The Paris Wife by Paula Mclain

I read this earlier this month in... Paris! In fact, all my reading in Paris was either written by Parisians or set in Paris. I had been looking at this novel as a good way of experiencing 1920's Paris, with the Cafe des Flores and Les Deux Magots. A sort of vicarious time travelling. Besides which I had seen some positive reviews of the book and I spent a term once at college studying Ernest Hemingway.
It is told in the first person by his wife, Hadley H, and is the story of their time together from first meeting in Chicago to eventual betrayal and break up in Paris. Hadley makes an empathetic narrator and brings a straight thinking attitude to life with an artist that makes her seem like a saint for putting up with him sometimes! It definitely held my attention, and I thought it a faithful account of their time together.... and no wonder. The next book I read was A Moveable Feast, Hemingway's posthumous account of the same time. Paula Mclain has definitely used it as source material as several of the stories are here in almost identical detail. At first this bugged me, but Paula's book is written as a novel rather than a set of vignettes as Hemingway's is, so actually it was good to read them both as a compare and contrast.



Although I studied a small selection of his work, H never quite did it for me... too Masculine Bull Fights and Hunting so I have to shamefully admit I have never gone back to him. I found Moveable Feasts completely different from my remembered impression. I enjoyed the name dropping (Joyce, Stern et al) and the way he got things across without actually wasting time or words on explanations. The older I get the more I appreciate succinct expression, so I may try to read (or re-read) some of his work again.

Precious Bane by Mary Webb

I always think this is a very  under rated novel. I think Mary Webb may well be a very under rated writer, too. Certainly this book would make it into my top ten list, quite probably my top five. I read it at 19 or 20 and it had a real impact on me. That was my PB year.... this and Princess Bride helped me get through college with grace and a smile.
 Set at the time of the Napoleonic Wars but written in the early part of the 20th century the book is about Prue Sarn and her brother Gideon who live in a desolately lonely house on a mere in Shropshire. Prue has a hare-lip and because of that is shunned by the superstitious folk around her who believe she is cursed. Her brother runs the farm hard, wanting to make money and get out. He is in thrall to the lure of wealth and power and the destructive influence this has on his life gives the book its drama and pain.
But above all Precious Bane is a love story, a tale of how one man can see beyond the physical deformity to the beauty within. The weaver, Kester, is a different kind of man; a true gentleman who stands up to bullies and protects the weak. I loved him when I read the book and still do. Noble characters appeal to me.
I also love how Mary Webb uses the local Shropshire dialect and customs such as soul cakes and love-spinnings to give a picture of what agrarian life 200 years ago could have been like. The development of factory weaving and the demise of the travelling weaver was one of the areas I studied in O level, so it was good to find it presented in such a human way.
I know the BBC made a very good adaptation with Janet McTeer, Clive Owen and John Bowes which I loved as well. Worth looking out for, it caught the anger and the restrained passion of the heroine well. I know it's not available on DVD or video at the moment, but it was on TV on a channel like History or Watch last year or the year before.
If you've never read any Mary Webb, do read this. It holds its own against many other classics of its time.

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

I heard a radio series about 15 years ago on great romantic heroes of literature. If I remember rightly they were Mr Rochester, Mr Darcy, Heathcliff and Maximillian De Winter. I'm pleased to say I've read them all.

Rebecca is one of my favourite books, if only because I also love the film. But I like more than that. I like the story of a gauche girl making good and marrying a rich, stately home owning man. I like the suspense element, the did-he-or-didn't -he idea, the fact that his action renders her stronger.
And also probably the fact that their relationship ages. The wild romance of youth is gone by the time the book opens and she is a middle aged woman dressed in black with pearls married to an old man. Romance is lovely, but common sense says it doesn't last. There must be more to a relationship that lust and sex and passion, even if that is just keeping secrets.
We read this at a book club about 5 years ago (2005)