Hugh Garner. Men and Women (1973)

   Hugh Garner. Men and Women (1973) The short stories collected in this book display Garner’s craftsmanship. He is good at plotting, moderately good at characterisation, and uses a plain style that tells the story in a straightforward manner. He clearly wrote for a market (the original publications of the stories are not listed, unfortunately), and that market was the (waning) general and occasionally special-interest magazine that included fiction as one of its staples. Many of these tales have a twist or punch line, but one always sees it coming, so it’s usually unnecessary. Like Callaghan, Garner writes thematic tales, and his themes are the same as Callaghan’s, with perhaps a somewhat more cynical cast to them. Women and men betray each other for all sorts of reasons, but chiefly because of weakness. The psychopath is rare in these tales, and when present is labelled as such. Like Callaghan, Garner often lets his characters condemn themselves out of their own mouths, expressing commonplace views and attitudes in situations that reveal their banality, pretentiousness, or prejudice. The stories are not great literature, they have no pretensions to being great art, but what they set out to do, they do well. They entertain the reader, and perhaps prompt him to think about what’s wrong with the world. ** (2005)

Kenneth Grahame. The Wind in the Willows (1905)

     Kenneth Grahame. The Wind in the Willows (1905) Rereading this book, I see what charmed me as a child: the camaraderie of Rat and Mole, the sturdiness of Badger (the perfect older brother or uncle), the silliness of Toad, the messing about with boats, the absence of domestic chores (apart from occasional busying oneself with unspecified work), and above all the sense that the narrative voice is telling you the story. I read the book when I was laid up with the mumps at nine or ten years old. I thought it was wonderful, and couldn't make up my mind which of the animal I'd most like to be.
     I also see clearly what I missed as a child: the latent sexuality, curiously gentle in the scene with Pan; the unquestioned class structure, seen from an upper middle-class perspective and unaware of the resentments and tensions below the surface of pleasant service and respectful encounters; and the conflicted attitudes to Toad, which I think express Grahame’s conflicted attitudes to his son Alastair. The structural problems are also obvious: Grahame was not a novelist, but a writer of short stories and anecdotal essays, and this book is structurally a connected set of such works, loosely linked through the adventures of Toad.
     The final chapter, in which Toad is tamed, does not ring true, perhaps because Grahame was expressing a wish for a change in character in Alastair rather than describing him; for that Toad is Alastair is I think quite certain. Whether Alastair saw this and identified with Toad’s self-congratulation and vanity (without of course recognising their silliness) is something I would like to know. I suspect he did: his suicide was I think his way out of Toad’s world. In real life, it’s impossible to change one’s character, the best one can do is to change the way one plays the role. *** (2005)

Peter Wegenstein. Die Bahn im Bild 96: Die Salzkammergut-Strecke (1996)

     Peter Wegenstein. Die Bahn im Bild 96: Die Salzkammergut-Strecke (1996) Dieter sent me this book, and a lovely little book it is. A well done history and description of the line prefaces a collection of 100 or so black and white pictures, most of them full page. They follow the line from south to north, and show not only the variety of scene and landscape of this mountain railway, but also a good selection of locomotives and rolling stock from all eras. I rode this line often as a boy, travelling to and from Graz, where I went to school in a Bundeserziehungsanstalt, which despite its name was no jail but a boarding school. I enjoyed my time there, probably because the masters left us pretty well to our own devices outside of class and mandatory homework. This book will help a lot with my modelling efforts. It also caused a hefty case of nostalgia. *** (2005)

Alison Prince. Kenneth Grahame: An Innocent in the Wild Wood (1994)

