Life Class by Pat Barker

With the release of Noonday, I thought it was about time I caught up with the first title in Pat Barker's second war trilogy, Life Class. It follows the story of talented artist, Elinor Brooke, her friend Kit Neville, a daringly different painter who is making waves on the art scene, and art student, Paul Tarrant. Both young men are drawn to Elinor, but she is cooly stand-offish, leaving Paul to throw himself into an affair with Teresa, an artist model and friend of Elinor's.
    Paul is from the north and a less genteel background, though his savvy grandmother was able to fund his schooling and has left him enough money to study art. This is where we find him, at London's Slade art school suffering under the critical eye of life-class teacher, Henry Tonks. Paul has a few good techniques up his sleeve, but his appreciation of human anatomy is hopeless and Tonks wonders why he is wasting his time there.
    It is the glorious summer of 1914, but the clouds of war are on the horizon. Dissatisfied with their lives for various reasons both Kit and Paul are desperate to see some action and eventually find themselves in France, Kit doing some war-reporting and Paul as an orderly in a field hospital. Barker really comes into her own recreating the smells, sounds and terrible sights as well as imagining the pain of wounded men being cared for in appalling conditions. There is never enough anaesthetic and the wounds horrific and barely imaginable.
    Before leaving London, Paul and Elinor had grown closer, and much of the latter part of the book consists of the letters they write to each other. Elinor refuses to have anything to do with the war effort, much to her parents' disgust, and carries on devoting her time to her painting. Paul is drawing too, but his subject matter is the terrible events he deals with day by day, which are surely unfit for public view. Both in their own ways are struggling with the role of art in the terrible human calamity that is war. There are glimpses of the Bloomsbury Group, described as a bunch of 'conchies', when Elinor becomes friends with Ottoline Morrell.
    Barker is a brilliant storyteller, her characters so distinct and intense. I love the way Elinor's point of view is loaded with the visual, and we see the world through her artist's eyes. Not that the language is ever wordy or overly descriptive, leaving the characters to get on with things. Which they do. The story builds, following Elinor's relationship with Paul on one hand, and as the danger of the front intensifies on the other. The question of whether relationships can survive a war that irrecoverably changes those caught up in it will surely be the subject of the next book in the series, Toby's Room, another to add to my 'must read' list.

Vanessa and Her Sister by Priya Parmar

At the start of this novel about the famous Bloomsbury sisters, Virginia Woolf is said to have decreed that she was the writer, and Vanessa the painter. Priya Parmar has given Vanessa Bell a literary voice in the form of this imaginary diary - a fascinating portrait of the Bloomsbury Group, which included Lytton Strachey, Maynard Keynes, Duncan Grant, Roger Fry, Ottoline Morrell and others. It is also the portrait of the falling out that occurred between the two sisters - a story of jealousy, madness, passion and grief.
    It begins in the year 1905 with the four Stephen siblings having recently moved to a house in avant-garde Bloomsbury, much to the consternation of more conservative relations. There is Vanessa, the older daughter, her brother Thoby, younger brother Adrian and mentally fragile Virginia. Vanessa justifies the move as a means to save costs - they may have to dip into their allowances if Virginia has another of her breakdowns, the last of which had led to time in hospital.
    The four are a happy and well-matched bunch, the boys popping down from Cambridge having garnered a group of lively and clever friends, who soon meet at the house on Thursdays. Daringly, the sisters don't dress for dinner and are the only females in soirees that go on into the small hours. But mostly what they seem to do is talk and what a lot to talk about there is, with Impressionism giving way to Fauvism and new ideas about politics and feminism to consider.
    Clive Bell is considered rather starchy by the group - this may be because he seems to be more of a red-blooded male than the other chaps - women are so formidable, perhaps it's the corsets or is the women's suffrage movement that puts the other lads off. And it seems all the women they are know are brilliantly talented in one way or other. But Bell is different, coming from hearty country gentry, and he quickly falls in love with Vanessa.
    Parmar's Vanessa Bell shines as a wonderful character. She's the sensible one who sorts out the household economics and worries about her sister. As well as calm and kindly, she's interesting, with her painterly eye and sensitive observations of other characters. Unlike Virginia. She maybe the burgeoning writer of classic novels we still read today, but Virginia is desperately possessive. Her jealousy over Clive which drives a wedge through Vanessa's marriage - though to be fair, Clive is easily swayed - is pure selfishness. She wants Vanessa for herself.
    Much of the book is written as Vanessa's diary, which could have given the book a somewhat halting pace. But I found myself quickly swept along, the book almost impossible to put down. Intermingled with Vanessa's diary entries are witty letters between Lytton Strachey and Leonard Woolf, a servant of the empire in Ceylon, but eventually heading home. There are also poignant letters from Roger Fry to his mother, telegrams and correspondence between the sisters and their friends.
    This is a well-researched and enthralling novel, and knowing that there is so much more to tell - the book finishes in 1912 - I wonder if there is a possibility of a sequel. I certainly hope so.

