Six Degrees of Separation: from The Post Office Girl to The King’s Mother

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

This month’s chain begins with Stefan Zweig – The Post Office Girl. Which I haven’t read. I’m going to hunt for six books with the names of jobs and occupations in the title.

This gives me an easy way to begin my own chain – with The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman by Denis Thériault .This is a bittersweet, poetic tale about Bilodo, a lonely postman in Quebec who escapes his somewhat empty  reality by secretly reading the letters inside open envelopes. When he comes across a mysterious haiku, he becomes deeply entangled in a long-distance romance. 

There’s many a children’s book featuring postmen. many of them written by Janet & Allan Ahlberg. But the Ahlbergs covered other – er – occupations in their very many books, of which a family favourite was – Burglar Bill. The book follows an entirely amiable burglar as he goes out nightly to steal – well, a toothbrush and the like, and whose life changes when he accidentally steals a baby, and then meets a soul mate – Burglar Betty, leading them to abandon their criminal ways, marry, and presumably live happily ever after.

Returning to more public-service professions, there’s The Light House Keeper’s Lunch by Ronda and David Armitage which follows the story of Mr. Grinling, a lighthouse keeper, and his clever wife Mrs. Grinling, who daily sends his lunch along to him from home to lighthouse via a complicated pulley system. When scavenging seagulls repeatedly steal Mr. Grinling’s delicious lunches, it’s up to Mrs. G to upset their nefarious schemes by making sandwiches generously filled with …. mustard.  That soon sorts the thieves out.

Perhaps a more useful occupation for a landlubber is that of the milkman.  And Milkman is a book by Anna Burns.This convoluted, stream-of-consciousness narrative is no easy read, but it rewards the effort made to get under its skin. An eighteen year old woman living somewhere in (it has to be, though never said) in Northern Ireland during the 1970s, attempts escape from the convoluted realities of loyalties, honour, family, tribalism, rumour by reading 19th century novels, attending French classes. There is no escape from the attentions of The Milkman, a married man who all-but stalks her. There’s her maybe-boyfriend, her wee sisters, her mother’s attempts to marry her off, her family to contend with, and all this is described in multi-layers of language, which simultaneously illuminate and confuse. The inability simply to be, to get on with life without meaning being imposed by others on the simplest routines is described in all its confusing power by Burns’ use of language – adjective piled on adjective, metaphor on metaphor. It’s suffocatingly powerful, and quite honestly, I was glad to finish it. Though very glad to have read it. 

Luckily, The Memory Police are not part of the job-offering here in the UK – yet. I’m not normally a fan of dystopian fiction, but I found this a powerful and unsettling read, by Yōko Ogawa . Simply yet lyrically written , the writer – this is told in the first person – lives on an island in thrall to the Memory Police. Things comprehensively disappear, and the inhabitants soon lose any memories of the things that have vanished. Those unfortunate people who find they do not forget simply are removed by the Memory Police and never seen again. The ‘writer’ of this book is herself a novelist and she hides her editor in her house, because his memories do not fade, and he is therefore in danger… We never find out more about the Memory Police, or know to whom they are answerable. But we are left with a lot to think about – totalitarian regimes, life, death and the process of letting go and of dying. 

Is being The King’s Mother a job?  Read Annie Garthwaite’s book about Cecily, Duchess of York, and you’ll discover that it is indeed a job for life. This narrative, a successor to Garthwaite’s first book, is about the troubled reigns of Cecily’s sons Edward (IV) and Richard (III), who are brought to life in the story told from the perspective of their redoubtable mother. It offers a rounded perspective of life as it must have been at that time. Being rich, powerful and influential was no passport to an easy life, with allies becoming sworn enemies, and enemies friends, for a whole variety of reasons both good and bad. Richard in particular is sensitively portrayed, and is a different one from his image in popular mythology.  An involving and powerful story from a troubled period of history. 

So. Job done. A chain all about jobs. Next month’s looks to be about Woman’s Work. It’s Caro Claire Burke’s Yesteryear. I’ve just read the Guardian’s review, which hasn’t tempted me to read it. But it’ll make for am intriguing chain, I hope.

Yesterday, I informed you that you’d seen the back of me for a while. I’d forgotten about my Six Degrees post lurking in drafts. Now I really AM off … though I’ll try to respond to any comments on this post.