Month: August 2017

Book review: “The Lady and the Unicorn” by Tracy Chevalier

Tracy Chevalier’s second novel Girl with a Pearl Earring was published in 1999 (really, it was that long ago!) and was a sensation. I remember reading it at the time and was bowled over. It was made into a film starring Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth in 2004. I’m afraid to say that I have not read any of Tracy’s subsequent work and until now would not have been able to name any of her nine other books (although I love the look of New Boy, published this summer, and recommended it just a few weeks ago).

The Lady & the Unicorn imgI picked up The Lady and the Unicorn at the secondhand book stall at my youngest daughter’s school summer fair and read a large chunk of it whilst there. It would not normally have caught my eye on a bookshelf as the cover is more suggestive of a cheap sexy romance (nothing wrong with that if that’s your thing!), but I was very quickly drawn into the world that Chevalier evokes, as she also did so brilliantly in Girl with a Pearl Earring.

The novel is set in Paris and Brussels in 1490-92. Parisian nobleman Jean Le Viste wants an impressive tapestry in his home, a way of showing off his wealth, status and fine taste. He commissions local artist Nicolas De Innocents to paint a design which will then be turned into a tapestry by specialist weavers in Brussels. The subsequent story is about Nicolas’s travels between the two cities, the time he spends in Brussels with the family of weavers and the effect the work has on all their lives.

It’s a very simple premise and you would be forgiven for wondering how a full-length novel could be strung-out from this. Like Girl with a Pearl Earring, it’s the characters, their motivations, their internal lives and the relationships between them that drive the narrative. Here, Nicolas des Innocents is the central figure. He is young, virile, charismatic and mischievous. In Paris, he threatens to destabilise the Le Viste family when the youngest daughter Claude falls for his charms (he has already seduced the maid!), but socially, he is an outsider, a class well below his employer, and thus it is important he is kept at arm’s length. In Brussels, he penetrates the family more deeply as he needs to work alongside the weavers to design the various features of the tapestry and to help realise these in the final product. Nicolas the charmer develops a close bond with the weaver’s blind daughter. I’ll leave it at that – no spoilers here!

The book is written from several perspectives, with each chapter narrated by different characters. This allows us as readers to observe the events of the story from a number of viewpoints. It’s a sexy novel, there are simmering passions throughout (to that extent the suggestive cover on my copy is not far wrong!). It provides an insight to the issues of the period – honour, social status, the role and standing of women, as well as the process of creating a tapestry and the meaning behind all the imagery – and Chevalier has a brilliant talent for bridging the past and the present and showing us that in many ways day to day concerns remain the same throughout the ages. I particularly like how the author marries her skills for story creating into some bare facts about a real tapestry (it does exist) and real people. This is what she did in Girl with a Pearl Earring too, of course.

Whilst this novel clearly did not make the same splash as Chevalier’s more famous earlier book, it’s a good read and I would recommend it. Glad I found it on that book stall!

Have you read any of Tracy Chevalier’s books?

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The Top 10 things I love about Lisbon

So, our wonderful holiday in Portugal has come to an end. After a week of rest and relaxation on the Silver Coast (near Obidos) we headed for a few days in the country’s capital, Lisbon, a city I have been wanting to visit for years. It did not disappoint. More compact and lower key than some other European capitals it comes in at number nine on TripAdvisor’s top European destinations, ahead of the likes of arguably more famous places like Amsterdam, Venice, Florence and Edinburgh. Excluding our arrival and departure days, we were there for four full days, and there was far more to do than we could squeeze in. The high August temperatures (mostly exceeding 30 degrees Celsius during the day) and the peak time crowds made sightseeing more challenging than it might be at other times of the year, which perhaps slowed us up a bit. Other people (and those without kids) might be able to pack more in. We were not in a hurry (we are determined to go back again anyway!) and spent a lot of time just watching the world go by in cafes, bars and restaurants. Here are the top 10 things I love about Lisbon:

1. The views

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Lisbon is a city of hills. There are many opportunities to get a higher perspective of the city and the surrounding area, including plenty of  well signposted Miradouros (viewpoints).

2. Castelo de Sao Jorge

2017-08-20 13.34.46This ancient fortress up on a hill is a potted Portugese history lesson. It’s fabulous and from here you can get a panoramic view of the city. You take the antique Tram 28 to reach it. Aside from the main site I recommend the tour of the ancient archaeological area (above, where they have found evidence of habitation as far back as the Iron Age) which is generally under-attended, and is fascinating because you get to see and understand exactly how people have lived in and used the fortress over the centuries.