     Alison Prince. Kenneth Grahame: An Innocent in the Wild Wood (1994) Prince treats Grahame as a child that never grew up, but learned to act like an adult when needed. He had a wretched childhood, lightened by his joy in nature, which stayed with him all his life long, and moved him towards a Pagan pantheism (most clearly expressed in the “Pipes of Pan” chapter of Wind in the Willows). He made a reputation for himself with magazine pieces, stories and essays about children in nature that were essentially autobiographical, and which attracted those who felt unease at the industrialisation of England. He became secretary of the Bank of England, and discharged his duties conscientiously, though perhaps without real engagement, which eventually led to his early retirement from that post.
     When he was forty, Grahame made a disastrous marriage to Elspeth Thomson, a woman with romanticised notions of her own importance and creativity, who did not share Kenneth’s attitude to nature (though she was good at faking it). They had one child, Alastair, born with defective sight, and cosseted and indulged to the point where he was incapable of living in the real world, and committed suicide at Oxford. The parents had little direct contact with the boy, but in his early years, Kenneth made up stories for him, and later wrote him letters continuing the saga of Toad, Mole, Rat and the others. These eventually became Wind in the Willows. Kenneth died at the age of 73, and Elspeth set about sanctifying his memory, as she had that of their son.
     Kenneth Graham was one of those writers whose public persona, private life, and writer’s voice were all different. As a public person, he was courteous, but avoided contact with strangers as much as possible. To his closest friends he was dear and charming. To his wife he was an enigma, as she was to him. These two people were incapable of being truly themselves in each other’s company. Their marriage was founded on a fantasy of a shared interest in “fairyland”, and their married life was in some ways an attempt to avoid admitting they had made a serious mistake. Towards the end of their lives, after Alastair’s death, they travelled much, and perhaps achieved an accommodation with each other, if not a sharing of interests and enthusiasms. Prince regrets their unhappiness, and the profound loneliness of these two people, but also believes that the dysfunction of the family was necessary to the writing of Wind in the Willows.
     An interesting book. Prince rarely speculates, with gives it a certain dryness. ** (2005)

Jan Karon. These High, Green Hills (1996)

     Jan Karon. These High, Green Hills (1996) Tim and Cynthia settle into married life. The plot meanders, as a good soap should. Tim and Cynthia are trapped in a cave, which leads Tim to a personal epiphany. Sadie Baxter dies soon after a birthday celebration in her honour. Dooley comes home apparently estranged from Tim and Cynthia, but that’s OK later. Pauline Barlowe, Dooley’s mother, is burned by her partner, and barely survives, but she and Dooley connect again. Lacey Turner enters Tim and Cynthia’s lives. J. C Hogan courts and wins the police woman. And so on.
     Karon avoids the dark side. Her evil-doers are all disreputable people who can’t cope with life; they drink and worse merely because they lack self-control. In other words, they aren’t good, middle-class citizens. If only they would pull up their socks and take responsibility for their lives, they wouldn’t do such awful things. In the previous book, there was a truly evil person, Edith Mallory, who wanted Tim for herself, and almost got him, because he’s too nice to stand up to her until it’s almost too late. And then he does it on behalf of someone else, not himself.
     But in this book, all the respectable people are good people. They may be annoying and irritating, but they aren’t bad. Since these books are heavy on religion and its beneficial effects on people, this avoidance of true evil is a failing. It may be that Karon is accommodating the tastes of her readers, for religion is more evangelical and less Episcopalian in this book than in the first one. I think the books would be stronger if they were darker. As it is, the religion is more set-piecy than ever, and the prayers even more of the grant-me-a-special-favour kind than before. The only exception to this is the incident in the cave, in which Tim undergoes a spiritual crisis that resolves his conflicted feelings about his father, and relieves him of his burden of the fear of not getting it right. Here, his prayer is a true communing with God, an opening of the self to possibility, and not a form of magic. ** (2005)

Two short reviews

     Truman Capote. A Christmas Story (1956; originally published in Mademoiselle) A reminiscence about the young Capote’s friendship with his elderly cousin, and their annual ritual of gathering the makings of Christmas fruit cakes and baking them. The old lady was a little simple, but to the 9-year-old boy that meant only that they understood each other as true companions. *** (2005)

    Wm D. Middleton. The Pennsylvania Railroad Under Wires (2002) Middleton gives a brief history of the Pennsy’s electrification to accompany a diverse collection of excellent photographs mostly drawn from the David P. Morgan memorial Library of Kalmbach Books. One in a series on “Classic Trains”, and very nicely done. Not a typo anywhere, clear and informative prose, and beautiful reproduction of the photos. Any fan of the Pennsy or electrification will enjoy this book. I did, and I learned few things about the Pennsy’s locos too. *** (2005)

Don Mitchell. Walkaround Model Railroad Track Plans (1991)

     Don Mitchell. Walkaround Model Railroad Track Plans (1991) Mitchell’s talent for track planning is not quite up to John Armstrong’s, but he is very good. Like Armstrong, he designs layouts, not track arrangements, and focuses on the expected style of operation. The graphic style of these plans varies annoyingly. It’s not clear whether that’s because of Mitchell’s experimentation with different styles, or because of Model Railroader’s unwillingness to redraw them to a common standard. Most irritating is the use of call-outs for everything from curve radius to elevation. Mitchell’s comments on the ergonomics of layout design are worth attention. ** (2005)