Another beautifully written and important book about death and fathers. Death of an Ordinary Man is a memoir, but it comes from the hands of a celebrated and prize winning English novelist, Sarah Perry, who brings to this deeply felt and moving account of the death of her much loved father-in-law an artist’s particular sensitivity and insight. It may be a story about death, but it’s also about illness, the care of the dying and ultimately about love and faith. It may be very particular, but it is also universal. And as the blurb on the cover says, “Please read this book. It may very well change how you live“. This unforgettable book deserves to win every prize available. I have not read anything as deeply moving for a very long time.
I have the impression that fewer novels are written about fathers and fatherhood than mothers and motherhood. That may simply reflect my reading choices and experience. Anyone who loved their father and lost him to illness is likely to be moved deeply by Death and the Gardener, the most recent novel from the Bulgarian writer (and winner of the International Booker prize in 2023), Georgi Gospodinov.
The book reads like a memoir. The narrator is a celebrated Bulgarian writer and his story is told with the apparently unflinching candor that one normally associates with journals or autobiographies. His account weaves memories of his father with a description of the old man’s illness, treatment, and death, all told in a style marked by simple directness with flashes of real tenderness. It’s one of those books that you find yourself wanting to read more slowly, more carefully, going back over particular sentences and paragraphs to embed them firmly in your memory and experience.
In remembering his father, and telling those remembrances, the narrator creates a eulogy and a memorial that will outlast the father and the son. And Gospodinov, in creating the story, creates a eulogy and memorial for every father that was loved and lost, so that perhaps the sons still living might realize and cherish what they had and what will never return. “We will never be as safe as we once were in our father’s arms“.
Thomas Flett is a shanker. Every morning at low tide he takes his horse and wagon to the beach, scrapes the sand and the shallow waters for shrimp, and delivers his haul for sale in the nearby town. He does it reluctantly and even resentfully, dreaming all the while of the folk music he would like to write and perform. Thomas lives with his mother in a rundown cottage. Money is scarce, so he conceals his ambitions from her, hiding his guitar and everything of his inner life. Work is hard, leaving him little or no time to follow his dreams, until one day, without warning, an American film director shows up scouting for suitable locations for his new project.
Disappointed and disillusioned young men, tied to labors they loathe, tethered by poverty, and dreaming of other lives are something of a literary staple. Think of Thomas Hardy, for example. Seascraper is firmly within that tradition. That in no way is intended to diminish Benjamin Wood’s achievement here. His tale is a memorable and poignant one, and he writes with great feeling for the frustrations of daily life and especially of thwarted ambition. In spite of that, Seascraper for me didn’t quite come off. It’s filled with atmosphere and the character of Thomas is written with subtlety and insight, but minor characters feel sketched rather than fully drawn. Nevertheless, this is a fine novel and one I’m pleased to have read.
Some experiences really are once-in-a-lifetime experiences. About a year ago it was announced that in mid-2025 one of the rarest and most exquisite medieval manuscripts would go on display to the public. Les Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry is an illuminated book of hours (a book of prayers intended to be read at specific hours of the day) first created between 1412 and 1416 for John, Duke of Berry, the brother of King Charles V of France. The manuscript, believed to be the work of the Limbourg brothers, was left unfinished because the brothers died, most likely victims of plague. Further work was done on the manuscript later in the 15th century by Barthelemy d’Eyck and Jean Colombe.
The manuscript is very rarely displayed because of its fragility and has only been seen by the public twice since the end of the 19th century. Even scholars have been denied access since the 1980s and forced to rely on facsimiles. The need to repair its binding gave an opportunity to exhibit some of the unbound pages at the Chateau de Chantilly where it is usually housed, an event so rare that it was described as one of the cultural highlights of the century. Needless to say, art lovers, historians, and bibliophiles have descended on Chantilly in huge numbers since June, but by the time I arrived in mid-September the crowds had subsided and I was able to see the exhibited pages up close.
