Tag: Reading Challenges

Book Review: Three Things About Elsie by Joanna Cannon

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Three Things About ElsieAbout the Book

There are three things you should know about Elsie.  The first thing is that she’s my best friend.  The second is that she always knows what to say to make me feel better.  And the third thing… might take a little bit more explaining.

84-year-old Florence has fallen in her flat at Cherry Tree Home for the Elderly. As she waits to be rescued, Florence wonders if a terrible secret from her past is about to come to light; and, if the charming new resident is who he claims to be, why does he look exactly a man who died sixty years ago?

Format: Hardcover (464 pp.)           Publisher: The Borough Press
Published: 11th January 2018 (UK) Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk ǀ  Amazon.com
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find Three Things About Elsie on Goodreads

My Review

Elsie is Florence’s best friend, has been since childhood and is the person who helps Florence to remember things.  Unfortunately, Florence needs quite a lot of help these days to remember things, not just from the past but in the present.  Although there are some things you don’t share, not even with your best friend.  Some secrets are best left tucked away where no-one can find them.   However, memory can play tricks on you so the things you most want to remember remain elusive whilst things you’d rather forget come floating to the surface unbidden.

The reader quickly learns two of the three things about Elsie, but the third thing?  Well, there are a few small clues for the careful reader.

Amongst many other themes, Three Things About Elsie explores how small actions (or inactions) may have long term consequences, how one should never underestimate the impact of small acts of kindness and that most people have hidden qualities they may not even realise they possess.

I have to say the mystery around the new resident and its resolution didn’t completely work for me as there were things I found too improbable.  However, I loved the way there were more pieces of the jigsaw (to reference the cover) than one first imagined and how the author cleverly brought these together, with small, beautifully formed and unanticipated links between events and characters.  Talking of the cover, was there ever a better use of a Battenburg cake in a story line?    Plus you may never think quite the same way again about a packet of cheese and onion crisps.

There are some wonderful nuggets of writing – too many to quote them all, but here are a few of my favourites:

‘It makes you wonder if you did have a purpose, but it floated past you one day, and you just didn’t think to flag it down.’

‘We explored pockets of the past. Favourite stories were retold, to make sure they hadn’t been forgotten.  Scenes were sandpapered down to make them easier to hold.’  

‘It’s the greatest advantage of reminiscing.  The past can be exactly how you wanted it to be the first time around.’

Although one can’t help falling in love with Florence, I grew really fond of some of the supporting characters, in particular Miss Ambrose, Simon and Jack.  So I have to take issue with Miss Ambrose when she remarks, “Most of us are just secondary characters.  We take up all the space between the few people who manage to make a mark.”

I really enjoyed the book.  Yes, there is sadness in the story (you will probably shed a little tear at the end) but there are also wonderful moments of humour, both observational and in the dialogue.  For example, when the hotel owner is asked to provide a room for interviews during a trip to Whitby:

“Maybe the television room?” said Miss Ambrose.

“That’s out of the question.  It’s Tuesday,“ said Gail, rather mysteriously, but she didn’t elaborate.  “I suppose I could you let you have the staff rest room.  Although you’ll need to be out by eight, because I’ve got a new shift coming in and I’ll need to change my slacks.”    [It’s the word ‘slacks’ that really tickled me.]

Or, decorating a room for a dance:

‘Miss Ambrose’s bunting stretched all the way around the room, except for a small gap in the corner due to an oversize painting of the Princess of Wales.  Simon and Miss Ambrose both stood with their hands on their hips, admiring their efforts.

“Shame about Diana.” Miss Ambrose looked over at the corner.

“I could get the Sellotape,” said Simon.

Miss Ambrose stared at him. “I meant passing away so young.”

I received an advance reader copy courtesy of NetGalley and publishers The Borough Press in return for an honest review.

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In three words: Emotional, tender, touching

Try something similar…The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell

Joanna CannonAbout the Author

Joanna Cannon’s first novel, The Trouble with Goats and Sheep, was a Sunday Times bestseller and a Richard and Judy pick.  She worked as a hospital doctor before specialising in psychiatry, and lives in the Peak District with her family and dog.

