We Danced all Night

Martin Pugh’s book does what it says on the tin, because the subtitle is ‘A Social History of Britain between the Wars’. A few years ago this is not the sort of thing I would have expected me to be reading, but it was top of my ‘books to buy in England’ list when I went home last month and even the fact of its enormous hardback weight did not deter me. 

I’m only about half way through, but it is just the sort of treatment that I like: thematically structured, snack sized chapters. So far it has covered all the subjects one would expect: food, health, property owning, work, unemployment, crime, marriage, sex and sexuality, women and feminism, childhood… There are lots of facts and figures that I am making no effort to retain, because my brain doesn’t work that way, but it is not by any means dry. Anyway, here are 10 things I have learned from the book so far:

1. Jelly Babies were known by the Victorians as ‘Unwanted Babies’, and by the next generation as ‘War Babies’ – I love this snippet of information. How typically pragmatic and slightly macabre of the Victorians to name a children’s sweet like that.
2. Those bloody awful Tudorbethan houses went up in the 1920s and 1930s.
3. It didn’t matter whether the Conservatives or Labour were in power – the working classes still got shafted.
4. The character of Pinkie in Brighton Rock, was based on one Jimmie Spinks. I found Pinkie a profoundly disturbing character and I’m even more disturbed now that I know about Spinks.
5. Despite the fact that women had kept the country going while 740,000 men died in war, they were promptly booted out of the workforce and expected to go back to being good little wives and mothers as soon as the men made it home. 
6. Driving tests were introduced in 1935. Before that, people just blithely took to the roads.
7. Until 1930 the BMA opposed giving even married women any information about contraception.
8. Noel Coward had a fling with the Duke of Kent.
9. Peach Melba and Melba toast were named after Dame Nellie Melba. Who was the first opera singer to sing over the radio.
10. The newspapers focused on sensational stories; women’s magazines told women to ’stay young and beautiful’; speed limits were largely disregarded; the government was trying to encourage healthy eating and exercise. Sound familiar?

The literary meme

Because I really ought to write something but Inspiration is still on holiday. And I can’t say I blame her. I found this meme at Of Books and Bicycles most recently, but it’s been doing the rounds.

What author do you own the most books by?

I suspect either Patrick O’Brian or Bernard Cornwell, since both of them wrote very lengthy series and I am a completist. When I find an author I like, I’ll gradually buy everything, at least until they start annoying me. I expect Sayers is a runner up, and of course there’s Austen and Trollope in there too.

What book do you own the most copies of?

I have multiple versions of Euripides’ Bacchae. Some are in their own volume, some are collected with other plays.

Did it bother you that those questions ended with prepositions?

Not until this question. Then the second question bothered me more than the first, but notice how I restrained my impulse to reword it.

Which fictional character are you secretly in love with?

I don’t think my affection for Richard Sharpe is much of a secret. I have dallied with James Bond and Peter Wimsey too and there’s always Darcy, of course.

Which books have you read the most times in your life?

Probably Jane Austen, since I used to re-read all the main novels every year. I’ve read all of James Bond repeatedly, most of Sayers half a dozen times, and childhood favourites like The Wind in the Willows innumerable times.

What was your favourite book when you were ten years old?

Absolutely no idea, I don’t remember being 10. I remember being very fond of ‘Five on Kirrin Island’ but couldn’t pin that down to a particular age. I expect I was firmly in the Enid Blyton camp, though I might have been on Malory Towers and St Clare’s by then.

What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?

Oh, there’s a lot of competition for this one. Could be Beat Not the Bones, by Charlotte Jay; could be Black and White and Dead all Over, by John Darnton; could be Gossip Girl. Although Philippa Gregory is right up there too.

What is the best book you’ve read in the past year?

Discounting authors such as Trollope or Proust, since they are really unfair competition, there are two books which really struck me: The Gone Away World, by Nick Harkaway; and Little Bee, by Chris Cleave. If I read a better book than Little Bee this year, I will be amazed.

If you could force everyone tagged to read one book, what would it be?

I wouldn’t. It’s a certain way of making sure that everyone hates it.

Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature?

I don’t pay any attention to prizes. They all seem to be about so much other than the writing.

What book would you most like to see made into a movie?

I wouldn’t. Film is a completely different genre and I think films of books are rarely successful. So if I really like a book, the last thing I’d want is for it to be turned into some pale shadow of itself, with entirely the wrong actors playing the lead characters.

Which book would you least like to see made into a movie?

See above. But possibly, The Last Chronicle of Barset, because there would be some forced, happy Hollywood ending that would be entirely, utterly, completely and irredeemably wrong. Like the ineffably ghastly last scene in Pride and Prejudice that was tacked on for American audiences.

Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book or literary character.

As far as I know, I have never had such a dream. My dreams are all prosaic, like running out of teabags and having to go to Tesco’s; or action packed thrillers where I’m running away from someone who is trying to shoot me; or from monsters. Fortunately the element of fear is always missing.