Twelve pages were on display the day I visited, each one representing a month of the year. It is hard to describe how vivid, rich, and elaborate the illumination is on these pages, as well as the perfection of the calligraphy. It is a credit not just to the artists, but also those charged with the care and conservation of this treasure, that the illustrations look as if they could have been painted yesterday, such is the depth and brilliance of the color.
Some works of art defy categorization. This precious manuscript, a priceless example of medieval art, is one of them. I feel privileged to have seen it.
When I heard that Colm Toibin, one of my favorite writers, had written a book about James Baldwin, I was intrigued. I saw the obvious biographical similarities between the two. Both of them gay men, both with experience of living and writing in adopted homelands (Baldwin in France, Toibin in the US), and both touched deeply in different ways by the religious traditions in which they were raised. Intrigued and enthused I might have been, but I was also a little concerned that the book might demand a deep knowledge of Baldwin’s work (something I don’t have), and might be academic or dry (it’s published by a university press). I need not have worried. No doubt I would have got more from On James Baldwin if I had read more of Baldwin’s work or if I knew better books such as Giovanni’s Room, but this is as much a book about Toibin as it is about Baldwin. It’s also one that draws insightful parallels with the work of other notable emigre writers such as James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, and Henry James. Best of all, it made me want to read more James Baldwin, and I guess that’s mission accomplished!
Martin Gayford wrote a book a few years ago about the experience of having his portrait painted by Lucien Freud. Man with a Blue Scarf proved to be not only an insightful, up-close-and-personal look at Freud, but also an engaging account of what it took to be one of his sitters. It’s one of my favorite books. Gayford has now focused his attention on David Hockney, transcribing a series of conversations he had with the prolific artist over more than a decade.
The portrait that emerges from the book is of an inexhaustibly inventive, restless, curious, and thoughtful artist. Now in his late eighties, Hockney has spent some seven decades not just painting and drawing, but thinking deeply about the act of looking. The book is filled with his insights on his own working methods, on other painters (Constable, Fra Angelico, Picasso, Van Gogh and many more), his fascination with new technologies, and the tireless determination to see clearly and record faithfully. It’s not in any sense a conventional biography, but Gayford’s clever and sensitive questioning tells you more about the personality, passions, and compulsions of this extraordinary painter than a traditional account might.
A Bigger Message is a book for Hockney fans for sure, but also for anyone interested in the mind and work of a great artist.
I set myself the challenge some time ago to read David Kynaston’s monumental history of post-war Britain. I thought of it as a challenge not because it’s a difficult read. Far from it. Kynaston writes elegantly and clearly and is never dull. It is, however, a long series, running to some 2,500 pages over the four volumes covering 1945 and 1965. (Further books are planned taking the series to 1979).
I have just finished the first volume, Austerity Britain: 1945-1951 and was mightily impressed by it. Political and social history is rarely as vivid and engaging as this. It begins with Britons celebrating the end of World War 2 and ends with the run-up to the election of 1951 and the return to power of Winston Churchill, by then in his mid-70s. The period was, for the vast majority of British people, one marked by deprivation and hardship. These were years of empty shelves, ration books, shopping coupons, and general drabness. Yet against this background the British people were living through a period of extraordinary innovation and change. These were the years that saw the launch of The National Health Service, the beginnings of comprehensive education, extensive nationalization of key industries, and the rebuilding of much of the country’s urban infrastructure after the devastating destruction of the war and earlier social neglect.
Kynaston’s extraordinary achievement is to compose an utterly convincing “soundscape” of British life in the period by collecting so many voices and stories from such a range of people. This is not history told by the great and the good. The important politicians of the time (Attlee, Bevan, Wilson, and so on) feature, of course, but so do hundreds of ordinary citizens from all over the country. Miners, shopkeepers, factory workers, and housewives are all given a voice here through letters, diaries, and the findings of the Mass-Observation research project started in the 1930s.
In many respects, and perhaps only in the most superficial and obvious respects, Britain today looks, sounds, and feels nothing like the nation of the 1940s, but I was struck most not by the differences but by the similarities of the country eight decades apart. So many of the same problems persist. Managing the consequences of its long gone empire, deep class and wealth divisions, vital social issues such as affordable housing; these were the challenges of the 1940s and continue to be challenges eighty years later.
