The Fabians

Early on two old girlfriends from school come to Fox Corner to see the new baby, Edward:

For Teddy?

 "Lily was a Fabian, a society suffragette who risked nothing for her beliefs. Sylvie thought of women being restrained while tubes were pushed down their throats and raised a reassuring hand to her own lovely white neck."

The Fabian Society was founded in 1884, in London. Its goal was the establishment of a democratic socialist state in Great Britain, through evolutionary socialism rather than revolution.

The name came from the roman general Fabius Conctator (or Fabius the Delayer), whose tactic of using harassment and attrition instead of direct battles secured victories over stronger forces.

Early on the society held fortnightly meetings with speakers and published Fabian tracts.  They successfully carried out permeation - members infiltrating existing institutions to further their principles.

Through this method they achieved reform in a number of areas: social reform, education, national insurance, workers compensation to name just a few. The society helped shape the idealogical basis of the Labour Party. Their most tangible achievement is perhaps the founding of the London School of Economics in 1894, made possible through a grant. 

During the Edwardian period, in which this part of Life After Life is set, the Fabians enjoyed a surge in membership due to popular interest in socialist ideas.

The tortoise is the symbol of the Fabian Society

My summary of the Fabian Society came mainly from here

So this paints the character of Lily as a superficial person, only interested in what's fashionable at that moment. She is an old school friend of Sylvie, from another lifetime. From a time when Tiffin still walked Rotten Row and Sylvie had not been exposed to the reality of debt and bailiffs, had not been exposed to the horrors of ordinary middle-class life. 

What if Sylvie, or rather her gambling father, had been given a second ( or third ) chance? If Sylvie had stayed in that stratum of society would she too have become a Fabian, or a society suffragette like Lily? Or would she have thrown herself into the cause whole-heartedly? Why didn't she anyway, in the life she leads in Fox Corner? Her choices can tell us a lot about her really quite complicated character, and she deserves her own post.

Read about the stained glass window designed by George Bernard Shaw in 1910 to commemorate the Fabian Society

Back to the Fabians

Here is a list of some prominent members of intellectual society active in or linked to the Fabians, maybe it was the lure of these names that attracted Lily.

Annie Besant

Edward Carpenter

John Davidson

Ramsey MacDonald

Edith Nesbitt

Emmeline Pankhurst

Bertram Russel

George Bernard Shaw

Beatrice Webb

Sidney Webb

H.G Wells

Leonard Woolf

Virginia Woolf

Link to list of members

Of course, the society's ideals were not at all flawless. The fervent support by some early members of eugenics, and also erroneous social and economic theories are discussed in many articles. Many mention the coat of arms and how that represents the society in both historical terms and today.

A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing - what does that tell us?

Piccalilli

Piccalilli. That smear of jaundiced yellow sauce is referred to several times throughout the Life After Life. In fact the book is rich in food references, not so many that you are groaning with indigestion, but just enough to get your mouth watering.

Pork pies and Piccalilli? Whatever next?

So what is piccalilli? I must confess I've never tried the stuff and I have no intention of doing so. Not even in the name of literary research.

My grandmother's house was full of homemade  jams, jellies and marmalades. Chutneys and pickles. Fruit wines. All so very, quintessentially English. Yet I never saw a single jar of the yellow stuff. Also quintessentially English. Always on the supermarket shelf. Just like the teas and biscuits, crackers and mint sauce it is, for some brands at least,  by appointment to Her Majesty. I've never seen anyone put a jar in their shopping basket. I've never seen one rolling by on the checkout belt. Who eats the stuff? Who's keeping the piccalilli factory going? No one I know.

Well, to sate your tastebuds here's some history and recipes:

Apparently the name was used to describe the English version of indian pickles. It was referred to in 1758 as paco-lilla, later as piccalillo. By the end of the century it had become piccalilli. India has had a huge influence on  British cuisine and diet, the nation's favourite dish is nowadays considered to be not a sunday roast or fish and chips, but chicken tikka masala. In fact practically all the  dishes in the top ten are Indian. 