What is the most low-brow book you’ve read as an adult?

Any number of them. Laurel K Hamilton? Philippa Gregory? Dan Brown? The Starter Wife? I read a lot of trash, it’s my equivalent of watching television and I can’t always deal with ‘literature’ on the train.

What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?

I don’t remember the title or author but it was something on Vulgar Latin, which was a compulsory course for my degree. Full of information about fricatives etc. Terrible, terrible stuff, in which I was not remotely interested.

What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you’ve seen?

A Winter’s Tale. Not an entirely successful performance but a marvellous venue, as I saw it in a Spiegeltent.

Do you prefer the French or the Russians?

French. I don’t read the Russians.

Roth or Updike?

Roth, on the grounds that I have read several of his novels and only read The Witches of Eastwick by Updike. Which I disliked.

David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?

Firing squad. Both of them.

Shakespeare, Milton or Chaucer?

Can’t judge, haven’t read enough Milton or Chaucer.

Austen or Eliot?

Austen. May have read some Eliot, can’t remember.

What is the biggest or most embarassing gap in your reading?

No Russians, very little American lit, no Joyce, scarcely any poetry, don’t read post-colonial fiction, barely a thing in translation from anywhere, absolutely nothing about science, politics, current affairs. I don’t find any of it embarassing. I read what I read, and that’s an end to it.

What is your favourite novel?

Pride and Prejudice.

Play?

The Oresteia trilogy.

Poem?

Autumn Journal, by Louis MacNeice. Not that I am making a selection from a very wide pool, you understand.

Essay?

Something by Joseph Mitchell. Another category in which I have read little although I am beginning to appreciate the format.

Short story?

Pick any by A L Kennedy.

Work of non-fiction?

Up in the Old Hotel, by Joseph Mitchell.

Who is your favourite writer?

Depends what for. Of the Greeks, Euripides; of the classics, Austen or Trollope; of chick lit, I like Lisa Jewel; of military history, Bernard Cornwell; of detective fiction, D. L. Sayers; travel writing, Wilfrid Thesiger. And so on.

Who is the most overrated writer alive today?

There are too many to choose from.

What is your desert island book?

The collected works of Trollope. That should be a good few volumes.

And… what are you reading right now?

Traffic, by Tom Vanderbilt. About driving, drivers, traffic, and so on. 

Not tagging anyone specifically, but join in if you feel like it and Inspiration has also deserted you.

England by the numbers

I’m back, I’m jetlagged, I’m still at the stage where being in England felt like my real life and being back in the US feels like dislocation. The holiday was marvellous from the second I stepped off the ‘plane and was surrounded by people speaking English with English accents. It was instantly relaxing, as though a whole load of secondary tension that I’m mostly not even aware of slid away immediately and I could go back to being normal again.

Despite the fact that in my rush to send out information I had given Dave entirely the wrong flight details, she was there to pick us up from the airport. Earlier in the day she had also collected the keys to our rented cottage, and bless her if she hadn’t done a quick shop as well. Teabags, milk, juice, water, bagels, bread, marmite, raspberry jam, biscuits – all the essentials ready for us so we didn’t have to worry about it being Sunday morning when we woke up.

• Walks along canal path: 4
• Walks along river path: 1
• Visits to White Horse Hill: 1
• Days of rain: 2 definite, 3 showering and threatening
• Days of sunshine: 2 (+ 2 absolutely glorious days when I was in the office, of course)
• Castles visited: 1
• Palaces visited in rain: 1
• Pairs of Winston Churchill’s slippers seen: 1
• Cream teas at the Randolph: 1
• Restaurants eaten in: 7 (The White Hart, The Trout, Gees, Portabello, Branca, Browns, The Big Bang)
• Packets of McVities Chocolate Digestives eaten: 1
• Glasses of champagne/prosecco drunk: hic!
• Pounds gained from eating and drinking out for every single meal: Who cares?
• Friends seen: 15
• Friends bumped into entirely at random in Botley chippy: 1
• Portions of chips scoffed: 1
• Dr Who Easter Specials watched: 1
• Books bought: 7 (We Danced All Night, Martin Pugh; Little Brother, Cory Doctorow; The Midnight Folk, John Masefield; The Twelve and the Genii, Pauline Clarke; The Rain Before it Falls, Jonathan Coe; Austerity Britain, David Kynaston)
• Lovely old Penguin books bought from second hand bookstore: 2 (The Echoing Grove, Rosamund Lehmann; Juan in America, Eric Linklater)
• Books still unread by return home: 3
• Newspaper crosswords completed: 2
• Newspapers read: 0
• Keys not my own that are now in CT: 2 (sorry Dave, will put in post)
• Mornings husband had to walk over to Costa in Summertown to get coffee before he could face starting the day: 6
• Reasons to stay in England: Innumerable