Reading the 20th Century discussion

Welcome to The Midnight Bell 2021 edition….


….a general discussion thread in which you can talk about anything and everything.

It also masquerades as a classic British pub.

Get your first pretend pint free - other pretend beverages are also available.

Come one, come all, gather round and, of course, be of good cheer.

It's not quite 2021 however, as you may have noticed, I have got all our 2021 threads ready and waiting (and I've archived the 2020 threads although they are still open for business should you wish to continue any discussions).

2020 has been a tough year for all of us and most especially the very old, along with children and young adults.

I hope that 2021 will see a return to normality as vaccinations stop the spread of Covid 19.

Whatever happens, we readers can always find some solace and distraction in our books. I've thoroughly enjoyed reading your insights and observations on such a wide variety of books during 2020, and look forward to more of the same in the next 12 months.

The drinks are on the virtual house tonight - I raise a glass to you all

Stay safe and here's to a happy 2021

I hope your second paragraph is not a prophecy!

Thank-you Nigeyb and the other moderators for all your work in this group. Goodreads has been a lifeline for me, and lots of other people I'm sure, this year.

I second Ruth, thanks everyone. Happy New Year, lets hope for a better one.

Jill wrote: "I hope your second paragraph is not a prophecy!"


Eek. Me too. Thanks Jill, I'll edit it now

Thanks Ruth, thanks Tania.

It's a pleasure to be involved in this group, and I know Susan, Roman Clodia and Judy all feel the same way.

Happy New Year everyone, hoping 2021 will be kinder to us all, and looking forward to more great reading and discussions in the coming year.

Thanks Nigey and Happy New Year to you and to everyone in the group! : ) Saw your comments btw on 'Small Axe' but can't find them now and yes it's great isn't it, only watched a couple so far but looking forward to finishing in the new year.

Thanks Alwynne - my Small Axe comments are somewhere on the Black History discussion. I've now watched all five of Steve McQueen's films (still on iPlayer folks) and I really can't praise them highly enough. Just superb

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...

Pamela wrote: "Happy New Year everyone, hoping 2021 will be kinder to us all, and looking forward to more great reading and discussions in the coming year."

Thanks Pamela

Happy New Year everyone - let's hope 2021 sees us getting back to some sort of normality, even if it takes a while.

Happy New Year! Here's to some boring news and some basic competence by our public officials.

Thanks, think there's some hope for that now in the U.S., not so much in England unfortunately.

Just seen this. Happy New Year to all!

Well, this year has certainly not been without incident already, has it? Let's hope things improve soon and we have an interesting year's reading with good company :)

9 days to go. Just heard he is still looking for fraudulent votes in Georgia. Planted a new US Attorney there. He doesn't stop.

Sorry.

Yes, we know politics are a troubled subject and best ignored. In the UK, we just hope things calm down across the pond. You can do without all the upheaval during a pandemic, for sure.

Every day is another adventure.

I've started Mrs. Woolf and the Servants: An Intimate History of Domestic Life in Bloomsbury for next month's challenge read - not very far in as yet, but so far it is really interesting.

Me too, Judy. Interesting, considering our challenge theme too. I think over 80% of servants were female, so that feeds into our look at the lives of women in the 20th century.

Interesting article in The Spectator today about lost classics, some of which have crossed our paths here:

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/1...

Really good article, thanks Susan. Some wonderful books on the list. I loved many of the books here
The Rector's Daughter, The Diary of a Provincial Lady, and Lud-in-the-Mist, are among favourites. Interesting that they were mostly by women, are they more likely to become 'lost' do you think?

Let's hope not, Tania! I also noted The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold which we read as a buddy read last year I think.

We did. I enjoyed it, but I can see why it's not up there with his best. I think The Enchanted April was read here, too. I like to read that at around this time of year, I can almost feel the sun on my face. 😃 It's far more simplistic than most of her work, but so evocative of an Italian Spring, maybe that's exactly what I need right now.

Tania wrote: "Interesting that they were mostly by women, are they more likely to become 'lost' do you think?"

Sadly, I do. Though I think it's as much due to the subject matter being designated 'domestic' and therefore 'female' as to prejudices against female authorship.

We just need to look at canons of literature to see the extent to which they're skewed to male writing. BA English degrees are pretty much female free until maybe the second half of the 20th century apart from maybe a book each from George Eliot, maybe a Jane Austen or Elizabeth Gaskell, and a Bronte or two (the latter, of course, famously publishing under pseudonyms to conceal their gender).

It's only been feminist scholars from about the 1970s who have been unearthing and rediscovering the long tradition of women's writing going back to classical Rome. It's shocking how recent our expectation of reading women is.

I think you're right, and of course, it was harder for women to find the time to write because of those domestic duties, as Virginia Woolf argues in A Room of One's Own.

Also, it's interesting that Woolf was factually incorrect in her 'Judith Shakespeare' section in A Room of One's Own - but all those female Renaissance writers we know now were still 'lost' when she was writing in the 1920s. Probably in the archives of those academic libraries from which, as she points out, she was excluded.

I only have vague memories of 'Judith Shakespeare, perhaps I should try to reread it,; maybe next month to tie in with Mrs. Woolf and the Servants: An Intimate History of Domestic Life in Bloomsbury.

I must admit I'm quite partial to those domestic novels of the early 20th century. Such a different way of life.

Oh, me too, Tania - and quite a few of them are quietly subversive in their own way with female characters who don't always submit to social and cultural conventions.

They most certainly are. Have you ever read To Bed With Grand Music by Marghanita Laski? Shocking! It was so outrageous, she published it under a pseudonym. That one isn't even quietly subversive.

