The Story of the Brontës, Penguin, 1986, 409 p including ii p Foreword and ii p Postscript First published 1976.

In her foreword Banks mentioned that when she was approached with the commission to write this book she was daunted – as who would not be given its subject is three of the best-known writers of the nineteenth century, plus their unfortunately less gifted brother? Much of course is known about the Brontë family (and even more written about them) but gaps remain. The fascination they hold for many is such that any exploration of their lives will attract readers eager to glean how such a hotbed of literary invention should arise within one family from a small village in the back of beyond.

So does Dark Quartet illuminate much? A novel is likely to be more accessible than a drier academic piece but has a different purpose and as a novel Dark Quartet suffers from a lack of focus. Here, four main characters are too many, attention to each too diffused.

A lot, especially in the book’s initial stages, is told rather than shown, making any differences between Emily and Charlotte (not so much Anne, as she was younger) haze over. It is only in the latter stages where Emily’s fierce – and thwarted – desire to remain incognito distinguish them. Branwell, praised as he was within the family and over-indulged by his father, did not have the self-possession to rise above that estimation – though surely he secretly must have known, or at least suspected, that his talents were minimal, something which no doubt contributed to his descent into dissolution. It is his learning by accident (for the others had taken pains to keep it from him) that his sisters had attained the validation of publication that precipitates his final crisis. Emily and Anne succumb to consumption, the former by apparently willing it, the latter with forbearance. The unhealthiness at the time of Haworth as a village, the one with the worst death rate in England, the Brontës’ home sited just above the packed cemetery whose decaying contents seeped into its surroundings during any rainfall, running under the church and into the village, goes unremarked here.

Mention is made of the young Brontë siblings’ inventions of imaginary worlds, their notebooks filled with tiny writing, but only on the odd occasion does anyone take to the fabled moors – for inspiration or otherwise. Anne’s (actually not well evidenced) falling in love with her father’s curate Mr Weightman, who was soon to die of cholera, is stated rather than shown but Anne is depicted as being undemonstrative. Similarly Charlotte’s formative sojourn in Brussels at the Pensionnat Heger is treated somewhat cursorily.

As an introduction to the family’s history Dark Quartet is an admirable endeavour but perhaps inevitably it fails to conjure up the inner nature of these remarkable people, fails to render them whole. Maybe the novel as a form needs its authors to have free reign, its characters not to be too slaved to historical individuals, to convince completely. Or is it that in this case the task is simply too great?

Pedant’s corner:- Miss Evans’ (Miss Evans’s,) “one of the Miss Woolers” (one of the Misses Wooler,) whiskey (several times; whisky,) Mr Williams’ (Mr Williams’s,) Mr Nicholls’ (Mr Nicholls’s.)

I’ve just discovered through Ian Sales’s blog that the BBC has produced a list of “100 Books that Shaped our World.” It’s as idiosyncratic as any such list always is.

Ian has started a list of his own (with different criteria) of which you can see the first instalment via the link above. Nina Allan has also published her own list.

I doubt that I could go up to anything like 100 on the books that shaped me and my reading so I’m not even going to try except to say my love of Science Fiction was engendered by reading the SF of Captain W E Johns and Patrick Moore out of the children’s section of Dumbarton Library (in the basement, accessed via an outside door) and, once I’d graduated to the adult floor, the yellow covered Gollancz hardbacks.

Two exceptions.

I was about to give up reading SF when I read Robert Silverberg’s The Man in the Maze. It’s not his best but it’s one from the 1960s, in the “revival” stage of his career after he came back to SF and wrote stories the way they ought to be done – as distinct from the less considered works he’d written in the 1950s. It made me realise that SF could be literature.

So too, in spades, did Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness.

Of the BBC’s list the ones I’ve read are in bold (19.) If I’ve read one or part of a series it’s in italics (2.) Some others here are on my tbr pile.

