My Favourite 12 of 2012

Looking back over my list of Books Read in 2012 I am surprised by how much difficulty I seem to have had in recording my thoughts for the books I enjoyed the most.  Of the twelve books on my favourite of 2012 list, I was only able to put thoughts to paper (or screen, as the case may be) for five of those.  My books choices this year were completely delight-driven and in no way reflected any sort of reading scheme.  As a result I discovered a great many new to me authors who have impressed and thrilled me.  Other than Elizabeth Gaskell and Margaret Laurence the authors on this list are all new to me, and I will be searching out their other titles for future enjoyment.

Here then, are my Favourite Books of 2012, in the order in which they were read:

1. The Diviners by Margaret Laurence

Having only ever read one of Margaret Laurence's Manawanka series (The Stone Angel), I decided I needed to get with the game. I loved the character of Morag Gunn - her resilience and tenacity.  I loved the breadth and scope of the work as Morag changes and matures.  I am now a devoted Margaret Laurence fangirl.

2. A Jest of God by Margaret Laurence

 The character of Rachel and her internal dialogue are the two aspects of this story that really resonated with me.  Every summer on our drive to the cottage I stop at Margaret Laurence's home - now a museum - in Neepawa, Manitoba (the town upon which Manawanka is based).  It has never been open, but I always stop and admire the building.  When I read A Jest of God, I felt that the setting was very real to me, as that was Rachel's home in the novel.

Read it.  It is brilliant.

3. The Fire-Dwellers by Margaret Laurence

After getting to know Rachel and Mrs. Cameron, I was fascinated to get to know Stacey, Rachel's sister who lives with her husband and children on Canada's west coast.  Stacey is mentionned in Margaret Laurence's other Manawanka books, but her life is not exactly as it appears in her letters home.  Breaking free from her stifling role as a housewife in 1960s Vancouver is just one of the manifestations of the themes of liberation in this fabulous novel.

4. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Blockbuster bestseller titles are normally very far down my list of books I feel compelled to read, but I was hearing such contradictory reports of this one, and the favourable reviews from trusted reading friends tipped the balance.  Although the trilogy really is three parts of one story and should be read together to see the author's message fully realised, the first book was definitely stronger and more enjoyable reading than the two sequels.

 5. Atonement by Ian McEwan

A new favourite author?  I believe so.  Atypically, I had already seen the movie based on Atonement when I read the book.  I try to avoid this situation as often as possible.  I also try to avoid Keira Knightly as often as possible, so I'm not sure what I was thinking.  I did love the movie, and I loved the book even more. I am still at a loss to explain why or how I loved it, but it may have been my favourite new book and author of the year.

6. Wheels Within Wheels by Dervla Murphy

This is the first of Dervla Murphy's books I have ever read, and it was a wonderful introduction to a fascinating woman.  I loved reading about her interest in self-education after she could no longer attend school, and the stark honesty with which she relates both the flattering and not-so-flattering aspects of her life.

7. Good Behaviour by Molly Keane

My introduction to Molly Keane.  Written in the first person, Aroon St. Charles tells her life story as a member of the Irish Ascendancy within a family as disfunctional as any to be found in literature.  Under the veneer of good behaviour all manner of nastiness and neglect occur - the very best sort of dark comedy.  Although I never grew to love Aroon (I'm not sure we are meant to), I did understand her much better by the end of the story.


 

8. The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West

A short novel with a small cast of characters in a limited time and space, this novel introduced me to a new favourite that I will be revisiting again and again.  Written while the First World War was ongoing, and published in 1918, The Return of the Soldier is a captivating study on the nature of class, memory, adult responsibility, love and loss.  There is so much packed in to this tiny book.  I literally turned back to the first page when I finished it and read it all over again straight away - twice!

9. Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín

I spent some time in Enniscorthy, co. Wexford, in Ireland many years ago, where I have relatives who took me in and fed me after I had been backpacking around Ireland for a couple of months.  It is a place dear to my heart.  But while the setting drew me to the story, it was Tóibín's calm and gentle story of a young Irish girl's acceptance of the path her life was taking that made me love it for itself.  The descriptions of homesickness are the most realistic and poignant I have ever read.

10. The Bottle Factory Outing by Beryl Bainbridge

This brilliant little book was such a pleasure to read.  I went into it with no expectations and no notion what it would be about.  The characterisation was so strong that Freda and Brenda are still clearly delineated in my mind.  Bainbridge's power over her craft is something awesome to behold. I am adding Beryl Bainbridge to my list of Must Read Authors.