3. Museu de Farmacia

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Quirky museum by day, bar and restaurant by night with some fab cocktails (both with and without alcohol), imaginatively served. See above, #Elixir, #Oxymetazol, Vinho Verde (see 6), and we-won’t-rip-you-off-by-making-you-buy-bottled-water H2O (see 4).

4. It’s relatively good value

I grew up in London, but haven’t lived there for 20 years now. When I go back as a visitor I am struck by the hugely inflated prices compared to the rest of the country. Sadly, this is true of many major cities. Lisbon, indeed, Portugal as a whole, does not fleece its tourists. Long may it last. Food, drinks, travel, entry prices all seem reasonable, even in the light of Sterling’s weakness against the Euro.

5. The Waterfront

We took many an evening stroll along the waterfront, where there was a great buzz. The stunning Praca do Comercio (above right) looks majestically out over the River Tejo. It lies at the foot of the area of Chiado, the main shopping and commercial hub of the city.

6. Vinho Verde

The so-called Portugese ‘green wine’ is very drinkable indeed, and ridiculously cheap for the quality!

7. Cascais

Golden beaches are less than half an hour by train (for 2 Euro!) from the city centre. The husband took the two girls for the day and had a fantastic time. A great escape if the sightseeing is getting too much!

8. Fish

To see? At the amazing Oceanarium on the Expo site to the north of the city – did you know that a cuttlefish looked like this?

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To eat? Fantastic fish is served everywhere, and Mr Cuttlefish is very tasty as well as cute! Cacilhas, a suburb of the city just a short hop across the river seems to be almost entirely made up of fish restaurants.

9. Pastellaria

If you have a sweet tooth, expect to be well-supplied in Portugal. From the delicious Pastel de Natas (ubiquitous small custard tarts) to Macarons (below) you will find much to choose from in the many small cafes and bakeries serving fine coffee and cakes.

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10. The people

Portugese people are warm, kind, laid-back and welcoming. The language is very different to Spanish and most visitors will not have even a smattering of Portugese, I suspect (though it’s a fascinating language and I’m determined to learn a little before I go again). The natives don’t seem to mind, however, and most speak excellent English. Lisboans seem quietly proud of their city and so they should be. As such, they are delighted to help you and keen that you as a visitor should have a great experience in their city.

If you have been to Lisbon I would love to hear what your highlights were. 

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Book reviews: ‘Dear Ijeawele’ and ‘We should all be feminists’ by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I posted on here recently that the reading I seemed to have planned over the summer had a definite feminist theme to it. This was largely accidental although it could be something to do with having read WE: A Manifesto for Women Everywhere recently, and thinking about the subconscious messages that women and girls inherit. Top of my list we’re these two slim volumes from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

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I was given We should all be feminists by a friend for my birthday last January and have been mulling over its content ever since. It is the modified text of a TEDx talk that the author gave in 2012 and was published in book form a couple of years later. Adichie grew up in Nigeria and now divides her time between there and the USA. It would be true to say that the book is written with an African context, that she has in mind many of the social and cultural norms that women in some African societies experience. It would also be narrow-minded and complacent, however, to dismiss the points she makes as not being relevant elsewhere. Adichie writes that in some parts of society ‘feminism’ is a term of abuse or is used as an insult; it is used to describe women who have not been successful in finding a husband! I have heard the term ‘feminist’ used in derision in the U.K. too and we are sometimes inclined to think that it is no longer necessary; equality has been achieved they say, it’s merely spiteful to keep banging on about it! (Then you see the online vitriol that JK Rowling, and many others, have to put up with on social media and it’s very clear that battle is nowhere near won.)

Adichie writes of the problems of ‘normalising’ discrimination when we allow casual differences in the way we treat boys and girls to go unchallenged. Having different standards and expectations is part of the problem, as is gender-specificity in things like toys, behavioural norms and the interests which are promoted to different groups.

Adichie writes that these attitudes can be problematic for boys too; they can create expectations which may lead to poor self-esteem for many young men (if they are not able to be physically strongest or not inclined towards rough and tumble).  Adichie wants us to raise both sexes with equality in mind.

Dear Ijeawele takes this theme a step further. Published earlier this year it is written in the form of an extended letter to a new mother. Some years previously, a friend of the author wrote to her after she had just given birth to a baby girl, asking for advice on how she might raise her daughter as s feminist. The author explores more deeply the ideas that she first expressed in We should all be feminists and has come up with a list of fifteen suggestions for her friend. There is much here to digest. She encourages her friend to ensure the task of raising their daughter is shared and that gender roles must be eschewed not only in the endeavour itself but also in the language they use and the expectations they express to their daughter.

