Tag: Reading Challenges

#BookReview China Room by Sunjeev Sahota

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China RoomAbout the Book

Mehar, a young bride in rural 1929 Punjab, is trying to discover the identity of her new husband. She and her sisters-in-law, married to three brothers in a single ceremony, spend their days hard at work in the family’s ‘china room’, sequestered from contact with the men. When Mehar develops a theory as to which of them is hers, a passion is ignited that will put more than one life at risk.

Spiralling around Mehar’s story is that of a young man who in 1999 travels from England to the now-deserted farm, its ‘china room’ locked and barred. In enforced flight from the traumas of his adolescence – his experiences of addiction, racism, and estrangement from the culture of his birth – he spends a summer in painful contemplation and recovery, finally gathering the strength to return home.

Format: Hardcover (245 pages)   Publisher: Vintage
Publication date: 6th May 2021  Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

China Room is one of the books on the longlist for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2022 which was announced on 7th February. China Room is the fourth book on the list I’ve read and it was one that took some time to grow on me.

The book moves between the story of Mehar in 1929 and that of an unnamed narrator looking back from the present day (2019) to the time he spent in the Punjab as a young man. Although we never learn his name we know he is Mehar’s great-grandson. A photograph at the end of the book suggests that many of the childhood experiences he relates may reflect the author’s own.

Initially, I thought the later storyline superfluous and not as interesting as Mehar’s story which has something of the quality of a folktale about it, at least to begin with. However, the later timeline gradually gained more of my interest once I began to see the subtle parallels the author creates between the two stories. Although focussing on the members of one family separated by both time and geography, common themes emerge such as racial and gender discrimination.

Mehar’s experience is one of not being seen. For much of the time she is confined to the ‘china room’ of the title, endures conjugal visits from her husband in total darkness and is expected to be veiled at all times when outside. This contrasts with the experience of her great-grandson who recalls that as a child growing up in Britain, ‘I was always being stared at, my presence noted and remarked upon for its rarity in this town’. On the other hand, like Mehar, who is forced to keep her eyes averted when outside the ‘china room’, he confesses ‘I can’t remember ever looking up as a child without immediately feeling as if I had no right and should look away’.  Mehar and her sisters-in-law catch only glimpses of the world outside through the narrow gaps in the window of the ‘china room’, their early attention being on trying to work out which of the three brothers is their husband. In a neat touch, at one point Suraj, one of the brothers, wonders, ‘Are the women the ones who can see everything, while the men stare at black windows?’

There is some glorious writing especially the descriptions of the landscape around the farm. ‘The wheat is cloaked in sleeves of red and apricot and a nightjar perches watchfully on the well, jerking its head this way and that.’

The end of the book arrives rather suddenly and, although it ties up some loose ends, it felt a little rushed. I would have liked to learn more about Mehar’s later life and the generations between her and her great-grandson.

China Room is a quiet, unassuming novel that explores its themes with elegance and precision. It’s not my favourite of the longlisted books I’ve read so far (that would be The Fortune Men) but I can understand why it has gained a place on the list.

In three words: Subtle, eloquent, thoughtful

Try something similar: Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

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Sunjeev SahotaAbout the Author

Sunjeev Sahota is the author of Ours Are the Streets and The Year of the Runaways, which was shortlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize, the International Dylan Thomas Prize and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, and won the Encore Prize, the European Union Prize for Literature, and the South Bank Sky Arts Award. He was chosen as one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists in 2013. He lives in Sheffield. (Photo: Goodreads author page)

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#BlogTour #BookReview The Woman with the Map by Jan Casey @AriaFiction @rararesources

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The Woman With The MapWelcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for The Woman with the Map by Jan Casey. It was published as an ebook on 17th March and will be available in paperback on 12th May. My thanks to Rachel at Rachel’s Random Resources for inviting me to take part in the tour and to Aria for my digital review copy via NetGalley. Do check out the posts by my tour buddies for today, the team at Chick Lit Central, The Page Ladies, Ceri at Ceri’s Little Blog and Helen at Helen Rebecca Reads.