Ooh no, but it sounds great! I haven't read any Laski yet.

I love those boho-quirky titles like I Capture The Castle and The Constant Nymph.

But I think you're generally more knowledgeable than me about this period :)

I loved those two as well. And Laski is brilliant; never the same book twice. Backlisted recently did a podcast on her.

I've posted a schedule for our forthcoming buddy read of Petersburg by Andrei Bely in February/March - please could people who plan to read it take a look and let me know if you spot any problems with it? The thread is open for comments on the schedule.

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

That's really useful, Judy. Many thanks and looking forward to it.

Thanks Judy looks good.

Thanks, Susan and Alwynne.

I just read an article in The Guardian about...


Henry 'Chips' Channon - The Diaries, 1918-38 by Henry 'Chips' Channon and edited by Simon Heffer

It looks like a book quite a few of us here would probably enjoy

Here's the article...

Gossip, sex and social climbing: the uncensored Chips Channon diaries

Sir Henry ‘Chips’ Channon’s diaries caused a stir in 1967. Now edited by Simon Heffer and published unredacted, they reveal even more juicy detail about British high society between the 1920s and 50s

https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...

And here's the blurb about the book which is published on 4 March 2021...

Born in Chicago in 1897, 'Chips' Channon settled in Britain after the Great War, married into the immensely wealthy Guinness family, and served as Conservative MP for Southend-on-Sea from 1935 until his death in 1958. His career was unremarkable. His diaries are quite the opposite. Elegant, gossipy and bitchy by turns, they are the unfettered observations of a man who went everywhere and who knew everybody.

Whether describing the antics of London society in the interwar years, or the growing scandal surrounding his close friends Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson during the abdication crisis, or the mood in the House of Commons in the lead up to the Munich crisis, his sense of drama and his eye for the telling detail are unmatched. These are diaries that bring a whole epoch vividly to life.

A heavily abridged and censored edition of the diaries was published in 1967. Only now, sixty years after Chips's death, can the text be shared in all its unexpurgated and often shocking glory.

I have it on pre-order, Nigeyb. Looks just my cup of tea!

Doesn't look like it is available here. The old version is about $1k.

Susan wrote:


"I have it on pre-order, Nigeyb. Looks just my cup of tea!"

If the reviews are as good as I expect then I will joining you Susan

Jan C wrote: "Doesn't look like it is available here. The old version is about $1k."

That's interesting. Perhaps of less interest to an American readership? Or maybe it will get published over the next few months. The old version is apparently way tamer than this new edition, so don't waste $1k on it!

I'm reading The Co-Op's Got Bananas: A Memoir of Growing Up in the Post-War North by Hunter Davies, which I believe Nigeyb mentioned a while ago - I'm dashing to fit this one in before cancelling my Kindle Unlimited membership for the time being to concentrate on other books.

I'm quite enjoying it, as I always like his writing style, but finding it rather rambling.

Been on my TBR list forever, Judy. Will be interested to read your thoughts.

Having thoroughly enjoyed A Life in the Day, the second part of Hunter Davies's autobiography back in 2018, I was keen to read its predecessor The Co-op's Got Bananas: A Memoir of Growing Up in the Post-War North. Sadly I was far less impressed and even found it a bit boring. Still worth reading for the good bits though. Perhaps Judy (and you Susan when you get to it) will have a totally different reaction.

Sounds as though it is worth reading on, anyway.

I can see your point at the moment, Nigeyb - he seems to put in everything he thinks of, whether it is likely to be of interest to anyone else or not! But I'm getting into reading the boring bits fast and taking my time over the good bits.

I spoke too soon! Hunter Davies's chatty writing style has seduced me now - I'm really enjoying this book, even the rambling bits. Susan, there are quite a few throwaway references to The Beatles which I'm sure you would enjoy - for instance, John Lennon told him he had the same bike as him as a teenager, but Davies had to have two paper rounds and pay his off weekly, whereas he thinks Lennon's Aunt Mimi bought him his bike.

Mimi brought him the bike for getting into grammar school, so he was correct! Yes, well worth reading, I am sure and I will get to it at some time! I want to read the memoir by his wife Margaret Forster (who sadly died in 2016), Diary of an Ordinary Schoolgirl. Reading a couple of books at the moment, with lots of Beatles links - Frostquake: The frozen winter of 1962 and how Britain emerged a different country and The Velvet Mafia: The Gay Men Who Ran The Swinging Sixties.

That's interesting about the bike, Susan. I got on to some more boring bits, and memories of teenage sexism, which I didn't enjoy so much, after my enthusiastic previous post, so it's an uneven read, but I will race through to the end now.

I have also liked some of Margaret Forster's books so will be interested to hear what you think of her memoir, and am tempted by Frostquake.

Well, he didn't only get a bike but his blazer was tailor made - so much for the 'working class hero,' ;) I have a lot of books on the go at the moment, so no chance of my getting to Margaret Forster, or Hunter Davies, for a while. I am, definitely reading more non-fiction and more personal choices this year, which is good. Frostquake was great - the author is the granddaughter of Vita Sackville-West and was taught at school by Penelope Fitzgerald, so excellent literary credentials.

I didn't realise Juliet Nicholson was Vita Sackville-West's granddaughter - hadn't made the Nicholson connection!

After enjoying Vita's letters to Virginia Woolf recently, I'd like to try her fiction. Has anyone read her The Edwardians?

I seem to recall reading it some years ago, RC, but not sure I can remember much about it. Did you enjoy the letters - I saw the collection had mixed reviews?