Mr Mac and Me by Esther Freud

Mr Mac and Me is to my mind the perfect kind of book. Set in 1914, it tells the story of Thomas Maggs, whose father runs a pub in a village on the Suffolk coast. There's not a lot of money to spare and pa tends to drink the profits, while his mother copes as best she can. There are two older sisters, including Ann who helps around the pub, with thirteen-year-old Thomas by far the youngest, though there are six older brothers buried in the churchyard.
    Thomas has a club foot, but it doesn't stop him roaming around the countryside, making the journey to school, and being taken on by the local rope-maker as a part-time assistant. It is a dying art, and we are reminded of the changes in store as the nation is drawn into World War One.
    Ann tearfully farewells the boy she loves as he joins the navy and we wonder if she will see him again. Everyone expects the war to be over by Christmas, and the effects of the waiting and wondering, the shock of casualty lists on a small village are nicely recounted here. And then there's 'DORA' - the Defence of the Realm Act, which has the locals on the look out for spies, and prosecutes people for showing light after dark or owning binoculars. Thomas takes Dora very seriously.
    Into Thomas's world a Scottish artist, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, arrives with his wife and the three of them strike up a friendship. Thomas does odd jobs for them, while Mackintosh's wife, Margaret, feeds him up and the two encourage Thomas's own artistic endeavour. Thomas, who yearns for a life at sea, has been covering the margins of his schoolbooks with delicate drawings of ships.
    Mr Mac and Me is very much a coming of age novel and with that there are many dawning realisations for Thomas. There is love too, as Thomas witnesses the pangs of love his sister goes through, and his own over one of the Scottish herring girls who arrive every autumn. And in the background there is the war. Slowly the everyday villager has to come to terms with the horrific casualties, and the sinking of British ships. On a still night you can even hear the guns from over the Channel.
    It is an interesting time, perfectly captured in the microcosm of a Suffolk village, and the small world of a young boy. But I was particularly drawn to the story of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, a very real artist and architect who produced exquisite watercolours and designed some of Britain's much loved buildings. Forgotten and ignored in his own time, he is now something of a national treasure. Margaret's work also shines.
    Freud has made the pair quirky, charming and kindly, but also passionate, and even stubborn and difficult, as anyone who has to fight for their art can tend to be. The friendship with Thomas brings many of these qualities to life and Thomas as a thirteen year old, struggling to make sense of the world, is the perfect narrator. Mr Mac and Me is Esther Freud at her best and, to me, something of a living treasure.

