A little light reading

Silence on this blog does not equal no reading, just that I enjoy reading more than I enjoy writing about reading. During my PGCE, most of my reading was about spiritual matters, as I undertook a discipleship and church planting school at my church. Among other things we read Celebration of Discipline (Richard Foster) - beautifully written book about spiritual disciplines; The Church Can Change the World (Jimmy Seibert) - an exciting adventure about the birth of the movement of churches we are part of; and Spiritual Authority (Watchman Nee) - a hard-hitting and thought-provoking classic. It was fantastic, but I am enjoying being able to read for pleasure again!

And for whatever reason, for light reading I have been drawn more and more to the 1920s-1950s, and to three writers in particular: P.G. Wodehouse, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Stella Gibbons. Let me tell you why...

I discovered P.G. Wodehouse as an undergraduate, having heard of Jeeves and Wooster and deciding I ought to see if it was any good. It was. However I actually prefer the one-off stories, mainly involving bumbling but well-meaning toffs in monetary and amorous scrapes. One of my favourites has been Laughing Gas (1936), where a young English earl visiting California switches bodies with a twelve-year-old boy movie star. Wodehouse's wit and humour is delightful, and I often find myself re-reading a passage or line that seems particularly appropriate or amusing. The dedication to The Indiscretions of Archie particularly struck me as a good example:

"The fact is, I have become rather suspicious about dedications. No sooner do you label a book with the legend:-
To my best friend X
than X cuts you in Piccadilly, or you bring a lawsuit against him. There is a fatality about it. However, I can't imagine anyone quarrelling with you, and I am getting more attractive all the time, so let's take a chance."

Simon Callow has recorded a lot of Wodehouse books for audio book, and compares reading his prose to singing Mozart, and I can see the similarity - frivolous but elaborate and careful craftsmanship. Try him!!

I had only heard of Dorothy L. Sayers from Suzanne, who lectures in British Christian writers between the world wars at l'Universite Catholique de Lille, and as a first year I proofread a series of radio lectures she had discovered in an archive of an American university, which was published as The Christ of the Creeds (2008). I was very impressed by the clarity of Sayers' writing, but only read one of her detective novels, featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, whom she is most famous for creating, last year - The Nine Tailors (1934). Although it took me a while to 'get into', I am now hooked and am slowly reading my way through all of these books. Having grown up on Agatha Christie it was a shock at first - Sayers' books are more detailed, longer, with more precise characterisation - but I now think Lord Peter a wonderful character, and particularly enjoy the constant literary quotations and references throughout the books (those which I am able to pick up, anyway!). I'm surprised these books aren't better known and appreciated, and that no one has decided to re-make them for television (the last production was about 30 years ago, and I don't think all of them have ever been done). I still love some Agatha Christie but am definitely enjoying Dorothy L. Sayers too!

I've blogged on Stella Gibbons before - particularly on Cold Comfort Farm. I think for a long time that's all I imagined she'd written. No! I'd heard a radio adaptation of Westwood a couple of times and decided it was time to read more of her work, so I got hold of Westwood (1946) and Nightingale Wood (1938) and read them both recently. They make an interesting comparison. Nightingale Wood is very light - a reworking of Cinderella - very frivolous, and Westwood doesn't allow for a fully satisfying happy ending in the same way. It is fascinating because it was written so soon after the end of the war - and indeed the novel is set in the war so you really see what it was like for ordinary people in London while it was still fresh in the memory. Perhaps this proximity to the war is what prompts Gibbons to refuse us the 'happily ever after' ending we feel we deserve. Gibbons' characterisation is biting - and at times borders on the cruel - in all of her books I have read so far, but her characters are human - the bad with some good, and the good with some bad, as in real life.


I'm starting to love this period, and these writers, and others. They are the perfect light reading for me - I feel embarrassed both borrowing or buying and reading most 'chick-lit' which I'm supposed to find escapist, and books from this era allow me a window into the past. Additionally, they are much less explicit in terms of bad language etc, which I appreciate. I recommend all of these writers, and welcome suggestions for others! (Please... not D.H. Lawrence... I've read a few and find him depressing and far, far too serious. Besides, who can take Lawrence seriously after they have read Cold Comfort Farm?!).


Of course, I've also been reading The Hunger Games - who hasn't?! But maybe that's a future blog post...