The bedside bookstack – July 2023

What’s sitting on the bedside bookstack this July.

Daughters of Sparta by Claire Heywood, Hodder & Stoughton

I love a classical myth retelling, especially those putting sidelined female characters into the centre of their stories – Circe, the Silence of the Girls, the Penelopiad, the Mere Wife. I only found this one by accident, after reading this great lithub article which I book marked (but never read until now) years ago.

Daughters of Sparta follows Helen and her older sister Klytemnestra from childhood through their marriages and the Trojan war. I always love reading the expanded story of those who were just bit players in some of the other retellings I’ve read. Obviously Helen is hardly a bit player, but it was great to see her as more than just ‘the face who launched a thousand ships’ and Klytemnestra as more than a wronged wife. Agamemnon is still a complete tyrant, Menelaos is dutiful but distant and Paris a narcissist, so even though this is the women’s story, you can’t get away from the fact that the men around them still decide how it goes.

As you Were by Elaine Feeney, Harvill Secker, 2020

This is a cancer story. So if you can’t do that right now, then move on because it’s set on a hospital ward and every page is sickness and mortality. But, every page is also the ridiculousness and wonder of life and there’s a brilliant dark humour that carries it all along.

This book absolutely deserves the ‘Thrilling’, ‘Superb’ and ‘Brilliant’ endorsements on its front cover. Elaine Feeney uses Sinead and the four patients who share her room to examine family relationships, human instincts, the state of Ireland’s health system and its recent cultural past. I absolutely loved it.

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan, Faber, 2021

Another recent Irish hit, this title gives a clear preview of the story to come. It comes in at a very generously double-spaced 114 pages and it isn’t a big story in that it’s about a handful of people in a small area and the little actions they take. At the same time, these actions can change lives and a lot can be said in 114 pages.

Claire Keegan comes with Irish It-girl status and so it’s no surprise that in the seemingly quiet and compressed prose we have a sober take on the Catholic church’s legacy in everyday Irish lives. A beautiful book.

Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes, Pan Macmillan, 2022

Here are a few things you probably don’t know about Medusa. She was a mortal. Although she was a gorgon, she looked human and her only point of difference was a pair of wings. She is raped by Poseidon in Athena’s temple and she ends up with snakes on her head and a look that turns any living thing to stone because Athena was insulted by the desecration. Certainly no sisterhood there. 

This is Medusa’s story with the age-old question of who the monster really is and as for heroes, it turns out the Perseus is a bit of a prick. If you’re currently on the Greek-myth train like I am, add this to your list.

The Shadow of Perseus by Claire Heywood, Hodder & Stoughton, 2023

It was interesting to read this straight after Stone Blind because it’s the same story of Medusa and Perseus with a lot more focus also given to his mother Danae and wife Andromeda. However, Claire Heywood puts her stories in a realist’s realm. In the endnotes, she says, “I want to reimagine this myth within a historically authentic setting, without the intervention of gods or supernatural forces, and so create a story driven primarily by human decision.”

So, no son of Zeus or winged sandals. No gazes that turn people to stone or rescuing from sea beasts but a fascinating story and a great read. And Perseus, still more of a prick than a hero. Some things don’t change when women are at the centre of this story.

The Long View by Elizabeth Jane Howard, Picador Classic, 2016

Elizabeth Jane Howard (EJH) has only recently come onto my radar and she’s as good as everyone says she is. This edition had a beautiful introduction by Hilary Mantel whose writing about the story matches that of the story.

EJH is so smart and intuitive about human relationships, family dynamics and social expectations. It all comes together in a rich (but seemingly effortless) narrative for the reader. But I had to put this one down. It felt like watching Mad Men where the costumes are amazing and the acting is spot on but everyone is just so repressed and unhappy and nursing their wounds in isolation. I know all of that is saying something very specific about the time and class and especially women’s suffocated place in it but I just needed more kindness to keep me going this month.

Victory by Joseph Conrad, Oxford University Press, 2004

This is one of those editions which comes with a hefty academic introduction and pages and pages on the detail of editorial changes between editions as well as a timeline of Conrad’s life and bibliography charted next to global events from 1857 -1928 (pretty interesting to see in parallel actually).

I say all this because a book that comes with all the trappings, arrives with a bit of status and expectation. It’s a classic. I thought I should give it a go. I haven’t read any of Conrad apart from Heart of Darkness decades ago when I was ploughing through the classics and not really understanding any of what I read.

Victory opens with the story of Axel Heyst, a Swede who drifts through the Asia/Pacific colonies of the early 20^th Century. I lived and worked in Dili, Timor-Leste for two years, so it was interesting to see it appear in the opening pages. Heyst is an interesting character and cause for a lot of expat gossip. I stayed with it for 100 pages, diligently reading long after some of the players became more caricature than character. This was a classic, right? It was Joseph Conrad? Well, probably 50 pages later than I should’ve, I decided to ditch it – which I wrote about in Quitting on Conrad. Life’s too short and the TBR pile way too big to soldier on in misery.

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