Flicking through a Saturday edition of The Financial Times recently, I came across one of those Q&As in which someone in the public eye (I’ve forgotten who) is asked about their interests, habits, recommendations, and so on. The interviewee, when asked about the best book they had read in the past year, spoke effusively about Robert Seethaler’s novella, A Whole Life. I had never heard of the writer or the book and was surprised to learn that the book had been shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize. My only surprise after reading it is that it didn’t win.
In 150 pages of spare, elegant prose, Seethaler tells the story of Andreas Egger, a man who spends almost his entire life in the mountains of Austria. It’s a life of great simplicity marked by hard work, hardship, occasional cruelty, and a lot of solitude. “He had never felt compelled to believe in God, and he wasn’t afraid of death. He couldn’t remember where he had come from, and ultimately he didn’t know where he would go. But he could look back without regret on the time in between, his life, with a full-throated laugh and utter amazement.”
A Whole Life is, quite simply, a wonderful work of art. What it does with great stealth and skill, in spare, soft-spoken prose of real elegance and power, is capture a simple life, and to encourage those who read it, without sermonizing, to make the best of their lives however those lives turn out. Unmissable, A Whole Life is close to perfection.
Relatively little is known about the Picts. They lived in what is now northern Scotland between 300 AD and 900 AD before gradually integrating with other tribes and kingdoms. They resisted the expansion of the Romans and earned the reputation of being fearsome warriors. They left behind a significant artistic legacy, and it was specifically their beautifully carved stones that drew me recently to the tiny village of Aberlemno in Angus. Normally one would find four stones in Aberlemno, three by the roadside and one in the churchyard, but a storm recently toppled and damaged Aberlemno 3, causing it to be removed from the site for inspection and repair.
Precise dating of the stones is, of course, difficult, but there seems to be consensus that the earliest could have been carved in the 6th century and that the most recent (Aberlemno 2, the one in the churchyard) is from around 850 AD. Aberlemno 1 is carved with mysterious Pictish symbols, including a serpent, a double disc and what appears to be a comb. It’s a powerful and confidently executed piece of work, but much simpler than Aberlemno 2. The stone in the churchyard feels like two distinct works. One side depicts Pictish symbols and figures in what looks like a battle, while the other side is a Celtic cross with beautiful and elaborate knotwork and keywork designs.
The stones, beautiful works of art though they are, are also extraordinary reminders of a long disappeared civilization. They have stood for all to see for more than 1.200 years, among a community, not hidden in a museum. I hope they are cared for and protected for generations to come because they testify to our persistent and enduring creativity.
Like most people with large book collections and limited shelving space, from time to time I fill a few bags with the unwanted and unloved and make a trip to the local thrift store. While doing so recently, I came across The Optimists by Andrew Miller. Miller is one of my favorite novelists, so it was a little bit of a shock (and a pleasant surprise) to discover an unread book by him in one of my bookcases. The novel was published twenty years ago. That makes it one of his earliest novels, but also one released after he had received some critical acclaim (for Oxygen).
In my experience anything by Miller is worth reading, but The Optimists is the least persuasive and satisfying of those I read previously. The plot is engaging enough, focusing on Clem Glass, a celebrated war photographer adjusting to life at home following an assignment in Africa in which he had witnessed and recorded unimaginable horrors. It’s also an ambitious book, exploring recovery from trauma, the role and value of artists in the face of wickedness, and the tricky relationship between images and truth. The ambition isn’t part of the failure of this novel. It’s the transparency of the ambition and the obviousness of Miller’s plan that undermines what he wanted to achieve. It’s all just a little too evident and too neatly packaged, and the lack of subtlety became distracting and grating. Also, the imaginative effort required to get into the mind and experience of a war photographer exposed to atrocities is just too much for Miller. It felt forced and ultimately unconvincing.
So, not one of Andrew Miller’s most satisfying or successful novels, but a thoughtful and thought-provoking read nevertheless.
Miscellaneous Musings 