Northanger Abbey (Jane Austen)

Jane Austen
Northanger Abbey

A study of social mores and associated personal relationships mainly set in the city where I was brought up. The observations are timeless, classless and nationless and therefore of interest to everyone despite the time and place setting of this novel. Starting as a commentary comparing our heroine with romantic trashy novels that she's read she lives as if she's part of one which once reaching the books title seems to take her and the book over. It's preceded by the hero, sister and heroine playfully debating, with a misunderstanding between real life and literature, the actions of people whilst looking over Bath from the vantage point of Beechen Cliff. As my secondary school was at Beechen Cliff and I walked down Jacobs Ladder to Bath every day for years I can just imagine their vista and the smell of wild garlic wafting up through the woods. I'm wondering that if after ridiculing that book genre that Austen falls into it through laziness. The ending in particular is hardly twist in the tail stuff. Maybe the book isn't so timeless and was a lot sharper back when written. A lot of the references to literature would have been better understood no doubt. A good read nevertheless.

Go Set a Watchman (Harper Lee)

Harper Lee
Go Set a Watchman

After virtually a lifetime the long awaited sequel to To Kill A Mocking Bird. It starts as the last ended with the space of a few years and at first it seems that it will be more in the same vein showing up southern states unfair discrimination. But then it takes a strange twist and the further our heroine rails against what she's seen the more the author seems to justify the segregation position. It gives a completely unexpected reason for the Mocking Bird's hero's actions and you're left wondering if it was always that way. Then our heroine seems to fall into the same view or at least accept why it is. Whereas Mocking Bird left us with hope at a time when it was needed this leaves us with a sour taste and we wonder if things will ever change. This weeks (white) police killings of unarmed or at least incapacitated (black) men show that things haven't really changed much in some places. There again the books obsession with different races procreating seems well out of time reading in London in 2016. It's difficult to know whether Harper Lee is putting forward her opinion or pointing out that things haven't changed in some places. It sort of feels like the former given our natural liking for the characters. Very confusing and disturbing. And very readable.