The Woman with the MapAbout the Book

February 1941. The world is at war and Joyce Cooper is doing her bit for the effort. A proud member of the ARP, it is her job to assist the people of Notting Hill when the bombs begin to fall. But as the Blitz takes hold of London, Joyce is called upon to plot the devastation that follows in its wake. Each night she must stand before her map and mark the trail of turmoil inflicted upon the homes and businesses she knows so well.

February 1974. Decades later, from her basement flat Joyce Cooper watches the world go by above her head. This is her haven; the home she has created for herself having had so much taken from her in the war. But now the council is tearing down her block of flats and she’s being forced to leave. Could this chance to start over allow Joyce to let go of the past and step back into her life?

Format: ebook (431 pages)              Publisher: Aria
Publication date: 17th March 2022 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

Oh my goodness, did this book put me through the emotional wringer. I’ll freely admit to shedding tears at some points.  Alternating between 1974 and the period of the Second World War, we gradually come to see why the devastating losses Joyce experienced during the war have made her the way she is, reluctant to get close to anyone for fear they may disappear from her life and preferring to live a solitary, self-contained existence following her established routines. Her little basement flat has become her sanctuary, the place that gives her a sense of stability.  Gradually we come to understand just why it is such a wrench for her to leave it.

The details of Joyce’s wartime work, plotting the location of bombs dropped on London during the Blitz, was fascinating. I was struck by the contrast between the chaos in the streets above and the methodical operation of the Report and Control Centre with its forms, log books and detailed procedures that define  the colour of pins to be used to denote the various levels of destruction and casualties, or the precise diameter of the circle to be drawn to identify V1 rockets.

It was impossible to read the descriptions of the horrific damage and loss of life inflicted on London (and other cities) by German bombing raids without thinking of the atrocities being committed in Ukraine at the moment.  As the war continues, Joyce’s experiences reflect those of many Londoners during the Blitz – never knowing whether this moment might be your last, homes damaged beyond repair, people desperately scrabbling in the rubble of bombed-out buildings, finding yourself left with just the clothes you stand up in and reliant upon the kindness of strangers, loved ones injured or literally blown to oblivion.  And it never stops, for year after year. ‘Everyone was hungry; everyone was cold. They all had spots or skin the colour of the pall of smoke that hung over the city and stomach upsets and earaches and missing fingers and swollen joints…’ Although there are snatched moments of happiness they prove transitory. And, just when you think it can’t get any worse for Joyce, it does. (The chapter headings become positively chilling.)

I fell in love with Joyce and if she were my neighbour I’d want to give her a big hug and join her in a cup of tea and a vanilla slice.  Taking the first tentative steps to remove the protective barrier she has built around her takes courage and Joyce proves once again, as she did during the war, that she has it in spades.

The Woman with the Map is one of the most moving books I’ve read for a long time. The parallels with events in Ukraine make it especially poignant and chillingly prophetic. Attending the celebrations at the end of the war, Joyce listens to Winston Churchill proclaiming that in years to come whenever people had their freedom threatened they would look back at the ‘stubborn determination and stoic endurance’ of the British people and say, like them, that they would rather die than be conquered’. Slava Ukraini!

In three words: Moving, authentic, powerful

Try something similar: Where Stands a Winged Sentry by Margaret Kennedy

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Jan CaseyAbout the Author

Jan Casey’s novels explore the themes of how ordinary people are affected by extraordinary events during any period in history, including the present. Jan is fascinated with the courage, adaptability and resilience that people rise to in times of adversity and for which they do not expect pay, praise or commendation. Jan is also interested in writing about the similarities, as opposed to the differences, amongst people and the ways in which experiences and emotions bind humans together.

Jan was born in London but spent her childhood in Southern California. She was a teacher of English and Drama for many years and is now a Learning Supervisor at a college of further education. When she is not working or writing, Jan enjoys yoga, swimming, cooking, walking, reading and spending time with her grandchildren. Before becoming a published author, Jan had short stories and flash fictions published.

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