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Buchan of the Month: Introducing… The Power-House

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Buchan of the Month

The Power-House is the first book in my Buchan of the Month reading project. To find out more about the project and my reading list for 2018, click here. If you would like to read along with me you will be very welcome – leave a comment on this post or on my original challenge post to let me know you’re taking part.

What follows is an introduction to the book (no spoilers!). It is also an excuse to show pictures of my prized first edition of The Power-House (without dust jacket, unfortunately) found in a bookshop on the island of Iona, of all places. As Buchan might have put it, I had ‘tramped’ through the cold, wet rain that day in search of the shop and was rewarded with this treasure.

I will be posting my review of the book later in the month.

“You think that a wall as solid as the earth separates civilisation from barbarism. I tell you the division is a thread, a sheet of glass.”

The Power-House first appeared in Blackwood’s Magazine of December 1913. However, it wasn’t until May 1916, following the success of The Thirty-Nine Steps (published in 1915), that William Blackwood & Sons published The Power-House in novel form. Clearly they were hoping to cash in on the success of The Thirty-Nine Steps and this seems to have been an astute decision because, according to Buchan’s first biographer, Janet Adam Smith, The Power-House (priced at one shilling) had sold 24,000 copies by the end of 1916.

The Power-House DedicationIn the dedication to The Power-House, John Buchan writes, “I have printed this story, written in the smooth days before the war, in the hope that it may enable an honest man here and there to forget for an hour the too urgent realities”. He also wryly observes that the dedicatee, Major-General Sir Francis Lloyd, shares his own “liking for precipitous yarns”.

In describing The Power-House as a ‘yarn’, commonly defined as a long or rambling story, especially one that is implausible (although The Power-House is neither long nor rambling), it seems Buchan intended this first foray into the thriller genre to be a form of escapism from the troubled times the world was living through. In fact, he always used the self-deprecating term ‘shocker’ rather than thriller to describe his adventure stories.

The hero of The Power-House is Edward Leithen, whom Christopher Harvie describes as ‘the first and last of Buchan’s heroes’ and ‘the one closest in character to his author’. In fact, Leithen had earlier appeared briefly in ‘Space’ a short story by Buchan in his collection The Watcher by the Threshold, published in 1902. In The Power-House, Leithen recounts his story to a group of friends during a duck shooting trip, explaining “I once played the chief part in a rather exciting business without ever once budging from London”.

Although an early novel, The Power-House touches on a theme that will recur in later Buchan books, namely the fragility of civilisation. The period during which Buchan was writing The Power-House was a troubled time in his life. In 1910 he had unsuccessfully stood for Parliament and the following year his father died. This was followed by further family tragedy when his younger brother, Willie, died suddenly from an infection contracted while in India. Added to this, Buchan began to suffer from the digestive problems that would plague him for the rest of his life. It was a troubling time in world events as well. As Christopher Harvie notes, “The Power-House announces the terrific anarchy to be loosed upon the world”.

Janet Adam Smith describes Buchan’s recipe for The Power-House (and The Thirty-Nine Steps) as ‘brisk, improbable action played out against a realistic background’. In his autobiography, Memory-Hold-The-Door, Buchan describes himself as ‘a natural storyteller, the kind of man who for the sake of his yarns would in prehistoric days have been given a seat by the fire and a special chunk of mammoth’.

So find yourself a comfy reading spot and turn to the first page of The Power-House…

Sources:
John Buchan, Memory-Hold-The-Door (Hodder & Stoughton, 1964 [1940])
David Daniell, The Interpreter’s House: A Critical Assessment of the Work of John Buchan (Nelson, 1975)
Christopher Harvie, ‘Introduction’ to The Leithen Stories by John Buchan (Canongate Classics, 2000)
Kate Macdonald, John Buchan: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction (McFarland, 2009)
Janet Adam Smith, John Buchan: A Biography (OUP, 1985 [1965])