Identity
Beloved – Toni Morrison
Days Without End – Sebastian Barry
Fugitive Pieces – Anne Michaels
Half of a Yellow Sun – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Homegoing – Yaa Gyasi
Small Island – Andrea Levy
The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy
Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
White Teeth – Zadie Smith

Love, Sex & Romance
Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
Forever – Judy Blume
Giovanni’s Room – James Baldwin
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
Riders – Jilly Cooper
Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston
The Far Pavilions – M. M. Kaye
The Forty Rules of Love – Elif Shafak
The Passion – Jeanette Winterson
The Slaves of Solitude – Patrick Hamilton

Adventure
City of Bohane – Kevin Barry
Eye of the Needle – Ken Follett
For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway
His Dark Materials Trilogy – Philip Pullman
Ivanhoe – Walter Scott
Mr Standfast – John Buchan
The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler
The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins
The Jack Aubrey Novels – Patrick O’Brian
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy – J.R.R. Tolkien

Life, Death & Other Worlds
A Game of Thrones – George R. R. Martin
Astonishing the Gods – Ben Okri
Dune – Frank Herbert
Frankenstein – Mary Shelley
Gilead – Marilynne Robinson
The Chronicles of Narnia – C. S. Lewis
The Discworld Series – Terry Pratchett
The Earthsea Trilogy – Ursula K. Le Guin
The Sandman Series – Neil Gaiman
The Road – Cormac McCarthy

Politics, Power & Protest
A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
Home Fire – Kamila Shamsie
Lord of the Flies – William Golding
Noughts & Crosses – Malorie Blackman
Strumpet City – James Plunkett
The Color Purple – Alice Walker
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
V for Vendetta – Alan Moore
Unless – Carol Shields

Class & Society
A House for Mr Biswas – V. S. Naipaul
Cannery Row – John Steinbeck
Disgrace – J.M. Coetzee
Our Mutual Friend – Charles Dickens
Poor Cow – Nell Dunn
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning – Alan Sillitoe
The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne – Brian Moore
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Muriel Spark
The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys

Coming of Age
Emily of New Moon – L. M. Montgomery
Golden Child – Claire Adam
Oryx and Crake – Margaret Atwood
So Long, See You Tomorrow – William Maxwell
Swami and Friends – R. K. Narayan
The Country Girls – Edna O’Brien
The Harry Potter series – J. K. Rowling
The Outsiders – S. E. Hinton
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 ¾ – Sue Townsend
The Twilight Saga – Stephenie Meyer

Family & Friendship
A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
Ballet Shoes – Noel Streatfeild
Cloudstreet – Tim Winton
Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
I Capture the Castle – Dodie Smith
Middlemarch – George Eliot
Tales of the City – Armistead Maupin
The Shipping News – E. Annie Proulx
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – Anne Brontë
The Witches – Roald Dahl

Crime & Conflict
American Tabloid – James Ellroy
American War – Omar El Akkad
Ice Candy Man – Bapsi Sidhwa
Rebecca -Daphne du Maurier
Regeneration – Pat Barker
The Children of Men – P.D. James
The Hound of the Baskervilles – Arthur Conan Doyle
The Reluctant Fundamentalist – Mohsin Hamid
The Talented Mr Ripley – Patricia Highsmith
The Quiet American – Graham Greene

Rule Breakers
A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
Bartleby, the Scrivener – Herman Melville
Habibi – Craig Thompson
How to be Both – Ali Smith
Orlando – Virginia Woolf
Nights at the Circus – Angela Carter
Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
Psmith, Journalist – P. G. Wodehouse
The Moor’s Last Sigh – Salman Rushdie
Zami: A New Spelling of My Name – Audre Lorde

The good lady has decided to go along with the online book club started up by Duncan Jones in honour of his father David Bowie.

The full list of David Bowie’s 100 Books was given earlier in The Independent.

This prompted me to take a look and see how many I’d read. The usual notation applies. Bold I’ve read, italic is on my shelves.

Interviews with Francis Bacon – David Sylvester – early 80s

Billy Liar – Keith Waterhouse – early 60s

Room at the Top – John Braine – early 60s

On Having No Head – Douglass Harding – mid-60s

Kafka Was The Rage – Anatole Broyard – 1995

A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess – mid-60s

City of Night – John Rechy – mid 60s

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao – Junot Diaz – 2007

Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert – 1980s

Iliad – Homer – late-70s

As I lay Dying – William Faulkner – early- 80s

Tadanori Yokoo – Tadanori Yokoo – 1973

Berlin Alexanderplatz – Alfred Döblin – late 70s –

Inside the Whale and Other Essays – George Orwell – early 60s

Mr. Norris Changes Trains – Christopher Isherwood – late 60s

Halls Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art – James A. Hall – 1975

David Bomberg – Richard Cork – mid-90s

Blast – Wyndham Lewis – 2009

Passing – Nella Larson – 1983

Beyond the Brillo Box – Arthur C. Danto – early 90s

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind – Julian Jaynes – late-70s