The knowledge of cooking does not come pre-installed in a vagina.

Daughters should never be called “princess” (passive, linked to prettiness and dependency) nor taught to value marriage as an achievement. A girl does not need to be likeable but merely to be her full self.

Instead of teaching her to be likeable, teach her to be honest. And kind. And brave.

This is a powerful little book that I can imagine giving as a gift to a new mother or to a friend who might be experiencing dilemmas about how to handle certain parenting problems. As a mother of two daughters (and one teenage son) it has given me much food for thought.

Reading these books made me reflect deeply on how I raise my girls. Thanks for the comments on the post I published last week about that. 

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On holidays in Portugal

I’m on my holidays with the family in Portugal. It’s a lovely country: the people are warm and laid-back, the food is wonderful, it’s a seafood-lover’s paradise. The weather where we are, north of Lisbon on what is known as the ‘Silver Coast’, is warm and sunny, with Atlantic breezes keeping the temperature below the more intense numbers you get on, say The Algarve – mid-30s Celsius is tough on a fair-skinned Brit! When you have to take your holidays in August (school!) you have to think carefully about where you go. It’s so much more expensive before you even arrive and popular locations can be jam-packed, unbearable with children. Our location here in Portugal feels perfect just now. 


The beach is stunning, vast and empty, and the ocean majestic, though cold even to paddle in for me and mostly too much undertow for swimming.

Since we arrived on Saturday I have finished reading The Power, the Bailey’s Prize-winning novel by Naomi Alderman. 

I wasn’t bowled over by it I’m afraid, but will post a review in a couple of weeks. 

We are staying close to the beautiful town of Obidos, which has designated itself, rather fortuitously for me, ‘City of Literature’! My book-seeking antennae were out and we found two amazing bookshops. 


The first was a secondhand bookshop that also incorporated an organic food market – what’s not to love! Look at what I picked up from the English shelf: 


Plenty of Manchester references here I expect!

The next bookshop was in a converted church and had the most amazing structure of wooden shelving which doubled as stairs and a mezzanine. 


Beautiful isn’t it?

Reading-wise I’m currently enjoying  Lisa McInnerney’s The Blood Miracles, which is so far matching the quality of her first novel The Glorious Heresies. 

I hope you are also enjoying the holiday season and that you’re getting plenty of R&R (reading and relaxation) in!

Reflections on being a mother of girls

My elder daughter turned 13 recently. I find this fact quite extraordinary and I am filled with a new sense of responsibility. Getting three children this far has been something of a feat, of course (!), but I now feel as if I have the huge challenge of nurturing a young woman. I have an older son, but that seems different somehow. Perhaps that’s because I have never been a young man, but I do have experience of being a young woman, so I am profoundly aware of all the special ups and downs that life can present to girls.

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A beautiful mother and daughter (this is not us!)
My daughter is strong, talented and determined. She is also loving, conscientious and kind, and experience tells me that this can make her vulnerable. The world has yet to fully come to terms with this potent mix of feminine powers, does not yet know how best to embrace it. It seems to me the world often seems to fear it. So, as a parent, as a mother, the conundrum is how to prepare my daughter for a world that may not be fully ready to receive her for all that she is and all that she can be, whilst also fostering her single-mindedness, encouraging her independent spirit and emboldening her to stay true to herself.

I recently read We should all be feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (look out for the review next week). This was given to me by a friend as a birthday gift. It’s a fuller version of a speech the author gave to a TEDx conference in 2012. Its context is Nigerian society, but there is much here that we can all take on board in terms of how we bring up our children and the values we attempt to instil.

I have a particular conundrum in that I have for a long time been what is disparagingly termed a ‘full-time Mum’. I took the usual maternity leave with my first child (my son) and when I went back to work he went to nursery for four long days every week (we had no family nearby to support us), a fact which haunts me to this day. My job was challenging and I was 50 miles away, so it was a difficult time. When I became pregnant with my second child not only did it make little economic sense for me to continue working but I felt my higher education job was incompatible with our circumstances. There was no way I could be the kind of parent I wanted to be whilst being committed to my career, and with no back-up it seemed impossible. My husband’s job was senior, demanding and in a relatively male-dominated industry so there was little prospect, in reality, of a shared model. So when my daughter was born I took a career break. I had another child during that time and took seven years off, which ended with voluntary redundancy.

