FF Friday

For the second week in succession I find myself surprised by the way that a book published in the early years of the twenty-first century feels rather dated. In the case of Alma Mater, this was at least partly because the book was in fact set in the early eighties. But it was also because the narrative's attitude to cheating is one that you really don't see much these days, and I spent much of it wondering if I was becoming one of Those Prudish Tumblr Kids, because usually it doesn't bother me as much as this.

Vic is a senior student at a university in the Southern USA. She's dating Charly, the star football player. As the book opens, Chris transfers in from Vermont. This sets up a love triangle which goes on for... the rest of the book.

Actually, I think I'd have been less irritated by the cheating if the characters had been written more strongly. Charly was something of a cardboard cutout, and Chris didn't seem to have much of a personality at all. Vic made Hamlet look decisive, and spent most of the book stringing both Chris and Charly along until compelled by developments to make a decision. Between Chris's reluctance to confront Vic and Charly's obliviousness, Chekhov's gun stayed put on the mantelpiece and went off with a damp *phut* in the last chapter.

Also, a large proportion of the action took place at Vic's home, which allowed for a few lovely bits of description on the one hand, and some deeply unfunny supporting characters on the other.

This was a really intriguing premise - a researcher sets out to discover the identity and story of two women whose frozen bodies are discovered on Mont Blanc 90 years after their disappearance. They're established quite early on to have been a couple and the narrator identifies (over-identifies?) with them and their struggle to be taken seriously in a man's world.

Unfortunately, it didn't work for me as it stood. Despite a valiant effort by the narrator, I never got far enough into the climbers' heads to be able to see their attempt - unassisted, with unconvincing preparation, and in uncertain weather - as heroic rather than foolhardy. (And that in itself made me doubt the historian's credentials...)

It also had the issue I've noticed in a few historical novels recently: a failure to mix in the (obviously thorough) research sufficiently, resulting in an unconvincing portrayal of the past which had one of the women explaining the recent developments of the suffrage movement in a love letter.

I think I'd either have preferred it twice the length, with room to dig into both couples' stories and personalities, or as a pure historical, removing the distance between Ruth and Cat and their objective. And either way, it needed a more thorough edit than it got.

This is a 420 page doorstop of a book, containing just under a century's worth of prose. The first story is Sarah Orne Jewett's Martha's Lady (1897); the last, Jeanette Winterson's The Poetics of Sex (1993). Despite the title, not everything in here is a short story - there's an extract from Beebo Brinker, and part of a lecture by Virginia Woolf.

It sits very much at the literary end of things, often wandering off into the downright experimental, and I sometimes felt that it took itself a little too seriously. But it took its contents seriously, too, and it was pleasing to see facsimile reproductions of parts of The Ladies' Almanack (which I'm sure is hilarious if one knew any of the ladies) and a comic strip by Alison Bechdel. I'd be really interested to see what might be included in an updated edition.

I gulped the Harwood Spellbook series down last week. This is a light fantasy set in an alternate universe nineteenth century Britain, one in which Boudicca successfully repelled the Roman invaders. Getting on for two millennia later, society is modelled after her marriage: women are the leaders, and men, magicians, play a supporting role. There's also an uneasy relationship with Elfland. I found the whole series delightful, just the thing for a chilly January.

I'm only talking about Moontangled here, but I'd recommend reading the other books in the series alongside it. The f/f relationship which is central to this book also appears in all but one of the others.

( Very mildly spoilery ) As with other books in the series, I'd have liked to see more of the world: this was a glimpse of a magical version of What Katy Did At School, and I'd happily have read an entire novel's worth.



I've been watching a lot of winter sports lately (biathlon and Alpine skiing, mostly) and went off to buy Edge of Glory (Rachel Spangler) very soon after learning about its existence and its premise. Which is: Alpine skier returning from a serious injury is convinced to lighten up by a snowboarder approaching the end of her career. Both have their eyes on the upcoming Winter Olympics...

I appreciated the focus that both Elise (skier) and Corey (snowboarder) had on their respective sports. Both take them extremely seriously, and both were convincing as (existing or potential) champions. At the same time, the focus on athletic excellence provided a natural source of tension around their developing relationship without any need for manufactured conflict.

One thing that didn't ring quite true for me was Elise's lack of interest in her rivals, given her determination to make the Olympic team. The portrait of a withdrawn, defensive, athlete was convincing, but it seemed implausible that she wouldn't at least have been keeping an eye on the competition, if only to know what sort of time she had to beat.

My other nitpick was the final misunderstanding and resolution. While this was set up very plausibly, and the dialogue was OK, I didn't quite buy it on an emotional level.

But overall I very much enjoyed this book. Elise and Corey are both engaging characters in their very different ways, and the supporting cast is great too. I really enjoyed the camaraderie around the snowboard team, and the way that Corey took a younger snowboarder under her wing rather than resenting a rising star was a very pleasant surprise, setting the tone for the rest of the book.

I picked this up in Oxfam this afternoon. The combination of title and author caught my attention - Michael Field are of course two of the authors who posthumously had their birth names (Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper; they each used several nicknames as well as their joint pseudonym) assigned to their literary work in the 'Reclaim Her Name' initiative, but I'd been aware of them before as poets, lovers, and aunt and niece.

I enjoy Emma Donoghue's fiction, so was interested to see how she'd approach a biography. She gives the impression of being thorough, detached, wry, and as respectful as one can be of two people who sound as if they must have been rather difficult. She gets the unfamiliar culture across well, establishing that a romantic friendship between two women, even an aunt and a niece, was nothing unusual, but that it was the sexual element that would have had to be concealed. She lets the facts, so far as they are known, speak for themselves and refrains from moralising, which felt like a good approach to me. The whole family set-up came across as being claustrophobic and unhealthy, and I ended up feeling most sorry for Edith's younger sister Amy, who seems to have been abandoned to deal with their possessive father much of the time.

It's a short book - 145 pages - and I raced through it in a couple of hours. Donoghue is frank about the amount of material she's had to leave out. There's a huge amount of material - the Michaels kept a joint diary for most of their life together, but some frustrating gaps (it's impossible to tell when the relationship became sexual as well as romantic). Donoghue includes plenty of their writing, heading each chapter with a poem as well as quoting from their plays.

Short but satisfying: I now know much more than I did before, and have a decent idea where to go to find out more should I wish to.