Here are some recipes for those of you curious enough to try:

There are of course plenty of modern recipes out there for you to try, but I fancied looking at something more in keeping with our era. I can imagine Mrs Glover reading out the list of ingredients to Bridget as she hunts the kitchen cupboards...

I suppose it lends itself quite well to country housekeeping, helping to use up that glut of vegetables from the garden. Maybe that's why Mrs Glover, "she of excellent pickles", makes it.

Snow

 Snow

 Snow!

 SNOW

Wentworh Church in the Snow by Steve Greaves

Just the word gets me all excited.

 How many stories are covered in snow?

Immediately The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe springs to mind. As a child I was always disappointed when the snow started to melt in Narnia.

That bit in Little House on the Prairie, when Laura Ingalls Wilder's dad gets stuck in the snow.

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield has some excellent snow moments in it, disappointingly absent in the recent BBC Adaptation

The Guardian's Top Ten Snow Books

"the world outside was shawled in white"

What is it about snow that gets us all so excited? Is it a writers' ploy; dipping into magical childhood memories to whip us up into a snowball frenzy? But what if you've never experienced a cold spell? I mean never. Does the narration have the same hold over you?

Snow is very important in Life After Life, Ursula's many and varied paths always emerge from a snowstorm. It is essential to her very survival, Dr Fellowes can't get through first time round and the midwife, Mrs Haddock never makes it. She is forever consigned to the Blue Lion, in the warmth with a hot rum. Not such a bad deal. 

Snow is always better when seen from behind some heavy double-glazing with a piping hot radiator nearby. You see, I love snow, don't get me wrong. I love the idea of it, the anticipation of it. The smell of it in the air. The first fat flakes falling on my cheeks and eyelashes. Then I make a run for it. I scurry home, crank up the heating, put the kettle on and take my post by the window, pressing as much of my body against the radiator as is physically possible. Ahhh. Bliss.

You didn't think I'd be reaching for my skies or snowboard, did you? Seriously? Oh no. A bracing English upbringing involving plenty of fresh air, too many icicles and a constantly shivering body made me an indoor snow person.

Sylvie insists on leaving all her babies out in the big pram, to be covered by leaves, or to be hypnotised by the dangling silver hare. Somewhere I can hear Mrs Glover quietly dropping one of her pithy comments on the subject. I wonder what she thinks? All the children are under Sylvie's "robust regime" involving " a fixation with fresh air". My mother had the same idea I think. Fresh air: it's good for you! What about soggy gloves and freezing wellies? However hard you try, icicles will never taste of strawberry or coca-cola. They will stick to your lips and make your fillings ache.  And if they taste of nothing but cold crunchy ice then you are very, very lucky. 

Make your own snowflake

Try this one too

Ice

Now there's a thought. Ursula's story may start off in the snow storm, but one of her early life divergents is pre-empted by the evil  Apache Maurice ( what an unpleasant person he is ) the beloved knitting dolly, Queen Solange and an icy roof. Later on the icy roof is proof of how determined Ursula is in her quest.

Queen Solange, Knitting Dolly

Back to Snow

The great thing about Atkinson's descriptive style is that it is like a concise sketch. She doesn't need paragraph upon paragraph to set the scene, in a couple of broad strokes she can give you everything you need.

"The light was extraordinary, the black bat was vanquished.

'So bright,' Sylvie said, shielding her eyes." 

That special light; you just know there's snow, even before you pull back the curtain or fling open the shutters. Dark, dangerous and scary; night-time has been obliterated. Sylvie isn't overacting when she puts up her hand. There's a repeated contrast being shown here: the bright whiteness of the snow, the black bat, and darkness falling.Yet nothing in this story is black and white, is it? 

I love the contrast with Mrs Glover's piccalilli: "the lurid colour of jaundice". It is becoming less appetising with each mention.

Cat Tracks Watercolour. Debra Sisson

 Mrs Glover's cat coming in from the snow?

Some Thoughts

Woman at a Café. Antonio Donghi. 1932

Our book starts, it would seem in November 1930, in a Munich café. Although, now this is my second read, I wonder if this is the beginning or the end? What do we want it to be?

