In April I moved house. Again. That’s the second time in six months. This was unexpected, exhausting and a good thing. Now I live in a beautiful old house and have no plans to move again any time soon. I had to pack up 200 boxes of books, along with all my other possessions. The difference was, this time I was doing it with a damaged rack of ribs. Cycling home one sunny afternoon, I hit a gravel-filled pot hole and went flying. Mercifully I was wearing a helmet, and was thrown onto a driveway rather than a moving car. Lying on the ground, upturned wheels spinning, a trio of strangers (all women) rushed to my aid. Mercifully the bike was fine but I was pretty battered. The bruises turned green and faded fairly swiftly, the cuts healed over, but my ribs, my god the ribs. It was a debilitating pain. Laughing became difficult, lying down an ordeal and sneezing nigh on impossible. As a result, bending and crouching down to pack up boxes of books had to be done very, very slowly.
Amidst all this, and the atrocious barrage of admin that accompanies every move, it was culture that kept me sane. Ironically, packing up all my books left me with less time for reading, but I dipped into several books that I want to sit and finish when life is quieter. They were:
The McCartney Legacy: Volume 1: 1969 – 73 by Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair
Havana Year Zero by Karla Suarez, translated from Spanish by Christina MacSweeney
The Carnation Revolution: The Day Portugal's Dictatorship Fell by Alex Fernandes
Africonomics: A History of Western Ignorance by Bronwen Everill
Vietdamned: How the World's Greatest Minds Put America on Trial by Clive Webb
With my own books packed up I had to rely on my local library, which is where I found The Mission House by Carys Davies (2020). This is a brilliant short novel about an Englishman who moves to India. He is a repressed, recently retired librarian who is unable to deal with people and the world. Of course, because he is a man, a woman deals with the world for him. His sister navigates the complications of life on his behalf, and as I was battling with house-admin I longed for someone to do that for me. But then again, hiding away from the world is also hiding away from life. Davies is superb on the how the English romanticise India, and how people travel to find themselves rather than to understand others. She’s also excellent on how men can make decisions without ever considering a woman’s wishes, and the silent power of animals. Halfway through the book it becomes something else entirely, which is very deftly handled. Despite being a short novel it has a lot of impact, and manages to feel both historical and topical. Don’t be put off by the vague cover or the religious overtones in the copy, it’s great and made me want to read all of Davies’ work. My copy of Clear is in a box somewhere but I nabbed a hardback of West from the library.
Then there were two novels and a film that I found unexpectedly connected. All were female-led stories about female characters, but dominated by the corroding, outsized influence of men. First was Behind The Scenes At The Museum by Kate Atkinson (1995) which caught me off guard because it’s plastered in praise quotes about how funny it is. I thought it well-written, evocative and clever, but depressing rather than amusing. Perhaps it was all just too close to home. The generations of women whose lives have been wasted, dominated by fear and the need to save face. To constantly be seen to keep up with the Jones’s, and never put your head above the parapet or get ideas above your station. The protagonist, Ruby, is frequently told ‘don’t be clever’, as if that is a mortal sin for a girl. The many women of this novel consider themselves to be nothing without a man, no matter how bad he is.
This laser-beam focus on men also featured in The Party by Tessa Hadley (2024). A novella really, I read this in one sitting. Hadley is a very good writer, and this reminded me a little of Brooklyn, if only both sisters had crossed the water. Once again, their lives revolve entirely around men, and when both sisters are taken advantage of all they can do is be game, try to have a laugh about it and carry on with their lives. To an extent, that’s all we can ever do really.
Unlike these two novels, the film Wicked Little Letters (2023) is genuinely funny, but another reminder of how precarious women’s freedoms are. I was always going to enjoy a film about women that isn’t about romance or murder, but this is elevated by a particularly snappy script and sublime performances. The root cause of the plot is the abuse of religion, by a man, to oppress the women in his life to the point where one dies and the other loses her mind.
I enjoyed all three of these stories but they left me pondering - is the only way to break the cycle of misery, to escape generations of weak fathers and mean mothers, to up sticks and leave? In Wicked Little Letters Rose leaves Ireland to start a new life. In Behind the Scenes, the women who manage to build some happiness are the ones who flee to Canada and Australia and a remote Scottish island. I think there is some truth in this, in moving to new ground to find peace. Ultimately though, what these stories demonstrate is how fiercely women need to protect their freedoms.
Unlikeable Female Characters by Anna Bogutskaya (2023) - speaking of women on film, this is a collection of essays on female cinematic stereotypes, i.e. ‘The Bitch’ or ‘The Mean Girl’. As with all film books, it’s more engaging when discussing films you’re familiar with, and some chapters worked for me better than others. That said, Bogutskaya is very good on cinematic history, and particularly Bette Davies. When it comes to more modern cinema, there was a slight reliance on wider popular culture, including television and pop music, which left me wanting more on film, but this is an interesting and accessible feminist canter through the history of Anglo-American cinema.
