Death Comes to Pemberley – PD James

Yes it’s that Pemberley, country seat of Darcy and his wife Elizabeth (nee Bennet) of Pride and Prejudice fame. The couple are well settled and have a couple of children by now, but their idyllic existence is about to be intruded upon.

A violent death occurs in the grounds; and Darcy’s old enemy, and now his shamed and shunned brother-in-law, Wickham is involved. This creates conflicted emotions with personal antipathy struggling against family honour.

This gives a lot of scope for Darcy to stiffen his upper lip, for the family servants to display commendable loyalty, and for Elizabeth to simper about from good sister to bad sister via sweet sister-in-law, while ensuring the house is kept up to scratch.

The crime investigation is minimal, no Adam Dalgleish here, instead a Justice of the Peace and Coroner just ask a few questions and assume that those interrogated are either telling the truth or are lying for good honourable reasons, and so should not be pressed further.

A trial takes place, enlivened by a late revelation, and eventually the whole truth comes out as those in the know don’t so much spill the beans as spoon them out carefully, strictly on a need to know basis.

It is an interesting curiosity of a read; those more familiar with Pride and Prejudice may get more out of it than a one-time reader like me. PD James clearly enjoyed attempting to write in the style of Jane Austen, and I for one do not begrudge her this indulgence.

Gone With The Wind (volume 1) by Margaret Mitchell

The journey

Part of the America 1850 reading journey

How it got on the shelf

It’s a bit of a mystery as no one in the house will own up to buying it, but it has been there a while, intimidating in its bulk and close knit print in this 1996 (60^th anniversary) paperback edition. It probably arrived as a second hand, but clearly unread, makeweight in a buy three for a pound offer; picked up due to its inclusion in both the BBC Big Read best 100 novels of all time and the Channel 4 books of the century list.

The Review

This thousand page blockbuster is helpfully split into two volumes, which will allow a two part review. There may be some spoilers below but the main story will be familiar from the film and, of course, history.

Volume 1 is very much the story of southern belle Scarlett O’Hara, eldest of four daughters of Gerald and Ellen. He of rough and ready Irish extraction, she with French ancestry, which gives Scarlett unrivalled beauty dangerously mixed with a belief that life is for living and convention is for others. Life on the Tara plantation suits her down to the ground as she keeps all the young beaux dancing to her tune, although the only one she really wants (Ashley Wilkes) is proving resistant to her charms.

The war with the North is coming, but the South’s preparation more resembles that for just another, if rather large, summer ball – what colour uniform should the Georgia cavalry wear, and should they let the ‘poor whites’ join, even if their horses are a bit of a disgrace? Indeed much of part 1 could be mistaken for a haberdasher’s manual as organdie, muslin, lace, silk and taffeta combine to great effect (in the ladies’ dresses rather than the gentlemen’s uniforms).

The coming war produces a scramble for husbands and, despite a desperate last ditch attempt by Scarlett (witnessed by the dashing, if socially unacceptable, Rhett Butler), Ashley opts for another. Scarlett settles on the rebound for an unlikely alternative but her marriage proves short-lived though productive, leaving her a widow and single parent at just 17 years old.

In part 2 Scarlett, restless at Tara, takes up an offer to move to the bustling town of Atlanta, moving in with Ashley’s wife, Melly and her aunt. As the war cranks up and the Yankee blockade begins to bite Scarlett is distressed at the consequent shortage of new dresses and hats with even ribbons hard to come by. Not to worry, for Rhett Butler, now  a ‘blockade runner’ is able to keep her well supplied, tempting her out of her widow’s weeds and wheedling his way into the ladies’ society.

By part 3 the war dominates as the confederate army struggles and is driven back towards Atlanta. Reality finally hits Scarlett as she is pressed into helping at the hospital and keeping the home going with Aunt Pittypat, as useful as her name suggests, the increasingly pregnant Melly, and of course the last remnants of their loyal  ‘blacks’ . These latter are treated throughout a bit like favoured household animals for whom affection is held but who need to be scolded and occasionally beaten for their own good.

When the unthinkable happens and Atlanta falls Scarlett needs all her innate Irish practicality, independent nature and sheer cussedness to get her though some tough situations (with a little help from Rhett before he, better late than never, heads off in support of the now lost cause). Scarlett heads back to Tara with her motley crew, not knowing whether it will still be standing, whether her family will still be there or how they will survive. Her transformation is illustrated through her reckless exposure to the elements and the ever present danger of freckles, and the selfless destruction of her petticoat to provide a halter for a stray cow encountered on the journey. More dramatic trials await her at Tara.

By the end of volume 1 the war has been lost and along with it the comfortable plantation life, the cotton crops and worst of all the youth of the South; will Ashley and Rhett be numbered among them?

The Cat’s Table – Michael Ondaatje

On the ocean going liner Oronsay, the Cat’s Table represents the opposite end of the social scale to that of the Captain and his dinner guests; and this is where 11 year old Michael takes his meals during his three week voyage from Ceylon to London, where he will be reunited with his mother.

His fellow diners, as well as some interesting adults, include two boys of his own age with whom he soon forms a companionship based on a shared appetite for adventure and mischief; which without any meaningful adult supervision (it is the 1950s) they are able to indulge to the full.

The story is related by the adult Michael looking back with a mixture of nostalgia and hindsight, and as the book (and the voyage) progresses the lives of the adults on board take on more significance than the boys’ pranks. The fellow cat’s table diners, crew members and others on board form an eccentric bunch, with rich seams of adult experience for the boys to mine.  

As the book delves into their lives, and into more recent events in Michael’s life, its pace drops to a meandering reflective stage almost mirroring some sort of mid-voyage doldrums.

Just as the reader begins to accept that the book is no more than an enjoyable series of episodes and character sketches, the pace picks up again with moments of tension and glimpses of potential resolution that last to landfall in the Thames.

The sense of time and place and the unfolding of chance encounters carry the narrative along effortlessly, even though little happens most of the time. But how little is needed to disproportionately affect us at an impressionable age?

As Ondaatje says “it would always be strangers like them at the various Cat’s Tables of my life who would alter me”.

The Evil Genius – Wilkie Collins

The title seems at first a bit of a misnomer. There is no wicked mastermind at work here, all the damage is caused by unwise love and misguided good intentions. This does not diminish the melodrama that is Wilkie Collins’ familiar house style; but it places the reader in unfamiliar territory without clear villains to hiss and heroes to cheer.

Instead we have a (so far) upright husband, the good wife and their precious child; then the young, vulnerable but pretty governess arrives (not the wisest appointment as pointed out by the opinionated mother-in-law). Things happen, as things will, and suppressed desires emerge and moral dilemmas multiply with the involvement of the brother, the lawyer and the philanthropic but mysterious ex-sea captain.

It is an intellectual challenge to keep track of who knows what about whom as paths criss-cross with folk popping in and out of doorways in the various locations – Scottish estate, seaside guest house, London hotel – missing each other narrowly to keep the tension high.

The challenge emotionally is with whom to sympathise, as the balance of blame shifts about with the vagaries of human behaviour, all too often at the bidding of their ‘bad angel’ – presumably the evil genius of the title.

So although lacking the high criminal drama of ‘The Moonstone’ and ‘The Woman in White’, this still draws the reader into a gripping story of uncertain outcome.