notes.

Okay, so I’ll admit it: I have never before read Jane Eyre.The Eyre Affair (which is very inspired by Jane Eyre) is one of my favourite novels, and until now, I hadn’t. Now I did, and… it’s a good book. Jane is maybe a little annoying at times, being so pure in thought and mind and deed, but Rochester was a sweetheart and he made me swoon more than a little at times. And it’s so well-written! It’s all charm and graces! The book made me feel so at ease, it was a joy to read. (okay, so, I read until they got engaged, then a person said the book was really boring after that, so I was a little hesitant and put off reading, but then I kept on, and it was good fun.)

There’s only one thing I can’t really get my head around. There’s all this buzz about Rochester being a racist keeping his black wife up in the attic, but when the wife’s brother comes to visit, there’s no mention of him being black. And I don’t understand it! But nevermind. I rarely understand these things.

Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders
Gyles Brandreth
338 p.

John Murray, 2007.

Back cover blurb:

London, 1889. Oscar Wilde, celebrated poet, wit, playwright and raconteur is the literary sensation of his age. All Europe lies at his feet. Yet when he chances across the naked corpse of sixteen-year-old Billy Wood, posed by candlelight in a dark, stifling attic room, he cannot ignore the brutal murder. With the help of fellow author Arthur Conan Doyle he sets out to solve the crime - but it is Wilde’s unparalleled access to all degrees of late-Victorian life, from society drawing rooms and the bohemian demi-monde of the underclass, that will prove the decisive factor in their investigation of what turns out to be a series of brutal killings.

Set against the exotic backgrounds of fin-de-siècle London, Paris, Oxford and Edinburgh, Gyles Brandreth recreates Oscar Wildes’ trademark sardonic wit with huge flair, intertwining all the intrigue of the classic English murder mystery with a compelling portrait of one of the greatest characters of the Victorian age.

Chosing to read this novel after reading Arthur & George was a Seriously Bad Move. Had I read the back cover blurb, I probably would have put it aside for a few more days. Why? Because while Barnes’ novel was beautiful and dazzling, Brandreth’s is unimpressive and more than a little frustrating, for several reason. Firstly, and most importantly, Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders let Oscar Wilde have a Sherlock Holmesian  way of deducing things. As if that was not enough, Brandreth let Arthur Conan Doyle be baffled and Mighty Impressed. Now, I don’t know much about the first Sherlock Holmes stories, but there must be something of a kind there, and even suggesting that it was Oscar Wilde, and not Arthur Conan Doyle, who use that kind of deduction, is just outrageous! Secondly, Brandreth went to great lengths to convince the reader that Oscar Wilde was certainly not homosexual. A constant praise of Constance, and other women, was present and, the fact that Wilde, in the novel, was a member of a gay club, wasn’t even explained! It made me so angry. Thirdly, the title lies. I am used to blurbs lying, but titles? Rarely ever. There is one murder in candlelight. The second and third murder are completely devoid of candles. Or interest.

Finally, it just wasn’t interesting. It failed at being a gripping who-dunnit. It failed even at being a gripping description of nineteenth-century Britain. Brandreth must have got so lost in writing witty lines for Wilde, which to be honest felt more over-the-top than witty, that he forgot to actually have a proper plot. Additionally, when he finally remembered that he was supposed to have a murderer, not just an orgy in naked boys, he first lets Wilde talk for pages about how another person is extremely guilty of a lot of extremely sordid things. Then, as an afterthought, he says that this person didn’t do it, but another person did. In the space of half a paragraph or so.

This was not very good.

Arthur & George
Julian Barnes
505 p.

Vintage Books, 2006.
(First published by Random House, 2005.)

Back cover blurb:

Arthur and George grow up worlds apart in late nineteenth-century Britain: Arthur in shabby-genteel Edinburgh, George in the vicarage of a small Staffordshire village. Arthur becomes a doctor, then a writer; George a solicitor in Birmingham. Arthur is to become one of the most famous men of his age, while George remains in hard-working obscurity. But as the new century begins, they are brought together by a sequence of events that made sensational headlines at the time as The Great Wyrley Outrages.

With a mixture of intense research and vivid imagination, Julian Barnes brings to life not just this long-forgotten case, but the inner workings of these two very different men. This is a novel in which the events of a hundred years ago constantly set off contemporary echoes, a novel about low crime and high spirituality, guilt and innocence, identity, nationality and race. Most of all it is a profound and moving meditation on the fateful differences between what we believe, what we know and what we can prove.

I’ve owned this book for a couple of years or so, without reading it. I intended to read it last summer, but I didn’t, because it seemed so time-consuming and a little boring. Now, however, I picked it up, because how long can you own a book without reading it? And after a few pages, I was caught. This book I must say is the most beautiful I’ve read this year. The story, based on real-life events, was, albeit terrifying at places, described so beautifully. I don’t know what is true, or what is false, but I don’t really care - I will assume it’s all true. If it isn’t true, it ought to be.

I have never before read anything by Julian Barnes, so I don’t know what his other stories are like. In this story, however, the characters were described in so much depth that at places I felt as though I was them. Which sounds ridiculous, but there you are. I can’t phrase this properly, but this novel was so impressive; it’s not strange it was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. It is, I think, it didn’t win it. Of course, I can’t say I know who won it, or if they didn’t deserve it. This book, however, would have deserved it.

Often I am critical to novels based on real life happenings, but because this case was so unheard of (I had never heard of it; it’s to do with ripping of horses and Arthur Conan Doyle), I feel it was all right. (had it been, say, Jack the Ripper, I’d been less impressed.) I really felt for George Edalji, the unfairly accused, and I also felt that everything concerning Arthur Conan Doyle was believable. I know very little of him, what I know is mainly based on Murder Rooms, which is perhaps not 100% true, either. If I mix together all the literary facts I know about Conan Doyle, I’ll maybe get some truth in there, somewhere. Except, when it comes to stories, truth isn’t really in an issue? Whether what is said in Arthur & George is true or not, it’s still hell of a work of art.