Broadcast News (1987) - After enjoying September 5 last month, I fancied another film about the death of news. Early on in Broadcast News there is a moment that made me adore it, and wonder how on earth I’ve not watched it until now. The moment a man leaves her room, Jane (played by Holly Hunter), immediately rips off her tights. This is exactly what happens in real life but I have never seen it on screen before. That’s far from the only moment of relatability here. The moments of crying of course, and when someone tells Jane she always looks like she’s covered in a grimy film when she’s at work. This comment is a minor observation in the scheme of the film, where the cruelty of the men around Jane is astounding. Their behaviour caused several sharp intakes of breath, but it’s dreadfully realistic. These men want Jane, they claim to love her, but they cannot be kind to her, supportive of her. These are men who believe that being ‘single and fat’ is the worst possible fate for any woman. Yet unlike the women in the novels mentioned above, Jane controls her own destiny. Here we have a heroine who is brilliantly intelligent and putting her mind to use in a career she adores. When Jane hosts a picnic in the rain, she is accepting that it’s impossible to plan and control everything, and that we have to make the best of the chaos of life.
Mr Burton (2025) - I made a point of seeing this film about the young Richard Burton in the cinema (if we don’t go and show our support, they won’t keep making them). It’s a film about the power of education and culture, and these are just a few of the lines that have stayed with me:
‘You must always keep reading… it is the most important thing’.
‘No cultured person is ever lonely’.
‘Creativity must be pursued in spite of discouragement’.
Culture is shown to transcend class, and this was a time where it was possible to achieve more than your background dictated. A brief era when the working classes could make a living from the arts, through BBC regional productions and scholarships. How quaint that all feels now. This class commentary is overlaid with the persistent xenophobia against the Welsh, and there is a pleasing amount of Welsh language. Even without all this, Mr Burton is worth seeing for the performances alone. Toby Jones is wonderful as ever, and quite understated, while newcomer Harry Lawtey was very impressive. Playing someone so familiar and unusually charismatic is difficult, but Lawtey inhabits the transformation of Richie Jenkins into Richard Burton. As ever, the women spot his extraordinary charm first, just as they did with Elvis and The Beatles, but it’s not all lightness here. The film doesn’t shy away from how cruel and difficult Richard Burton could be, but contextualises it (the neglected twelfth of thirteen children of an alcoholic, impoverished father). PH Burton has been treated with suspicion by many biographers, who tend to assume there was something sinister going on. Richard Burton undoubtedly had a complicated relationship with masculinity, which is portrayed here, but there have been homophobic undertones in the historic assessment of PH Burton, not dissimilar to the treatment of Brian Epstein. This film takes a very different view, showing PH Burton as a saviour, and staying just on the right side of tension. It made me want to return to Erotic Vagrancy by Roger Lewis, and Richard Burton’s diaries, but alas, my copies were boxed up…
Warfare (2025) - This is a staggering film, which ought to be seen in the cinema, as I did with a fellow War Studies graduate. Based on a real life incident in Iraq in 2006, in the aftermath of the Battle of Ramadi, Warfare plays out in real time. There is a complete lack of any context or politics. There is no attempt to explain why these soldiers are there, or what their mission is. There may be a lack of narrative or sentimentality, but there is no deficit of drama or character. This is easily one of the best war films I have ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot.
What hit me almost as hard as the film itself was the realisation that these events were two decades ago, when they feel so very recent. The best films give you a lot to think about, and this one made me want to turn to books about the wars of my youth. I unearthed my copies of Unwinnable: Britain’s War in Afghanistan by Theo Farrell (a former professor of mine), Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2001–2016 by Steve Coll and Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq by Thomas E. Ricks. I also pre-ordered a paperback of The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the United States and the Middle East, 1979-2003 by Steve Coll, so there may be more thoughts about these conflicts coming up.
On a surprisingly related note, this month I discovered all of Peep Show (2003 - 2015) is on Disney+. I’ve been re-watching and it is perfection. This was no surprise, what was did strike me was how much of a period piece it is now. No smart phones! Satirical mentions of ‘the credit crunch’ and ‘Blair’s oil wars’. I will definitely write more about Peep Show one day.
And Finally…
In stressful times I like to hang out in Beatles-land, and do recommend The McCartney Legacy books. I also, when needing some energy to power through the last of the packing, found myself listening to the Thriller album (1982). This reminded me of The Beatles/Jackson rights feud which I first read about in Margo Jefferson’s On Michael Jackson (very interesting but too hagiographic). This video explains McCartney’s side of the feud with a customary grace and consistency.
I don't think you'll be at all disappointed in Café Europa: Life After Communism. Slavenka Drakulić is a truly fine writer and it's one of the best books I've ever read on that region. Happy reading, Lydia!