Helen Devine

Guest- Helen Devine, Artistic Director of Old Red Lion Theatre, Islington.

Books

The Bell Jar- Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath was an excellent poet but is known to many for this largely autobiographical novel which was first published in 1963 under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas.

Plath's The Bell Jar parallels her twentieth year almost perfectly. Always a writer (she published her first poem at eight), she was awarded a spot as a "guest editor" at Mademoiselle magazine during her junior year at Smith. Others undoubtedly saw this as only one more award and honour for Plath, who had been, on the surface, a model daughter, popular in school, earning straight A's, winning the best prizes. She even went to Smith on scholarship--one from the Wellesley Smith Club and one endowed by Olive Higgins Prouty, perhaps the model for Esther's patron, Philomena Guinea. That summer, however, she nearly succeeded in killing herself by swallowing sleeping pills. After a period of recovery involving electroshock and psychotherapy Plath seemed to become "herself" again, graduating from Smith
with honours and winning a Fulbright scholarship to study at Cambridge, England. However, her troubles returned to haunt her throughout her life, and she committed suicide in 1963.

Esther Greenwood is at college and is fighting two battles, one against her own desire for perfection in all things-grades, boyfriend, looks, career - and the other against remorseless mental illness. As her depression deepens she finds herself encased in it, bell-jarred away from the rest of the world. This is the story of her journey back intoreality. Highly readable, witty and disturbing, The Bell Jar is Sylvia Plath's only novel and was originally published under a pseudonym in 1963. What it has to say about what women expect of themselves, and what society expects of women, is as sharply relevant today as it has always been. (Synopsis courtesy of http://www.sylviaplath.de/plath/belljar.html)

The Chocolate Run by Dorothy Koomson
Amber Salpone thinks in chocolate - talk to her for three minutes and she'll tell you what kind of chocolate you'd be. In fact, most days, if she was asked to choose between chocolate and relationships, there'd be no contest. At least chocolate has never let her down. Unlike her family. Growing up in the Salpone household has taught Amber to avoid conflict - and love - at all costs. So, when she does the unthinkable and has a one-night stand with womaniser Greg Walterson, her uncomplicated, chocolate-flavoured life goes into meltdown. Especially when Greg announces she's the love of his life - and Amber finds it hard enough to decide if she wants plain or Fruit & Nut ...Meanwhile, her best friend, Jen, seems to be launching a bid to become Bitch Of The Year and Amber's family are making unreasonable demands. Amber has two choices: to deal with her past and the people around her,or to go on a chocolate run and keep on running ...www.dorothykoomson.com

I’m the King of the Castle- Susan Hill
'I didn't want you to come here.' So says the note that the boy Edmund Hooper passes to Charles Kingshaw upon his arrival at Warings. But, young Kingshaw and his mother have come to live with Hooper and his father in the ugly, isolated Victorian house for good. To Hooper, Kingshaw is an intruder, a boy to be subtly persecuted, and Kingshaw finds that even the most ordinary object can be turned by Hooper into a source of terror. In Hang Wood their roles are briefly reversed, but Kingshaw knows Hooper will never let him be. Kingshaw cannot win, not in the last resort. He knows it, and so does Hooper. And the worst is still to come...This extraordinary, evocative novel boils over
with the terrors of childhood and won the Somerset Maugham Award.

The Shadow in the Wind- Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Hidden in the heart of the old city of Barcelona is the 'cemetery of lost books', a labyrinthine library of obscure and forgotten titles that have long gone out of print. To this library, a man brings his 10-year-old son Daniel one cold morning in 1945. Daniel is allowed to choose one book from the shelves and pulls out 'La Sombra del Viento' by Julian Carax. But as he grows up, several people seem inordinately interested in his find. Then, one night, as he is wandering the old streets once more, Daniel is approached by a figure who reminds him of a character from La Sombra del Viento, a character who turns out to be the devil. This man is tracking down every last copy of Carax's work in order to burn them. What begins as a case of literary curiosity turns into a race to find out the truth behind the life and death of Julian Carax and to save those he left behind.A page-turning exploration of obsession in literature and love, and the places that obsession can lead.

Moral Disorders by Margret Atwood
"Moral Disorder", her work of fiction, could be seen as a collection of eleven stories that is almost a novel
or a novel broken up into eleven stories. It resembles a photograph album - a series of clearly observed moments that trace the course of a life, and the lives intertwined with it - those of parents, siblings, children, friends, enemies, teachers and even animals. And as in a photograph album, times change; every decade is here, from the 1930sthrough the 50s, 60s and 70s to the present day. The settings are equally varied: large cities, suburbs, farms, northern forests. The first story, "The Bad News," is set in the present, as a couple no longer young situate themselves in a larger world no longer safe. Then the narrative switches time, as the central character moves through childhood and adolescence, in "The Art of Cooking and Serving", "The Headless Horseman" and "My Last Duchess". We follow her into young adulthood in "The Other Place", and then through a complex relationship, traced in four of the stories - "Monopoly", "Moral Disorder", "White Horse" and "The Entities". The last two stories, "The Labrador Fiasco" and "The Boys at the Lab", deal with the heartbreaking old age of parents, but circle back to
childhood again, to complete the cycle. 

Talking to me next week is Frances Clamp- President of the Brentwood Writer's Circle.

Article by Muthamma Prasad, 10 Apr 2008
Posted in Book Club

Current UK time is 01.09 AM
Phoenix FM website (c) 1996-2008