When I recount this story I find it quite hard to believe myself – I was always very ambitious, acquired a Bachelors and a Masters degree, had a good career where I was respected, have always been a feminist, and yet as far as my children are concerned Mummy stays at home. Mummy does work of course (I have run a small business, I write and I do some occasional work for a charity) but I don’t work long hours out of the house like Daddy does so the lion’s share of the household work also falls to me. I don’t feel unhappy with this and I don’t regret any of the decisions we made and if I could do it all again I would make the same choice to stop working (I only wish I’d been there for my son sooner and not put him in nursery), but I do worry about the kind of messages this sends to both my son and my daughters about gender roles. What kind of a role-model am I?

We should all be feminists and the small companion book Dear Ijeawele have given me much food for thought. One of the first suggestions in Dear Ijeawele is that a woman should be “a full person” and not be defined by motherhood. I think in the early years I allowed this to happen, although with three young children and a husband working away every week for a number of years I had little time to define myself any other way! However…that is changing now. As my children get older and can take more responsibility for themselves I am trying to strike a balance between being there for them, but also not being there always, if you see what I mean.

Suggestion number ten in Dear Ijeawele is to “be deliberate in how you engage with [your daughter] and her appearance”. Adichie is a beautiful woman who embraces her femininity. She is a face of No. 7 cosmetics, a fact for which she has been criticised and for which she makes no apology. I have always struggled with my femininity; I think it was handled clumsily and fearfully when I was a teenager (I don’t think I’m alone). Being feminine should not be incompatible with feminism, this much I believe, but I struggle with both my young daughters’ desires to wear make-up, for example. I feel very conflicted as I want them to be happy with their natural appearance, to know they are beautiful as they are, and not to feel influenced by the media that they have to look a certain way or that a certain beauty product is a ‘must-have’. I also worry about the pressure to wear revealing clothing, although, as Adichie says, we should never link appearance with morality.

With a teenage and a pre-teen daughter, these are all very urgent issues. I’m afraid when they were young they did play with dolls and much of their environment was pink, though trains, lego and other colours were available! I agree it is important not to provide gender-specific toys and to encourage breadth and variety. Mostly, my kids liked to paint, make things and play with water, and I never tried to stop the girls getting messy – they were worse in fact! But the issues seem to be weightier now, especially as their thoughts gradually turn to their futures and as sexuality begins to emerge. They hear the news and find that there continues to be a gender pay gap in society, that there is not parity of treatment between LGBTQ and straight people, and that women and girls continue to be abused and exploited more than their male counterparts.

There is much that we all still need to do.

I would love to hear your thoughts about raising girls in the 21st century. 

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August reading challenge: a book with a summery cover

Last month I ticked off my July reading challenge pretty quickly, having skipped through Evan Davis’s Post-truth: Why we have reached peak bullshit and what we can do about it fairly quickly after a train journey.

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This month, mindful that we are in the middle of the holiday season, the challenge is to choose a book, the cover of which is reminiscent of summer. (Whilst I definitely do not judge a book by its cover, I’m afraid I’m a sucker for the book that jumps off the shelf and grabs my attention!) Between the Baileys Prize in June and the Man Booker longlist in July, I’ve bought quite a lot of books recently, so I thought I’d dig through my not insubstantial pile of unread books purchased over the years for inspiration.

2017-08-05 07.34.39I have chosen On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan, which was published in 2007. I suspect it has been languishing unread on my shelf for a number of years! The cover is, arguably, not particularly summery, showing a young woman walking along Chesil Beach in Dorset, at what looks like dawn, but could possibly be twilight. For those of you unfamiliar with Dorset, Chesil beach is a unique natural feature of the area. Geographically, it is known, I believe, as a tombolo. It is a 20 mile stretch of shingle beach that lies in a long, fairly straight line from Abbotsbury (near the swan sanctuary) to the Isle of Portland in Dorset. Whilst it is connected to the land at each end, it sits apart from the main beach along its length, creating  a kind of lagoon which is a haven for bird life.

Dorset is one of my favourite counties of England. I wouldn’t say I have spent lots of time there, I have been maybe four or five times, but each time I’ve visited I have found it the most beautiful, fascinating and interesting place. It is also deeply connected with my literary life. I am a huge admirer of Thomas Hardy and a few years ago, following a horrible relationship breakdown, I spent the most wondrous and life-affirming fortnight cycling around the county, visiting many of the towns, villages and monuments which appear in Tess of the D’Urbervilles and other Hardy novels. Jane Austen also has connections with Dorset, and who could forget The French Lieutenant’s Woman, a wonderful book, set in Lyme Regis, possibly the loveliest seaside town in the world.