In Bluebeard’s Castle – George Steiner – early 70s

Hawksmoor – Peter Ackroyd – 1987

The Divided Self – R. D. Laing – 1964

The Stranger – Albert Camus – mid-60sk

Infants of the Spring – Wallace Thurman – 1992

The Quest For Christa T – Christa Wolf – 1979

The Songlines – Bruce Chatwin – 1987

Nights at the Circus – Angela Carter – 1984

The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov – early 90s

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Muriel Spark – late 60s

Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov – late 60s

Herzog – Saul Bellow – early 80s

Puckoon – Spike Milligan – 1973

Black Boy – Richard Wright – early 80s

The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald – early 70s

The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea – Yukio Mishima – 1972

Darkness at Noon – Arthur Koestler – early 90s

The Waste Land – T.S. Elliot – mid-70s

McTeague – Frank Norris – 2000

Money – Martin Amis – 1984

The Outsider – Colin Wilson – 1964/5

Strange people – Frank Edwards – early 60s

English Journey – J.B. Priestley – 2011

A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole – early 2000s

The Day of the Locust – Nathanael West – mid-80s

Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell – mid-60s

The Life and Times of Little Richard – Charles White – 1985

Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock – Nik Cohn – 70s –

Mystery Train – Greil Marcus – 1976 s

Beano – Comic – 50s (I only looked at other people’s copies.)

Raw – Graphic Comic – 80s

White Noise – Don DeLillo – 1985

Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom – Peter Guralnick – late 80s

Silence: lectures and writing – John Cage – 1975

Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews – Edited by Malcolm Cowley – mid-60s

The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll – Charlie Gillete – 1972

Octobriana and the Russian Underground – Peter Sadecky – 1973

The Street – Ann Petry – early 80s

Wonder Boys – Michael Chabon – 1995

Last Exit to Brooklyn – Hubert Selby, Jnr – late- 60s

A People’s History of the United States – Howard Zinn – early 2000s

The Age of American Unreason – Susan Jacoby – 2008

Metropolitan Life – Fran Lebowitz – 1978

The Coast of Utopia – Tom Stoppard – 2003

The Bridge – Hart Crane – mid-2000s

All The Emperor’s Horses – David Kidd – Late 1970s

Fingersmith – Sarah Waters – mid-2000s

Earthly Powers – Anthony Burgess – early 80s

The 42nd Parallel – John Dos Passos – 2006

Tales of Beatnik Glory – Ed Saunders – 1975

The Bird Artist* – Howard Norman – 1995

Nowhere To Run: – The Story of Soul Music – 2006

Before the Deluge – Otto Friedrich – 1976

Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson – Camille Paglia – 1990

The American Way of Death – Jessica Mitford – 1970

In Cold Blood – Truman Capote – late 60s

Lady Chatterly’s Lover – D.H. Lawrence – 1961

Teenage – Jon Savage – 2007

Vile Bodies – Evelyn Waugh – early 60s

The Hidden Persuaders – Vance Packard – around 1962/3

The Fire Next Time – James Baldwin – early 70s

Viz – comic – early 80s (I only ever flicked through this in shops.)

Private Eye – Satire Magazine – 60s through 80s (Only other people’s copies.)

Selected Poems – Frank O’Hara – 1974

The Trial of Henry Kissinger – Christopher Hitchens – early 2000s

Flaubert’s Parrrot – Julian Barnes – 1985

Maldodor – Comte de Lautréamont – late 70s

On The Road – Jack Kerouac – 1960

Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonders – Lawrence Weschler – 1995

Zanoni – Edward Bulwer-Lytton – 1975

Transcendental Magic, Its Doctine and Ritual – Eliphas Lévi – 1975

The Gnostic Gospels – Elaine Pagels – 1980

The Leopard – Giusseppe Di Lampedusa – 2001

Inferno – Dante Alighieri – 1985

A Grave for a Dolphin – Alberto Denti di Pirajno – mid 70s

The Insult – Rupert Thomson – 1996

In Between the Sheets – Ian McEwan – 1978

A People’s Tragedy – Orlando Figes – 2000

Journey into the Whirlwind – Eugenia Ginzburg – 2002

Hmmm.

I’ve read eight (but the three comics/magazines not assiduously) and there are three on the tbr pile.

I can’t see me working through them all.

*Edited to add:- The good lady tells me she has this one on her shelves. Consider it italicised.

Pedant’s corner:- Halls Dictionary (Hall’s Dictionary,) Giusseppe Di Lampedusa (Giuseppe.)