Look here to see what was happening in November 1930

Never mind, jumping around in time is typical of Kate Atkinson's work and presenting the reader with various strands of possibilities is peculiar to Life After Life.

The German based thread of Ursula's life is picked up later on. After this pastry filled beginning worthy of a spy thriller, we are taken to a crucial date, revisited various times in this novel:

11 February 1910

Summary of February 1910

Events of 1910

Here is where the whole crux of the matter starts, the gimmick of this story if you like. How a shift in circumstance can have tremendous repercussions. A baby dies. A baby lives. A repellent dictator is disposed of before he has a chance to inflict misery on millions. We'll leave the wider consequences of that particular possibility for later.  For the moment we are given the opportunity to get to know Ursula, her family and the general household.

A Woman in Bed by a Snowy Window. Clifford Harper

As ever with Atkinson, stories are told and characters drawn in a word, in a sentence.

In these early chapters we are introduced to:

• Sylvie: - even her name oozes luxury - Ursula's mother

• Hugh: Ursula's father, and his sister Isobel

• Maurice and Pamela: her brother and sister

• Dr Fellowes: both not present and present

• Bridget: unswervingly the same in all strands of existence

• Mrs Glover: "cook" and her son George

• Alice: parlour maid

• Mrs Haddock: midwife who never makes it to Fox Corner

Next time I hope to look at the early settings of the book, as well as weather and cultural references - Mrs Glover's piccalilli seems like a good place to start. Why is Dr Fellowes so keen on it? How does he even know about it?

Saturday Readers Meet For The First Time

This being a Saturday morning, in between the rainclouds, the Saturday Readers met for the first time in the British Council Library.

The aim of our first meeting was to get to know our reading tastes and try to choose a book we can read and discuss together. 

After sharing some reading experiences both good and bad, we got down to the difficult business of trying to agree on a book!

Obviously we had to take some factors into account:

• the book has to be readily available
• it has to be of a genre we are all reasonably happy with
• neither too long nor too short - we have four more meetings on alternate Saturdays in which to discuss our chosen work

I had brought along a pile of books I'd grabbed off my shelves on the way out this morning. Given the amount of time we have I had foregone any real doorstoppers that I would have liked to include. Sebastian Faulks' Birdsong regrettably stayed on the shelf. Although, now I  know that the Saturday Readers have an excellent level of English, I'm sure they would have devoured this captivating novel in no time.

Authors / Books that did make it onto the library table included:

• Pat Barker: Regeneration - part of a trilogy set in the First World War; could have been quite appropriate considering...

• Tracy Chevalier: Remarkable Creatures - the relationship between two women, set in the male dominated world of fossil hunting

• David Lodge  - I'd taken Deaf Sentence as it's his most recent work, but anything by him is worth reading, anything!

• Alexander McCall Smith - I could only find Friends, Lovers, Chocolate to bring along, but any of his books make an enjoyable easy read

• Kate Atkinson: Human Croquet and One Good Turn - again more as examples of a possible author to read rather than those two books in particular

• David Nicholls: One Day - interesting idea: the same day each year, what are the same two people doing? 

• P.D. James: Death Comes To Pemberley - a murder in the world of Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice couple? Mmmm

Final Choice

Inevitably, it was difficult to agree. But then we knew that was going to happen - didn't we? Choosing is always hard, but at least there's plenty left for next time. Everyone was noting down names and titles of potential future reads as authors and books were eliminated from the table in a completely arbitrary manner. I think we rather rushed the final choice, although I'm sure(fingers crossed)it will be an enjoyable read. 
So, what was the final choice? Persuaded by my enthusiasm of all her work, Kate Atkinson's Life After Life was agreed on.

Here is the official Kate Atkinson website

After reminding everybody that our next meeting is on the 22nd February, we all scurried off, umbrellas at hand and minds (mine at least) a whirl of names, words, stories waiting to be told...

Top photo:http://islaeverywhere.blogspot.com.es/2013/04/bilbao-day-1.html 

Bottom photo: http://kerrymurray.com/