I've finished Clara. And I am bereft

Oh, oh, oh, I have finished Clara, and it was absolutely perfect.

The story of Clara Schumann, the world-famous concert pianist, and her troubled marriage to the composer Robert Schumann, it follows Clara on world tours, through pregnancies, through hardship and loss.

It takes a writer of great sensitivity and talent, and beauty and control.I've read a lot of reviews about the 'misery' of Clara as she changes her life lived under a controlling and ambitious father to a life lived under a controlling and mentally ill husband. 'Patience, eggshells' is Clara's life as she negotiates life with her husband, waiting out his periods of madness, protecting him, putting him first.

But. But.

For me it is crucial to the book to understand that life with Robert Schumann and life with her father were two different things, made possible by the passionate love within her marriage. It is made quite clear that despite her continuing pregnancies, she never once thinks of abstinence. Managing Schumann's mental illness is impossible, but the intensity of their relationship is all bound up within it - he depends on her, terrifies her, loves her.

"When she cast her mind over what she had wished for, this marriage was not, in essence, so out of tune. It could not truthfully be counted less than she had wished. It was more, though what had to be learned to deal with that more was almost too terrible to bear."

The book has been written with such a sympathy for Clara, with such a respect for her acceptance of her situation and her continued passion for her husband. Which is a clever trick to pull off, especially for a modern audience who can perhaps barely understand how different life was for women in any case.

A grand day out

So we went on a train! The youngest Little Latte was very excited. "And a scary lion came out of the trees and it scare the train, and it bite it!"

No, this didn't actually happen. But it was a gorgeous journey, across the sands to Ulverston, where we went to the Lanternhouse to see the digital art. The Lattes love digital art. They love to crawl over it, and spent happy moments lying on the Groovisions installation, with little cars and boats and planes projected onto their backs.

Then it was another evening with Clara, which is turning out to be one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. Even though Peter Hobbs keeps calling me from the other side of the sofa, I am standing firm and sticking with this lovely novel.

A drive in the dark and a shooting

Yes that does sound exciting doesn't it. Oh yes. I drove in the dark, dark night, straight past my motorway exit, with a plaintive 'noooooo' as I watched it go past, and was subsequently far more than fashionably late to the reading groups evening where i was putting on a bit of a display.

Expecting them to be mingling and drinking warm white wine and eating bits of crisps, I came in late to find them hushed and seated as Zoe Sharp (and yes, she was wearing the very coat she is wearing on her home page - in the flesh!) read out a bit of her book where someone gets shot.

Librarians looked at me. Honestly I know that in their heart of hearts they wanted to say "SHHHHH" but there has probably been some kind of directive against that now that libraries are so uber-modern.

In terms of reading I need to come back to A L Kennedy's Day, which I haven't mentioned yet but which is stunning. The character of Alfred Day is difficult and the book is sometimes not an easy read, but for all the right reasons - the writing is brilliant, faultless, fierce and funny and beautiful. Alfred Day has fought in the war and lost everything that he had gained - his crew, his girl, his purpose. Following him through his war, his attempts to understand it as he joins the false but still bizarrely fraught set of a POW film, is riveting.

I'm Getting Better

So I am feeling a little bit more human. I mean at least when I am sitting down (standing up is not good for me, I have decided). I am spending this precious convalescent time sitting on my living room floor stuffing envelopes for a mailshot while listening to Flylady's radio show. If you've ever wanted to be lectured at by an aunty that you don't even like, then this is the show for you.

Looking on the bright side

Right, no more moaning. I'm Living Life to the Full, which is an online therapy course someone on mumsnet told me about. Well at least I am listening to the man telling me endlessly about how my life is going to be changed, and impatiently wanting to get to the bit where he starts to change it.

Well at least if I am bed-bound I can do some reading, right? I'm going to try, though thanks to this illness, reading books makes my head spin.

I am in the middle of my reading for litfest, which I'm really enjoying this year. I've already finished a few, but today I'm starting on Janice Galloway's Clara, which I am really looking forward to.

The last one I read was Rachel Cusk's Arlington Park, the first pages of which are stunning. I'd say that they were like a film, except that they are better than that - they depict rain over a city in a way that computer-generated imagery just couldn't reach.

It is the story of the day in the life of several woman in a southern English suburb, as they negotiate their day (or the fall-out of the previous day) with children, husbands, and the soulless friendships of other women.

I did find the book beautiful. I had read somewhere that the feminism in it was dated but I don't really know that that's the case. I think it's that we want it to be dated, and we want to think that things have moved on, and that sexist businessmen and selfish husbands don't exist anymore. There are spots of heavy-handedness but in the end, the writing is just gorgeous, I loved the detail of it, and the female characters are fantastically drawn. To make you want to read the inner thoughts of a character that you don't even like, as she gets drunk? That takes talent.

Anyhow, onto Clara. After all, it's not a short book.

It seems this is not so new after all

I have been looking over the 3 (count 'em) posts I have made since July, and note the following:

I have kept forgetting to post

This is not, as I intended, a cheerful and skittily optimistic view of life. It is me, moaning. Which as dear Mr Coffee will tell you, everyone has quite enough of thank you very much without putting it out for the world's perusal.

So tonight I am sitting down and googling positivity and enlightenment and I will get back to you.

Though in my defence it is difficult to be positive when you can't sit up without feeling very poorly.

(Just quickly wanted to mention The Carhullan Army by Sarah Hall, which I am no mental or physical state to talk about coherently. It's a surprising book after her earlier work, spare and shocking, but certainly worth a read and really shows her versatility as a writer.

Blank post

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