2013 November - Merivel by Tremain & Skios by Frayn

Merivel -- Rose Tremain                      Marks 7 Nov 2013

1. This is the sequel to Restoration which the group read earlier this year. It is 16 years since the events of the earlier book and Merivel has found his old journal to remind himself and us of what had happened.  Now he has his Manor back and a beautiful 17-year-old daughter, but she is lonely and wants to go away with friends to stay by the the sea. Making the best of this Merivel travels to Versailles to the Court of The Sun King. However he is not destined to recreate his relationship with Charles II with this French king, living in poverty and finding it difficult to even gain access to him for even the briefest time. However he makes the acquaintance of the beautiful Louise and together they rescue a bear and have a very brief affair before her sodomite husband breaks it up. He returns to England to find his daughter very sick and while she's recovering the King comes to stay for what seems like an unrealistically long time. In fact Margaret goes back to Court with Charles worrying Merivel about his intentions. So Merivel travels to Switzerland to visit Louise and is all but ushered into Louise's bed by her father.  Having agreed to marry her, and fought a staged duel with her husband, he has to hasten back to the bedside of the dying King. This act duly taking place he finds himself without an income, with his manor all but destroyed by the servants running amok in his absence, his Faithful Retainer, Will dead, but his daughter happily settled. So he has little choice but to return to Louise, however he makes the fatal mistake of calling on his old lover in London where a last dalliance rather shockingly proves the end of him.
     Merivel is described by the group as being compassionate with a sense of humour but licentious. He's a lusty man. The King was the real obsession of his life. Several people noted the parallels to Tom Jones. One member felt she didn't like his character and wondered if there was something she was missing. Another found him very real, with his heart ruling his head. He had a sad life with a rather sad end.
In general people had mixed feelings, some liked the love story, the section in Switzerland and the duel, although one in particular disliked the fact that he was writing about whether animals have souls.
People questioned whether the book stood on its own or whether it really only stood as a sequel. Again there were different feelings as to this. Some felt that expectations were rather too high having read the first one. One or two had not read the first book and still enjoyed this one. Which would seem to be the ultimate test.

2. I like Rose Tremain - I like her style very much and I enjoy historical fiction. I’m not sure how I feel about the character of Merivel - the book is a personal journal and shows many admirable qualities - he is compassionate and has a sense of the ridiculous, but I was troubled by his licentiousness. I suppose that this probably reflects the ways of the court. I wonder if he is portrayed as someone who aided and abetted, or even influenced the behaviour of the King. It is a while since I read Restoration - those of you who have read it more recently would possibly know.   6/10

3. The final years of Merivel, up to an including the kings death and the betrothal of his daughter. He is still a lusty man, but more introspective. He is infatuated with Louise until her wish for 'playing' gets too much and he has to fight a duel for her. It could be a history of the time of a man made rich by the kings benefice. Is it a good book? Hard to say. Difficult to recommend. It did not really stand on it's own, but relied on you having read the first volume, which we read a couple of months ago. We did wonder why it took 10 years for her to write the sequel to Restoration. 

Skios -- Michael Frayn                 Marks : High. 4,     Low.  2      Average. 3.5

- Dr. Norman Wilfred, a world celebrity in the field of scientific management of scientific research, descends from a first class flight with champagne pampering to the island of SKIOS.
He  is looking forward to delivering his classic lecture at the prestigious Fred Toppler Foundation Annual Conference. Unfortunately for Dr Wilfred, arriving at the same time are the soft smiling eyes and tousled blond hair that top off the younger, slimmer body of impulsive chancer Oliver Fox. Fox is having some doubts about spending the week with his latest conquest Georgie. He absent-mindedly picks up Dr Wilfred's suitcase at the luggage carousel, is mistaken for Dr Wilfred by Mrs Toppler's PA, the discreetly tanned, discreetly blonde, Nikki, and makes a spur of the moment decision to play the hand fate has dealt him.The story of the next few days involves Russian Oligarchs,Greek shipping magnates, money laundering, theft of ancient statues, a discussion on the probabilistic nature of determinism in the universe, the inability of foreigners to tell Greek taxi drivers apart, various attempts at sex, a grossly implausible number of misunderstandings and coincidences and an unexpected ending or two.