11. City of the Mind by Penelope Lively  Matthew Halland, a successful architect, lives in London and is going through the final stages of a divorce.  He is a man who lives in his mind most of the time, so although not much happens in the way of a plot, this novel is rich and rewarding to read.  I especially enjoyed the way Penelope Lively plays with the themes of time, and the investing and divesting of objects with meaning that happens constantly in the lives of the characters.  City of the Mind was not the easiest read of the year, but it was a lot of fun to read.

12. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
(Part One) (Part Two) (Part Three) (Part Four)

As often as I have read North and South, I feel I could never reach the end of learning from this book.  I know that many readers find Margaret Hale a difficult heroine to like.  I do not.  I admire the grace with which Margaret makes a very difficult transition from girlhood to womanhood; I envy her ability to soldier on when all the adults in her life flake out on her; I identify with her family circumstances; I love how she learns how to open her mind and her heart to ideas and people who were previously abhorent to her.  Like all the best characters, Margaret teaches me how to be a better person.

Devoted Ladies by Molly Keane

After reading Good Behaviour by Molly Keane earlier this month, I was thrilled to see that my library has most of Molly Keane's books in its collection.  I lost no time in putting them all on hold.   I was happy to jump directly into Devoted Ladies when it arrived last week.  There is nothing so satisfying as finding a new author to love!
Devoted Ladies is the story of a small cast of very badly behaved characters.  The story begins at a party in the flat of Sylvester, a jaded thirty year old writer and playwright who refuses to be involved in anyone else's business except if he can make it worse.  To Jessica, Sylvester has "a nameless quality which was Sylvester's power over others."  This domination and subservience between each character is the main thematic thrust of the novel.

 To the party come Jessica and Jane, a couple for only six months, who appear not to have anything in common beyone their relationship.  Jane is an alcoholic American and "genuine in nothing.  [Sylvester] believed even her complete stupidity was partly a pose of mind." (7)  Jane's tagline is "Oh, darling - fix me a brandy and soda, I feel horrible," or a variation thereof, which is all we hear from Jane for the first many pages.  Jessica, on the other hand, is the one in control.  She is keen, alert, and lives in her head.  From the beginning she is likened to an animal in her ruthless destruction of those she has loved.

In her friendships with men as well as with women Jessica spent herself so lavishly and so emotinally that soon there was no more she.  She had spent what she was in a sort of dreadful effort towards entire mental contact with the person she loved.  And having reserved no smallest ledge of herself for herself, no foothold for the last secret feet of her mind, she would retreat in anger and despair from her friendships.  Then cruelly, disdainfully and despitefully she would speak against such a one as she had loved.

Her dreary enthusiasms were tolerated by her friends for the sake of those moments when, her lips curled back from her teeth like a dog, saliva in their corners and hysteria in her eyes she would tell and tell and tell of that past moment in her life; with pitiless mimicry and sure malice breaking the one who had shared it with her on the wheel of her words, on the wheel of her own despair. (9)

Sylvester can see that the violence in their relationship is heading down a dangerous road, but he feigns disinterest and positions himself in his chosen role as passive observer.  Even when his old friend, the aptly named George Playfair expresses an interest in Jane, Sylvester does not hint to him that she is involved with Jessica, but rather encourages him to pursue Jane.  He is not as passive an observer as he pretends to be; Sylvester is, in fact, a catalyst for all the action that happens in the story. 

How [Sylvester] adored to see an old woman really well made up and really well dressed. It was as exciting to him as the flight of a bird. White hair, a silver dress and pearls - the loveliest piece of decoration. She was queen of all the jewelled fishes in his green aquarium. So he saw his party now a little distorted as though seen through water - or, clearer still, gin - they were poised as though hung on threads - like those fish sold outside Lords (and other places too, of course). Yes, they thought themselves free of his aquarium and of their own lives, never perceiving the threads of their movements were gathered up and hitched to some reel of fate or accident that held them prisoners in its devices or, more terrible, in its lack of device, proportion or purpose.

We then move with Sylvester to Ireland where he stays with his cousins Hester and Piggy while working on his latest writing project.  Jane and Jessica, and their "nasty" (read: gay) manservant Albert, crash land with great violence on this quiet home after taking up George Playfair on his suggestion that they visit him in Ireland.  All the characters are all together and the story begins in earnest.  The cracks in all the relationships shatter as the subservient attempt to break free.  Keane cleverly pits characters against each other, and creates perfect foils - especially Jessica and Piggy as those who gave their all to their relationships.  But how they react is in perfect keeping with their position as a dominant or a subservient in their relationship.