Dorset also has many fascinating geographical and historical features; you can go fossil-hunting in Charmouth, and there are of course, the incredible cliffs at West Bay, made famous as the site of the murder of Danny Latimer in the TV series Broadchurch. The beaches are spectacular, my favourite is the beautiful, horseshoe-shaped Lulworth Cove. As I write this, I am reminiscing about a wonderful week we had there with the children two of three years ago, and aching to go back, even though the weather was typically British!

So, I will look forward to reading this book, as I set off on a short trip to Dublin later today to visit my in-laws.

What books remind you of summer?

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Book review: “Jo Cox: More in Common” by Brendan Cox

No-one could forget the terrible events of June 16th 2016, the week before the UK referendum on exiting the EU, when Jo Cox, the British MP for Batley and Spen in West Yorkshire, was brutally murdered whilst in her constituency. It was shocking on so many levels. Firstly, that, in the midst of a profound expression of our democracy (which I believe we should never take for granted), campaigning during a referendum, one of our most conscientious and hard-working elected members should be killed for doing her job and what she believed in. Secondly, and most upsetting to me and, I’m sure, to many others, that a mother of two young children, a wife, a sister, a daughter, should lose her life and all those close to her should lose the most important person in theirs. It was truly awful.

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In the days that followed, campaigning in the referendum was suspended as the news reverberated around the world. Support was shown and condolences sent by dozens of world leaders, not least President Obama. Jo’s death had a huge impact. So many had felt the insult to our democracy. In those subsequent days and weeks, we also learned much about this young woman and her life, and the loss felt even greater.

Jo’s husband, Brendan, became famous overnight, a role he would never have wanted. The grieving widower, the father of two shocked and grieving young children (then aged just five and three), the spokesperson for his late wife and all the good and powerful things she stood for. He was frequently on our television screens, looking dazed and gaunt, in Parliament, just days after Jo’s death, hearing MPs’ tributes, at a memorial event in Trafalgar, attended by thousands. It is a wonder how he got through those days.

It is thirteen months since Jo’s death and Brendan has been busy. He has set up the Jo Cox Foundation which seeks to promote fairness and tolerance in the world through practical actions. He has also published this book, which is part biography of Jo, partly an account of loss and, I suspect, part catharsis. It is rare that I have sat down and read a book in a couple of sittings over a weekend, but this book lends itself to that kind of immersion.

First and foremost the book, for me, provides an intimate glimpse into the architecture of grief. We will all experience grief in our lives, but most of us will never have to lose someone in the circumstances that Brendan lost Jo, that their children lost their mother. The pain is profound. We see Brendan go through all the stages we are familiar with – shock, denial, etc, though he clearly fights very hard against anger, and seems to have won. He describes in detail the unique way that nature enables children to process it. In the midst of his own grief Brendan’s primary concern was to support his children through their even greater loss to ensure that it was handled in the best possible way. Brendan talks about taking advice from experts in child psychology on how he should talk to them about their mother. The overwhelming consensus is that children should be allowed the space to grieve as they need, in their own unique way, and that it is important that we do not impose adult preconceptions and expectations about their level of sadness. For a young child, losing a mother is a profound and life-changing event that will affect the rest of their lives and it is so important to handle it right.

The sadness in this book is at times unbearable, but Brendan also writes with joy too. He provides an account of Jo’s life, her humble family background and childhood, her life as a student at Cambridge and her early achievements in a career that was destined to be stellar. Brendan, in providing this account, is honouring his late wife and the enormous achievements she made in her short life. There is a definite sense that the best was yet to come.

“We are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.” Jo Cox, maiden speech to Parliament, 2015 

 

Finally, the book is a love letter, a tribute from a bereaved husband to the woman he clearly loved so deeply. His love drips from every page. Some of the detail he gives is surprisingly intimate almost too much for me as a reader. The kind of small details of a relationship that couples normally only share with one another. But then you remember that Brendan no longer can, and his sharing with us feels all the more poignant.

The book is structured so that parallels are drawn between events in the months following Jo’s death and important stages in Jo’s life. For example, the account of Jo and Brendan’s time working in America and joining the Obama presidential campaign is given alongside an account of Brendan’s visit to the White House with his children, at the invitation of President Obama.

It is an incredible book and all proceeds from sales will go to the Jo Cox Foundation. It is hard to say I ‘enjoyed’ it but it felt like a very important read. It has certainly caused me to reflect, and the lesson that comes from it, for me, is along the lines of that old truism (with apologies for misquoting) that it’s not the years in your life that really count, but the life in your years. And Jo certainly packed a lifetime’s worth in her 42 years.

An emotional read, but highly recommended.

If you have read this book, I’d love to know how it affected you.

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