I have read that Jane Austen thought one should only write about one’s own life experiences, hence the microcosms we find within Mansfield Park and Sense and Sensibility. Jane writes exquisitely about life within the upper middle class of the provincial gentry, both its luxury and its occasional and accidental penury. However, if we extrapolate Jane’s statement that would rid ourselves totally of various writing genres, science fiction for example! Other writers have commented that they do not have to go to prison to write about a character being incarcerated and losing their freedom. That is what imagination allows us to do, even if we accept that careful research can be useful.
The two novels that I want to share with you both benefit from a strong sense of place which as a reader I find both important and pleasurable.
‘The Plot,’ is the latest offering from Jean Hanff Korelitz. I came to know her from the short television serial ‘The Undoing’ which for me was by far the best viewing of the first lockdown. The book from which it came was titled ‘You Should Have Known.’ If you don’t know them, they are well worth seeking out. Anyway, the new book is set so firmly and convincingly in the states of New England and the city of New York, that you just know that the author is utterly familiar with this scenery and has very probably taken part in creative writing workshops in far off community colleges in the remote corners of Vermont and New Hampshire. And it is here that the story begins, seemingly quite innocuously with a writer paying the bills by running a workshop. And there is of course one student who thinks he has the kernel of an idea that will definitely become a bestseller. I have never believed the axiom that everyone has one novel in them but it is surprising how many people do. Having read all of Korelitz’s stories now, I admire how she manipulates her plot to appear at first like an enjoyable and interesting story until she suddenly ratchets up the writing and you find yourself in the middle of a thriller which you cannot put down. This story is full of suspense and literary twists right until the very end. It is brilliantly constructed and a great read.
The second book is ‘The Museum of Broken Promises’ by Elizabeth Buchan. Whilst being aware of the author’s name I’m not at all sure that I have read her before. This was a chance purchase with me being attracted by both the title and the art work on the cover. The story is set in the cities of Prague and Paris and is essentially a Cold War novel. Elizabeth Buchan writes that the novel came out of a long weekend spent in Prague and a visit there to the Museum of Communism. I find the book title very poetic and it sets my imagination flying off in all directions. However, in essence I take it that the author is saying to the reader that communism was, and is, a broken promise.
I spent a week in Prague a few years ago and went on a very interesting walking tour of the city. The guide was amazingly well informed and happy to communicate in a variety of languages, although on my tour she only had to venture as far as English and Spanish. She told us of the Velvet Revolution and the Velvet Divorce in the late twentieth century, called so because there was no bloodbath when Czechoslovakia was freed from Russian control or when later it separated Czechia from Slovakia. Peaceful though those times may have been, they contrast quite horrifically with the totalitarian regime lived under for very many years. It is in this setting that most of the story takes place. Having walked over the Charles Bridge and up to the enormous Prague castle that sits looking over the river and the city, and having wandered Old Town Square, now full of trees and expensive shops, I could submerge myself in this story in a very satisfying way. Maybe that sense of place idea works in two ways. Maybe it is as effective if the reader knows the scenery and the setting well.
The latter part of the story which happens in Paris has descriptions that go beyond sitting outside a cafe with a coffee and a croissant. We are taken into a lesser-known area around St Martin’s Canal. It is quiet and you are far removed from the Haussmann architecture of the city centre. Here the apartments are 20th century and modernist in style. It is a little run down, too much litter, washing draped over balconies but still essentially Parisian. Just a different Paris.
I finished the book feeling extremely fortunate to have been born in England and to have lived my whole life in a liberal Western democracy, something that I feel we should cherish and never take for granted. I wholeheartedly recommend both books to you.