From a Distance by Rafaella Barker

From a Distance concerns three main characters over two periods of time. I was enthralled by Michael, just off the ship that brought him home from the war, the second world war that is, thin and damaged. He doesn't want to go home to Norfolk, even though he has parents and a fiancée waiting for him. He just hangs around Southampton smoking and feeling sorry for himself and all the mates as well as his brother who won't be coming home. Finally he jumps on a train and finds himself in Penzance.
    I was desperate to discover what he does next, but all at once we're in present day Norfolk, in Luisa's kitchen where she's making ice cream and worrying about her nineteen year old daughter who has gone to India. What Luisa has to do with Michael will have to wait, for suddenly here we are with Kit, who has inherited from his mother a lighthouse in the same Norfolk town where Luisa lives. Kit's from Cornwall so there's sure to be a connection with Michael there, and the lighthouse mystery gives the story a bit of oomph.
    But there's such a lot of Luisa, an effusive mother and wife of Italian descent which automatically makes her gorgeous. Ice cream runs in her blood - her father ran a fleet of ice cream trucks - and Luisa experiments with unusual flavours involving herbs and rose essence. You can tell she's artistic. Kit makes a hit with Luisa's family, including husband, Tom, her children and Tom's sister, Dora. He's such a likeable guy, and the lighthouse gets everyone talking. But maybe there's just too much of a spark between Kit and Luisa!
    The story slowly gets back to Michael, who for me was far more interesting. He becomes friendly with several artists who are a breath of fresh air after the war, especially Felicity, a fabric designer who turns out to be the love of his life. How can he ever go home?
    The theme of promises made as men went off to war and the dilemma faced when they returned (can you ever go back to where you left off, or is best to start again?) hovers in the background, begging to be dealt with more fully. There's a lot of description of how designs come together, their patterns, textures and colour, and Cornwall sparkles by the sea. Ice cream also gets a fair amount of attention in the same way. There is such a lot of detail to imagine that the characters become a bit shadowy.
    I would have liked to know a bit more about Michael's demons and the girl he left behind. He is saved by Felicity, who in my mind tended to merge into another Luisia - both artistic, free sprits and both do their hair the same way.  Perhaps this is a hymn to Cornwall and also Norfolk, which has a lovely summery feel and loads of village hospitality.
    And I guess that adds to the charm. But the theme of how relationships are upset by the upheaval of war, or post-war trauma, to say nothing of how secrets from the past affect the later generations, could have been fleshed out much more in this book. This obvious omission makes From a Distance flounder from a lack of narrative drive and therefore something of a disappointment.

The Gallery of Vanished Husbands by Natasha Solomons

This is one of those charming books, rather like Mr Pettigrew's Last Stand, which turn up every so often and make you ask: why aren't there more books like this?
    The Gallery of Vanished Husbands really only concerns one husband; in this case it is Juliet Montague's.  George is an emigre from Hungary, who turns up just after the war to work at a London optometrist's where he gives Juliet an eye test. Juliet at seventeen is a good Jewish daughter, and being somewhat bored working at her father's optical lens making factory, is ready for the next great adventure - marriage.
    Unfortunately, George turns out to be a gambler, and when their youngest is no more than a baby, he disappears for good, taking with him for reasons known only to himself, a painted portrait of Juliet as a child. Juliet is left with two children to raise alone, and the title of a deserted wife, aguna, making her something of an embarrassment - a woman who cannot keep a husband.
    The story begins with Juliet visiting London on her thirtieth birthday, money in her purse for a much needed refrigerator. Passing artists displaying their work in Bayswater, she finds herself talking to Charlie, offering suggestions, for although she has no talent as an artist, Juliet has a critic's eye. Instead of the refrigerator, she commissions Charlie to paint a new portrait of herself.
    So begins a friendship and business partnership, and Juliet, eventually giving up her job at her father's factory, is thrust into the heady London art world of the 1960s. Earning the concern and disapproval of her parents and their Jewish neighbourhood,  Juliet becomes owner of Wednesday Art Gallery, where she is immersed in the bohemian world of Charlie and his young artist friends.
    It is through Charlie that she meets Max, once a war artist whose grim experiences have left him something of a recluse, living in a cottage in the Dorset countryside, painting birds. Juliet sells his work, because it gives her that 'tingle', in spite of it being more figurative than contemporary. She can never persuade Max to appear at exhibition openings at the gallery and eventually takes her children to Dorset one summer holiday in order to meet him.
    The novel weaves the slow development of their relationship, with Juliet's eventual determination to track down her husband to ask for a divorce, taking her surprisingly to California. While her relationships are the cornerstones of the plot, each chapter features a new portrait of Juliet. Another thread is the difficulty of fitting into a traditional culture and being a good mother while developing a career. The legacy of the war and the Jewish Holocaust are shadows from the past, while the crazy 1960s create daunting new challenges for its characters as well.
     This is a wonderful book with a different view of the time, and has an engaging heroine in Juliet, who seems at first such an ordinary girl, but who manages to lead an extraordinary life. If you are interested in art, the book offers a wonderful glimpse of how a picture comes together, and if you are not, you may be tempted to give art another go to see what gives you that 'tingle'.