Mary Nesta ('Molly') Keane (Mrs Robert Keane)

by John Swannell
Iris print, 1983
15 1/2 in. x 19 3/8 in. (395 mm x 492 mm)
Given by John Swannell, 1998
NPG x87599

Molly Keane is such an enjoyable writer to read.  Her prose is tight and direct without being abrupt, and her sarcasm and wit is in evidence on every page.  She is not above poking fun at herself, as here, after Sylvester finds himself thinking nostalgiac and poetic thoughts about the landscape of his childhood:

Such thoughts were rude and fit only for some hysterical Irish novelist writing her seventy thousand words through which the cry of hounds reverberates continuously: where masters of hounds are handsome and eligible men and desirable young girls over-ride hounds continually, seeing brilliant hunts on incredible three-year-olds: and all - after even the hardest day - are capable of strong emotion at night.

 And later, when Jane receives a gift of books, including one of Molly Keane's own titles, Young Entry.  She uses an acerbic tone of derision and dismissal in mocking the books that is really very funny.  I love an author who can turn that black humour around on herself.

Good Behaviour by Molly Keane

2 a.m. insomnia and none in the stack of half-perused books on the floor by my bed would suffice. Off I trundled to scour the shelves for something that would make being awake at such an hour a joy rather than an ordeal.

Tucked between the half-forgotten thrift shop finds from last spring was Good Behaviour by Molly Keane.  Oh, good!  Something to make me glad to be awake!  Secrets, lies, betrayals, isolation, disinterest, jealousy, infidelity, ridicule, impatience, money worries, humiliation, death, seclusion, injury, name-calling, pity... I was riveted from the first page.  Told in the first person, a challenging point of view to pull off, Molly Keane creates a complex character who, although unlikeable, is eventually understandable.

Molly Keane

We begin at the end, as the narrator, Aroon St. Charles is in charge of her dying mother (to say "caring for" would be inaccurate!).  An eminently unlikeable character, cruel and domineering, and untrust-worthy, we wonder... "How did she become such a nasty piece of work?"  She admits that she too is confused about how it is that things have gone so badly.

All my life so far I have done everything for the best reasons and the most unselfish motives.  I have lived for the people dearest to me, and I am at a loss to know why their lives have been at times so perplexingly unhappy.  I have given them so much, I have given them everything, all I know how to give - Papa, Hubert, Richard, Mummie.  At fifty-seven my brain is fairly bright, brighter than ever I sometimes think, and I have a cast-iron memory.  If I look back beyond any shadow into the uncertainties and glories of our youth, perhaps I shall understand more about what became of us.

The rest of the novel is Aroon recounting her life story.

The world in which Aroon grew into an unloved and unattractive girl was devoid of any mentor for a healthy emotional life.  Her beautiful mother is pathologically incapable of emotion, pouring her energies into her "preposterous and curiously hideous" paintings, that Aroon describes as "angular, airified shapes in a graveyard atmosphere, unimaginably ugly," and, into gardening.  She appears to take no pleasure in anything other than her own company, and even food is of no interest to her.  Aroon's father is an irresponsible philanderer who spends all his time at hunting and fishing.  Her brother and his friend use her for their amusement.  The rug is constantly being pulled out from under her just as she thinks she has gotten a toe-hold on some one's affections.  Either that, or she is receiving unwanted attentions from those whom she distains (the family solicitor, and the comical Uncle Ulick) which make her feel even worse.

Into her sad childhood comes Mrs. Brock, a jolly governess full of amusing stories and sympathy for the children.  Her attempts to soften the hard edges of life in the St. Charles home, and the home of her future friend Richard, are all rebuffed, either in life, or in posthumous ridicule and rejection.  Love and caring cannot thrive in such an environment.

Aroon becomes a sympathetic character over the course of the book as we see her innocence and naivete being abused and misunderstood. As Aroon suffers blow after blow, and loss of self-esteem she cannot face reality.  Incapable of seeing the truth that has always been hidden behind good behaviour she overlooks what is clear to the reader regarding the truth of all the relationships around her.  Her mother and father are incapacitated by reality and brush it aside, just as they ignore the mounting bills, and turn away from grief.  Aroon deludes herself about how others feel about her so desirous of being loved is she.  Aroon has been lied to and manipulated so much that she is powerless within the family, ranking even lower than the household servants.  This is what she has learned, and this is what she becomes.

This novel is a psychological excavation of Aroon St. Charles's life, a reminder that we are all who we are because of the forces that have worked on us through our lives, and how we manage those challenges.  In the guise of good behaviour many crimes are committed against Aroon who is stunted through neglect, ridicule and open distain.  I thoroughly enjoyed this novel.