Our verdict was short and unanimous. A particularly irritating farce that was mainly a painful read . It might well work as a play but not as a book. We could happily have moved swiftly on but Chris insisted on mentioning one or two funny bits that tickled his schoolboy sense of humour and waffling on about Oliver Fox being the personification of creativity and spontaneity we all admire in writers who just make things up as they go along. No-one was convinced by this. (admits Chris)

- An irritating farce.  3/10

- It is like a 'norman conquest' play with mistaken identities and bed-hopping. Frayn is a playright. It takes place on the Greek island of Skios, where Norman Wilfred is to give a lecture to a charitable foundation, and his place is usurped by a young bounder 'just because he could' Bounder is supposed to be enjoying an illicit week with a married woman, in a resort arranged by another lover, and Wilfred ends up there and starts to like it, except for sensible thoughts of responsibilities. It all comes together in a climax as The Bounder starts to give Wilfred's famous lecture, and chaos ensues. The author sort of gives up and supposes at this point. Very light read, lots of misunderstandings. Not a classic, 3

2013 October The Unicorn Road - Martin Davies & The Thread - Victoria Hislop

The Thread

Victoria Hislop

Told as a story being told to a young man by his grandparents in Thessalonika, about how Katherina was rescued from Smyrna in 1917 by a young soldier, ended up in Thessalonika separated from her mother, taken in by another refugee family, and intertwined this story with that of a greedy materials supplier's family throughout the turmoil in Greece, the second world war, and all the uprisings afterwards, until love is discovered. I lived the story, could see the environment, and couldn't put it down.

We as a group found this book interesting, especially the history of the Greeks during their conflicts which included the civil, World War 1 and their fight with communism. We learnt a great deal about the country and it’s people. It was a clever book in which Victoria Hislop made her well written story fit the history of Greece and Thessaloniki, many authors do the opposite. The main story was about the people who lived Irini Street, their different nationalities and religions who lived side by side in harmony.

The among the characters were Katerina who was separated from her mother during an evacuation to Athens, in the confusion she arrived in Thessaloniki on her own, Eugenia another evacuee took care of her along with her own twin daughters, Maria and Sofia, so became her foster mother. They were allocated a house in Irini Street, where they met Olga Komninos, her son Dimitri and Paulina, who was her maid and companion. Olga was the wife of a rich cloth merchant Konstantious, their large house in the affluent area of Thessaloniki had burnt down and she lived in Irini Street whilst her husband rebuilt first his business then a palatial home for his family. Please note that the business came well before the comfort of his wife and son. Next door were the Jewish family of Roza and Saul Moreno, their sons Elias and Isaac, Saul had a tailoring business, so this is the beginning of ’The Thread’. Katerini became an expert needlewoman and worked at the Moreno tailoring workshop. 

There are many tales ‘woven into’ the book but the story is the love between Dimitri and Katerina. In a section of the book Katernia believes Dimitri is dead and succumbs to the advances of the new owner of Moreno’s, Grigoris Gourgouris, who was a German collaborator and informer. When Katerina discovers his past she sets about killing her greedy repulsive husband by feeding him until he is so overweight he has a heart attack. (Murder)?

Victoria Hislop wrote the book as if Katerina and Dimitri were explaining their history to their grandson, which suited her style of writing.

Many of the group would recommend this book especially on the history of Greece and Thessaloniki.

Marks 6 (ranging from 6 - 9)

  

The Unicorn Road

Martin Davies

This book is an example of the author writing history to fit his book, it is an adventure story set in 1258 about a group of men searching for exotic beasts such as a Unicorn which were depicted in an ancient book. This was to gain favour with the Pope of that time in return for the right to a kingdom. The narrative of the book is written by the different characters that were either part or had connections with the convoy. It was a long and arduous journey as well as being a long and arduous book, with different tales woven into it.

Some of the group struggled, but kept going wanting to know what happened to all the characters and some persevered because it was a group read. Others thought the writing was beautiful and were surprised by it.

We follow a father looking for his son Benedict who went on the expedition with the scholar Antioch as his servant and companion, the father follows the route as best he can collecting information on the way.

Apart from Antioch and Benedict the other three main characters consisted of Decius, Venn, and Ming Yueh. The other characters who played important roles were the Gt. Khan, the evil Emperor, Lord Rustum, Leah of Kairouan, Song Rui and Pau. We came to understand Decius and the story of his wife Messalina; his looks didn’t show the man beneath. There was Venn who was a good man and befriended Benidect during the journey and kept him safe from harm on many occasion. Ming Yueh was a young woman in love with Song Rui a commander in the Emperor’s service; she was on her way to marry him and joined the convoy for protection. The very interesting side story of Ming Yueh was the writing on the women’s wall. Venn and Ming Yueh become lovers and plan to live their life together but events take place that this is not to be. There is such a sad ending in the book that some were enraged and others moved to tears.

Really the side story is about looking for the animals because if they found them, how would they capture and get them back, the book is about relationships.

Marks 6 (ranging from 5 - 7)

My best description is an intelligent juvenile fantasy. I cannot find many of the place names mentioned, though it sort of travels from Italy, via Basra to India and onwards, in search of fantasy animals like the unicorn. A Chinese love story is included. I cannot really get involved with it. The young man who is the centrepiece is almost a background character, overshadowed by others.

Two people loved it, and the rest when asked if they would have chosen it to read  implied not, and that they only read it because it was a chosen Reading Group book. It was a book that had been retrieved from the basement storage of the library.