This month’s #6Degrees, hosted by Kate from Books are my Favourite and Best starts with our own bookshelves. We start with The Anniversary by Stephanie Bishop…
I’ll start with the easiest of segues, with the second novel of the same author, The Other Side of the World. (2015, see my review.) It was one of a crop of #MiserableMigrant stories but the writing was exceptionally good and…
…it reminded me of Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach (2007) in the way that the small domestic tragedy derives from the failure of the characters to communicate with each other. How my heart ached for those newlyweds! See my uncharacteristically brief review here, and there’s a summary of it at Wikipedia, if you’re not bothered about spoilers. Shortlisted for the Booker, On Chesil Beach generated controversy because it’s a novella, (and didn’t win) but it became one of those interesting books described as Marmite Books/Vegemite Books: you either love them or you hate them, there is no middle ground.
On Chesil Beach is the ultimate #MiserableMarriage story, IMO. The #MiserableMarriages tag at His Futile Preoccupations is always entertaining because Guy has a droll style when forensically analysing books in this category, and he recently reviewed Soon by Charlotte Grimshaw which was of immediate interest to me because Theresa Smith and I are hosting #AYearOfNZLit. I’ve read four Kiwi authors so far this year, the most recent being Decline and Fall on Savage Street (2017), by Fiona Farrell. And next up…
… for May, I have The Necessary Angel by C K Stead on my desk, ready to start as soon as I deal with other pressing bookish priorities. C K Stead is one of New Zealand’s most notable authors but up to now I have only read his novel Mansfield. (2004, see my not very impressed review) and I also have his The Death of the Body on the TBR. I am hoping that I will get on better with The Necessary Angel. It might also qualify for Guy’s #MiserableMarriages tag because Goodreads tells me that:
It can be read on many levels – as a story of people grappling with love and fidelity; as a story about the importance of books in everyday life; as a commentary on living in complex modern-day Europe; and as a page-turning mystery.
Plus, it’s set at the Sorbonne, and I do like a campus novel!
However, I admit to being a bit put off by that clichéd cover, which features the back of a woman, à la Shutterstock, though this one is from Trevillion Images. Still, at least the woman on the cover of The Necessary Angel has a body, Sorry by Gail Jones (on my TBR) lacks a head and legs, and …
… the cover of Sara Thornhill by Kate Grenville (2011, see my review) is one of many lazy designs that feature just the back of a head.
Ok, rant over, time to attack my Latin homework in time for Monday, and when that’s done I have a review of Vasily Grossman’s Stalingrad to finish, plus my thoughts from an author talk I recently attended!
That’s my #6Degrees for this month!
Next month (June 2024), starts with “a crime novel with difference” – Butter by Asako Yuzuki.
ANZ LitLovers LitBlog 
Always enjoy your commentary Lisa – but Shuttercock? Was that a Freudian slip or are you making a point about image services?!
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By: whisperinggums on May 4, 2024
at 2:06 pm
LOL, I’m guessing it was that pesky AI again, and I didn’t notice.
#Blush, will fix it, ta muchly!
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By: Lisa Hill on May 4, 2024
at 2:20 pm
It made me laugh!
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By: whisperinggums on May 4, 2024
at 2:50 pm
Great chain Lisa! I’ve read the two books by Bishop and enjoyed them both; I’ve also read “Sorry” by Gail Jones (but didn’t like it very much) and “Sarah Thornhill”.
I have also read “Chesil Beach” but not sure I agree it was the ultimate #MiserableMarriage story — wasn’t it a simply a misunderstanding about sex between a husband and wife on their honeymoon? Or maybe I have oversimplified it in my memory — I did read it more than 15 years ago!
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By: kimbofo on May 4, 2024
at 4:14 pm
Chesil? Well, yes it was, two virgins who had no clue.
But a marriage that only lasts a day has to be a classic Miserable Marriage doesn’t it?
I can think of two that were famously short IRL: Germaine Greer and Katherine Mansfield.
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By: Lisa Hill on May 4, 2024
at 4:24 pm
When my sister’s friend moved from her home into sheltered housing, I picked up her copy of On Chesil Beach on a whim. So, you recommend it?
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By: Davida Chazan on May 4, 2024
at 10:49 pm
Oh, Davida, I don’t dare. I loved it, but I know some people really hated it.
It might be a generational thing? People who brought up after the sexual liberation of the 60s and 70s, don’t understand the pressure to be a virgin on the wedding day and the lack of sex education, maybe?
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By: Lisa Hill on May 5, 2024
at 8:28 am
Well, I was born before that era, and grew up on the cusp of the sexual revolution, but with sex education (just barely), so maybe I would enjoy it.
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By: Davida Chazan on May 5, 2024
at 9:06 pm
Give it a try!
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By: Lisa Hill on May 5, 2024
at 9:09 pm
Thanks. I’ll probably hold it over for Novellas in November.
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By: Davida Chazan on May 5, 2024
at 9:10 pm
I need to add a MiserableMarriages hashtag! I sometimes tell my book group we can’t read two miserable books in a row, but they don’t always agree the books they chose are miserable
I will join in NZLit although the three I could easily come up with are not mentioned on your list (Margaret Mahy, Essie Summers, and Ngaio Marsh). I am sure I have something in this house full of books that fits the bill.
Constance
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By: Staircase Wit on May 5, 2024
at 5:34 am
Hello Constance, some people do love other people’s misery, don’t they? Sometimes I think that authors are trawling through the pages of the tabloids to see what sad stories they can use for their next Misery-a-thon.
