From Pyrenees to Pennines

On the first Saturday of every month, a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.

Kate:  Books are my Favourite and Best

I am currently 108th in the queue at the library to borrow Maggie O’Farrell‘s Land, this month’s starter book, so obviously I haven’t read it yet. Here’s a hint of the earlier part of the story, disclosed by Google’s little AI pal. ‘Tomás and his reluctant son, Liam, are working for the great Ordnance Survey project to map the whole of Ireland. The year is 1865, and in a country not long since ravaged and emptied by the Great Hunger, the task is not an easy one. Tomás, however, is determined that his maps will be a record of the disaster. ‘

Maps then. I love a map within a book, and one of my favourites is that of the Hundred Acre Wood, included in AA Milne’s Winnie the Pooh. Drawn by Christopher Robin himself, the map includes a number of spelling and grammatical errors, such as – ‘Rabbits frends and raletions’ all of which only serve to endear Christopher Robin and his woodland pals to us even more.

Christopher Robin’s best ‘frend’ is Winnie the Pooh. So let’s go for Beartown by Frederick Backman, set in Sweden, my new obsession. But it took me fully 200 pages to get into this book. I was uninterested in this shabby little town out in the wilds of northern Sweden, and its love of hockey  And then, just under half way through, I became more involved. I began to understand how the town’s position on the ice-hockey stage could make or break this community. And a drama takes place which splits, and nearly sinks it. This is an engaging  story embracing the tribe mentality, and others who are outsiders not only in the hockey world, but life generally. Because life is ice-hockey in Beartown, and a single incident has the power to change the fortunes of an entire community.

Another Frederick Backman: A Man called Ove. I took against this book in the first few pages. It was obvious that the story line was going to be ‘curmudgeonly old man, widely disliked, is revealed to have a heart of gold, and after about 250 pages, everyone lives happily ever after‘. This is exactly what happened. I turned the pages readily enough, but was unconvinced by almost everyone but the cat. I didn’t believe in the friendly new neighbour. I didn’t quite believe in Ove’s wife Sonja. I wasn’t sure about his on-off (mainly off) relationship with his neighbour Rune either. But most of all, I didn’t believe that Ove would turn from irritable and irritating to everyone’s favourite grandfather in only three weeks. A decent enough beach read, but this whimsical tale was far too fey to appeal to me. 

We’ll stay in Sweden. And why not? When the Cranes Fly South: Lisa Ridzén (translated by Alice Menzies) is far better value than my previous choice, though it too has as its main protagonist an elderly man. This quiet book is the story of the latter days of Bo, who sees out his days in a small village in northern Sweden. His only visitors are his four-times-a-day calls from care-workers who sum up their visits in short notes that intersperse each chapter. His busy son Hans calls sometimes too, substituting stuffing his fridge with unwanted food for time spent sitting chatting. Beyond that he has telephone contact with his only friend Ture. And contact, through conversations in his head, with his much-loved wife who is now in a care home suffering from dementia. Though his best friend of all is his elkhound Sixten, whom he can no longer take on long energetic walks. And Hans, for the dog’s wellbeing, wants Sixten re-homed. This book is about Bo’s battle, after a lifetime of sitting on feelings and never talking about them, to make himself and his own wishes known. It’s an extraordinarily moving book, bringing up feelings about our own mortality, and that of people for whom we care.

Another story about loss, a very different one is Alice Zeniter’s The Art of Losing (Translated by Frank Wynne). I was engaged in this book from start to finish. It’s the 70 year story of a family, and begins in a village in Algeria, where Ali has made good and become a figure of some importance in his family and community. The Algerian War of Independence changes all that, and forced to flee to France, they become harkis (French Algerians), despised alike by the French and Algerians who remained in the home country who remained. A life of camps and sub-standard accommodation and work awaits them. It falls to university educated Naima, Ali’s granddaughter finally to visit Algeria again. This is a story about colonisation, immigration, and how to carry on in the face of the loss of your country and cultural identity, and is both a powerful history lesson and a meditation on the difficult questions posed by the cultural upheaval of being forced to leave your home country.

Reading Zeniter’s book prompted me to read The French Intifada by Andrew Hussey. It takes a long look at the inhabitants of France who come from the former French territories of Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia. Much of the book is devoted to France’s possession of these nations, and to the troubles leading to their final independence. It’s a horrifying and illuminating story, and one that does much to explain the disaffection of many of the Maghrebin population in France. Hussey touches on the history of those North Africans who chose to emigrate to France, and examines the very recent past, looking at recent riots and at Muslims in the French prison system. Despite the seriousness of the subject matter, this is a book that is easy to read and complex issues are dealt with clearly. A compelling and disturbing read. 

Goodness. That’s ending on a serious note. But perhaps it was our starting point too? The first: the aftermath of the Great Famine. The last: the aftermath of war. Next month (September 5, 2026), we’re invited to start with our book group’s current selection, or if not in a book group, to start with the book that we’re currently reading. Well, I AM in a book group, so let’s see where I’ll start. Why not join in too?