BookwormBy John Andrews
Since the start of this column in January I have featured eight books and I understand that my recommendations have aroused considerable interest. If therefore any of our Newsletter readers would like a complete list of all the books featured to date, please feel free to email me on john.andrews17@virgin.net.
This month I have two further treats for your consideration, and I will start with W. Somerset Maugham.
Some of you will have seen the recently released film The Painted Veil, but however good the film was, the book is even better.
Set in Hong Kong, and later in remote mainland China, this novel sits well alongside Maugham’s acknowledged masterpieces: Of Human Bondage and The Moon and Sixpence.
In the novel, Kitty Fane enters into a rushed and dangerous marriage to bacteriologist Walter, who is attached to the Colonial Government in Hong Kong. Following a turgid affair with Charlie Townsend, a rising star in the Government, Kitty finds herself abandoned both by her lover and her husband, and reluctantly has no option other than to accompany Walter into the depths of China where he is to help stem a raging cholera epidemic. The rest of the story is for you to discover.
You will enjoy Maugham’s exquisite writing and, for example, on pages 12 and 13 you will see no better description in literature of a scheming woman in the shape of Kitty’s mother, Mrs Garstin (other than perhaps Lady Macbeth!).
My second book for your attention is Rose Tremain’s Music and Silence. The year is 1692 and a young English lutenist arrives at the Danish Court of King Christian IV.
The court musicians of the day had to perform in a freezing cellar underneath the royal apartments, and what follows is part love affair and part social commentary that will keep you absorbed for hours on end.
Rose Tremain is one of the most accomplished historical novelists around, first published in 1999. This is one of her best efforts to date and as John Julius Norwich apparently said “it is the best thing to come from Denmark since Hamlet”.