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By: Lisa Hill on May 5, 2024
at 8:39 am
PS, I am intrigued by your moniker. Where does Staircase Wit come from, if I may ask?
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By: Lisa Hill on May 7, 2024
at 11:17 am
Good chain! #MiserableMigrant stories LOL!!! I thought of that £10 Pom series on Netflix or where ever. I’d love to read some 10 Pound Pom stories, but not that one!
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By: hopewellslibraryoflife on May 5, 2024
at 7:51 am
I haven’t seen that one, but when I was growing up, Poms were famous for whingeing. Many of them lived in Frankston, (well on the outskirts of Melbourne and not a posh suburb then though you’d pay megabucks for a view of the sea there now) and though we lived well away from them in what was becoming a Jewish community of Holocaust survivors, we heard about those £10 Poms (which we were not).
Possibly, in the case of the £10 Poms, the scorn represented Australian disappointment that they failed to live up to the image of the stoic Brits enduring the Blitz… were these whingers the people that Australia sent its men to defend in WW2?
I can’t remember if we heard about them at school or in the media, but it was a bad look then to be ungrateful and complaining. Especially by contrast with migrants from war-torn Europe who were famously hard working and apparently contented. Whatever their issues were, they kept them to themselves. Though they would have had issues too, all migrants do, even without a bloody war to ruin their lives. People only migrate when they are discontented for whatever reason with where they are, and sometimes whatever they were hoping for is not better, and sometimes they have too-high expectations of the people already here. Plus sometimes they are utterly unprepared for the way they miss family, friends or community. Some people find ‘not belonging’ unexpectedly hard.
I hated Australia when we first came here, and had extravagant plans to be a stowaway to anywhere-but-here. But I never said so, not even to my parents.
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By: Lisa Hill on May 5, 2024
at 9:09 am
How interesting! I’ve read everything I can find on War Brides from WWII and many found life in “reasonable” places in the USA ‘hard” because there was no “real” tea etc. [I’ve skipped the brides who truly landed in AWFUL conditions] Come on! There was almost no rationing, no bombs, central heating–complain, complain! Interesting! Still, if there were any interesting 10 Pound Pom books I’d like to read them–it’s an interesting idea isnt it? Send away Britains to “colonies”. I get it–fewer to feed during rationing and the racial aspect. Hmmmmm
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By: hopewellslibraryoflife on May 5, 2024
at 10:41 am
Australia had woken up to the fact that a population of 7 million couldn’t defend itself, and the postwar period was the beginning of a government sponsored immigration program. People came from the UK and Europe from postwar reconstruction and austerity to a ‘golden era’ of postwar prosperity, and, thank goodness, most of them stayed and have made Australia the successful, wealthy multicultural society it is today.
I don’t know why some of their offspring choose to write novels about the negatives; of course it wasn’t always easy but I think I am incredibly lucky that my parents made the decision that they did.
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By: Lisa Hill on May 5, 2024
at 2:26 pm
I do love a campus novel too! Great chain Lisa
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By: Cathy746books on May 6, 2024
at 4:07 am
Thanks, Cathy:)
What’s the great Irish campus novel?
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By: Lisa Hill on May 6, 2024
at 8:42 pm
Lots would probably say Normal People, but I wasn’t a fan. I did love Tender by Belinda McKeon, which is about a friendship forged at Trinity College.
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By: Cathy746books on May 7, 2024
at 1:34 am
The one I’m reading at the moment (The Necessary Angel) is about a New Zealander at the Sorbonne, and it has that added frisson of internationality, from the close observation of an outsider. I’m loving it, so many allusions to literature and French politics!
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By: Lisa Hill on May 7, 2024
at 7:53 am
ooh, sounds good!
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By: Cathy746books on May 8, 2024
at 2:49 am
I think, I’ve heard of The Other Side of the World. It might have been through you.
As always, interesting to see your Australian books, I’ll see whether one of them is suitable to suggest to my book club. So, thanks for that.
My Six Degrees of Separation ended with Driving by Moonlight.
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By: Marianne @ Let's Read on May 6, 2024
at 7:42 pm
Hi Marianne, #JustWondering, do Australian books ever get reviewed in your part of the world?
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By: Lisa Hill on May 6, 2024
at 8:45 pm
Good question. There are a lot of translations from other languages into German (and Dutch, even more into Dutch) and there are Australian books among them. I am sure they are reviewed in German blogs, I’ll have to have a look.
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By: Marianne @ Let's Read on May 6, 2024
at 9:01 pm
Hello Marianne, apologies for the delay in rescuing your comment from the spam folder! It keeps happening… and I do check the folder every day in case…
It will be interesting to know which ones get reviewed.
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By: Lisa Hill on May 7, 2024
at 11:24 am
I know, such a nightmare with the spam folder! Why can’t they see that we actually talk to each other frequently?
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By: Marianne @ Let's Read on May 10, 2024
at 12:29 am
It’s madness!
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By: Lisa Hill on May 10, 2024
at 8:38 am
I loved your rant about covers! And your #miserables! Made me smile!
Hope you are well!
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By: Marg on May 6, 2024
at 7:57 pm
LOL It’s always therapeutic to have a bit of a rant every now and again!
PS Are you watching Masterchef too? I can’t believe that Jack-in-a-Box dessert !!!
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By: Lisa Hill on May 6, 2024
at 8:43 pm